Suddenly, Ninjas Appeared! # 4
The nymphs unleashed torrents of water from their mouths with astonishing pressure.
Fwoooooooosh—.
It was, quite literally, a waterfall. As the nymphs joined forces and blasted out their streams, the ninjas' flames sputtered and died, powerless against the deluge.
"Flames conjured from mana can be put out this easily?"
"These strange creatures are strong!"
"We are not strange creatures, but Oinoi, nymph of the ditch waters, and that is a fact…!"
"The water cannons of we nymph sisters carry a special mana that can extinguish any flame whatsoever…!"
"That will be one payment for water, pleeease…! Have you not listened to the lesson taught by Adam's Smith, disciple of this Illinoi, that there is no such thing as a free lunch…?"
Before anyone knew it, the entire playing field was drenched. The ninjas' bodies were soaked through as well.
Then Cha Yura stretched out her hand.
"All nice and wet like that, you make my job so much easier! Now, freeze solid—. Freeze-dent!"
Crack-crack-crack—.
The water-soaked ninjas froze over at astonishing speed. It all happened in the blink of an eye.
"Blizzard Breath!"
Fwoooooooosh—.
Riding the momentum, Cha Yura breathed a wave of cold from her lips. The field froze over like a sheet of ice, and the ninjas were flash-frozen like tuna on ice, solid in an instant.
Nearly ten awakeners subdued in mere seconds. Truly, the combat power of an S-Rank awakener was nothing short of a force of nature.
"This is the combined attack of me, Cha Yura, and the nymph sisters! With the nymph sisters at my side, I, Cha Yura, am simply invincible! Mwa-hahaha!"
She thrust her hand up into the air with a flourish. In truth, the combination of Cha Yura, who could command cold at will, and the nymphs, who could spew water wherever they pleased, was exceptionally good.
"Domo—. Cha Yura-san. It is ambush ninja desu."
Pop—!
Just then, someone lunged at Cha Yura. A black shadow, moving at incredible speed. Just as I thought I wouldn't be able to block it in time, something like a silver flash shot out and caught the shadow's kick with its own foot.
BOOOM—!
A violent shockwave erupted, and the two of them went flying apart. They steadied their stances and called out to each other.
"Ambush."
"Cyborg ninja."
So the Japanese awakeners were fighting among themselves. The pair promptly drew their blades and began a ferocious duel, their colliding mana creating a maelstrom that no one else could even approach.
CLANG! Kakakagagang—!
Their ninja swords and murderous karate techniques carved razor-sharp slashes through the air, swallowing everything around them. That "A. Ninja" fellow was probably a full-fledged A-Rank, but the speed of his hands as he fought "S. Ninja" was terrifyingly powerful.
"Hieeeek…! It is too fast, and this Oinoi cannot see it…!"
"Oinoi! Come over here with the other nymphs!"
I figured my first job was to evacuate the nymphs. And just as I'd tucked them safely away in the bunker at the edge of the field—
━Grrrr…!
Keong-keong-i, who had been perched on my shoulder, bristled her fur. I turned my head to see Ki Seung-jae appearing onto the field alongside a swarm of countless machines.
"The true duty of an awakener is to be a weapon of war. Just as a car finds its meaning in driving, we awakeners find ours in one place only—the battlefield."
"Ki Seung-jae. You've finally gone and done it."
"If you don't want to be forgotten, make the whole world a battlefield. Forever!"
Had turning his body into machinery let his soul be devoured by cold metal too? Ki Seung-jae had become a man spouting complete and utter madness.
━Grrrr…!
FWOOSH—!
Without any word from me, Keong-keong-i threw herself at Ki Seung-jae. Of course, the mechanical squirrel that leapt out of his coat cut her off.
━Keng. Keng.
ZZZT-CRACKLE—!
The mechanical squirrel discharged currents of electricity so powerful they were visible to the naked eye. Keong-keong-i darted this way and that, nimbly dodging the arcs of lightning. She'd fought this thing once before, so she must have already memorized its patterns.
"You—! You terrorist! Glad I ran into you!"
Right at that moment, the air seemed to heat up all at once, and I saw Seo Yerim spread her palm toward Ki Seung-jae. She looked absolutely furious.
"Flame Maple!"
Maple-leaf-shaped flames shot out from Seo Yerim's palm. They struck Ki Seung-jae's body, and in a flash, the coat draped over him melted away into vapor.
"You monstrous woman! Vaporizing my fireproof coat in a single hit!"
Ki Seung-jae seemed rattled by Seo Yerim's firepower. Had he not known an S-Rank awakener's power was on this level?
No—. That couldn't be it. This guy wasn't the type to do his homework carelessly.
"Hold on—."
Something about all this felt off to me. But Seo Yerim's palm was already loaded with a second searing maple leaf. If this kept up, people were going to get seriously hurt.
"Lee Jina! Stop Seo Yerim!"
"What? Why me! How am I supposed to stop that!"
"Just do it! Get her anger under control somehow!"
"Wow, that's easier said than done—. Mmmph—."
Slide—.
Lee Jina pressed her hand to her own temple. Slowly, the bulging veins on Seo Yerim's forehead began to fade away.
"What is this? I suddenly feel all calm. Actually, it's kind of unpleasant. Feeling this calm makes me so annoyed I might get angry about it."
Had we succeeded in temporarily controlling Seo Yerim? Still, I doubted the effect would last long. I racked my brain fast.
# # #
I thought back to the past. All of it, even the parts I'd rather have left buried. And in those memories, Ki Seung-jae stood out as someone who pursued absolute perfection.
—Look at this. A robot that runs on a flawless algorithm and assembly. Pretty impressive, right? Half-assed work could never achieve this. Only a perfect person like me could…
Yeah—. Ki Seung-jae had been a perfectionist in his own way. With the sharp, lightning-quick dexterity he'd gained upon awakening, he'd climbed steadily all the way to A-Rank.
But the terror carried out by a man like that—didn't something about it strike you as strange, looking back now?
"You. Why go out of your way to stage an exaggerated incident just to pull a stunt this stupid? If hurting people was really the goal, you could've handled everything without us ever noticing."
Ninjas were people who could operate in total secrecy. And if Ki Seung-jae's killer drones had been part of it, the damage would have been far worse. But what had actually happened had an almost childishly comedic quality to it—starting a big fire for no reason, getting easily subdued by the nymphs, and fizzling out.
Every way I looked at it, something was fishy.
"You can fool everyone else, but not me. Ki Seung-jae, you're oddly half-hearted about all this. It's like the plan was designed from the start expecting to fail. Clumsy and sloppy in every possible way. That violates your algorithm."
Any sane plan wouldn't involve charging onto a battlefield with at least four S-Rank awakeners on it. That's about as smart as sprinting into a burning house carrying a gas canister.
"But if causing an incident itself was the goal, then it all makes sense. You just wanted people's attention, didn't you?"
I was someone who had craved attention for a very long time. Nobody understood the desperate urge to draw eyes and bait aggro better than I did.
But Ki Seung-jae wouldn't admit it.
"No. What kind of nonsense is that? Ha Ildo, stop yapping and fight me, you brat! Where does a leftover piece of trash who spent ages stuck in D-Rank get off talking so big? You still think you're the best of us?"
Pop—.
Ki Seung-jae spread his hand open. At once, the mechanical squirrel fighting Keong-keong-i sent its tail whirring like a chainsaw.
"Go! Iron Tail!"
Ki Seung-jae bellowed at the top of his lungs. But Keong-keong-i simply threw her jaws wide and roared like thunder.
━Grrrr…!
FWOOM—.
Fire burst from Keong-keong-i's mouth. Watching it, Ki Seung-jae visibly faltered.
"A dog-squirrel that breathes fire?"
"Word is, among Prime Dog-Squirrels, there are occasionally ones that breathe fire, and those can evolve into a dog-bear-squirrel known as the 'Sole King.'"
"…Dog-bear-squirrel…."
Ki Seung-jae's eyebrows twitched as if his brain simply couldn't process it. But what mattered was that Keong-keong-i charged straight at the burning mechanical squirrel and clamped down hard on the back of its neck.
━Keng-keng…!
━Keng. Keeeeeeng….
Perhaps some critical wire had been severed, because the mechanical squirrel went limp and sagged with a sad droop. The message in this spectacle was clear: Round two had ended in Keong-keong-i's victory.
"Then I'd better step up my game too."
Vmmm—.
I drew my Beam Saber and lunged at Ki Seung-jae.
"Come on, then, you bastard! Ha Ildo, you really think you can land a single scratch on me!?"
He raised his arm to block me—a mechanical arm. I feinted a swing of the sword, swept his leg out lightly, toppled him, and leveled my laser blade at his throat.
"You were just as bad at fighting back then as you are now, Ki Seung-jae. You hated fighting from the very beginning. Every time an operation came up, you'd hide away like you were being dragged along against your will."
"…What are you even saying. We were dragged along against our will. Did it ever look like we volunteered to fight?"
Ki Seung-jae raised his hands without resistance. I'd worried he might pull some desperate last-ditch move, but thankfully, nothing of the sort happened. Ki Seung-jae was a smart man.
"So why did you do something this stupid? Talk to me honestly. It's you and me here."
Ki Seung-jae seemed to realize that everything was over. After mumbling for a long while, he finally spoke, quietly, with a long sigh.
"Mingyu."
"Mingyu?"
"Mingyu's daughter started elementary school this year. I went to visit, and there were Mingyu's parents and his daughter, living in one cramped room with no fan even in the height of summer. Sweating buckets, and she still gave me an ice cream."
"………."
"Three of them, living in that tiny room. The compensation money that came in Mingyu's name—his wife ran off with it. Ha Ildo. Does any of this make sense to you?"
I had nothing to say. Jung Min-gyu had been the first of our class to leave this world. He'd been kind, too. He hated fighting. Back in those days, it was always the good ones who got hurt first and fell first.
"So now my name's going to be splashed all over the papers and the news for nothing more than disrupting some executives' soccer match. Meanwhile Mingyu's daughter lives on in a single room, unknown to anyone. Do people even know who Jung Min-gyu was in the first place?"
"………."
"Everyone forgot us. And what infuriates me most is that we forgot us too. With one excuse after another, we forgot ourselves. If I don't do something like this now, then I'm already dead."
I could understand Seung-jae's heart. And that was exactly why I was angry.
"There was no other way? You're supposed to be smart. This was the best you had?"
Ki Seung-jae chuckled low. Then he said:
"Ha Ildo. I know about the money you scraped together and sent to the dead men's families. That's why you lived like a pauper, huh. But none of that fixes the actual problem."
"Seung-jae. Whatever you want to call it, what you did is an act of terror."
I bound both of Ki Seung-jae's arms. His body was nearly all machine now, with barely any human parts left—but somehow, I could still feel it: there was hot blood flowing in him yet, and a heart that still beat.
Just then—
FWOOSH—! Someone burst onto the scene.
"Are you attempting to gloss over a criminal's crime scene with yet another sloppy melodrama, pray tell…? Even if you try to slip past it as stealthily as Snake hopping a fence, it shall avail you nothing, I declare…!"
It was the nymphs I'd evacuated to the field's makeshift bunker.
"This Illinoi never forgets, forgive her not, the grudge of the betting money staked entirely on the Japanese soccer team's victory…! The nymph sisters hereby deliver PUNISHMENT upon this steel-type human, I declare…!"
"This Oinoi, too, had been looking forward to the soccer match, and that is a fact…! But it fizzled out because of the ninjas' unwelcome intrusion, and that is most, most regrettable…!"
"This Coris doesn't really understand what's what, but being together with the nymph sisters is joyful, and that is that…!"
"Let's do it…!"
Doom-doom-doom-doom—!
The nymphs surrounded Ki Seung-jae—bound and utterly helpless to resist—and pounded away at him without mercy!