Episode 13: Two Intruders

Watching Kang Hanna walk away, I called back the reading the Third Eye had given me.

A window like that told me everything I needed. She was a capable asset, and a well-balanced one.

Someone else might not have understood why I hung extra conditions on the deal. Take in Kang Hanna's group and I would secure that talent and clear the main quest in the same stroke. Why complicate it?

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Because taking her in exactly as things stood would turn into a problem later. From everything I'd seen, the System wanted me to keep drawing more and more people into this house. And the more bodies you pack into one place, the more a beautiful woman becomes trouble. When the world outside is hell, a group closes in on itself, and trouble spreads fast.

So the fix I settled on was simple. I would be the strong leader, the alpha, and every woman likely to become a problem would end up in my hands.

Don't like it? Then walk out of the mansion. I am the master of this place. Grumble about some ordinary member and you might get a fight, a little bad blood. Harbor a grievance against me, and you have no place in this house. You can march out into that hell with nothing but the skin you were born in.

"And Kang Hanna's bunch already looked unsteady."

She had told me the people coming with her numbered six to nine, herself included. So why were three of them a maybe? Because those three were already in a fight with her inside the group, and it was still going. Bad enough that, if it came to it, she was ready to leave them out in this nightmare and come without them.

She had the righteous fury of someone who couldn't stand the thought of an old couple she'd never even met losing their home. She had a cop's standing, and the hard certainty of a gun. And they still picked a fight with her? Idiotic shit-stirrers. Had to be.

Hanna had the nerve to leave those three outside. What she didn't have was the coldness to drive them out of the shelter where she herself was staying. A police officer's professional ethics would keep snagging her judgment on top of that. A residence already in bad shape, and troublemakers rotting it from the inside?

"It'll come apart before long."

In the end, Kang Hanna and her people would have nowhere left to go, and they would come to my house.

"All I have to do is wait in comfort."

And if they didn't come?

"Then that's a shame."

Still—what if they really didn't? Her ability, her looks. It would be a hell of a waste. The worry didn't last. Before dawn, her side answered. Not the answer I had been expecting, though.

"The fuck is this?"

From a direction I had not seen coming.

"Haaahm... another day well spent."

It was the same day Kang Hanna had left. She was gone, but the daily quest still had to be done, so I went out beyond the mansion, filled my quota, and by the time the work was finished it was already time to sleep. I showered off the zombie blood the way I always did, climbed to the second floor, and dropped onto the bed.

"Haaaaahm... I'm wiped today, of all days."

Nothing especially hard had happened, but the exhaustion sat on me heavier than usual, and the moment I lay down, sleep dragged me under. It didn't last. An alert window started shrieking.

"The fuck is this?"

I jolted upright at the alert that had torn me out of sleep. The clock was past five in the morning. I snatched up the saber lying beside the bed and looked at the window properly. A red dot marked the intruders, and that dot sat on the perimeter wall.

"What? If they came in over the wall, they aren't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠zombies."

A zombie clearing a wall more than two meters high was nonsense, so I threw that out.

"Kang Hanna? If it were her, she'd know the front gate is open."

Mindless zombies had no way to open a shut gate, so I hadn't bothered locking it. Hanna had spent the night and left only yesterday. She knew. If she came back, she had no reason to sneak over the wall like a thief.

"Which means..."

A complete stranger, someone I had never laid eyes on, had broken into the mansion. I couldn't grant them the courtesy of a good intention. I finished the thought, took the saber, and slipped out of the room without a sound. The alert kept painting them as red dots, and already they had cleared the wall and reached the front door.

Creeeak.

I tracked them, eased the veranda door open, and looked down at the two figures loitering in front of the entrance.

"J-Jia, what do we do? Should we ring the doorbell or something?"

"Well, obviously, right?"

From the veranda above the door I caught their voices, and that was enough to know I had a boy and a girl. Listening a moment longer, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could tell they hadn't noticed me glaring down at them. The opening was now.

Whud.

"Gyaaah!"

I dropped onto the silhouette that looked male and flattened him in one motion, then put the blade to the girl's throat and pinned them both. Only after they were down did I see their faces. High school, maybe? Both of them still had the soft look of kids.

"Who the hell are you? What are you sniffing around here for?"

"A-aaaaah, w-we're not—we didn't—!"

"Hello, mister."

"......?"

The boy under me had lost his head and was babbling at a shout. The girl, blade at her throat and all, bowed with perfect calm and greeted me, and that threw me harder than the screaming did.

"Big sister Hanna sent us."

Only then did I understand why the two of them were here. Two questions hit me at once. Why had Kang Hanna sent only these two, instead of coming herself? And—who the hell was she calling mister? I was still in my twenties, damn it, plenty of life left in me!

Officer Kang Hanna of the Honghak Police Substation was out on patrol, riding with her training officer, Sergeant Park Jaeho.

"Hanna, you don't see a senior this good very often. Your trainer, driving for his tired junior?"

"Haa... Sergeant Park, didn't I say I would drive? I'm not tired."

"Hm? No, no. You saying that because you're worried about me? Hahaha. Thanks."

"Haa..."

The answer missed the point so cleanly that her head started to ache, and she let the sigh out. Plenty of men had come at her after one look at her face, but none of them had been this much of a headache. The way he went about it was stupid, and of all people he was her trainer, so she couldn't swat him down.

She kept the patrol going through the throb in her skull.

The radio's tinny crackle carried an emergency dispatch from headquarters. By rights her trainer, Park Jaeho, should have answered, but he was behind the wheel, so she picked up the handset herself.

"This is Unit Three. Five minutes from our current position. Responding now."

A moment later they were rolling for the scene, siren screaming.

"Damn. We'll have to park somewhere else and walk in."

Got-It-All sat on a shopping street gathered around a broad pedestrian walk with no road through it, so there was no pushing the patrol car through that crowd to park in front of the store.

"I'll go on ahead, Sergeant."

"What? Hey—hey! Wait! Hey!"

They were going to lose time. Kang Hanna got out first and broke into a run for the Got-It-All.

"God, that hardheaded brat!"

Park Jaeho had no room to worry about the junior who had run off alone into whatever was waiting. He jammed the patrol car into a spot and sprinted after her. He burst onto the first floor, saw no sign of Hanna, and turned on the employee at the counter.

"Where's the person who called ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it in?"

"Second floor, second floor. An officer just ran up there..."

He found the stairs to the second floor and started up at once.

"What the hell kind of stairs are these? Miserable piece of work to climb."

Maybe the first and second floors had once been separate buildings. The flight up was barely wide enough for a single person, and it spiraled, a miserable set of stairs to climb.