Free Against a Perfect Sniper by Shiden Kanzaki Page A

me think about them.”
    “Will you carve something for me sometime?”
    “No way.”
    The Seitenshi put her hand to her mouth and chuckled. The atmosphere inside the car seemed to relax slightly. “But you’re amazing, Satomi. You didn’t back off one bit against Saitake. I think it’s that part of you that I like, Satomi.”
    “Like?”
    “Yes, everyone I come into contact with, from my tutors to Kikunojo,speaks to me with respect. There isn’t anyone around me who tells things to me straight like you do, Satomi. It’s very refreshing.”
    Ah, now I get it
, Rentaro thought. During the Kagetane Hiruko terrorist incident, Rentaro had not said anything to make the Seitenshi like him; instead, he had snapped at her constantly. He kept wondering why the Seitenshi would nominate him for this job, but now it made sense. “But why a civsec officer? You have your own personal guards, don’t you? You know, like that guy that looks like a military police officer?”
    “Yasuwaki? He… He’s too dazzling. It’s a little scary to be with him.”
    Even as Rentaro responded with an indifferent grunt, inwardly he thought it served Yasuwaki right. Yasuwaki seemed to be trying to shrewdly attract the Seitenshi’s attention, but it looked like his ulterior motive wasn’t gaining much traction.
    The Seitenshi took out some peach juice from the mini fridge and poured it into a glass. She offered some to Rentaro, as well, so he took it. He was only planning on taking a sip, but when he swallowed, the cold sweetness penetrated his internal organs, and he downed the glass in the blink of an eye. Apparently, he was thirstier than he thought.
    When the Seitenshi lifted her face from her cup, for some reason, her eyes looked like they were clouded with the resolve to drink poisoned sake. She looked at Rentaro. “Satomi, it is rumored that President Saitake has been fostering relations with foreign countries.”
    The car approached a curb, and Rentaro’s body swayed a little to the right. On his lap, Enju murmured something in her sleep. The city lights shone on the glistening metal car top, slipping away as they drove past.
    “Keep going…,” he said.
    “I’ve heard that America and other foreign countries have been secretly contacting Saitake, providing him with capital and weapons.”
    “What’s the benefit for the foreign countries?”
    “Varanium.” The Seitenshi stopped talking for a moment and lifted her face. “Varanium is the material used for the weapons and ammunition of civsec officers and the Monoliths that separate humans from Gastrea. All these are essential in the fight against the Gastrea. A small country without that much land like Japan is still okay, but large countries like Russia and America need a large amount of Varaniumto take back the land stolen by the Gastrea. And rough estimates of the amount of Varanium left in the ground indicate that even if we scraped together all the Varanium in the world, it would not be enough to take back all the world’s continents from the Gastrea. Do you understand what that means?”
    Rentaro understood what she meant so well it was almost painful. Different natural resources around the world were distributed unevenly. The Middle East was rich in oil, and South Africa was plentiful in gold and diamonds. Varanium was found on volcanic islands. Even if the islands were separate, it could still be said that the bulk was found on Japan.
    Rentaro had recently met a boy who ran away from working in the mines, and he had been shocked at their terrible working conditions. Illegal mining of Varanium in the Unexplored Territory might seem like a failure at first when looking at the risk and return, but taking into account that there was a constant stream of illegal miners, as long as one bore in mind the risk of being crushed by a whole mine, it was still possible to find some reasonable profit in it.
    Rentaro’s thoughts came one after another. Now that he thought about