The Clue
"I'm sorry—say that again?"
Seo Eunha's voice dropped low.
Her eyes were already fixed on the monitor. Her brow had knitted itself without her permission, and tension crept into her fingertips.
That feeling of her brain refusing to accept the information. Declared dead? Then what did I see? If that's true, then what in the world was it that I saw...?
"Right here... you can see it, can't you?"
Her junior pointed at the monitor cautiously.
"Date of death, two years ago. The file was closed as deceased six months after she was listed as missing. Identity confirmed by fingerprint. The whole legal process was completed and sealed."
"......"
"Maybe... you didn't see her correctly? Or maybe you misremembered the name?"
"I saw her with my own two eyes. She spoke. She moved. Her ability manifested."
At that, the junior let out an awkward, helpless laugh.
"Then... did you actually see a ghost or something?"
"You know that's impossible."
"The data's too solid for that, though. The identity is definitely a deceased person."
The junior scrolled the screen and added,
"Besides, the clearance level for the deceased registry is pretty high. Ordinary heroes can't even open it... you'd need to be at least A-Rank, like you, sunbae-nim, just to get access."
"......"
Seo Eunha said nothing more.
She simply stared at the screen in silence.
"Um, sunbae-nim?"
"....."
"I know it's not my place, but may I say just one thing?"
"...Say it."
The junior hesitated for a moment, then whispered low.
"I think... we've just poked something we're not supposed to poke. I mean it, for real."
Seo Eunha lifted her head and looked at the junior's face.
"And so...?"
"I think you should stop here. This is an unofficial channel anyway, so nothing gets logged. Let's just end it here... like nothing ever happened."
"...."
A long silence stretched between them.
Then Seo Eunha spoke, so quietly it was almost a murmur.
"...Like nothing ever happened?"
The corner of her mouth twisted, just slightly.
The girl had clearly been alive.
She'd heard the name with her own ears. Kang Yurim.
And now she'd uncovered a fact like this—and she was supposed to just turn around and walk away as if nothing had happened?
Not her. She couldn't allow it.
"You're telling me to close my eyes after seeing this... does that even make sense?"
"Sunbae-nim... I'm getting married next month. The mission matters, sure, but I have to think about my life too."
"....."
"You should too. You've come so far already, haven't you? Making it all the way to A-Rank... that didn't happen for nothing. You hunted villains straight through weekends and holidays, and you bit your tongue through all the nonsense from the brass upstairs to climb this high. So let's just leave this kind of thing to the people up top."
At those words, Seo Eunha slowly raised her head.
"So because I've behaved well until now, you want me to keep being quiet from here on out?"
"No, that's not what I— but still, look at this. However you cut it, it's dangerous information. We don't know where it could leak from, or who's tangled up in it."
Seo Eunha's gaze drifted quietly to the desk.
The monitor sitting atop the stack of files.
On it, Kang Yurim's name still flickered beside the word Deceased.
"I know everything you're saying. And I understand it."
She turned off the screen.
"But there's no way I can just pretend I never saw this."
"You're not going to file an official report, right?"
"Of course not. And you keep your mouth shut about it too. I have no intention of dragging you into this."
With that, Seo Eunha quietly rose from her chair.
Seungmin watched her without a word. His lips moved once, but in the end, nothing came out.
A living person sitting on the deceased registry, with access restricted to A-Rank and above.
She turned the information on the screen over in her mind.
For someone officially declared dead, there was almost nothing left to pull from the Association's internal network. Not just basic personal records—her past activity logs and case history would all have been scrubbed clean. A person erased from the world, plain and simple.
Someone had done this deliberately. There was no other explanation.
And if the Association's channels were sealed, only one path remained.
"Closer..."
The man who had been holding that child's hand.
He might be the only person who knew the truth behind all of this.
Which meant she had no choice but to find that villain.
"Haah..."
With every thread she pulled, something bigger unraveled, and Seo Eunha let out a long sigh.
And at that very same moment, the child of that unsolvable problem—burned permanently into her memory—was...
"Oppa, what's for dinner tonight?"
"Chicken."
"Yay—!"
peacefully tearing into a bucket of chicken back at the hideout.
=====
Two months slipped by.
Lee Sejin was seated at his desk working through paperwork when I walked in, and he looked up at the sight of me.
"Ah, welcome back, Closer. This time's mission was—"
"Don't worry. It's handled."
"That makes how many now?"
"Hmm... three villains and one hero. Four total."
Lee Sejin nodded with a bitter expression.
"I see... understood."
"That last one was an information leak. A rumor spread that the Director had vanished, and it got a lot of restless idiots worked up for no good reason."
"From the Black Society's side?"
"No, they've been quiet so far."
Unlike the heroes, who banded together the moment there was a villain to eliminate, the villains' goals were all different. Some chased money. Some dreamed of domination. Others clung to nothing but destruction for its own sake.
With objectives that scattered, their methods ran the full spectrum too—and more often than not, it was our side that paid the price. Leakers who spat sensitive information to the outside on a whim. Unstable espers swinging their abilities around with zero control. Even the ones who wore a hero's face in public while shaking hands with villains in the dark.
Every conceivable brand of bastard was mixed in there.
"Oh, right. That girl... is she doing all right?"
"Yurim?"
"Yes. She seemed pretty unstable at first, didn't she? She told a complete stranger she was a cliff..."
...She's still holding onto that?
"Did you not forget about it?"
"How could I forget something like that! If she'd said it in her right mind, I'd have at least drawn my blade first—"
Don't draw your sword on a kid... just how badly did she scar you?
Lee Sejin clamped his mouth shut and cleared his throat.
"Anyway, she's doing quite well these days. Her training's been steady, too. Though 'training' mostly means using her amplification to see how high she can float Selene, and how long she can keep her suspended up there."
"She actually accepted the mentorship, huh? I figured she'd refuse and just roll around in her room."
"She agreed on one condition: a favor. One favor, to be named later."
Lee Sejin's eyes narrowed.
"A favor...?"
"Yes."
"What kind of favor?"
"I don't know. She just says she'll tell me someday."
Lee Sejin sighed softly and scratched his head.
"Fine. Understood."
He leaned back against his chair and went on quietly.
"Good work out there. There won't be any missions for a while, so get some rest."
I nodded at his words.
=====
After leaving the director's office, the place I headed was Nightfall's training grounds.
I'd been away for several days because of the mission, after all.
And sure enough, the two of them were right there at it, same as ever.
"Ah, Yurim... just a little lower over there... that spot's out of the sunlight, easier to nap..."
"...."
Less training, more adjusting the optimal midair napping angle...
Selene was floating on her back in the air, lounging comfortably, while Kang Yurim pressed her palms together and solemnly fine-tuned her positioning.
Still, compared to the old days—when she couldn't figure out how to switch her ability off and just kept Selene levitating until her own power drained dry—it was leaps and bounds of progress.
And on top of that, her personality had brightened considerably.
I could take that as a positive sign.
"Yurim."
"Ah, Oppa!"
At my call, Kang Yurim came scampering over like a shot.
She ran up like a kitten bolting toward its owner, and I nearly lost my composure to the cuteness of it. But I turned my head away, played it cool, and tossed out a single line.
"Been working hard?"
"Yes! I can do precision targeting now!"
"Precision targeting, meaning...?"
"I can pick a specific target now..."
At her words I tilted my head, and Selene, floating in midair, lazily turned to look this way.
"Back in the day, she'd amplify every ability user in the vicinity whether she wanted to or not. Total chaos—she couldn't filter anyone out and it was a disaster..."
At that, Yurim picked up where she'd left off.
"But now I can control it and amplify just one specific person. To put it simply... I can buff our own team now, and only our team!"
She tilted her face up toward me, eyes shining like she was waiting for a compliment.
"You've worked hard."
I raised a hand and gently patted her head.
"Hehe... Selene unnie helped me a lot, though."
"And thanks to that, I get dangled in the air every single day..."
With those words, Selene slowly rotated a full turn in midair and turned her head toward me.
She looked pretty comfortable, honestly.
"Well, it's not bad, this arrangement... When it's Yurim's training time, Sejin doesn't give me any work at all... and the airborne life is surprisingly pleasant."
"Yurim."
"Yes?"
"Release."
"Yes sir!"
"Ah, wait, Closer, I'm not mentally prepared—yaagh..!"
THUD!
With an impact that rattled the floor, Selene came down.
A landing that was less landing, more ass-first tumble.
"Uuugh... you're so mean..."
She lay sprawled on the floor, muttering up at the ceiling.
"So? Judging from an executive's standpoint?"
"Hmm... honestly, there's nothing left for me to teach her. It's not like I was ever especially skilled with my own ability to begin with."
Selene picked herself up, brushing the dust from her pants with her palm—pat, pat.
"And I taught her the hand-to-hand style I used back in the day, so she should be able to protect herself well enough now."
"Hand-to-hand style...?"
"Yep... uhh... nothing formal, just stuff I picked up with my body from getting into fights back then."
The "back then" she meant was almost certainly her days operating under the name Slaughterer. I didn't know the details, but that would have been the era when she swung her power around without a second thought—tearing people apart, crushing them, whatever needed doing.
"Wait... you taught her the same techniques you used back then?"
"No. I couldn't teach a kid those. For one thing, Yurim's body isn't built tough like mine. Ah... just think of it as self-defense and you'll be fine."
Selene stretched with practiced ease, loosening up her limbs.
"So, Oppa."
Kang Yurim lifted her head beside her and asked,
"Can I go on one of those mission things too?"
"Hmm..."
I considered it for a moment. Honestly, it would be good to have her along on missions. Her ability could multiply the output of my psychokinesis several times over. The boost to my raw combat power would be no joke.
Still... isn't it a bit early...?
Just as that thought crossed my mind, Selene spoke up again.
"She can't go alone... but with one executive along, it should be doable..."
Kang Yurim glanced slyly in my direction and added,
"Like, say... someone such as Oppa?"
...Figures. If I went along to look after her, it wasn't impossible. I did hold an executive position, after all.
And if I chose the mission types carefully, she could build field experience while I ran control tests at the same time.
I stole a glance at her.
Her face was brimming with expectation.
At the look in those eyes, I let out a small sigh and nodded.
"If everything's in order... I'll take you along on the next operation."
=======
That night.
Kang Yurim, who I hadn't seen in a while, dropped by my room and chattered away for the better part of an hour.
The topic, as always, was mostly boasting about how much her ability had grown—not that I minded.
"When I'm with you, Oppa, it feels like being with that unnie."
Just as the conversation was mellowing out, she said that.
"An unnie? You mean family?"
"No, not like that. When I was in the lab, there was someone who came up to me first, you know? The very first person who approached me."
Her expression shifted slightly.
Her eyes seemed to reach back into memory, glistening with something like a faint, faraway longing.
"That person called me by my name. Not 'hey, you,' not 'that girl'—she said 'Yurim.' That was the first time it ever happened."
I nodded quietly.
"Having someone who calls you by your name... I didn't know it would feel that strange. That special."
So the Association had at least one decent human being in it after all.
Should I look into it...?
I had no missions and nothing on my plate anyway, and with a little luck, I might even be able to pull the woman out of the Association and arrange a transfer somewhere neutral. For all I knew, she was standing somewhere that ran counter to her own convictions, forced to stay by circumstance.
"What did... this unnie of yours look like?"
"Hmmmm... I don't really know how to describe her... she just had this feeling that made you feel calm looking at her..."
She glanced around my room for a moment, then quickly pointed at a photo sitting in one corner.
"That's it! That's the unnie!"
"What...?"
My breath caught in my throat.
Slowly, I turned my head and looked again at the photo she was pointing at.
Pink hair.
A mischievous grin.
And beside her, a slightly younger version of me, forcing a smile.
The person in that photo was...
"You mean the Director?"
The currently-missing Director of Nightfall.