The Restroom Ambush
The air felt lighter.
The moment he turned the doorknob in his hand, he was connected to yet another new space. Euphoria and tension tangled together, and his adrenaline went off like a bomb.
Now a D-rank spatial-transit Awakener being chased by BOND's field team and security detail, Mr. Kim was, despite his pounding heart, having the time of his life in the worst possible way.
'Goddammit!'
Because he was experiencing, in real time, exactly what it meant to have his lungs shredded.
"Hah! Haah! Hah!"
He rounded a corner and heard footsteps sprinting desperately after him — the pursuers closing in before they could spot him. If he just opened any door in this corridor and slipped through…
-Creak.
-Click.
By the floor plan, it should have spat him out at an emergency stairwell. Instead, it opened into a quiet, comfortable lounge.
'……Nobody's here.'
He had no idea which department the break room belonged to, but a state-of-the-art coffee machine beside the sink and a bundle of snack packs caught his eye.
'I'll catch my breath here for a bit.'
Decision made, Mr. Kim dragged over a chair, plopped down, and gulped in air.
"Whew, goddamn relentless bastards."
Just before the police were going to take him into custody, he'd claimed he needed the bathroom, grabbed the doorknob, and used his ability the second his hand touched it.
'Thanks to that scatterbrained idiot forgetting to lock my control collar on.'
And so he'd shaken off his restraints and made a clean getaway.
Granted, he was still just going in circles inside the building…
Conscious of his heart finally settling, Mr. Kim rose from his seat and walked to the window. Outside, the scenery was unchanged.
'Cops swarming all over the place.'
His legs ached dully. For the first time in ages, he actually put his brain to work, hunting for a way out.
Police blanketed the perimeter, and inside the building the field team and security squads were prowling every corridor, all of them gunning for him.
"If I were C-rank, I wouldn't even have to worry about any of this…!"
As a spatial-transit Awakener, he loved his ability — but there had always been one regret gnawing at the back of his mind.
D-rank.
One letter separated C from D, but the usable range of their abilities was the difference between heaven and earth.
D-rank spatial transit could only move him through a doorway — a physical 'door' as the medium. Nothing more.
Worse, there was a fatal flaw: even the Awakener himself had no idea where a transit would connect until he was already there.
'That's nearly gotten me killed more times than I can count.'
And the range was so pathetically short that ending up circling a single building was practically routine.
Exactly like right now.
In other words, Mr. Kim's D-rank spatial transit was, for all intents and purposes, a short-range Any-Door.
…Damn it. With this many restrictions, the difficulty of running away had skyrocketed into the stratosphere.
"Excuse me, have you seen anyone suspicious around here?"
"Suspicious, you say?"
"Nothing much — we just lost track of someone…"
Voices drifted in from outside the break room.
"……!"
After years of running, Mr. Kim could identify a pursuer by sound alone now.
'The field team.'
And right on cue, through the frosted glass panel in the break room wall, he caught a flicker of dark purple hair.
'That crazy woman again.'
The one who tracked his trail like a bloodhound, no matter where he went, always finding him within ten minutes. He couldn't get a moment's rest.
'How the hell does she keep finding me?!'
Cursing a blue streak inside, he carefully edged toward the break room door.
"No, I haven't. Shall I help you look?"
"……Mm, no, that's fine. I believe I've just found them. Ahem? There you are."
This absolute lunatic—!
He snatched at a doorknob in a flash.
Before that crazy woman could open the door…!
"Hello. We keep running into each other, don't we?"
A languid greeting came from outside the door.
-Bang!
"……"
Thud. Mr. Kim collapsed to the floor.
His legs had given out entirely.
"Whew… whew…"
He'd nearly been caught. By a hair's breadth, he'd managed to open the door first — that was the only reason he'd escaped.
'Th-the door's shut properly.'
He exhaled a sigh of relief, double-checking the firmly closed door behind him. If he ever slipped up and left a door ajar, he could get dragged back through it. He had to be careful.
A mistake that catastrophic could never, ever happen.
Sweat was already soaking his back. He scanned his surroundings immediately.
"…A bathroom?"
A pristine restroom bathed in soft lighting, classical music drifting through it. Two sinks stood in plain view.
'Thank god, no one's here.'
No sign of another soul. The moment he registered that fact, all the tension drained out of his body at once.
His arms and legs were trembling like jelly. Still, he couldn't just sit here slumped on the floor forever.
'Last time, the moment I let my guard down, they caught me.'
Hard-earned wisdom from experience. He forced strength into his shaking legs and hauled himself up, then turned on the faucet at the sink and plunged his head under the water.
The cold water cut through the dust-caked hair and streamed down in rivulets.
With ice-cold water soaking his head, his brain felt like it was… starting to work again.
'How the hell did everything go so catastrophically wrong?'
It had all started with, well… that damn wanted poster.
He swore to the heavens: he had never once, in his entire history, committed a crime that went beyond petty theft and fraud. Never anything violent.
'Okay, sure, I've dabbled in petty scams, some break-ins, the occasional pickpocketing…'
But those small crimes had piled up and compounded until they'd built the glittering résumé of a ten-time offender.
The control collar that awakened criminals were legally required to wear? He'd long since mastered the sleight of hand to toss it aside the instant anyone fastened it on.
'Since the collar doesn't work on me, they just started beating the living daylights out of wanted fugitives instead, huh?'
If he got caught now, prison was an absolute certainty. And if his hunch was right, this time it would be an aggravated sentence — three years minimum in an Awakener penitentiary.
'Rather than go back to that place, I'd rather leave Korea entirely.'
"Ugh, seriously…! I just need to hold out a little longer!"
Until a boat bound for China left — one he could stow away on without the police noticing — he had to stay hidden for a full month.
He needed a place to lie low and build up his stamina in the meantime. So he'd been holing up at a spot a dungeon broker had introduced, saying it was C-rank but safe…
And then — the day before departure, of all days — BOND's bastards had to come and catch him!
'Why the hell did those bastards even enter that dungeon?'
Mr. Kim still didn't know why BOND had come into the dungeon he'd been hiding in. Those people pulled off every conceivable kind of madness, after all.
Unlike the police, who just kept shouting "Sir! Excuse me, sir!", the BOND goons had come straight at his head with their fists swinging. There hadn't been a single opening to ask why.
'I woke up in a den of gangsters, that's what happened!'
Even after capturing him, their cruelty had been boundless. Taking turns "interrogating" him with smacks to the face, they'd left his cheeks swollen like balloons and knocked a few teeth loose.
"Those Field Team 3 sons of bitches!!"
-SLAM!
Shouting the team name he'd overheard, he drove his fist down onto the sink, seething with rage.
It must have been real marble, because his fist felt like it had shattered.
"Hoo… Still, you know."
Heh. Staring at his reflection in the mirror, Mr. Kim curled the corner of his mouth upward.
He'd escaped. Which meant there was hope.
'It's not over yet.'
Things had gone to hell in a handbasket, but hope wasn't dead.
All he had to do was grit it out like this, hour after hour, and slip away the moment the police at the main entrance got complacent.
'And if I happen to luck into a door leading outside along the way, even better!'
To hold out until then, he needed to conserve his strength.
Just as Mr. Kim was racking his brain for a hiding spot—
-Click.
"Oh, someone's in here."
…What?
"Sorry to intrude, but the children from Bada Kindergarten are here on a field trip today. We'll just use the restroom for a moment and head right out! I'd appreciate your understanding."
The bathroom door swung open, and a tall, pale-faced man strolled in, smiling.
Mr. Kim, flustered, tried to wave a hand in protest.
But that wasn't the end of it. Four bean-sized little kids and one enormous hulk filed in behind the man, and his mouth snapped shut.
"Wow~ this bathroom is huge!"
"You could play ball in here."
"Noah, can we play ball here?"
"Hmm, if there's no one around, maybe? Should I ask Teacher?"
The restroom, which a moment ago had carried nothing but classical music, erupted into chaos. The chattering children surged in like a wave.
"Huh? There is someone in here."
Standing numb before the sinks, Mr. Kim found a tiny kid with a veritable waterfall of snot appearing right in front of him.
Wh-what the—?
Mr. Kim opened his mouth, sputtering, trying to bark something — anything — at them, but the kids were faster.
"It's a mister! Mister! Why are you here?"
"Noah, why does anyone come to the bathroom? He came to poop."
"Poop! *Snort!* Mister, did you really come here to poop?"
Goddammit.
Mr. Kim's face flushed red as the children cackled at his expense.
But he suppressed his fury for dear life. There was nothing stupider than kicking up a fuss here and getting himself arrested.
Hold it. Hold it in…
Seeing the children swarming toward him, Mr. Kim gave the man who'd been rambling about apologies a curt, dismissive nod.
Take these little brats and get out already!
"Thank you."
The man flashed an easy, radiant smile and herded the insufferable children toward the back of the restroom, out of sight.
Except.
"……"
Why was this hulk not following them? Why was he still here?
"Could I… check your visitor badge?"
"Excuse me?"
Instead of following the man, the hulk walked slowly toward the sinks and looked down at him. Then he demanded the badge.
From the moment their eyes had met briefly, that gaze had been dogging him relentlessly — and now it carried a thick, unmistakable suspicion.
Who the hell is this guy supposed to be?
"…Please show me your visitor badge."
"……I left it at my desk."
He improvised on the spot, but a plausible excuse popped right out.
Before he'd gone down the road of crime, he'd been a perfectly respectable office worker at a decent company. Which meant spinning the kind of thing an ordinary salaryman would say in this situation was hardly difficult…!
'Now then — what exactly are you going to do about it?'
Mr. Kim shot the hulk a look oozing irritation.
But this one was no pushover.
"Then… show me your face, at least."
Step. Step. As the hulk closed the distance, Mr. Kim pressed his cap down hard and buried his chin.
"H-hey, what, what's the big idea…!"
"I'll make my judgment once I've seen your face."
Judgment? Who the hell do you think you are?!
The man's tone had changed!
Lower. More predatory. For an instant, Mr. Kim felt a chilling stab of déjà vu at the shift in the hulk's aura.
'Wh-what… why does he feel like those gangsters from that place…'
"Wh-who, who even are you?!"
Beneath the brim of his cap, he could see the man's shoes drawing closer. A yellow apron, absurdly incongruous with that massive frame, made the sight somehow even more terrifying.
"……I'm a kindergarten teacher."
What did you just say?
At the absurdity of it, Mr. Kim nearly lifted his head despite himself.
If training could build a body like that, every gym rat in Korea would be walking around with that same monstrous physique.
'If you're going to lie, at least make it convincing.'
Did he think putting on an apron would make anyone believe he was a kindergarten teacher?
The man had personally brought in four children who'd called him "Teacher," and Mr. Kim still didn't buy it. That was how completely incompatible this hulk of a body was with the profession of kindergarten teacher.
As the standoff dragged on, a single thought flashed through Mr. Kim's head.
'Don't tell me this bastard is…'
Yes — if that were true, it would explain both the déjà vu and the sheer size of him.
Marvelling at his own brilliant powers of deduction, Mr. Kim settled on the hulk's true identity.
The company was in an uproar trying to catch him. And here was a man whose attitude suggested total ignorance of the situation, wearing clothing utterly mismatched to his imposing features.
Then the answer was obvious.
Field team, on an undercover mission.
If that were true, plenty of things failed to connect with his current situation — but Mr. Kim was not a man whose brain worked hard enough to nitpick details like that.
'In for a penny — I can't stay here any longer.'
His mind made up, Mr. Kim raised his hackles and barked back, even louder.
"Oh, for crying out loud! Fine, wait right there! I'll go grab my badge right now!"
He tacked a muttered "what do you take people for—" onto the end of it for good measure, sidled sideways, and edged toward the bathroom door.
'Okay. Smooth. Natural.'
Keeping the scowl plastered on his face to the very last second, he laid his hand on the doorknob.
"Noah, you didn't poop your pants, did you?"
"Hey! *Snort!* I didn't poop like that mister!"
"Why do you love poop talk so much, Seora?"
"…Hmm, it's a phase. It's because Noah and Seora are still young. We're the youngest in the class, remember?"
Those little devils.
Still, the timing was perfect. The children and the young man who'd vanished into the back were walking back out toward the sinks right now.
Hey, hulk — mind your own business! If you're going to play teacher, at least do it properly!
"Alright, everyone, time to wash your hands~"
Mr. Kim beamed breezily and pulled the doorknob without a shred of hesitation.
Instead of a clean, standardized modern corridor, somewhere entirely different connected through.
A passage black as ink. Not a single ray of light entered it, and there was no telling where it led.
'Perfect. A place like this is exactly what you want for hiding.'
Far from fearing the darkness, Mr. Kim welcomed it.
Dark was familiar territory. Wearing a smile of deep satisfaction, he strolled leisurely into the depths of the passage.
However… he was not alone.
Others had slipped into that dark corridor right behind him.
So frantically preoccupied with running for his life, Mr. Kim had finally committed a fatal mistake.
…The bathroom door had not closed properly.
It was still hanging open, connected to the corridor of darkness.