The Summons
Dan-woo had been asking about the halo and the wings when he lost consciousness mid-explanation.
Push an awakened ability to its absolute limit, and the body slips into a stabilized state. You start complaining that something feels wrong, and then you go down—just like this.
"You're really something else."
Se-a held him against her chest, wiping the blood that had crusted under his nose, and let the thought settle. This tiny body had stood against a monster to protect her. A man who had no business being on a battlefield at all.
Tell anyone and they'd laugh in her face. Men like that didn't exist. Show them proof and they'd probably just snort and say it was a good fake.
That pool and those hands were an awakened ability. Residual mana is still hanging in the air.
She had only just begun to sense mana after her own ability bloomed, and she had felt its remnants in the place where that black pool had formed.
Whoever it was, they protected him. Doesn't seem like a villain.
Catching the monster went without saying—and grabbing Dan-woo had clearly been to pull him out of mortal danger. Walking toward a monster you had no hope of beating was the same as walking to your death.
But who was it?
That was the problem. She had no idea who it had been. She didn't think they were a villain, but you never knew. They might have protected him simply because they'd judged him useful.
She had to keep every possibility open and stay prepared.
"My head's killing me..."
How was it that the moment one incident ended, another one came knocking? She clutched her throbbing temples, let out a sigh, and headed for the Association. The dungeon break still hadn't been fully contained, so traveling by car was too dangerous. She went on foot.
A fifteen-minute walk brought her to the Hunter Association. The moment she stepped through the front entrance, the chaos hit her. A dungeon break with no warning had everyone sprinting in every direction, shouting over each other as they tried to get a handle on the situation and put it down.
"Special Escort Officer Lee Se-a... ma'am?"
Someone addressed her from the side as she took in the scene.
"Yes. That's me."
She offered a wry smile to the escort officers who were tilting their heads at her. She hadn't hidden the halo above her head or the wings at her back, so of course they weren't sure what they were looking at.
"It's been a long day. Would it be all right if I laid Dan-woo down in a recovery room?"
"Ah—yes! We'll get one ready right away!"
One of the five escort officers who'd come as reinforcements caught sight of Dan-woo in her arms, paled, and took off running. She was back in under a minute with a staff member in tow.
"The recovery room is ready. You can come with us now."
Se-a followed the staff member in and laid Dan-woo on the pristine white bed. An Association healer arrived shortly after and took over the examination.
"He's simply entered a stabilized state from overusing his ability. There's nothing else wrong."
"Thank you."
Only then did Se-a let out a long, shaky breath. She had assumed it was overexertion, but she wasn't a specialist, and the uncertainty had been eating at her.
"You're going to get a proper scolding when you wake up."
She took his hand as she said it.
"...But I should thank you first, shouldn't I? So hurry up and open your eyes."
She bent down and pressed her lips to his forehead.
"Well. The coffee's sweet. Real sweet."
The voice from the doorway made her jump. She yanked her lips away and turned—and there stood a red-haired woman with a cup of coffee in each hand. Hong Si-an, the exclusive witness assigned to Dan-woo's pregnancy activity.
"Ah. Senior."
"I'm gonna get cavities. Nobody asked you two to rub it in."
Se-a scratched the back of her head with an embarrassed little laugh as Si-an came over.
"You did good. I heard you got caught in the dungeon break?"
She held out one of the cups.
"Thank you."
Se-a took it. Heat soaked into her palm—freshly ordered, by the feel of it.
"There was no alarm. It just erupted out of nowhere, so the response was late."
"Yeah, the Association's losing its mind over that."
Si-an shook her head as if she'd already had enough. She didn't go into detail, but it was clearly a mess.
"Anyway—congratulations on awakening. That's a rare otherworldly ability. It suits you."
"Thank you."
Se-a's wings gave a tiny, involuntary flutter. She had answered as evenly as ever, but that little tell gave her away, and Si-an found it hopelessly endearing.
The two of them weren't just senior and junior. They had trained together under the Seo-yeon and Seo-ha sisters, which meant they had been something closer to older sister and younger sister long before either of them became an escort officer.
"So what brings you here, Senior?"
"Right. I came because I've got a message for you, Se-a. And I was worried about whether Dan-woo was all right."
Si-an's gaze drifted to the figure on the bed.
"They said he's fine. Just a stabilized state. So—the message?"
Si-an hesitated a beat before she spoke.
"The Minister wants to see you."
"The Minister? You mean the Minister of Male Protection?"
Si-an nodded.
"She should be in the Association President's office around now. Seventh floor of this building. Wait for her outside."
"Why would she want to see me...?"
Si-an just shrugged and shook her head. She hadn't been told the details either.
No matter how Se-a turned it over, she couldn't think of a single reason the Minister would call for her. Not even the Director of the Protection Bureau she actually belonged to—the Minister of Male Protection herself. Why?
"I'll watch him. Go on."
"Please."
Se-a stepped out, gave a slight nod to the five escort officers posted at the door, and started walking. She headed straight for the lobby and the elevators. The lobby looked calmer than it had when she'd first arrived. A text had come through on her phone announcing that the dungeon break was over, so the worst of the fire had probably been put out. People were catching their breath.
"Oh?"
The elevator doors opened, and a familiar face was waiting inside.
A hundred and sixty-five centimeters, the short stature more than made up for by a perfectly proportioned eight-head figure. Black hair pulled into a ponytail, bangs long enough to veil her eyes. The coat she wore hinted at a taut, athletic body underneath.
"Yoon Hae-young?"
She had trained as an escort officer alongside Se-a. Hae-young tipped her head in a silent greeting, and Se-a stepped in without comment.
The elevator climbed toward the seventh floor in a thick, awkward silence.
"Dan-woo?"
Out of nowhere, in the middle of all that discomfort, Hae-young asked about him. Se-a's brow twitched.
"...What are you talking about?"
Hae-young could have figured out that Se-a was Dan-woo's escort officer from the broadcasts. Se-a had already been raked over the coals by her superiors for that, and she still thought it had been reckless. No matter how tightly you controlled information, there was only so much you could do once something went out live.
But there was no way Hae-young should have known he'd been caught in today's dungeon break.
"Is Dan-woo... all right?"
Se-a had always thought Hae-young was a little strange, even back in training. She hadn't realized it went this far.
"You really think I'm going to tell you?"
"Your face says he's fine."
Hae-young said it without a flicker of expression, but to Se-a it almost looked like relief.
"And you?"
Now she was asking after Se-a.
"...What is with you today?"
"You're here. So you must be fine."
After a string of remarks Se-a couldn't make heads or tails of, Hae-young pressed the button for the fourth floor. They were already on their way from the third to the fourth, so the doors opened almost immediately.
Hae-young stepped out, then turned her head just enough to glance back.
"Sorry."
"What? Hey—what is that even supposed to—"
From start to finish, nothing the woman said had made any sense, and the frustration was starting to boil over. Se-a opened her mouth to demand an explanation, but the doors slid shut and cut her off.
"What was that...?"
She tried to shake the uneasy feeling. She couldn't walk into a meeting with the Minister carrying this kind of mood.
The first thing she noticed when she stepped out onto the seventh floor was the quiet.
"Why is it so silent?"
She walked a corridor that didn't hold a single trace of another person and arrived at the Association President's office. She sat in the chair set against the wall and waited for the Minister to come out.
A few minutes passed. She was just starting to wonder if they'd missed each other when the door opened, and a child who looked somewhere between a hundred and fifty and a hundred and sixty centimeters tall stepped out.
Black hair rolled into little buns that hung below her ears. A bright, dimpled smile on a face so cute and pretty it almost didn't seem real.
Se-a, however, was in no position to find her cute.
What is this mana...!
She had only just awakened. Her sensitivity to mana shouldn't have been that high—and yet the density of it was enough to stop the breath in her throat. She understood in an instant that this was the Minister who had called for her.
She'd never been interested enough to look up a photograph, but she remembered the day this woman had been appointed Minister of Male Protection. The headlines had screamed about her record as an S-Class hunter. Feeling mana like this, there was nothing left to doubt.
"Oh my. Special Escort Officer Lee Se-a?"
"Y-yes, ma'am!"
"Hmm? I can't imagine why you'd be so nervous just looking at me."
Lim Ga-yul came right up to her and tilted her head. Up close, her face really was devastatingly cute.
"Talking out here is a bit much, don't you think? Shall we move?"
It was phrased as a question. The pressure behind it made refusal feel impossible. Se-a fell in behind Ga-yul and boarded the elevator.
Ga-yul pressed the button for the first floor. Then, on the way down, she reached out and hit the very bottom button. The elevator shuddered and stopped. The light in the center of the ceiling died, leaving only the faint indirect glow along the edges.
"M-Minister?"
"Sorry. Too many eyes. I had to do it this way."
Ga-yul leaned her back against the left-hand wall and pulled a phone from her pocket.
"Every electronic device in here is nullified right now. No need to worry about anyone listening in, so we can speak freely."
She turned the screen toward Se-a.
Out of Service Area
No Internet Connection
Se-a's phone showed the same thing.
"What could you possibly need to say that requires all of this?"
She tried not to let it show, but she couldn't stop her hands and legs from trembling. In the sealed space, the mana pouring off Ga-yul only grew thicker.
"It's nothing dramatic. But it is extremely important. Something that serves not just the Republic of Korea, but the world—and, at the very least, Miss Lee Se-a."
Light cut down at a sharp angle, throwing her face into shadow. From within that darkness, her eyes flashed.
"Something I need to hear?"
Was there such a thing? As long as she had Dan-woo, she was happy. Se-a frowned, turning it over and over and coming up with nothing.
Ga-yul watched her, and when she spoke again her expression was utterly serious.
I had been through this enough times that the sensation was familiar. The feeling of sinking into deep water and losing all control of my own body. A fierce current dragged across my skin, tumbling me this way and that.
Experience counted for something, at least. I wasn't completely paralyzed. I could turn my head—just a little, barely at all—and I could twitch my fingers.
Is this actually underwater?
Experience and understanding were not the same thing. I had been in this space several times now, and I still had no idea what it was. I rolled my eyes upward. Light shimmered overhead the way sunlight does when it hits a surface and shatters.
I was straining with everything I had to climb toward it when a mysterious voice reached me.
"Don't struggle, dear."
"The time has come..."
Every word sank into my chest as if it had been aimed there. A sense of holiness washed over me—and at the same time, my body began to be pulled upward.
"Ghk—?!"
I shot up so fast that a pressure like a lead weight crushed down on me and stole my breath. I thrashed against the pain, and the light I had been staring at rushed up to meet me as I hit the shattering surface.
"Kahk! Hah... hah..."
Only after I broke through did the force that had been moving my body finally let go. The first thing I did, now that I had myself back, was try to breathe.
"Hoo..."
I didn't have the luxury of looking around until I'd steadied myself. My first impression was that everything was blindingly white. My second was that yes, it really had been underwater.
"How am I not sinking?"
The floor was water, and I was standing on it. Where the light touched it, the water shone like emerald. My feet dipped into the gentle ripples and emerged again, over and over.
"Heheh. That fascinating, is it?"
The same voice I'd heard beneath the surface—mysterious, holy, as if it could hold the entire world inside it. I spun toward the sound, startled, and found a woman of staggering height already standing right in front of me.
I had to tip my head all the way back to look at her. She had to be over a hundred and ninety centimeters. But it wasn't her height that caught the eye. Height was almost beside the point.
Long, wavy black hair. Intelligent eyes that looked as though they could see through anything. A high, sharp bridge of a nose and lush, vivid lips. A cinched waist that flared into a wide pelvis and hips built for bearing children. And above all of it, a chest so enormous that if she came any closer I wouldn't have been able to see her face. A body so far beyond perfect that even assessing it felt like blasphemy.
"Hm? And just where do you think you're looking?"
She followed my silent stare downward, and a deep smile curved her mouth.
"Heheh. Taken with my body, are you?"
Beaming, she gathered me into her arms. Seo-ha noona was well-endowed, but she didn't come close to this woman in any respect. The size alone was one thing—each breast was as big as a person's head—but the softness was unreal. They yielded as far as you pressed, a plushness that went on and on, as addictive as a drug.
Not that I'd ever tried drugs.
"You're genuinely adorable. Heaven doesn't have anything like you... What do you say? Want to try being an angel at my side?"
"What? What are you even—"
She was still rattling off nonsense when she scooped me up as if I weighed nothing and pressed my face into the hollow of her throat. My feet left the ground. I wrapped my arms around her neck so I wouldn't fall.
"W-what do you think you're—?!"
"I'll grant you anything you want. How does that sound?"
She whispered it against my ear, and it felt as though she were reaching past my body and into my soul. A sense of danger I had never felt before sent me thrashing.
"Aahn♥ If you touch me that roughly, what am I supposed to do?"
The instant my hand dragged down across her chest, she let out a sweet, broken cry and dropped me. I landed on my backside and started scooting backward, inch by inch.
"It was a joke, dear. Don't take it so seriously."
"W-who are you? What are you?!"
She was clearly not an ordinary person. I wasn't even sure she was a person at all. The way her chest had felt was unbelievably go—no. Not the point.
Her voice, the air around her—none of it belonged to a human being.
"You still don't know? I wasn't particularly trying to hide it."
She tipped her head and set an index finger against her lips. I was still caught on how beautiful she looked when she vanished.
Then her arms slid around me from behind, and she whispered against my ear.
"Ngh?!"
"So. How did it feel? Touching a god's breasts?"
Her voice was full of mischief. The words themselves were anything but.