Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 169: Girl with Sandalwood Scent (1)

Dragon Raja 3

As night fell, Caesar finally arrived in Chizuru Town. He parked his motorcycle by the roadside and looked around. To the north, where the factories clustered, was Saitama Prefecture; to the south was the brightly lit, high-rise district of Shinjuku. This small town sat on the border between Tokyo and Saitama. The streets were gradually becoming lively as people finished work. A still-graceful proprietress stood at her door greeting regular customers, while fishmongers and fruit vendors set up their stalls. The street was filled with the warm aroma of takoyaki and oden. Caesar flared his nostrils, inhaling the comforting street smells, feeling as if he had returned to the land of the living.

His cigarette pack held only one last cigarette. Lighting it up, Caesar leaned on his trusty Suzuki RM250 dirt bike, taking a deep drag before tossing the empty pack into the wind. Throughout his journey, he had relied on cigarettes to stay alert, smoking sparingly, only half a cigarette at a time to ward off sleep. Squatting on the side of the highway to smoke had been a rare experience for him.

Now that he had reached his destination, there was no need to conserve. He smoked deeply, enjoying the view of the girls passing by on the street. It felt good, even though none of them were real beauties. To a man who had just escaped death, even the bowlegged girls seemed alluring. Simply being alive felt great.

He had only taken a couple of drags when someone knocked heavily on his bike. Caesar turned his head and saw it was an elderly lady passing by. She scowled, pointed at his cigarette, then at the empty cigarette pack rolling on the ground in the wind. Sheepishly, Caesar walked over, picked up the pack, threw it into the nearest recycling bin, and snuffed out his cigarette. Once upon a time, not only could he smoke wherever he wanted, he could even flick ash into a waiter’s hand and receive a smile in return, with the waiter’s face expressing, “Young master, your cigarette ash has warmed my heart.” But now, here he was, forced to stop littering by a stern-faced old woman. Still, out of habit, he smiled politely and nodded, signaling that he fully respected her anti-smoking stance.

This was the code of conduct for a true gentleman. A gentleman’s grace wasn’t only shown to socialites but to all women, without exception. If you left a five-star hotel in Monte Carlo to bathe in the sunlight, and a ragged old beggar woman came up to you asking for money, you should never show disdain or wave her off. Instead, you should promptly hand her a decent sum of money with impeccable politeness. After all, today’s old beggar might once have been a famous beauty in Monte Carlo, and today’s bucktoothed girl might one day be a stunning enchantress like Cleopatra. A true gentleman respects beauty, and for them, all women deserve respect.

Just as Caesar turned away, he felt a tug on his sleeve. Looking back, he saw it was the same old woman. Caesar smiled his brightest smile, thinking, I’ve already put out my cigarette, what more could she want? The old woman rummaged in her shopping bag and handed him a loaf of bread. She patted his hand, her face showing both pity and disappointment, then pulled out a carton of yogurt and gave it to him as well. Caesar blinked in surprise, watching the old woman’s hunched back recede into the distance. He turned to look at himself in the bike’s rearview mirror. From his neck to his face, he was covered in soot, and his hair was matted and filthy, clumped together from the cold wind. He even had a bit of snot running down his nose… Without his sea-blue eyes, he might not have recognized himself.

Feeling somewhat melancholic, Caesar tore open the bread packaging and took a big bite.

He hadn’t eaten all day.

He had woken up the previous evening, lying among fish in the hold of a fishing boat, with the sunset’s orange light casting a glow on the western horizon.

The captain, who could speak a little English, had explained that they had found Caesar while deep-sea fishing far from shore. When they pulled him aboard, he was wearing an inflatable life jacket, a belt holding a Desert Eagle and “Dictator” attached to his waist… but otherwise, he was stark naked. Caesar cringed at the memory and briefly considered diving back into the sea. Thinking quickly, he invented a story about a shipwreck, claiming he had been the security guard aboard a luxury cruise liner and was knocked overboard while fighting off a thief. As for being naked, well, he had been sleeping nude when the incident occurred. His extensive knowledge of seafaring matters lent credibility to his tale, and the captain eventually believed him to be a shipwrecked sailor—congratulating him on his impressive physique.

The captain told Caesar that the fishing boat was heading for Nagasaki Port and that once they arrived, he would help Caesar find the police, who would soon be able to contact the cruise liner. The word “police” jolted Caesar into remembering a serious problem… He was Japan’s most wanted man, the top target of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police after illegally entering the country and battling the entire Gunma Prefecture police force. Going to the police station was out of the question.

With no other choice, Caesar stole back his weapons when the fishing boat approached the coast and, once again, jumped into the sea. Relying on his exceptional swimming skills, he fought the waves for three hours, finally reaching shore, exhausted.

At this point, two more harsh realities struck him—he didn’t speak Japanese, and he had no money.

The Gattuso family heir had never been in such a desperate situation before. There was once no place in the world he couldn’t go. Wherever he arrived, he would simply check into the most luxurious hotel, flash his black card, and wait for people to fawn over him. But now, hunger gnawed at him so badly that he seriously considered robbing a convenience store for a loaf of bread.

The only valuable item left on him was the rose gold diving watch on his wrist. Though water had seeped in during the disintegration of the Trieste in the deep sea, making it stop working, the rose gold casing was still worth quite a bit. Caesar traded the watch to a local thug in exchange for a broken-down motorcycle and a leather jacket. The pack of cheap cigarettes had been a bonus.

Riding from Kanagawa Prefecture to Chizuru Town had taken him most of the day. Unable to read the Japanese road signs, he had taken many wrong turns and been buffeted by the wind until he was covered in dirt.

He was looking for an internet café—Cassell College’s only safe harbor in Japan.

A “safe harbor” wasn’t a literal port but a secret refuge. The college had established hundreds of safe harbors worldwide, managed by local individuals who were paid by the college. While these safe harbors were sometimes used to transfer sensitive goods, they were mostly idle. When agents faced danger abroad, they could take refuge in one of these harbors. The harbor would buy them precious time, during which Norma could mobilize resources for a rescue.

Before coming to Japan, Norma had prepared special “Field Manuals” for all three of them, detailing various things they should be aware of while in Japan, including the location of this safe harbor. It was set up in a “manga internet café,” a place where people could read manga and browse the internet.

Turning the corner, Caesar stood amidst a curtain of pink-purple light. Neon signs, several stories high, seemed to brush the night sky, with the pink-purple glow forming the name of the shop, “Mambo.”