258. Gifts (3)
258. Gifts (3)
Shin Se-hee kept glancing enviously at the vivid red belt cinched around Kang Do-hee's waist.
Jin Yu-ha looked straight at her.
'Huh, was Shin Se-hee hoping for a gift too?'
To be fair, over time the other party members, as combat personnel, had received all sorts of equipment. Shin Se-hee, being non-combat personnel, had gotten comparatively little in the way of gear.
'Good thing, then.'
Because this time, I'd made certain to prepare something for her too.
"Shin Se-hee."
"Ah—yes!?"
"I have a present for you, too."
"F-for me......!?"
Shin Se-hee pointed at her own face, flustered.
She'd only prodded Kang Do-hee out of a little petty mischief. And now, all of a sudden, a present for her.
'......Was it that obvious?'
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Shin Se-hee let out a throaty ahem.
'But what's the gift?'
With the fight against the Shin Family Guard, he couldn't exactly have had time to prepare anything....... Maybe he'd prepared it before coming to China.
'What could it be?'
Thump.
Thump.
At the swell of anticipation, the corners of her lips twitched and her heart gave a small pulse.
"Follow me. It's not here—I hid it."
'He hid it?'
At Jin Yu-ha's words, Shin Se-hee followed after him with an odd expression.
The place he headed was some secluded alleyway.
Flutter—
Jin Yu-ha pulled back a huge tarp there and spoke.
"This."
"......Th-this is, my, my present?"
"Yeah, that's right."
Shin Se-hee's mouth fell open in sheer disbelief.
What else could she do? What Jin Yu-ha had shown her as her present was a pile of corpses.
The identities of those corpses were immediately obvious. They were the Shin Family Guard that Jin Yu-ha had been fighting just moments ago.
'What kind of a gift is this.......'
Had he thought that because she harbored resentment toward her family, she'd be pleased by a present like this?
Honestly, she admitted her own tastes were a little removed from normal, but even so, she didn't have some hobby of collecting corpses like these.
'Not this—if it had been a gift with some thought for me behind it, I would have gladly accepted anything!'
Even if it had no special function. Even a modest little gift would've been fine. Anything, as long as it carried his feelings.
At the very least, corpses like these were not the gift she wanted.
What in the world had Jin Yu-ha been thinking, giving her a present like this?
Shin Se-hee looked at Jin Yu-ha with eyes full of wounded indignation.
"So, do you like it?"
But Jin Yu-ha, utterly oblivious to her feelings, simply asked again with an artlessly innocent face.
Shin Se-hee, who had been staring blankly at the corpses, slowly shut her eyes.
'Hah....... Should I put on an act and say I like it......? Fine, he must have prepared this thinking of me too.......'
A moment when Shin Se-hee, her face crestfallen, was about to nod—
Jin Yu-ha opened his mouth.
"There, hurry up and give the order."
"......Excuse me?"
"Go on."
* * *
'She'll be happy about this, right?'
She was a person perpetually tangled up in work, never having enough hands no matter what. This present would definitely be useful to her.
The Shin Family Guard.
Puppets who obeyed Shin Do-hwa's commands, a security force each of whom possessed considerable martial power on their own. And crucially, they were also the main perpetrators who, at the end of the episode, unleashed the Chimeras upon the world on Shin Do-hwa's orders.
The reason I'd dealt with them and hauled the corpses here was simple.
When you progress through Shin Se-hee's personal story in the game, there's a scene where she recalls meeting Shin Do-hwa.
At that moment, Shin Se-hee says, her face full of regret:
- If only, at that time, I had given orders to the Shin Family Guard...... and stopped them from unleashing the Chimeras, then the Chimeras would never have threatened people.......
The way Shin Do-hwa made the Shin Family Guard obey was domination through blood. Through biological experimentation, she had placed a powerful compulsion on them to follow orders even after death.
Which meant that Shin Se-hee, who shared Shin Do-hwa's bloodline, could give orders to the Shin Family Guard as well.
'That's why, after they unleash the Chimeras, the Shin Family Guard who scattered to the four winds appear as a Hidden Piece exclusive to Shin Se-hee.'
Originally, that was a Hidden Piece that would scatter like used-up Dragon Balls, but now I'd managed to obtain it in one go at this point in the story. If this wasn't a gift, what else could you call it?
I looked at Shin Se-hee with expectant eyes, but she was just bewildered.
"G-give an order......? The Shin Family Guard are already dead....... And the Guard fundamentally only listen to that woman Shin Do-hwa."
Ah.
'Shin Se-hee, at this point in time you don't know any of this, do you? That the Shin Family Guard are puppets who obey even in death, and that you yourself have the authority to command them.'
If so, then her confusion was understandable. I had, after all, suddenly tossed her a pile of corpses and called it a present.
'Still, just telling her outright wouldn't be any fun.'
"You've got nothing to lose. Give it a try. Here, repeat after me. Rise!"
"......."
I urged Shin Se-hee on.
At that, Shin Se-hee, who had been eyeing me with deep skepticism, spoke toward the corpses in an awkward voice.
"P-please rise......."
But nothing happened.
'Huh? What's this? I was sure it'd just work......?'
The memory of the Shin Family Guard acting as Shin Se-hee's personal hands and feet in the game was vivid, so I spoke to Shin Se-hee once more.
"Hss, I think maybe you have to put a little more force into your voice? Try again. Say it in a loud voice. Repeat after me. Rise!"
"P-please rise!"
"Not polite speech—use informal!"
"......R-rise!!"
Shin Se-hee kept raising her voice at the corpses, shouting at them to rise. She could feel the gazes of her party members watching her intently from behind.
She felt mortified enough to want to die.
Honestly, she was only doing it because Jin Yu-ha was telling her to. She couldn't help wondering what on earth she was even doing. Giving orders to corpses, and now having to shout—all of it.
"Like Shin Do-hwa—put more weight in your voice! One more!"
Jin Yu-ha kept demanding these embarrassing things as if he'd turned into some kind of personal trainer.
'Seriously, what's he doing to me! Is it because I was jealous of Kang Do-hee? Is this a punishment?'
But. Refusing a request from Jin Yu-ha was, for her, a far harder thing than enduring embarrassment.
Her face beet red, she squeezed her eyes shut and yelled.
"Rise!!!!"
Twitch.
"Oh."
"J-Jin Yu-ha, just how long do I have to keep this......."
"Whoa! It worked!"
"Excuse me? What do you mean worked—wh-what worked. Huh......?"
When she turned her head.
Sudden.
The Shin Family Guard, who had already suffered death. They twisted their bodies, rose from where they lay, and stood tall before her.
"Th-this is ridiculous......."
Shin Se-hee's eyes went round with shock.
*
'Ah, now that's more like it! Elite bodyguards exclusively for Shin Se-hee!'
I gazed at the Shin Family Guard arrayed before me with a face full of satisfaction.
"So, do you like it?"
"......Yes, I like it......."
This time, Shin Se-hee nodded with an expression completely different from before.
"Mm, we've gotten held up here longer than I expected. We need to go capture that woman now."
"......Shin Do-hwa."
Shin Se-hee spat the name in a hard voice.
"That's right. But...... here, we're going to split into two."
"Excuse me?"
Shin Se-hee asked back, her face startled.
"We're going to properly screw Shin Do-hwa over."
I spoke while looking at the Shin Family Guard arrayed in front of me.
* * *
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Grrrrrrr......."
The man who had completely lost his mind. Yu-won was pounding his fist against the experiment chamber, drool dripping.
The chamber looked precarious, as if about to shatter at any moment.
The researchers had evacuated along with the test subjects; the only ones left in the lab now were her and Yu-won.
'That boy is coming here.'
She was already tracking Jin Yu-ha's movements.
It was impossible to confirm his appearance through cameras. His monstrous perceptual ability meant that the moment a camera lens was turned toward him, the drone would instantly explode.
But. By gauging the positions where drones were destroyed, it was possible to make a rough estimate of where Jin Yu-ha was.
'He—that boy—is coming here.'
Jin Yu-ha was heading straight toward this place, as if he knew exactly where the laboratory was.
Just a little more now.
A little more, and that brilliant jewel would come into her own hands. She let out a heated breath, giddy with unbearable anticipation.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Craaack—
A fissure formed in the wall of the experiment chamber.
And at the same time.
Slice———
A diagonal slash cut across the thick iron door blocking off the laboratory. A sword slicing through thick iron as easily as cutting paper.
Crash—!!
The iron door toppled with a thunderous roar.
'Finally!'
Shin Do-hwa, at the prospect of coming face-to-face with Jin Yu-ha himself, wore a smile of rapture as she looked toward the entrance.
But.
Soon, she could do nothing but let her face harden stiffly.
Because.
What had appeared through the opened door was not Jin Yu-ha.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzz—!!
It was a swarm of thousands upon thousands of pitch-black insects.
"Kyaaaaaah!! D-disgusting! Get away!!!"