The Visitor

Lee Hee-yeon faltered.

He wouldn't have noticed. It had lasted only an instant; she told herself that was enough for it to pass unseen.

She checked the entry that had just gone into the database.

The system was set to skim ten percent automatically, which put the points Chowol had actually earned at a little over one hundred and seventy. She cut a glance at the next Awakened coming in from a distance and turned it over in her head.

Ten points a minute. Five goblins a minute. Possible? It was possible.

But for an unarmed Awakened with nothing on him but some strange wooden doll?

Impossible.

Lee Hee-yeon picked up her phone.

The state does not access an Awakened's personal information. No — that isn't it. More precisely, it does not interfere.

There is no nation indifferent to what the Awakened are. Indifference would be the strange thing. This was a world in which missing the quota wiped out ten percent of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the population. Believing the state would do nothing but garnish its ten percent of the points, scraping along like a beggar, was naive past the point of folly.

At the low voice, Lee Hee-yeon nodded.

"Yes."

That was true. A premature approach by the state bred side effects more often than not. You waited until they had the confidence to protect themselves, and only then drew near; it was the only way to dull the hostility. Know-how worn smooth by long experience — solid enough that even China and Russia, control-mad as they were, abided by it.

"Shall we flag him as a person of interest and watch?"

The voice cut out for a moment. When it returned, it was harder than before.

Ninety-seven points left.

I looked the listings over, and nothing appealed — no item, no skill. Buying that cursed wooden doll, as it turned out, had been a stroke of luck. Cursed items had a fair amount of demand. There was even a team that studied them, or so I'd heard.

I came home. With Mana Thread I hauled my body up out of the slump it had fallen into in the rocking chair. Ahead of me the sunset was already on its last light. Day was going, and night coming on.

"...I'm dizzy."

From using too much magic. That was true. But there was a larger reason.

"Just how many living things are there?"

The country house stood in the middle of the woods, and the woods around it were packed solid with life. Things I would never have sensed on my own crowded into my head through the Detection skill, not one of them left out. There were so many that the black board vanished entirely under the dots.

This wouldn't do.

I tried to shut Detection off, and even that was harder than I'd thought. The reason was simple. Ordinarily the skill would have climbed slowly, meshing gear by gear with an Awakened's awareness until the body simply learned it. In my case it had shot to maximum in a single breath. Adapting on the spot would have been the strange outcome.

"...Ngh."

Getting used to the skill took far longer than I'd expected. Harder, even, than the attack skills. Fireball I could govern by instinct, because I could see it. Detection I could not see at all. Switching off the recognition strung between mind and sense was a problem of an entirely different order from flipping a light switch.

I slumped. Only around the time the gloom at the window began to pale did I finally manage to kill the noise in my head. That, at least, was a mercy. The reeling emptiness from when I'd first come back down from the Tower was gone. Now it felt, more or less, as if I held some measure of control over Detection.

I lay down on the bed as I was and slept like a dead man.

Bzzzz.

The vibration dragged my eyes open. I turned my head with mana thread. My phone sat on the table beside the bed. Lee Hee-ja's phone.

Bzzzzzt.

The caller was Woo Mun-ryong. Someone I knew. With ryong — dragon — in the name, it looked exactly like a Chinese name. Whether it actually was, I couldn't say. At least he spoke like a Korean.

I hadn't picked up, but I wasn't worried. Lee Hee-ja never answers her phone. She hadn't, for eight straight years. Lazy by nature, and born hating anything that took effort. If you wanted something from her, you left a text or a voice message.

Buzz.

Sure enough, the same as always. A voice message. No need to reach; I traced the unlock pattern with mana thread. Convenient, at times like this.

A voice followed. A man's, rough in the throat.

A voice I'd heard often. Lee Hee-ja's handler up the line, Woo Mun-ryong. Gutter talk was his signature.

I didn't answer. This time a long message came through.

Bad news. I checked the time. Ten in the morning. I didn't think I'd slept even six hours.

I typed with mana thread — blunt, doing as I pleased, nothing but the point. Rude, on the face of it. But that was how Lee Hee-ja talked. Eight years of watching her had taught me as much.

The mana thread paused. Bad news.

Team Leader Kim, as far as I knew, was an Awakened.

Everyone has a history. A past, in other words.

I learned it later, but my uncle, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Lee Tae-sik, had started out as a local gangster. Woo Mun-ryong was a thug who'd worked under him. Filthy at the root and lowborn with it, so they never trusted him with anything that mattered. In the end he was handed the job of handling me. Him and Lee Hee-ja.

Director Park and Team Leader Kim, the ones coming tomorrow, sat higher than that. Elites who did the Group's real work. I remembered how Lee Hee-ja used to grovel every time they called.

...But why are they suddenly coming?

If my memory was right, Executive Director Park — Park Gwang-soo — hadn't set foot here once in the past two years. So why, of all the cursed times, now? I barely had the hours to spare for the Tower as it was.

In point of fact Lee Hee-ja is stupid and lazy. Curt, just like that.

The typing indicator came up. I waited.

...So it was the shares.

A matter of the company my father had run.

Culling. For a human being. Just as I'd thought. To them, I was nothing but meat.

I hit send and set the phone down. Tension crushing in on my skull, and fear under it.

Running was not an option. Hobble off in this wreck of a body and I wouldn't get far before they dragged me back. Killing them was the more realistic path.

Three, by my count. Executive Director Park Gwang-soo, Team Leader Kim Nam-gook, and someone from legal whose face I didn't know.

Legal was likely a blank — no awakening at all. Team Leader Kim Nam-gook was a confirmed Awakened. On Executive Director Park Gwang-soo, I had nothing.

I'd slipped it in. No way to confirm. I ran the simulation over and over until the arithmetic settled.

First target, Team Leader Kim Nam-gook. You deal with the confirmed Awakened first. That stands to reason. Next, Executive Director Park Gwang-soo. If he isn't an Awakened, he's an easy kill. If he is, I stake my life. The one from legal won't matter either way. I can take my time with them.

And once the arithmetic was finished, revulsion climbed up through my chest.

Is it all right to kill?

A laughable thought. But not only laughable.

Sixteen. My world had stopped, in truth, at a ninth-grader's. A television screen and Lee Hee-ja's hopelessly twisted view of life — that had been the whole of living.

For someone like me, killing a person is no simple matter. Could I really do it. Burn a human being to death the way I'd burned the goblins in the Tower.

In order to survive.

A gleaming car ran the mountain road. In the seat of honor sat a man of cold, shut features, his hair combed neatly down, blinking at the window as if the whole view bored him.

"Director, we're nearly there."

The voice came from the passenger seat. Executive Director Park Gwang-soo did not so much as turn his head. The man went on.

"You really didn't have to make the trip yourself, sir, busy as you are. And with company business so heavy..."

Park Gwang-soo tapped a finger against his thigh. Company business was heavy. That much was true. The firm was in upheaval. Vice Chairman Choi Han-sung needed shares, and so he had reached a hand out to Lee Tae-sik.

Lee Tae-sik. A thug who had made a tool even of his own younger brother's misfortune. And yet Park Gwang-soo liked him for precisely that. It was his nature. He could not bear men who pretended at refinement.

"I'll have to see it for myself."

It had to be established that Lee Tae-sik was properly supporting that cripple, and the man at the wheel would be the means of it. Some nobody called over from Taesung Group's legal team — a new hire who knew nothing, naive to the point of stupidity.

"Nice scenery. Build a house out here and live in it, and you'd have it made... haha."

He wouldn't notice anything wrong. Not while he was laughing over drivel like that.

"You're quite right. When I'm older, I rather think I'd like to grow old quietly somewhere like this myself."

Empty nonsense, offered because the moment asked for it. He didn't mean a word. At some point the talk died. It always did. What conversation is there, really, between men shut in a car.

The vehicle climbed the hill. The engine grew loud, and then the navigation ended. The idiot from legal startled.

"Wait — is there even a house out here?"

The corner of Park Gwang-soo's mouth lifted. In the passenger seat, Team Leader Kim Nam-gook put a hand up at once.

"Take the hill path on the right. It's unpaved, so go carefully."

"Th-that way...?"

"Yes."

"Why isn't it on the nav?"

"Private land. The owner never bothered to register it, I imagine."

The car crested the hill. The view opened, and the road widened enough to breathe. A sigh of relief slipped out of the legal associate.

"Whew. I'll live."

The car ran on along the narrow track. Before long a broad clearing appeared, and a detached house with it. The three of them parked and walked toward the place.

"Lovely view, good air, and the house looks enormous. Someone's put real care into this."

"Senior Advisor Lee Tae-sik has been exceptionally attentive. Eight years since the accident, and he still hasn't let go of the hope that his nephew will wake."

"The Advisor really is remarkable. Entrusted with eighteen percent of the shares, and still he keeps to an advisory seat that has nothing to do with running the company."

That's because he hasn't got the capacity, you idiot.

Sneering at the man where no one could see it, Park Gwang-soo smiled thin and took the lead.

They crossed the yard. A faint smell of burning hung on the air. Lee Hee-ja must have set something alight.

Stupid woman. What were you going to do if you started a fire.

Blaming her in silence, Park Gwang-soo reached for the doorbell and stopped. His eyes went down. The door stood open.

Creeeak.

He opened the front door, took off his shoes, and went straight to the leftmost room off the hall. It had been a long time. A counterfeit room, built for a loathsome piece of theater.

He opened the door.

Beep. Beep.

A foul smell drifted out, disinfectant tangled with the staleness of an old house. Park Gwang-soo fought down the urge to cover his nose and tipped his head, puzzled.

Lee Hee-ja, who ought to have come fawning out to meet them already, was nowhere in sight.

He turned his head. On the bed was a young man, his back raised on a slant.

Lee Han-sung. The man's eyes rested on Park Gwang-soo's, quiet and level. Something unpleasant moved in him at that look, though he could not have said what. He made himself lift the line of his mouth.

"It's been a long time."

It wasn't possible. And yet, somehow, it seemed as if Lee Han-sung were smiling.