Chapter 196: That Day Came Without Warning
"You're here? Sit over there."
"Excuse my intrusion."
Shown in by Hwang Seokgu, Dan Miryu took the sofa set along one side of the office. Across from him, Hwang Seokgu lowered his massive bulk into the seat.
"Yeongsik! Bring coffee in here! Grind the beans! And don't send anyone this way!"
"Yes, sir!"
Min Yeongsik's voice came from beyond the door. Hearty as the answer was, it could not hide the fatigue beneath it.
"Thank you for sparing your valuable time, Elder."
"Enough idle talk. Get to the point, and make it quick. I've been so curious since yesterday I haven't slept a wink. Even on my wedding night I slept with both legs thrown out."
"Ha ha."
Dan Miryu gave a dry laugh and let his eyes travel over the office.
"No one's watching. No ears, either. If you're still uneasy, take whatever other measures you like."
"No. Forgive me."
"Forgive you for what? It's only natural."
Dan Miryu felt awkward.
"And your wife? Is she well?"
"She's stepped away to see to something else."
"Has she? You live busy lives."
"No busier than you, Elder."
Knock, knock.
A knock sounded. The door opened quietly, and Min Yeongsik set down the coffee, ground from the bean, and withdrew.
A sweet aroma curled through the room. Hwang Seokgu slurped his coffee.
"Mm. So. What was it you wanted to say?"
"Please look at this."
Dan Miryu drew a diary from inside his coat and held it out. Hwang Seokgu's brow tightened.
"This is..."
"You'll understand it faster by seeing it yourself than by hearing me tell it. I'll explain after."
Hwang Seokgu picked up the old diary. It was so far gone that the slightest pressure seemed likely to shiver it into dust, and the smell that climbed into his nose was damp and stale. The thing looked as if it had only just been brought into the light of the world.
Like a scholar examining a relic, he opened it to the first page and said nothing. The diary began to fill his eyes. It was the account of a man of letters, and of the last of his conscience.
That day came without warning.
One day the clan head called his senior retainers together and declared it.
"In cooperation with the government, we begin the suppression of superhumans today."
The clan head, white already claiming half his hair, cast the words down like a blow.
The suppression of superhumans. And hand in hand with the government? It flew straight in the face of the clan's own rules.
A loyal retainer raised his hand and put the question to him.
"Clan Head, that is..."
"There will be no objections. Know that, and wait. Orders will be handed down shortly."
With a solemn look, the clan head brushed the counsel aside as if it weighed nothing.
"Dismissed."
He left the stunned faces of his retainers behind him and went out. I, who was recording his movements at the time, followed.
"Follow me no farther."
I set his words down in haste, bowed my head, and answered.
"I cannot."
"You mean to defy the clan head's command?"
His anger raked my whole body. For a scribe with a frail constitution, a superhuman's rage was a thing you could touch. But a scribe's duty was an ancient rule handed down from the generation before. Even if the clan head killed me for it, I could not step back. Pen moving in a sweat-soaked hand, I forced the answer out.
"...I... cannot. Then I beg you... kill me instead."
"..."
Fire climbed in the clan head's eyes. Even in that moment I drove my hand with a sick compulsion, desperate not to lose my senses.
"Tsk."
He clicked his tongue. The anger that had been crushing me vanished, and my legs gave out.
"You had better watch your mouth."
The shadow receded. Strength would not return to my legs. I had no choice but to drag my knees and follow his back.
He never looked around. Servants passing nearby shrank from him, faces tight with fear. He went into the clan head's chamber. I entered after him, put the paper screen between us, and only then managed to pull myself together.
Pen in hand, I waited to see whether there would be anything worth recording.
One hour. Two...
The room was quiet. Quiet to a disturbing degree, and that, more than anything, felt wrong. Silence should not have been this silent. No human scent. No presence. Nothing of the kind at all.
I looked in through a hole worn in the screen. The clan head had turned his chair around and taken up the telephone. I could not hear a sound. He had plainly taken measures.
At last he set the receiver back and turned the chair around. I tore my eyes from the hole at once and clamped a hand over my mouth. Stifling the scream that wanted out, I gripped my pen.
"You'd be better off not doing that."
"...!"
"Cover your ears. Empty your eyes. Don't think, and don't act."
If I broke that by even a little—
"Then you can look forward to it."
The door slid, and he was gone.
The page darkened into stains. The pen rolled away. Fear wrapped me—not the fear of death, but the fear of the unknown.
The clan head had changed. For the worse. Very much for the worse.
And this was only the prelude.
Just as the clan head had declared, the suppression of superhumans—no, their persecution—began in cooperation with the government of the Republic of Korea.
Anyone under even the slightest suspicion of being a superhuman was dragged away at once. Child, adult, elder: it made no difference. City center or country hollow, place did not matter. People came for them. The clan's ears, spread across the whole nation, hunted hidden superhumans without mercy, and no one knew where those who were taken disappeared to.
Superhumans of that time were too alien to be accepted as people, and the government of the day belonged to a dictator. Everyone hushed the fact that superhumans were being taken. They did not even try to know. Add the clan's power to that, and the effect doubled.
"Good. Very good."
Every time a superhuman was caught, a thick smile drew itself across the clan head's mouth. Each time, I fought not to give it my eyes. I did not trust myself to see that smile every day and keep a sound mind.
As the persecution wore on, the inside of the clan grew uglier. Voices of opposition rose, and even the clan head's own children stepped forward.
"Father—no, Clan Head. This is wrong. It is truly wrong. This goes against the laws of the clan. Please, stop this horrific work. None of it does the clan any good!"
The eldest son, bearer of a brilliant future—a young man judged fitter for the clan head's seat than anyone—flushed red to the neck.
"...Is that all you have to say?"
"Clan Head!"
"Get out."
At that cold voice, the eldest young master swallowed his bitter tears and withdrew. Watching the place his child had left, the clan head muttered.
"Hmph. A boy who knows nothing. I look forward to the day that face of yours breaks."
Words a father ought not say to his son. They sounded like something said to a political enemy.
No. They were exactly that.
And the clan head's eyes, then...
"Follow me."
One night. Having just received the day's count of captured superhumans, the clan head tossed the order at me. I kept my head bowed and went after him.
"Get in."
I climbed, fear climbing with me, into the car whose rear door he opened himself. The clan head took the driver's seat and started the engine.
The car ran on along a road where people were scarce, winding up the mountain, around and around. For a long while it forced its way along what was not even a road. Then the headlights picked out a bunker rising from the earth, small enough to look almost quaint.
"Get out. And count it an honor. You are the first of your sort I have shown this place. You will need to use that ability of yours to the full."
I did not understand him. Why lead me into a place this dangerous, and this secret? I pushed the fear down, and curiosity lifted its head. Pressed close at his back, I opened the bunker door and went down.
............
Hah.
Ha ha ha ha.
...........
Damn it.
The shock of that moment could not be put into words.
Beneath the bunker lay a vast space the size of a soccer field. Where the grass should have been, test tubes stood packed tight, and moving among them—far more than the twenty-two a match would field—were people in white coats.
"You're curious about this place, aren't you."
The clan head swept the tubes with a greedy gaze. Inside one of them, a green-haired child floated.
"The previous generation was stupid. They had power, and still they lived curled in on themselves. No longer. New wine is brewed in new skins, and a new age must be opened by new men."
"...What do you mean?"
I could not hold the question back. The clan head chuckled.
"I mean the day our clan flies high—very high—is all that remains. This is the first step."
"Th-this... what is this?"
"Combatants for the clan alone? Weapons? Call them whatever you like."
What was this man saying? A person, a weapon?
"Oh, Clan Head, you've come? And you've brought a guest, I see."
A researcher in a white coat came up, face bright.
"There you are! Hardly catch sight of you these days."
"Ha ha. The research keeps me busy."
The researcher shrugged.
"More to the point, who is the gentleman beside you? I don't believe I've seen him... Someone you treasure?"
"Hardly. I simply needed someone to record my great footsteps."
"Oh! So this is him! The scribe who follows you like a leech!"
He strode up and held out his hand.
"A pleasure, Scribe. I oversee the research at the clan head's side. I'm the lead researcher."
As if it were the most casual thing in the world—
"Call me Scientist."
Scientist's empty pupils rolled.
I steadied body and mind. There was no such thing as a right to refuse, no chance of striking that hand aside. I hauled on my muscles by force and took his hand.
And in that moment—
I fell into the bottomless pit.