Uncanny Valley

Someone screamed in the dead of night.

At the racket, the residents of the Adaptive Villa came spilling out into the hallway—those who were already up, that is, or who had been startled awake. Some emerged buzzing with curiosity over whatever fresh absurdity had broken loose. Some wandered out simply because they were bored. Quite a few poked their heads out to take the temperature of the situation, worried they might need to evacuate. And of course there were those who slept right through it. A scream or two was nothing special to them. That was how often this sort of commotion flared up in the villa whenever someone got restless.

To the disappointment of anyone who had come out hoping for a fight, no brawl had actually broken out. A few of them muttered that the air had gone out of it and retreated to their cozy two-room units, which left their handlers—and anyone else obliged to stay awake and keep an eye on things—to chase off the drowsiness and watch what happened next.

Just what had that nun done to a naked statue? Had she stripped it? Turned a perfectly ordinary woman into stone? Or done something the gathered crowd could not even perceive?

In this villa, “the statue” meant someone fairly well known among the residents. A change of appearance was not, in itself, all that strange.

The Angel Statue. At first it had felt like something out of an urban legend—the sort that snaps your neck the moment you look away, or hunts you to the ends of hell if you meet its eyes—and for a while it had been a high-priority watch target. Then people had caught it, the instant no one was looking, secretly ordering delicious delivery food, and they had given up the surveillance in a state of hollow disbelief. After crossing into this world, it had found the food so abundant and so good that its weight ballooned until it occasionally cracked the floor, at which point it started dieting. That was about the extent of its peculiarities. All in all, it was not a resident who caused anyone any real harm. Whether a statue counted as a “resident” was another question.

In any case, the Angel Statue had always had a man’s face and a man’s body. The statue standing there now, face and figure alike, was unmistakably a woman. Wariness toward the nun facing it climbed at once. That beautiful form, that awkwardly smiling face, might soothe the heart on their own—but one look at the restraints cinched tight around her upper body was enough to know she was no ordinary threat.

They already knew her name. Yeonmin. While otherworlders were settling in, the Association shared information on new residents with the handlers assigned to them.

According to the record of her first gate deployment—the one that had bumped her from C-Rank to B-Rank—she had claimed a share of the clear contribution with nothing but kicks. Even simple physical force was enough to cut down ordinary people, and Hunters besides.

Kindness whose intent you cannot read is frightening. They had no way of knowing whether that kindness was affection for a pet, or the care one gives livestock being fattened for the table. Worse still was the power to rewrite a form regardless of the subject’s will. So far she had decided that beautiful things were good, arbitrarily summoned a person’s ideal type, and turned them into a beautiful girl. Changing the Angel Statue into a woman proved she could rewrite a form whether the subject was human or not.

Altering an appearance was, in truth, the easy part. Humanity already had that much technology. But going by Agent Park Hanseo’s precedent, changing someone’s sex meant reconstructing the body at the genetic level. And if she could rewrite not only cells but stone itself—if a granite-carved angel could become a woman of marble—then she could, if she felt like it, kill a living being before anyone even registered it. She had done all of this while wearing the highest grade of Mana Restraints. Of course they were afraid.

Whatever the gathered crowd was thinking, Yeonmin only laughed, sheepish.

"Ahaha. I made a scene at such a late hour. You all must be exhausted—I'm sorry. More importantly, would anyone happen to have a coat I could borrow? I feel a little bad putting cloth clothes on a statue, but…"

The fact that she at least tried to follow human common sense was, perhaps, a mercy. That she showed no concern whatsoever for having rewritten someone’s form, and instead apologized over a trifle, was only more unnerving. Still, even a mimicry of manners was better than none at all.

"Uh, well. Wrap this around yourself for now, at least."

"Th-thank you… Hrk—this chicken, I, um… I ordered it ahead of time to eat in the morning. I absolutely was not going to sneak it as a late-night snack while I'm on a diet."

"Yes. I won't say a word to your trainer."

And so they draped a blanket around a statue that now looked merely cute, while the handlers traded glances over what to do with Yeonmin, who had padded out in her bare feet and was standing there looking awkward. Strictly speaking she was wearing stockings, not actually barefoot—but she had not even put on slippers, so it amounted to the same thing.

Outer Gods did not inspire fear in humans for no reason. A great many of them mimicked humanity from inside the so-called uncanny valley. They dressed the exterior like a human well enough to get by, or borrowed a human body outright. But then they would forget some small piece of daily living, and the sight of it would send a chill down the spine. Coming out having forgotten their shoes was commonplace. They would try to pick up a water glass with the back of a hand and knock ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it over. Now and then even the human shape they were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wearing would collapse, dissolving into writhing tentacles or slime. It was fortunate that movies and dramas about human-mimicking slimes had already circulated among the public, so ordinary people found it a little less grotesque. Without that, there would be no telling when or where a scream—or a police report—would go up every time an Outer God walked around.

The handlers were watching one another for a single reason. Who, exactly, was going to walk up to a godlike being from another world, of unknown temperament and unknown personality, and ask what had happened?

"Yeonmin. What were you doing out at this hour of the night?"

"Miss Yeonmin… aren't you tired? Yaaawn."

Fortunately, the staring contest among the handlers ended quickly. Helena and Yegyeong had come walking out of the unit where Yeonmin was staying. Helena had already been briefed, and even if Yegyeong did not know every face, handlers could tell at a glance that someone was in the same line of work. The other handlers took the hint and slipped back toward their own lodgings. Following that mood, the people who had come out of the other units lost interest and scattered as well.

"What, I thought it was a fight."

"Come to think of it, hasn't the statue's skin gotten amazingly better?"

"Right? It used ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to be a bit rough, and now it's completely white and smooth."

"Anyone up for Chamos? Let's queue. I'll host."

"Ah, since I'm up anyway I should grab a late-night snack. I can't hold out after smelling that chicken. Handler, want some chicken with us?"

"Ugh… I'm in danger now. I really have put on weight, I'm telling you."

If any ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of them ended up doing anything related to Yeonmin, it would probably amount to adding a few speculative sentences to a Returnee file and touching them up. A few lines would likely be added to the Adaptive Villa guidebook as well.

Even that would only happen after Yegyeong had gotten the full story and filed her report. Nobody wanted extra work they had gone looking for.

Separate from the dispersing crowd, Yegyeong felt her heart drop. And why wouldn't she? The Returnee in her charge had gone out alone in the middle of the night and caused an incident.

"Ahaha. I just couldn't sleep, so I went for a little walk. Um, did the scream wake you? I didn't really cause an accident or anything—she said she was dieting, so I figured becoming a beautiful girl would make her slimmer, and I changed her form. But unlike with humans, when a statue changes form, the clothes disappear. The clothes were part of the same body, you see."

And Yeonmin, with no idea what she had done wrong, launched into the tale as if it were a heroic anecdote. No—the way she went out of her way to say she had not caused an accident suggested she at least recognized she had done something amiss. Yegyeong could tell, though, that the guilt was not about rewriting a perfectly good statue. It was simply that she was sorry for making a racket and waking people up.

"Um, Miss Yeonmin. Changing other people's appearances on a whim is a dangerous thing to do."

"You're right. How mortified she must have been, ending up naked in a public place. I'll have to be more careful from now on."

So Yegyeong had steeled herself and said it—and Yeonmin still did not say she would never do it again. At this point one had to wonder whether those restraints meant anything at all. She was wearing Mana Restraints, and she had still gone and turned the Angel Statue into a beautiful marble woman.

Yegyeong, unease catching up with her in the haze of half-sleep, was still trying to figure out how to ask about it when Helena simply scooped Yeonmin up into her arms.

"And here you are in the hallway barefoot again. On top of that, you went and used your power however you pleased. Why do you keep doing this? You barely have any strength as it is."

"Ehehe, but I did help her lose weight. Now she'll be able to eat as much chicken as she wants. Oh, Helena. You've never had fried chicken, have you? It's this super crispy, chewy kind of food. Want to try some after we wake up later? Ah, a non-spicy one."

"And where did you hear about that? No—the way you're talking, it doesn't sound like you only heard about it. Don't tell me you stole some from that statue and ate it?"

"Ehh, what do you take me for? And I'm all tied up—how would I even snatch it? She just said she'd give me a bite if I kept her secret midnight chicken a secret. Ah, I said it. You can't tell anyone, okay?"

Tied up though she was, Yeonmin let herself be lifted without a fuss, flushing and chattering with a sly little look on her face. Watching it, Yegyeong thought, That's it.

Yeonmin's grasp of common sense was still desperately thin, and her innocence still sat at a child's level. That was not going to change. In that case, wasn't it better to work through Helena? Whenever something happened, talk it all through her. That would mean keeping a very friendly relationship with Helena, of course. But it was the more realistic path. Communicating with Helena—who looked at things from the same human vantage—would be far easier than with an Outer God whose standards were a mystery and whose way of thinking made no sense.

The Association had not given Yegyeong that order for nothing. Win Helena over as thoroughly as you can. It was a manual built from the accumulated experience of countless seniors—not unlike the villa's own guidebook.