Is That True?
"Whew! We finally out? Goodbye to this miserable place at last."
Pele stretched, delighted. She wrinkled her nose and drank the air in deep, as if she had just escaped a place choked with nothing but fine dust.
"Mm! Air thick with exhaust. Now this is the real thing!"
"Was there a chance we wouldn't make it properly?"
I tossed the light jab at Pele.
"Mountains in every direction. I've never in my life seen a country with this many mountains."
"China has even more."
"It's weird enough that a country this small has mountain ranges at all, you know?"
Well. That's something to take up with the author of Earth…….
"Are we getting through?"
"One moment. All the comms gear died during the fight."
Taking up Hwang Seokgu's question, Dan Miryu tapped the radio. Nothing came out of it but a hiss loud enough to scorch the ears. The thing had given up on doing its job.
"And you, Elder?"
"Same. Only my arms and legs are still in one piece."
Hwang Seokgu shook a rattle of plastic shards out of his pocket.
"Does anyone still have a working radio?"
Dan Miryu looked around the party as he asked. Sword shrugged, and Captain Kid pointed at his torn trousers. A radio turned up in the unconscious Roadman's coat, but it wouldn't run, and mine had evaporated as well. Pele's face said ra-di-o?
"Krrng."
Then San-gun shivered, and with a pop a radio sprang out over his head. Soft fur clung all over it, but otherwise it looked perfectly fine.
"Nice work, San-gun."
Dan Miryu took the radio and stroked San-gun's head. The tiger let out a pleased rumble and stretched his forelegs long.
Dan Miryu turned the dial.
"Ah, ah. Requesting a response. Requesting a response. Headquarters, please respond."
……chijijijik.
Click.
"……Is this Dan Miryu?"
"Yes. This is Dan Miryu."
"Yeongsik?"
Hwang Seokgu brightened.
"……Ch-Chairman! Th-thank goodness! You're alive!"
"This stubborn life of mine is hanging on by a thread."
"Th-the subjugation—how did it go? D-did you succeed?"
Yeongsik's voice shook. Waiting had been thin ice for him as well.
Hwang Seokgu passed the answer to Dan Miryu.
"The subjugation…… succeeded. The ten Heavenly Punishment have been silenced, and we are currently escorting one prisoner."
A brief silence. Through the radio came nothing but a faint breath.
"S-s-s-success?"
"That's right."
Dan Miryu drove the words home like a wedge.
"Our subjugation team has completed its mission. Every one of us has returned safely."
Waaaaaah!!!
A shout of joy came echoing back. I could see it clear as day: the lot of them stringing together words and sounds no one could parse, throwing their arms around one another.
Dan Miryu's smile deepened.
"Truly wonderful news! It's a complete house of mourning over here……."
Yeongsik sounded close to tears. A great weight must have lifted; he seemed to have muttered it without meaning to.
"……A house of mourning? What are you talking about?"
Hwang Seokgu's brow furrowed.
"Ah, th-that. I-I'll tell you when you get here. I'll send someone out nearby……."
Realizing he had misspoken, Yeongsik babbled. The lines in Hwang Seokgu's face deepened.
"Yeongsik, quit circling and say it straight. What in the world happened?"
The lifted mood went cold in an instant. Sensing that something was wrong, everyone huddled in around the radio.
"……Haa."
Yeongsik was at a loss for how to explain it.
"Things are urgent here too, so I'll keep it short."
Stillness. An uneasy stillness hung in the air.
For no good reason, I drew Hong Yumin tighter against me.
At that shocking news, even breath vanished.
A villain disaster alert in Seoul?
Something that didn't even happen back when Sword came?
"……The level?"
Stage Three…… Orange.
Of Interest (Blue), Caution (Yellow), Danger (Orange), and Severe (Red), it was the third. Set aside the fact that Severe was never issued unless an entire district was being smashed, and it was as good as the highest danger rating Seoul could declare. Heavenly Punishment had been split off on its own, being a national disaster. That was the only exception.
"……How did this happen?"
Hwang Seokgu growled. Standing where he did, as chairman, he could see this was no ordinary crisis.
"Th-that is……."
"What were you doing while the country went to hell!"
Grrrrr!
Hwang Seokgu's eyes flushed red. His face turned into a tiger's.
"……I'm sorry."
Even through the radio, it wasn't hard to picture Yeongsik flattened to the floor.
"Sorry, my ass…… haah……."
Hwang Seokgu started to raise his voice, then barely chewed it back down.
"Did some secret organization hiding in Korea crawl out? Or was there an invasion from outside?"
"……Neither."
"Then what?"
"……They say a dragon appeared."
"……A dragon?"
Hwang Seokgu asked again, checking he had heard right.
"The kind of dragon I know?"
"Yes…… a greedy dragon. A lizard with wings and four legs."
"……And that's a villain?"
The claim was so preposterous that Hwang Seokgu found his composure again. A dragon, well, one could show up. Search the world and you would find a few ability users who could transform into something dragonish. But the way Yeongsik told it, this sounded like the fairy-tale dragon everyone pictures…….
I stole a glance at Sipsado, bound in ropes of fire and sitting quietly beside San-gun. San-gun stared at her too, just as baffled. Sipsado kept her silence, the way she always did.
"For now, it is confirmed that a person transformed. We scraped together multiple eyewitness reports and what was on the internet, compiled and analyzed them, and it is certain the dragon is human."
"……Fine. Set that aside. Then why did a dragon appear at all? What's the goal?"
"That……."
Yeongsik trailed off, as if this one thing he absolutely could not say. Realizing the matter was far more dangerous than he had thought, Hwang Seokgu pressed no further.
"Yeongsik, send a car first. We're almost at the rendezvous."
"I'm sorry. I'll send one right away."
"Right. Get some rest."
"Understood."
Click.
Hwang Seokgu, who had been glaring at the radio as if he might devour it, gave Dan Miryu a small bow.
"Sorry. I made a scene."
"Not at all. You are the chairman of the Korea Hero Association. It's only right that information like this reach you first, and that you be the one to deal with it."
"Thank you. I'll buy you a drink one of these days."
Hwang Seokgu swept a hand down his chest and kicked at the ground, thud after thud.
"Mountain beyond mountain. We even had a god's protection, and this is what we get."
"Don't lose heart. We don't know the situation. It might turn out better than we expect."
Pele offered Hwang Seokgu what comfort she could.
"Is there anything you can see?"
Captain Kid came closer.
"Nothing. I don't know this one either."
Pele, frustrated, gnawed at her nails.
"You don't know anything?"
Sword looked at me.
"I know the dragons from the Tale of the Ring, but a dragon in the real world—I don't know that either."
It wasn't a lie. I truly didn't know. I knew the dragons of the East, but a Western dragon had never even appeared in the original.
"On a phantom thief's honor?"
"Yes."
"Tsk."
Sword clicked his tongue.
"Dan Miryu."
"What is it?"
"The situation's urgent. How about waking Roadman?"
"Ah……!"
Dan Miryu's gaze went to Roadman, slumped limp across San-gun's back.
With his power to make a path, getting to headquarters would be child's play.
"No. Leave him be."
It was Pele who refused. Sword could not bring himself to speak down to a god, so he put the question with what courtesy he could manage.
"Why is that?"
"This child has already hit his limit. Push him any further and it'll cost him his life."
"What are you saying?!"
Captain Kid shot to his feet.
"He never rested when he should have, and he worked that body of his far too hard. Right on through old age."
"……Ah."
Captain Kid let out a sigh, as if he could guess the rest.
"Breaking the First Apostle's barrier alone was a tremendous thing. And he broke through once more from the inside. He even looked a god straight in the face. Mental fatigue, physical fatigue—it's piled as high as it can pile. All that's left now is for it to explode."
At the facts laid out so flatly, Captain Kid clutched his head.
"Then…… if he rests, will he recover?"
"Rest? Are you planning to work the boy even after he's dead?"
Pele pressed him, somewhat stern.
Captain Kid realized what he had said.
"I'm sorry. That was a slip."
"His presence really was that great, wasn't it."
Pele murmured it small, as if she understood.
"……Those who take the burden on themselves are always like that. They don't rest even when they rest, and they move no matter what becomes of them. For the sake of a better tomorrow."
"……."
Captain Kid could not answer. A god's gentle resonance had a way of carving into the heart all by itself.
"Now, now. Let's not get so gloomy."
Clap.
I broke the sunken mood with a clap.
"We've been running without a break, so let's rest a little while we wait."
……Vroooom.
"Never mind."
That was fast.
The subjugation response headquarters.
The subjugation team arrived.
"……It's empty."
"Yeah. They've all gone up."
Hwang Seokgu opened the door and went in.
At the table they had used for the meeting, only Yeongsik and a few of the association's office staff remained.
"You're here! Chairman!"
Yeongsik flew to him, scattering tears as if he had just found his parents.
"Quit the fuss and talk. Curiosity nearly did me in."
"Understood."
The subjugation team sat. I was still holding Hong Yumin in my arms. I had tried to lay her on a bed, and she had refused.
"Then I'll explain what happened. First, the Eleventh Apostle who was in the hospital died……."
Yeongsik laid the events out in the order they had happened.
"……The shrine maidens who came from Japan withdrew among themselves, all in a panic……."
"……A villain disaster alert was issued in Seoul……."
"……We urgently pulled several dozen people and sent them up……."
It was only a single day's events, and still the story ran long. Not until the world outside had gone dusky did it come to an end.
"……That is what happened."
When the explanation finished, the room was quiet as a grave.
Dan Miryu's eyes flew wide and sharp.
Yeongsik answered in a voice that seemed to crawl.
"Yes……."
Bang!
Krrrrumble!!!
The table shattered, and in the same instant the floor cracked. The ceiling shook, and stone dust came raining down.
No one objected to that sudden violence. It was the only natural thing to do.
"……I'll go on ahead."
"……We'll clear up here and follow shortly."
Dan Miryu tore the door off its frame and went out.
I stared blankly at his back.
That back, once steady as a great mountain, had begun to shake.