Surviving a Shounen Manga

Catch Me If You Can

"Are you… the real Squatjaw?"

Leo frowned and asked the new arrival.

Naturally he wasn't asking because of the newcomer's appearance. He looked identical to the ones he'd seen two days before.

Instead, what caught Leo's eyes was the attitude of the horned boy toward him.

Seeing how respectfully the boy, who was clearly a member of the Squatjaw Adventurers, treats him… Of course, this might all just be another prank, but the possibility remained.

That was then.

"You still can't tell?"

The new Squatjaw turned to face him with a bright smile.

A familiar smile.

A very confident smile that had been missing from the rest of the Squatjaws.

So… he actually was the real one?

"It’s me, Hiro."

"You, you…!"

"It’s been a while, Leo."

At that moment, Leo felt something bubble up inside his chest.

He didn't know what the lump of emotions consisted of.

It just felt hot, and intense.

"You bastard… I've been looking for you!"

"Were you?"

"Squatjaw! Give me the treasure!"

"Which one is it? Did you come here to find me? Or to find the treasure?"

"Both!"

Leo strode forward.

This was his first time feeling so excited.

Lightning started flashing naturally from his body.

Zzappp-!

But Squatjaw was still smiling brightly, and he didn't take any special action.

"Whoa, hey, calm down."

"Let’s fight! Whoever wins gets the treasure, how about it?"

"Well, that doesn't sound bad… Wait a minute. Wait. I'll send them away first."

Then he gently lowered his head.

And then,

"Huh?"

Something was peeled off from the air above Squatjaw's head.

Surprisingly, that little girl from the Squatjaw Adventurers had been hiding there.

"Ah, you're that little kid!"

"You’re the kid! My name is Cocoa. Or Cocoavi."

"Now, now, quiet. Leo, wait a bit."

Squatjaw, the little kid and the horned boy took some distance and put their heads together.

Squatjaw started whispering, and the other two listened intently, but Leo couldn't catch the conversation.

He could only make out a couple of phrases.

‘Spread out'. And ‘follow me'.

And then,

"Ah, thanks for waiting."

After sending the two away, Squatjaw came back.

Then he asked a bizarre question.

"By the way, looks like you two have gotten friendly?"

"Huh?"

It was an odd question.

The intent behind the question was of course difficult to understand, but more than that, the subject itself was strange. Why did it sound like Squatjaw knew Tanya too?

"Do you know each other?"

When Leo looked back at Tanya, she answered without turning her gaze away from Squatjaw.

She was showing off a really suspicious attitude.

And after that,

"What, didn’t you tell him?"

Squatjaw asked.

"Tanya? Did you already know Squatjaw?"

Then,

"Like hell I know him! Th-, this… this cunning thief!"

She suddenly started screaming out of nowhere.

"Oh, are you introducing yourself?"

Squatjaw's words that followed were truly astonishing.

That Tanya was none other than the one who'd first stolen the treasure from Eastland. He even said that they'd arrived to the continent on the same ship.

When Leo asked her if this was true,

"Yeah. But that squat-jawed bastard stole it! My treasure!"

Tanya roared.

"Well, isn’t it a bit too much to say that it’s yours? You stole it from somebody else, too. Oh, and Leo, you don't even know, do you? That this woman is a member of a very famous bandit gang?"

"Huh?"

That was then.

"Hey, stop it…"

Suddenly, Tanya's voice became very quiet.

"A bandit gang?"

"Yeah. The Huntington Bandits. Have you ever heard of them?"

It was a very familiar name.

Huntington? Huntington…

"That Huntington?"

"…"

From how Tanya bowed her head, it was true.

"But then why have I never seen her before?"

"Are you an idiot? Because this woman was in Eastland all along."

"Ah."

Leo nodded.

Then,

"But so what?"

"Huh?"

Squatjaw seemed puzzled.

"So what if Tanya's a Huntington?"

"What do you mean… haven't you guys been fighting them off and on? I've heard the rumours."

"What does that matter? Like you said, Tanya was in Eastland at the time. And at least for now, she's my friend, not a Huntington."

The left Squatjaw speechless for a while.

Finally,

"… I see. Already in the party… I guess not yet? That'd be a bit more obvious."

"What?"

"No, nothing. That's a good attitude to have. I was just wondering how close the two of you were, so I asked. Well, it doesn't look that bad. You're doing well."

Why did he have to constantly spew out nonsense that Leo couldn't understand?

Leo thought that he needed to take charge and sort out the situation. Somehow, he had a feeling that the Squatjaw was constantly trying to change the topic.

So, he again circled back to the duel.

"So? Can we do it now? Then hurry up, and…"

"Oh, sorry, sorry. One more thing."

Squatjaw raised up a finger as he dithered once again.

To be honest, Leo couldn't help but be frustrated.

Did this guy really have to talk like this?

"Do you want to fight or not?"

"Sure, sure. I just have one last question for you."

"What is it?"

Then, with a small smile,

"The goblins. How were they?"

"What?"

"How were my goblins? Did you meet them?"

Again, he was asking something strange.

"Your goblins? So you're saying that all those Squatjaws are really your subordinates?"

"Well… you can think that way. Did you have fun with them?"

Fun? Those bastards had been the worst! They literally couldn't open their mouths without telling one lie or another. Leo was exhausted dealing with their nonstop schemes and trickery.

"Do you know how much I've suffered because of those bastards?! Forget about being let off easy, Squatjaw!"

And in response,

"Have you? But that's just how goblins always are. Mischief, lies, whimsy, bluffs, sabotage… that's what they live for."

Squatjaw chuckled and gave a satisfied smile.

"And… did you know?"

"Huh?"

"I’m a goblin too."

"… Eh?"

"And those two little kids… should've escaped and erased their traces by now. So you can only deal with me."

"No, what're you even talking about…."

Squatjaw pulled out a shabby piece of cloth from his arms, ignoring Leo's confused protests.

"Sorry. The bet on the treasure was a lie."

"… You…"

"I've got a goblin silver screen on me, remember? Now, if you pull it inside out like this…"

At that moment,

Rustle–.

Squatjaw disappeared.

"What… wait, what!?"

Leo, who'd become completely confused, heard Squatjaw's parting words carried by the wind.

"Catch me if you can."

"Huff…"

I stopped to catch my breath.

How much longer? Maybe five more minutes?

Haka had promised to harry them from the shadows, so he might be able to earn that much additional leeway for me.

I quickly checked the time.

Two in the afternoon.

About an hour or so had passed since I ran away from Leo.

By now, Chinuavi and Cocoa should've met up with the goblins to deliver my orders.

Although, I didn't ask for anything special.

The goblins who had nothing to do, the goblins who were bored, and the goblins who felt a little disappointed for some reason or other… they could follow me to ‘Gibrante', a city in the north.

Naturally, I didn't expect many to follow my advice.

And, even if they did, I didn't have any grandiose plans for them.

I was just aiming at messing up the plotline as much as possible. The more goblins appeared, the more tangled the plot would inevitably become.

Since all my original plans had been destroyed, why should I hold the Ramirez and be chased to my death?

I, too, wanted to live.

Until just yesterday afternoon, I had no idea that my strategy for this scramble arc was so off the mark. Sure, I'd weakened much more than expected, and to win by showcacsing my brute forcee was now almost impossible, but still, the overall picture hadn't changed that much – or so I'd thought.

But that evening,

"Looks like I’m totally done for."

A single look at the ‘Assassin Society' that'd finally entered the city had made me realize how easy I'd been taking it.

Haka's explanation had been insufficient.

The people in the Assassic Society – or more specifially the guildmaster, Groniyan, was a monster far beyond my expectations.

A middle-aged man trudging at the front, wearing a black uniform.

Unlike Yan, his majestic body and thick beard made me think of a bandit at first glance, but the cool light shining from his eyes had the sharpness of a well-forged sword.

Each of his measured step made the whole mountain quake.

"Who is that? Some kind of Demon King?"

It was no any exaggeration. Even that Karl Zayed, whose weakness had not yet been revealed, didn't seem likely to win.

That momentum, that sense of intimidation –

Maybe the Seven Kings, if they existed right now, wouldn't feel any stronger?

Of course, he couldn't actually be at that level. No matter for how long a character had been planned in advance, even the author would find it difficult to drop somebody that strong suddenly in the middle of the plot without any foreshadowing. Also, since I was weaker than before, it was reasonable that my opponents would feel stronger.

But at least, it was clear that he was stronger than I was right now.

It wasn't common in shounen manga for a guy who ‘looked strong' to be actually weak.

I felt like somebody had whacked me on the head with a bat. This guy's very existence invalidated the foundations of my plan.

It'd been a big mistake to think that the author, knowing that I'd brought the goblins out of the Goblins' Den, would just watch silently.

‘This is a plan to totally bury me…'

In both senses of the word.

1. To bury all my past achievements under his shadow.

2. To actually bury me six feet under.

If you think about it, it was a very simple matter.

Even if the author didn't have any ill feelings towards me, the new character he introduced out of the blue, Groniyan, needed some kind of an ‘epic performance' to shine properly on this stage.

How would an author showcase a new monster?

Simple. By having him defeat a worthy opponent.

Karl Zayed? Leo?

I shook my head. No way.

There was only one enemy suitable for that guy.

Exactly. Me.

In fact, it was a natural progression of the storyline. So far, I'd been the one to stand out the most in this arc, and in the first place, the setting itself was that I was the primary target.

I now had a vague understanding of why Karl Zayed had come here.

Wasn't it because of that Groniyan too? Because in this situation another monster would be needed to balance the plot, and stop it from going haywire.

Of course, it was just a guess.

I couldn't help but feel troubled.

Now what should I do?

To confront him right away would be, well, crazy.

Even if the goblins and all of Haka's men cooperated. Such a strong guy didn't come here alone, exactly to deal with such circumstances.

The dilemma seemed impossible to solve.

‘… My only option is to run away.'

Sorry, but I had no choice but to run now and plan for the future.

But even that wasn't as easy as it sounded.

Because there was at least one goal that I had to achieve before I could run.

To properly end the ongoing chapter.

It wasn't hard to simply run away. I could just quietly vanish.

But if that happened, all that I'd earned in this chapter till now might vanish too.

For example, what if the chapter went off-track in my absence? What if Groniyan, without an opponent to fight against, eventually turned to Karl Zayed; and the two of them had a fight?

All I'd done so far would be quickly overshadowed and lose its impact.

And if that happened, the post-chapter rewards would also naturally decrease significantly. Because the readers wouldn't remember any of it.

And once the chapter rewards were reduced, I'd really become helpless.

Unlike the others, I had a system that let me level up my character.

And the currency for that was earned through the post-chapter reward settlements.

In a situation where people stronger than me were coming up on stage one after another, if I missed the rewards? If all my earnings vanished in a puff of smoke?

My future would only become more and more bleak.

Therefore, even if I decided to run away, I had to finish this chapter first.

In a way that didn't harm my image.

It was honestly a pain in the ass.

"… This is killing me."

In fact, wasn’t there a way to quickly end this chapter?

Based on as a very simple, yet very clear observation.

Just grab the Ramirez and get out of this Clone City.

If my guess was correct, this chapter's ‘realm' was probably limited to Clone City.

My logic was simple. There was no reason for Karl Zayed to appear here otherwise.

I'd been thinking about this since the moment he’d arrived here.

Besides, even Groniyan came here.

Obviously, there was something to be concluded in this city.

That said, although I didn't know exactly what the author’s plan was by bringing Groniyan here, as long as he didn’t succeed, the ‘preceding plot’ would inevitably become twisted.

In such a situation the author would eventually be forced to end the chapter. To stop the plotline from twisting out of his control.

Of course, this was only a guess, and leaving the city didn’t guarantee that the chapter would end immediately. In fact, even in the original, this chapter had ended in Buckingham, not here.

But what if one more condition was added?

The most important part of finishing a chapter was convincing the reader that the story told in the chapter had come to a natural end.

In other words, before the new narrative centred around Groniyan began to build up, I had to clearly remind them that the most important material of this chapter was ‘I' and the ‘Ramirez'; and the goal of everybody here was to chase me and my treasure. What if I just left the city after?

Wouldn’t that… end the chapter?

So, I was repeating my shoddy escape plan.

My scheme was simple.

1. Keep running away while Leo, the current leading point of view, was following behind.

2. Wander all over Clone City along the way and catch people's attention.

3. Find a place where everyone was paying attention to me, and declare. That there was nothing more to do in this city, and I’d be moving on to the next stage. If they wanted to catch up, or if they wanted Ramirez, then just follow.

The problem was at the second step.

Running all over the city, catching everybody’s attention.

‘Everybody' here naturally also included Karl Zayed and Groniyan.

In other words, while running away from Leo, I had to go find them and draw their attention.

This might even be the very thing the author wanted. To go up to those monsters on my own two feet.

But there was no other way. All I could do was risk my life and just run.

At that moment,

"Squatjaw!!!"

Leo, who’d been following after me, suddenly shouted from a distance.

He had to carry Tanya while chasing after me, but his stamina still seemed full.

"Stand there! Don't run away!"

"… Haah."

Why would I listen?

I was getting ready to run again, but –

Beep–.

Suddenly, the hologram turned red, and a warning message popped up.

[Warning!]

[Intention to violate plausibility has been detected]

[Acts are prohibited by the preceding plot]

[Movement is restricted for 2 minutes as a cumulative penalty]

[The author's favourability decreases by 10.]

[Character level decreased slightly]

[Are you sure you want to bypass the sanctions?]

– Remaining chances: 2

Again?

‘I'm really dying here.'

I quickly used a veto.

Apparently, just using the veto for an action once didn’t mean the sanction of the precedent plot would go away permanently.

Currently, running away from Leo was a sanctioned act, but the warnings didn’t stop after the first time. They’d been popping up at a regular schedule.

Now I only had two vetoes left.

Of course, in addition to the vetoes, I also had two ‘rights to ignore sanctions', but they felt too precious to waste here. Was this the sunk cost fallacy?

Anyway,

"Slow down, you bastard!"

I started running again.

Now that I’d had enough rest, it was time to draw the attention of the ‘monsters’.

"Haha… phew, this is tough."

When Karl Zayed saw Squatjaw appear in front of him, he felt embarrassment, anger, and then wonder.

The embarrassment was from how he literally ‘appeared’ out of thin air. And how heavy the man was breathing, as if exhausted, didn’t help either.

Anger came next, because –

"You bastard…… it really is you."

"Hey, long time no see, huh?"

“… I was planning to go find you.”

"It doesn’t matter who stays and who goes, right?"

"Are you ready? Ready to die."

"Oh? That might not work."

– He thought a prank was being played on him.

On him! On Karl Zayed!

Even though he’d lost once, it’d been a mere coincidence. He was confident that he’d never lose against the man ever again.

But immediately after that, came puzzlement.

"What are you doing?"

Because the man didn't seem to really want to fight him.

Instead, Squatjaw was just looking at him and smiling.

It was a smile the didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason behind it.

"Are you going to fight me?"

"Naturally."

"What about the treasure?"

"That’ll be mine, too."

"Hmm, is that so?"

Then, after a quick spell of silence, Squatjaw let out a few words.

"In that case, you…"

And made all Karl Zayed’s doubts and puzzlement turn into a pure intent to kill.

"Catch me if you can."

Editor's Notes:

None for this chapter.

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