Kisara followed suit, proudly puffing out her chest, closing her eyes, and putting a hand on her chest. “The gangster, Al Capone, also hired the person trying to kill him as a bodyguard, didn’t he? I think I have the capacity to do that, as well.”
Rentaro froze with his mouth gaping slightly open. Then, the girl who had almost killed everyone in the agency stepped forward bashfully. “I will be in the care of the Tendo Civil Security Agency starting today. I look forward to working with you, Rentaro.”
She bowed once happily.
Rentaro leaned back on the sofa in disgust and exhaustion until the sofa almost tipped over. Looking at the ceiling, he sighed deeply. It was a strange twist of fate, and there was the saying that even chance meetings were preordained—
But don’t blame me if anything happens, Rentaro complained to himself.
At any rate, it looked like the office was going to get noisy.
• Enju Aihara Gastrea virus corrosion rate: 43.0 percent
• Estimated time to functional collapse: 560 days
AFTERWORD
The entities called novelists all more or less have something called escape material. Escape material is the mental catalyst used as an exodus from the physical world full of fetters to the mental world used by an author who’s backed against a wall by an approaching deadline.
What Kanzaki, the author, often uses is the thing where, if you gather seven Dragon Balls, you can make a wish to Shen Long. The list of things to wish for is never ending—eternal youth and longevity, the underwear of a high school girl, the publishing company exploding—but in the end, he narrows it down to the conservative wishes like being able to write three times faster. However, when he’s done, he doesn’t have an answer; trying to come up with one is the fun part.
When I was writing this book, the schedule was crazy, and I depended a lot on escape material. An author who wishes passionately for Shen Long to appear while staring into space, sitting in the chair at a diner even though the manuscript is due the next day is, conservatively speaking, pretty hopeless.
One day, in a half-groggy state with tired eyes, I said, “Kurosaki, will you help me think of wishes?” trying to pull my editor into the completely unproductive Shen Long space.
But he responded saying, “Okay, once you’ve successfully finished everything on time, let’s think about it together!” pretending to help me up but actually throwing me into hell. Just thinking about how good his retorts were makes me wet my pillow with tears.
This book was created by the aforementioned author and editor.
Also, this book isn’t Black Bulled, it’s Black Bullet. Please make sure you annunciate clearly. If you say “bulled,” fast and slurred, it can start to sound like “black bread.” But I guess that’s okay, too. Bread made with brown sugar to look black is superdelicious.
Now, I’ll be a little more serious. I’d like to thank my editor, Mr. Kurosaki, whom I am always indebted to; Saki Ukai, who drew the beautiful illustrations; everyone at the publishing company; and everyone else who was involved in creating this book.
And finally, to the readers. I still have a lot of ideas in my head, so please keep looking out for this series.
Thank you very much for buying this book.
I pray that all of my readers will be blessed.
Shiden Kanzaki
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Contents
Cover
Insert
Title Page
Prologue: The Mineworkers
Chapter 01: Varanium War
Chapter 02: Tina Sprout
Chapter 03: The Courage to Be Imperfect
Chapter 04: Against a Perfect Sniper
Epilogue: The Place I Call Home
Afterword
Yen Newsletter
Copyright
Copyright
BLACK BULLET, Volume 2
SHIDEN KANZAKI
Cover art by Saki Ukai
Translation by Nita Lieu
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
BLACK BULLET, Volume 2
©SHIDEN KANZAKI 2011
All rights reserved.
Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS
First published in Japan in 2011 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
English translation © 2015 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
First ebook edition: December 2015
ISBN 978-0-316-34496-8
E3
Against a Perfect Sniper Page 21
