Ransom Note

It was Yoonha's younger siblings who first told me she was missing.

Considering she'd told me "see you tomorrow" in such a chipper voice, she'd gone and skipped school rather thoroughly. Frankly, I wasn't all that worried. After all, she'd seemed in perfectly high spirits right up until yesterday. My best guess was that she'd worn herself out fussing over her dissection materials and crashed. That was all.

And even if Yoonha had had another change of heart, it wasn't a problem I could do anything about anyway. It would sting, sure, but looking after her any further than I already had would start to smell like favoritism.

Teacher or not, my job was, at its core, to raise my students into respectable hunters. Anything beyond that — counseling, hand-holding — was more than anyone could reasonably expect of me.

It was precisely because I'd been thinking that way that I only noticed something off when quitting time rolled around.

I'd finished stowing away the monster materials we'd used in class and was heading back to my desk in the staff office —

and there were visitors already waiting for me.

Kids I'd never laid eyes on in my life, and yet somehow they looked familiar. Middle school age, maybe? The boy had an easy, affable air about him, almost meek, while the girl seemed to have far more fight in her — she was currently bearing down on him as he fidgeted restlessly beside her.

Brother and sister?

The moment that thought crossed my mind, a guess came with it.

Don't tell me — Yoonha's siblings?

As I approached and asked, the kids who'd been flailing around just moments before turned their heads toward me.

Not that Yoonha would ever send her siblings in her place just to say she'd overslept.

Pfft. The sheer absurdity of the image dragged an involuntary laugh out of me. It was a ridiculous thought, no matter how you sliced it — and yet, knowing Yoonha, it somehow felt plausible.

What's going on? Did Yoonha send you?

When I asked again, the two of them — who'd been staring at me blankly up to that point — suddenly exchanged a glance.

And then, as if they'd rehearsed it, they spoke in unison.

"A-are you Teacher Park Woochan?"

"Yep, that's me. Yoonha's homeroom teacher. I guess she's mentioned me at home, huh?"

"Please help us!"

The words came out of them like a scream being wrenched from their throats. Startled, I looked them over — and saw that at some point, desperation far too old for their faces had settled onto both of them.

"Our big sister hasn't come home since yesterday!"

"...What?"

The boy nearly burst into tears as he confessed it, and I couldn't help but be thrown off balance myself.

The strange thing was, the boy seemed even more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flustered than I was. The words had burst out of him, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠heads were turning toward us from all directions, and he was clearly cringing at his own outburst — the picture of someone who'd shouted before he could stop himself.

...Hmm. Let's take this somewhere else, shall we?

Still.

What they'd just blurted out was not something I could laugh off.

I cut off the stares flying toward the kids and made the suggestion; they nodded along. Curious eyes followed us, wondering what on earth was going on, but I didn't let it show and hurried them along.

And so, to the staff lounge.

Only after I'd led them into that empty, deserted room did they seem to relax a little, glancing around with agonizing awkwardness. Fair enough — to kids their age, a high school campus must feel like an entirely different world.

Not that I was any different. Us middle-school graduates are all like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that, one way or another.

"Have a seat."

At my invitation, the kids — still blinking around in a daze — sheepishly settled their backsides onto the sofa. But even more than their awkwardness, a peculiar agitation was bleeding through every one of their movements.

"So. What exactly happened?"

I asked without delay. It might have sounded like I was rushing them, but I couldn't help it. The situation demanded it.

"Yoonha hasn't come home at all?"

Had she simply decided to quit school, I wouldn't have been this shocked. My mind drifted back to just yesterday — to Yoonha, talking about the weight of family. I felt for her, barely seventeen and saddled with responsibility for these kids' entire lives. And yet precisely because of that, I couldn't bring myself to believe she'd walk out — without so much as a word, without a note — or run away from home.

Setting my own thoughts aside, here's what the kids told me.

They were, indeed, Yoonha's younger siblings. And according to them, Yoonha had apparently talked about me at home fairly often.

Their first attempts to wave it off hadn't been exactly flattering, though. The two tried their best to dodge the subject, but I could fill in the gaps myself. Or rather — I'd heard it from the source directly.

The academy she'd enrolled in with such high hopes of becoming a hunter. A teacher who did nothing but run them in circles day after day. Yoonha, who'd exploded at the practical training session. And then, at some point, the name Park Woochan began creeping back into her mouth. What started as a grudging "well, he's not a terrible teacher" had, within a matter of days, turned into the word benefactor living permanently on her lips.

Hearing that to my face was mortifying, to say the least. If Yoonha hadn't said it herself just yesterday, I'd have assumed these two were feeding me flattery that didn't even make sense.

"Sorry for the trouble."

That was why they'd come looking for me, it seemed. Exactly as the sharp-featured girl had said moments ago — normally, this kind of thing would be a job for the police. Had she only remembered that fact belatedly? I could see the rims of her ears, now somewhat calmer, burning bright red.

But at the same time, I understood.

It wasn't that the police were incompetent. The problem was the weight Yoonha carried. Seventeen. A seventeen-year-old girl, finally crushed under a burden far too heavy — anyone would assume she'd simply run. That was the picture staring us in the face.

In truth, if I'd heard this story as a third party, I'd have thought the same.

Except I knew better. And I suspected these two did as well.

I knew what Yoonha's face looked like when she said the word family. What tone she used. What she actually felt about the concept.

Even in their eyes, Yoonha running away was simply impossible. That was why they'd come to me instead of the police. Whatever had actually happened, the only person they could pin their hopes on was the teacher their sister had gone so far as to call her benefactor.

And honestly, this whole business had more than a few corners that didn't sit right with me either.

First premise: Yoonha had not run away from home.

Then why hadn't she come home until now?

Because something had gone wrong. Obviously.

What sprang to mind immediately was nothing good. Kidnapping. Assault. Violence. Whichever it was, one thing was clear as day: something had happened to Yoonha.

The real problem was that Yoonha was a hunter.

Wet behind the ears or not, a hunter was a hunter. What in the world had happened to her that she still hadn't made it home? The question refused to leave me.

It only grew worse when I considered her ability. Physical enhancement — and within that, hardening skewed even further toward defense. Yoonha, who would rank among the top durability types of any ability out there, hadn't sent a single message?

Short of her opponent being a hunter, it was practically impossible.

Which meant—

Let's flip it around, then.

What if her opponent was a hunter?

However you sliced it, I couldn't escape that conclusion. Whatever the reason, Yoonha had been caught up in something that involved hunters.

The question was: who in the hell had pulled something like this?

I hate to say this about myself, but I was a particular favorite of the boys down at the dissection plant. There was no way anyone working there had laid a hand on her.

Next possibility: a fight with some other hunter who'd visited the plant. But that didn't hold much water either. Back when I was still flitting in and out of the dissection plant to earn my living expenses, a dispute over materials had escalated into one truly spectacular brawl — and thanks to that, hunters brawling near the plant was flat-out banned these days.

More than that, I doubted there was an idiot alive stupid enough to touch someone I'd brought under my wing. Even if some fool didn't know and raised a hand, someone would have warned them.

So then?

Unregistered hunters, maybe. After the Second Great Incursion ended, jobs for hunters dried up on a massive scale. I'd felt the aftershocks myself, back in the day.

Fortunately, the Association's swift handling kept things from boiling over — though part of that was also thanks to hunters who'd earned several lifetimes' worth of money and could afford to coast...

But the Association's reach only extended so far as its registered hunters.

However you looked at it, there weren't nearly enough jobs for the unregistered ones to fall back on.

And this was the era we lived in. Unless you were an odd case like me, nearly every hunter had already set foot inside the Association. No — even I was registered now. Any hunter whose name wasn't on the Association's books was, nine times out of ten, a hunter who'd been expelled from it.

In other words: criminals.

Even if they had hands to spare, the Association would never route work their way.

Even by my own standards, it was a decent line of reasoning. In practice, if unregistered hunters were looking for a place to work these days, the dissection plant would be the first thing on the list.

Except.

Futureless as they might be, what kind of moron touches someone I brought in?

I'd been an unregistered hunter myself, once. It wasn't as if the unregistered had some ironclad code like the Association's — but even so, there wasn't a soul among them who didn't know my name. Short of being out of their mind, no one running outside the Association's water would touch a kid under my protection.

I was the best of the unregistered hunters, after all.

Hunters, like it or not, wielded power that stood above the law. And once you got down to the unregistered, the fist sat a lot closer than the statute book. That was exactly why I'd gone around stamping my face on the scene, so to speak.

...So then what?

Was it really a runaway after all?

No. That couldn't be it, no matter how I turned it over.

Fine — time to change the angle entirely.

Flip the question: was there any reason Yoonha would be worth kidnapping?

She was, after all, the head of a household. Abducting Yoonha wouldn't squeeze a single won out of anyone.

Same conclusion, every time. Kidnapping Yoonha simply didn't pay.

In other words, whoever took her wasn't weighing risk against return.

Which meant the motive wasn't money — it was something else entirely.

The problem being, what possible gain was there in abducting Yoonha—

Wait.

Out of nowhere, a thought flashed through my head.

Frankly, even I didn't think it was a rational deduction. A leap. Nothing more than a wild guess — that was the only honest way to describe it.

No evidence. And it wasn't the kind of thing I could throw out lightly on a hunch alone, either.

And yet the instinct that had saved my life more times than I could count was spreading through me like a conviction wrapped in fog.

As if insisting: this is it. This is the answer.

Worth a shot, isn't it?

It was worth that much, at least.

I ordered my thoughts. Then — what came next?

After a moment lost in thought, I reached my conclusion soon enough.

"Okay. I understand."

The two kids looked up at me, their faces a mixture of shock and confusion.

Can't blame them. To them, I was just a stray rope they'd grabbed onto in desperation. They'd asked for help, sure, but they probably doubted I could actually give them anything. They might even have figured ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that a sister who'd skipped school without permission wouldn't care to hear it if they told her she'd run away from home.

But.

I, at least, remembered.

I remembered exactly what she'd said to me last, under that same night sky as any other.

"I'm going to step out for a bit — wait here for me, okay?"

Part of me wanted to hand this off to the other teachers. But right now, I couldn't.

If my hunch was right, then even academy teachers couldn't be trusted blindly in this situation.

Thankfully, this school had Choi Seungjun in it. No problems there.

With my thoughts squared away, I opened the door — and there was someone standing outside it.

Swaying blue hair. Pearl-like eyes shimmering with their usual strange light — but burning, this time, with a resolve that was anything but usual.

"Should I try contacting the others?"

Had she been waiting to go make the usual rounds, or had she heard about what happened in the staff office?

Watching Hayeon pull out the phone she'd bought just recently, without even a token attempt to hide that she'd been listening in on our conversation, I broke into a hearty laugh.

"No, leave it. We act like it's business as usual."

If my hunch was right, now — of all times — was exactly when we needed to act normal.

There was no need to worry.

Because whatever the enemy was after, it wasn't Yoonha. I'd have bet anything on it.

"Let's go."

After all, this was no situation Hayeon could afford to sit out either.

And reality proved me right.

The shift supervisor waiting for us in front of the dissection plant — which we'd scrambled to reach — waved his arm the moment he laid eyes on me.

"Kid! We've got trouble! That girl you introduced us to!"

Clutched in the hand of that utterly flustered old man was a sheet of stationery far too cute to be called a criminal's warning, its corner peeking out shyly.

The contents were painfully simple.

It was, at that moment, all but confirmed: Hwang Yoonha had been kidnapped.