Mama Katsu Bunny Girl (4)

The climb is hard, but the way down is light.

Doing good is difficult; laying a hand on evil is easy.

The kind of wickedness you would never commit in ordinary life always offers a human being a strange, secret pleasure.

“I never thought… a day like this would come for me.”

Flames rose from every direction. Crimson and scarlet twisted together in a rolling sea of fire. Where the fierce heat threw off light, black smoke swelled behind it like a shadow. Amid the stale reek of burning, the sharp stink of gasoline hid itself.

And that was not all—soap, sugar, paper and cloth that would catch at a touch, and crude bombs cobbled together from oil, batteries, and appliances began to detonate with thunderous cracks all over the floor.

So, for the record, I was not doing this for fun.

Still, watching the monsters’ mart go up in a blaze did feel pretty damn good.

“Fire! There’s a fire…!”

“Butcher! Where are you going?! Put it out—put the fire out, you useless piece of trash!”

“Don’t talk nonsense! Some crazy bitch is running around setting fires—you run first!”

“You son of a bitch! Don’t bother showing up for work tomorrow!”

“Looking at this mart burn, I don’t think you’ll be showing up either.”

Every year the National Fire Agency runs fire-prevention education for the public—everything from blazes that start for the stupidest reasons to cases you would never invent without training. They produce mountains of material on how to stop accidents before they happen.

But if you know why fires start… can’t you also make them happen?

The Agency’s database has ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠analyzed every fire accident across the country. In this field it is no exaggeration to call it an Akashic Record. It would never happen in real life—but firefighters, more than anyone, could become specialists in arson at any moment.

“Aaaagh! The crazy rabbit is setting fires!”

“I knew that deranged pervert rabbit would pull something like this!”

“Security! Secuuurity! Why aren’t you catching that bitch?!”

“Aaaagh! We can’t catch her! Why is she so fast?!”

In other words, I knew every way there was to start a fire. It would never happen in the real world—but in a big-box mart like this, I could think of dozens of methods without trying.

“Haha. Even if the store turns to ash, do you think you’ll still be able to do business?”

That was it.

A way to strike at the monsters’ identity without a war of words. A way that kept the mart from existing as a mart, that I could pull off just by running, and that would naturally force the staff to guide people to the exits. The only thing that satisfied every condition was arson.

So I… ran through Daon Mart committing terrorism and arson.

“Uwahaha! Catch a bomb! Oh, the building still has power?”

“Aaaagh, crazy rabbit!”

“That smell of roasting meat… wait, are you meat too?”

“Get out of here before I turn you into meat! It’s hot!”

“Aaaagh! We’re going to die! We’re all going to burn to death!”

However you looked at it, the result was a success. A hunter was committing terrorism, and the monsters were evacuating the customers—a rare spectacle indeed.

“Customers! Evacuate this way!”

“Please remain calm! Everyone can get out alive!”

Why did it work like this…?

South Korea is a country that, in the rush of industrialization, suffered one disaster after another. Systems that advanced nations had already built after learning the hard way simply did not exist here. So the disasters came as scheduled man-made catastrophes, and the memory of them remains vivid for the whole nation. When a major accident hits, people more or less know who has what duty and what responsibility.

And a building that handles crowds the size of a hypermarket always has a strict manual. No one knows the exact wording, but everyone knows such a thing exists. From here on, it was clearly the realm of common sense.

“The emergency exit is to the left!”

“Customer, if you go that way they’ll pull your brain out!”

“Please follow the staff’s guidance and move in an orderly fashion!”

Staff must assist customers in evacuating. Somewhere in the building there is an emergency exit for use in a fire. Even monsters cannot ignore a perception this widespread. It was a major incident that required every employee to move.

In the middle of all that, could they find Seo-gyeom mixed in among the customers? Of course not. I had not set the fires half-heartedly enough for that to be possible.

“Security! Secuuuuurity!”

“What are you doing?! Catch that bitch already!”

“Sh-she’s too fast. We can’t catch her.”

“You damn salary thieves!”

“Don’t run! Fight us fair and square!”

“No thanks? I’m absolutely not fighting you. While you were talking I finished another bomb. Eat this!”

Hunting down a human in hiding is something you can only do when you have room to breathe. A fire alone would already be an emergency—and right now I was in the middle of a celebrated rampage. These things did not even have the concept of cutting the power in a fire, which made my work easier.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Even seasoned firefighters struggle to suppress a blaze. Beginners putting out a fire that had grown this large was, needless to say, impossible. When an expert like me set out to interfere, you could fairly put the prefix “absolutely” in front of it.

“W-we’ve got her cornered!”

“Grab her! Rip out all her guts!”

“Rabbit liver! We have to offer it to the Dragon King!”

“The losses because of this crazy rabbit…”

In that chaos Seo-gyeom managed to blend in among the customers. Naturally guided to an exit, he left the mart with the child.

I was pursued by every kind of staff, the security team, and the manager, but…

“Are you stupid? A bunch of amateurs surrounding me—and then what?”

My physical enhancement skill is called Max Level Rabbit. As the name says, it is modeled on a rabbit, so when it comes to running away I am first-class. No—given how short the history of Awakeners is, I could claim to be the greatest of all time. In pure speed, no one can catch me.

Even if they force me into a corner, I just punch through the weak point and I am gone. Against anything short of a manager-class monster, a punch or two was enough to put the ordinary staff down.

“Aaaaaagh! She’s running again!”

“Even if I catch her I think I’d lose…”

“Who said that just now—what team, what name?!”

“What, was I wrong…? Tch.”

“I asked who you are!”

Everywhere I passed, only flame and chaos remained. Between the things I had thrown while running, the sales floor was already a slaughterhouse. Pursuit failed again and again; the fire slipped beyond control; and the mart’s grip on order began to fail.

“Shouldn’t we just run for it already?”

“How am I supposed to catch that pervert rabbit? I quit!”

“Where do you think you’re going?! You think you can work in this business again after this?!”

“Dead or not, I still can’t work, you idiot!” ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

After I set off a few more bombs, no monster was left chasing me. Even the manager, who had come after me with terrifying force, was the same. Or rather—it would be more accurate to say he could no longer chase me.

As the sales floor burned and vanished, the manager’s enormous body shrank bit by bit. The human flesh and organs he had worn like clothing seemed to have gone somewhere. What remained on the floor was a form far smaller and more pathetic than any ordinary monster—something that looked as if a single step would crush it flat.

The shrunken manager spoke.

“S-spare me…”

“I surrender. I surrender. I’ll do whatever you say.”

“I won’t be greedy anymore. Okay? Please.”

Could a monster that huge really become this small? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed only natural.

Monsters are clumsy imitations of humans. By nature they must parasitize concepts that humans create. The concept this one had been born from was probably not a mart at all, but Greed.

But greed is too vast a concept. The manager’s power would never have been enough to seize all of it. So he had narrowed himself to greed for material things, and eventually touched the concept of a supermarket. Even so, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠essence does not change. Greed is a thirst that can never be filled. The emptier a person is inside, the more they dress the outside to hide it. That the manager’s true form looked like this seemed only natural.

“Please, please…”

I almost crushed him underfoot—then stopped, turned, and walked away. I had already noted the direction of the exit. This time, no one tried to stop me.

After Lee Hasol left, the manager ground his teeth—crunch, crunch.

“I’ll kill her. I’ll throw her away.”

“I will. Absolutely. I’ll kill her.”

He would make her regret leaving him alive. He had memorized her face. Someday he would cut off that bitch’s head and hang it in a new manager’s office. He would flay her skin for clothing and use every scrap of meat and organ as his own nourishment.

While the manager swore that oath and trembled, he heard a presence nearby.

“So there are still employees left!”

“Hey! Help me, quickly!”

“If you help me this time…”

In that moment the manager felt genuine relief. He could start again. He had taken heavy losses, but he was still a monster whose identity was a hypermarket. It was not strange for a big mart to return after a few months of renovation. If he weathered this crisis, he would only grow stronger. A remodeled mart always comes back more splendid than before.

“Eom■ga seom■neure…”

But the moment a certain melody reached him, the manager could only groan.

“Ah—no.”

Daon Mart never appeared before people again.

In the ashes, nothing remained.