Taboo (3)
"What?"
Hana and I answered in the same breath.
So the ignorance had been deliberate. I'd already suspected some power other than the aberrations had a hand in this — but not some outside organization. The Security Team itself? They weren't merely incompetent. They were cooperating?
"I mean it exactly as I said."
"Park Yonghyeon went missing after he finished dinner and left the house."
"And Yonghyeon always ate, then went off to practice soccer on his own. About an hour, in a lonely spot a little ways from here..."
"So he disappeared sometime in that hour..."
Seoyoon poured the words out with her brow drawn tight.
"In the window when we believe Yonghyeon was practicing, the Security Team patrolled that area."
"Same for Yuri. Same for Seokhyeon."
At some point she had started calling them Yuri, Yonghyeon, and Seokhyeon. Knowing their movements in that much detail was its own kind of tell.
"Hold on. Cha Seoyoon."
I cut her off.
"Yes?"
I'd been about to ask, How do you know all this so well? I let it go. I could already guess.
"Never mind. Keep going."
Cha Seoyoon went on. The materials she'd been gathering all this time were neatly organized. Shift hours and other constraints had kept her from recording every missing person, but it was enough. Every indicator, every circumstance, pointed to a single fact.
The Security Team was cooperating in the abductions.
I stole a glance at Hana and Seoyoon. Their faces were no different from mine. The people charged with keeping order and protecting civilians were running a filthy scheme with human lives. Who was backing them? A megacorporation? A cult? One corrupt man? I couldn't say for certain, but it was plainly an enormous power.
Anger had already flooded me. Now disgust rose to meet it. To pull something like this, even in a world like ours. No — maybe they pulled it precisely because the world was like this.
"Hah..."
I drew a long breath. A body could run hot. A head that ran hot ruined the work. Fortunately, the winter air was doing its part to cool me down.
Stay calm.
Honestly, Jeon Taeho had to have known. He'd known I'd see easily enough that Cha Seoyoon had been planted to watch us, and still he'd sent her this openly. A declaration of war, of a sort — faith that a Grade 4 Librarian couldn't punch through whatever stood behind him. It rankled, but when it came to information they held the clear advantage. Confidence like that couldn't be entirely baseless.
They didn't truly know my strength, though. And Hana was no longer a girl who only knew how to cry.
Time to turn that faith into arrogance.
"Seoyoon. Lead the way. To where Yonghyeon practiced."
"I'll only guide you."
"Seoyoon."
I stopped her as she tried to walk past me.
"Still hesitating?"
"I know you were attached to us as a watcher."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Go ahead and report. Keep feeding them our movements."
"In exchange, stop wavering and make a decision."
I folded my arms and stared her down. She didn't look away.
"Stand with us. If you don't want to, walk away now."
"I won't say it twice."
Seoyoon scratched at her nails again. A short silence brushed past, and then she stepped out in front.
"This way. I'll guide you."
We passed through alleys of houses packed shoulder to shoulder and crossed a few hills. The shanties thinned until only a handful remained, and the people all but vanished. It felt like a quiet park far from the heart of the neighborhood — though it was closer to a bare lot than a park.
"This is where he practiced soccer?"
"Yes."
A small wood spread out behind the wide lot. Only thin grass at the edge; deeper in, it grew thick enough to hide whatever lay beyond. Maybe he'd gone in there. I mimed catching a ball that had bounced away. The imaginary ball rolled into the brush, and I caught it before it got far. He wouldn't have gone any deeper. Warnings about monsters had taken on a life of their own by now, and a child surviving in the Yellow Zone wouldn't be dull enough to ignore a living warning.
But there hadn't been an aberration alert in over a month. And would a twelve-year-old really lose his way at a distance like this?
The moment I turned to head back, I saw a burning red point. As it drew closer, the sound grew with it.
A cigarette?
"What are we eating after this?"
The voices sharpened.
"Pork belly. Ugh, I gotta get out of this shithole."
A filthy hawk and spit followed.
"With your ability? Heh."
"You son of a bitch, watch your—"
Two men swaggering along met my eyes.
"The hell are you? What're you doing in the bushes?"
A rail-thin one came toward me.
"Why bother with him? Get over here. Let's just drink already."
The fat one beckoned him over.
"Scram. And don't make a scene."
He flicked a glance at me and moved on.
Would you look at these assholes.
"Huh? Isn't that... Miss Cha Seoyoon?"
The honorific dripped with quiet contempt.
"Out playing house with the kids?"
"We're off. Call us if you want a drink."
The snickering, the mean little faces, the filthy hand gestures — none of it sat right. So this was how they'd been running their patrols. Neglecting children. Cooperating in kidnappings on top of it.
I checked the name tags. Grade 8. Grade 9. Hana's face and Seoyoon's were rotting where they stood.
Hana. I'll take out trash like this.
"Freeze."
"What?"
"Huh? Did I hear that wrong?"
"Shut your mouth and get in front of me. Now."
"Excuse me? Unbelievable."
"Hey, hey. He said let's just drink."
"No. Brats like that need a lesson. Hey. Say that again."
The fat one loosened his hands and came at me without a shred of caution. I rose out of the brush.
"You... fuck?"
"I told you to shut your mouth and come here."
"And watch the language. You been chewing on a rag?"
My Grade 4 Librarian insignia caught the faint streetlight and glimmered.
"I—I'm sor—"
I put everything I had into a kick to his shin. A shin kick I'd beaten into my body until it stuck.
"Guh—!"
The fat one clutched his shin and went down. The skinny one, finally reading the situation, scurried over with his head bowed.
"G-Grade 9, Kim—"
Wham.
No need to hear the rest.
"Dereliction of duty, and smoking on patrol. You out of your minds?"
Gotten comfortable with their seniority, had they. Neither of them answered. They knew a sloppy excuse would only poison things further. There was a method for that, too.
"Not answering? Look at you."
"We'll do it properly..."
They had to have heard today that we'd arrived. And still their watch was this slack — they probably didn't even know why we were here. I was starting to feel sick of it.
I grabbed the fallen fat one by the collar and hauled him up, then extended a finger and pushed it into his forehead, scraping at what pride he had left.
"Because of bastards like you, the world's still this much of a wreck."
The brow I'd shoved back came forward again, rotten expression and all.
"And I have to live this busy because of it. Lucky me. I came here today specifically to take out garbage like you."
I mixed in a bluff.
"We're sorry!! We'll fix it!!"
As expected, they had no idea why I was here. They were convinced I was an auditor sent down from headquarters. A moment ago they'd been wrinkling their faces to protect some pathetic pride; now they looked properly desperate. Their own evaluations mattered. The kids didn't even register.
Disgusting.
"On your feet."
The two pieces of trash sprang up like coils.
"What was that you said to Cha Seoyoon? Asked her out for a drink?"
"I haven't even been here a full day, and my ears are already rotting."
I pressed a finger into each of their chests and shoved.
"Try living like human beings. You filthy bastards."
I gathered strength into my foot again. The two idiots swallowed hard. They'd caught the scent of it and started inching backward.
Awful quick on the uptake.
"Stay right there!"
Thud. Thud.
I drove kicks into the exact same spots as before.
"Gyaaaah..."
Their ugly faces crumpled uglier still, tears spilling.
"Crawl over there, plant your heads on the ground, and apologize."
Revolting as it was, they crawled.
"I... I'm sorry. Librarian Cha Seoyoon."
"I'm sorry! Librarian Cha Seoyoon."
Seoyoon didn't bother answering. She stepped aside.
"Shift over?"
"Y-yes. It's over."
"Then get up and tell your team leader this."
"Thanks for lending us Seoyoon. And the audit starts soon."
As the two tried to stand and salute, I waved them off like flies.
Jeon Taeho. Whatever you've got behind you, I doubt it holds a candle to what I've got behind me. This is my answer to your declaration of war.
Hah. That felt a little better.
Hana looked at me and gave a thumbs-up. Maybe Seoyoon felt a bit better too — though her expression still looked uncomfortable. I drifted over beside her and spoke lightly.
"Should I have chewed them out harder?"
The corner of her mouth seemed to twist.
"It's fine."
What?
"You really didn't have to help."
"Is there anything else to see here?"
Unbelievable. Hana, unable to watch any longer, started to step in. I caught both of Seoyoon's twintails in a flash and spun them around.
"When that happens, you just say thank you."
The eyes she'd been keeping narrowed flew wide open.
"Pfft."
A bit of Hana's laugh slipped out.
"You got owned, Seoyoon."
I left the flustered Seoyoon behind and walked into the woods without looking back.
"W-where are you going!"
Footsteps came pounding after me from a distance.
"To look for them."
"What...?"
"Your little playmates."
"We're not even ready. It's dangerous."
"Kid, preparation is for the weak."
"What...?"
Seoyoon, today's going to have a few surprises for you, isn't it.
"Jaehee, that didn't sound like him at all."
"No? Guess I need more practice."
"I was doing a little-kid impression."
Seoyoon, having lost the thread entirely, just looked bewildered.
Pushing through the woods, a faint thought I'd had before hardened into certainty. I could see imagery power. More precisely, the structure of narrativized Black Imagery, and the narrative structures of the aberrations.
Had it started when I purified Ha Yerin? The fight had been too urgent then for me to feel it clearly. Deep in this wood, I felt something similar. A twisted narrative structure. Black Imagery with a specific shape was pointing toward a single place, and the flow gathered at its center into one vast narrative.
There was no real basis for it. My senses simply said so. Was this another function of purification — no, of achromatic imagery power?
The distance was long, but not so long that an alarm should have failed to react. Which meant a jammer. I'd already lived through what a jammer could do: hide an aberration, or manipulate one. If a jammer was part of this incident too, then it was certain. The cases I'd fought through until now and the one in front of me today were not separate.
"Jaehee... how did you know?"
Hana had drawn her weapon and settled into a combat stance.
"I'll tell you later."
A four-legged beast stood there, thick with white fur. Blackened bloodstains remained across its body. Four yellow eyes burned, vicious and bright, and the teeth it bared were packed tight as saw blades.
"Th-this is okay, right...?"
Seoyoon, don't worry. A chance to show what a Grade 4 could do — and to confirm it for myself.
With a crackling glitch, the sword came free.
"Let's go, Hana."
"Yeah!"
Time to carve the first narrative into my sword.