You Are the Prey

Bang!

Something slammed into my head, and for an instant my vision ruptured. The light around me vanished, and a strange ringing began to circle in my ears.

Fortunately, I didn't black out, and the hit wasn't fatal. Which meant one thing.

A gun.

I put a name to it—and not an ordinary gun, either. Some advanced firearm I couldn't even begin to guess at. But I was still alive.

It was thanks to that special ability—Indomitable Plate Armor, somehow already at level three. It was no simple physical shell. It was will, condensed. A hide of flesh that endured despair. A vow of steel that refused to acknowledge death.

Where.

I dropped where I stood. Of course I was acting. Still as a heart that had stopped, like a corpse. My head had moved, but my body lay without so much as a twitch.

I stopped breathing. I slowed the flow of my blood and dragged my temperature down as far as it would go. Then I opened my ears. The tremor of the air, the shift of dust, the pulse of the wind—every sense I had locked onto sound.

Zeeeeeeng... kshhh... ksshk...

A high-frequency vibration.

Radio.

A rise in Agility pulls eyesight and hearing up with it. I could grasp light I should never have seen, and faint sounds I should never have caught. I had the enemy. But I didn't get up in a rush.

Quietly. Without a sound. One arm braced to the floor, a knee rising, I slid like a shadow.

Above.

1.8 kilometers. Building rooftop. West.

The instant that reflexive read finished—

Shhhk!

My feet were already running.

I ran, cutting the dark, stepping on sound, riding the wind. A flash. No—a span of time you could only call an instant. I took the stairs, crossed the rooftops, and used a makeshift steel tower and its ladders as footholds to climb the high floors.

And at last I found him. Hands clearing a rifle scope. An earpiece bitten between his teeth. And eyes that did not waver.

"...?!"

The moment he turned his head, my right hand moved.

Thud!

My fist buried itself in his chest. His body was flung back and crashed into the steel railing.

Thump!

He collapsed, unconscious.

Kshhhk!

"Respond. Hunter. I repeat. Codename Hunter, respond."

Silence. Beyond the radio there was only a quiet that had swallowed even the wind. Black lowered the handset without a word.

A man more precise and faster than anyone, calm no matter the situation. That Hunter was not answering. This was no mistake, and it was no simple radio blackout.

Black's gut told him. Something had happened.

"Visual cut?"

He switched channels and asked.

Only one assumption held. Something outside the plan had occurred. A variable on Hunter—the man who erased targets without a single miss—meant exactly one thing.

"...Enough. I don't need you to say it."

He rose from the chair and transmitted on every channel.

"All units, begin site infiltration. Contact is priority. Treat this as Operation DUSK."

"Civilian sector. Noise suppression first."

"Night vision on. Annihilate them with lethal kit."

He added the rest at an unhurried pace.

"If they got Hunter... the enemy isn't some ordinary civilian."

"Go in light and they'll turn it around on you."

"All personnel, mount friendly ID markers. No blue-on-blue."

The operation clicked forward, piece by piece. Black gave the last order.

"Target identity unknown. From this point, treat them as the one who neutralized Hunter."

"Kill on contact if you have to. No report required."

"...And."

He went on, voice a little lower.

"We can't rule out a hostage. Mercenary doctrine—no negotiation. If you need to, eliminate the hostage and kill the objective."

When the order ended, the quiet channel crackled again. A short reply came back.

Black set the radio down. Without a word, he drew out the black bag locked beneath the desk.

The operation's last resort. A commander's essential, kept for whatever might happen. He had run more operations than he could count, and this bag had never once been opened.

The same was true now. And in all the days ahead, that day would never come.

"..."

I opened my eyes. Consciousness coming back was proof I wasn't dead yet. But the situation was bad. Not quite the worst—just short of it.

Wrists and ankles were bound. Nothing like a fixture or a hook was fixed to my body, but I was in no state to move.

I swept the room fast. Dark, still, and cold. No windows. Underground. A sealed space. And I was being watched.

Straight ahead, at the far end, he was sitting. Silent, in a strange posture. Arms not crossed. No weapon in his hands. Just... looking at me.

I knew it on instinct. That gaze was not a human's.

I had killed dozens. Captured ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them. Crossed battlefields and walked the line between people and monsters. So I could tell. He looked like a person, but he was not human.

Thump—

Extreme tension. Hearing that heartbeat, I dropped into survival mode. When would the torture start. In what form. Where could I get out. How much time had passed? When would the mercenary unit arrive? Could I hold this state long enough to react?

The thoughts ran fast, and vertically, all at once. Not for a single instant did my head stop calculating. But.

"..."

Time passed, and the room filled with nothing but silence and stillness. He said nothing. So I tried to analyze him. All he gave off was blankness and quiet.

Merely a man who watched. That gaze alone ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠made the whole room feel like an execution ground.

How long had it been. My nerves were already cinched to the edge of exhaustion, and my mind was climbing toward something close to numbness. But.

A twitch. The corner of my mouth lifted. And at last I opened it.

"...They're coming. Soon."

The silence had been long, so the words spread low and heavy.

"...And you die here. No question."

It wasn't a threat, and it wasn't intimidation. A notice. A declaration of a fate that would become real. The words were already as complete as a finished equation.

But in the next moment, as if a curtain were rising, he opened his mouth for the first time.

"No."

His voice was like wind. Like a needle sweeping through the air—quiet, but sharp. I stopped breathing.

"...What?"

"Codename Hunter. You'll tell yourselves you're the hunters. You're wrong. You're prey. And not just any prey—the kind with plenty of meat on it. Very tasty prey."

When the words ended, something flashed in my brain. It wasn't only that he knew the codename.

This was instinct. The instinct of a man who had cut through battlefields and crossed life and death more times than he could count. A premonition that everything he had just said would become real. Not my heart—my instinct whispered, low.

I have to run.

I have to get out of here.

This is wrong. The operation itself is wrong. Sigma, Black... this won't work.

I opened my mouth without even realizing it.

"...Run..."

But in that instant—

Crack!

The sound of something breaking. There was no pain. I didn't feel an attack. Only, for a moment, the world tilted.

What...?

My neck wouldn't turn. No—it already had. My vision skimmed the ceiling, and then down, as my body tipped.

Thump!

The head tilted and folded. A body losing its warmth, cooling cold.

"..."

The bastard probably never understood, not even at the moment he died. Why I hadn't tried to pull a single word, a single question, a single piece of information out of him. Why I had sat so quietly and tightened him with nothing but a gaze.

The reason was simple. I didn't need to.

This ability of mine was an evidence collector. It drew information without questions, without torture, without the process of pain. Through his sins—through that history—I had taken every piece of information there was to know.

Codename Hunter. Assigned to Sigma's 3rd Company. Covert infiltration, assassination, precision strikes. Hundreds of murders carried out across the world's conflict zones.

The Karma fading with his death proved it.

That number was the brand of those who had given up on being human. For me, it was a reward.

Interrogation had been unnecessary. I already knew him, and I grasped exactly what his existence meant. What I had to think about was what his death—and this waiting—would bring me.

Thirty minutes. The expected time for Sigma's armed unit to infiltrate this abandoned school. The recon element's approach, the entry routes through the outer walls, and the moment Black himself would finally move.

Every variable had been derived, and I chose to wait for all of it. And at the end of that tedious wait—

I stood.

Shhhhh—

The density of the air changed. A vibration clinging to the building's outer wall. Radio interference below anything a satellite would catch. And far off, the optical lens of a surveillance drone was throwing its reflection toward this place.

Now it was time to begin the hunt.

Kshrrrk!

"D minus five seconds."

"Drone resolution secured. Z3, Z4, hold for entry."

"Main entrance, flank bypass, second-floor windows... all routes secured."

Black's voice in the command post was low and even.

"D minus two. All personnel, shift to Phase Beta."

"D minus zero. Deploy."

Boom!

The front door ruptured with the blast. Seven from Z3, eight from Z4, into the abandoned school at the same time. Right behind them, surveillance drones slid in along the corridor ceiling and sprayed video back to command.

"First line, deploy. Three-man cells."

Z3 went straight down the right-hand corridor. Z4 took the stairs for the upper floor. They covered separate routes with precision and built interlocking fields of view, deploying at ten-second intervals—a Sigma formation without a single stray round. A frontal suppression team. An upper-floor pressure team. A flanking bypass team. A lower-level drop team.

"...Suppression inside eighty seconds. Minimum."

But.

Zeeeng!

Noise suddenly cut across the feed, and one drone gave a faint shudder.

"Ignore it. Replace with B-line. Apply Gamma code."

And that was when it happened.

Thud!

The ceiling came down. Z3-1, out in front, was buried in the debris where he stood.

"3-1 down! Ceiling! Eyes up!"

Crack!

Something fell. No—someone. That shadow wasn't a fall. It was an attack. With the shriek of tearing rebar, the thing that smashed through the wall landed straight behind the second soldier and kicked off his back.

An impossible double jump. A rebound that betrayed gravity. His body rose like a round tearing the sky and flew in over Z4's upper-floor pressure team.

Tat-tat-tat-tat!

Gunfire started. But—

Shhhk—

He moved. No. The instant they felt he had moved, he was already gone. Movement at the absolute peak, slipping even bullets.

But they were professionals. However fast he was, fire from every direction, without a gap, struck him. They could take no joy in that.

Tut-tut-tung!

Because something like a white membrane formed around him and slapped every round aside. The bullets died, leaving only the dull sound of metal being struck.

"...?!"

"Armor-piercing rounds?!"

In the gap where all of Z4 froze—

Crack!

He landed among them. One punch into the left-hand soldier's gut.

"Guh!"

Destructive force like a lump of iron. The body folded in half and flew. His right hand snatched a pistol and struck the remaining two precisely in the knee and the ankle.

Bang!

He kicked the falling soldier into the wall, drew the knife from the last man's belt, and opened his throat.

Four seconds.

"Z4... wiped..."

"Where is he! Get me eyes!"

"Z2, support from the flank! Z5, breach the outer wall!"

What remained redeployed in an instant. Command was precise. The tactics were flawless. But this was outside the realm of understanding.

Every tactic takes a human being as its standard. What they had to face was not human. Still failing to grasp that, Z3 and Z5 pushed in from the flanks and tightened the net. A triangular envelopment from both sides. Multi-angle infiltration across the ground floor, the second floor, and the ceiling.

They judged they had built a perfect angle of entry. The target was the exception.

He hadn't even looked. He simply knew.

No presence. No sound. But sin cannot hide. His gaze turned to the ceiling.

Boom!

A fist flew upward. The ceiling shattered, and the two soldiers waiting in ambush above were flung down with it. The mercenary who tried to bring his gun to bear slammed onto his back, and the other collapsed with his neck broken.

Crack!

Right after, he smashed through the wall and moved into the next room. Not the stairs. Not a passage. An infiltration that ignored the very idea of a route. Nothing could stop him.

In that instant the Z5 commander shouted over the net.

"Target's securing an escape route! Second-floor corridor—"

Before the words could finish, a steel chair shot out from behind the wall.

Thud!

Three Z5 mercenaries were blown through the breached wall, and the soldier shoved in that same instant dropped below the corridor railing.

A chair. A simple object. But its trajectory was astonishingly precise. It flew toward what could not be seen, as if piercing a hidden enemy where he stood.

The wall. The ceiling. And last, he looked down at the floor. Then his left hand picked up a steel bar nearby.

Crash!

Hurled with his full strength, the bar punched straight through the floor. Concrete ruptured with a roar.

"Aaaagh!"

A scream rose from somewhere on the floor below. An indiscriminate attack that went beyond the very concept of space.

From the command post, Black shouted.

"How? From a position even the drones never picked up...?"

But he didn't know. The one they were hunting tracked the trails of humans soaked in sin and blood.

The abandoned school in the mountains was turning into a place of judgment for those who had sinned.

The abandoned school was quiet. Strangely so. Unfamiliarly so. Dozens of armed mercenaries had pushed in along every route, and yet there was no gunfire. No screams. No presence—not even the sound of a round being chambered.

Stillness was eating the place.

Clink.

Even the rusted steel door swaying in the wind sounded alien. The air pressure was already steeped in chill. Thermal sensors occasionally read meaningless waves of heat, and the drones vanished from their orbits one by one.

Sigma's formation had broken. The last feedback each man sent was not target acquired, and not engaging. It was silence.

Black stood inside a container—the mobile command post on the outskirts of the abandoned school—with a radio in his hand. Beyond the window, the ruin. Part of a wall had already collapsed and was raising dust. His eyes did not shake by a hair. Not his lips, not his expression, not even a single finger.

"...Not good."

The words were low and short, dry as a report diagnosing a fact. On the monitor, he watched the troop icons going out red, one after another.

"The situation just got simple."

As he spoke, he drew out the black bag from beneath his knee. He opened the zipper quietly, only as far as he needed. Inside sat one thin, round device stamped with a red marking. A palm-sized explosive—the Red-Delta erasure package—showed itself.

"All personnel lost. No recon feed. Evidence collection failed."

He murmured it low, as if to himself.

"Then... nothing can be left."

This was not a retreat. It was procedure. The Sigma Mercenary Group does not exist. It must not. They had carried out illegal work across the world, broken treaties, crossed borders, and taken sin on contract. Unsanctioned war. In exchange, they had been contracted for total erasure. Bearing that duty was the commander's role.

"Initialize. Execute."

Black checked his watch. A ten-second timer. Throw it into the auditorium ahead, and the thermobaric reaction would burn everything within a forty-meter radius.

"Mission. Terminate."

He looked down the abandoned school's corridor one last time.

"It must not be left."

Slowly, without even aiming, he threw the bomb from the bag toward the heart of the building.

Bang—boom, boom, boom!

With a roar that tore at the ears, the center of the abandoned school collapsed. A thermobaric storm swept the interior. Rebar and concrete gave way in an instant. Window frames flew, and from beneath the fallen floors black smoke and red flame surged up.

"..."

Black watched all of it in quiet, even calm. His eyes did not shake. His ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lips stayed closed. The mission was over. The objective was gone. Nothing remained on the ash.

Everything that must not be left had vanished, so there was no reason left to think. He meant to turn his back. But that was when it happened.

Step—

From somewhere. No—from a place that should not have existed. Beyond the corridor that had already fallen, out of the center of blast and flame, a presence that had made no sound crawled into the open.

Shhhhh—

Red ash scattered. Through a wall charred black inside the roaring fire, something walked out.

Thud.

It landed on crumpled rebar. Heavy. The air itself trembled. And that one overwhelming shadow showed itself beyond the flame.

For the first time, Black's pupils shook.

"...You've got to be kidding."

The smoke cleared. The silhouette was plainly a human shape. But it fell short of being called a person. No—to call it a person would have been an insult.

With the fire at his back, a gaze burning red pierced him. In a space where blood and flame were mixed together, that existence alone was vividly alive. Not something that had walked out still living. Something that had torn through death and come out.

"Ah... ah..."

A meaningless sound leaked from his throat. Without realizing it, he stepped back.

He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been colder than anyone. He had never wavered on any mission, and he had reduced every terror to something he could understand. But now, in this moment, he did not understand.

This was a demon. A black flame risen out of hell. And fingertips like burning flesh.

That hand seized Black's neck like lightning.

Crack!

Under that tremendous grip, the bones of his neck split. His breath began to cut off. His eyes rolled back. His lungs cinched tight.

"A... demon..."

Before the words could even finish, the existence slowly opened his mouth.

"No."