Seventeen Years of Silence
So that's why she came looking for me, is that it?
Precisely.
...Every now and then, watching you, I find it rather difficult to tell whether you're being bold or simply insolent.
Well, I suppose that's fair coming from a man who strong-armed other people's futures for the sake of his own.
Ahem!
At my jab, Nam Sangwon burst into an embarrassed coughing fit.
There was something faintly comical about it — a pointlessly giant-sized cough that made the cap perched on his head bob up and down.
That afternoon.
With no classes scheduled, I made my way straight to the Academy's security office.
There, I was able to sit down and talk with Nam Sangwon and a few of the other guards drawn from the ranks of the Honinhoe.
The attack on the Academy, long ago.
At its conclusion, Choi Seungjun had succeeded in turning the Honinhoe — the very organization behind the assault — into an ally.
Of course, contrary to what he'd declared before the press, there had been a considerable amount of political calculation behind it.
First, announcing before the public that he would embrace the half-bloods won him the goodwill of the Honinhoe and half-bloods at large.
Second, it severed the Honinhoe from the other organization, weakening that group's power base.
And third, it let him grow his own strength by making the newly joined Honinhoe a core asset.
Add to that the fact that, unlike the other group, who had exploited the Honinhoe with scraps of hollow promises, Choi Seungjun had loudly and publicly proclaimed his support for half-bloods — and the fact that this bought him genuine trust within the Honinhoe itself — and you could say that, in practical terms, he profited well beyond what most would call killing three birds with one stone.
But if you set aside the politics and asked how warmly Choi Seungjun had actually opened his heart to the Honinhoe...
Frankly, it's complicated.
To put it bluntly, what the Honinhoe had been trying to do was, in the end, nothing short of terrorism.
It had merely been dressed up as a heartwarming tale where circumstances allowed, and to Choi Seungjun — who regarded the Academy as his personal display case — there was nothing amusing about it whatsoever.
That was precisely why, in turn, he'd placed the Academy's security in their hands.
In a sense, he'd given them the opportunity to contribute to the Academy's defense against the very organization they once belonged to.
Or, viewed another way, you might say he'd assigned them to the position from which it would be easiest to collude with that group.
Naturally, if such a thing ever actually came to pass, not only I but Choi Seungjun himself would step in and have the Honinhoe summarily executed.
And if on top of that, word got out that he'd trusted the half-bloods only to be betrayed by them?
People would inevitably flock to the Academy's side, whispering that half-bloods, in the end, were monsters at their core, whatever else they might be.
In other words, the Honinhoe currently had the future of every half-blood in South Korea — themselves included — held hostage.
Short of attempting to read Choi Seungjun's true intentions, there was nothing for it but to work their absolute hardest.
That, then, is how the Honinhoe came to join the Academy's security team.
And yet.
The guards who had once poured blood and sweat into atoning for their assault on the Academy were now, it turned out, cracking jokes about how a mere teacher's summons meant they could legally skip out on the whole thing.
Uh... yeah, I mean...
Well, fair enough. That's just what working a job does to people...
Apparently they had fully adapted to the workplace.
So? Why are we talking about Ji-hee's mother this time?
Nam Sangwon asked the question again in a gruff, gravelly tone, and his face made it plain he was none too pleased about it.
Understandable.
More than understandable, in fact, once you recalled the account of Ji-hee's mother I'd just heard from his own mouth.
By all appearances, she had enjoyed quite a glamorous standing within the survivor camps during the Great Incursion.
Known by the nickname "Queen Bee."
A succubus, I was told — that's what she'd been called.
I'd figured as much already, eight or nine times out of ten, but it turned out Ji-hee really was a succubus half-blood.
Well, regardless of all that.
The reason she'd been so notorious within the survivor camps came down entirely to her nature.
To put it in a single phrase: she was a succubus who had adapted perfectly to Korean society.
No one ever knew why she — believed to be a dream demon of Middle Eastern or Western origin — had crossed over into South Korea in the first place.
People could only vaguely speculate that it had something to do with Christianity running rampant across Europe, much as Islam was gaining ground in the Middle East at the time.
What is certain is that she liked to lay out her own circumstances in the most pitiful terms imaginable.
A sob story that left listeners choking back tears.
A plaintive, mournful voice.
And on top of that, exotic, striking looks.
It was only natural that the survivor camps descended into chaos over the fights among the men who swarmed around her.
Whether it was her instinct as a dream demon or something else entirely, who could say.
She split apart camp after camp that way — and yet, curiously, the Association was never able to deploy hunters against her.
No, wait — it was in the middle of the Great Incursion, after all...
It's a bit ugly to say, but the camps fell apart in the end because of jealous, love-triangle brawls.
Monsters were involved, granted, but even so, hunters had neither the ability nor the leisure to intervene in lovers' quarrels.
And so.
The woman who had broken up camp after camp finally arrived at the half-blood camp that Nam Sangwon was running.
Seriously, why on earth did you take her in?
Granted, given Nam Sangwon's principled stance on half-blood rights, it was entirely predictable — but still.
Somehow or other she settled into Nam Sangwon's camp, and for the better part of a year she caused no particular trouble.
However.
Like a coiled spring, the longer the quiet, the more spectacular the explosion.
And by cruel chance, it happened just as monsters were attacking — because of the dream demon who had incited the men, Nam Sangwon's camp came within a hair's breadth of total annihilation.
No — if the leader had been anyone but Nam Sangwon, every last one of them might truly have died.
That is how dire the situation was.
Word has it that, to secure her own safety, she gave orders to protect herself first and above all.
To think a woman who had even borne a child would do such a thing, after all this time.
That was how Nam Sangwon lamented it.
And so.
The dream demon who had wrecked the last camp she ever belonged to vanished once more without a trace.
Dead or alive, not so much as a scrap of news.
And now, a full seventeen years later, she suddenly decides to show her face?
Even a man like Nam Sangwon had no choice but to curse.
Besides — playing mother now, of all times. Does that sound like anything remotely reasonable?
It wasn't wrong, either.
After all, the one who had played Ji-hee's father from the day she was born until this very moment was Nam Sangwon and no one else.
...Her birth father had been caught up in that monster attack and lost his life.
Her birth mother — the dream demon — had disappeared right after, leaving Ji-hee behind.
And this person has the nerve to start talking about being her mother now, of all times~
Anyone in their right mind wouldn't say "mother." They'd say something far less printable.
Above all — seventeen years.
A full seventeen years.
Suppose there had been circumstances that forced her to hide. Could she really not have spared a single letter in seventeen years?
Seen that way, Nam Sangwon's fury was entirely understandable.
My, my. A measly D-rank dream demon, no less. However did she survive all this time, I wonder.
Huh?
Hm? What is it?
No, I'd have said she's at least A+ rank.
I'm sorry — what?
Still, I couldn't help but add to that particular remark.
He was right, after all — looking back now, she had been suppressing her mana down to D-rank levels.
But she was a monster, in the end.
To imagine such a cheap trick could keep her mana hidden from me, now of all times — she never stood a chance.
And to my eyes, she was carrying mana on the order of A+ rank, near enough.
Is that certain?
Certain as can be. If there's one thing I know, it's monsters.
So that's a definite, then. Hmm. So she grew stronger over these seventeen years?
Or maybe she was hiding her strength from the very beginning.
Either way, the succubus race operates on a remarkably simple standard.
A good succubus is a strong succubus.
And a strong succubus is, by definition, one who has brought countless partners to her bed.
Because with every person she charms and every coupling that proves her charm, a succubus is reborn as a being of a still higher order.
Besides, the idea that mana dwells in human affection is a fairly universal doctrine.
Once a succubus who has drained others' mana finally attains power roughly equivalent to A rank, she rises, quite literally, into an entirely different domain.
Queen of Succubi.
She transforms into the individual known in common fantasy as the "Succubus Queen."
In other words — the "leading demonesses of the succubi" recorded in scriptures and the like.
Kabbalah speaks of three great demonesses said to have coupled with the archangel Samael.
Four, counting Lilith, who was added later.
These are what one would call the queens of the succubi.
According to legend, the succubus race itself descends from those four in the first place.
In any case, succubi who amass enough power can rise through it into that same higher order.
At that level, they command strength so formidable it's almost embarrassing to keep calling them mere succubi.
That power, one might say, traces back to the demons of the Mesopotamian myths from which they spring.
At any rate, they're a cut above the empty-headed species whose entire strategy amounts to seducing humans.
And.
Perilous as these times may be, a succubus with power rivaling a Queen could conceivably survive.
If she stayed out of hunters' sight, that is.
The question is whether a succubus is the kind of creature that knows how to pick her moments and read her circumstances...
Not a chance.
Oh, so it really is hopeless?
Having witnessed with his own eyes the carnage a succubus wrought right under his nose, Nam Sangwon declared it without a moment's hesitation.
Well, fair enough — for a woman whose longest recorded stretch of restraint was a single year, there are few words that fit her worse than "patience."
Which raised the obvious question: how had she managed to stay hidden for seventeen years?
It seemed the thought finally caught up with him, and Nam Sangwon's brow creased slightly.
You don't mean—
Don't mean what? And say it as an ordinary sentence, not some vague pronoun. We're not on telepathic terms with each other, you know.
...It's quite the talent, how sourly you can respond to a simple question.
At my words, Nam Sangwon let out a long, slow sigh.
But behind his quietly lifted gaze, the man's eyes — flashing bright and sharp — now burned unmistakably with something close to paternal devotion, a fierce sense of responsibility.
Do you think this is their doing as well?
Eh, about half?
Frankly, that was the truth of it.
No — it went beyond even that.
Strip away the courtesies, and I had suspected that everything, all the way up to this Namhae incident, was the work of that organization.
Why?
Nothing elaborate — simply because this isn't the period of the Great Incursion.
If anything, the better question is the reverse, wouldn't you say?
A mere six months ago, an S-rank monster had surfaced without warning off the Namhae coast.
Hot on its heels, an A+ rank monster appeared.
And I'm supposed to believe that had nothing to do with that organization?
Tough luck for them, then.
Consider the timeline, too. Six months ago was precisely when Ha-yeon and I first met.
Out of nowhere, Gwisusan and the nine-tailed fox had revealed themselves around that very time.
And the moment I killed Yuseongsin, a queen-class succubus appeared.
Expecting me not to be suspicious is the bigger stretch.
Not that I have any hard evidence.
If I looked closely, there might be some connecting thread — but nothing jumps out at me right now.
Well, either way.
With the vast majority of gates now under the Association's control — where exactly did an S-rank nine-tailed fox with no recorded sightings come from? And where had the A+ rank Queen of Succubi been holding her breath all this time?
For questions like these, that organization made for a convenient answer.
Or if she wasn't theirs, you simply take her down anyway.
Worst case — so what if you're wrong? You can be wrong.
Besides, they're suspicious either way.
Even if this wasn't their doing, you'd pin it on them and be done with it.
That was precisely why I'd brought Yuseongsin's head to Choi Seungjun just yesterday.
When the subject is a monster, there's no need to prepare an interrogation room.
Strictly speaking, the Elixir of Truth is itself a form of charm magic anyway.
Ask whether it would even work on a succubus, and frankly, I doubt it.
Which means: pop the lid open and call in a necromancer. That's the smarter play.
Cracking the brain directly is far faster.
Fine then. If you're scared, go be human~
This incident was no different.
Between us — whether that woman actually had some connection to that organization or not hardly mattered to me.
The real question was how to kill her without Ji-hee ever finding out.
Frankly, connection or no connection, the fact that she tried to hide her mana from my face told me she had something to hide — so I was already planning the kill.
You, I suspect, were planning to kill her from the very start.
Can't argue with that. Why — were you planning to stop me?
Heavens, no. If that moment comes, I intended to ask you to call me in.
Crack. Crack.
At Nam Sangwon, punctuating his words by cracking his knuckles one by one, I couldn't help but wear a bewildered expression.
Is this man serious?
No — you're not planning to show Ji-hee a live broadcast of her father striking down her mother, are you? Look, I'll handle the demolition myself, so don't you worry about a thing.
...If you put it that way, I suppose I can restrain myself. But must you phrase it quite like that?
Nam Sangwon — a man who had somehow ended up married to a dream demon — scrunched up his face at once.
Hm. I'd have thought my face had a certain appeal for monster enthusiasts.
Apparently, Nam Sangwon's anger ran considerably deeper than that.
And so, after somehow hammering out a plan that barely deserved the name, I was forced to admit that Nam Sangwon and I had let our guard down.
The next day.
The fact that Ji-hee was a half-blood had leaked to the press.