Matsuda Jinpei looked toward Ichijō Mirai, silently releasing the message: Obey.
He, along with the other two students who had moved over silently, looked at Ichijō Mirai, waiting for the commander's orders.
After a few moments of silence, as if in thought, the commander spoke an important piece of information, "There is an accomplice of the robbers among the hostages."
...What?
There's a difference between a hostage-taker disguised as a hostage and a hostage-taker not disguised as a hostage, because the former means that you can be shot in the back while you're concentrating on protecting the hostage.
Matsuda Jinpei's expression became serious, "Which one?"
He didn't ask how Ichijō Mirai knew this piece of information, whether it was a guess, how sure he was, how much of an impact a wrong guess would have on the hostages' protection, whether he knew which one was the robber, only who.
Furuya Rei and Date Wataru didn't ask any other questions either, looking at Ichijō Mirai.
"When I came to see Date-san, I observed the convenience store out of professional instinct," Ichijō Mirai glanced at his classmates, who had no need for an explanation at all, and paused before adding an explanation that no one cared about.
"There were fourteen people in the convenience store at the time, eight of them women, two older, in their forties or fifties, in the housewares section, three younger, appearing to be in their early twenties, in the kitchenwares section, and three, also younger, in the snacks section."
"None of the women were looking up, looking around, looking at the merchandise or chatting with their companions."
"There were six males, one young man, appearing to be in his thirties at the most, traveling with one of the females and carrying a small child of three or four years of age."
That's two men.
"And another, Date-san." Ichijō Mirai said, "Three of them are middle-aged, one appears to be an otaku, his shirt appears to have been hung up and put back on several times, with a lot of wrinkles, and he shops a lot, and he subconsciously avoids the other customers, but doesn't have the behavior of hoping to look around."
"One was dressed in a suit, checking out drinks, answered a phone call on the way, suspected to be preparing supplies for a dinner party."
"The last one, dressed in casual clothes and wearing a black hat, looks a bit like an early office worker, picking out his dinner near the front door, hesitating between yakisoba and bento, looking up from time to time to observe the others, which, given Neon's overtime rate and the early hour, I'm skeptical of out of personal courtesy."
"It's not too early, is it? It's only seven o'clock?" Matsuda Jinpei responded, "Wait a minute, it's a little early to get off work after seven."
"...How do you remember so much?!"
It was nothing that any police officer with basic skills and a purposeful investigation could quickly obtain almost the same information after observing the area for a minute or two.
But Ichijō Mirai wasn't observing purposefully, he was observing in passing while looking for the Date Wataru, not realizing that a robbery was about to take place.
That's scary.
Ichijō Mirai explains the main point: "When I was passing by, I saw an unidentified bulge in his back, so it's likely that he was carrying a gun."
"Be careful with your personal safety when you move, but it's okay to wade through the mines if you don't," He smiled.
He smiled a little, "need special reminder, their guns are not police guns, suspected to be undesirable guns, likely to find a crooked collimator, too heavy, have a kind of rust illusion and other problems, we can overcome it, right?"
And carefully said: "Our actions must be careful... ah, just in case, in advance, I am referring to you."
"We must be careful in our actions, we must protect the twelve hostages, especially since there are children among them, and we must have a well thought out plan of action, so, I propose,"
The tone of his voice was deliberate, and what he said was crucial, all three students listened gravely, and couldn't help but hold their breath as they listened to what they should do next.
They heard Ichijō Mirai inquire, "Why don't we get some sugar?"
...Huh?
"???" ⨉3.
A distinct question mark pops up, and Furuya Rei subconsciously asks, "What?"
Date Wataru repeats in confusion, "Sugar?"
Only Matsuda Jinpei reacted, his face almost turning green, "...You're doing it again!"
"Making a bomb," He explains in a grumpy voice, "You don't want to make a bomb and blow up a convenience store, do you?!"
Not so much, really not so much, it can't be that in order to prevent the hostages from being harmed by the robbers, they would just go straight to the bomb and let the hostages be blown up in advance, right?
"The materials can basically be found at convenience stores," Ichijō Mirai regretted giving up on persecuting his classmates, "You can make smaller bombs, the kind that only make a sound and don't blow up more than a few centimeters,"
"To attract their attention."
He looks around at his classmates and picks the lucky one. "You, Matsuda."
Reason number one: "You've gotten good at it."
Reason 2: "It's okay if you accidentally lose control and get blown up, it's just a blast, you can't feel it."
Matsuda Jinpei: "???"
What do you mean, 'can't feel it!' He's not a tin man!
Before he could react and protest, Ichijō Mirai was already planning another operation, "Date-san will take care of the hostage-takers, and you'll go deeper into the hostages, so make sure to calm them down and don't let them run away."
It's a bit confusing and annoying.
He's willing to change his tune to, "It may be dangerous."
Why Date Wataru?
Because: "If you can't calm them down as a police cadet, be tough, say you're a robber, kill anyone who moves, and they'll calm down."
Date Wataru's words were very convincing to the panicked hostages.
Date Wataru: "...Okay."
Ichijō Mirai casually scratches out an invisible map on the ground, "The layout in front of the convenience store looks like this, in fact, the entrance is always guarded, there are three people here, tentatively three pistols, and two people here, tentatively one pistol and one shotgun,"
"Here, there are two people who are always guarding the hostages, and there are scattered robbers moving around,"
"Furuya-san take care of the two robbers closest to the crowd and the scattered robbers, is that okay? Morofushi-san is in the crowd and can assist you,"
"Kenji-san will assist me with the other robbers, and Matsuda-san will take care of the others,"
"Does anyone have any questions? If not, then it's ok," he didn't even pause for a second before he set the plan of action, and finally emphasized, "This operation of the robbers is most likely a drill, a drill for robbing a large shopping mall or a bank, and we have to take care of all of them here,"
"Date-san,"
Ichijō Mirai clapped his hand on Date Wataru's shoulder, shook his fist, and said seriously with a personalized serious gamer attitude over the plot, "Your father may not necessarily be a qualified father, but he must be a very qualified police officer."
Date Wataru was stunned, "What?"
"By traveling with his children during non-working hours and reporting to the police when he encounters a robber," Says Ichijō Mirai, "he is sure to be retaliated against if he is caught calling the police on the sly, and since you are present, he is in a sense even giving up a certain amount of his own safety and a portion of yours to protect the lives of all the hostages in the convenience store."
For someone who is not a member of the police force, 'giving up one's own safety to protect others' is something that is somewhat difficult to understand, and 'committing a dangerous, potentially provocative act in the presence of a young biological child' is even more difficult to comprehend.
It's a behavior that goes against human instincts and will never be understood by some.
But for a qualified police officer, this is not a decision that requires careful deliberation, placing 'hostages' and 'oneself and one's children' on opposite ends of the scale, weighing them with clenched teeth for a long period of time, and then being able to make a decision, but rather a straightforward decision that is made without thinking.
There are few qualified police officers in this world.
Date Wataru is one, and Date Wataru's father is another.
Ichijō Mirai said, "You may have misunderstood your father."
"I've read your file, and it says about your father that he called the police the first time he encountered the robbers, and followed the police's command to choose to hibernate and disguise himself as an ordinary resident, waiting for a strike from the inside to take down the robbers."
He looked at Date Wataru's dismayed expression, "He was not a coward, but just like you now, the robbers were out there and instead of rushing out to subdue them, you were willing to take the time to listen to my plan."
"Your father was like you, making choices to improve the survival rate of the hostages."
Date Wataru: "..."
"Me, my file?" He barely calmed down, understanding Ichijō Mirai's words, "Then..."
Ichijō Mirai: "Some of these choices, some of them are bad for him, some of them are bad for his children, but for the hostages, they are relatively favorable,"
"He must be a competent police officer, but not necessarily a competent father."
He paused, his eyes fixed on Date Wataru's expression as he struggled to digest and subconsciously tried to defend his father, and smiled a little, "...aAd by the look on your face, you seem to think that he's a competent father as well."
Date Wataru was angry and resentful towards her beloved father when she thought that he was a qualified father who would protect his children, but not a qualified police officer who would prioritize the protection of the public.
Date Wataru's eyes light up when she realizes that her father is a qualified police officer, and that he had even invariably prioritized the people over his own children, more or less unqualifiedly.
Interesting.
Ichijō Mirai laughed, released his hand from Date Wataru's full grip, and gave the other two students a silent high-five, "Every once in a while, I still think that the 'police' are the most incredible profession in the human race."
It's a profession that needs light, and once that light is gone, the profession takes on a different meaning.
And the light is hard to light, but easy to extinguish.
So fragile, 'police' is probably the most extinct profession.
However, it has survived to this day, and even if it's only a little bit weak like a star, it can still be easily transmitted to others, and like human kindling, it spreads throughout history, lighting up a bright star river.