Rescue (1)
The two of them exchanged a glance, then answered their phones.
"Loyalty. Lee Hyeon-seong speaking."
"Intern Lee Hyeon-seong. Return immediately."
"Right now? The kids are still—"
"The kidnappers are believed to be Freedom. We've finished tracking them and located their hideout. We're preparing to breach, but we're short on manpower, so you're joining the operation."
"Understood."
The moment Lee Hyeon-seong hung up, Choi Min-ho ended his own call in the same breath.
Lee Hyeon-seong had taken the call close enough that I'd overheard the whole thing. Choi Min-ho had almost certainly gotten the same orders.
"Looks like they found the people who took Yeon-ah. Just in case, I'm dropping you two off at headquarters first. So let's get out of here."
Lee Hyeon-seong's reasoning was sound. Time was critical, but leaving Yeon-hui and me alone at a crime scene would leave too much room for worry. Dropping us at a Hero Association branch office or a police station would at least guarantee our safety.
Assuming what they just found really is the group that kidnapped Lee Yeon-ah.
From the call, the other party had clearly said Freedom — one of the four major villain organizations. People like that had been watching our movements, and they'd still risked a kidnapping even with escorts in place. That meant they'd planned this carefully.
And yet they'd left a trail of breadcrumbs this obvious while running?
Something about it didn't sit right. It almost looked like they wanted to be followed.
Or maybe…
I cut the thought short and looked at Lee Hyeon-seong.
"Hyung, we're fine. Just go."
"No. No matter how urgent it is, leaving you two here is too dangerous."
Abandoning kids at an active crime scene — of course he'd refuse. That was the obvious answer.
But still.
"Please just go get Yeon-ah as fast as you can. The fact that the kidnappers left us behind means Yeon-ah was the target all along. We're not going to get hurt."
Something in what I said landed. Hesitation flickered through Lee Hyeon-seong's eyes. From the call earlier, the situation looked serious, and the orders coming down clearly had no room to spare for babysitting us. From his position — needing to join the raid as soon as possible — my argument was reasonable enough to stick.
Still not enough to break him completely, though.
So I pushed one last time.
"But staying here as-is is still risky, so I'll wake Yeon-hui up and take a taxi to City Hall. That works, right?"
That final clincher got his head nodding, slow and reluctant.
"Alright. Here's my card. And this is my number — if anything happens, call me right away."
"Got it."
"The second Yeon-hui wakes up, you leave. Immediately."
With that, Choi Min-ho and Lee Hyeon-seong shoved through the door and sprinted outside.
I stepped out to the entrance, confirmed both of them were gone, then rolled the stiffness out of my shoulders and walked over to the computer.
"You fucking bastards. Running your mouths in front of me? You looking to die?"
From here on out, this was my specialty.
I pulled up the apartment entrance CCTV and tracked a man matching the kidnapper's description. The way he moved, he didn't even seem to care about the cameras — no attempt to avoid them at all.
That blatant carelessness made me switch from the public feeds to the private CCTV units I'd installed myself.
"Fucking figured."
A completely different car from the one on the apartment recordings, heading in a completely different direction. I followed that trail through the other cameras.
The vehicle was currently heading out onto Gangbyeon Expressway.
That settled it. What the heroes and police were chasing right now was bait.
"Which means the ones being tracked right now probably have nothing to do with this case, whatever their connection might be."
The real problem was the bastard who'd taken Lee Yeon-ah. The way he was moving looked wrong — deeply wrong. If he slipped into an area without cameras, tracking him by computer alone would hit a hard wall.
"Guess I've got no choice but to go myself…"
"Is Yeon-ah over there?"
"Yeah… that's— whoa!"
The voice from right behind me nearly made me throw the laptop. I spun around, heart hammering.
"…Haa… Jesus. You scared me. What, you're awake?"
"Is Yeon-ah over there?"
I'd expected her to lose it. Instead, her reaction was eerily calm. But I knew better. That composure of Lee Yeon-hui's was the kind that only came from anxiety and barely contained panic.
"Probably."
"I'm coming too."
The words were absolute. I understood exactly what she meant and still tried to deflect.
"What are you talking about? This is a job for the police and the heroes."
"You're going."
"……"
"So I'm going too."
Total conviction — like she'd already seen the future and knew for a fact that I would go no matter what.
She wasn't wrong. I was going. Even so.
"No. It's too dangerous."
"Why?! I have to go! She's my little sister!"
Lee Yeon-hui's voice exploded. But—
"I said no!"
"Ah…"
I shouted hard enough that her momentum faltered. With the kind of power Lee Yeon-hui had, she might actually be useful in a crisis. Even so.
The risk is way too high.
Everything I'd seen of Lee Yeon-hui so far put her right in line with any other kid her age. Taking her along on the vague hope she might help meant shouldering a risk I couldn't justify.
And if things went wrong—
I swallowed hard. The outcome I didn't even want to imagine was already flickering behind my eyes. Failing to stop Lee Yeon-ah's death on-site. If Yeon-hui had to watch that happen with her own eyes… the shock would be beyond words. I couldn't put a child through that.
"I don't care, I'm going…!"
"I told you no! It's danger—"
She threw both arms out, blocking my path completely, and the words died in my throat.
No — more accurately, it was the golden mana pouring off her that stopped me cold.
A radiant light. It wasn't particularly strong, and yet there was something about it that held the eye, something that drew you in. The moment I saw it, I knew.
Lee Yeon-hui had awakened her mana.
Already?
Even at the earliest, awakening usually started around fifteen or sixteen. After her regressions, Yeon-hui had learned how to rouse the mana in her body and could force an awakening — but that was a different timeline. This one shouldn't have been possible yet.
Why the hell… no. Now's not the time to think about that.
I shook my head hard and looked at her. Eyes wide, staring straight at me, tears falling one after another. She clearly had no idea she'd just awakened.
"Haa… fine. Let's go. But you do exactly what I say. No arguments. Got it?"
"…O-okay…"
As she answered, the golden light faded as if it had never been there. I swallowed down the unease rising in my chest, took her hand, and headed outside.
Flagging a taxi didn't take long. We loaded the emergency gear I'd packed just in case, climbed in, and kept tracking as we rode.
"Fidgeting like that isn't going to get us there any faster. Calm down."
Yeon-hui kept staring out the window, shifting restlessly every time we hit a red light.
"I know, but…"
She answered weakly and hung her head. Telling an elementary schooler to calm down was almost funny under the circumstances — but I didn't have the luxury of coddling her feelings right now. Things might be fine at the moment, but there was a high chance we'd have to infiltrate their hideout ourselves.
"It's okay. I don't know what their plan is, but they clearly prepared for this carefully. Nothing's going to happen right away."
"Mm…"
Yeah. Not right away, at least.
I'd said it to reassure her, but I actually believed it too. Worst case, their thorough prep meant they might carry out that the second they got Yeon-ah back to base — but saying that out loud would only make her more anxious. Pointless words like that weren't needed.
The taxi took a faster route than expected, and the distance was closing steadily. The problem was—
Fewer and fewer cameras.
The roadside CCTV coverage was thinning out, and the unease was building. That bad feeling hit dead-on — the car eventually turned onto a road with no cameras at all, and I lost the trail near a mountain path.
"Hoo…"
I let out a breath shallow enough that Yeon-hui wouldn't notice, then looked at her.
"Lee Yeon-hui. Last chance. This is more dangerous than you think. You could die. Are you still okay with that?"
"…I'm going."
"Did you call your mom?"
She just shook her head hard without answering. Of course she hadn't. Yeon-ah's kidnapping was already enough to send their mother into a panic — hearing that Yeon-hui was going after her little sister herself would probably drop her on the spot. The heroes or police might have notified her already, but…
Unlikely.
In a world where Gates opened constantly, the Hero Association was a glamorous, highly regarded organization. Behind the shine, though, they were deeply closed-off, and their top priority was never letting anything damage their authority. They wouldn't report anything until the situation was fully resolved.
"Hey. Why aren't you telling the heroes and the police?"
"You didn't hear, but they've already narrowed their net around the decoys. If some kid like me walks up and says, 'Um, those guys are bait…' there's no way they'd take me seriously."
"…Oh."
I doubted that explanation was easy to fully grasp — but Yeon-hui was sharp for her age, and quick on the uptake. She might have understood more than I gave her credit for.
"Aren't you… scared…?"
"Not really. Unlike you two, I don't have any family who'd mourn me, and I'm not exactly overflowing with will to live."
Whether that was just who I was or a byproduct of everything I'd been through, I meant it. Situations like this were familiar territory. In my last life, having my neck on the line had been daily routine — I'd fought with death hanging over me every second. No reason to start getting scared now.
Something about my answer clearly didn't sit well with her. Yeon-hui's face twisted into a scowl as she stared at me. I was about to ask if I'd hit a nerve when—
Ding-dong. You have arrived at your destination.
While we'd been talking, the self-driving taxi had reached the drop-off point.
An empty stretch of road. The last CCTV hanging from a traffic light had been the final point where I could track the vehicle — but at least I knew which direction it had gone.
"Let's get out."
I paid with the card, climbed out with Yeon-hui, and pulled the electric kick scooter I'd stashed in the taxi's trunk. We both climbed on. I'd brought it specifically because I'd expected the trail to lead somewhere cameras couldn't follow.
Unfortunately, that prediction had been dead-on.
"Hold on tight. I disabled the speed limiter, so it's going to be pretty fast."
"…Huh?"
Before she could get another word out, I twisted the throttle hard.
Wheeeee—
A thin electric whine rose as the scooter shot down the empty road.
"Kyaa—!"
The sudden launch startled a short scream out of Yeon-hui. I eased off the throttle and spoke back over my shoulder.
"From here on, you stay completely quiet. Got it?"
"Y…yeah."
I'd slowed down, but she was still terrified enough to clamp both arms around my waist. Watching her hang on, I turned the handlebars onto the unpaved road, chasing the last direction the vehicle had gone.