Reunion
The laboratory was in chaos, sirens wailing overhead.
Red warning lights strobed ceaselessly along the walls while speakers blared the same mechanical announcement on an endless loop: This is an emergency. All personnel must evacuate immediately.
Researchers scrambled in every direction clutching their documents, and security officers darted about trading rapid-fire radio chatter.
All of this was the result of us blowing a single door off its hinges at the entrance.
Which meant there was exactly one thing we needed to do now.
Head straight for the laboratory where Yurim had been confined, ride out the confusion, and find the Unit Leader.
That was all.
Shifty would handle the rest of the facility on her own. She was more than capable of that much.
Besides, our current appearance didn't exactly scream 'villain.'
With my mask off, I looked no different from any ordinary civilian, and Kang Yurim would just read as some random little girl.
Nobody would ever guess she was the very entity once imprisoned in this place.
Her whole presence and aura had changed completely since then.
No problem at all. Everything was going according to plan.
Just walk to the target point, search it, find the Unit Leader, and we're done.
Yeah. That should have been the whole story.
Or to put it more precisely — that's how it should have gone.
"Excuse me?"
I pressed a hand against my throbbing head and looked up.
Blonde hair, blue eyes — and on top of that, a striking beauty with a decidedly righteous air about her.
There was no mistaking who this was.
After all, we'd crossed paths plenty of times before.
Valkyrie, hero.
"Son of a..."
I quietly swallowed the curse.
Seriously — why the hell was she here? This scene doesn't even exist in the original story.
"Excuse me, can't you hear me? You need to evacuate."
Apparently my standing frozen in place had piqued her suspicion, and she began walking toward me.
Okay. Think. What do I do...
I racked my brain for a moment... and surprisingly, the answer came fast.
Just bull straight through.
Bolting now or trying to sneak past would only make me look more suspicious. It was better to act naturally right here.
She didn't know my face, after all — and hadn't the mask I always wore in our encounters lacked a voice modulator?
Plus, my speech was completely different with the mask on versus off.
In the end, there was no way she could pin me down as 'Closer' right now.
"Ah, sorry — I left some important research data behind, so..."
I lifted my head to face her as I said it... but her gaze wasn't on me at all. It was fixed somewhere else.
Not on me — on Kang Yurim, whose hand I was holding.
Oh. Right. She was here.
"Kang Yurim?"
"Ah — that unni from the Association, from back then...!"
Valkyrie's expression flipped in an instant.
"Hold on — don't tell me you—!"
"Run."
I grabbed Yurim's arm and took off down the corridor in the opposite direction.
Well, this is a mess...
Now that my identity was blown, there was no reason — and no point — in hiding anymore.
I let out a short breath and pulled the mask out from inside my coat.
"Closer! Stop right there!"
Valkyrie's shout came flying from behind.
Would you stop if you were the one being chased to death?
"Yurim, you remember the way back down to the underground?"
"Yes, I do! Um... if we head toward the freight elevator...!"
Okay, good enough. Thankfully I had at least a rough grasp of this facility's layout — the structural map of the lab I'd received yesterday was still pretty fresh in my memory.
A few turns down the corridors, up a staircase, and we could reach the elevator zone.
The problem was... Valkyrie was one of the most speed-specialized heroes I knew.
"Stop it, Closer!!"
In the blink of an eye she'd blown past me, turning to face me down.
Hmm... what should I say here?
I caught my breath, deliberated for a moment, and then let one remark slip out.
"Did you spend your suspension doing some proper soul-searching?"
"Shut your mouth!!"
The moment the spear of light fully formed in her hand, the air around her changed.
Maybe I poked the hornet's nest a little too hard...
"Why did you bring that child to the laboratory? No — before that, what do you know about her?"
"I'm afraid I can't disclose that."
"Then I'll just... pry those answers out of you...!"
Her body exploded off the ground like a bolt of lightning.
At the sight of her closing the distance in an instant, I instinctively raised my hand and unleashed my psychokinesis.
A nearby steel table, fragments of a pillar, even a scrap-metal trash can — I dragged in everything within reach and hurled it all at her.
"You think that—"
One sweep of her spear sliced every piece of debris apart and scattered it across the air.
...Yeah. I can't hold her back with this.
Which meant I needed to play the next card.
"Yurim, one more time."
"Yes, okay!"
The shimmering haze radiating from her flowed down through the hand I held and poured into me.
A completely different texture of power.
With this, it was more than enough.
I drew a breath and snapped my fingers.
KRA-KOOM!
Along with a deafening crack that tore through the air, the debris floating at my fingertips began compressing all at once.
Metal fragments, chunks of stone, shards of glass — everything crumpled inward like crushed paper, folding over and over until it condensed into five bullets.
Overwhelming density — and, in turn, a terrifying mass.
"Valkyrie, they say speed is weight, right?"
I trained the bullets on her as I spoke.
"So what do you suppose happens when you combine the two?"
Drawn by the elasticity of the psychokinetic force I'd stretched taut in an instant, the bullets fired like beams of light.
TA-ANG!
The tension snapped.
The rounds streaked dead-straight, riding the explosive pressure on their backs.
In that instant, Valkyrie's spear of light unfolded into a shield and blocked the collision —
BANG! BANG! BANG!
"Guhh...!!"
But that wasn't something a mere shield could stop.
Even for her, taking the full brunt of rounds that fused pure mass with pure velocity head-on, at this stage, was asking too much.
"Why don't you go finish your self-reflection?"
TA-ANG—!!!
The last round went off.
The shield of light warped in an instant, and her body was flung backward as if fired toward the wall at the end of the corridor.
She rebounded and the wall burst apart, metal framework and stone crumbling together as dust billowed up like an explosion.
My vision went white for a moment.
"Good — let's go."
I seized that brief opening, pulled Yurim along by the hand, and ran.
This wasn't over yet.
And so the chase — hunter and hunted trading places again and again — carried us deeper and deeper into the facility.
Adrenaline at full burn, we rounded corridors, passed through steel doors, descended yet another staircase.
"Here it is!"
Yurim called out, catching her breath.
What greeted us was an enormous white hall, something like a great chamber.
Kang Yurim pointed at the floor.
"It's beneath here."
I lowered my gaze.
Solid flooring. It looked like ordinary concrete, but...
Thud. Thud.
The sound echoed hollow, which confirmed it — there was a hidden space below.
So that's it. This is where we were headed.
"It ends here, Closer."
I turned my head and took in her silhouette.
Breathing hard, clothes covered in dust.
And yet not a trace of that exhaustion reached her eyes.
"You really are persistent..."
"You... what do you know about that child?"
"That's the first thing you ask when we meet?"
I let out a quiet laugh and turned to face her.
"Wouldn't common courtesy demand an explanation of the situation first?"
Valkyrie's eyes narrowed.
"That child — Yurim, you said. What is she? Why was she registered as deceased by the Association?"
"Why are you asking me that?"
"Because you know. That's why you took her."
What kind of nonsense was that? How the hell would I know any of it?
I just happened to find her in the middle of a mission, that's all.
But I let none of that show.
"Well... why exactly would I be obligated to reveal that to you?"
Her gaze sharpened further.
"What have you been doing to her all this time?"
"Nothing at all."
Which was the truth — I hadn't done a single thing.
Given her a place to sleep, fed her, and taught her how to handle her ability. That was the entire list.
I tilted my head slightly toward Kang Yurim.
"Right?"
At my question, she blinked in mild confusion — then quickly bobbed her head up and down.
"See? What did I tell you..."
"You've even brainwashed a child? What exactly are you planning?"
"....."
No, seriously — what thought process does a person have to run through to arrive at that conclusion?
Kang Yurim opened her mouth to say something, but I quietly stopped her with a hand.
If we got dragged into an argument here, things would only get messier.
"If you're willing to look the other way now, I'll secure what I came for and leave clean."
"You want me to look the other way from a villain? Is that supposed to be a request?"
Well, you'd be surprised how much I'd qualify for, actually.
Considering everything I'd seen since arriving in this place alone.
Then again... at this point in time, there was no way Valkyrie could know that.
In the game and in reality alike, she had always been the straight-backed, trusting hero.
Light began gathering at the tips of her fingers.
A clear, cold energy coalesced there.
"I'm taking you in. Right here."
"Is that so? Terribly sorry, but... I have business elsewhere. So, if you'll excuse me—"
KRA-KOOM!
I shattered the steel flooring beneath our feet with psychokinesis, revealing a deep, narrow shaft descending below.
Below lay the laboratory's lower passage, stretching straight down.
"Pardon me, then."
BOOOOOM—!!!
A bomb went off.
Or more precisely — the compact charge I'd dropped just moments ago.
I had deliberately targeted a structurally weak point, and the floor split apart with a thunderous roar.
"Kyaaah!"
Yurim staggered, and I caught her in something like an embrace as I hurled us both downward.
"Closer!!"
Valkyrie's cry erupted at my back, but gravity had already claimed us.
"Hold on!"
"What?! Aaah—!"
Yurim let out a short scream and clutched my arm.
I spread my psychokinesis wide to slow our fall as much as I could, glancing up as we dropped.
At the end of the corridor, Valkyrie stood on the cracked floor.
And with that final image, we vanished into the darkness.
SLAM—!
With a metallic crash, we hit the ground somewhere in the dark.
I'd spread my psychokinesis to cushion the impact, but a faint tremor still lingered in my joints.
"Ugh..."
Behind me, Kang Yurim let out a small groan and clutched her arm.
Thankfully, it didn't seem to be anything serious.
"She'll follow us down... won't she?"
"Probably."
I reached out a hand to help her up, scanning our surroundings.
It was darker than expected, and my eyes took a moment to adjust.
When they finally did, what came into view were a mottled steel door and a ceiling riddled with exposed, aging wiring.
A few strings of lights barely clung to life overhead — beyond that, the whole area had the air of an abandoned zone.
"This is... the right place?"
No matter how I looked at it, it seemed nothing but derelict...
Had everything already been cleared out?
"It's a bit different from what I remember seeing last... but I remember the smell. I think it's right."
Kang Yurim answered in a small voice.
"Do you remember anything?"
"Some. That way..."
She pointed down the long corridor.
"If we go straight that way, there's the place where I was kept. And that unni... I'm pretty sure she was there too."
"Pretty sure?"
"Yes... for some reason, everything after that gets hazy. All that's left is the feeling that she was holding me at the very end."
Just as I was about to step toward the corridor, following her lead —
Splash.
Footsteps rang out from the far end of the hallway.
The sound of a toe grazing the surface of some liquid with every step.
One step. And another.
Kang Yurim's fingers instinctively seized fistfuls of my coat.
Then a light appeared in my line of sight.
Not anything artificial like an electric bulb.
A faint golden glow from an old oil lamp, carrying the scent of something burning slowly, like oil taking flame.
As the light drew closer, the figure holding it came into view.
A woman with pink hair.
"...So you've come."
Her voice was calm.
Like that of someone who had been waiting for this exact moment for a very long time.
Or maybe — just maybe — she truly had been.
"It's been a while."
Drawing a breath, I let the words out quietly.
"...Unit Leader."
