So There Was a Monster in Korea...
The hotel's game floor had a bit of everything: PC games, console games, tabletop games, even adult games. A whole level set aside so guests could play whatever they pleased.
In a corner seat of the PC café, hood yanked up, Dan Chuyeon was slurping the coffee he'd ordered from the counter.
"Don't even start. I almost died."
Dan Chuyeon grumbled at his friend and kept working his character.
A bright run of notes chimed in his ear. On the monitor, a character playing a geomungo—the long Korean zither—sent a wave of light rolling out across the field. Everyone the wave touched locked up mid-motion, stars spinning lazy circles over their heads.
"Going."
"Carried."
They congratulated themselves and played on.
"Well. I went one-on-one with some villains."
"Lie, my ass. I really fought them."
Just remembering it turned his knees to water. Villains with murder lit in their eyes, coming to kill him. His master, kibitzing through the whole thing without a scrap of tension. A villain who got cute and ended up bitten by a tiger. He never wanted to live through any of it again.
"Can't sleep. My head's stuck wide awake."
His body weighed a thousand pounds. His mind felt as fresh as if he'd slept twelve hours straight.
"I know. I'm just not sure I can, if those villains show up in my dreams."
Dan Chuyeon answered his friend's comfort with a bitter smile.
His friend was forcing the subject somewhere else.
"Maybe I should. My luck does feel good today."
The match ended in a win, right on cue. Dan Chuyeon opened the gacha window and selected the diamond pull. A tenth of a percent for a prize worth about forty dollars. Two thousandths of a percent for something no amount of money could buy. One spin cost a hundred thousand points in game currency—a noble's pull, through and through.
"Not yet. You?"
Good. The offering was in place.
Why was he even nervous? Next to fighting villains yesterday, this was nothing.
"Screw it."
Dan Chuyeon slammed the button on sheer momentum. Half a year's worth of points vanished in a single breath. The diamond chest spun like something furious, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
"Please. Please, I suffered. Help me just this once!"
A rising whine. A bright ping. When the sound died, he cracked one eye open.
100 Points
"........"
Son of a—
A hundred thousand, turned into a hundred?
"A hundred points... Yeah. It dropped."
Dan Chuyeon planted his forehead on the desk. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. It's fine. I'm not the only one who got wrecked. He comforted himself with that.
Wait. Why was this bastard happy?
"Don't tell me—!"
Betrayal made him grab the mic.
"You played me...?"
"What...?"
This little—!
Dan Chuyeon screamed without making a sound.
"Huh?"
A beast's growl had just come through his ear.
"What was that? You have a dog?"
His friend said nothing. The guy who'd been howling with joy a second ago was simply gone.
"Hello?"
For a moment he thought the connection had dropped. It hadn't.
"Hello...?"
"Wang Ran? Wang Ran?"
The call cut off without warning.
"He'll be fine... right."
The feeling sat wrong in his chest.
"...I should at least eat."
Dan Chuyeon did his best to ignore it.
Dan Chuyeon walked down to the hotel restaurant.
"Wow. Packed even at this hour."
Lunch was long over, and the place was still bustling. He'd assumed most people had cleared out after yesterday's attack. Apparently not. It was a buffet, so he took a plate and started choosing.
I feel eyes on me... Self-consciousness, or the real thing? He couldn't tell, only that people seemed to be looking. Did someone see me yesterday? Everyone in the hotel should have evacuated. Must be in my head...
What Dan Chuyeon didn't know was that footage of him in action on the beach was already making the rounds on social media, distant as the shot had been. His face was hard to make out from that far, but the green hair was unmistakable, and it had already spread. Hotel guests watched him in a state of maybe-yes, maybe-no. More than a few held their phones up to compare, and that alone was enough to say the quiet part. Some whispered among themselves. Someone even drew a camera out of a bag.
...Annoying.
The stares kept coming, and irritation flared all at once. Emotion became power, and the power slipped out of him without his meaning it to—so precise, so hidden, that even a xian still walking the mortal world would not have noticed.
For an instant, everyone in the restaurant felt the killing intent of nature. Faint. Desperately faint. That brief shock was still more than enough for an ordinary person. The weaker spirits blacked out where they stood. Even those who held on to their minds lost the strength in their legs and couldn't keep themselves upright.
A plate shattered.
The person beside him went down without warning, and Dan Chuyeon jolted. Foam at the mouth. This was bad in a way that wasn't ordinary.
"A-are you okay?!"
He grabbed the fallen guest and shook them.
"Someone! Call an ambulance!"
"People have collapsed in the restaurant."
The voice was cold and perfectly calm. Dan Chuyeon turned. A man in a black suit was stepping into view, and his eyes came to rest on Dan Chuyeon.
"Please step aside for a moment."
"Huh? Y-yes..."
Dan Chuyeon got out of the way. The man laid the collapsed guest out flat and even.
"Shock. Fortunately, it isn't life-threatening."
"Ah..."
At that, Dan Chuyeon pressed a hand to his chest and let the breath out.
"Please calm down. The emergency crew will handle things here."
"Th-thank you..."
"We got the call! Where's the patient!"
Paramedics on the hotel's own payroll came hurrying in, and a hero was with them. The hero took one look at the man in the suit and startled.
"You're..."
"Shh."
The man lifted a hand. The hero turned their eyes away and took command of the crew, and the unconscious were moved out in short order.
"If anyone still has a headache or pain in the chest, please say so immediately. Should symptoms appear later, go straight to a hospital."
The hero settled the guests with a professional's ease. Time passed, and the restaurant returned to itself, as if nothing had happened at all.
"Haa. What was that..."
Dan Chuyeon sighed.
"Quite. Not a quiet day to be had."
"...!"
He nearly jumped out of his skin. The man from before was sitting at the table across from him.
"W-why are you here?"
"Hahaha. I wanted a word, that's all."
The man smiled, easy and good-natured.
"Your... your Korean is really good."
"Is it? I thought I'd rusted, but it seems there's still some use in it."
The white man gave a small shrug. Dan Chuyeon was not reassured. Now that I think about it—wasn't he speaking Korean from the start? With the crew it had been English. The first thing he'd said to Dan Chuyeon had definitely been Korean. Who is this guy?
"You don't need to be quite so on guard."
The man drew a business card from his jacket and held it out. Dan Chuyeon read the name and his mouth fell open.
"C-Captain Ki..."
"Shh. It's a secret."
"But why...?"
He couldn't make sense of it. Why was the strongest hero's right hand here?
"A little more inclined to talk now, are you?"
"I..."
Dan Chuyeon's eyes darted. An identity he could never have imagined had knocked him clean off balance.
A ringtone cut through the moment.
"Yes. I'll pass that along. Thank you. Please take care."
Captain Kid returned the smartphone to Dan Chuyeon.
"I should be going. Thank you for entertaining an unreasonable request. Enjoy your meal."
He bowed, perfectly polite.
"Thank you. I'm a fan."
"Thank you. Well, then..."
Captain Kid left the restaurant, took his own car out of the underground garage, and pulled onto the road. Then he called Captain Earth.
"Earth. The meeting's set."
"Thank goodness. I was being rude. Was it all right?"
"It was all right."
Captain Earth had asked to meet the boy. Like it or not, it had to be all right.
"The appointment is tomorrow. Please keep the time open."
"Of course. I'm the one who asked to meet. Anyway, thank you for the trouble."
"Not at all."
"Nothing unusual happened, did it?"
"..."
Captain Kid remembered the killing intent he had felt off the young man. Terror you could not stand against, and a mother's warmth, held in the same breath. Should I tell him...? He shook his head. No. There was no need to bring it up.
"Nothing unusu—"
"—sual happened, now did it, Mr. Captain Kid?"
The tires screamed. The car lurched. In the passenger seat, a masked man sat with his legs crossed.
"How—!"
There had been no one. He was certain of it.
"What?! What's going on!"
"Earth! It's—!"
Captain Kid looked at the passenger seat. No one was there.
".........It's nothing."
"Really?"
"Really."
"...All right. Come back carefully."
"Yes."
The call ended.
"What was that, just now..."
It had lasted no longer than a blink. The span in which a person existed, and was gone.
"......That mask."
It was the mask of the man who had made fools of the villains at the hotel.
"So there was a monster in Korea..."
And not just one. Two of them...
Three, little one.
There's one more, you know.
Four, little one.
Captain Kid broke into a cold sweat.
"Damn it..."
He had picked the wrong fight.