Episode 8
Beep beep beep beep-
The alarm rang on a steady loop, and Lee Seo-ah opened her eyes. She reached for the old device by her pillow and shut it off, then sat up slowly, made her bed, and changed into her worn school uniform.
She left the cramped room and headed for the bathroom. After a quick wash, she came out to find the orphanage director tending to a cluster of whining children, her face lined and weary.
“Oh, Seo-ah. Did you sleep well?”
“Yes. Did you sleep well, Director?”
The two of them met eyes and exchanged a brief greeting. Then the director’s attention drifted back to the children, and Lee Seo-ah, as accustomed as ever, walked on toward the communal dining hall.
She finished the meal that had been prepared, returned to her small room, and packed her bag. “I’m leaving now,” she said as she stepped out of the orphanage, but no answer came. The director was still busy taking care of the children.
She didn’t feel left out. Six years ago, she had been the one standing in that place. What she had received then was enough, she told herself.
A familiar morning. A dreadful walk to school. An unchanged daily life. At least, that was how it had been until three days ago.
“Seo-ah, hi thereee~!”
Without meaning to, she took a step back. In response, the other person closed the distance in five long strides and wrapped her up without hesitation. A faint fragrance and a gentle warmth enveloped Lee Seo-ah like a blanket.
“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
“...Yes.”
When the light embrace ended, the girl’s face came clearly into view: white hair like fresh snow, a mysterious pair of mismatched eyes, and a pretty red cloak draped over her shoulders. Seen up close like this, she was dazzlingly beautiful.
“Come on, I’ll walk you.”
Lee Seo-ah had just been about to say that it was fine, to refuse, when her hand was taken. She couldn’t bring herself to push away that gentle lead. It reminded her of another hand, the first day she had gone to elementary school.
Should I walk to school with Dad and Seo-ah? she remembered, along with the warmth of the hand she had held then. It had been just as warm as the pale hand she was holding now.
Strange person.
“Hm? Why, do I have something on my face?”
“Ah, no.”
Had she stared too hard? She hastily dropped her gaze, and a soft, “So cute,” reached her ears. Lee Seo-ah knew that the tongue hidden behind that smiling mouth was far longer than any ordinary person’s. She knew because that tongue had licked the wounds all over her body, and that was why she didn’t hurt like this anymore.
Her swollen eyes had healed. The bruises that had covered her whole body were gone. She had never screamed like that in her life.
“Ah. We’re already here.”
When they reached the front of the school, the pretty face wore a dejected expression. The orphanage and Lee Seo-ah’s middle school were very close, barely a five-minute walk apart. Yet this pretty older girl waited in front of the orphanage every morning just to walk her that short distance.
“Oh, right!”
The warm-colored mismatched eyes looked at Lee Seo-ah as if honey were dripping from them. She couldn’t really make sense of it. Even to a child like her, this pretty older sister was clearly a villain, so why on earth was she so kind to someone as plain and unremarkable as her?
“Seo-ah. Look at this. I’m Korean now, see?”
The pretty older sister, somehow producing a naturalization approval notice from somewhere, flashed a bright grin and leaned in close enough to be uncomfortable, staring at her with a face full of anticipation.
“That means I can officially adopt you now!”
The persistent invitation that had begun with their first meeting three days ago reached out again. She still didn’t know why, but it seemed this pretty villain sister had decided she wanted to be Lee Seo-ah’s mom.
As soon as she opened the classroom door and stepped inside, a few gazes flicked toward her and then vanished. No one looked at Lee Seo-ah for long. No one came near her either. In fact, they kept edging out of the way as if afraid they might bump into her.
A strange scene, very different from three days ago, spread out before her. Lee Seo-ah set her bag down by the window at the very back of the classroom and sat down. She could feel, with perfect clarity, that everyone nearby was watching her every move and gauging her mood.
It was unfamiliar, and a little refreshing, but the part where nobody dared touch her was nice.
After that, the homeroom teacher came in and called attendance.
“Lee, Seo-ah.”
“Yes.”
“Ahem.”
The voice that spoke her name was unmistakably trembling. Whether the teacher knew it or not, he covered it with a cough and moved on to the next name. The quick glance he had cast her way had frozen with a thin, brittle fear.
Everyone in the classroom feared Lee Seo-ah and kept their distance. Why?
She knew the answer. She didn’t even need to look far; there were nearly ten empty seats scattered around the classroom right now. They belonged to the students who had all taken part in bullying her in the first place.
Their parents had stormed into the classroom, screaming bloody murder, two days ago. Some of them held high-status, high-paying jobs like hunters and guardians. Then came the news that they had all gone missing.
The police had arrived the day before in response to the string of disappearances. Citing the seriousness of the mass-missing case, they had launched an aggressive interrogation of the students. They had been especially vicious with Lee Seo-ah, who had been targeted most heavily by the missing students.
And then, on the news she had watched on her device last night, a breaking report said that a large number of police officers had disappeared as well.
At this point, anyone would have felt that something was wrong. Everyone was keeping their mouths shut, but their behavior made the same message clear: getting involved with Lee Seo-ah was dangerous.
So why had it come to this? She knew that answer too.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. By instinct, her gaze slipped diagonally toward the window.
“....”
“....!”
She met eyes with a white ghost hanging upside down outside the window. This was the fifth floor; how was it standing there like that? While she was still wondering, the mismatched eyes that had caught her gaze flinched in shock and vanished in an instant, dissolving like smoke.
Lee Seo-ah turned her eyes back to the teacher’s desk as if nothing had happened. It felt like someone near her would disappear again today. Was that just her imagination?
“Wow, I got caught again.”
The prospective daughter’s intuition was no joke. He had completely erased his presence and stacked concealment magic on top of it, strengthening it several times over, but for some reason she kept noticing him whenever he got close.
“That’s weird.”
A few days ago, while licking her injuries to heal them, he had examined her carefully. The result: no special traits had been found in Lee Seo-ah at all. In other words, she was an ordinary human through and through.
How does she know, exactly?
It wasn’t just a matter of having a good instinct. Unless blood really was thicker than water, and she was feeling some strange, powerful pull toward him?
Though that seems a bit off, too.
By family relation, she was the daughter of the son of my mother’s older sister. That was too far apart to count as some bloodline resonance. Besides, this body’s blood and DNA were completely different from before.
“No idea. I’ll figure it out later, I guess.”
He had been sitting on the rooftop railing, then sprang down toward the ground. After landing lightly with his red cloak fluttering, he glanced briefly toward Lee Seo-ah’s classroom.
“Seems like the bastards bothering her are gone now, so she should be fine.”
Over the past few days, he had removed every irritating thing in sight. Of course, he had left no proof that it was him. He had also set up a few safeguards, so nothing disastrous should happen just because he was away for a while.
He turned and left the school.
“Is it hot?”
Walking along the sidewalk, he lifted his head. The season was already sliding into summer, and the sunlight was fierce. Since he was at it, he might as well soak up as much as he could. A vampire talking about photosynthesis sounded absurd, but as the first vampire to overcome the sun, he rather liked sunbathing.
People should, hey! Go out and get some sunlight sometimes! Staying in dark places all the time is terrible for your mental health!
He had often been called a madwoman by his master because of it. Still, it was tragic that nobody understood the thrill of lying on a sunbed and letting your skin bake.
He walked for quite some time after that. Where had the mana bike gone, you ask? He had sold it because he needed cash fast.
The reason lay in the naturalization approval notice sitting in his inventory. If he wanted to adopt Lee Seo-ah and live with her, the hastily patched-up American citizenship he had was a dead weight.
Adoption itself was possible, but if he went through with it, he’d end up having to live in the United States with no ties there at all. So, swallowing the inconvenience, he decided to naturalize in Korea.
But then another problem came up: his criminal record.
Of course, foreigners with criminal histories could not apply for naturalization. So what crimes had he committed? Not murder, for one thing. He never left behind any traces, even by mistake.
What he had done was unlicensed reckless driving, traffic violations, illegal parking, and a handful of other petty offenses. On top of that, there was the bonus charge of illegal mana concealment for hiding the fact that he was a mana user.
Fortunately, everything could be settled with fines, so he had sold the mana bike. Naturally, someone without a bank account would never have sold it through legitimate means.
The loan shark was a huge help.
The device he had taken from the man he had accidentally killed. The one the loan sharks had originally handed over. When he powered it on inside the city, they came rushing in less than five minutes later. They tried to grab him without even asking questions, so he let them arrest him without resistance.
After that, everything went so smoothly it was almost boring. Once he reached the back alleys thick with greasy, rotten desire and casually slit a few throats, they started bowing and scraping, so he had them do a few things for him.
Through a broker connected to those men, he sold the mana bike, along with the pistol and dagger in his inventory, as stolen goods. He also opened a bank account and bought a latest-model device. As a side benefit, he shook down the loan sharks for extra money, too.
With the money he had gathered that way, he paid every fine and applied for naturalization. It was only this morning that he finally became a Korean citizen.
And there won’t be any trouble later.
Anyone from the loan-shark crowd who had seen his face had all been dealt with after the business was finished. He couldn’t exactly use some high-level memory erasure spell, and charming them one by one would have been too much trouble, so he had simply killed them cleanly.
There was no need to worry about loose ends.
“Oh, is this the place?”
While he had been replaying recent events in his head, he had arrived at his destination. A towering high-rise stood on sprawling grounds.
The Awakened Ability Management Bureau Headquarters.
A place where one could pass a special aptitude test, obtain official ability-user status, and even qualify for a wide range of related professions. In Korea, and in most countries on Earth, there was at least one such branch in every city.
Anyway, the reason he had come here was, once again, Lee Seo-ah’s adoption.
Under current Korean law, when adopting a minor, the prospective parent’s financial situation is also subject to review. In other words, as an unemployed bum, he was out of luck.
“Well, it does make sense. A parent trying to raise a kid being unemployed would be a little ridiculous.”
So, after getting Korean citizenship, he had come here to find a job. “I can probably get away with doing the bare minimum,” he thought. As long as he got employment, he’d just keep his power under control and pick up some kind of low-rank ability-user qualification or whatever it was.
That was what I thought, anyway.
“Le, level 724?!”
“No way!”
“There’s no way a number like that exists! Check it again!”
“Get someone to inspect the measuring machine right now! It could be an error!”
“Section chief! No, get the team leader in here! Now!”
Watching the people running around in all directions like headless chickens, I scratched the back of my head for no particular reason.
Well. Looks like I’m thoroughly screwed.