Suddenly, Ninjas Appeared! # 2
Ninjas.
In this world where elves, nymphs, and all manner of magical beasts had become real, ninjas genuinely existed as well.
Word had it that the awakened of Japan, operating in the shadows across the globe, had come to be known by the name 'ninja.'
"Katon — Fire Hell!"
Whooosh—!
Ninjas in black masks spat streams of fire from their mouths.
It wasn't anywhere near Seo Yerim's level, but the flames were ferociously hot — and their target was Tsubaki.
"You bastards! Do you even know who I—!"
Fwoom—!
Tsubaki took the ninjas' flames dead-on.
It was fire hot enough to dry my freshly bathed skin in an instant, but Tsubaki — sturdy as she was — seemed to have remarkably high resistance to external mana, as enhanced-type awakeners usually did. Her clothes and skin were merely singed.
Riiiiiing—!
The problem was that this blast of heat set off the hotel's fire alarms in a deafening chorus.
Sssssshhh—!
Sprays of water gushed from the fire suppression systems mounted on the ceiling.
The instant a mist of water swept away everyone's vision, the ninjas spoke.
"This much of an introduction should suffice. We of Primis do not disappear—."
Fwoosh—!
And they vanished at breathtaking speed.
Disappearing while claiming they don't disappear.
Their words and actions didn't quite match, but they were clearly superbly trained operatives.
"Tch. Lost them."
Tsubaki brushed the water spray aside with both arms and clenched her fist tight. She gazed at the windows through which the ninjas had fled.
"Looks like they're after Telos executives. This was a warning. They're planning to raise hell at tomorrow's final match — kidnapping the executives, I'd wager?"
Tsubaki's deduction was reasonably sound.
Telos was a world-class corporation — a megacorp you might as well call an empire or a kingdom.
Kidnap an executive of a company like that, and the ransom would be truly astronomical.
In fact, crimes and kidnappings targeting corporate executives were so frequent that most executives privately hired high-rank awakeners as bodyguards.
Kidnapping, then.
But my thinking was different.
"If they'd wanted to abduct corporate executives, they wouldn't have appeared so noisily. They would have handled things quietly. All this racket means—."
The disturbance itself was the goal, wasn't it?
Maybe they wanted tomorrow's match called off.
The assault had come out of nowhere in every way.
Still, it was a blessing that no one had been seriously hurt.
But Tsubaki looked puzzled.
"How did no one notice those guys infiltrating the hotel itself? Did the alarms and cameras malfunction or something?"
Whish—.
Tsubaki and I both looked at the camera mounted in the corridor.
And we spotted something clinging to it.
Bzzzzz—.
"Ah, it's getting away!"
Tsubaki shouted.
Right at that moment, Kwang-kwangi, who had been lying in ambush against the corridor wall, sprang into action.
━Grrrung…!
Snap—.
Something that had been flitting through the air was caught dead in its tracks by Kwang-kwangi's ambush.
"Kwang-kwang! Nice one!"
━Hio-ong…!
Up close, it turned out to be a 'bee' made of machinery.
It was shaped like a honeybee, but where the stinger should have been, there was something like a tiny USB chip instead.
"Was this what hacked the hotel's network? This is a hotel, granted, but considering it's a building belonging to an IT giant like Telos, that would be an impressive feat. This machine — crude as it looks, the craftsmanship—."
"......"
"Ha Ildo? What's wrong?"
Tsubaki asked me.
I tucked the bee I was holding carefully into my pocket.
"Something about this is bothering me. May I keep this bee? Tsubaki, please call the executives over and tell them what happened."
"This Illinoi was in the midst of eating a very big and very delicious cloud of cotton candy in her dream, and that is a thing…! Because of the fire alarm, she was forcibly woken and deprived of her cotton candy…! This loss is, therefore, extremely significant, and that is a thing…! She shall sue the ninjas for destruction of a nymph's dream…! A lawyer, please call for her at once, that is a thing…!"
Illinoi was absolutely furious.
Two in the morning.
Waking up at a time when nymphs should have been fast asleep seemed to have genuinely enraged her.
Oinoi and Coris, too, kept yawning.
"This Oinoi is very sleepy, and that is a fact…!"
"This Coris has no idea what is what, and that is a thing…!"
The ninjas had assaulted the hotel.
The person best suited to explaining the situation was the S-rank awakener of Japan's Kangekiren — S. Ninja.
"Ambush Ninja. Is that what he called himself?"
S. Ninja was a man whose entire body was concealed in cybernetic machinery.
Just as I was thinking it looked a little romantic and cool, he added:
"Impossible. Ambush Ninja — commonly known as 'A. Ninja' — died five years ago on a mission inside a rift. I witnessed his death with my own eyes, which is why I remember it."
He had been a first-generation ninja.
Not to the extent of Korea, where rifts had erupted like wildfires, but Japan's first-generation awakeners had also braved perilous missions.
Naturally, he said, a great many of them had been ground to nothing.
A. Ninja was one of the first awakeners to die in those days.
"......"
So many thoughts crowded into my head.
Just then, my phone rang with a cheerful ding—
A TelTalk message from Kim Dan, my first-generation classmate.
I called her immediately.
"You saw the photos I sent, right? What do you think?"
━Yo. That mechanical bee you sent me — one look and I can tell it's a fairly sophisticated signal jammer. Quality work. My specialty's weapons, but even I can see it at a glance.
Kim Dan was the second most knowledgeable mechanic among the people I knew.
She built weapons, armor, even mechanical prosthetic arms and legs.
For someone like her to call this 'mechanical bee' remarkable meant the device was far from ordinary.
"Seo Sang-yong. What will you do?"
Then a man seated at the table spoke up.
He resembled Seo Sang-yong, but wore a shirt with a southern-island flair to it, and a tiger-striped tattoo peeked out here and there across his sun-bronzed skin.
Seo Ji-ho.
Seo Sang-yong's younger brother, Reiko's father, and the head of Telos Japan.
"If we go ahead with tomorrow's match, those bastards will obviously attack again. Do we just pretend this never happened? Wouldn't it be better to have everyone return home safely?"
At his younger brother Seo Ji-ho's question, Seo Yerim's father — the man who in practice ran Telos — closed his mouth and hummed in thought.
"Primis." Latin for 'the first, the foremost.' I've never heard of an organization like this either."
Whish—.
After a long silence, Seo Sang-yong looked at me.
"Ildo. What do you wish to do? You hold the naming rights for tomorrow's match."
"I'm sorry — who? Me?"
No way.
Seriously?
You're calling on ME here?
I was more flustered than I'd expected to be.
I wasn't nearly big enough for a stage like this yet, you know.
Bzzzz—.
Just then, the mechanical bee in my hand trembled.
Something pounced at it with a sharp snap—.
It was Kwang-kwangi.
━Hio-ong…!
Kwang-kwangi had succeeded at hunting the mechanical bee yet again.
It was a magnificent sight, and people exclaimed things like, "My, my," and, "Sings beautifully AND hunts well, huh?"
I thought so too.
At the same time, a flood of worries washed over me.
"I honestly don't know. But I think that if we bow to a terror organization now, we may end up conceding a great deal more to them down the road."
I needed a little time to think.
A match with astronomical sums riding on it!
Executives who could get hurt.
With all of it suddenly resting on my shoulders, I felt like a hole was about to tear open above my head.
"S-senpai—."
Then Ari called for me.
While the others were deep in discussion, I slipped out to the balcony with her.
"Ari. It's been a shock, hasn't it? But no one's been hurt so far. And whatever happens, we'll protect you."
"That alone is reassuring, really. But senpai — I need to say this. We should cancel this match. Primis. I've, um, heard that name in rumors before, and…."
"Go on?"
"Ildo-senpai, you should avoid meeting them at all costs. If what I've heard is true, they're all—."
"First-generation awakeners, aren't they?"
"…H-how did you—."
Ari looked startled.
I showed her the mechanical bee Kwang-kwangi had caught.
"This mechanical bee. I remember it. As far as I know, there's only one person who could build a machine this small and this precise. I never knew what he'd been up to these days, but…."
I remembered the time Kim Dan and Ahn Gyeong-tae had visited our house.
They'd told me about first-generation classmates who had gone down the wrong path, committing crimes or worse.
I hadn't pressed for details then.
I simply couldn't believe that comrades who had once watched each other's backs had fallen so far.
"Wait here."
"Senpai, where are you going?"
Telos Land.
The island boasted an enormous transmission tower.
It was tall enough to take in the entire island at a single glance.
They called it Telos Tower.
I climbed all the way to the rooftop at its peak.
━Hoo, hoooo—!
Thanks to Kalinoi, the climb was easy.
On the rooftop where I arrived, a man was perched on the railing.
He wore a long winter coat despite the sweltering summer heat.
Spotting me, he spoke first.
"Ha Ildo. Long time no see. You're looking well. I hear a lot about you these days. Your name even pops up on the internet sometimes. I gave those articles a like—, you know. You should thank me."
It was funny.
Because he seemed completely unchanged.
"It was you, after all. 'Mechanic.' Signals travel best from high places, reaching every corner — was that it? You always did love perching somewhere high. You defended more high-ground positions than I can count back in the day."
"Yeah. I remember. 'Mechanic.' It's been a while since I heard that name. Honestly, though, I remember everything. We suffered like dogs. Plenty of guys actually died, plenty got hurt. I remember it all. Even now, when I close my eyes, it's all right there — like it's been saved to my memory—."
Click-chunk—. Vreeee—.
Sssshh—.
The man stepped toward me out of the darkness.
His face was a gas-mask-like lattice of mechanical parts connected to a respirator, and from the neck down, everything was machine as well.
Most of what the coat concealed was probably cold metal too.
Mechanic — Ki Seung-jae spoke.
"For me, it's as vivid as if it happened yesterday. So why does no one ever talk about that day? Not a single line about it in the news, not even on the internet. As if it's been forgotten. We died while still alive, Ildo."
"......"
"Ildo. Look at these glowing lights. Back then, people said the world was ending — but the buildings only grew taller, and the windows shine like stars."
"It's the world we protected. You know that."
"I do. I know it well. A peace built from the price of our blood, a world built the same way. And now I'm going to collect a proper receipt for it."
Whish—.
Ki Seung-jae extended a hand toward me.
"Ildo. If it's possible, I'd rather not fight you. And frankly, I think you belong on this side, not that one. We are strict meritocrats — skill and results above all."
"......"
My head spun in a dozen different directions.
And that was when it happened.
Keongkeongi, perched on my shoulder, bristled his fur.
━Grrrung…!
His fur had only puffed up like this once before — when he fought his rival, Kwang-kwangi.
He must have sensed some ferocious, primal, territorial danger.
But why?
I soon found out the reason.
Vreeee—. Click-chunk—.
Something was perched on Ki Seung-jae's shoulder.
It was a gleaming, chrome-colored piece of machinery — and its shape was—.
"A squirrel?"
"Yep. A mechanical squirrel. Cute, right?"
━Keong. Keong—!