The Ryabolsk Serial Murders

While the detectives and investigators went charging after Lupin in a pack, Vatslava and Yegor stayed behind at the investigation headquarters.

Then a sound carried in from outside.

"Hey, isn't that the pigeon from the rumors?"

"Oh my, it's so pretty."

"Pretty? They say that thing goes around killing people!"

The two of them burst out of the tent, but the pigeons—already a flock of eight—were scattering in every direction.

"I think there's a murder target over there!"

In that moment, Yegor had to decide.

When a crime occurred, the criminal always returned to the scene. The reasons varied: destroying evidence, watching how people reacted, unconsciously easing a sense of guilt, and so on. So the culprit would appear this time as well. The only question was where.

This one was bold. Two murders in a row, a provocation thrown down as if to say catch me if you can. Given that temperament, they would show up wherever a victim was to be found—and if they were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the sort who calculated efficiency, they would plot the route with care, so that the shortest line connecting every kill site would be completed...

Yegor finished ordering his thoughts and marked a single point.

That place was exactly where Lupin and Klein had been grappling.

"Lupin! Don't go after them!"

And with that, he forced a two-on-one.

Numerical advantage secured, Yegor leveled an accusing finger at Klein without a shred of hesitation.

"So you were the mastermind of this serial murder case."

"Why is every single one of you trying to pin this on Klein? Klein didn't do anything! Klein only breathed!"

Provoking her into opening a gap had been a fine idea too.

"Lupin! I'll grab her ankles, so hurry up and attack—!"

But Lupin vanished into thin air, and the chance for a joint assault vanished with her. That was a serious problem. He had all but announced to Klein that an opening existed, and landing a blow would not be easy now.

Concealing how badly he was rattled, Yegor bought time to set up his next exchange.

"Looks like even your cult leader is starting to lose track of what to do. Reduced to nasty little tricks like this."

Klein's brow tightened.

"Don't insult the Heavenly Mandate Divine King! And Klein told you—Klein didn't do it!"

"Some of the citizens may have fallen for that obvious scheme of yours, but deceiving the whole world won't be so easy."

"Ugh! Listen to Klein! The pigeons... the pigeons...!"

Klein, though, was every bit as flustered.

From the look of things, a double booking. Realizing Lupin knew the handsome man standing right in front of her, she felt a wholly unreasonable stab of jealousy.

I just called dibs on Unnie!

Would she have held her strike even after a piece of her precious veil and a lock of her hair went flying, if not for that? Right now she was extremely interested in Lupin. Extreme speed—past what the world casually rated as merely fast. And an anomalous Aura User, at that. There was no way her interest wouldn't catch.

She liked the person herself, too. Honest reactions, big and loud. Fun to play with, you might say. She had wanted to keep following and learn more, but she could feel that Lupin was uncomfortable around her, so she had been grinding her teeth and holding back.

If I spill the truth here, the odds of Unnie hating me only go up, don't they?

So naming Lupin as the true culprit was out of the question. It would only make Klein look like she was latching onto an innocent Lupin and framing her.

"Tch. Boring. Fine! This was the cult's doing. Klein came to watch and make sure the job goes well!"

For the moment, it was a murder case that had nothing to do with the cult. But drag Lupin into the cult, and it would become the cult's business in the end. Klein began to sketch an enormous design whose date of completion even she could not guess.

"Even if you kill Klein right here, the serial murders won't stop! We're going to wipe out every laaast bad guy in this city!"

Klein swung her right arm.

A hand-path falling from high to low, tracing a flat semicircle. The Snake-Belly Sword twisted its whole body, huge and sinuous, like an imugi—a great serpent yearning to ascend and become a dragon.

With a splintering crunch, the ground around them caved in, and the imugi's pinned head tore free. A step back, and still the countless blades of the fully enraged Snake-Belly Sword came crashing down on Yegor.

Clang. Clack-clack.

"Kh—!"

Wherever the blades passed, shattered aura burst apart into fragments of light. Patching the broken places only made more of Yegor's aura pour away in streams. At this rate he would not last five minutes.

He had opened on defense for the sake of a joint assault with Lupin, but with things as they stood he had no choice but to switch to the attack. The trouble was that the timing was all wrong—and that he had his own reasons for holding back.

I can't use sword aura here...

And how the busybodies loved a grand battle story. A ferocious fight had broken out between a golden dragon and a pale-green imugi. A golden dragon was as good as the symbol of the empire. The prince of Bluemang, come all the way out here? Already ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the emperor's reprimand flickered through his head.

Marzoc, you blithering idiot!

Ah. That, at least, he could not allow. Sword aura had to stay sealed. Absolutely.

Which left him no choice but to change his approach.

"Shrine Maiden. Run now, and you'll get to keep your life."

Klein stuck out her tongue.

"Kyaha! Totally cornered, so what're you gonna do now? Even if we just grind it out, Klein's the one with the advantage, right?"

In the next instant Yegor scattered the aura sheathing his skin and let it die.

The Snake-Belly Sword was still thrashing—and to Klein's eyes, it looked exactly like suicide.

"Huh? Oppa, you're really gonna die if you do that?"

Clack. Clack-clack. True to its warning, the Snake-Belly Sword swept without mercy across Yegor's skin.

...And yet not a single scratch appeared on him. Instead he advanced a step at a time, closing in on Klein.

"You. Wait. That's—!"

Aura Armor was aura condensed hard along the surface of the skin. The denser it was, the more it burned, and it was infamous as the height of inefficiency. And yet however wretched the efficiency, if it could stop even one overwhelming blow, that efficiency flipped in an instant. There were those who neglected the training. There was no one who failed to learn it.

Its signature was a translucent film over the skin, and the spray of light as an enemy's aura shaved it away. But what if, instead of a membrane wrapping the whole body, it blocked only the point where an attack landed, and with the bare minimum of aura? A strange sight would unfold—as if a tiny firefly were flickering into being to turn each strike aside.

This was the advanced art of Aura Armor, the one that made an opponent afraid before they understood why. A technique known only to a handful.

Aegis.

"Tch!"

Feeling the danger, Klein swept a great semicircle with the hand on the Snake-Belly Sword, from in front of her head all the way behind it.

—Bang!

The sword's tip ripped the air and sprang free, shooting like a loosed arrow behind her back. Then, obedient to its master's will, it seized the outer wall of a distant building like a grappling hook.

"Klein's too scared of Oppa, so Klein's running away!"

Her body traced a parabola and shot upward in a single breath.

"See you next time!"

By the time her laughter echoed and thinned into the distance, Yegor had collapsed in a heap.

The effect was excellent. The efficiency, as expected, was the worst of any aura defense art.

"Damn it. Figures I still can't keep it up for long..."

Had he any strength to spare, he might have taken at least one shot at the opening in Klein's retreat. But his total aura was still nowhere near enough. If he could so much as use footwork or a lightness art without aura, that saved margin would have been perfect insurance for a finishing blow.

"...That punk Lupin. Next time I see her, I'm going to have a word."

The one who actually carried that secret, however, had her mind on something else entirely.

The last treasure chest she found was a tidy locker of stolen goods, free of any clawed horror. A satisfying way to close out the day.

Only once she decided the day's work was done did a single thought finally occur to Lupin.

"Come to think of it, what even was that exhibitionist cult nut?"

And through all of it, Lupin could not remember a single word Yegor had said after his hero landing. Treasure chests were just that toxic to a human being.

As if to say it would spoon-feed her, so she might at least read, a status window appeared right on cue.

This was why Lupin almost never bothered with questions about the world. Whenever something big enough to shake it occurred, either Taechang-hyung or Star-noona would show up and hand her the answer, so there was never ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠any reason to think too hard.

But even Lupin, who skipped the quest text more often than not, read this one carefully. Klein was simply that bizarre a person.

"The Heavenly Mandate Cult?"

Sure enough. The very cult her master had spoken of. That den of evil where nothing but trash gathered. No wonder the woman hadn't felt like an ordinary kind of suspicious.

Lupin buried her face in the status window, reading the choices that followed.

But in the eyes of Lupin—who had been dead set on choosing war all over again—a single word glittered.

"A holy relic?"

Mysterious things that rose out of the earth, humans called relics. Things that came down from the stars ought to be called something else, and that something was a holy relic. Strictly speaking it wasn't the seong of "star" but the seong of "sacred"—but Lupin had no interest in splitting hairs that fine. She was the sort who revered Hangul, that excellent phonetic script, far above any primitive oracle-bone characters.

"Hmm. Can't pass up a wing robe."

An essential of open-world games. So obvious that it went by a dozen names, but lumped together, it was the thing everyone just called a glider. In Lupin's case, it was also something she had tried to make herself, then abandoned because it was miserable to carry around. Wasn't the intent perfectly obvious—scatter the pigeons from up high, then glide down in the wing robe? A perfect set. Anyone who turned that down was a clueless amateur.

"Well. Even if they make a nuisance of themselves, I can just ignore them."

Lupin chose.

At once the universe stirred at that choice.

All sorts of people across the world, on that day, suddenly saw an infant star rise. A wan, sickly gray star went on ahead of it and showed the way. The infant star ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seemed to chase after, and yet it wobbled this way and that, scattering a violet haze as it went. Astronomers looked upon it and read an ill omen. Before long, an ominous name drawn from ancient myth was fastened to the infant star.

The great serpent that swallows the sun.

Apep.

"Ehehe... if you lick there like that..."

The next morning.

Lupin, asleep in a tree, felt something tickling her cheek.

Shaaa.

A snake, robbed of the spot where it had meant to coil its body.

Waking, Lupin met its long, narrow pupil. Before she could even scream, her hand shot out.

Splat!

"Ah, shit. A dream."

She drove the snake's head—now flat as a coaster—into the dirt and groaned. The dream she'd been having a moment ago had been pure paradise.

"No! My Hanmu Treasure Hell Labyrinth!!"

End of Part One.