Pursuit (Employee Kang Rita - Our Rita's Embarrassed to Wet Herself ♥) (3)
It was just yesterday. After getting intel from Detective Kwon Jihyun, I headed straight to the police station. My target was that colleague of hers who'd been assigned to track Senior Rita.
The colleague Kwon had mentioned was a man, a classmate from police academy. She spoke of him as the most righteous and outstanding cop she knew, her eyes full of unwavering faith in him to the end. I had no intention of outright denying a detective's word like that. But our enemy was a hypnotist who manipulated human hearts. I couldn't just take her trust at face value.
I arrived at the station and waited outside until I spotted the target. I approached him immediately and checked his status. The results came back clean. No traces of hypnosis. He hadn't been hypnotized. Not even once. He'd simply done deals with someone who wielded hypnosis.
"The girlfriend you're seeing now... they trained her for you?"
"Yeah... I, uh, have some pretty unique tastes... Couldn't find a girl who'd play along... But damn, it's amazing... The girls they provide..."
He was a guy with some rather unspeakable fetishes. And he'd been receiving obedient 'products' perfectly suited to his kinks, practically for free. He even got them swapped out periodically. It wasn't his original girlfriend they'd conditioned. They handed him random women with no prior connection and made them play the part.
"Detective Kwon Jihyun... Jihyun... I wanted to get my hands on her too... But if I help out with this job, they'll definitely make it happen...!"
I'd only slipped a light hypnosis on him to probe, but he spilled everything without me even asking—right down to the dregs. The partner Kwon trusted so deeply was a filthy traitor hiding his depraved desires. Still, there wasn't much to gain from it. He knew nothing. Contact always came first from their side, so he'd just waited desperately like a collared dog whenever he wanted a new girl.
After the talk, I commanded the cop to forget the whole thing and return to his daily routine. I'd decide his punishment later, at my leisure.
This is getting tricky.
The one scrap of harvest was confirmation that the ones who'd kidnapped Senior Rita were definitely former employees from our company. Beyond that, zilch. The trail to find Rita ended right there.
"Sorry to drag you out when you're busy. Thanks for today, Chaeyoung."
"No worries. It's the least I can do for a neighbor."
This was the home base of Magical Girl Stellaris Hope: the magical girl agency Astraia. I was here now with Han Chaeyoung. My friendly neighborhood resident, Han Chaeyoung. Her real job was a capable sidekick from a hero agency—and a powerhouse with superpowers. I hadn't wanted to drag her into this if I could help it, but since the target was a magical girl, I might need her strength for any sudden twists. So I'd dragged her along by force. The hostage manager was sleeping soundly beside us.
Manager-nim was a bombshell beauty with a fluffy, heart-melting vibe just from looking at her. Her curvaceous figure was no joke either, and even from our brief chat right before the kidnapping, her bone-deep kindness and gentleness shone through. She was the perfect image of a partner for the dazzling Magical Girl Stellaris Hope—zero doubt she was a 'good person'.
Hypnotizing a woman like this... it'd be delicious.
The manager was incredibly sensible and moral. Messing with a mind like that, dyeing it pink... pure bliss. Before I knew it, I was stroking her lips and slipping a hand under her clothes. My fingers found their way through her shirt gap, filling my palm with the soft heft of her breast. I was already rock-hard. Chaeyoung was staring right at me from the side, so I apologized awkwardly.
"Igyeol."
"Sorry, sorry. Been overflowing with energy lately. I'll calm it down now—"
"Duck!!"
In an instant, Chaeyoung tackled me and rolled us to the floor.
BAM—!!
The next moment, terrifying pressure and a gale ripped horizontally through the office. Desks flipped, windows shattered. Chairs and trash cans flew, broken lights rained glass shards. The tidy office turned into a warzone in a heartbeat.
Through the gaping wreckage of the window, a figure floated in leisurely and landed lightly on the ruined floor.
"Magical Girl Stellaris Hope, arriving on scene★! You villains won't be forgiven in the name of justice—get ready★!!"
A tyrant's descent, wrecking a pristine office with one strike. Magical Girl Stellaris Hope had arrived at the scene, as always, bright and heroic.
The office was a devastated mess after the storm. The aftermath of Hope's single strike—one spell. A bombardment laced with killing intent to incinerate any rats hiding within. The manager was a hostage, but that didn't matter to her. An invisible barrier Hope had cast sometime earlier enveloped the manager, keeping her unscathed amid the chaos. And us too—we were fine. Not by luck dodging the blast, but because Chaeyoung had blocked it with her powers while holding me.
From the settling ruins amid acrid dust, the click-clack of heels echoed.
The magical girl approached. Eyes brimming with thick malice.
"Not your average kidnapper. Doesn't feel like 'Noise' either."
The magical girl smiled. The sparkling, hopeful smile she always showed the public. Only her eyes weren't smiling. Sticky killing intent dripped from those red irises.
"So, why'd you kidnap our manager...? Wanna spill it to this magical girl? I'm a ve~ry magnanimous one, so depending on what you say, I might forgive you with less pain, Mr. Kidnapper★"
Chaeyoung tried to step forward, shielding me, but I gently held her back. Her role was done. Without this hero, I'd have been minced by that strike.
I turned from Chaeyoung and stepped up.
"Pleased to meet you, Magical Girl Stellaris Hope. It's an honor."
"Oh my. Sudden polite greetings? Knowing manners doesn't make kidnapping okay, y'know?"
I needed Stellaris Hope's power right now. The lead on Senior Rita had gone cold. Delay too long, and President Berze might find her first, no matter what it took. To recover Rita before the president, I needed off-the-charts cheat-level strength. Like the magical girl right in front of me.
"First, rest assured. Manager-nim here isn't hurt at all—she's just sleeping peacefully. And she won't wake for the next hour."
"So? Praising you for not harming the hostage? Glad she's okay, but that doesn't mean you're dodging my Magical Punch☆. Even if you're not 'Noise', villains harming innocent citizens get a magical beatdown anytime."
"And Chaeyoung and I won't breathe a word of what we saw or heard here today. Folks like us yelling it out would just be dismissed as baseless ravings without evidence anyway."
"......? So? No clue what you're on about."
I stood before the magical girl and bowed politely in greeting. She looked down at me curiously, her starlit eyes clear.
"We came to ask a 'favor' of you, Magical Girl-nim. Deepest apologies for the rude approach."
"Favor? More like a threat, right? And why's your tongue so long? Spill it all, then take your magical whooping quietly? I'll even let you pick—Magical Kick☆ or Magical Punch☆?"
"If you grant my request."
I continued.
"I'll cure the illness in your heart."
The magical girl's advancing presence halted abruptly. I glanced up. The starry sparkle in Stellaris Hope's eyes had coldly extinguished. Her bright smile was gone, replaced by a face shrouded in thick, pitch-black darkness staring straight at me.
It was a while back, when exorcist Kwon Dahye stormed into the Healing Soul office. She subdued the human employees Han Igyeol and Lee Joohee who happened to be there, and tore the place apart searching. That's when she found 'something' in the back of the office. Something thoroughly sealed, oozing suspicious, ominous energy no matter how you looked at it. Kwon Dahye tried to check what lay beyond. But Igyeol's desperate counterattack hit her right after, so she never got to confirm it. And even now, the exorcist doesn't know what's beyond. (Probably.) What Igyeol staked his life to protect.
Healing Soul's president, Berze, returned to her office after a long time. Four illegal escapees who'd fled the company. She'd successfully caught one of their tails. Arriving at the 7th-floor office, Berze headed straight to the innermost wall without hesitation. A light sweep of her hand through the air, and the camouflaged door slid smoothly into view. Sealed tight with countless spells, but at her touch, they unraveled gently like welcoming their master, opening the way.
"Long time no see, 'me'."
A space impossibly vast for the building's design. In the pitch-dark room, only the eerie glow of endlessly burning magical candles flickered perilously. Rusted chains. Faded talismans. Ancient sealing boxes. And at the center—
A massive yokai's divine body. The sealed 'true form' of the hypnosis yokai Berze. The pitiful flesh had been trapped in this cold prison for centuries, rotting away immobile. The black filth clinging everywhere was the inescapable law of the world: traces of 'karma'.
Standing before her enormous true body, Berze reached into her bosom. In her hand now was a small orb.
-Aaaagh, aaaahhh!!
-Save me! Let me out!!
Swirling faintly inside the orb was a yokai soul. One of the company's escapees, the recently captured former employee 'Dang Jinsuk's spirit. Berze grimaced slightly at the orb's shrieking and approached her true body. She pried open the unmoving mouth, shoved the orb in, and closed it. Now Dang Jinsuk's screams echoed from the true body's gut. Soon, they quieted as if digested. But it wasn't gone. It would suffer eternally as a toy in the sleeping true body's dreams.
Berze gave her true form one last look before leaving the room.
"Well done, President. All processed?"
Park Sea, the section chief waiting outside, greeted her deferentially.
"Yes, Section Chief Park. Three of the four escapees left now."
"Not much info on Shadow Company than expected, though."
One intern had earned major points this time. Thanks to him, they'd nabbed Dang Jinsuk. She hadn't been deeply connected to the other escapees. But it wasn't zero harvest. To sell the 'products' he'd made, he'd shared customers or distribution channels with the others—shallow ties, but traceable. And they'd finally scored a solid lead.
"Thanks to that, we got ex-Deputy Manager Red's hideout. Time to pursue immediately. If they're the ones who took Intern Rita, she's the most likely culprit right now."
==================
