Trolley Dilemma #2
One thing I had to admit: having a big house was nice.
Even with several people crowded into the living room, it never felt cramped.
Seo Yerim and Yu Ari.
The moment the two women turned to face each other and a strange current began to crackle between them, Yu Ari was the first to speak.
"Yerim, like I said on the phone, I've been hearing a lot about you. They say you've been making quite a name for yourself at the T-Rank rifts lately. Developing new techniques, too. Really impressive."
It sounded like sincere praise.
From what I knew, the two of them were something like rivals, but apparently there was none of that—honestly, they just seemed to get along.
Flinch—
At that moment, Oinoi, who had been crouching behind my back and clutching my body like a shield, began to tremble.
Peeking past my shoulder to steal a glance at Yu Ari, she stretched out her chopsticks.
"...This Oinoi wishes to eat meat as well...!"
Her target was the pork belly sitting on the plate—slightly cooled, its fat congealed into a stubborn hardness.
She'd been hiding in the room until just moments ago, but the second Seo Yerim arrived, Oinoi had crept out into the living room and begun picking off the leftover pork belly one piece at a time.
"Mwheheh... When this Oinoi wraps the meat in these so-called lettuce leaves... she can feel the harmonious energy of the forest...! It is a most fortunate thing, happening as she was dreadfully hungry...!"
She had complained of being starving, after all.
Granted, she'd had the door shut, but there was no shutting out the smell of grilling pork belly.
I had set aside a few pieces to grill separately for her, and I was just debating whether to bring them out when Seo Yerim spoke.
"I've heard plenty about you too, Ari. Weren't you collaborating with Ohsa Group, developing this and that? So what brings a woman like you here?"
"You told me on the phone, remember? That Ha Ildo sunbae-nim moved into a new place with a well. It brought back old memories, so I came for the housewarming."
"Really."
Seo Yerim turned her narrow eyes on me.
It was the look of someone asking whether that was actually true. When I gave a noncommittal "Yep," she nodded as if satisfied.
"I see. And here I was thinking Ohsa Pharma was making contact with awakeners to run some kind of bizarre experiments. After all, there's a specimen sitting right here—someone who took years and years to break through the wall from D-Rank to C-Rank."
Was "specimen" supposed to mean me?
To be fair, the wall between D-Rank and C-Rank was high and treacherous, genuinely hard to scale. They said your fate was decided within a year or two of achieving D-Rank.
And I had spent nearly eight years as a D-Ranker, so my promotion to C-Rank was a pretty unusual case, all things considered.
Seo Yerim went on.
"I don't like dragging things out, so I'll get straight to the point. Yu Ari, if you're planning to get close to this idiot and run some kind of strange experiments on him, stop."
Strange experiments?
As I was wondering what she meant, Yu Ari frowned.
Seeing someone with her usual gentle, easygoing face scowl was genuinely terrifying.
"Back then and now, you just say whatever you want, don't you? I told you already. I came for the housewarming. And I don't work with Ohsa Group anymore. I'm the agency's public health physician."
Slide—
With those words, Yu Ari rose from her seat.
"Sunbae-nim, I should be going now. If I stay any longer, we'll only wear each other out. I came here in good spirits for a housewarming—it'd be a shame to spoil that."
Slide—
She walked to the shoe cabinet and slipped on her shoes.
Seo Yerim sat rooted in place, arms crossed, not moving a muscle.
The way I saw it, those two had clearly just had a falling-out, and Yu Ari—whose mood had soured—was now trying to leave.
So what was I supposed to do here?
Yu Ari had already made it out to the front yard before I knew it.
I'd noticed it while grilling the meat and boiling the stew earlier—her movements were remarkably fast. Was that what physical-type awakeners were all like?
"Kore Yerim has chased Yu Ari out...! At last, this Oinoi may shout and roam this house freely...!"
Whoosh—
Oinoi threw her hands up in celebration.
She looked like a nation declaring independence from an empire.
When Seo Yerim let out a derisive "Hmph," I found myself lost in thought.
What should I do here?
It was the moment the trolley dilemma—or whatever it was called—came rushing back to me.
Obviously, the right thing was to go after Yu Ari.
So I followed her outside, where she stood in the yard, blowing warm breath into her hands and glancing around.
"It says the taxi is still a little ways out."
"Come back inside at least. You could wait in there just as easily."
"It's fine. But let me say one thing clearly: I genuinely came just for the housewarming. I had absolutely no intention of using you, sunbae-nim, for experiments or anything like that. And I don't work with Ohsa anymore."
That word—experiments—kept coming up, and it was starting to gnaw at me.
But I wasn't a complete fool either. I'd vaguely known for a long time that various agencies and corporations had used "awakeners" for all sorts of experiments.
The fact that Yu Ari had once worked with Ohsa Group, a company rooted in pharmaceuticals.
The fact that she now worked as a physician. Both of these were, for various reasons, nagging at me anew.
"Goodbye then, sunbae-nim."
The taxi arrived almost before I noticed.
Yu Ari climbed in and whoosh—she was gone.
I trudged back into the house feeling absurd and hopelessly awkward.
When I got back, Oinoi was busily grilling and devouring the meat.
"Kore Yerim is conjuring magical flames to grill the meat for this Oinoi...! Meat cooking over a fire that isn't a fire at all...! This thing called an induction cooktop must surely be the Witch's magical flame...!"
Oinoi was chattering away in the kitchen like she'd never been hiding at all. The sight of Seo Yerim from behind, grilling pork at the induction cooktop, was fairly surreal.
I addressed that back.
"What on earth was all that about?"
"You wouldn't answer your phone, so I came to check whether something had happened to you. This house has more than a few unexplained corners. It's where that anomalous rift opened, after all."
At that, Oinoi thrust her hand into the air.
"This Oinoi picks up so-called donation coins from under the bed every single day...! She knows not why, but the coins sometimes grow of their own accord...! It is a wondrous house...!"
Coins growing on their own?
I thought Oinoi was saying something very strange, but that wasn't the important thing right now.
"When I ask what that was about, I don't mean why you came here—I mean the part where you just chased Yu Ari out. Wasn't that a little rude?"
"My nature is to say everything I wish to say. And I don't believe I did anything wrong. Yu Ari—her. She claims she doesn't work with Ohsa Group anymore, yet she still meets with Lee Jeonghun."
I already knew Yu Ari was still seeing Lee Jeonghun. Not that "seeing" meant anything romantic or professional—it was something stranger than that.
What exactly was the relationship between those two?
As I was turning that over, Seo Yerim spoke.
"Anyway, answer your phone next time. And try not to show Oinoi to Yu Ari if you can help it. Oinoi, you too—don't go getting chummy with just anyone."
"Mwheheh, do not underestimate this Oinoi...! And in that spirit, this Oinoi shall present to Kore Yerim, who grilled the meat, a gift—the 'painting' she has drawn...!"
Slide—
Oinoi tore a page from her sketchbook and handed it to Seo Yerim.
What would a nymph's painting look like?
"The title of the painting is Night in the City...!"
Seo Yerim accepted the drawing and made a very complicated face.
Well, it was a very complicated painting.
Oinoi was not exactly skilled with a brush.
Yu Ari stepped out of the taxi and headed for the lounge.
She needed to collect the things she'd left behind.
Past midnight. Late.
Yu Ari came to an abrupt halt in front of the physician's lounge, its light still on.
Because she could feel a presence inside.
"Come in."
At the voice from within, Yu Ari steadied her breath and slid the door open. The man sitting in the chair immediately scowled and began with the curses.
"Hey, Yu Ari. I told you I had my checkup today, didn't I? Stay put and wait for me in the lounge. So you don't even bother listening to what I say anymore, huh?"
It was Lee Jeonghun, known to the world as an S-Rank awakener.
He'd been absent from both the media and the workplace for the past several days, but Yu Ari wasn't particularly surprised to find him waiting in her lounge.
She calmly walked to the desk and gathered her things.
Just then, as she brushed past him, Lee Jeonghun twitched his nose.
"Have you been drinking?"
"......"
"Hunting someone again? You always drank before a job."
Crack—
Yu Ari clenched her fist hard enough for the knuckles to pop. Seeing it, Lee Jeonghun spread his hands and played the harmless man.
"Whoa, calm down. If you get angry, there's nothing the current me can do to stop you. The me that fell all the way to B-Rank. Damn it—B-Rank, of all things!"
Fury seethed and boiled inside Lee Jeonghun.
And there was only one reason for it.
"You're telling me a person's internal mana reserves can drop? Has that ever happened in history? It hasn't. Mana capacity only ever grows—that was the rule, wasn't it? Then why, in God's name, WHY!"
BANG—!
Lee Jeonghun slammed his fist down on the desk.
Then, cupping his own face in his palms, he spat out the words like something he could no longer hold down.
"Why is my mana falling? There's still so much left for me to do. Is it temporary? Permanent? Well, Yu Ari? Have you found anything? You've been sniffing around everywhere, haven't you."
"......"
Cre-e-eak—
Yu Ari's hand closed hard around the scalpel lying on the desk.
At that moment, Lee Jeonghun spoke.
"Cough. You. You went to see Ha Ildo, didn't you? That Ha Ildo. First generation. The D-Ranker. I looked into him. Just promoted to C-Rank. Cough, cough, damn—hah. And up he went."
Slide—
Lee Jeonghun clutched at his throat.
Was his airway swelling? For some reason, breathing had grown difficult.
"Cough, cough. Wh-what's with the coughing all of a sudden—."
Lee Jeonghun kept coughing.
Yu Ari, a bearer of Hyper-Sense and a physician with real experience, could tell it was some kind of allergic reaction—but even now, she could not pin down the exact cause.
She picked up a syringe filled with immunosuppressants and said,
"I've met that Ha Ildo a few times now, and he's exactly as unremarkable as he looks. There's no need to waste precious hours on him. I won't be meeting him again either."
Slide—
Yu Ari brought the syringe toward Lee Jeonghun.
He seized her wrist and glared up at her.
"How does a man who climbed from D-Rank to C-Rank after eight years count as unremarkable? I want to know how he did it, so set up a meeting for tomorrow. If someone can go from D to C, then surely someone can climb back from B to S."
"......"
"What, is it because you actually know him that you're getting defensive? Don't make me laugh. Yu Ari, how many friends have you sold out in your time? Is your conscience catching up with you now, of all times?"
"—Let go."
Yu Ari said it flatly.
For one instant, the glimpse of her ice-cold expression sent a chill straight through Lee Jeonghun, and the grip on her wrist went slack.
"...Right. Now that's a little more like the Yu Ari I know."
What had just happened wounded his pride deeply.
And the only weapon the current Lee Jeonghun could level at Yu Ari was his mouth.
"You seem to be forgetting something. Cough. Think about whose connections got you that comfortable physician's post at the agency. One word from me and you'd be shipped back to active field duty—hardly any trouble at all. Cough."
The field.
At that word, something in Yu Ari's chest trembled faintly.
She could almost smell it—the smoke of flames and the copper tang of blood lingering at the tip of her nose.
Yu Ari's life had always been this way.
There's no such thing as a hero in this world after all. Only the opposite.
"Hurry up and answer your calls. What are you doing."
Yu Ari now took hold of her phone.
She felt as though she had become the person standing on the train tracks.
The one riding the train was her. The one standing on the tracks, agonizing, was her. And the one lying on the rails was—also her.