The Defector's Gamble
To tell the truth, Tiamat did not care for the atmosphere of this salon one bit.
The low-key jazz. The vaguely slack, languid mood of the club itself.
Well, all of that was fine. It wasn't her business in the first place.
Considering why this club had been founded in the first place, the true originals had presumably washed their hands of this salon during the Second Great Invasion that followed.
Or died. It was the kind of era where either was likely.
The younger crowd had filled the empty seats, and the result was the distinctive, vulgar atmosphere the salon carried today.
Lascivious stares.
Even Tiamat, who took pride in her appearance and delighted in being venerated, found this kind of gaze unwelcome. And the ones who slyly reached out their hands were, of course, beyond the pale.
Slap. She knocked away the back of a hand lunging to grope her backside once again.
Honestly, if not for the fact that she owed Park Woochan, she would have crushed that hand and its neck into powder long ago. Worse still, if the hand had actually made contact, the plan might have gone up in flames along with them.
'To lay hands upon the sacred body of a goddess.'
Even insolence had its limits.
What was even more maddening, though, was the fact that by comparison, that one had practically been a gentleman. There had been men who came at her openly, coveting her body with no pretense at subtlety.
Some of them, when she stubbornly refused their proposals, even pouted their lips and muttered that she was arrogant for someone who'd been rejected before. Rejected! They dared say rejected!
Well, no, that wasn't necessarily wrong…… but!!
'It was not by those men that she was rejected, regardless!!'
Tiamat thought this to herself, grinding her teeth in spite of herself. The word "rejection" carried a terrifying, monstrous power. Even the wisdom goddess of Mesopotamian myth, upon hearing it, could do nothing but string together pathetic excuses like this.
So she swallowed her anger however she could and passed the time—until, at last.
"Might I borrow a moment of your time?"
The bite had finally come.
I was listlessly wasting time nursing a drink when I noticed Tiamat frantically signaling to me.
To be sure, I'd been keeping my own eye on the people approaching her, but even that had its limits. Frankly speaking, between a goddess who'd advised the highest echelons of the Association and countless members of high society, and me—it went without saying that her eye for reading people was the sharper of the two.
Which meant my job was simply to loiter about at my leisure and join her when called. Except—
Even to me, the big fish Tiamat had just reeled in was so transparently suspicious that I could see it at a glance.
"The name's Moon Youngseok."
If I had to sum up my first impression of the man in a single word: a textbook nerd.
His gloomily grown-out hair was long enough that you'd hardly take him for a man, and even tied back, the result was a disheveled mess. How should I put it—the kind of face you'd expect to find in a grad school lab, not a salon like this.
And as it happened, that was exactly right.
Moon Youngseok. The man who introduced himself that way claimed to hold a doctorate in mana engineering.
And at that point, my suspicion had already tipped past the point of no return. The fact that a man of all people—a PhD, no less—was attending a salon like this was suspicious in itself.
Granted, that was based entirely on my own prejudice against grad students. But his behavior afterward only confirmed it.
A science PhD suddenly shows his face at a salon and strikes up a conversation with Tiamat? Fine, let's say he somehow worked up the courage for that much. But then to spend the entire conversation afterward looping back to his own research field over and over? That was…… something.
A mere nerd wouldn't have approached her in the first place. And if he had the guts to approach, he'd never behave so clumsily on top of it.
Which was how I could be certain: Moon Youngseok was an offshoot of that organization.
"I apologize, but those were only the most natural of actions on my part."
"Huh? Seriously?"
"Yes. I figured I might never get another chance to come to a place like this, so I approached with my spirits all worked up—but then I had no idea how to actually talk to a woman."
Oh.
"So I fall back on the topics I always talk about. The ones I'm confident in. It's the sad, characteristic habit of anyone who walked the all-boys middle school, all-boys high school, all-male engineering department grad student pipeline. You see."
"Ah—um, sorry about that……"
"No need. I'm a married man, after all."
The sight of him subtly flashing the ring on his finger by way of self-defense was mildly amusing.
Anyway.
The conversation had begun as grand-scale stereotyping, but the conclusion had been correct.
"I doubt, no matter what, anyone would be so bold as to approach with the intent of striking up small talk with your partner."
The man admitted as much himself. If anything, he seemed to find the fact that he'd walked into a trap even more displeasing.
In other words, Moon Youngseok had intended to make contact with us from the very beginning.
"In any case—let me introduce myself once more. Doctor Moon Youngseok, at your service."
"Park Woochan."
"Ah, so that's why you looked familiar. If I was going to get caught, at least it was by the right person."
Perhaps because of that, the man laid out his current situation with remarkable equanimity.
Moon Youngseok. One of the countless holders of mana engineering doctorates who'd sprung up like bamboo shoots across the world after the Great Invasion. And simultaneously—"a researcher currently active in this organization, as it happens."
"……Violence. Bloodshed. Coercion. Extortion."
Having half expected that I'd need to bring some kind of force to bear one way or another, I found the whole thing deflating.
"Please don't look at me like that. Goodness, you're terrifying."
It made sense, though.
The man was so frail that a single low kick looked like it might snap his leg clean off.
In any case, one thing was certain: this encounter had gone far more peacefully than expected.
A corner of the corridor leading from the hall to the restrooms. That was where the three of us were chatting. According to Moon Youngseok, unlike the lounges set up within the salon, this spot was favored by those seeking to escape the heat of the main hall.
Whatever works.
"Cutting to the chase: if I defect to your side, what will you give me in return?"
That was what Moon Youngseok said.
Defection.
Certainly, I hadn't failed to consider the possibility. My earlier clash with Tae Siyoung at the Gangwon Branch had ended in what was effectively my decisive victory.
And—
Their organization's reach was wider than anyone imagined, true, but even so, they couldn't easily replace an S-rank hunter. Hearing that a fighter of Tae Siyoung's caliber had been cut down, of course they'd be rattled.
The Slaughterer—the man who had finally felled an S-rank hunter in open combat. It would hardly be strange for those wanting to defect to come crawling out, just as this one had.
Put plainly, Moon Youngseok was the first loose thread to fall out of that tear in the fabric.
The problem was—
"Shouldn't that be the question on our side of the table? What's in it for us?"
"A perfectly reasonable point."
That part was his business, not mine.
Frankly speaking, "defector" or not, it ultimately meant he'd been in bed with those bastards until now. For him to turn traitor at this stage—well, color me skeptical.
Granted, I was curious what information the man might be carrying. I wanted it, that much was true. But even so—
The one who had to prove his worth was not me. It was Moon Youngseok.
My reluctance to get human blood on my hands remained unchanged, but even so, I had no intention of extending any courtesy to people who had betrayed humanity of their own free will. Bluntly put, weren't these just modern-day Eulsao traitors—selling out the person next to them and running for the exits? Honestly, if I watched one of them die in front of me, I could probably manage a perfunctory "what a shame," but in truth it'd feel damn satisfying.
And I was only speaking for myself.
"……Very well, then. Shall we begin with a brief self-introduction?"
In the end, Moon Youngseok had no choice but to concede. And then—true to his word—he launched into his self-promotion.
"First, there is one matter I would like to correct."
"And what's that?"
"I did not enter this salon to betray humanity and secure my own survival."
"Sure. Anyone could say that."
"Naturally. But it is the only claim I can make."
"Hm. So? Got any actual evidence you can present right now?"
"Unfortunately, I suspect that will be difficult."
"Then what?"
"Allow me to explain my circumstances as best I can. The judgment, I leave to you."
"Ohh. And if I hear you out and then just walk away?"
"Well. Strictly speaking, my being here at all is a gamble of sorts. I suppose I must accept that risk."
"Well, if you put it that way. Go on, then—impress me."
I crossed my arms and leaned back against the wall. Literally in the spirit of let's see what you've got.
Seeing me like that, Tiamat too lifted her chin and folded her arms in a somewhat awkward imitation. Just as I was about to burst out laughing at the clumsy pose, Dr. Moon Youngseok began his story.
"I was originally a researcher at a government research institute."
"Heard that much. The government snapped up every single one of the first-generation mana engineering degree holders, didn't they?"
"You're well informed."
"So? Get to it."
"So there I was, answering the government's call and heading up one project after another—until one day, a problem arose."
"What problem?"
"The monster materials stopped being supplied properly."
"Ah."
Hearing that, something did click. It connected to that old man Cheong Joonpil I'd met recently—
In other words, the reason Cheong Joonpil had rocketed up the ranks to brigadier general. The standoff between the government and the hunters.
"It was right around when the First Great Invasion was settling down, you see."
"So tension started brewing between the government and the hunters, and that choked off the material supply?"
"Precisely. I hesitate to say this, but the military……"
"—isn't suited for securing monster materials."
Their dismantling techniques aside, the biggest problem was their reliance on firearms. If there was no alternative, fine—but compared to bladed weapons, ballistics inevitably inflicted losses on the materials. It was for reasons like this that hunter cooperation was indispensable to securing monster materials, one way or another.
"As was true even before the Great Invasion—new materials research demands an enormous number of samples."
"Samples?"
"Yes. The vast majority of new materials research begins with observing nature."
"Ah. Like the metal surface treatments modeled on lotus structures, that sort of thing."
"You know your stuff."
"And the same holds for mana engineering, I take it."
I knew this territory well myself. Just look at the Nemean lion pelt I'd studied while preparing a lecture.
The property that all but perfectly negated attacks from manufactured weapons. When craftsmen first set out to break through that kind of weapon resistance, the first thing they turned their eyes to was the Nemean lion's claws.
Claws sharper than any ordinary dagger, capable of leaving wounds through the pelt's weapon resistance. Seeing them, countless craftsmen found their inspiration.
Just how far did the Nemean pelt's weapon resistance extend?
By what standard did one distinguish weapon from flesh?
Where exactly lay the boundary between the two?
Where was the limit at which a weapon could preserve its function and pierce that resistance?
The result—hunters finally obtained armaments alloyed with special aggregates capable of penetrating the weapon resistance of monsters.
The same principle applied to Moon Youngseok's work.
"Well, I understand. Politics happened. Delays were inevitable, I suppose."
"Indeed?"
"Those bastards never extended the delivery deadlines. Not a single day."
"That's…… terrible."
It happened all the time. Of course, "happens all the time" didn't make it any less infuriating.
And so, Moon Youngseok threw his resignation letter at the lab he'd belonged to.
"Hey. Hey."
"What."
"This guy's supposedly a doctor, but he's actually pretty goddamn funny."
"You mustn't say such things."
Not that I didn't think so myself. Anyway.
With a short, awkward cough, he steered the story back to his life's history.
"So? You quit, fine—but how on earth did you end up joining a secret organization?"
"After that, I was frying chicken……"
"Hmm? A doctor of his standing suddenly takes up frying chicken? Suspicious, this one."
"Hold on, calm down. It's a perfectly normal occupation, so don't interrogate him."
"……Yes, well—one day, I got a call from a former coworker."
"Coworker?"
"You don't mean the owner of the chicken joint who taught you to fry, I hope."
Moon Youngseok gave a small nod.
"It was quite some time after I'd quit my job. The Second Great Invasion had just broken out."
"Ho. The Great Invasion breaks out and you're still selling chicken? My man, you can't have even broken even on the frying oil."
"I opened the chicken restaurant, and then the Great Invasion happened."
"……Uh, hm. Right. Sure. Go on."
"That coworker said this to me."
Moon Youngseok recited, flatly:
"'With that in mind—how about you come work with me for a while?'"
……Having said that much, Moon Youngseok let out a quiet sigh. A groan steeped in deep weariness—the kind of breath that seemed to find the mere fact of being alive burdensome. A sigh only researchers, of all people, could produce.
"I accepted."
"So in the end, it came down to money."
"Yes. It did."
An understandable circumstance, I supposed. Still—
"Look, I get your sob story. But I still don't see what you can actually do for us."
"On that point, I'd hoped to explain while walking you through my research materials, but……"
Moon Youngseok looked rather troubled at that. Well, fair enough—getting suddenly ordered to give a presentation would throw anyone. The problem was that we were in exactly the same position.
Frankly speaking, where was the guarantee that after saying all this, he wouldn't lead us back to some research facility and shove us straight into a trap? His backstory was genuinely pitiable, that much was true—but pitiable or not, we couldn't just trot along behind him like ducklings.
"Well, I trust it will be fine."
"Huh?"
"I am quite certain that you will take an interest in this project."
"Well, aren't you confident."
"Can you blame me? You have National Assemblyman Lee Joongoo on your side, after all."
"Huh?"
Lee Joongoo?
No, sure, that was technically true—but why the hell did that bastard's name come up here?
But instead of answering my question directly, the man took his time, letting the moment breathe, and spoke.
"Pyeong So-woon."
"What?"
"The name of the former coworker I mentioned."
"And who's that?"
"Well, how best to put this in terms you'd understand……"
And then—
With an aha, Moon Youngseok drove the final nail into our conversation.
"Would it be easier to understand if I said: the chief director of the Republic of Korea's Artificial Hunter Development Project?"