The Bunny Girl Handing Out Chewy Rice Cakes (2)
The one-legged man dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the floor.
He was the man who had lost money to me at the poker table.
He was also the “person” who had casually mentioned having a daughter about my age.
“I know this is shameless. I know it’s a selfish request. But… but I want to go back to my family.”
He kept his forehead glued to the ground, never lifting it.
As if raising his head without my permission would bring something terrible down on him.
He squeezed his eyes shut, unable even to look at me.
In my eyes, it almost looked like he was praying.
He was simply pouring every scrap of desperation into a wish, so there wasn’t much difference.
Like people of old, prayer was about the only option left to him.
Now and then his fingertips trembled.
Shattered pride. Self-loathing for his own powerlessness.
I could see the tangle of emotions, but I didn’t stare and make him feel any more wretched than he already was.
His heart had already collapsed helplessly before that single, overwhelming longing.
“I don’t even know how long I’ve been here. I can’t remember my wife’s face, or my little girl’s. Maybe even those memories…”
The man’s story wasn’t especially special or grand.
Just an ordinary head of household you could find anywhere.
Moderately dutiful, moderately flawed.
Parts of it were cut off so he couldn’t string the words together properly, but I could fill in the rest well enough.
I listened quietly.
In truth it was a meaningless process.
Whether I felt pity or not wouldn’t change my decision.
I heard him out to the end simply because I wanted to.
Around the time he started talking about his daughter—
when I caught the faint smile that still managed to tug at the corner of his mouth even through the misery—
I couldn’t help reaching this conclusion inside myself.
So this place really is a hell made just for me.
Until now the casino had tolerated my cheating.
More accurately, it hadn’t been able to stop me at all.
Jangsanbeom wasn’t the kind of anomaly people called a Great Anomaly.
It couldn’t even build a proper labyrinth; there was no way it could have laid binding restraints inside this place.
It had only managed to realize the space by stacking the deck in my favor from the start.
In other words, this casino had been built so that I would win.
There was only one way Jangsanbeom could defeat me.
Make me give up on escaping of my own free will.
Just confirm one thing for me. If I gathered every single chip inside this casino, would it be enough to take everyone out?
The Praising Goddess shakes her head. Even if you obtained every chip, the amount would still fall far short.
Yeah. I figured as much.
Now the casino looked completely different to me.
Something had felt off from the start.
If it had truly wanted to beat me, it should have sent out proper gamblers.
Everyone here was ordinary.
Among them were a few faces I recognized from memory.
Past missing persons from Hoewolsan. Faces I’d glimpsed in the documents of the Anomaly Management Bureau.
Most decisive of all, the casino offered only a very limited number of games.
Especially games against the house—there were none.
No roulette, no slots, none of the things you’d normally expect in a casino.
To get more credits you ultimately had to sell something at the exchange.
In the end, what Jangsanbeom had prepared was a scale.
On one side, my life. On the other, the lives of the missing.
I couldn’t just walk past that trade as if I hadn’t seen it.
The Praising Goddess is flustered. This is an irrational idea. The better method would be to take at least some of the people and…
I already know that much.
I can do that kind of math myself.
There were plenty of excuses I could make to myself.
I could save far more people in the future.
Even if I stayed behind and sent these people home, the net result would be more lives lost.
When a scene is too dangerous, even rescue teams sometimes declare the operation abandoned.
But I had already made a promise.
The ignition ceremony in that dark room.
Everyone treated the oath like a joke, but I had sworn to myself that I would keep it.
— I solemnly swear to protect the lives and safety of the people.
— I will not turn away from voices that call for help.
— I will fulfill my duty before pursuing personal gain.
You can lie to the whole world, but you can’t lie to yourself.
The moment I ran and made excuses, the Lee Hasol who could still hold his head high would die.
All the pride and dignity I had carried until now would rot and fall apart, and the person I was would change completely.
So this wasn’t walking into a path of death.
It was choosing to keep the better Lee Hasol alive and kill the pathetic one.
From the beginning my answer had been decided.
I felt pride that I had reached this conclusion,
that I hadn’t piled on excuses trying to change it,
and that even after my gender, body, and status had all changed, I was still Lee Hasol.
“Mister. When you get out, live happily. Happily enough that you can brag about it to me.”
I would be proud of this choice forever.
Let me say this up front: I am not some selfless giving tree.
My job is saving people’s lives.
If lives are on the line I’ll do my best, but that’s as far as it goes.
I have no obligation to respect every individual’s personal desires.
“…Young lady, don’t do this. I won these credits fair and square through the games.”
“Yes. I know.”
“You think those bastards would have acted any differently if they were in my shoes?”
“No. But if that happened, I’d be sitting here for your sake instead.”
If someone lost money here, it meant someone else had won it.
This casino sold something like wish tickets.
Naturally, there were people aiming for those tickets.
Right after I sent the one-legged man back to reality,
the first thing I did was start taking those people’s credits.
Put another way, I began collecting every last credit inside this gambling den.
“You think only those bastards have families? I had a son too! A son who died when he was six!”
“That’s a heartbreaking story. But other people can’t die just because of your story, mister. That’s not okay.”
“What’s wrong with following the rules?! I… I can never give up on my son!”
“I understand how you feel, but stop with the bullshit.”
“What?”
It had been the same with the one-legged man. I never let pity decide my judgment.
I only do what needs to be done.
No matter how long and tearful the sob story, it doesn’t change anything.
“This casino was made by the anomaly that lured you in and tried to eat you. You really think a thing that wanted to devour people is going to revive your son and send you off to live happily ever after?”
“I heard… anomalies can’t just lie freely.”
“You picked up that much correctly. Then how come you’ve never heard that anomalies have never once brought a dead person back to life?”
“That’s…”
“I get the feeling. You’re human, so of course you can feel that way. But I can’t sit here and indulge a grown adult’s tantrum either.”
The people still here were fine.
This man wasn’t dead yet; he was just being held by an anomaly.
There were occasional records of people who went missing years ago returning.
But someone who was completely dead was different.
An anomaly could move a corpse, but it couldn’t bring a person back to life.
Any anomaly that claimed otherwise was definitely running a scam.
“Let’s say you gather the credits and make your wish. Let’s say your son comes back. Are you going to look him in the eye and proudly say, ‘I killed about a dozen people to bring you back’?”
“No. Anyway… someone was going to…”
Of course the man I was facing never fully accepted my words.
He just ran out of answers and still tried every way he could to win.
Naturally I didn’t let him.
Wherever he went to play, I followed, and I won, and I took the credits.
Exactly as he had said—credit acquisition according to the rules.
If he had any conscience left, he couldn’t call me the bad guy.
There was only one thing to do with the credits I collected.
“Get out! All of you, get out of here! Get oooout!”
Hard-selling exit tickets.
I drove people out of the casino.
“Young lady. I’m fine. I’m old, so don’t worry about me…”
“Why do you get to decide that, Grandma? If I say go, you go.”
“Huh?”
I think I mentioned it briefly when I rescued Yu Seo-gyeom at Daon Mart.
A rescue worker has to save even the half-dead patient throwing a tantrum about not wanting to go to the hospital.
And I take it one step further.
The person I’m trying to save is throwing a fit saying they don’t want to live?
I’m ready to tie their arms and legs and throw them into the hospital anyway.
Inside a horror space, a Hunter’s authority is stronger than you can imagine.
In emergencies even killing is permitted; if you did it to save lives, the prosecutor and the judge would give you a standing ovation together.
“…Thank you. I’ll never forget this debt.”
“Just get out already. Looking like this, I’d honestly prefer you forget.”
“Hahaha. That’ll be hard. You’re the prettiest bunny girl I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Tsk.”
As the number of people dwindled, my credits drained at a terrifying speed.
From the start the exit tickets had been priced so high that selling your entire body still wouldn’t buy one easily.
There seemed to be some leftover credits from people who had already vanished, but even so it wasn’t enough.
But… the world isn’t only full of bad things.
Sometimes people completely blew past my expectations.
“What’s this all of a sudden? These credits?”
“I sold my memories at the exchange. Thinking about it carefully… everything you said was right.”
“You sold your memories?”
“The memory that I once had a precious son. I sold every memory of being with him except that one fact. Since I’d been clinging to them so hard, they gave me a generous price.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“Of course I will. My son would be far prouder of this. He’s already seen plenty of my pathetic side, so I should give him something to brag about in heaven too.”
Before leaving the casino,
people voluntarily sold things and brought me credits.
Some of them brought amounts that far exceeded the price of an exit ticket.
“Sorry this is all I could get. It’s still not enough…”
“I already got mine, so I can leave, but are you sure you can get out too? If it looks impossible, then maybe just leave me…”
“Thank you. I’ll live happily, I promise. Please use this so the others can leave too.”
This is why I can never quit this job.
The credits I thought would run out kept stubbornly holding on.
Until I had sent everyone out. The chain of goodwill stretched on and on and finally worked a miracle.
The casino was empty, but my heart had never felt fuller.
In that quieted casino,
I picked out a suitable chair and sat down.
The staff who had been wearing their professional smiles the whole time were now grinning so wide their mouths looked ready to split.
They seemed to think it was all over.
It was true I was desperately short on credits and had nowhere left to get more.
Thinking they had won wasn’t unreasonable.
But the moment I shouted, the staff stopped smiling.
Who the hell said you get to declare victory?