I Told You Not to Come
Why the hell did you come anyway
The dock for smugglers that was always quiet and eerie, full of strange noises day and night, was now insanely noisy.
“Watch this! Watch!”
In a certain office, Helen stood with her back to the wall, making pathetic gestures that screamed “I’m in deep shit.”
Any one of the smugglers gathered here could have strolled over and slapped her cheek, and the whole situation would have ended right there.
But none of them moved. Not even a twitch. Her common sense screamed at them to grab that mouth and shut it, but their instincts refused to listen.
Why? Was there some hidden danger-detecting organ inside them, or a gut feeling that was screaming danger at them like a war siren?
Turns out it was exactly that. Shockingly accurate, no need for extra explanations. The smugglers were completely unfazed, their entire focus locked on the glass bottles shaking around them.
On the surface, they looked like ordinary rum bottles that had been rolling around on the ground forever. But from the bottle’s mouth, a flickering flame kept appearing, creepy and unnatural.
“Back up! Back up, I said!”
It was fear from the unknown, or maybe the ancient awe humans have had for fire since the Stone Age. Whatever it was, the little guy jumping around in front of them knew exactly what he was holding, so they wouldn’t get close.
“…Ehh!”
After about a minute of this tension, one smuggler who had been acting extra nervous suddenly burst into action, giving his buddy a push to get him moving.
“You damn cowards! It’s just one little kid! Plus a kid!”
The smuggler with the mohawk—top completely shaved—shot a deadly glare at the others who were just muttering and started advancing himself. >/p>
It was possible because he didn’t know anything. Equality of the flames, Molotov’s holy fire—whatever. It fit a guy who was brave because he was dumb.
Helen stomped her feet twice her normal stride and shook the Molotov wildly while yelling at him.
“I clearly warned you! As soon as you cross that door… as soon as you cross that desk… as soon as you cross that chair… as soon as you cross that divider…”
“?”
“T-that means… right! As soon as you cross the trash can…”
“Hah! It was a blank check after all!”
“No! This is actually dangerous!”
“Heh heh! Go on, throw it!”
The smuggler kept shoving Helen back with a laugh that was way too cheerful for the situation.
“Y-you…”
Real Helen, the tough one, stared helplessly at the garbage can CP that had been stupidly overrun. She stopped holding back, set her face, and chucked the Molotov like a little green-haired demon laughing.
-puff~boom!_ (Molotov explodes)
The second the thrown bottle shattered, the high-proof alcohol inside sloshed everywhere, mixing with sticky tar and forming solid fire walls all over the place.
At the same time, tiny tar droplets shot up from the ground like miniature fire arrows and stuck straight to some smugglers’ clothes or skin, making things even worse.
It hadn’t been aimed at people, but those flying tar splatters couldn’t be stopped even if they brushed past.
“Aaaah! Wh-what is this?!”
“It’s hot! Let me see!”
“Eek…! Hold still!”
Real Helen’s improvised weapon was so shocking that sharp screams broke out everywhere.
In the now-chaotic office, only Helen stayed sane. Her eyes, burning from smoke and heat, darted around as she frantically looked for an escape route.
But it wasn’t easy. Thanks to her insane insight, she kept searching for the perfect route and method, but most of the time she just ended up crawling into the monster’s mouth or getting abandoned by the situation.
In the end, Helen gave up on the entrance or stairs to the upper floor where the stuck-together smugglers were and headed straight for the glass window behind her as the only decent option.
“Please don’t break your leg!!”
-jing-jing! Jingjijng!_ (Glass shatters)
The broken glass flew everywhere as Helen fell freely. She felt the weird sensation granted by gravity and crossed her arms to protect her head…
-click!
“Oof.”
…She didn’t even need to. About a meter down from the window, she patted the bump on her head and immediately scrambled away.
Patting the bump on her head, Helen rushed out of the alley and was hit straight in the chest by a thick miasma.__BACKT>
The smugglers ignored hygiene, and all day long everything had been left to rot, decaying into guts mixed with the acrid coal smoke coming from far away. It was one hell of a disgusting stench.
“Ugh… urk! Glurk glurk!”
Helen barely held back her rising nausea and ran full speed toward the dark dock.
The long dock with its parallel warehouses was loaded so sloppily that even a slight touch from smuggling crates could make them collapse. It was the most impolite place imaginable—no safety rules could be found by washing your eyes.
Thanks to the rough waves, algae, fish oil, and god-knows-what else had washed up, the gravel ground was coated in sticky slime, slippery as ice.
“Hiyaaaah!”
Former Molotov spokesperson Helen spun her arms like windmills and somehow kept her balance in the most ridiculous way possible.
No sense of direction, but perfect balance. Luckily she didn’t fall, but the soprano scream that came out while she was adjusting was far too loud on this dock full of boisterous smugglers.
“There! That way!”
The chaotic footsteps approaching from far away merged into one huge sound heading straight for her.
Helen guessed the direction of the noise and threw the Molotov.
“Hup!”
The thrown bottle trailed a long red tail like faint glowing eyes, spun a couple of times in mid-air, and then erupted into brilliant flames where it fell.
“Aaaah! It’s that weird bottle again!”
The smugglers who had now reached right in front of her just stood there fidgeting in front of Helen’s fire wall.
Of course, not everyone hesitated this time.
“What are you doing? Just jump over it!”
He was the guy who had been unloading smuggling goods and rushed over in a panic. “What’s so scary about fire?” He charged straight at Helen on the opposite side of the flames.
But everything had a reason.
“Haha! See that, you cowards!”
“Hey! Look at your feet, you idiot!”
“Feet? Why— wait?”
The smugglers who had bravely charged through the fire looked down without thinking and suddenly froze, tilting their heads in shock.
“I just brushed past… why is the fire on my feet?”
The smuggler’s eyes went wide as he frantically rolled his feet. But the sticky fire burning between the shoe soles wasn’t going out.
In other words, he couldn’t shake off the tar that had stuck to the insides of his shoes and was still blazing away.
And Helen’s Molotov was made with a secret recipe from her old movement buddies—sugar mixed into the alcohol and tar to make it extra sticky.
Why sugar? When it hit the heat, it melted, caramelized, and stuck like tar, preventing the flames from being put out.
If you didn’t know, you couldn’t put it out. Even if you did know, it was still hard. Either way, the bold smuggler whose fire had reached his waist became literally on fire before he could reach the dock and dive into the sea.
“Nuuuuuuu!”
Helen heard the splash and boiling water, then immediately fled into the darkness again, the bottle clinking.
“There!”
“Eek! Stop chasing me!”
She kept running, throwing Molotovs whenever she heard the weird clinking to prevent anyone from approaching if her position was revealed.
She ran through the tightly packed wooden buildings of the smuggler base, throwing the Molotov the whole way…
…
…
…
…
…
“Ah, I don’t know.”
“Hmm? I don’t really know.”
“What? Kid? I’m busy as hell… move!”
“Um… my memory’s a bit fuzzy… could you just give me a little more time?”
“Our hotel has very strict entry for outsiders. Go check the police station.”
“I already went! Damn you!”
“Why are you so angry… where’s the security guard? Quickly drag these people out!”
-bang!
“Fuck.”
After running around like crazy, Bread Hat—sweating all over—was anxiously smoking in front of the closed entrance of some hotel.
“Where the hell did you go…”
He sat down with the cigarette, blowing out smoke mixed with a sigh. He had searched from Grove Street 3 all the way to the bustling high-rise hotels right up to his forehead, but found no leads. It was incredibly frustrating.
“…Snow?”
Bread Hat kept smoking in silence, staring at the strange snowflakes falling on his knees. He tilted his head.
This was strange. It was fall—cold, but not cold enough for snow.
Bread Hat looked at the weird snow with suspicion, wondering if those conspiracy theorists were right and the climate doomsday was actually coming…
“Brother!”
Tungtung-i and Bisil-i came running frantically, pulling him back to reality.
“Ah… you’re here? Find anything?”
“No!”
“Really? Then why are you so calm?”
Bread Hat flicked his hand up. Tung-sil duo reflexively put their hands on their heads and shouted.
“Ouch! Ouch! It’s not like that, brother!”
“Wh-what? Something you can’t even say without panicking? Just throw in the towel and go get the bread ready.”
“Ah, got it. Just hand me… hey, fire broke out at the B-district dock, brother!”
“Hmm? B-district?”
As someone whose job was the underworld, Bread Hat tilted his head.
“Why would a fire start there out of nowhere? Isn’t that the old hood area? The smuggling trash?”
“Yeah, it is them… but that’s not important! I overheard the firefighters as they ran in. Some crazy kid is running around throwing those weird bottles at the fire… hurry, brother!!!!”