Murder
I felt the car drawing closer. Across the yard, out on the empty lot, the engine died. Three of them were coming.
Three men stepped through the door I had left open ahead of time. Not one of them showed the slightest hint of tension. Of course they didn't.
The man with the cold look came in first. I had seen him a few years ago. Executive Director Park Gwang-soo. I studied him carefully, but there was no way to tell whether he was Awakened.
Next came a man with a hard, solid face. Team Leader Kim Nam-gook.
Last was a young man wearing a blank, bewildered expression. He looked like someone from the legal team.
"What a pity."
Park Gwang-soo came closer and stared down at me as he said it. There was not a shred of pity in his voice.
It hardly mattered. I felt nothing for him either. There was only one thing I wanted to know. Was Park Gwang-soo Awakened, or wasn't he?
"You're right, Director. The sooner he gets up out of that bed, the better. Hah, this thing called life... Anyway, where's Nurse Lee Hee-ja run off to?"
Kim Nam-gook tossed out the empty words and moved off, then started rummaging through the room. Only Park Gwang-soo and the staffer remained in the bedroom.
Should I kill Park Gwang-soo? No. I had to follow the plan. The right move was to take out Team Leader Kim Nam-gook first—the one I knew for certain was Awakened.
"By the way, is Ms. Lee Hee-ja an actual licensed nurse?"
"Of course. She worked at a university hospital when she was young."
I turned my attention. The nameless legal staffer was filming the place with a small camera, this corner and that. Before long he came toward me looking awkward, and the sound of the shutter filled the room.
"It almost feels like he's watching."
At the staffer's words, Park Gwang-soo shook his head.
"It might look that way, but it isn't. Every examination that was needed has already been done."
Bullshit. My actual diagnosis was locked-in syndrome. Consciousness, sight, hearing, memory, and the ability to think were all intact. I could even feel hunger, in part. The only thing that would not move was my body.
That was why they had locked me in some rural corner instead of a hospital.
"I see."
The bewildered staffer nodded without a hint of suspicion, and that was the end of it. Finished with what he had come to do, he perched on a chair. The drive must have worn him out; he closed his eyes.
Not long after, Kim Nam-gook came back, his breathing rough, as if he were furious. He had torn through the rooms and the storage shed alike, but there was no way the Lee Hee-ja I had burned would turn up.
Kim Nam-gook lifted his phone.
"Uh, uh... Mun-ryong. Nurse Lee Hee-ja isn't—no, no. The inside's clean. It's not a mess. You know how tidy Nurse Lee Hee-ja is, right? The Director's in a good mood, the patient looks perfectly healthy... We just need to find Ms. Lee Hee-ja..."
Kim Nam-gook pulled the phone from his ear for a moment and turned to the staffer.
"Looks like Ms. Lee Hee-ja stepped out for a bit. Couldn't we wrap it up with this? We've got photos of the interior, the patient's healthy, and the medical records have already been submitted."
The staffer's face tightened, just a little uneasy.
"Let me check the manual."
Thick fingers fumbled clumsily over the phone. After a brief hesitation, the staffer scratched his head and spoke.
"That would be a problem. The manual says... there absolutely has to be a video record of the interview with the attending medical staff... haha...?"
In an instant Kim Nam-gook's expression went cold. The staffer let his alarm show. Executive Director Park Gwang-soo smiled gently and waved a hand.
"If that's what the manual says, it can't be helped. I'll step outside for a cigarette."
The moment Park Gwang-soo turned, the look in his eyes changed completely. Ice-cold pupils swept over me once, lightly, and then he walked out. Footsteps crossing the yard. Grass rustled under his shoes.
"...Ahem. I wasn't saying I had a complaint. Don't misunderstand."
Kim Nam-gook added it with an embarrassed face, and the staffer's expression eased a little.
Fuck. Where the hell did that bitch go?
Meanwhile, outside, Park Gwang-soo spat the curse and pulled a cigarette from inside his coat. His hand went for the pocket where the lighter would be. He drew it out and brought it up to his mouth.
"Where the hell did this woman go..."
Before my eyes, Kim Nam-gook muttered that and raised the phone to his ear.
Everything happening at once, inside and out, poured into my head without a single gap. That was the power of a Detection skill pushed to its highest level. The moment I perceived something, it connected straight to my senses. Every movement was as vivid as if I were watching it from inches away.
Focus.
I watched the whole flow, calm and steady. The most fitting instant. I had to seize a single chance, and I had to make it certain.
Out in the front yard, Park Gwang-soo's finger snapped the lighter—a thin metallic tick, then the long hiss of gas. The flame leaned toward the cigarette. Air drew in through his pursed lips.
At the same time Kim Nam-gook's face twisted with irritation, and his finger jerked toward the end-call button.
That instant. A strange feeling, as if the nerves in my head drew taut. I knew it by instinct.
Now.
As Kim Nam-gook lowered the phone, I summoned Fireballs around him. Nine of them, each the size of a fist, called up all at once. They rose exactly where I had simulated all day and rushed him together.
Whoosh.
At the sudden flames, the legal staffer froze where he stood. Kim Nam-gook, an Awakened, was different.
"Huh?"
He lived up to being Awakened. For all the shock on his face, his body was fast. He kicked off at once and threw himself toward the window.
Even so, dodging cleanly was too much to ask. Two Fireballs punched straight through him. One in the calf. One in the flank.
"GYAAAAAAAH!!!!"
He screamed. Fist-sized holes gaped in the flesh of his calf and side. The meat around them charred black, and in an instant the holes swelled to the size of a head. Up in the air, Kim Nam-gook's leg dropped to the floor.
It still fell short of what I had expected. He hadn't turned to ash the way a goblin would.
Crash.
The window shattered, and his body tumbled out.
"Are you fucking kidding me—that crippled little shit Awakened!? What kind of bullshit is this!"
His voice rang out, thick with venom. There was a faint relief in it. Out of my sight, he seemed to think he had survived. A stupid thought.
A sharp whistle cut the air.
A Fireball flew at Kim Nam-gook as he scraped and crawled across the ground. I had already expected him to bolt for the window. The last Fireball, summoned outside the building from the start, split the air like lightning.
The result was already decided. Kim Nam-gook never noticed it at all. At this rate, he would die.
Murder. The moment the word surfaced, my stomach turned. A strange feeling, like insects crawling around my heart.
I could still scatter the Fireball. Should I stop? But then what?
In that sliver of time, ten thousand thoughts went through me. In the end I did not stop the flame. I could have scattered it. I didn't.
Eight years of pain was enough. That was long enough—more than long. I had been sixteen, and somewhere along the way I had become twenty-four. Time worse than a beast's, spent lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. If they had only killed me, it would not have ached this deep.
Thunk.
The ball of fire punched clean through the heart of Kim Nam-gook as he rolled across the ground. His chest heaved once, hugely.
His last breath sucked into his lungs, and a grotesque sound leaked out.
"Kkh..."
The sensation came at me, unbearably concrete, unbearably raw. I did not shut it off. I did not run. If I meant to go forward, I could not look away. What had to be borne, I had to bear.
A moment later, Kim Nam-gook's breathing cut off. And then—
Tap.
...Tap? In that instant a foreign sensation drove into my head. Outside the building, something had hit the ground. Something that still held a faint heat.
The lighter.
Boom.
The front door crumpled like paper and drove in toward me. Behind it, Park Gwang-soo was crouched low. Just as I had feared, Park Gwang-soo was Awakened too. Thinking of it that way, ambushing them the moment one went down had been the right call.
"Y-you crippled little shit, how the hell—!"
I let Park Gwang-soo's frantic shout go in one ear and out the other.
I packed mana threads tight and barred the door with them. He seemed to be a physical-type Awakened; the pressure that slammed in was tremendous. Dozens of threads crumpled. I stuck more of them on and held.
Whoosh.
At the same time, a summoned Fireball hammered the iron door. The Fireball skill was built for burning, not for exploding. Instead of punching through the door, it swallowed the thing in a single breath.
"GAAAAAH!"
Park Gwang-soo fell back a step. He charged for the side at once, but he was already too worked up, and his movement was far too easy to read. I threw three Fireballs and cut off his path. In the middle of it, one of them slammed into his shoulder.
The flesh burst.
The shoulder was pierced, and the skin necrotized on the spot. The wound swelled to the size of a head, and the arm dropped to the floor. Park Gwang-soo's pupils blew wide. Face twisted in horror, he clutched the shoulder and spun around in a panic.
"You little shit! Just you wait!!"
Park Gwang-soo spat the curse and burst outside, heading straight for the car. A wise call. The right one. If I had been unable to move.
Squelch. Squelch.
I wrapped mana threads around my body and went out. Park Gwang-soo had already reached the lot and was climbing into the vehicle. I raised a hand and summoned a Fireball. Not one the size of a fist. A single Fireball, far larger than a grown man's head.
No teeth, then use the gums. Just as I had practiced all day yesterday. The hand bound in mana threads seized the Fireball and hurled it, hard. The flame shot out faster than the eye could properly follow and struck the car dead on.
The fire roared.
A monstrous output that could not even be compared to an ordinary Fireball. Flames swallowed the vehicle whole. Park Gwang-soo flung the door open and scrambled out, but it was already too late. His entire body blazed. He rolled over and over on the ground, and the flames did not lessen in the slightest.
"AAAAAGH!! S-save me!!!!"
It took a minute for him to burn away completely. For that whole minute I did not take my eyes off him as he begged to be saved.
Filthy bastard. Trash who had lived fat and easy under my uncle, Lee Tae-sik.
Before I knew it, the screaming had faded. He had turned completely to powder, so there was no need even to confirm the death.
I went back into the room and looked around. No one left alive. The legal staffer had collapsed with blood pouring from his chest.
When Park Gwang-soo had burst through the iron door, the dagger he had thrown to shut the man up was buried in the center of his chest.
"......"
I folded and sank to the floor. My head went white, and not a single thought would come. The line holding my mind together had drawn so tight it felt as if it might snap at any moment.
I closed my eyes. Darkness came.