The Loli Boss (2)

Talking with Boss Park Jiwoong about this and that, I came to learn his age, and a little of his family. He had married a wife thirteen years his junior five years ago, and was now the head of a household with one son and one daughter.

"Whoa. A wife thirteen years younger. Your ability must be off the charts."

"Haha. In this line ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of work, men with wives younger than mine are common enough. But I'll wager no couple married for love the way we did."

Boss Park Jiwoong was forty-two, and his wife an H-Class physical enhancer. He launched into a full-throated brag — she hated fighting and combat, was thoroughly domestic, cooked beautifully, and was kind and cute besides.

"How did the two of you meet?"

"On a raid, as it happens. Her father had fallen badly ill, and the hospital bills never stopped, so she applied to Hwarang as a supporter. Before that, I hear, she worked as a bodyguard for some upstart rich man's daughter."

She rotated through supporter duties, and eight months after joining she was sent on a reconnaissance raid alongside him. He fell for her at a glance — that small frame bustling at everything but the fighting itself, cooking and the rest of the work, never still.

"She was so kind, so lovely, that I found myself trailing after her without even knowing it. When I came to, months had gone by like that."

"How tall is your wife, exactly, that you'd call her small...?"

"Ahem. She's 144 centimeters now. Barely four foot nine."

Small?!

Boss Park, himself well past five foot eleven, grinned and switched on his Certifier to show me what he said was a photo of his wife. The woman who rose in the holographic window was... a sixth-grader? A first-year in middle school? An incredibly youthful, adorable girl.

This old guy was a lolicon?!

"Officer..."

I muttered it under my breath. Boss Park flinched, then started waving his hands in a fluster.

"N-no! She really is twenty-nine, I tell you! She is not a minor!"

"Your wife is twenty-nine?"

No matter how I looked at her, she couldn't have been a day over twelve!

Ah. Right. A legal loli.

I felt a flicker of concern for their married life, but she was a physical enhancer, so she probably wouldn't get hurt anywhere. Then again, thinking about what physical reinforcement actually did to a body, it was Boss Park's life I ought to worry about.

Talking with Uncle Park, he really did have the easy air of the laid-back older brother next door, and I kept snickering despite myself.

"So once I started following Hyojin around, at first she thought the team boss coming up to her was only after her body!"

"Well, yeah. Hyung, at a glance you just look like the ordinary uncle from next door."

"Heh heh heh. Anyway, Hyojin would take one look at me and flee in fright, so in the end I changed my target. If you mean to take the general, you shoot the horse first, don't you? I packed food and restorative tonics and spent three months coming and going from the hospital where her father was admitted. Only then did Hyojin understand my heart was sincere, and she began, slowly, to come closer."

"That's some devotion. Enough to turn a person around, I'd say."

Well, if the boss of a raid team spent nearly a hundred days chasing after you and you alone, of course your heart would start to turn. Contrary to Yeongeun's assessment — that he lacked resolve, and was somehow clumsy — he pursued Joo Hyojin with a boldness that seemed to come from nowhere, and her parents kept nudging her from behind to at least meet him once, until at last the two of them started dating.

There were bends in the road, but the real obstacle for the couple, who had otherwise been getting along smoothly, lay somewhere else. Boss Park had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and when he announced he meant to take as his wife a supporter whose talent capped out at H-Class — an ability user, yes, but still — the elders of the house hit the ceiling.

Where did he think he was bringing a woman with no breeding, to make her his wife? There had been an uproar to end all uproars, he said, and a bitter smile hung on his face as he told it. Indecisive by nature, he wanted nothing more than to marry Joo Hyojin and live happily, but the family opposed it to the death, and his mother threatened to bite her tongue off and die if he went through with the wedding. Caught between them, he worried until his hair began to fall out.

He was seriously weighing whether to throw everything away and flee the country with her when Yeongeun cut in. She found him in Hwarang's office, face half-dead, tearing at his hair, pressed him until she had the whole story, and then demanded to know why, with a worry like that, he hadn't come to her. She kicked him square in the rear and barked at him to bring Joo Hyojin to the Blue House.

When they arrived, Yeongeun meant to take only Joo Hyojin off somewhere. Boss Park clung on; she kicked him away again and vanished. He waited several hours with the blood drying in his veins, and when she reappeared she took him and Joo Hyojin in tow and descended — his word — upon his family home.

His parents lay in their places with white protest-cloths bound about their brows, aiming a wordless protest at their son, and nearly expired on the spot at the sudden, majestic appearance of the President. At the words that followed, they agreed to the marriage without another objection.

Those words were these.

That was what she said.

And so, taking the old wedding jeer of thief, carrying on like a man hopelessly besotted, he held the ceremony beneath the blessings of both families, grinning from ear to ear — and came to follow Yeongeun all the more, the woman who had untangled his extreme anguish in less than a day.

The reason Yeongeun, who had turned a blind eye to his suffering, finally stepped in was probably this: she was afraid Boss Park would bolt overseas.

He was a C-Class sensory ability user, no less. He hadn't caused a public scandal or committed any incident; if he sought asylum over a personal matter, any country would have welcomed him with open arms. On top of that he was an analysis-type, and his ability shone even brighter on open plains. From Yeongeun's side of things, the news that he had been ready to leave the country must have dropped her heart straight through the floor.

Something he learned by chance after the wedding: while he was tearing his hair out over his parents' opposition, Joo Hyojin had been suffering inside Hwarang as well, ostracized and hazed. A vixen, they called her — a little body that had snared Hwarang's boss.

An unmarried raid-team boss of indecisive character, with the President herself, immense power, standing behind him as backing, and a raid team ranked among South Korea's top five. Where else would you find prey that made the mouth water more? When Boss Park learned that Joo Hyojin had kept her mouth shut and endured the bullying at the company, he felt gratitude and rage at once, and for the first time since taking Hwarang's boss seat he flew into a fury, ready to punish the ones who had led the harassment.

And the one who stopped him, he said, was Joo Hyojin. Bold as anything, she called Yeongeun and asked her to scold Boss Park for trying to abuse his authority over a private matter.

Thinking what a well-matched pair they made, I listened to the loli boss's story over tea and snacks, and before I knew it, it was nearly five.

"Mm. Squad Two should be back before long."

"You're right. I ought to go get ready for a bit."

When Boss Park, beaming, said he'd introduce his wife before long, I told him I'd look forward to it, and went up to the fortieth floor.

Franc spoke first, a faint puzzlement in her voice. "Yeongeun, truly... If she intended to help, why let him suffer so, rather than helping at once?"

"I saw it online, but they say you shouldn't play matchmaker for people close to you. Set your friends up, they split, and you're the one who catches the blame for nothing. Maybe Yeongeun only jumped in so fast back then because she was afraid Boss Park would defect overseas?"

"...That would follow. Yeongeun is greedy for talent. She would never abide a man like Boss Park running away. When one considers it, she is nothing short of an antlion pit for the gifted, is she not?"

Oh dear. Crooked boss, villain boss, and now antlion pit tacked onto her titles?

It'd be fun to tell her later, wouldn't it?

An older woman from the secretarial office brought me a designer casual suit and dress shoes suited to my age. I changed, and sat down in the executive chair.

I spun halfway around. Beyond the glass wall, the city of Seoul, soaked in the dying sunset, filled my eyes.

They'd said to come down when they called, so I'd have to wait a while.

Watching the people hurrying along between the buildings, I sank once more into thought about my Spatial Perception.

Of everything it could do, what I used most was, put simply, a three-dimensional minimap centered on me, with a radius of a kilometer and a half. On top of that, my memory had sharpened to something near perfect recall, so any place I visited once was registered in full, like a game's map. Feed in a keyword, and everything tied to it rose in my head on its own.

Next came the radar, which picked up hostility, killing intent, enmity. The moment someone aimed malice at me, their position locked in by itself, and where they were and what they were doing poured into my mind in an instant. Last, chained to that sense, was the detection of anything coming to attack me. I'd confirmed it for certain while sparring with Hwayeon and Franc: no matter how completely I let my mind wander, the instant something came at me — or moved to — I recognized it. This too had a limit. Attacks that exceeded my perception seemed impossible to sense. The sniping of the ones who had ambushed me, for instance.

I closed my eyes, sank into the plush chair, and began to comb, slowly and thoroughly, the kilometer-and-a-half radius around me.

Men: 215,412. Women: 359,166. Taking Miho as the measure, living things larger than her, plants excluded, came to 12,473. Add in the creatures smaller than Miho, and the number rose to 114,116.

There were, unexpectedly, quite a few animals living in the woods and on the mountains. Plenty of pets, too.

Then I tried expanding the range of Spatial Perception — something I'd used exactly once, and then buried.

1.7 kilometers. 1.9. 2. 2.5. 3.

The range stretched and stretched. The farther it went, the more I lost, in order: the ability to detect Phase Power, then the sensing of living things, then the detection of moving objects, until at three kilometers I could grasp nothing but terrain. Even that made my head throb, and I couldn't hold it for long.

Aside from the range having grown a little, nothing had changed since I first obtained Spatial Perception. I returned it to normal and expanded it slowly once more, but it only loaded my head. I didn't feel as if the ability were about to improve.

Was this not the way to train it?

I warped the shape of it wildly — tried making it a cone, tried spreading it into a fan — but whatever the form, the moment it exceeded the base volume, the limits kicked in. Practicing this way and that, I ended up scanning every man and woman down to bare skin, the structures of the buildings in range, a slush fund someone had hidden in a house, an illegal basement dug beneath a detached home, and there...

That was... a person... a corpse?

At the eastern edge of my perception clustered an ordinary residential neighborhood, and in one of the houses I could see an illegally renovated basement. The problem was that dismembered remains — human corpses, by the look of them — were stacked inside a large commercial refrigerator there.

I looked through the whole house. No sign of anyone living in it, and no one present. Focusing harder, I could tell from the traces left throughout that it had been at least three months since a person last lived there.

Examining the dismembered bodies in the refrigerator, there was enough there for two people. The faces belonged to the elderly couple in the framed photo in the master bedroom.

My expression soured. A murderer, this close to where my parents and my sister lived?

"Seoha? What is the matter?"

Franc must have seen my face twist. She flew up onto my desk and stroked my cheek.

"There's been a murder in a residential block 1,420 meters east of here. I can't say exactly how long ago, but I think it's been more than three months."

"...!"

I turned on the computer and checked the address. Lot 56-8. A dense block of large houses — who on earth? A murder over money?

"We ought to report this to the police."

"Shouldn't we confirm who did it first? Stir the hornet's nest for nothing and the culprit might run. We need the bastard's face before anything else."

If it came to it, I could just run over there and tie him up myself.

"...You are right."

Franc took out her phone and started searching. I went over the house carefully once more in case there was a clue, but aside from a photo of the elderly couple with a young man and woman who looked like their children, nothing stood out.

"How strange... The papers carry no articles of a murder, or a disappearance, or any such incident."

"Yeah. I'm looking with Spatial Perception, but there's no trace of anyone coming or going through the whole house. Seems like no one's been in or out for at least three months."

Ugh. This felt foul.

"We really should report it to the pol—"

Brrring—

At the sudden ring, Franc's mouth snapped shut.

"Hello?"

At the sudden news of a murder, Aunt Hyeryeong seemed struck speechless for a moment, but she quickly recovered her composure, gave a reliable answer, and hung up.

"Now that I think about it, this isn't something I should step into. This is the police's domain, right?"

"Korea's forensic police are said to be quite capable. They should apprehend the culprit before long."

"Yeah. I should tell Mom, Dad, and Sis to avoid going out if they can, until he's caught."

I spread Spatial Perception again with blood and bloodstains as the keywords, and flinched when a terrifying number of stains registered from the direction of the mountain. Turned out they were traces of the ecosystem cycling. I sighed inwardly, changed the keyword, and searched for traces of human blood — and my eyes narrowed, because a great many of them pointed at motel beds.

Tch. Don't these people know about saving it for marriage? ...Come to think of it, there were a few spots in my house too.

Ahem.

Anyway, I could see traces of traffic accidents, assorted little everyday injuries, and a few back alleys where drunks seemed to have traded punches, but nothing beyond that.

Hmm. Was it really a spur-of-the-moment crime...?

As I passed the time that way, Hwayeon's familiar Phase Power entered the range of my Spatial Perception.

I took Aunt Hyeryeong's call to heart and went down to basement parking level three. The Business Support staff had already come down in force to wait, and among them I spotted Department Head Kim Pyochung.

"Department Head Kim Pyochung, hello."

"Oh, Blue Ge— ahem, ahem. You've come, Master."

I shot a glare at him as he nearly spat out the forbidden word. He faltered, then changed the form of address.

"If that word reaches my ears inside the Grand Blue building, I can take it as Department Head Kim Pyochung challenging me, right?"

"No, that's a bit much. I'm hardly the only one who knows that nickname."

"I can't exactly grab the regular employees for it, can I? High rank comes with high ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠responsibility, so we can just say it's the department head's fault, right?"

"I really didn't say that title in front of the other staff! And Boss Yoo Hwayeon brought it up just a few days ago too! Why only me...!"

Even after being put in charge of Grand Blue's Business Support Building 1, Department Head Kim Pyochung — still in that rumpled suit — protested at me with a deeply wronged face.

"You're not my fiancée, Department Head."

"..."

A full-grown adult pulling a sulky face made me want to hit him. Arms crossed, expression pouty, eyes fixed on the garage entrance — he looked like he was staging a silent protest that he would not be speaking to me.

"Silence means yes. You admit it?"

"Come on, seriously. Isn't that going too far?"

"Oh, Squad Two's coming in."

"Kh—!"

Teasing a grown man was more fun than I'd thought. Heh heh.

As I watched five large buses and three large trailers, just like Squad One's, pull into the underground garage and take their places, Aunt Hyeryeong and my sister walked out of the elevator with Boss Park Jiwoong.

"Ho ho. Master's already here."

"Oh my? Department Head Kim, you don't look well. Did something happen?"

"Hello, Department Head Kim Pyochung."

"Welcome, Boss Park Jiwoong, Department Head Lee, Department Head Jung. It's nothing. A certain someone has just been giving me a hard time, that's all."

Department Head Kim grumbled with the face of a man chewing an unripe persimmon, glancing at me sidelong, and everyone gave a wry smile.

All the while I couldn't take my eyes off my sister. She felt my gaze, smiled, and waved — but Phase Power was slowly gathering around her, and that was strange.

Something about the feeling... Come to think of it, even back at the elevator I'd sensed something like a Return Point coming off her, hadn't I?

Uneasy, I went up to her and brushed her arm, her shoulder, her back. The Phase Power gathering around her body spread outward, then crept back toward her again.

"What are you doing?"

Seeing me pawing at her, she moved to pinch my nose, then, conscious of the eyes around us, poked my arm with a finger instead.

"Huh? It's nothing."

I was still puzzling over it when ability users began pouring out of the parked buses, one after another.

Squad Two, like Squad One, had 131 ability users on the buses. Hwayeon got off first, followed by a physical enhancer who had just stepped into B-Class, and then Sophia. She glanced around for a moment, found me, and started walking this way with a soft smile.

She isn't hurt anywhere. Good.

Boss Park Jiwoong and Department Head Kim stood to my left, my sister and Aunt Hyeryeong to my right, and Hwayeon walked straight toward me with Sophia and the female B-Class physical enhancer. The ability users from the other buses gathered and took their places, and Hwayeon, standing at the very ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠front, raised a fist to her chest in a brief salute and spoke.

"Squad Two. Total strength, 131. Losses, zero. Present strength, 131. We ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have returned."

"You worked hard."

With that I pulled her — black short-sleeved coat and all — into my arms, and gasps rose around us.

"Is that Blue Genius? He looks even younger than on TV."

"Even so, he's C-Class, and he took down a Solid Snake alone — the very top of the high-grade."

"With him along, we could take peak-rank aberrants easily, without the danger, right?"

"A Special Type, how cool~! But I don't think I could beat Boss Yoo Hwayeon, so I'll give up."

"Hey, hey. They said Master and Boss Yoo Hwayeon were close, and looks like it's true. Do we have to line up behind her from now on?"

"What's the point of a line? Once Master hits B-Class, he'll handle everything by himself anyway."

I held Hwayeon tight through the murmuring, until her face flushed a little. She squirmed, and slipped out of my arms.

"Th-that's enough. As Master, you ought to keep your digni—"

In that instant, a bizarre sensation burst from my sister's direction.

The back of my neck went cold. A premonition that she was in danger rang hard, and goosebumps rose all over me. I snapped my head around. Phase Power only my eyes could see was winding tight around her body. And then, around her, dozens of round ripples—!

A forced summon?! No!!

"Sis!!"

"Seoha?!"

"Seohaa!"

"Boss!!"

"Master!!"

"Wh—!"

"Hk—?!"

Screams and shock exploded from every side. I drove Mana Mode — Acceleration to its absolute limit.

The flow of time dragged, and the screams smeared into the groaning of some dull-witted bear. I slipped the hands of Hwayeon and the others as they grabbed for me, and ran for my sister.

Thought accelerated. The people around me slowed to a crawl, and Miho, who had been hanging from my shoulder, was flung off by the sudden burst — I saw her eyes go round. I ignored all of it and reached for my sister, frozen where she stood in shock.

If I let her go alone... I had the feeling I'd never see her again...!

Without meaning to, I spread Spatial Perception at full force. The movement of every person standing inside its range began to enter my mind as if engraved there. Nameless ability users lunged at me from every side, hands out, trying to stop me with their bodies, but the footwork I'd learned from Hwayeon let me slip their grasping hands without much trouble, and I ran the shortest line to where she was.

Before my eyes, the ripples were swallowing her, little by little.

Franc came flying, horror on her face, and Hwayeon too — frozen for a heartbeat, then snapping toward me like a rubber band. But that brief hesitation had opened a distance between us that could no longer be closed.

"Seoohaaaaa!"

"Noooooo!"

I left Hwayeon's drawn-out cry and Franc's scream behind and ran for my sister, both eyes drinking in the Phase Power as it popped and burst like bubbles. Simply thrusting out a hand would be dangerous. Instinct told me to aim for the thinnest gap in the ripples, and I followed it, pushing my hand into that faintest seam and seizing her shoulder.

In that instant, space stretched. As if sucked toward a single point, my sister's figure began to warp. Even the light around us was drawn in, and I, linked to her, stretched long and thin, like light falling into a black hole.

I didn't hesitate. I pulled her in and held her against my chest.

The moment her warmth came into my arms, I felt something trying to shove me back out. I couldn't be pushed out of here. I focused the Mana Sieve through my entire body and resisted the force pressing me away — and as I did, my vision thinned, and the world around me sank into darkness, as if the light had been snuffed out.