Hakata’s outwardly ordinary city life conceals a crowded market for professional killing. Detectives, information brokers and revenge specialists work beside the assassins, while a rumour circulates about someone who kills the killers. Private investigator Banba and the hitman Lin become entangled in jobs that make it difficult to tell an enemy from a useful ally.
The first cases put several kinds of paid work on the same map. A rookie at a contract-killing company is demoted to Hakata, Banba investigates a detective’s apparent suicide, and Lin argues with an employer about money. When Lin is sent after Banba, refusing the job can become a way to strike back at the person issuing it.
Lin’s phone call places a familiar piece of working life inside the story’s violent economy. Someone can give an assignment, demand payment or decide a target without being in the same room. Protecting Banba instead of killing him changes more than a single encounter: it turns the link between an employer and an assassin into a relationship that can break down.
