Invasion (1)
The hut. A makeshift dwelling that looked like someone had thrown grass and branches over a square-pyramid tent. With scarce materials and even less manpower, their desperate attempt to make it resemble an actual house had produced this crude shape. The first word that popped into my head the moment I saw it was hut. It probably had some other official name, but I decided to call it that from now on.
Two survivor signals were coming from inside the hut. I scanned the area carefully before creeping closer.
“You understand what I’m saying, right?”
As I drew near, a young woman’s voice drifted out from within. The structure was riddled with holes; soundproofing was nonexistent. Thanks to that, every word of their conversation reached my ears with perfect clarity.
“If you just do what Noona says, I’ll give you food and let you see your mom again.”
I peered through a triangular window at roughly my eye level. Inside the dim interior, two silhouettes caught my attention. The first was a woman in her mid-to-late twenties. Objectively speaking she was attractive, but something about her felt sharply neurotic—maybe the long, slit-like eyes and the keen edge of her nose. Or perhaps it was the overly flashy clothes and the bright red lipstick that made her seem excessively extravagant. Putting on makeup when people were starving for lack of supplies? And the other figure was even more out of place.
It was a young boy who looked no older than thirteen. In complete contrast to the dolled-up woman, he appeared as if he’d just crawled out of a refugee camp—ragged and pitiful. You could have opened a sponsorship account for him on the spot. These two had to be the survivor signals shown on my terminal.
The boy was listening with the frightened face of a beaten puppy while the woman smiled at him with clear satisfaction. But this woman… why did she feel so familiar? Both her face and her voice tugged at something in my memory. Did I know her? Who was she?
I rummaged through my mind but nothing surfaced. Maybe it was just my imagination.
While I was busy searching my memories, the woman had seized the boy’s thin wrists and was lecturing him.
“But if you don’t listen to Noona, Jinyoung will get dragged away by the scary uncle just like your mom. Understand?”
So the kid’s name was Jinyoung. Scary uncle? Dragged away like his mom? I mentally filed away the information packed into her words. Across from this hut, the wooden house was emitting six survivor signals. The “scary uncle” and the “dragged-away mom” were almost certainly among those six.
The woman kept gripping the boy’s wrists, her threats growing heavier.
“If you don’t do exactly what I tell you, I won’t give you any food and you won’t get to see your mom. Well… maybe you will see her? Hehe.”
She laughed cruelly, looking like a cat toying with a captured mouse.
“It’s not hard, so don’t worry. All you have to do is lick and suck with your mouth like Noona tells you.”
She licked her lips seductively and slowly lifted the hem of her skirt. The room was too dark to see clearly, but the explicit command left no doubt about what she was ordering the boy to do.
For some reason it felt like the gender roles had been flipped. If I hadn’t seen and heard it myself, I might not have believed it. The scene was that unnatural.
“Uh…”
The boy stared with his mouth hanging open, watching her actions in a daze. At his age, doing sexual things with an older woman in her twenties might be an incredible experience for a guy. As a fellow male, I felt a little sorry to interrupt, but I had zero reason to wait politely until the act was finished.
I slipped through the curtain-like entrance and silently infiltrated the hut. The woman was so focused on the toy in front of her that she didn’t notice anything else—including me walking straight in. She only realized I existed after I pressed the blade of my spear against her throat.
“Don’t make a sound.”
“Hik…!?”
When I threatened her in a low voice, the woman who had been about to scream swallowed it instead. When? Where? How? Her eyes swirled with confusion as she stared at the unidentified intruder. I locked gazes with her, staring hard so she wouldn’t dare try anything.
The woman froze like a statue.
“Scary… uncle…” the boy muttered, looking at me.
Yeah, I probably did look like a scary uncle. Mottled military fatigues, face hidden behind a mask, body bristling with vicious spears, blades, and even a crossbow. I spoke to the boy in the deepest, scariest voice I could manage.
“You. Get under the bed and hide.”
“Huh…?”
“Don’t come out until I say so. If you do, I’ll kill you. Got it?”
Killing someone in front of a child was probably bad for his education. I shoved the confused boy under the bed anyway.
“W-wait!”
The moment the boy disappeared under the bed, the woman finally sensed the crisis and spoke in a hurry.
“If you kill me, you’ll regret it! I’m an administrator of this island. I know everything about this place.”
Then she began spouting nonsense in a trembling yet strangely confident voice. A forced smile clung to her lips. I was curious what gave her that confidence.
“Administrator?”
“That’s right. Administrator. Have you heard of Metapia: Island of Miracles? I’m the project team leader.”
When I asked again, she answered arrogantly. The faint spark of curiosity I’d felt died instantly. Her claim was far too contradictory. It was obviously a lie born from being cornered.
“Oh. Really?”
If she truly held such a position, she wouldn’t be living in a dump like this. She certainly wouldn’t have allowed the current dangerous situation. Most of all, if she were the real game master, she would have had some kind of safety device—a cheat key—prepared for emergencies. She wouldn’t need to tremble and bargain like this. The very fact that she was saying these things to me was the clearest proof she had no power at all.
“Perfect timing. I’ve been wanting to kill the bastard who made this place anyway.”
“Eh…?”
The spear tip dug into her shoulder. Very slowly.
“W-wait…?”
With a horrified expression, the woman frantically grabbed the spear with both hands to stop it from sinking deeper.
“Wait, wait! Let’s talk! I’ll tell you everything I know! Just listen to me! The information will be useful to you too!”
Information, huh. Of course information was important—assuming she actually had any real intel.
“……”
Judging from her behavior, the odds that her “information” was fake were extremely high. Still, I could decide that after hearing it.
“Kyaa!”
I shoved her hard, knocking her to the floor. Then I pulled out my Metapia Terminal to buy something to restrain her with, all while keeping the spear pointed at her with one hand.
“Y-yes! You… you look like a soldier, right?”
The woman, still sitting on the floor, suddenly brightened as if an idea had struck her.
“A soldier probably hasn’t been with a woman in a long time, huh? I-I’ll take care of you.”
It was a pretty funny joke. Not only since arriving on this island, but even back when I was in the military, I had never once suffered from a lack of women.
“Shut up. Make another sound and I really will kill you. If you want to live, keep your mouth closed.”
“Hik…”
I bought duct tape from the shop to tie her up. The same gray tape used for packaging, repairs, and patching holes in spaceships. Handcuffs or rope might have looked cleaner for binding someone, but if I also needed to gag her, nothing beat this.
“Put both hands behind your back.”
Using the duct tape I’d purchased, I wrapped her wrists tightly behind her, then her ankles, and finally her mouth. Fortunately, fear made her obedient, and I was able to restrain her completely without much trouble.
“Mmph!”
Covered head to toe in tape, the woman wriggled across the floor like a helpless caterpillar.
“Heh.”
The once-prickly woman who acted so tough was now completely neutralized with her limbs bound. It almost awakened a sadistic side I didn’t know I had, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to play around. At this rate, even if I left her alone she wouldn’t be able to escape.
I turned my gaze to the boy who was peeking out from under the bed.
“Hey, kid.”
“Y-yes?”
“Watch her and make sure she doesn’t try anything. Do as I say and I’ll bring your mom back.”
“…Mom?”
“Mmph! Mmph!”
Come to think of it, what I just said wasn’t all that different from the threats this woman had made. She twisted in frustration, but the tape over her mouth kept her silent.
“U-um…”
The boy looked back and forth between the woman crawling on the floor and my face, clearly at a loss. He had a pretty cute face for a boy. He’d probably grow up to be quite handsome, like me. I could somewhat understand why the woman had tried to make him do those things.
I roughly tousled his hair and said, “Not bad, kid. You look sharp. Guard her properly until I bring your mom back. Got it?”
“…Yes!”
He still looked weak, but there was life in his eyes. Even at that age, he was a man.
“Ugh! Mmph mmph!”
Leaving the wriggling woman and the kid behind, I exited the hut. My next destination was obvious—the wooden house across the way.