94. Episode 3
94.
The day after my enjoyable date with Na Yu-na.
I stood in the same alley where I'd gone with her the day before.
"Here we are again."
The tteokbokki shop we'd visited came into view.
I peeked inside and saw no customers.
"No one's here. Why would she even bother opening on a day like this?"
The alley's commercial life had been dead for a long time.
Not even someone with a gift for reviving struggling shopping districts could bring this place back.
That grandmother's tteokbokki shop was the only business still standing.
I glanced around, then stepped back inside.
"Oh-ho, young man! Back again today?!"
"Yeah, something like that."
She greeted me warmly.
Today would be her last day working here.
I glanced at the remaining tteokbokki and spoke.
"Please pack up everything you have left."
"Young man! Can you really eat all this? And where's that girl who came with you yesterday?"
"..."
I dodged her nosy rambling with a vague eye-smile.
I couldn't exactly say I'd come with someone else today.
As I accepted the wrapped packages she handed over, I thought to myself:
If I take everything that's left, she'll close up early today.
Watching someone you know die is painful.
The tteokbokki shop was beyond saving, but if I could save her life, I should at least try.
A few words cost nothing.
"Go home early and get some rest today, Grandmother."
I left those words behind and walked out with the bags.
At a spot some distance from the alley, I approached the person waiting for me.
"Sorry you had to wait. Yu Ha-yeon."
"Where did you suddenly run off to? And what's that in your hands?"
"Tteokbokki."
Yu Ha-yeon frowned.
"Why on earth would you buy that?"
She looked completely baffled.
I'd brought Yu Ha-yeon here on the pretext of a date, all to clear Episode 3.
I can't exactly tell her the buildings are about to collapse.
There wasn't enough time to explain properly, even if I wanted to.
I held the bag out to her.
"It's for you. You like tteokbokki, right? This place is good."
I didn't know the taste myself, but if Na Yu-na, with her refined palate, had eaten it happily, it had to be decent. The place had earned high ratings on blogs, too.
Yu Ha-yeon eyed the tteokbokki bag with a complicated expression.
"I do like it, sure. But you made me wait alone for ten minutes. Am I supposed to say thank you or not?"
She was genuinely conflicted. My excuse seemed to be working.
Now all I have to do is wait for the clock to run down.
I didn't know the exact timing, but there couldn't be much time left before the incident broke.
The Back Alley boss. Everything would kick off the moment that Magic Beast showed itself.
In the meantime, there was only one thing I could do.
I took Yu Ha-yeon's hand with my free one, squeezing it tight.
"What I needed to do is done. So, want to go on that date now? Where should we head?"
Name any place but a room cafe. Any date spot but that one. I'm fine with anything else.
Plenty of time remained before Episode 3 began, so I had no choice but to enjoy a date with Yu Ha-yeon.
Well, this is the life.
If you think there are lots of other things I could be doing right now, you're definitely mistaken.
***
The top floor of the Back Alley.
A man sat with his leg bouncing in agitation.
"Too slow. Why can't they find it?"
Tap-tap-tap.
Na Jin-woo.
His leg bounced so hard the marble floor of the dazzling hall echoed with dull thuds.
"It's just one Magic Beast. I paid them, shouldn't they work? Stupid peasants. Ungrateful after everything I've done to raise them up..."
He'd paid them because they had ability. But were they working as hard as the money he'd spent demanded? Na Jin-woo stewed in resentment, blaming his subordinates for failing to find the Back Alley's boss monster.
"Where in the world could it be that they still can't track it down?"
A long sigh.
After being abandoned by his father, Na Jin-woo had been running the Back Alley operation alongside his brother at NAVI.
A sibling who'd reached out to him when he'd fallen into the abyss. But Na Jin-woo felt no gratitude. His brother had extended that hand because he wanted something. Their business interests simply happened to align. Gratitude had no place in his heart.
"A detestable man. But without him, I couldn't have built this world."
A world where twenty years of illegality had become legal. The Back Alley.
If someone harmed the Magic Beast and shattered its core, the world he'd constructed would return to nothing.
Na Jin-woo gnawed at his fingernails.
"That cannot be allowed to happen. If that beast gets caught by someone else... I'll..."
All his years of effort would dissolve into foam. His mind was filled with nothing but fear of the beast being captured.
But who was really worried about whom?
The creature listening to his voice could only scoff.
"Wor...ried... a...bout... who...?"
"Who dares talk back to me—?"
Na Jin-woo bristled at the insolence. Unfortunately, he'd gotten his priorities wrong. Before raging at the response, he should have checked who had responded.
Boom!
A crash echoed as something dropped from the ceiling.
The gleaming marble floor caved inward, and the once-brilliant palace filled with dust.
Who could it possibly be?
Someone still had the nerve to speak back to him? He clenched the core in his fist, almost giddy at the thought of disciplining the offender.
The dust settled over time. As the figure hidden within revealed itself, the excitement in Na Jin-woo's heart turned to ice.
"Y-you... how can you speak?!"
A Magic Beast that has developed intelligence can mimic human language. The S-rank Fenrir had been such a case. Only a beast that had broken out of its shell could grasp a linguistic system.
Which meant one thing.
The D-rank Magic Beast that had once been nothing more than an early D-rank Gate had, over twenty long years, grown to become S-rank. The reason a Gate that had once only fit a single person could now admit a dump truck was precisely because of this boss monster's growth.
Na Jin-woo possessed no such basic knowledge of Magic Beasts. Unable to grasp the situation, he shouted at the S-rank beast Chimera.
"Ha. So you learned to speak but still lack the intelligence to flee. Coming tamely back into my hands. Exactly what you'd expect from a lowly creature."
"..."
Chimera said nothing. There was no point in responding.
To think I suffered under this creature for twenty years...
Regret for the past welled up. Pain resurfaced.
The lion-shaped Chimera's gaze drifted naturally to Na Jin-woo's hand. The greedy hand holding Chimera's core.
Seeing it, Chimera understood the path it had to walk.
"Now, come here. You wretched beast."
The core in Na Jin-woo's hand flared bright, and the moment a pulse of magic was about to fire—
"Gaaaah!"
Na Jin-woo screamed, staring at his arm as agony tore through him. The arm that should have been attached to him lay crumpled on the floor.
Chimera, now risen to S-rank, had lashed out its tail like a whip and severed Na Jin-woo's arm.
Na Jin-woo erupted in fury. "M-my arm! You— you miserable beast!"
"..."
Chimera stayed silent. Then it retrieved the magic core from the severed arm.
A low, guttural rumble.
Chimera swallowed the magic core.
The sensation of the core returning home. Chimera savored the pounding pulse of it and reaffirmed that it was alive.
I... am... alive...
Freedom. Liberation.
Chimera was intoxicated by feelings it had never known. And then it could recall what it needed to do.
"Grrrr..."
"S-stay back! Do you know who I am?! Na Jin-woo! Na Jin-woo of NAVI!"
Chimera closed in, tightening around Na Jin-woo's throat. Na Jin-woo scrambled backward in a desperate retreat, but even the widest palace had its limits.
Thump.
"H-hiik!"
No room left to backpedal. Chimera gazed down at the pathetic figure and growled low in human speech.
"You... will... die. And... I... will... live."
And then.
I will kill the humans who tortured me.
Revenge.
Chimera swore vengeance.
"D-don't come closer! P-please, spare me! I-I'm sorry! I'll never do it agai—"
Na Jin-woo screamed until his voice ran dry. But against Chimera's massive bulk, he was helpless. Those were his last words before being sucked into Chimera's jaws.
A man who had built his own world. His death was so utterly unremarkable that no one would remember it.
"..."
Chimera, having swallowed Na Jin-woo alive, felt the man's memories flash through its mind. It could extract knowledge from his brain.
"NAVI, is it."
The name of the organization that had tormented it.
Chimera murmured the name of the company.
The arrow of its vengeance pointed straight at them.
"I should be going."
And that Magic Beast—
No, that man.
The new Na Jin-woo walked out of the long, long hell of the Back Alley on two feet.