Baseline
I gave Jeong-ah's greeting a halfhearted nod and walked straight over to the man whose gut had been punched clean through concrete, then drove my boot into his shin.
He had been thrashing and clinging to consciousness somehow, but the kick knocked him off balance. He toppled and drove himself even deeper into the asphalt.
"Guh… hhk…"
I ignored the tremors running through his upper body and the wet sounds leaking out of him, and tossed a line at Jeong-ah.
"I don't know who this guy is, but you still finish the job before you say hello."
No matter how big a hole you put in someone's stomach, if they still look like they have the strength to swing at you, you put them down first. That was just common sense.
"Sijun-ssi, wait a second…"
She started to say something else, then hurried past me in a panic and dropped beside Jeong-hwan, who was sprawled out next to the body. She checked his wound.
I only noticed him then. I scanned his condition and—damn. He looked bad. Really bad.
She was flailing around the embedded knife, with no idea what to do with it. I stepped in, pulled a portable gauze pack from the inner pocket of my leather jacket, and bound the blade and the wound together.
"If you pull it out, the bleeding gets worse. This is the best we can do for now. Let's head to my school."
"…Th-thank you."
She was trying to play it cool, but the agitation was written all over her face. Fair enough. Even the calmest person in the world couldn't keep their composure when their own brother was gurgling with a knife in him.
I glanced once at Jeong-hwan, who was groaning on my back, and a thought crossed my mind.
Even if I haul him there, can our side even handle a wound this bad? It's not a hospital.
I wasn't sure. But I couldn't just leave him, so I said nothing and started for the school, checking the Cube in Jeong-ah's hand as she fretted along behind me.
I figured it was something serious. But that definitely crossed a line.
It had been pure magic—the kind of thing you only ever saw in movies or dramas. It had burned itself into my brain whether I wanted it to or not.
Part of me wanted to run performance tests on it right then and there…
But there was no rush. Now that she was walking into my school, there was no chance of her slipping away.
Bottom line: Jeong-hwan lived. Call it a godsend that the school's absurdly overfunded facilities extended all the way to the nurse's office.
They barely stocked anything beyond painkillers and antibiotics for internal use, but the trauma supplies were piled so high it was almost ridiculous—and that was the only reason he was still breathing.
The real problem was what came next.
No doctors. No nurses, even. And nobody here knew how to treat a stab wound of any real size.
Everyone stood around the bed with blank, helpless faces, staring at Jeong-hwan, who had collapsed into something like a faint. Jeong-ah finally covered her face and sank to the floor.
I frowned, wiped the blood off my hands, and asked the Crow.
You don't have anything like transfusion packs?
No… As extensive as our inventory is, we don't carry transfusion packs for ordinary human blood loss. We do have a few types of other-dimensional blood, but…
I didn't even joke about putting that into Jeong-hwan's body.
If a transfusion was off the table, the only option was complete hemostasis—and as soon as possible. No amount of gauze packing and binding was going to cut it.
Which meant there was no answer.
That same conclusion must have hit Jeong-ah, because she squeezed her eyes shut and hurled the Cube onto the floor.
"…God. What the hell is this even good for."
It sat there humming, still glowing a clean blue. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes as she glared at it.
Then a thought struck me. I scratched my eyebrow and looked toward the room next to the second-floor nurse's office—where Na Sehee was.
…It's not like there's zero chance.
It was worth checking.
While Jeong-ah wiped her tears with the back of her hand, I gave her shoulder a single pass of my palm, then stepped out of the nurse's office.
"Hang tight for a minute. Something just occurred to me."
"…."
I shot Yejin a look that said comfort her, then headed down the hall and asked the Crow as I walked.
Alphas can control blood, right? That's what you said.
Yes. Calling it control is fair enough.
Then she should be able to handle someone else's blood too.
It's possible, but there are a few conditions. Whether a contract exists. And either the blood's owner is vacant, or they've given permission.
The rest of that I get, but what's the contract about?
What Master went through with Skalaje. The blood sharing.
Ah. Then we're fine.
If she couldn't stop the bleeding, I could just ask her to transfuse instead.
That Jeong-hwan and I shared the same blood type was a stroke of luck—if you could call it that. More his luck than mine, really.
I shoved open the door to Na Sehee's room and walked in.
As always, she was sitting blankly on the sofa, watching the snow fall outside. She turned to look at me.
Missed you. Already?
"…Not exactly. But sure, close enough. I need a favor."
Those people. Related. Ones you brought earlier?
Saw them. Hurt. Bad. The man.
"Yeah. He's on borrowed time. Even with first aid, there's no way to fully stop the bleeding."
Trying a clumsy suture and botching it would leave us with nothing. The best play was to ask this girl.
Sehee tilted her head, then showed me her notebook with a look that had gone completely cold.
Don't want to. With that man.
"…Don't want to do what?"
Blood sharing. No interest. Ordinary mortals.
Then, as if the taste of my blood had floated back into her mind, she smacked her lips and stared straight at my face. No—at my mouth, specifically.
More? One more time?
Delicious. Really. Blood. Cold.
She was treating someone else's blood like a cocktail on ice.
"Not happening."
I shut her down flat, eyes gone dead, and kept pushing.
"You don't need to contract with him. Just use my blood to heal him."
How?
"Same blood type, so putting mine in him shouldn't matter."
She nodded like she understood, thought for a moment, then wrote again.
But. Annoying. Really.
I'd have to put it in. Every time he's in danger.
"Yeah. That's why I'm asking."
"…."
She looked at me with flat, unimpressed eyes, then slowly stepped closer and poked a finger into my chest.
You said it'd be fun. If I followed.
This is it? First time. Helping someone?
I brushed her faintly pointed nail aside and answered.
"I'll compensate you. Tell me what you want."
"Kya-u?"
Her eyes lit up for a second, like she was asking really?, and a flicker of unease made me add a condition.
"Within reason, obviously."
Wine glass. First.
"Easy enough."
A department store would have wine glasses everywhere…
Thick one. The stem.
And thin. The lip.
"…."
What the hell was this girl?
For a second I was back with my cousin before he enlisted, the one who used to put on airs over a single wine glass like he was some kind of sommelier.
Also. Curved. Just right. Between the base and the stem.
Perfect. The bowl. Medium depth.
"You're really something else."
Why not just ask me to have one handcrafted while she was at it? I stared at her with that exact expression, and Sehee gave a quiet little laugh and held up the notebook again.
Or. Instead of the wine glass. Something simpler.
A walk. Once. With me.
So that had been the real goal from the start.
A walk, though—that was fine. Circling the neighborhood still counted as a walk.
"…Most people would call that a date, though. Or at least an outing."
Unless she was treating me like a pet.
Her eyes went wide. She giggled, then scratched out the word walk with hard strokes—but it was already too late.
Take me. To where he is. That man.
"…Fine."
She changed the subject, and I led her to the nurse's office.
Meanwhile, at the thoroughly wrecked apartment complex—
An old man looked down with a cold face at a corpse whose head had been smashed to pieces.
"What a bizarre little toy. Walls that just sprout out of nowhere and attack people."
"It does appear to be the Cube's ability, sir. After compiling the information, nothing else stood out as suspicious."
"That goldfish human from a few days ago, and now this. What the hell is the world coming to. Tsk tsk."
He clicked his tongue, picked up a fruit knife that had fallen onto the apartment floor, and idly ran a finger along the blue-tinged blade. Then he walked over to one of the trembling hostages.
"So. Where did they go?"
"I-I don't know! I don't know! I'm not even close with that girl—she was always stuck to that little brother of hers, how am I supposed to—"
Shhk—
The fruit knife cut the air and drove clean through the man's left cheek. It missed his teeth and tongue entirely. He stared at the blade buried in his face in pure shock, then screamed a second too late.
"A-AAAAAAAGH!!!!"
"So dig up an answer. Close or not. Attached or not. I don't care."
Or I'll cut your whole jaw off and let you starve.
The man shook, clutching his cheek, and stayed silent for a few seconds. Then, with the knife still in him, he opened his mouth again.
"Th-there's one place I can guess."
"Good. Figured as much."
The old man pulled the knife free and started to straighten his bent back—then, in the blink of an eye, punched the blade through the opposite cheek and wiped the blood off like it was nothing.
"Kids these days really have no sense."
"We'll pursue them immediately."
"The one who went after them alone never came back?"
"No, sir. He's most likely dead."
"Interesting. He was a fairly useful hand, too. Must've been that toy of theirs."
Worth acquiring, one way or another.
Watching Do-gyeong drag the thrashing man across the floor, the old man thought quietly to himself.
Somehow the world only got more entertaining after it went to hell.
Getting to see sights like that, too.
"Definitely more fun to watch than the magic acts these days."
Maybe it was just because he hadn't seen a head burst like a watermelon in a long time.
He wiped the last of the blood from the fruit knife, slipped it into his coat, and muttered to himself.