44 Chapter 44

Sam had to say that his meeting with Makima had gone better than he'd expected. When he woke up from his sleep, he found himself alive with all of his organs intact. She had actually cooked him a meal and ordered some takeout since he was human and needed actual food, something he hadn't tried in a long time.

Fair enough, Sam sat with Makima. They had a small chitchat, and the more they talked, the more Makima's angry aura faded away.

"Anyway, while you were sleeping, I reported to the NSCJ, the head of Public Safety, that you are alive."

"You didn't say that nobody else knows that."

"Obviously," Makima said. "If they knew that only they knew, they wouldn't dare plot your death."

"So, what will you do if it's them?"

"Nothing. Do I look like your babysitter?"

"No," Sam shook his head. "Still, I always considered you a family figure, like an older sister. I can't help but feel a bit disappointed."

Sam faked a sad expression as he looked at the rice on his plate. He played with it a bit with his spoon.

"I can see through your feelings. You don't care," Makima sighed. "Don't you think it's bizarre for a devil to work for the government?"

"Let me guess," Sam scratched his hair. "They made a contact with you. They gave you an offer that you couldn't refuse, and you'll have to work for them."

"Exactly."

"Just a question. Did you sign up for the heads of the government, or just the government?"

"Don't those people make up the government?"

"But they are replaceable, aren't they?"

"I see your point," Makima nodded. "But well. I can't just kill them or it shall be seen as a breach to my contract."

"So, how about you control them?"

"That would have worked if not for the fact that I work for them, which doesn't give me a superior position over them."

"Oh, I see," Sam smirked as he put his hands behind his head. "So for your power to work, you have to put them in an inferior position. Yet that didn't work on me despite you being my boss."

Makima nodded.

Sam's smile grew wider as he thought of a plan. "I get it."

"What are you thinking of?" Makima asked.

"I'll tell you later. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be in my new apartment." Sam stood up, walked to the door, waved his hand at Makima, and left.

-x-X-x-

Sam was in a random hotel room. Three days had passed since he announced that he was alive.

Looking at the TV during this day, he noticed that no channel talked about his mysterious return to life.

Currently, Sam was hanging on the wall while looking down. On his bed, there was a blanket stuffed with pillows, giving the illusion that he was sleeping there.

A red dot was moving left and right, not holding a good position above the bed.

'So he finally showed up.'

Like a spider, Sam crawled on the wall and waited.

He noticed a blur of a bullet piercing through the open window and hitting the bed.

Ever since he'd worked as a mercenary, Sam's eyes had been trained to catch bullets. His superhuman strength helped him adapt faster than any human could ever see.

Pew

A sound followed after the bullet.

'It took three seconds for the sound to reach this distance.'

'The speed of sound is 343 meters per second. Multiply that by 3, and you get something more or less than 1000 meters.'

'Meaning the shooter is 1000 meters away from this distance.'

Sam landed on his feet. Activating his Wind Footwork, his speed almost doubled, and he dashed out of the window, running.

A bullet hit his original spot, but it missed him.

His basic speed with his current 22 points of agility was almost 6 times that of a human. Add that to his footwork, and he was unstoppable.

Sam was running, surpassing even the fast cars on the road and living a blur wherever he passed.

In half a minute, he crossed the distance and could see the laser being turned off. He climbed a high building running. As he landed on the top, Sam found a girl putting her sniper in a bag.

She looked at him surprised, but before she could do anything, Sam appeared in front of her, holding her mouth. He put his fingers inside and grabbed a pill, throwing it out.

'I've had enough missions to learn that assassins have means to commit suicide. They fear torture in case they get caught.'

"I didn't die," he smiled at the girl, pressing on her jaw further. "Nor will there be death for you. Unless your brain can no longer hold the pain."

"Fuck off," she replied.

"You know when I worked as a mercenary, I used to be quite soft at the beginning," Sam took a deep breath, held the sniper by the neck, and then walked around. "But after having guns and swords pointed at me, I couldn't remain the same.

"I learned one thing. We're all scums, and we don't deserve a merciful death for the sins we committed.

"But here's the thing. We don't get what we deserve but what we earn. Now, tell me, which death are you going to earn?"

Sam then knocked the sniper out.

-x-X-x- 

Sakura woke up tied to a bathtub.  She saw him walking beside her. It seemed that they were in a hotel room, the one he'd been at yesterday.

She had one mission: assassinate a young man. But who could have known that he would use his bed to deceive her, closing the distance to her location and capturing her?

Since there was no point in giving the enemy information, as she would be dead anyway, her best bet was to endure torture and face death with resilience.

She recalled her training. As an elite in the army, she had been prepared to endure the most severe tortures. She had been subjected to beatings, burns, and freezing temperatures. The secret lay in possessing an iron willpower and training the brain to ignore signals of pain.

"I won't tell you anything. I don't fear pain," Sakura defiantly declared.

"Well, after I'm done with you, you'll wish for death," Sam replied. "Look up."

She raised her head and saw a pipe with a small droplet of water forming at the end. The droplet fell onto her forehead.

"I bet whoever trained you never had the time to prepare you for this," Sam remarked as he appeared in front of her. "When you want this to end, just tell me who sent you. You might think of lying, but deep down, your brain knows that lying will only intensify the sensation."

Sakura took a deep breath. She wasn't trained to resist this. What could a few water droplets do?

She chuckled weakly. "Hypnosis. Seriously?"

-x-X-x- 

Sam noticed that the Chinese water torture method hadn't been invented in this world yet. Well, even if it were invented, he doubted that anyone would be able to resist it.

He didn't find any sources mentioning it on the Internet, just like many other things such as nuclear bombs, World War I, and World War II. Many things seemed to be missing from this world. Wars were confined to video games, and there was no mention of them. Maybe it was the influence of the devils.

It had been 12 hours. Sam looked at the assassin in his bathtub. She was trying to sleep, but the incessant water drops prevented her from doing so.

Each drop of water felt heavier to her brain, and it could even seem like tractors falling on her head.

Sam decided to let her rest for a few days. He closed his eyes and took a nap.

He was awakened by screams.

"Please! Stop... It hurts! It hurts! The government sent me. NSCJ. Just kill me! Kill me!"

"You're lucky. If this had continued any longer, you'd have suffered more lasting brain damage."

The girl had a wild look in her eyes, and she kept shaking her head from side to side.

Sam yawned. He stood up, stretched his arms, and lifted the girl from the bathtub, tossing her onto the bed. He then handed her the poison pill she had tried to ingest the day before.

"See, you don't deserve a merciful death. But you did earn it. You dropped this from your mouth yesterday."

He stretched his arms and moved his body left and right.

'So the old fat bastard who offered me a promotion is the one who wanted to kill me. Fair enough. I've confirmed who my enemy is.'