Tickled Bone

I gripped the thing I'd pulled from my bag in one hand and swept my other hand down over my earring.

The familiar sensation sparked at my fingertips, and a terse line of text blinked into being in the empty air.

I really hadn't expected to be doing this again.

I swallowed past a dry throat. In the end, I forced the words out.

"……Register Kwon Haeseong."

Deep in my chest I could hear my ethics screaming in protest, but I turned my head away. Human rights, moral principles—weren't those the kind of things you could only pick back up after you made it out alive?

'Well, the most important part is handled.'

Next came an attempt made purely on the off chance. Lower Open Source, activate.

"……!"

I wasn't flustered. Naturally, I'd accounted for this scenario too. It was just that, with my hypothesis now proven, the situation had gotten a little more complicated. Having been through the status window a few times already, I wasn't fool enough to walk in blind—I had, at the very least, formed a theory. Of course, I'd never planned on running the experiment in the middle of a godawful mess like this….

I lifted my head and looked at the monster locked in a brawl with Kwon Haeseong. And at the status window floating beside it.

'So that monster's name is Tyros.'

I'd wondered whether I could use my tamer ability the way I did outside and handle that thing like any ordinary animal, but….

So much for the easy way.

'Then I'll just have to stick to the original plan.'

I waited for the right moment. Kwon Haeseong sprang clear of one of Tyros's stone fists, then slid out of the path of the opposite fist as it came hurtling in. He kept trying to mount a counterattack, but it clearly wasn't going well. Just as I'd predicted, the longer it went on, the more ground he lost.

The creature seemed to have lost its temper, eyes blazing bloodshot as it hammered the ground mercilessly with both fists, as if determined to make a skewer of Kwon Haeseong. The earth heaved with every blow, punching one enormous crater after another into the floor. That…… take one hit from that and it was instant death.

'Pull yourself together, Hwiyeon.'

I would get exactly one chance. I tightened my grip on the thing that had begun to slip with sweat.

Still watching Tyros warily, Kwon Haeseong rose slowly back to his feet and picked up a stone from nearby…. He'd picked up…. Huh? A stone?

And then, just like that, he swung the big rock straight down toward Tyros's bone mask. No—he tried to.

Tyros, thrown off that the fist-swinging brute had suddenly switched to a rock attack, gaped its mouth wide open. And just as Cheonji had described, blunt teeth came into view. Countless of them….

'If those chomp ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠down on him, he's dea……!'

I threw every ounce of air I had into the shout.

"Kwon Haeseong, SIT!!!"

The instant my shout rang out, Kwon Haeseong's knees slammed into the ground. And with them, his left foot—the one that had been about to disappear into Tyros's teeth—planted safely into the dirt as well.

Even as I gaped at his idiotic strategy, my body moved without a hitch. Kwon Haeseong's dumbstruck eyes chased after me as I ran, but I ignored them. Tyros wavered for a split second, its target abruptly vanished from view.

"……!"

I didn't miss that opening. Using the blocked line of sight, I sprinted in beneath the bone mask.

-Whoosh.

It spotted me a beat too late and thrust out a fist, but I was faster. Raising the thing in my hand, I pressed it hard against the creature's neck. Harder. Press harder. More! The joint gave under the pressure, opening a gap. The collar stretched automatically to size, the clasp swung open, and at last….

-Click.

"……Did it work…?"

……I was pretty sure it had. It worked. I had just fastened the Painless Chic-Popping Ability Restraint around this thing's neck.

"Whew…."

Maybe the tension drained out of me the moment I registered my success, because I sank down onto the ground. The creature, flustered in its own right, showed no thought of attacking—too busy running its hands over the restraint now locked around its neck. It could try a hundred times; that thing was not coming off. According to the manual that came with it, the collar was crafted from a peculiar metal found only in dungeons—even an elephant could stomp on it without leaving a scratch.

'That man really spared no expense.'

I watched Tyros struggle with something close to pity. From what I'd heard, the monsters inside dungeons carried the same wavelength in their bodies as Awakeners did.

'Then with the restraint on, it must ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be feeling exactly what we would.'

That suffocating, dreadful sensation.

'All we have to do is run while it's panicking.'

A moment later, just as Kwon Haeseong, having grasped the situation, came over to speak to me—

-THUD!

"……?"

……Tyros toppled over backward. Squirm, squirm. It rolled around on the ground like a man with a stomachache, and Haeseong and I forgot what we'd been about to say, staring blankly at the spectacle.

'Why is it doing that?'

'…I don't know.'

We exchanged roughly that much in a single glance, and when we looked again….

The violent thrashing had knocked the bone mask loose, and beneath it, the creature's bare face came into view. Along with the corners of its eyes, sagging in a slack, goofy droop.

"Ah."

Come to think of it, Manager Lee Wonwoo had said something about that.

"The tickling was the first thing that got scary. After I watched an employee get carried off to the emergency center from laughing himself into respiratory failure, I too…. gave up on it."

Serious side effects, apparently. No sooner had that registered than laughter erupted, ringing loud through the entire dungeon.

-KAKAKAKAKAK—HACK!!

-KAKAKAKAKAK—HACK!!

Kim Pyo-sang clutched the bars of the cage, his face blank with despair. Beyond the cold steel, dozens of monsters swarmed and milled about.

"Mister, you should sit down. Don't your legs hurt?"

The leisurely voice at his back made his blood boil. 'Whose fault is it that I'm locked up in here?!' He'd ended up like this trying to flee with that little brat in tow!

The monsters' stamina, showing no sign of flagging no matter how far they ran, far surpassed a human's. Kim, on the other hand, had burned through his strength faster than usual, sprinting with a kid weighing over twenty pounds slung across one arm. 'And in the end, I got caught! Kim Pyo-sang, you fool!'

He'd even considered dropping the kid mid-run, force be damned—but at that exact moment, of all things, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his nephew's face, one he could barely remember anymore, had flashed through his mind!

"Help me! Open this thing, please!!"

He begged at the top of his lungs toward the monsters chopping logs into pieces, but they didn't so much as pretend to listen. All he'd needed was somewhere to hide for a moment—he had no intention of spending the rest of his days locked up in a place like this!

"Mister, shouting like that is bad for your throat."

"Shut up!"

Being caged in the same space as a kid he couldn't hold a conversation with, all while having to watch those runty bastards shoot him creepy little grins every time they glanced his way, was its own special torture.

"Help me…. Open this thing…!"

-Wooo?

And so, roughly an hour into his imprisonment. After screaming himself hoarse and observing the creatures, he had come to learn one chilling fact.

"N-no. It can't be."

The monsters carried pieces of chopped wood out of the brush one by one and began building a roaring fire in the center of the clearing. Then they set a bucket over the flames—one easily big enough to hold two grown men—in a downright celebratory mood….

"No. It's not. It can't be."

Why, why did it feel like a house party? Scenes he didn't even want to imagine were assembling themselves in his head. Like people being skewered on those long wooden spits like cuts of meat? Or the grim premonition that what would go into that furiously boiling bucket was him and that jinxed little brat….

-Rustle, rustle.

Tears welled up in Kim's eyes before he knew it. 'I never lived a good life, but did I really live so badly that I deserve to die this cruelly?!'

-Rustle, rustle.

"Hey! Nam Taejae! A man's losing his mind over here—can't you be quiet!"

He might die at any moment, and the sound of that plastic bag was grating on his last nerve. Kim barked. 'Tch… like we're not about to die any minute now.'

Glancing over at Nam Taejae, he found the boy sitting cross-legged as if he were lord of his own living room, pulling a white plastic bag out of his backpack. Seeing that, Kim decided that even if it killed him, he was going to teach this brat some manners first. 'I'll knock that attitude right out of him!'

But then.

"Want a potato?"

Out of nowhere, Nam Taejae held out a piping-hot potato….

……

He was dumbfounded. Were kids actually hungry at a time like this? And why on earth did the kid want to give one to him? After all those questions had come and gone, his gaze settled on the potato Taejae was holding out. …The pale, pillowy potato cradled in those small hands looked delicious.

Gulp.

Come to think of it, he hadn't had a proper meal in over a month. 'Too busy cramming grass and raw mushrooms into my mouth.' Try to sit down and eat in a dungeon while giving off the smell of food, and you'd end up as the monsters' dinner instead. Exactly like right now….

Kim hesitated.

"My grandma steamed it for me this morning."

"……Give me one."

Well, if grandma steamed it, he supposed he had to eat it. He might be dead soon anyway; pride and circumstances hardly seemed to matter anymore. For all his iron resolve, a single potato had stripped him of his will to fight. Kim plopped down where he stood and took a bite of the potato Taejae had handed him.

The potato was…… so, so good.

'Tastes so good I could cry. Damn it.'

It was cooked through perfectly, fluffy and soft, and sweet—maybe someone had sprinkled sugar in the middle. Perhaps it was the sugar hitting his system ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠after so long, but his mood seemed to lift…… just a little. I've lost it, haven't I. Alive all these years, only to sit here grinning about how good a potato tastes right before becoming monster food.

"It's good, right?"

"It's good."

By about his third potato, Kim had grown a little curious about this strange kid. For a child, his composure was remarkable—put kindly, he was self-possessed; put bluntly, he was a cheeky little punk. What on earth went on inside this kid's head?

"You…."

"Taejae."

"Right. Nam Taejae."

"Yes?"

"What do your parents do?"

Too old-fashioned a question? Kim tried to dredge up his social life, which had ground to a halt ages ago, then gave up and shook his head instead.

"They're doctors. What do your parents do, mister?"

……

That stung. He tried to summon his parents' faces, blurred by twenty years, and a faint, hollow laugh escaped him. Pointless.

"They passed away. I don't have a family. There's a younger brother, but we don't even keep in touch…. No job, no coworkers, no friends either…."

He'd been asked one question about family, and he'd gone and spilled everything he'd never been asked. Next thing you knew, he'd be telling the kid he had no money, too.

"Isn't your brother family?"

"If they're worse than strangers, they're not family. Every time we met, we were too busy fighting and cursing each other out. Then somewhere along the way, we just stopped calling altogether."

"Do you hate your brother?"

Did he hate his brother?

"……I do. But I hate myself more."

He'd hated his brother, always nagging and cursing at him. But he'd hated himself more than that brother ever managed. He regretted the young man he'd been, who'd lucked into one measly ability late in life and lived loose and reckless out of sheer delight. Intoxicated with being an Awakener, he'd thrown away even a perfectly good job—claiming a plain, ordinary place like that wasn't where a man like him belonged. His brother, his parents, nagging him day in and day out—he'd walked out because he couldn't stand to hear another word of it. He was fairly sure that at first, he'd meant to make it big and come back in triumph…. Well. Those were the days.

'Though the contact dried up completely, and what I actually ended up doing was breaking into empty houses.'

He'd tried to make something of himself, but when was that ever easy? By the time he came to his senses, his sins had piled up one atop another and carried him to this point.

"In my class there are twins, Seoro and Seora. They fight every day too. They throw fire and hurl things at each other. But they're always together anyway."

"……So what?"

"That's just how siblings are, they say. Is it different with brothers?"

"From what I can tell, you just don't know any better yet. Fighting when you're little and fighting when you're grown are two different animals. The size of the fight is different."

Even as he said it, his mouth turned bitter for no reason. Must be nice, being young and unburdened.

"Being a grown-up sounds bad. Then I won't become one. I'll fight small and make up fast."

"……You think that's something you get to decide?"

"If you set your mind to it, it is."

The kind of thought only the young could afford to hold. That was what Kim figured. He'd had a time like that too, after all—a time when he'd believed he could do anything, achieve anything.

"You don't even know if you'll see tomorrow. You think making up your mind changes the spot we're in?"

He wondered if he was pouring cold water on the kid, but he decided it beat feeding him false hope. Because surely…… knowing the reality up front was kinder than watching Nam Taejae be crushed by disappointment later.

But Nam Taejae didn't seem to see it that way. Unshaken, the boy gazed calmly back at him and said:

"It does change. Everything I've ever set my mind to has come true. And I've decided that today, you and I are walking out of here together."

What a truly strange little kid.