My Avatar Is Becoming the Final Boss-Chapter 36: The Brigade

Now that Ji Minghuan had loaded Xia Pingzhou’s character memory, he could finally understand the message he’d received earlier.
[Anonymous User: In the alley bar of Block 5, Tokyo, we’re waiting in the third private room.]
No doubt, this message came from the White Crow Brigade—today was the first time Xia Pingzhou was to meet them.
Ji Minghuan raised an eyebrow, opened his phone’s GPS, and followed it to the destination. He descended the staircase and stepped into the underground bar.
For some reason, despite it being morning, the place was filled with the buzz of glasses clinking and chatter. Quite the lively scene. Of course, it was possible this crowd had partied all night long—but even so, their stamina was borderline inhuman.
He weaved through the colorful crowd and stopped in front of the third private room, raising his hand to knock lightly on the door.
Inside this room were members of the White Crow Brigade... Reality-altering Esper Association’s Double-S-rank wanted targets.
Of course, they might send out a few decoys to test me—but that doesn’t really seem like their style.
Turning his back on the noisy crowd, Ji Minghuan silently prayed to every god he could think of to keep his expectations low.
“Just don’t die too fast and I’ll consider it a success. At the very least, let this character survive until I create the third game character. Otherwise, everything I’ve done will be limited again.”
Click—someone turned the doorknob and opened the door for him.
He peered through the crack and saw a girl in a crimson kimono, her medium-length black hair neat and clean. She had a cold, doll-like expression—pale skin, large eyes devoid of emotion. The more you looked at her, the more unsettling she felt.
She said nothing, just stared silently at him.
“Please come in.”
A warm voice called from inside in Japanese. From the accent, it sounded like British English filtered through Japanese.
Ji Minghuan stepped in and saw two other figures sitting on the sofa playing cards.
Their appearances were quite distinct.
The man on the left wore a V-neck shirt and had a square mechanical box over his head, completely encasing it. Two bone-white antennas stuck out from the top of the box.
On the right sat a young man with blond hair and blue eyes in a classic British-style suit, smiling with a frozen curve on his lips.
“New guy?” the girl in the kimono asked in Japanese.
“Same as the photo. He’s the twelfth substitute. The captain’s interested in his abilities and sent us to see if we’re satisfied,” the man with the mechanical box said in a deep voice.
“Then let’s introduce ourselves first?” The man in the suit set down his cards and smiled.
The kimono girl stayed silent. Suddenly, a magazine flew out of a nearby drawer. Every page tore itself free and turned into a flurry of paper scraps, then gathered before her, assembling a line of Japanese text mid-air:
—My name is Origami Ayase. I’m No. 3 in the Brigade.
Ji Minghuan looked at the letters forming from the scraps and thought: An esper who controls paper materials?
He said calmly, “Xia Pingzhou. Here to take over the No. 12 slot.”
In the memories, Xia Pingzhou was a silent, poker-faced person.
Of course, the White Crow Brigade had never met Xia Pingzhou before, so they had no real impression of his personality yet. Ji Minghuan could completely reinvent the character if he wanted.
But after thinking it over, he figured it was best to keep quiet in this group. Playing the silent type reduced the risk of saying something wrong.
He scanned the three people present. Coincidentally, two of them were faces Xia Pingzhou had already seen in his research.
Over the past six months, Xia Pingzhou had practically gone mad digging into the secrets of the White Crow Brigade. Scouring the dark web, he’d found video clips and surveillance footage. Combined with the official public data, he could now recognize most of the members by appearance.
That blond-haired, blue-eyed youth and the girl in the kimono were both presumed Quasi-Calamity-level Espers.
Well, the “quasi” part was Xia Pingzhou’s own estimation based on the data. Even if they weren’t officially ranked as Quasi-Calamity, they were at least Dragon-level, hovering at the edge of that threshold.
As for the guy with the robot head—Xia Pingzhou hadn’t uncovered any intel on him.
“I’m Arlens. No. 11 in the Brigade,” the blond youth said.
“Robert. I’m No. 7,” said the bizarre man with the mechanical box on his head. “Everyone calls me ‘Carrot Head.’ You can too.”
Ji Minghuan nodded to him.
“Hmm, it’s about time to move out.” Arlens glanced at his watch. “But there’s one thing we need to do before we go. The captain said to wipe out everyone in the bar. Some of them are planning to sabotage next week’s auction—it interferes with our schedule.”
Ji Minghuan thought for a second. “So my initiation test is to go out there and kill them all?”
“Of course not... this is just a side task. If the captain’s really interested in you, wiping out those guys won’t even count as a test. Just think about which method is most effortless,” Arlens paused. “Hold up… let me pull a draw, see if there’s an easy way.”
As he spoke, a strange gleam flashed in his eyes. Then, a blue slot machine three or four meters tall appeared beside him, standing quietly.
“A slot machine—so that’s No. 11’s ability? Wonder what it does.” Ji Minghuan thought.
Arlens leaned against the side of the machine, pulled the lever, and with a series of clatters and arcade-like sounds, the reels spun rapidly.
When they stopped, the machine displayed three matching icons—rocket launchers.
Origami Ayase stayed silent. Robert didn’t speak either.
“Well, that settles it.” Arlens shrugged. “Looks like that draw was a bit… over-the-top.”
“New guy, let’s go.”
Robert placed his hand on the wall and used his ability to open a doorway to who-knows-where.
“If you don’t leave now, you’re getting blown to bits,” Origami Ayase said expressionlessly. She turned the handle and stepped through the portal into another world.
“GOGO, we’re taking you somewhere fun,” Arlens grinned, throwing an arm around Ji Minghuan’s shoulders and guiding him toward the wall-mounted portal.
“Weren’t we supposed to kill everyone in the bar?” Ji Minghuan asked casually, glancing at the slot machine.
“What are you talking about? They’re... already dead,” Arlens whispered near his ear.
The next second, the slot machine’s front shell opened. A massive rocket launcher emerged and, with a deafening blast, unleashed a torrent of flames that instantly melted through the room and howled into the bar outside.
Too bad none of the four saw what became of that underground bar... because by the time they realized it, they had already stepped through the portal. As the doorway vanished behind them, whatever followed was sealed off by miles of distance.
Ji Minghuan only caught a second of the explosion—but before the door shut, he felt the scorching wind at his back.
He could tell... no one in the bar had survived.
No, not just the bar. The alley, and the nearby residential area—probably gone too.
In another hour or two, this news would rock all of Japan.
Dealing with lunatics like this is way more fun than playing pretend with two Calamity-level bosses, Ji Minghuan thought, amused.
Looking up, he found himself in what looked like an abandoned office building.
The walls and floors hadn’t been cleaned in ages. Dust-covered desks sat in disarray, with a few battered old computers still resting on top.
Two Japanese banners were posted on either side of the walls.
Left: “Strictly follow work hours! Don’t waste a single second!”
Right: “The workplace is a battlefield! Maintain peak focus at all times!”
“Heh, this place reeks of corporate drone energy... don’t tell me some kind of office worker demon was born here?” Ji Minghuan thought.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at “Robert” the robot-head and speculated:
Looks like No. 7’s ability is to create portals between places he’s visited. No wonder Xia Pingzhou never found info on him—he’s a utility member, probably doesn’t fight. Naturally, no one would spot him.
That all made sense, but Ji Minghuan still asked aloud:
“Where are we? Weren’t we just in a bar in Minato?”
Arlens released his grip from Ji Minghuan’s shoulder and explained: “Robert’s ability lets him place portals in locations he’s been to. As long as the distance between two portals isn’t too far, he can link them.”
He paused. “This is an office building in Tokyo’s Minato Ward. A while back, two employees died from overwork in here. The company was forced to shut down, and the place’s been empty since.”
“Forget that—what do you guys want me to do?”
“Shh, see that?” Arlens narrowed his eyes at something ahead. “What we want from you... is exactly what you Exorcists do best.”
Ji Minghuan raised an eyebrow. Suddenly, he caught a strange scent in the air and immediately understood:
“Demon?”
“Bingo. The three of us will stay behind and observe while you duke it out with the demon. We’ll score you. If two or more of us aren’t satisfied with your performance... not only will you be denied entry into the Brigade, we’ll kill you on the spot,” Arlens smiled. “Looks like your opponent’s making its entrance. Aren’t you going to welcome it?”
As soon as he finished speaking, a shadow appeared in the center of the dim office—spreading across the floor like a pool of black water.
Then, a massive figure slowly rose from the black lake, emerging into the light.