Emily
The photograph the little girl named Tiss had handed him left Chris in complete disarray. He'd claimed he needed the bathroom, turned on the tap, and splashed his face again and again — but the mirror still betrayed him. He couldn't hide the excitement written across his features.
That kid had spoken to him as if she knew the prophecy. Prophetic or precognitive abilities weren't unheard of. And yet this was far too coincidental to dismiss as chance, and he couldn't decide what to do with any of it.
If she wasn't an ordinary child... had she approached him from the start, already knowing he was a member of the Secret Society? Should he even believe a child like that? And if this was a trap? What was she after, pulling something like this? Had that girl received a revelation as well? Or had she, from the very beginning...
Once the questions started, they multiplied, each one spawning the next.
That's not what matters.
The shock had rattled him; for a moment, his thoughts had scattered. That was right. For Chris, identifying the girl named Tiss was secondary. Something far more important demanded his attention.
"Siwoo and Sia... that's what she said."
There were only a handful of parks in the area. If those two children truly were Children of Prophecy, they had to take priority over everything else. And if this place really was Abaddon's den, all the more reason not to wait for them to wander back to the orphanage — he had to get to them first and pull them out. Even if it meant abandoning his assigned mission. Even if it meant walking away from being a hunter altogether.
Besides — there were two other hunters he could trust, weren't there? Chris steeled his wavering heart with the thought that, if trouble arose, those two could buy time until reinforcements arrived. Once his mind was made up, the last trace of hesitation vanished from his eyes.
Tiss, I... I honestly don't know if a hunter would throw away his mission over a single photograph...
"He will. No question."
The more unyielding a person's convictions, the easier they are to read — what they'll think, how they'll move. I knew Chris's history and temperament inside and out. He was a member of the Secret Society, after all. In the tutorial, he'd thrown his own life away trying to save the protagonist, and died for it.
His identity as a hunter paled beside his creed as a member of the Secret Society. The moment he suspected Siwoo and Sia might be Children of Prophecy, he would leave this place and make contact. No exceptions. And that would be game over. The instant he confirmed they were the real Children of Prophecy, he'd take them into the Secret Society and raise them there.
Still, seeing Chris like that put me a little more at ease. If I thought about it, my own life should have been the priority — and yet, without realizing it, I'd been pouring a lot of care into those two kids. Maybe, in that short time, I wasn't the only one who'd grown attached.
This would diverge from the original story's wandering and adoption arc — but the sooner they met the Secret Society, the better. Originally, they would have stumbled forward through storm after storm, one precarious step at a time. Inside the Secret Society, they could achieve ideal growth in both mind and body. If those two grew up with the Secret Society's full backing, they might show insane growth that leapt right past the original prologue. I might even be able to expect growth on the level of a second playthrough. As long as they were under the Secret Society's protection, I could stop worrying about the dangers they'd face.
Tiss, what are you going to do now?
"That's the question, isn't it."
The Disguiser first — or should I approach the Parasite Type first? According to what I'd pried from the teachers, the parasite host was a Wandering Hunter who drifted from place to place. That was about all I had. Her career was long enough to call her a veteran. She could easily have settled down somewhere and gone after a branch-chief post — but she never stayed anywhere, just wandered the city without a destination. It wasn't so much aimless wandering as the trail of someone searching for something. In the game, she'd died without the story ever revealing what she was looking for. I still had no idea what her goal even was.
Tiss? Tiss?
I was trying to think, and Shan kept calling me. I was about to tell her to give me a second when—
"Hi there."
Holy—!
I almost screamed out loud.
Eek! $%@$*@#&!!!
Shan shrieked loud enough for both of us.
A red-haired hunter with a young-lady air about her, her eyes narrowed to slits.
"Hunter Emily?"
"Oh my. You remembered my name."
Huh? Suddenly, my body... wouldn't move. She was only resting a light hand on my shoulder, but it felt like a boulder was crushing me from head to toe.
"Your name was Tiss, wasn't it?"
Emily's voice was soft and gentle — and yet something about it felt off. Was she testing me?
"Sorry if I startled you. I wanted to talk with you a little more, and I ended up giving you a scare. My bad — I guess I got impatient."
Emily winked at me and sat down beside me.
"I have a feeling you and I would get along. We've got a lot in common, you could say."
"I do?"
She was openly advertising how interested she was in me. If Emily had come here targeting Shan from the start, the way the Disguiser had, I should have already been hit with something. Then... had Emily come after Tiss in the original, not Shan?
I had the self-defense artifact and the silver arrows I'd pried off the teachers. If she'd actually figured out what Shan and I were, I'd have to deal with her before the Disguiser.
"What you're holding is dangerous. Put it away, would you?"
Emily had even noticed I was ready to drive a silver arrow into her if it came to that. She slowly opened her eyes. The pupils that looked at me were cloudy and muddled, as if the light had gone out of them.
"As you can see, with eyes like these, my vision isn't great. Instead, you could say I understand the world through something else."
Emily gently took my hand.
Thump-thump.
Neither of us spoke. In that silence, the only thing I could hear was a heartbeat.
"Did you... notice it the first time you took my hand?"
Ah. That's why she'd held my hand for so long. I'd been caught from an angle I never expected. I'd prepared countermeasures for things like x-ray vision. I never thought sound would be what tripped me up. Just like me, she'd said. Which meant...
Emily slowly opened her closed eyes and looked at me fully. When I peered into those pupils, something that had no business existing in a human eye was coiled there.
A monster.
Tiss... th-this hunter...!
So Emily really was a Parasite Type.
Shaaaaa—
The shape was hazy, but the foreign thing that had no place in a human eye swam through her pupil like a lake, as if to prove it was alive — then vanished to the other side.
This was... pretty bad. Not a snake. An imugi had its sights on me.
"So... what are you planning to do to me?"
"How admirable, staying this calm even now. You and the child inside you seem to get along well. I'm envious."
Her hand stroked my hair, slow and gentle, and goosebumps ran from my scalp to my toes.
"I'm not going to do anything. For now, anyway."
"You're really not going to do anything?"
"Really."
Do whatever you want, she told me — she'd just watch from a distance. Then Emily started to pull away, as if nothing had happened.
In that case.
"W-wait!"
"Hm?"
I caught the sleeve of Emily as she started to leave.
"Hunter Emily... there's something you absolutely need to hear."
"Like what you told Chris?"
"Yes. It's... really important information! Important enough that you'll be grateful you heard it from me!"
"Well then. Let's hear it."
If, as that parasite claimed, she was only going to observe us, I at least had to make sure she wouldn't interfere with our plans.
The strange tension shattered in an instant when Chris returned.
"I'll be stepping out for a while."
"Hey, Chris — where do you think you're going?"
Chris had come back from the bathroom and announced to the other two that he would be operating independently from this point on.
"Hey! Chris. We never discussed anything like this beforehand. What's going on?"
Rox showed a flicker of surprise at Chris's sudden move.
"Something more urgent has come up."
The weighing in Chris's heart was already finished. He told them he had decided to prioritize his duty to the Secret Society over his responsibilities as a hunter, asked them to handle what remained, and walked out.
"Whatever. Do what you want. You'll be the one taking all the blame."
"I'm well aware this is my own unilateral decision. I won't let any of it fall on you."
Rox didn't let the unexpected opportunity slip. He realized he could pin every last bit of responsibility on Chris and still carry out his real mission — and barely managed to swallow the laugh that tried to burst out.
In the end, neither Emily nor Rox tried to stop him. They let him go, telling him to do as he pleased.
"...He actually did it."
Watching their reactions, Emily smiled as if she found the whole situation amusing.
"Emily, you find anything?"
"There's something under here, I think."
Emily's fingertip pointed at the orphanage floor.
"Figures. We turned the place inside out and didn't find so much as a speck of dust — so they dug a hole like rats and hid underground."
Emily. If I just take care of this woman, I'm done.
With that thought, Rox decided to act boldly.
"Looks like we'll have to move on our own, huh?"
He'd decided to move fast. The moment Chris was out of sight, he stood up. He approached Emily naturally, as if they ought to put their heads together and plan —
"Actually, thinking about it — I can handle this myself."
Before Emily could get a word out, Rox's fist was already moving.
His fist, transformed into something hard as steel, struck Emily's body. A sound like a bomb going off — and she was blasted clean through the wall. Emily hit the wall, twitched once, then went limp. She didn't move again.
"All that's left is the Spawn in this place. You there. Come out."
Rox turned his head, spotted Tiss watching through the crack in the door, and beckoned her forward.
"Hey, you. You know where Abaddon's Spawn in this place is, don't you?"
Rox shoved his bloodied fist toward her. The unspoken threat: give the wrong answer, and he'd do to her what he'd done to Emily.
"Yes, I know. O Hand of the Great One. I'll lead you there at once."
Rox liked that I didn't so much as blink, playing it as if this were the most natural thing in the world. He broke into a broad, delighted grin.
"You've given me the creeps since I first saw you — way too much for a kid your age. So you were a slave too, huh. That's why the teachers kept you around."
The Disguiser decided I was a believer who served Abaddon's Spawn, same as the other teachers. He ordered me to lead the way into the basement and put me out in front.