Five Days Until the Life-or-Death Operation
There were only five days left until the life-or-death operation. Given that it involved staking actual lives, and the opponent possessed firepower equivalent to a tank, the plan was advancing at an absurdly rapid pace. It made one wonder if they had even bothered to account for the enemy’s movements.
“Yuseong, what do you think about the police?”
“...Hah!”
Before the words even finished leaving my mouth, the wooden sword came swinging toward my face. It was sparring with wooden swords, but I had told her to come at me without mercy, and Yuseong was doing exactly that. Still, her movements were too honest and too big. I took a tiny step back and shifted my body. The wooden sword passed a fist’s width from the side of my chest and fell straight down. I stepped on the lowered blade and flicked her forehead with my own sword.
It wouldn’t hurt, but it left her visibly dejected.
“I told you to only make big moves when you’re certain, right? Only when the opponent is off-balance or collapsing.”
“...But you’re not collapsing at all?”
“Why do boxers throw jabs? They’re testing the waters so they can land one big hit. You need to mix in feints too, then slip in half a beat faster when they react.”
But this was quite different from boxing. It was a method meant to reliably crush the windpipe rather than rely on sloppy, shallow attacks, and a sword was more than capable of producing that result.
“Then what if the sword gets caught?”
“When it’s time to let go, you let go. Since this isn’t sparring, you could draw the hidden dagger or land a strike with a self-defense technique, then grab the wrist and... Sorry. I keep teaching you how to fight people.”
I had ended up teaching a girl who fought yokai how to fight humans.
“No, it’s fine. There are yokai that take human form anyway, so it’ll probably be necessary.”
Thinking back to the Skinless Ghost I had fought before, it wasn’t entirely wrong.
“Can’t be helped. We’ll have to do practical training for the beast-type yokai. First, let’s eat.”
“Yes!”
I returned the tables we had pushed aside to their proper places, then headed to the kitchen. Using fresh ingredients and meat, I prepared a simple meal and set the table.
“Dohwa, put the picture book down and come eat.”
“Okay!”
Dohwa, who had been waiting through our tedious sparring session, closed her picture book and toddled over to me. Some might say she was too old now for the word “toddle,” but since she had literally been doing exactly that until just the day before yesterday, it wasn’t wrong.
“Wait, you need to wash your hands first.”
She froze. I had almost forgotten. At my warning, Dohwa obediently went to the sink and washed her hands without complaint.
“You too, obviously?”
“...Yes.”
After everyone washed their hands, we sat down at the table to eat. My cooking skills weren’t particularly outstanding, but considering this was the best situation available right now, it was by no means a bad meal. After all, plenty of people were surviving on nothing but instant noodles, and many others struggled to manage even three meals a day.
...And then there were those who had become the meal itself without ever getting to eat one.
It all came flooding back. The deaths that had occurred over the past month, the screams of the dying, the bloodstains, and the faces of those who were no longer human. Far too much had happened in a single month. For me, for others, for the country, and for the world.
“Delishious!”
But my dark thoughts shattered completely at Dohwa’s bright smile. It was a warm smile that completely contradicted the yin energy she carried. Even though grains of rice were stuck to the corner of her mouth, it was so adorable and heartwarming that I left it there until the meal was over.
“Boss, it’s intel!”
“...Calling me boss makes me sound exactly like the leader of some bandit gang.”
At the female thief’s shout, the knight gave an awkward laugh.
“It basically means the same thing~ Have a drink.”
“We have never been bandits. Not in the past, not now, and not in the future.”
The woman dressed as a knight wiped the smile from her face and spoke while gazing at the distant mountains. It sounded like an oath she was making to herself and to her guild members.
“Anyway, Popsicle is moving.”
“...Didn’t she say she wouldn’t move for a while after pulling off one big job?”
From the information they had received last time, they understood she planned to stay in Seoul until March. They still didn’t know why she was resting, but no one would complain if she took a short break. At least, not anyone who knew about her achievements.
“This is where it gets big. She’ll probably move together with the police.”
“Details.”
Only then did every ear in the room focus on the thief.
“It looks like the police are trying to crack down on a new type of drug that’s recently started circulating in Incheon.”
“Is there any chance she’ll get called in for questioning over her crimes?”
The magician offered the possibility as a precaution, but no one, including himself, took it seriously.
“Even if she really did commit crimes, her feat of killing the Mountain Lord single-handedly is enormous. In this situation, they’d overlook one or two murders.”
The knight completely dismissed the possibility.
“But the police, huh... The police. Their relationship with the Awakened is completely in the gutter.”
The knight kept wondering why it had to be the police of all people. Unlike soldiers fighting yokai on the front lines, the police spent their days in the cities dealing with Awakened who were desperately trying to avoid military conscription or fighting criminal Awakened. If intimacy with the military sat at around seventy percent, intimacy with the police dropped to negative one hundred.
“Oh, right. Now that I think about it, the one who killed the police chief was an Awakened, wasn’t it?”
“That’s a little different. From what I heard, it was the son of the man the chief had framed, so it’s more of a personal vendetta than an Awakened committing the act.”
“But the culprit is still an Awakened.”
In the end, the conclusion that the relationship between the police and the Awakened was the worst remained unchanged. However, the conversation began to veer in a different direction.
“Molly, do you have information on the drug and the guys distributing it?”
“Well... It’s clear the gangsters are the ones moving, but I’m not sure who their collaborator is. The drug ingredients are also materials that appear in the East.”
“So they processed the ingredients to create the drug, correct?”
“Yes. The production site is apparently somewhere along the Chungnam coastline. The special forces there seem to already know the location.”
The thief called Molly answered in a slightly less confident voice, but it was enough for the knight. It had become natural for game materials to appear in reality alongside yokai, but processing those materials into drugs was an entirely different matter.
In that case, what the police were about to touch wasn’t simply a war on drugs. It was an act that would drag a hidden organization from the shadows into open, all-out war.
“If an all-out war breaks out, a lot of police will die, right?”
“Obviously. They don’t have any proper Awakened there right now.”
It was time to deliberate. But the decision did not take long.
“Make contact with Popsicle. It’s better than attacking a production site whose location we don’t even know.”
“It appears to be a device that recognizes a specific rhythm. Here is the footage.”
When the special forces captain pointed at the screen, the video began to play. It showed a suspicious suspect knocking on the door at regular intervals and scratching it, after which the door opened.
“Is there a person inside? Or an electronic sensor?”
“It appears to be some form of magic. However, the mana detector worn by the dispatched agent only picked up a weak response, so it should be possible to force entry by blowing the door open. Additionally, judging from the building’s structure and style, it looks like there is an illegally expanded basement from the old gangster days.”
The leadership watching the footage stirred. The discussion remained practical—whether this was a trap or what kind of trap might be waiting inside.
“What is there to worry about? From what I see, if we put the Awakened that His Excellency supported at the forefront, this should be easily resolved.”
That was when Kim Ki-soo, the deputy commissioner who was now acting as chief, spoke.
“However, I have one question. ...Why is that Awakened missing from the report you submitted?”
The special forces captain tensed. A trace of anger lingered in Commissioner Kim Ki-soo’s voice.
“No, let me rephrase. Inspector Lee Gwan-ho, what is your duty, or rather, the duty of the police?”
“...To serve as a shield that protects citizens from crime.”
“Correct. Yet from where I stand, you don’t seem to have any intention of fulfilling that duty. Since the chief of staff has already said that this operation is possible with just that one Awakened, it seems we can simply withdraw and enjoy some popcorn.”
The rest of the leadership was left stunned by the acting chief’s statement. It was the highest level of insult that could be uttered in an official meeting. But the acting chief was not finished.
“Including the chief, various government officials have been killed. In such a situation, do you know what His Excellency is doing? External activities. By demonstrating that he remains strong, he is reminding people that there is still hope. Instead of hiding in a bunker, he has made himself the most glamorous target and is practically boasting for them to shoot at him. And this Awakened is the weapon His Excellency cherishes most. It is proof that he holds that much expectation for us. Failure would bring his disappointment, but before that, those criminals will kill us first. With our lives on the line, we cannot afford to be selective about our methods.”
Pure fury. Though his tone remained calm, the words delivered through tightly clenched teeth carried genuine rage.
“...Huu.”
The acting chief took a short breath, then stood and walked over to Inspector Lee Gwan-ho, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“I know you men are capable. But... it means don’t try to fight an armored division with your bare hands. This country is currently clinging to the lesser evil. All that remains after that are the worst outcomes: anarchy or the destruction of the Korean peninsula. When that time comes, your son will die fighting alone among monsters without even an organization to give him orders. Of course, we will likely all be dead long before then.”
“...Understood.”
At the mention of his son, Inspector Lee Gwan-ho lowered his head.
What the police needed now was an achievement they could publicize. To accomplish that without any losses, the best option was to ride on the coattails of that Awakened’s accomplishments. In other words, they were nothing more than extras, and the acting chief had simply expressed that truth in a grand, roundabout manner.
“If you understand, redo the operation plan. Put that Awakened at the forefront. Then they will create hell for us on their own.”