Hide and Seek (2)
"Observer Kim Seoyoung?"
Suspicion started to fill me at the radio call that came out of nowhere.
Hide-and-seek?
As if she had read exactly what I was thinking, Seoyoung rushed to speak.
A little hurt had crept into her voice.
"No, but—isn't this way too fast?"
Only a moment ago I had been buried in that kind of worry. How many aberrations were we still going to have to cut through? What if Observer Seoyoung never managed to find us at all? And a radio call, at a moment this absurd?
"Honestly, I was shocked too."
"At my own skill."
A week ago she had cried as if the world were ending. Then again, that full-throated wailing had nearly burst my eardrums too. She really did bounce back fast. If anything, that was a good thing.
"Ahaha..."
A hollow little laugh slipped out of me before I knew it, thin and strengthless.
She had to have heard how empty that laugh was. Even so, she carried on as if nothing were wrong at all.
"Yeah. To sum it up."
I folded my arms and looked down at the floor.
"While you were observing in order to find us, a powerful signal flared on my end."
"You tracked that signal, and it led you to me."
"The cause is presumed to be the power of Purification."
"That's correct. The Purification you carry seems to have taken the narrative rules Hide-and-Seek set in place..."
"...and erased them."
"Which means..."
I frowned and sank into thought.
"What's the best way to solve a maze?"
The captain called down to us as he watched us working through it. We ignored him and kept solving. He snatched the pens out of our hands and said,
"You just smash the thing."
He pointed the pen at himself, showing off.
"If you can manage it, that is. Like me."
The look on his face rubbed me the wrong way for no good reason, so I tossed out a mean little joke.
"So we just have to be short, like you, Captain?"
"You little—!!"
The spot where he had hit me still tingled. But the pain soon turned into satisfaction.
I turned my head and swept a look over the surroundings. Alien white holes really were scattered all over the place.
"So I smashed the walls. Is that it?"
I gathered a little imagery power into my hand and set my palm against the wall. The black wall broke apart, pixel by pixel, evaporated, and was gone.
"Exactly. The maze walls Hide-and-Seek put up..."
"You shattered them. Literally."
The mission wasn't even finished. And yet, seeing the results of our training with my own eyes, a confidence I couldn't name began to swell in me.
Don't get cocky.
I told myself that, over and over, and still my body started to tremble with excitement.
"Observer Seoyoung."
"Can you estimate, roughly, where Hana is right now?"
I needed to calm down, but Observer Seoyoung's high spirits stacked on top of my own, and settling myself only grew harder.
"Then we go. Right now. Straight ahead."
Lifted by the elation surging through me, the corner of my mouth climbed with no tact at all.
"Excellent! There will be no speed limits, and no traffic cameras!"
"Then I'll begin guidance along the fastest route."
I took off, smashing everything around me like a madman. The aberrations I met along the way, I simply plowed through like a bulldozer. I was still charging on like that when Observer Seoyoung's radio came in.
"Yeah."
"That last strike opened another path, besides the one to Librarian Hana."
"There's a librarian there whose flooding is still underway."
"Shall I guide you...?"
A librarian whose flooding was still underway. The past rose up in me. If I didn't act, that person would soon become one of the Flooded and wander this place until they died. I wanted to save them. I was worried about Hana. The dilemma didn't last long.
If Hana had been beside me, she would have told me to save them. Hana, too, had trained without mercy for today.
"Please guide me."
Seoyoung let the rest of the sentence trail away. Then, as if she had made up her mind, she spoke.
It was a familiar room, one I had seen more times than I could count. But the walls and the floor still held the traces of the fight, untouched.
Two aberration corpses were crumbling away on the floor.
Then, from a corner, a faint breath reached me. I snapped my head toward the sound.
Someone was there.
Analyzing time remaining until complete flooding!
Ground Flooding Response Team 2. Ha Yerin, Grade 6 combat librarian.
A Grade 6, serving as captain. That team had never been built from high combat power in the first place. They were hopelessly short of what it would take to face a short-story-class aberration like this. And still they had been sent in, and this was what had come of it. They simply hadn't known. This team, just like ours...
Deployed units are to be abandoned without hesitation, so that they do not obstruct achievement of the original objective.
Worry for Hana rose in me again. But I knew I had to trust her.
"Kill... me..."
Her clouded eyes had lost their focus and stared into empty air. Her arms flailed, strengthless, as if she meant to shake off what little life she had left.
87%
06:00
Six minutes until complete flooding.
I took up the sword. I closed my eyes.
Hana's face rose before me. Frost began to fall. But the frost soon turned to blood, and Hana lifted into the air, swaying—slowly—left, and then right.
I opened my eyes. I set the sword down. I pulled Ha Yerin into my arms.
Both of her arms hung limp. To draw Ha Yerin up out of that deep sea, I threw myself into the sea as well.
Deep in a black sea where not a single point of light existed, one drop of white ink fell. The sea went quiet again, as if nothing had happened. I thought that was all.
The tiny point spread. The black sea did not stain itself with white light. It only lost its color. Soon the sea was gone, and a hand reached out and drew Ha Yerin up.
"Hah—! Khh... cough, cough."
Ha Yerin forced out a ragged breath and opened her eyes. For a long while she only blinked, face blank. Then she realized she was held in someone's arms. She jolted and tried to tear free, but the one holding her would not let go.
Internal Flooding: 0%
Black Imagery: Complete Dissipation Confirmed
My eyes snapped wide. I had nearly lost consciousness, the way I had back then. Every time I used Purification, I felt my sense of self grow thin—as if the borders of everything around me were vanishing, and all of it was becoming one.
A hot breath suddenly entered my ear. I turned my head on reflex. Ha Yerin's face was close enough that, if I weren't careful, our lips might have touched.
Her eyes were squeezed shut. Her body was shaking.
I quietly unwound the arms that held her, brushed off my pants, and pushed myself to my feet.
Ha Yerin didn't look as if she understood any of this. I could hardly blame her. But I still had a long way to go. There was no time to explain.
"I know this won't make any sense, but can you move?"
"Yes..."
Ha Yerin answered in a thin, dragging voice.
"I'll sort the situation out for you afterward."
I reached out and pulled Ha Yerin to her feet.
"Observer Seoyoung, I'm going to need guidance again."
We broke into a run toward Hana once more.
The moment the flooded librarian of Ground Flooding Response Team 2 was dealt with, the closet in the corner opened.
A corpse appeared.
The logo of Ground Flooding Response Team 2.
One. Two.
Soon the closets on every side began to open. Corpses kept dropping to the floor. Another one. One over there, too. The last. Five corpses in all.
"..."
Both of Hana's hands began to tremble. Anger welled up in her eyes, and she could not stop her lips from quivering.
As if savoring the moment, Hide-and-Seek let a beat of leisure pass, then went on.
"What? Don't you like it?"
"Those ones killed themselves. With a gun. Not like that one from before."
"I put the flooded one in a box, and I gathered up the ones who offed themselves. Well? You like it?"
Innocent laughter, and sneering, and mockery, and insult—every filthy thing there was had been stirred into that voice. The urge to spew curses surged all the way up to the back of her throat. She pressed it down, and down again, and swallowed it. Her clenched fist had gone numb. She drew several deep breaths, trying to steady the air rasping in and out of her. Even while she did, Hide-and-Seek's taunting did not stop.
"Apologize..."
Hana stared up at the ceiling with a look that could have killed.
The laughter cracked and began to spread, tearing through the space as if it meant to rip it open. Then it cut off, clean.
Only Hana's rough breathing filled the plaza.
"What...?"
In that instant Hana's face went scarlet. Her teeth ground together with a harsh scrape.
"Shut up!! You filthy monster bitch!!"
Hana's curses mixed grotesquely with Hide-and-Seek's sneer.
"Don't wanna. Play nice. I'll come find you when you're tired. If you're scared, you can hide too, sis."
"Or just kill yourself."
The rooms along the corridor began to rattle. A breath later the plaza was full of mocking laughter and the clatter of things shaking loose. Debris and corpses on the floor started to shiver. The vibration swelled until it might as well have been an earthquake. Every door in the corridor blew open as if exploding, and through them the aberrations came pouring out. A wave of them rushed in from every side.
Hana clenched her teeth hard. She could not lose. Not this.
"You... think this is funny?"
"Keep both eyes wide open and watch."
The sound of laughter spread, soft and thin. Then a resolute blue aura began to wrap Hana's body. Her eyes burned bluer than they ever had.
"You got all those aberrations? Impressive."
"But sis, you look pretty worn out. You okay?"
The snicker came at the same instant something flew in fast from behind her. She knocked it down with the dagger in her left hand. Frost went with the blow, and a sharp kitchen knife shattered to pieces.
The broken shards began to rise into the air.
The shards hanging in the air came flying at Hana. She stamped her foot against the floor and raised a wall of ice. The fragments buried themselves in it with a grating shriek.
The feeling in her hands and feet had gone numb long ago. Every breath felt like an ice awl stabbing into her lungs.
From every direction, gazes thick with killing intent bored into her. Her skin prickled. A presence that had been squirming, sticky, around her knees caught hold of her waist and clung.
Far off, on the opposite side, a purple haze oozed out, thick and sluggish. Above that purple haze crawling over the ground, a young girl appeared, floating. Blood seeped from beneath her closed eyes. The dress she wore had been reduced to rags, and her hair was long enough to touch the floor.
She opened the eyes she had kept shut.
A huge eye manifested behind the girl and poured out blood. Purple haze and dark crimson mixed in a sickening smear and soaked the floor.
This is bad...
On instinct, Hana began to inch backward.
"Die."
The girl pointed at Hana. From the giant eye, a hand slathered in blood reached out.
In the instant Hana wrung out every last scrap of strength to raise a wall of ice—
Librarian Hana!! Duck!!!
The transmission speared into her ear. The moment she heard it, she dropped without a second's delay. The wall behind her shattered, and a flash of light burst through.
The hand and the flash collided, cracked out a violent boom, and vanished.
In the middle of that chaos—shards of light and blood throwing wild reflections everywhere—Jaehee appeared, shouldering through the debris.
She was so glad to see him that she forgot how exhausted she was and broke into a wide smile.
"Hana! I made it out!"
I went to Hana where she lay crouched and, a moment later, pulled her to her feet.
"You can rest a little now. I'll finish this."
I had just finished speaking and was about to step forward when I heard a bolt being racked.
"Jaehee."
"I can still fight."