Let's Go Home
A body slam is built from two things.
One is 0.2 percent pure physical power!
The rest is the unbreakable will to turn the other guy into a pork cutlet!!
KWA-AAA-AANG!!
The window exploded like cheap candy. A blast followed an instant later, flinging the nearby goons into the wall hard enough to leave dents.
I pushed myself up through the swirling debris and dust.
Time to grab my flaming Puk-jjik-i and strike the coolest pose possible.
Ah, fuck!! It's fucking hot, you bastard!!
"Sig-13. I've entered the enemy position. Take your sweet time getting here."
Put the fire out, you crazy son of a bitch!!!
No can do. A fire-attribute dagger is the absolute core of looking badass!
I dusted myself off. Shouts started echoing between the partitions.
"Cough, cough! Team leader! …Team leader?"
"He's a charcoal briquette now…"
"Well-done. Shit."
Gotta hand it to them—the smoke effects over here are top-notch.
Tatiana had told me more than once that every single armed bastard in this building was a violent career criminal.
— So feel free to put them down hard.
— Uh… what if someone dies?
— No problem. If anything happens, I'll take full responsibility.
With that kind of blank check, roughing them up a little should be fine, right? Of course, actually killing anyone would be a pain, so I'd keep the power in check.
How? By throwing out a wide-area CC skill.
Exactly the way we used to throw welcome parties for new recruits back at the Marine Fortress.
I wrapped my burning hand around the fire-attribute Puk-jjik-i.
Stop it, you bastard. …Please just stop.
I wound up for the throw… and, just to be safe and not hit anyone, hurled it straight into the wall!!
Whooosh— KWA-AAA-AANG!!!
Concrete vaporized. Flames roared out in every direction.
"Kyaaaaah?!"
"Aaaaaaagh!!!"
Realistic screams filled the office, but I wasn't worried about anyone actually burning to death.
Beeeeeep—!!
The familiar fire-alarm shriek kicked in, and sprinklers erupted from the ceiling. Within seconds the whole floor was as soggy as wet cardboard.
The heavily armed career criminals? All of them were already down and out, thoroughly suppressed.
Victory teabagging time.
"And there you have it~ the Director's signature sous-vide career-criminal special!"
No one answered. Everyone was out cold.
I strolled casually through the indoor rain, picked up Puk-jjik-i, and gave it a shake.
…Hwaeeeeeeng.
‘Tuk.’
What do you mean ‘tuk’!!
Couldn't relax yet. Just in case, I kicked a nearby unconscious guy's gun far away.
…Why are you scared of guns?
Are you stupid? It's common sense that people die if you shoot them.
Puk-jjik-i was starting to look like a pretty dumb ego sword.
Maybe it only graduated elementary school?
Guess all that's left is waiting for Tatiana and the goons…
I was scanning the office when I spotted it.
[04:52]
Red digits glowed through the steam.
[04:51]
I-it's counting down!?
I sprinted over and my mouth fell open.
A-a bomb!
"Bombs!!"
Sticky charges were plastered all over the support pillars, every timer ticking down!
I immediately radioed Tatiana.
"Sig-1, the 38th floor is packed with bombs!"
"Sig-13, stay calm. Do not attempt to disarm them yourself. Paradise Lost's EOD officer will—"
Click.
I switched the radio off.
Why? Why the hell!?
Because I'm about to defuse bombs and you're too loud.
Wait, hang on. Please just think for a second…
Thunk!
Lid popped open. Sure enough, a whole nest of wires inside.
But fear not!!!
"The red wire!!!"
Kyaaaaaah!!?
I stabbed Puk-jjik-i through the wire and severed it clean.
Tatiana rounded the corner.
"Left clear."
"Right clear."
"Entering the office."
Creak.
The door swung open and a wave of heat rolled out. Sprinklers were still spinning overhead.
Every hostile was sprawled on the floor, moaning, covered in burns.
What the hell did he do?
She'd check the bodycam footage later.
Tatiana keyed her radio in a low voice.
"Sig-13. Report your position."
"Yeah yeah. Interrogating a prisoner right now. Come to the executive office at the back."
He already had a prisoner?
But what about the bombs?
"Sig-11. Check the bombs first."
"Copy that. You take that pillar, ma'am."
Tatiana hurried to the nearest charge.
The wire was already cut.
"?"
She looked around, stunned. Sig-11 was frozen solid too.
"??"
"???"
Not a word passed over the radio, yet both of them shared the exact same thought.
Sig-1. You see the wiring?
Yeah.
Cutting the red wire should have made it blow. That's how it's supposed to work.
No kidding.
Tatiana blinked, then looked at the bomb again.
Only the red wire was severed.
"…I believe Sig-13 has manifested an anomaly."
He must have the fixed idea that the red wire always defuses the bomb.
She decided it was easier just to stop trying to understand.
Whatever. She needed to check what intel Lee Shin had pulled from the prisoner.
"Sig-13. Entering the executive office. Watch for friendly fire."
Creak.
Tatiana opened the door.
"………."
And lost the ability to speak.
Knife game.
The childhood game where you stab a knife rapidly between your fingers.
Lee Shin was playing knife game.
Except the prisoner was tied to the desk, pants around his ankles, and the dagger was dancing between his elephant trunk and the two hanging ornaments…
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud—
"I don't know! I really don't know!! Please!! Stop!!!"
Uweeeegh! Wueeegh…
Thunk!!
Lee Shin drove the dagger into the desk and looked up.
"Tatiana, welcome."
"………."
The Paradise Lost operators who followed her in also entered a mandatory vow of silence.
Tatiana seized Lee Shin's arm.
"We're deleting this scene from the bodycam. Sig-13, you are hereby banned from all future prisoner interrogations."
"What. Why. This is a traditional Marine Corps interrogation method."
Just what kind of place was the Marine Corps supposed to be?
Tatiana called Yu Seoa, still sitting in the command center.
"Chief… no! Task Force Captain, go ahead!"
"Assistant Researcher Yu Seoa. I need the full military record for SIN-998. Unit, specialty, everything. Report once the mission is over."
"Understood! …Huh?"
Yu Seoa stammered.
"What's wrong."
"This is weird. I entered the resident registration number correctly."
"Assistant Researcher Yu Seoa?"
In the command center Yu Seoa hammered the keyboard again and again, tilting her head at the completely unexpected result.
"…It says he's never enlisted. But that's strange. I visited him a lot."
Nothing connected to that man was ever normal.
Tatiana jabbed Lee Shin in the side.
"Sig-13. Which unit did you discharge from?"
"Marine Fortress."
"…Can you tell me the location of that unit?"
"Pohang Marine Direct Jurisdiction Odozzase Gihab Special Metropolitan City."
Silence settled once more. Then Yu Seoa's cautious voice came over the radio.
"…SIN-892 Marine Literature. A composite anomalous entity mixing regional and phenomenon types. Grade Gamma."
"…Understood. We'll discuss it later."
Apparently Lee Shin had done a pseudo-military stint in some nightmarish place. Which meant he had no official record and was now scheduled to serve twice.
So Yu Seoa had been visiting an anomalous entity all those times without realizing it?
What a pair of childhood friends. Birds of a feather, both of them completely unhinged.
While they were pulling the prisoner's pants back up and re-tying his hands and feet, a question occurred to Tatiana.
"It's quiet. Eden Software should start from the 30th floor. Was the entire hostile force concentrated on 38?"
"Sig-1. Ground strike team on the line."
Click.
She switched frequencies and a boisterous yell blasted out immediately.
"Beer!! Beer beer!!!"
"Eins from Tank Battalion, I take it. Where are your brothers?"
"Second son, Zwei here. Multiple unregistered anomalous entities on the 30th floor… huff. Subjugation is going to take a little longer… huff."
"Understood. Upper strike team will begin descending from 38."
"You know? …I know too! Drei, out."
Anomalous-entity-origin isolation special task force members really did have unmistakable quirks.
Tatiana shot a sidelong glance at Lee Shin. He had gone one step further and was currently holding a conversation with his dagger.
"…! ……!!"
"Don't cry, Puk-jjik. …You didn't want to see a dick? What, are you some little girl?"
Talking with the Azazel sealed inside, apparently. How that was even possible remained a complete mystery.
"Moving to 37. Maintain vigilance."
Tatiana raised her rifle again.
37th floor.
"Motion sensors clear. …No hostiles."
"Doesn't look like active camouflage either. Nothing on the detectors."
There wasn't a single sign of life, yet the atmosphere was completely different from the floor above.
No desks, no chairs, no partitions.
Only a massive machine sat alone in the center of the room.
Cables snaked out in every direction, vanishing into the walls—power lines and data lines tangled together.
At the heart of the device an opaque membrane rippled irregularly.
"…Command. We've confirmed a spatial singularity with unknown destination coordinates. Presumed portal or objet. Eden Software's leadership appears to have fled inside."
While radioing, Tatiana spotted something else.
"What's that? Sig-11, check it."
Sig-11 carefully approached the incinerator in the corner.
Half-burned paper still smoldered inside. The logo at the top was unmistakable.
Prompt Software.
"Uh, there are Prompt Software documents here."
Lee Shin tilted his head.
"Prompt, huh. Their games were always too hard for me. I could never get the hang of rolling and dodging."
"Ohhh. Sig-13 likes games too?"
"The kids do. Last time Yulha was playing Dark Seoul—"
"Both of you, stop the chitchat."
Tatiana cut in.
"Prompt has no known connection to anomalies. Finding their material here is suspicious."
Perhaps something was going on behind Prompt as well.
Every game they had released so far was circulating freely among civilians with zero oversight.
Tatiana keyed her radio.
"Command. Possibility that games related to Prompt Software are anomalous entities."
"Understood. …We've confirmed missing-person rumors linked to a new title they released a few weeks ago."
Just as she thought. She needed the name of that new title.
But Tatiana's mouth wouldn't open.
Because Lee Shin had shoved a half-charred sheet of paper under her nose.
Prompt Software
New Release
End of Empire
A woman smiled on the cover.
Blue hair, green eyes, a woman who looked like she had been carved from frost. Behind her stretched a snow-covered castle and a vast white plain.
Tatiana took the paper in a daze.
"…."
Her heart hammered wildly. It felt as if someone were carving it out with a knife.
Lee Shin's voice reached her through the roaring in her ears.
"Sig-1. Weird, right? That blue-haired character's family name is the same as yours. Karstein."
"…Yes. Of course it is."
It had to be.
Because this woman—
Freyla Karstein was her mother.
The last voice she had heard ten years ago still echoed in her memory.
Tatiana, my daughter. Look at Mommy. Remember this—even if you forget everything else, just remember this one thing. I love you.
Only now did she understand.
Why she had never been able to find an objet connected to her home world for ten long years.
…It linked a month ago, disguised as a Prompt game.
Voices crackled. Command seemed to be ordering them to enter the portal.
Click.
Tatiana switched her radio off.
Orders no longer mattered.
From the very beginning, every mission she had carried out in this world, even rising to chief researcher, had all been for one purpose: returning to her family.
Crunch.
One step. It felt exactly like setting foot on snow-covered ground again.
"Sig-1. Are we entering immediately?"
"…Task Force Captain? Why aren't you answering?"
Yes. She would enter.
Back to the place she had come from.
Lee Shin grabbed her arm, worried.
"Tatiana. Are you all right?"
"…998. What do Baek Yulha and Jang Arin mean to you?"
"The kids are my family. They're my whole world."
At those words, Tatiana Karstein smiled brightly.
"I understand. I have a whole world of my own too."
She stepped through the rippling portal, murmuring to herself.
"Found it. My objet. The one that takes me home."