I’m Just an Underling of an Evil Organization, but for Some Reason I was Ordered to Honeytrap the He

CW: non-explicit non-con body mod

 

 

I was once a member of a certain country’s special forces unit. After entering the army, I was selected to carry out a special mission, and I had to ‘die’ in an accident, on the surface at least. 

 

Once I was in the unit, I learned my task was to enter the world of political deception. 

Everyone wears an elegant face, but under the table, the international corporations are the ones trying to stab each other in the back with a knife. My spirit soon became exhausted, but I believed I was working for the sake of my country and for world peace.

 

Until I saw that hell. 

 

By the time I was born, this world could no longer support the vast population and industrialization, and it had already developed into an extreme situation. 

In these conditions, even the prosperous countries’ leaders had to do something to solve the food production crisis, and they put all their eggs in the basket 1 of the largest grain producer in the industry, Gilgamesh. 

 

Gilgamesh pursued the highest efficiency possible. In order to harvest with the least resources and time required, they piled on innovation after innovation, and produced an amazing new cultivar. They developed that cultivar exclusively, and even offered other companies seller’s permits for cheap. 

 

When an epidemic flourished among the Poaceae family2, the protected cultivar Gilgamesh had nurtured was devastated, unleashing enormous harm as the world’s food situation was hit with catastrophic damage. 

 

The scramble for food truly became brutal. International relations were reduced to survival of the fittest. The advanced countries bought up all the food products they could and abandoned the weaker countries.

They would compromise for other items, but food was a different matter entirely. 

 

In order to rescue my fellow countrymen left behind in a hell of famine and hunger, we gathered together a team and I was chosen to be the leader.

 

Our countrymen had barricaded themselves in the embassy, which was well-armed with defensive measures. The natives were counting on the help coming for the citizens of our prosperous country, and a large crowd had surrounded the embassy. They wanted us to take them with us. 

 

Just when we had somehow managed to get every countryman accounted for, the populace driven mad by hunger broke through the barricade and surged forward. I ordered my teammates to go ahead, and I sent the first couple intruders3 flying with my baton and some martial arts.

But before long I was overwhelmed by the mob… I can’t remember what happened afterwards. 

 

When I next regained consciousness, I was laying down inside a tube-shaped vessel. At first I thought I was in a hospital.

But I was wrong. 

 

A man that I had some recollection of stood next to me. 

Doktor Satow. The grandfather of android research. 

 

At first, his company dealt with the development of AI, programming, and robots, but it had since welcomed a great revolution. Although the industrial world had by and large become completely automated, domestic labor and the fields of work which robots couldn’t possibly deal with were still a great burden to the people. His company quickly rose to power by plugging this niche, creating the android industry.

 

In the middle of all of this was the man who developed androids completely out of organic materials so that they could both raise the standard of physical labor within traditionally human-labor industries and self-repair themselves so they wouldn’t easily degrade, completely revolutionizing labor within the world. 

 

That man stood before me.

 

“If you’re a man from a special forces unit, there should be no insufficiency of raw potential. I will make you into the strongest android.”

 

This wasn’t a joke.

Doktor Satow had black rumors about him from the start.

That he was secretly kidnapping real humans, and using them in his research. Once he’d turn them into specimens, he’d tamper with their brains and erase their personalities. 

 

I was restrained, and every day I was baptized4 in endless agony. 

 

One night, a young man started talking to me. He was a docile lab worker who the other researchers called “To-ki-ga-wa”5.

 

“I heard you were in a developing country when the famine hit. Could you tell me what happened?”

Those blue-gray eyes, firmly gazing down at me, were deeply engraved with anguish and sorrow. 

 

“Thank you very much.”

When we finished talking, Tokigawa closed his intense eyes, as if he was enduring a great burden. 

 

“In exchange for the rescue of a local tycoon family, you were sold to this place.”

After a very, very long silence, he began to spill words one after the other, like droplets of rain. 

 

“My brother moved to the neighboring country of the country you were in for his new job. My older brother, my sister-in-law, and their five-year-old daughter… even now, their whereabouts are still unknown.”

His voice became small and took on a faint quiver. 

 

“Mass media outlets, the net, no one’s reporting a single word about the regions that have fallen into famine. Because of the transportation blocks, no one’s been able to get any information out. Gilgamesh was practically asking for massive casualties with such careless planning, but even though they should take responsibility, no one’s investigating their role in this because they’re afraid that the last of the food supply will fail.”

 

Tear drops smoothly slid down his cheeks. 

I just wanted to hold him close.

 

“I can’t forgive Gilgamesh. So I started working in this laboratory to get even a little more power.”

 

Once the day’s experiments ended and it became night, Tokigawa started to occasionally appear before me. 

 

I asked why Doktor Satow hated Gilgamesh so much, and he replied, “Their executive chief engineer was in the same year as him in college. The guy made a fool of him a long time ago, so the Doktor said he couldn’t forgive him. He always attacks people for the most trivial reasons.”

 

With a dark look in his eyes, he mocked himself. 

“I’m really worthless, huh. But this is my best option.”

 

Through my conversations with Tokigawa, I began to feel something similar to resignation.

If it were for him, I’d be okay with getting turned into an android. 

 

I wanted him to tell me his first name, but when I asked, he said, “I’m not worthy of exchanging names with you,” and wouldn’t tell me.

 

“I want to destroy Gilgamesh. I want to utterly crush them, and let them know who did it. …Looking at me now, my older brother would probably tell me to stop trying to get something like revenge. But I just can’t stop hating them. For me, the only thing I can do is continue what I’m doing here, and keep on living. While those developing countries were experiencing a calamity, I was in this country, living my life without a care. I ate the food that we stole from them… I am also responsible.”

 

You’re wrong. It’s different. It’s not your fault. Everything that happens in the world happens for a reason. Everything’s connected. 

 

I might have been ‘unofficial’, but I was in contact with many important people within the government.

If I had considered the situation more. If I had raised my voice against the deal my country made with Gilgamesh. I might have been able to change something. 

 

All of my ignorance and apathy until now have killed people; I am the one who killed Tokigawa’s spirit.

 

“I want to run away from all this pain.”

 

I wonder how many days have passed since he and I started to interact. For a few days, his visits stopped, and then one night he quietly appeared with a placid expression. 

 

“I was mistaken.”

The corner of his lips faintly rose, and he smiled. It was the first time I’d seen him smile. 

 

“I’ve already survived by stepping on other people, but I have yet again committed the same error. I was such a slave to my hatred for Gilgamesh, I was going to use you, even though you’re not related to any of this. And that’s unforgivable.”

His smile vanished, and his face twisted, as if he would cry at any moment. 

 

“I’m going to set you free. You won’t be able to get away as you are now, so I’ll do it after you’ve become strong enough. I’m going to hack the machine so it won’t be able to brainwash you, and I’m already securing your escape route. You’ll be able to follow that path and slip through the weaknesses in our security.”

 

After that, his visits completely stopped. 

 

I’ve always wondered why he said those things

Even now. Really, even now.

I was particularly enraptured by those sorrowful blue-gray eyes of his. 

 

My body changed more than it did during puberty. My appearance didn’t change. Rather, all the muscle fibers in my body seemed to be storing devastating power. 

 

At one point, a lab worker that Tokigawa was close to suddenly, unsteadily, walked up to me. His neat white bead that he would always stroke was a mess, and the light was disappearing from his usually proud purple eyes.

Based on his abnormal appearance alone, I braced myself, but the man hung his head for several seconds in dead silence. In a terribly hoarse voice, he informed me of what had happened. 

 

“Tokigawa… has been turned into a specimen.”

 

I stopped breathing.

Why. 

 

“They said his disposition was right, and suddenly… What bloody disposition. Was he not Doktor Satow’s relative, who the Doktor had looked after since he was a little boy!”

 

Perhaps his plan to set me free was found out. I asked, but the lab worker assured me it was impossible. 

 

“He left me to take care of the things he wanted to do. Very good. I also don’t know what will become of me, but I am going to explain your escape route right now. After the next surgery, security will get a little thinner. If your brain is intact like we planned, don’t think about anything else and just run. Don’t think about anything unnecessary, like saving Tokigawa. They just erased his memories. He doesn’t remember anything about you, or anyone else.”

 

The lab worker held out a single sword.

“Take this with you. This is the weapon I made for you. I’m hiding it under your culture tank.”

 

I didn’t know how much of what this lab worker told me I could believe.

But even then, that’s fine.

 

If perhaps I do get brainwashed, I’ll fight Gilgamesh for your sake.

But, if I still remember you, then I will definitely come save you.

 

I’ll become stronger. 

For you, I’ll become stronger. 

 

 

AN: The soldier that should have died lives on! It sounds like an urban legend. Akkad’s part will continue, but the serious bits are over. Thank you for sticking around.

Footnotes

白羽の矢を立てた lit. the standing white feather; it means to select out of many people. I chose this tl bc they exclusively worked w them aka true “grasses”. The fifth largest plant family, it is the most economically important, as it includes almost all staple crops, including maize, wheat, rice, barley, millet, bamboo, sugarcane, livestock feed, etc. This family accounts for 51% of total dietary energy consumed by humans 0v0 it’s actually just “they”, but the referent is kinda ambiguous, so I’ve subbed this in instead与えられた lit. he was bestowed, reflecting somewhat ironically that from Satow’s perspective, he was giving him an honor All names are in katakana in this story to reflect the distance from now and this near future setting. It’s a bit more dramatic and ambiguous