The man is wearing a stylish red jacket donned over a white T-shirt and black jeans. In his mouth, a tobacco pipe is pumping out white smoke. The westerner handsome face has an impressive circle beard that can capture any young girl’s curiosity. He is leanning his back on the slide door, blocking the entry, while looking at those inside the room. Through Lexar’s eye, he can see dark flame trapped inside a transparent box, similar with the slit mouth woman.

Makoto, Yuuko, and Hinami all get into combat stance after hearing the warning. Their eyes are completely fixed on the man, not wanting to miss any of the intruder’s movement.

“How troublesome! You ladies got up so early and found it out, which really messed up our plan. It’s a disgrace for me to show up in front of such beautiful missies with tobacco in mouth, you know. Non smoking guys is the trend nowadays.” He says with a bit of annoyed voice. “And it’s all thanks to you, black cat. Master is right to warn me about you being a hindrance. It was because I am a cat lover that I decided to leave you alone for a while. But I guess that I should kill you first.” The man then looks at Lexar with intense killing intent.

The cat hisses at the man back menacingly. The nurse and the four patients inside the room do not understand what is going, but still understand that a fight is going to break out. The killing intent from the man and the hissing from the cat sent a shiver down their spines. One of the patients reach out a red button to call the staffs.

“Oops. I can’t let you do that though.” The man swings his arm after seeing what the patient is trying to do.

A loud metal sound comes and in the next second the patient screams as the thin part of the pipe pierces his hand.

The girls break cold sweat on their forehead as they witness what happened. Although they saw the arm gesture clearly, the throwing power of the pipe, which is not even a throwing weapon, is not to be underestimated, as well as the accuracy behind his technique. Yuuko also notices an additional thing. Even his posture seems relaxed, there is no opening in his defense. Unlike the bandage man and slit mouth woman, the enemy this time is skilled and proficient in martial arts. Hinami materializes a pistol and points it at the man.

“Who are you? What are you trying to do?” Hinami questions the circle beard man, ignoring the loud screaming behind.

“Oh, where is my manner? Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jerome Garret. A gentleman as you can see” The man bows elegantly and introduces himself “As for your question, I am afraid I can’t answer that. My master did say that “Villains lose because of talking too much”. As a villain myself, I do not wish to lose so I cannot talk too much.”

“Who is your master?” Hinami asks him.

“I am afraid I can’t answer that.” Jerome replies.

“Who is your master?” Hinami repeats the question with a straight face.

“I said that I can’t answer that.” Jerome answers.

“WHO IS YOUR MASTER?” Hinami now asks with a commanding tone and dominating aura.

“My master is Shindo, huh? …..… ! Holy crap. What did you just make me do?” Jerome becomes puzzled a moment then suddenly realizes what he is saying.

“Shindo? Now an interesting name has come up.” Hinami smiles satisfyingly as she receives a crucial information.

“You have known something you should not know, little missy. Although I dislike fighting with women, you are leaving me no choice…” A gunshot comes, interrupting his dialogue. “And that’s not how a lady with high status like you should act. I guess I need to teach you a lesson first.” He squeezes a bullet caught in his fingers.

Hinami pulls the trigger several time and the bullets fly toward him rapidly. The man moves his hand in fast motion. After a second, he hold his fist high and releases all the rounds on the floor. Hinami frowns at that scene but that does not stop her hand. An SMG replaces the pistol immediately, but the man immediately closes on her before she can pull the trigger.

“Your opponent is me.” Yuuko stands in front of Hinami and blocks the incoming punch with her hand.

Jerome does not flinch a bit at her interruption, and starts throwing a barrage of punches at her. His attacks make loud wind blowing sounds and form a motion blur with rapid and fast movement. Yuuko immediately materializes her arm guards and deflects the attack, or defend it with the protective gear. The loud bang sounds come repeatedly as Jerome’s strikes hit her.

(Fast, and strong too. However, …) Yuuko analyzes the attack while blocking.

With sudden speed, she moves her leg and performs a triple low kick on his knee. The man’s balance crumbles after the first and second kick, but manages to jump back before the third one hits him.

Stolen novel; please report.

(He is too reckless with the attack. He has the strength and knows the basics but does not truly understand how to fight hand to hand combat.) Yuuko realizes the weakness of the man immediately.

“Wow, I was just careless back then. I won’t let you get me next time.” Jerome says with a joking voice but his left eye squints a little from pain.

“My turn now” Yuuko dashes toward him and throws an right upper punch.

Jeromes deflects the punch sideway with his left arm and counters also with a punch. Yuuko twists her back to the right, dodging his hand a narrow margin while pointing her shoulder on his chest. With a hop, she slams on his chest and knocks him back a few steps. She took several hit during that slam but she pays no heed to them despite the pain. She hugs on the man’s hip, lifts him up in the air and throws him on the floor with a loud thump.

Jerome’s back is thrown with a strong force that is enough to freeze him for a second. And that is enough for Yuuko to restrain him. Switching her body position, she turns his body upside down, strangles his neck with a knee lock while bending his arm upward. Realizing that he is in dangerous situation, Jerome thrashes around to throw her off and uses his other free hand to try to hit the girl, but his actions are futile. The stronger he thrashes around, the tighter the knee lock on his neck becomes. His current posture makes his free hand unable to muster any force to make an effective attack. Being choked tightly, he gives up and taps the girl’s leg to signal that he gives up. Yuuko relaxes the lock on his neck a little bit but still enough to seal his movement.

While panting heavily for air, a sound of a gun unlocking can be heard right next to his ear.

“Now, do you feel like talking a little bit?” Hinami pressed her SMG muzzle on the restrained Jerome’s head.

“*wheeze* Oh my, how scary, how scary. You girls seem more cold blooded than expected…… *wheeze* …. How about it? Want to join our master’s side?” Jerome smiles optimistically in front of the threat while taking deep breath.

“Hinami, be careful. His negative energy is ready to burst out. Prepare for a surprise attack.” Lexar warns her as he sees the box containing the dark flame in Jerome’s heart shaking violently.

“I don’t know what that cat is talking, but it seems that he warned you about me preparing something. What a troublesome creature.” Hearing the cat meowing unnaturally, Jerome looks at Lexar and comments.

“Don’t try to distract the conversation. Tell me what Shindo Taiga is trying to do.” Hinami presses the gun on his head harder.

“Wait! How the hell do you know his name?” Sweat forms on Jerome’s forehead as he hears his master’s full name.

“I actually don’t know his name.” Hinami makes an evil smile“ I just throw out one of my suspicions and you readily admit it. Now, tell me what he is trying do.”

“……” Jerome remains silent without saying anything.

“Answer me!” She says with a louder voice.

The box constraing the black flame inside his heart shatters and Jerome’s body is engulfed with black flame. Yuuko quickly releases the lock and steps back. On the other hand, Hinami decides to pull the trigger and sprays down the whole magazine on the man’s head, shattering it into tiny red pieces. The nurse in the corner sees that and screams loudly “Murderer!”. White flame burns up from the corpse’s head and overwhelms the black flame, then burns the whole body.

However, something strange happens. An awful, acrid odor fills the room as the corpse is on fire. The scent is so thick and strong that even the tongue can seem to taste it. It feels like a mixture of many gases that words alone cannot describe it.

(This smell. It’s a human meat burning smell.) Lexar recognizes the familiar smell during his old day (Why is there a smell now? There was no such smell when we defeated those women and bandage man.) An anxiety surfaces in his head.

“*Blechhhh*” Hinami immediately vomits after jumping away from the burning corpse.

“Hinami!” Makoto and Yuuko call out to her.

“…… This is strange …… *Blarghh* …… I don’t know why but I felt like I did something horrible…… Something disgusting and sinful ……. Why?” Hinami asks herself in confusion.

Lexar did not feel anything but Makoto and Yuuko felt awful after seeing the scene. A sense of guilt overwhelms them as the nurse’s word “Murderer” echoes in their mind. They did not experience any of this feeling when they fought at school, yet this happened when they fought monster outside of school.

Seeing the pale complexion of the three girls, Lexar becomes deeply worried. He has a hard time thinking what is going on, but soon after that, the answer reveals to him.

The fire subsidizes away but what remains is not white ashes, but a charred black corpse. Its burning smell becomes even stronger after the fire is off.

“It seems that you girls are more dangerous than I thought. I did not expect that you could pull the trigger without hesitation.” A man voice reaches everyone’s ears.

Standing at the entrance, Jerome’s figure enters their sight and they all gasp in surprise.

“I did certainly felt that I killed him. But yet he is still in front of my eyes. ….. Then does that mean the one I killed is not Jerome?” Hinami deduces from what happened.

“Oh, the missy with gun here is sharp. That was just one of my clones, one that used a living human body to act as me for decoy.” Jerome blows out white smoke with the pipe in his mouth. “By the way, the one whom you just killed is one of the police officers guarding here at night.”

Jerome scratches the hair behind his head “But really I did not expect such a problem to occur. With only the combat ability reduced, it is supposed to be a perfect clone. However, the clone also knows the same thing as me. If one clone is to be caught and tortured, information can be leaked out. One more thing to add to the report.” He sighs deeply after reflecting what happened.

(Clones?) Lexar associates with his double skill but then shakes his head. The clone he used and one that Jerome used are completely different in nature. His instinct tells him that the secret behind that man’s clone is not simply the effect of skill.

“Although it’s ethics to say “Nice to meet you”, we have met already, even though that was not technically me. Is it too confusing?” Jerome talks by himself “Nevermind. I already have a grasp of what happened. It is a shame but I have decided to kill you all.” He says with a strong blood lust.