Chapter 13: Making A Deal With The Four Hats
Klaus dragged the two of them to the center of the house of mirrors and crouched down with the gun at their heads.
’!!!’ Red Hat and White Hat, who were nervously looking for their partners, froze at once upon seeing Klaus’s reflection in the mirror.
"Hans! Andrew!" Their hands shot toward the mirrors, and they called out in a horrified voice, their faces pale with despair.
Although the reflection wasn’t as clear, it was enough to understand that Hans and Andrew were in an extremely bad spot.
"Stop moving around," Klaus’s flat, humorless voice spread across the tent.
Red Hat and White Hat gritted their teeth, and the latter asked while turning around, "What do you want?"
"Dustin sent you all, didn’t he?" Klaus questioned. He didn’t actually need to ask; he was already sure of it. Still, he needed to cement in their minds that he was the one in control.
White Hat’s expression twisted, and Red Hat looked at him with a deep frown on his face, his eyes shimmering with slight hope.
It was taboo for people like them to disclose the name of their master, so Red Hat believed that even though all four of them had been together for over a decade, White Hat would still choose to follow the rules. After all, that was why he was their leader in the first place.
For a long while, White Hat stayed silent, and then he lowered his head.
"He did," he said slowly, his expression undiscernible.
Red Hat’s eyes opened wide, and he mumbled, "Henry..."
White Hat looked at Red Hat and said, "Master ordered us to watch over the young master. We cannot have any of us dying here."
Understanding blazed in Red Hat’s eyes, and he nodded.
Klaus watched their barely visible reflections with a dumbfounded expression and thought, ’Isn’t the atmosphere between them kinda gay?’
[I believe kinda is an understatement.]
’I think the same.’
’Whatever, why should I care if someone likes sword fighting instead of cave diving?’ He shrugged inwardly.
"As you can see, I have two of your men..." he paused and remarked inwardly, ’That doesn’t sound right.’
"Ahem! I have two of your guys..."
’Fuck! I keep being conscious about it!’
He took a deep breath.
Red Hat and White Hat eyed one another, wondering: ’What is wrong with this guy?’
Klaus’s lips parted, but before he could say anything, Green Hat’s eyelids trembled slightly, and he turned his gaze to him.
’Is he waking up already?’
For a few moments, he watched him, and just as his eyes opened, Klaus raised his fist and crashed it right at his face.
"Ugh!" Green Hat spat blood.
"What are you doing?!" Red Hat and White Hat shouted in panic.
Even though the punch landed true, Green Hat was still conscious, so Klaus once again raised his fist and drove another punch into his head, this time knocking him out cold.
Red Hat’s and White Hat’s eyes burned with pure anger.
"Tch. Why are you waking up? Just go to sleep," Klaus mumbled and returned his gaze to their reflections.
’Finally! It’s time for me to give the grand speech I had thought of while dreaming about beating bad guys in here.’
He grinned and spoke:
"All of us have two options. First, you continue to hunt me, and I shoot these two right here. Second, you stop and let me go."
White Hat’s lips opened, but Klaus cut him off.
"Of course you would want to continue hunting me, but if you do so, you’ll lose at least these two, and once that happens, you two will be nothing but failures."
’But we don’t want to continue?’ White Hat frowned deeply.
"In this world, people trust those who are loyal and competent, but the moment they become failures, their loyalty loses its value," Klaus continued with a pitiful expression.
’Why is he still going on? Does he really want us to stop?’ wondered the two.
"It is already hard to find a job, so you shouldn’t make a decision that will get you fired from this one."
’Please stop!’
White Hat muttered, "We agr—"
Klaus glared at the reflections and raised his hand. "Let me finish."
He straightened himself, aimed the guns at the heads of Green Hat and Black Hat, and said, "What I want from you is simple: tell Dustin that you succeed and keep him away from Trina and me. I will also stay away from him for some time. I don’t want unnecessary trouble in my life."
"We agree!!" Red Hat and White Hat shouted at the same time.
Klaus smiled and said, "I like it that you two are intelligent."
"Now then, unload your guns and throw them out of the tent."
Red Hat and White Hat frowned, and the latter said, "Is there any need to do so? We have already agreed to stop hunting you."
"Henh." Klaus tilted his head and said, "And I am supposed to trust your words?"
"Okay, we understand," Red Hat and White Hat said as they ejected the magazine and then walked back to the entrance.
The two looked at one another before hurling the pistols out of the tent, and as they turned, they saw that Klaus’s reflection was no longer there.
"...why did he do that?" They wondered deeply.
Klaus exited the tent from the other side and sprinted toward his bike with a wide grin on his face.
’Hahaha! That was fun!’
[Host, now that you are out of trouble, do you wish to check the scanned data?]
"Ah, I was too nervous back then. Show it to me."
[The four of them are Hans Sipher, Andrew Gray, Dean Millin, and Henry Coast. All of them have a silver trait, and they are regarded as the four horsemen. Each one of them is a hero.]
Klaus’s legs faltered, and he stared at the screen with a stupefied expression on his face.
"You aren’t joking, right...?"
[Host, I do not make jokes.]
"...shit."