Episode 5
Daejeon City North-East Checkpoint Control Zone.
Even in the early morning, the area was packed with crowds waiting to pass through the Wall.
People trying to get into the city and people trying to leave it crossed paths again and again, moving through more than a hundred small checkpoints installed inside the Wall.
“Ugh, I’m exhausted. Is it time to swap shifts yet?”
“Two hours left, kid. Quit slacking off and do your job.”
As the assistant officer slumped limply in his chair, the middle-aged officer beside him, who had been watching the pedestrians pass through the screening gate, gave him a light scolding.
Even so, dark circles had settled heavily beneath the middle-aged officer’s own eyes.
Since the checkpoint was run by teams of two, the officer and his assistant had to spend half the day crammed into a narrow booth, and exhaustion was only natural for ordinary civil servants like them.
“Maybe it’s because the weather’s overcast. Everything feels harder today.”
“Listen to you, whining already.”
“Ugh. If I’d known it would be this rough, I never would’ve signed up for alternating-week shifts.”
“Twelve-hour night shifts all week are brutal, yeah. Still, the pay’s double, isn’t it? That’s what kept me going for two years.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. How did you manage that?”
“My second daughter passed her mana aptitude test, so she’s been attending the academy since the year before last.”
“Ah.”
“My regular salary just couldn’t cover the tuition.”
“That’s the burden of a father. I respect it. Hang in there.”
“Thanks.”
The assistant officer, who had been encouraging the complaining guard, wore an awkward smile as he thought to himself that his own girlfriend had been bringing up marriage more and more lately, and that he might break up with her before long.
He didn’t know much about dating, but he had no intention of getting married.
These days, the birthrate had soared thanks to humanity’s progress in absorbing another world’s knowledge and culture, but the flip side was that every extra mouth came with twice the expense. That was one of the country’s chronic problems.
Since trade between nations had not been nearly as active as it once was after the world went to hell, prices were running wild everywhere. And if someone in the family awakened mana like the officer in front of him, money disappeared the way water disappeared into a cracked jar.
Because magic users were legally required to work in related fields, they had to go through an academy at least once, whether they liked it or not.
And of course education cost money.
The problem was that the amount of money involved was more than most ordinary people could reasonably shoulder.
The government understood the problem and was actively pouring out support and benefits of every kind, but the reality was that it barely amounted to putting a few drops of water on a burning foot.
Beeeeeeep-
“Huh?”
“What is it? Another prohibited item?”
At the assistant’s answer, the officer walked over and asked, but the assistant shook his head.
“No. I think it’s a problem with the ID.”
“Oh, come on. Bet it’s a Hunter. Lost it while fighting monsters, didn’t they?”
“Well, they do have the ID on them.”
“What? Then why is the reader going off?”
“It says this ID isn’t registered in our database.”
“Not registered? That can’t be right.”
Sensing something strange, the middle-aged officer leaned over the medium-sized device panel at the assistant’s station.
“What is this, a foreigner?”
“Doesn’t look Korean, does it?”
“Doesn’t even look like a real person. Why is she so damn pretty? Is this a fake?”
“Come on. How would anyone fake an ID?”
“Well, fair enough.”
“So why is the reader acting up?”
“If she’s a foreigner visiting Korea for the first time, she might not be in our database yet. Usually they get a temporary ID at entry and do the official registration inside the city.”
With that, the middle-aged officer picked up his work cap and put it on.
The assistant watched him head for the door and asked in confusion, “Where are you going?”
“If she’s really a first-time visitor, I need to go explain the procedure. Might as well check whether the face on the ID matches the person holding it.”
“Can’t I go instead?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If that face is real, you’ll start rambling nonsense again. Just stay here and mind the booth, kid.”
“Tch. Fine.”
Leaving the sulking assistant behind, the middle-aged officer opened the checkpoint door and walked toward the screening gate.
There, beside a mana bike that had been dragged along by a woman dressed exactly like the heroine from the old folktale Little Red Riding Hood he’d read as a child, he found her standing.
The woman had the hood of her red cloak pulled all the way down over her head. When the middle-aged officer approached, she turned to look at him.
He flinched.
For an instant, his steps faltered.
Was that my imagination?
A primal fear etched into his body.
His muscles locked up and then loosened again, just as they had the first time he’d ever encountered a monster.
I must be more tired than I thought.
Taking it as nothing more than exhaustion playing tricks on him, the middle-aged officer put on a friendly smile and addressed her.
“Excuse me, miss. Have you come from overseas?”
“……”
The hooded head nodded slowly.
That seemed to brighten the officer’s expression a little.
“So you understand Korean.”
“Yeah. I can speak it.”
The voice that came back was clear and sweet.
She had an ID, so she couldn’t be a minor.
Maybe she was some rich foreign family’s daughter taking a trip abroad to celebrate coming of age?
Even in times like these, the thought was impressive.
And although she had suddenly spoken to him in informal speech, it didn’t really bother him.
It wasn’t easy for someone from overseas to speak Korean that fluently, after all.
Besides, expecting honorifics from a foreigner would be ridiculous.
“I’m sure you were surprised when the gate wouldn’t let you through, but once the alarm sounds, we have to inspect you. Would you cooperate with us?”
The woman nodded wordlessly.
“Thank you. Then first, sorry, but could you take off your hood and show me your ID? It’s just a simple verification procedure, so please don’t be too wary.”
“...Okay.”
The woman slipped a hand into her cloak and held out her ID.
The middle-aged officer narrowed his eyes and took out the reader.
Cynthia Valentine? Nationality, the United States. Non-awakened... huh? Age thirty?!
Startled by the age listed, which was far older than he’d expected, he reflexively looked up.
At that moment.
“Huh?!”
“...What?”
The woman tilted her head.
Then the silver-white hair that came cascading down like a waterfall dazzled the dumbfounded officer’s eyes.
He swallowed.
For some reason, his mouth had gone dry.
With her hood already off, the woman projected such a striking presence that she looked like a red flower blooming against a frozen winter night.
Her silver-white hair flowed over her shoulders and back like snowflakes scattering across the night sky, long and lush enough to reach her waist.
Her odd eyes, warm in color yet impossible to read, combined with her faint brows to give off a strangely cold and sharp aura, creating a contradictory impression.
Her skin was so pale it seemed translucent, and her straight nose and thin, tightly pressed red lips gave her an icy, haughty air.
The face on the ID had been beautiful enough that he’d half suspected it was fake, but seeing her in person made him lose his breath despite himself.
That face is thirty years old?
Unable to believe it, he blinked over and over.
“Is there some kind of problem?”
“Ah, n-no! I’m sorry. I was just startled because you’re even more beautiful than I expected, haha.”
“I know.”
At her attitude, as if he had just stated the obvious, the middle-aged officer gave an awkward laugh.
They said a beauty lived up to her name, but this woman didn’t seem to have the best personality.
Still, he had work to do, so he decided to deliver the instructions quickly.
“Thank you for your cooperation. I don’t see any issues, so I’ll let you through the gate.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s nothing. And I’m not sure whether they told you when you received the ID, but once you enter the city, you’ll need to go to the General Life Center first and complete your official registration.”
“Got it.”
“Ah, right. You probably don’t know the way. Do you have a device with you?”
At that, the woman hesitated for a moment, then shook her head.
“No. It broke on the way here.”
“Oh dear. That’s unfortunate. Then I’ll explain it to you myself. It isn’t very far from here, so you shouldn’t have much trouble finding it.”
The middle-aged officer carefully explained the route in a gentle voice.
Fortunately, she seemed to understand it in one go, because the woman nodded in silence.
Beep-
“All right, then that’s done. Welcome to Korea. Our city doesn’t have a whole lot to see, but I hope you’ll stay comfortably.”
“I will.”
As the middle-aged officer manipulated the gate controls and opened it for her, the woman pulled her hood back over her head and walked into the city while dragging the mana bike behind her.
The middle-aged officer watched the bright red cloak for a moment before turning around, only to suddenly notice something strange.
“Huh? But why would a non-awakened person be dragging around a mana bike?”
Only people with mana should have been able to drive one.
He hurriedly turned back around.
But there was nothing there now but a few drops of rain beginning to fall.
The red cloak, already gone, was nowhere to be seen.
＊＊＊
Shit. Thought I was about to get caught.
I’d figured I could just get through with the ID, but I never even thought about some database thing or another.
If I hadn’t used Super Sense to eavesdrop on the checkpoint guards ahead of time and rushed to rewrite the ID, I would’ve definitely been busted.
It probably wouldn’t have been that big a deal even if I had been, but I’d come to see my parents. I didn’t want to make trouble for no reason.
That was why I’d pulled the hood down and even cast a cognitive interference spell on top of it, wasn’t it?
In the end I’d been spotted once along the way, so it was all useless anyway.
Still, I’d made it into the city.
But does that mean I’m stuck being a foreigner now?
They can misunderstand me all they want, but not being able to use a Korean nationality was a little sad.
I wasn’t some raging patriot, but a country where I’d been born and raised was naturally better than a foreign one.
Should I get naturalized? That’d be a pain in the ass.
Should I just tell them I was a returnee right now?
The thought flashed through my mind, but I immediately erased it.
According to the diary I’d taken from the buried man, returnees seemed to be people who had simply aged, not people like me whose appearance had changed so drastically that even their sex had been altered.
If I could show the system assistance only returnees could use, I could prove I was one, but that was all it would prove.
It wouldn’t prove that I’d once been a healthy Korean man in his thirties.
If I can’t prove that, there’s no reason to reveal I’m a returnee.
There’d be way more downsides than upsides.
People would hassle me from every direction, and I’d be exhausted before long. I could see it already.
If that was the case, it was better to keep the fact that I was a returnee hidden.
“Ding-dong. Customer 461, please come to Counter 14.”
Lost in thought, I heard my turn called and stood up.
The crowded place was none other than the General Life Center.
I’d come straight here after entering the city and was waiting my turn.
I still needed to register the ID officially.
And I also had to find out where my parents were living.
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“I came from overseas. I was told I needed to register my ID.”
“Ah, right away.”
The young female civil servant took the ID I handed over and worked her fingers busily across the panel.
The registration process ended faster than I’d expected.
“Your official registration is complete. Here’s your ID back. The maximum stay period is ninety days, and if you think you’ll need longer than that, please come back to the center to renew it.”
“Got it. There’s one more thing I want to ask.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
Putting the ID away, I asked in a slightly trembling voice, “I need to meet my parents... no, an acquaintance, but I don’t know exactly where they live. As you can see, this is my first time in Korea.”
“Ah, I see. But what can I do? We can’t just hand out other people’s personal information.”
Tch. So it wasn’t going to be easy after all.
In that case, there was no helping it.
I looked the civil servant straight in the eyes.
Her gaze clouded over little by little, then a faint red light flared and faded again.
Got it. She’s under my charm.
The vampire’s charm.
It had strict conditions and required direct eye contact, so I hadn’t used it much back when I was blind. But in a situation like this, nothing was more convenient.
Once charmed, a target generally couldn’t refuse orders. They remembered the event, but felt no sense of wrongness about it.
Against ordinary people with no particular resistance, it was practically a near-perfect hypnotic cheat.
“Let me ask again. Could you tell me where Shin Min-cheol and Lee Sun-young are living right now?”
“...Yes. Of course. Please wait a moment.”
The civil servant answered with the same businesslike smile as before and quickly manipulated the device panel.
I waited, twisting my fingers together for no reason at all, nerves creeping up on me.
“Huh?”
The civil servant suddenly looked startled.
After a moment of visible hesitation, she cautiously asked me, “Um, may I ask what your relationship is to those two people?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, that is...”
“......?”
Rain poured down without pause from the sky, which was thick with dark clouds.
Even under the rain that soaked me through, I kept walking with dragging steps.
The two of you were last confirmed near the old outskirts of Daejeon City.
My mind feels completely empty.
According to the records, you refused relocation inside the Wall.
I feel like an idiot.
The reason was that if your missing son ever came back, you couldn’t leave. So you gave up your relocation rights.
I’d just passed a tiny grave marked by a pair of goggles on a wooden stick.
But, as you know, there were waves outside the Wall more than once, and that was over ten years ago.
I don’t even know how I made it this far.
Sorry to tell you this, but the two of you probably already...
The legs I’d been walking with in the rain all this time came to a stop.
In my hollow, warped field of view, there was a half-destroyed house standing alone.
The roof had collapsed, and the outer walls still bore the raw marks of something sharp tearing them apart.
Slowly, I walked inside.
Broken utensils and furniture were strewn everywhere.
Old clothes were scattered here and there.
Patched-together, shattered memories began to rise bit by bit to the surface.
Tap.
Something caught my foot, and I looked down dazedly.
There was a small, half-broken frame.
Inside it.
A faded photo, blurred and stained with old, dried blood.
Familiar faces—
“......”
I collapsed to my knees.
With both hands shaking violently, I carefully lifted the frame.
My vision shook endlessly through the strands of white hair plastered to my face.
“...Ah.”
My throat closed up.
Like I’d swallowed hundreds of stones.
“...Mom.”
At last, I squeezed out that name.
“...Dad.”
I wrung it out of myself.
“I’m here.”
Your worthless son came back.
I’m late. Very late.
I’ve changed so much you’d never recognize me.
But I came back anyway.
So.
Please.
“Say something—”
Please.