Gwangcheol-i on the Run (4)
"Have you by any chance seen a boy a bit taller than me? Distinctive features—bright yellow eyes and dark skin. It's the kind of face you can't forget once you've seen it."
As soon as the operation ended, Major Hong Seong-hwa put her thoughts from the battlefield directly into action. The moment every otherworld creature loose in the city had been dealt with, she had sprinted straight to the shelter where the civilians were being gathered.
It was a scouting mission.
"At your service. Uh... among the rescued, you say? I didn't see anyone like that. Wouldn't he have been transported to a hospital from the scene?"
"He only had some scrapes, so he wouldn't have qualified for on-site transport... You really didn't see him? He should have been rescued by now. Or maybe he's already helping carry the lightly wounded to the hospital?"
"The seriously injured are still being transported. And I genuinely have no memory of seeing him."
The soldier in charge of shelter security clearly had no idea who she was looking for.
"Hmm. Then is there anywhere else survivors have gathered besides here?"
"No, ma'am. Unless someone is gravely injured or in immediate need of rescue, every civilian we secure is brought here for their protection. I've personally confirmed every single civilian who's entered this shelter. I truly have not seen a civilian matching that description."
The soldier had handled this kind of work since long ago and had never failed once. No civilian who entered a protected zone had ever slipped out unnoticed, and no intruder had ever sneaked in undetected—not once.
In the end, Hong Seong-hwa's head tilted.
"...That's strange. Why isn't he here?"
It was a question the shelter's security officer had no answer for either.
"Whew. That was close."
I had slipped away at the last possible moment, crawling clear of the soldiers who were rounding up lizardmen. Looking back, it had been an utterly reckless thing to do.
But there was no way I could let them catch me there...
In the beginning, I'd waited to be rescued. Even when a soldier came by once and then left again, I'd still been waiting.
Right up until that point, I had planned to cooperate quietly.
But as I waited, a thought suddenly struck me. Once the rescue team got their hands on me and found out I was a minor, wouldn't they demand I call a guardian?
Something I absolutely could not do now—something I must never do.
Thank goodness I wasn't badly hurt anywhere.
The padding on my coat had torn a little, but that beat having my skin split open any day.
Letting the cheap synthetic stuffing scatter from my padding like the breadcrumbs Hansel and Gretel dropped, I checked a roadside sign. The Sudden Gate had forced a detour, but somehow I seemed to have rejoined the route I'd memorized.
"Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but could I ask for directions? I got caught evacuating from that Sudden Gate that just opened and my phone's completely dead." The words came out in one breathless burst.
"Ah... where are you headed?"
The grubby appearance, the genuinely exploded Sudden Gate, and the machine-gun delivery proving I wasn't some cult recruiter—the combination worked.
With the help of a kind passerby, I confirmed my route. It was certain. I had successfully returned to my planned path.
"Thank you. Really, thank you so much."
"Don't mention it."
"Have a good day."
I gave the man a deep bow and moved on. Before long, my sweat had cooled and I started feeling cold. If I hadn't kept my clothes on all this time while enduring the heat, shivering would probably have joined in too.
"Ngh, I can't take this."
By the time my body had chilled through, I ducked into a convenience store.
It pricked my conscience a little to claim the seat clearly set up for cup ramen customers when all I'd bought was a single bottle of water, but I rehearsed my situation and plastered a sheet of iron over my face.
Thankfully, the clerk didn't kick me out. In gratitude, I picked up every last bit of stuffing I'd shed before leaving. That was at five in the afternoon.
I still had another hour's walk to the waiting hall, and fourteen hours until it opened.
In case the orphanage sent someone looking, I decided to keep a one-hour distance from the waiting hall at all times.
I curled up in an alleyway, doing my best to ignore my slowly emptying stomach. It was a spot mostly shielded from the wind.
There I stayed for another hour. To make tracking harder—and because sitting perfectly still made me feel like my body temperature was draining away—I moved again.
Then I spotted an unmanned café and, screwing my courage to the sticking place, spent about thirty minutes there. Moving on once more, I came across an unmanned claw-machine arcade and killed more time pretending to browse.
I never stayed too long anywhere. The orphanage staff could reasonably deduce where a penniless kid like me would go, and unmanned stores ranked near the top of that list.
So, treating each visit as nothing more than a top-up of body heat, I drifted between unmanned stores until nightfall. The cold and wind were growing steadily fiercer. Feeling had vanished from my feet ages ago.
The orphanage must be in an uproar by now.
Even the most oblivious person couldn't fail to notice by this hour. Not that I had the slightest intention of turning myself in.
Anyway—past ten o'clock, most of the unmanned cafés closed. If I'd searched hard enough I might have found a 24-hour one, but sadly I lacked the strength to go hunting.
So I simply fled to a nearby subway station, if only to pin down my location. The homeless had already claimed their spots, which meant I drew fewer stares.
And so I dozed off and on in the least windy corner I could find, letting the hours pass.
"Hey, wanna trade clothes with me?"
"Huh?"
By around six in the morning, I'd found the cleanest-looking person available and proposed the swap.
Since my torn padding was worth relatively little in trade, I threw in the two shirts I'd been layering underneath. In exchange, all I asked for was a very thin outer jacket.
"I'm fine with it... but why?"
I didn't answer. Explaining that I was afraid the orphanage counselor lurking near the waiting hall might recognize my clothes and come sprinting over... didn't seem necessary.
"Thanks for the cool trade."
My clothes were much lighter now, but I'd cut off any chance of being identified from a distance. Even though I'd only changed my top, people naturally fixate on the upper body when they look at someone.
With my hood and mask firmly in place, I headed for the waiting hall.
An hour and ten minutes on foot from this station. Walk a little slowly, and I'd time it perfectly.
Hunger aside, my throat is incredibly dry...
The water bottle I'd been rationing had been empty for a long time.
Pushing past the hunger I could no longer even feel, the parched throat, and the exhaustion of going unrested, I kept moving forward.
The checkpoints I'd memorized passed by one after another, and then the waiting hall came into view. I couldn't tell what kind of building had been rented out, but the design wrapped a L-shaped structure and an open lot like a playground inside a surrounding wall.
...There it is.
Except a familiar figure was pacing back and forth at the entrance. The counselor.
The moment I spotted her, I naturally veered off to the side road and checked my wristwatch.
7:20. There was plenty of time, but I didn't want to get cocky and blow it. Honestly, it was far too cold to loiter anyway.
My gaze darted around, hunting for a route into the waiting hall that avoided the counselor.
Should I climb the wall, like when I escaped the orphanage? No—too many people watching. Then circle around through an alley and over the wall?
I slipped quietly past the main gate and entered a different alley. Thankfully, there was a stretch with no foot traffic.
First, I confirmed no one was approaching, then, just in case, checked for sounds from across the street. Once I judged the area clear, I sprang.
It was a wall without any glass shards on top, which was a mercy. My hands caught the top of the wall.
Hnngh. I tensed my arms in an instant to keep from making a sound. My body drew upward a little. Something that would have been impossible in my past life.
Tap. One of my arms finally hooked over the wall, and by pressing down on it I dragged the other arm up too. My upper body rose over the wall.
"..."
"..."
And then my eyes met someone else's.
Cherry-red hair swirled softly in the winter wind. Round eyes set in a pale white face were the exact same shade as that hair.
Seong Gwon. A single name rang out in my heart like a scream.
"Criminal─"
"No! No, I'm not!"
I flailed my arms desperately. Even so, I never once raised my voice.
Me missing Seong Gwon's presence despite having listened for sounds across the street—fine, I'd take the L on that. But being discovered by anyone else was unacceptable. That really could have blown things wide open.
"I have my reasons! Hear me out, then judge!"
Talking at a level closer to stammering than speaking, I clambered over the wall. With my upper body already up, swinging my legs over was no trouble at all.
Tap. My feet landed safely on the other side.
"Whew. Almost missed the exam..."
"...Exam?"
"Yeah, the exam. Um, wait—is this not the waiting hall for the Hwadam County exam?"
Had I misremembered the map? No, Seong Gwon being here suggested I had it right?
While I was puzzling over it, the other party blinked slowly, her expressionless face unmoving.
"...If you're an examinee, why come in somewhere other than the main gate?"
"Because there's someone waiting at the main gate to catch me?"
"Catch you...?"
"There are people who absolutely, desperately hate that I'm taking this exam."
At sixteen, Seong Gwon's eye level was a little lower than mine.
Of course, assuming I grew to match the original, that gap would only widen from here. The official profile listed the original Seong Gwon at 172 cm, while the original Yahui stood a full 196 cm.
"So anyway, could you keep this a secret? I do have an admission tic—ah, right, my phone's off."
"..."
Which meant now was the only time our eye levels would ever be this close.
I looked into the crimson eyes set slightly below mine. Seong Gwon stared straight back at me, as if trying to parse the true meaning of my words.
A silent probing stretched on for several seconds.
"...Fine."
"Oh, you're letting it slide?"
"If your admission ticket is fake, you'll be caught in there anyway."
"Thank you."
What Seong Gwon said was the correct argument, but if she'd insisted on reporting me to someone, I'd have been in trouble too. Whatever my circumstances, climbing a wall wasn't exactly a look of innocence.
"I'll pay this debt back, I swear. So... what's your name?"
I extended a hand to offer a handshake. Seong Gwon's eyes lowered lazily, studying my hand and my face in turn.
Swish. Her white hand met mine and gave a light shake.
"Seong Gwon. And you?"
"Yahui. Single given name, comrade."
Ah. If only the original had shown a scene like this. A moment like this.
"Well then, let's go. Time to wait for the exam."
But that was pointless sentiment.
The original now existed only in my memory, and Yahui had become no one other than me.
"...Right."
I headed toward the waiting area with Seong Gwon. Roughly thirty minutes remained until departure to the exam site.
Thirty minutes more, and a future I knew nothing about would begin.
"...By the way, is that going to be okay?"
"Huh?"
"If you fail... won't that put you in a difficult spot?"
Thank goodness the waiting hall was indoors.
Thawing out my frozen hands and feet, I decoded Seong Gwon's words. What she was getting at seemed to be the people who hated my enlistment enough to come hunt me down.
"Ah, it's fine."
"...?"
"Because I absolutely will not fail."
At my words, Seong Gwon tilted her head. Maybe it was because her hair and eyes were the passionate red of the fire family, but her features were so chilly that the head-tilt produced a tremendous sense of dissonance.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Hmm. Well."
Anyway—I pushed back my hood. The view I'd kept restricted all this time opened up, and the claustrophobia faded a little.
"Because I believe in myself."
More precisely, I believed the talent the original Yahui had displayed would remain in me too.
The aptitude so outrageous that a Grade 1 Phantasm put out the output of a Grade 9... or to put it simply, an R-tier Phantasm delivering S-tier output.
"...You're awfully confident."
"Am I? But I can't help it. I'm the only one I've got to believe in."
An R-tier Phantasm producing S-tier output was something even the original Seong Gwon never managed. The best she did was squeeze S-tier output out of an A-tier.
And even that had people around her singing her praises.
"When no one else believes in me, it'd be kind of sad if I didn't believe in myself too, don't you think?"
Of course, despite a talent gap this enormous, the original Yahui had only ever contracted with low-tier Phantasms—because he was a death row inmate.
The more I chewed on it, the more bitterly tragic it became. If not for the constraint of his status as a condemned criminal, there would have been no moment where the original Yahui was forced to choose sacrifice because his firepower fell short.
"And, well..."
For all these reasons, there was no way I'd fail today's exam. None.
"But even if I did fail, I'd be fine."
Even if that aptitude didn't exist in the me of right now—even if it meant failing—I honestly wouldn't have minded much. A little disappointing, sure, but how should I put it... it would have stopped at exactly that.
"Because I figure I'd find a way through even that moment, one way or another."
After all, even failing this exam left a road forward. Hwadam County was so starved for personnel that, by setting, they'd try to put anyone who merely sat for the final exam to use, whether in technical specialties or administrative work.
In other words, even if I failed this exam, I could still enlist into Hwadam County itself.
And this was the advantage of being the one who knew. Having information shaved worries away bit by bit.
Of course, failing would mean no dormitory provided... but eh.
If it came to that, I'd just grab the officer in charge, explain everything, and trust that a Hwadam County obsessed with securing manpower would work something out. I mean, I single-handedly caught a lizardman with nothing but a multitool. Would they really let talent like that slip through their fingers?
Rather than worrying over a future that hadn't even arrived, I thawed my frozen fingers and toes with my breath. As circulation returned, my limbs prickled with pins and needles.
"...That's impressive."
"What is?"
"Just."
This time it was my turn to tilt my head, since I couldn't for the life of me tell what she was marveling at.
Still, being acknowledged by Seong Gwon of all people—I couldn't say it felt bad. I tilted my head and just grinned.
"Everyone, gather up! We'll be boarding vehicles to move to the exam site now!"
And then, at last, departure time arrived.
Seong Gwon and I followed the guide's instructions to the vehicles. Somewhere in the process my eyes met the counselor standing at the main gate, but there was nothing more she could do to stop me.
The vehicles pulled out, and after an hour's drive we reached the exam site designated by the Hwadam Army Special Military Academy.
"The exam will begin shortly. All examinees, take the notebooks and pens you were issued and follow the instructions in order."
Finally—it was exam time.