My Measurement: The Villain Desires a Satisfying Payback

It was a decent plan, don't get me wrong.

The guy in front of me was far too incompetent to be the one to come up with such an idea like taking over the entire train station to capture me―That much was evident from the way he cowered at the mere sight of my face.

I would give it a 9/10, honestly.

Be that as it may, a 9/10 is no more than a 9/10.

To successfully capture me, nothing less than a 10/10 plan was necessary.

It needed to be something on the level that would leave me absolutely zero chance to resist or escape from.

―Something that wouldn't care for the sheer amount of knowledge and foresight I wield.

They were this close to achieving that, but their utter carelessness at the final moment brought it to shambles.

Well, it's not like it would have mattered if I could have escaped or not, though, since I had a contingency plan in place.

In any case, the mastermind behind the scheme, Ryuu Kishigami, was nowhere to be seen.

Or, well, he was at least one of the brains involved.

As an official of the Order, he was almost certainly of a higher rank than this lowly branch manager, and yet he wasn't present?

There was simply no way that that was the case.

My successful imprisonment was perhaps the thing at the very top of the list of priorities for the Order, or at least it should be.

And yet, he was not here.

He had seemingly disappeared from the moment of my capture; as if there was something more important going on.

If so, where was he and what happened?

The answer quickly arrived.

「The individual Ryuu Kishigami is currently assisting in the defence against the facility breach by the team of attackers」

Ah.

I suppose his first impression resembled that of a man who liked to get things done with his own hands as opposed to just sending his subordinates to do it.

Well, if that was the case, then it was understandable.

I hadn't fought him myself, but I didn't need to in order to know that Ryuu Kishigami was undoubtedly a person of high calibre when it came to skirmishing. As long as you exclude the usage of Supernatural Abilities and combat-based Measurements, that is.

In other words, when talking about solely human-level opponents, Ryuu Kishigami could be said to be within the top 10 or 15%.

In that regard, someone like him was required to defend against the attackers if they desired a chance at survival.

They are not the type of people to be taken lightly, after all.

It was just unfortunate for him that the condition 'excluding Supernatural Ability holders' didn't apply in this case.

Concluding my inner thoughts, I slowly raised the muzzle of the gun in my hands.

"Ah!? Y-you...!"

The branch manager, who was previously rendered speechless by my question, suddenly started flapping his mouth like a fish.

Of course, I didn't give him any time to resist or open his mouth in opposition again, and just pulled the trigger before he could react.

Bang-!

There was no need for him to go around blabbing about my having escaped confinement, after all.

The branch manager's rapidly-cooling body collapsed lifelessly atop the rich mahogany desk in front of him, quickly dyeing its glossy surface with a fresh coat of red.

Anyway, this guy will get replaced in due time, but it should still be enough to delay their plans a tad in the meantime.

Oh, right, in regards to that; one more thing.

Asking a particular question, I began rummaging through the drawers of the branch manager's desk and through some of the filing cabinets at the side of the room.

"Here we go."

I gathered a collection of documents and ledgers belonging to the Order, or at least this branch of it, which contained all sorts of evidence for some of the heinous crimes they had committed, were in the midst of committing, and were planning to commit.

Human trafficking; human enslavement; live human experimentation; murder and assassination; bribery; trafficking of illicit goods such as illegal weapons and drugs―and that was just the start of it.

These invoices, agreements, documents, reports, and ledgers showed not only clear proof of who was funding these activities and where the money was going, but also included evidence of most of everything else that was going on behind the scenes.

Altogether, it was much more than enough to deliver a large setback to whatever the Order is plotting.

Quite damning evidence indeed.

I borrowed the branch manager's smartphone from his pocket and entered the password which seemed to be the date of his daughter's birthday.

He obviously wasn't going to be using it anymore, so the thought briefly crossed my mind about taking it with me, but there was no need for that. I will simply get another one from Minami when I return home, and since the phone probably had a tracker on it in the first place, it would only be a detriment.

In any case, I took pictures of all the evidence and sent them over to Minami through an unregistered account.

That would be enough on my part, and I knew that I could leave the rest to her. As someone who has done similar things to some of her business competitors in the past, she would know what to do and could pull it off faster than I.

I imagine the armed forces will soon be knocking on the Order's door.

That will do for now, and should be enough to undermine what was potentially years of the Orders' hard work.

Such a thought almost made me want to laugh.

Well, that's what they get for messing with me so half-heartedly, I suppose.

Having finished that before long, I threw the phone away and exited the office; beginning to make my way over to where the breach was happening.

Unlike the Hirane Facility, whose first and foremost purpose was to conduct prohibited human experiments, the place I was currently in was not underground.

That made them appear less conspicuous from the outside since they only seemed to be a regular office building externally, but it also made them more vulnerable to attacks from the outside at the same time.

Of course, they probably never expected to be attacked so bluntly like this, but it is what it is.

They should have prepared themselves for that eventuality, I suppose.

The Order won't have the opportunity to rectify that mistake any more, either. Once Minami works her magic, the building will be promptly raided and consequently shut down by the government.

Thereafter, further efforts to set up another branch in this area will become far more difficult, and much of the Order's progress will be either lost and/or halted.

To be honest, I'm not sure why they thought bringing me to one of their most valuable locations was a good idea in the first place, but past experience leads me to believe that their reasoning was something along the lines of:

'This is where the majority of our forces reside as well as the resources to keep him in check, and it's not like he can escape anyway, so there should be no problem as long as we maintain a minimum level of caution.'

Naturally, at the end of the day, that didn't matter.

Because I did end up escaping.

And the primary reason for that was that their so-called 'minimum level of caution' was evidently too minimal.

The bar was lowered a little too far, I think.

Then again, I suppose their caution was decent enough until the breach occurred, upon which their footing slipped unbeknownst; the soft, unstable ground that was the cliff edge crumbling beneath them into the deep ocean of the abyss.

Really, it's spectacular how unfortunate of a coincidence that is.