Relentless Pursuit
A week had passed since the Plant Queen incident.
Incheon and the greater Seoul area had settled back into peace as though the chaos had never happened at all. Because the Hunter Administration had deliberately downplayed the Plant Queen affair into a brief, truncated announcement, most citizens never even realized a crisis had occurred. They simply took it as a minor Gate Break.
It was a considerably different development from the story I'd played. Originally, the infected would have numbered in the tens of thousands, with substantial casualties to match. Key military and industrial facilities would have suffered significant terrorist attacks as well.
Why fall helplessly to such a second-rate opponent?
Because the Plant Queen was a monster who understood human society reasonably well. She exploited the fact that our side couldn't freely kill the infected—and that was exactly why the quest conditions had become so restrictive. As I've said repeatedly, from a player's perspective those conditions were endlessly frustrating. People who flipped into enemies at the drop of a hat once brainwashed? Hostages or not, just wiping them all out and pushing forward would have been far easier.
Of course, thinking about it now, it might have been for the best.
If I'd indiscriminately slaughtered people back then, it would have left a bad taste. Kang Jiye might even have been among the infected. Anyway, it worked out well in the end.
"Ah—who will ever appreciate this sacrifice of mine."
At any rate, this time the casualties were zero. All thanks to me giving the Plant Queen a little smackdown before she could properly start testing the infected.
"Are you listening, Auntie? Even though I'm a monster, I worked hard for the peace of humanity."
"Mm-hmm. Do the dishes. Love you, little one."
"……."
We, too, had returned to a daily life not much different from before. Kang Jiye was running herself ragged catching ability-using criminals, while I was putting my efforts into housework as Purple Bunny.
Weird.
I tilted my head as I scrubbed the bright red seasoning stuck to the dishes. I was definitely SSS-class, so why were my hands covered in dish soap? Of course, Kang Jiye did the cooking and I just ate, so handling the cleanup was fair enough… but somehow the treatment felt a little underwhelming.
"Sis, Sis! Are you tired?"
At least Yena seemed a little guilty about leaving me to labor alone, because she came over with a faintly apologetic look.
She's so cute, I swear.
I smiled and answered.
"Why? Is Yena going to do the dishes for me?"
"No no. If you're not too tired, open a gate for me."
"……."
I snapped my gaze away from her.
"Sis is busy."
"Aaaah! I promised the little guys we'd ride the water slide!"
"Is that so—"
"Will you open it for me?"
"Wait. After I finish this."
Promised, my foot. She just wanted to ride it herself and riled up the Party Bears. I deliberately scrubbed the dishes extra squeaky-clean, dragging out the dishwashing. What a cheeky little sister.
"Siiiis—!"
"I told you to wait. If these aren't cleaned properly, you'll get food poisoning."
"I'll do it! I'll do the dishes!"
"Really?"
"Yeah!"
"You have to rinse them properly before putting them in the dishwasher. There's a lot of stuck-on stuff."
"Don't worry. I can do it!"
"Hah… well, if you insist. Come here."
I handed everything over to Yena and threw myself onto the sofa, not forgetting to instruct her to falsely report to Kang Jiye that I'd done the dishes properly myself.
Hugging a cushion, I flipped through the TV channels. As luck would have it, the news was covering something about monsters.
"Today we have a special guest with us. On the fourteenth, a gate opened right in the middle of the Sangam World Cup Stadium. One of the players mid-match went to kick the ball and got sucked straight in—quite the absurd accident, wasn't it?"
Hard to believe that isn't a fake documentary.
From a modern person's perspective, there was no program more fascinating. Living, breathing monsters and the ability-users who dealt with them appearing as a matter of course. In my previous life I would have scoffed at it as cheap fabrication.
"Sis! I finished the dishes!"
"Mm, good job."
I waved a hand casually and opened a gate. Yena and her personal guard dove straight through. I watched them go for a moment, then slowly uncurled from the sofa and stretched.
"Nnngh—!"
It was winter, so everything really did feel like too much effort. A day like today was meant for turning on the heater and roasting yourself warm—nothing more. Where on earth did those little kids get all that overflowing energy? I wished Yena would learn just a little of the joy of doing absolutely nothing indoors.
Anyway, I decided to use the opportunity to do something I'd been putting off. Looking after Yena had left me with no time alone. Leaving a child unsupervised at an amusement park was a little worrying, but if anything happened the Party Bears would handle it.
I slipped under the bedcovers and broke into a huge grin.
"Hehe."
The thing I'd been putting off: collapsing into sleep without a single worry in the world. This was the way. I'd originally been a pathetic homebody, and lately I'd been dragged into far too many productive activities. Excessive diligence was bad for mental health.
The moment I closed my eyes, my consciousness began sinking into the abyss.
"Ugh, damn it. Who is it?"
But a moment later the intercom started ringing. Every minute and second of solo life was precious to me, so I stomped across the floor and planted myself in front of the intercom.
"Who is it—!"
"Ah, is Pecia there, by any chance?"
Some middle-aged guy?
"She's not home right now. Who is this?"
On the intercom screen was a middle-aged man with a half-bald head. Something about him looked familiar. I was tilting my head, trying to place him, when the man spoke with an almost tearful expression.
"When Pecia gets back, could you pass along a message? The Mana Cloth is ready."
"……?"
Mana Cloth? Wait—
"My situation's suddenly become urgent. My son got hurt in a gate, and the surgery costs are no joke. I know you haven't gone through the whole stock yet, but I'm shamelessly asking anyway. I've prepared every color."
Ah. The moment he mentioned colors, it clicked. The general store owner. I clearly remembered asking him to stock every variety at the time. The couple who ran the place had been so oppressively eager that I'd never gone back to pick any of it up.
I'd completely forgotten.
"Just a moment. I'll be right down."
"Huh? Is that you, Pecia?"
"Yes."
My bank account was piled high with money anyway. Once I entered the Academy I might not have time to shop, so stocking up now seemed fine. I threw on a padded coat and headed down to the building entrance.
The shop owner's face was half-destroyed with stress. He came running the moment he saw me and grabbed my hands tight.
"Aigoo, sorry for showing up out of nowhere. I didn't have any other way to reach you."
I shrugged and asked the formal question.
"It's fine. More importantly—is your son very sick?"
"They said he got hit with some kind of poison, but I don't really understand it. Thanks for asking, but first—"
"Ah, right right. Let's go."
What rotten luck.
On the way over I heard about the poison his son had taken. He'd been hit with something quite troublesome, and on top of that his physical compatibility was the absolute worst, so surgery looked unavoidable. The already-infected organs would have to be partially excised and remade from scratch.
But generating new organs tailored to a person's own body was difficult work. The shop owner's son was C-class—which meant his mana was fairly strong as these things went. That meant considerable effort had to go into cloning organs that matched his grade. Use crude ordinary organs and the whole body would necrotize, or the mana would reverse-flow and the body would explode.
The response was fast enough that he won't die, but…
Handled wrong, this could rip the whole family up by the roots. Hunter insurance wouldn't come close to covering it.
"How about it? You can just buy some of it. You haven't used up everything you already took, right?"
The shop owner asked in an apologetic tone. The moment we arrived at the store he'd hauled out several whole boxes of Mana Cloth and set them in front of me. I crossed my arms and looked them over.
…He made such a fuss about the quantity, and there's barely any of it.
"I'll take all of it."
"Huh?"
"Give me all of this, and I'll buy the next shipment too. Deliver it to me as soon as it's ready."
Every general store sourced its stock from different places. Making Party Bears required Mana Cloth with the right properties, and the products here happened to have quite satisfactory qualities. Better to receive them comfortably at home than run around shopping every time.
"That's a hundred million won's worth. You're buying all of this…?"
The shop owner swallowed hard. I nodded and held out my card.
"Including the next shipment. Two hundred million won's worth."
Thankfully, the Hunter Administration had paid Kang Jiye an enormous performance bonus. The information fee that came to me was five hundred million, and the performance bonus was seven hundred million. I'd asked Kang Jiye whether performance bonuses were normally paid out this fast, and she'd just lightly knuckled me on the head without giving a proper answer. There was something I didn't know… but having a lot of money was good either way. And it cut down on the hassle.
Though now that I think about it, the bank's going to call. It's my money and I'm spending it, honestly.
"……."
Meanwhile the shop owner took the card in two trembling hands and couldn't speak for a while. I crossed my arms and warned him.
"The quality had better not slip. And no skimming, either."
Roughly another billion won's worth and the Party Bear skill would hit mastery. If he didn't want to lose an important customer, he'd better behave.
"…I know. I know."
Tears were already dripping down the owner's face as he nodded. He seemed to have misunderstood—thinking I was buying more even though I still had plenty of stock left. He slowly entered the numbers into the card reader, tapped the card to complete the payment, and bowed his head to me.
"Thank you, Pecia. I'll repay this kindness, I swear."
Thank me? I was the one who should be thanking him for reducing my hassle. And if the quality slipped I was coming after him immediately. Getting all misty-eyed and moved of his own accord already was going to be a problem.
This is awkward. Let's get out of here.
It hadn't been an act of charity. Still thinking the shop was a bit oppressive, I quietly opened the door.
And in that exact moment, I collided with a hard black object—thunk!
What—a suit?
Crap, I didn't control my strength. Something's got to be brok—
"Whoa there, you all right, little rabbit?"
Thankfully the other person's voice was intact. Well, anyone who bounced off me that hard should have gone flying under normal circumstances. Anyone coming in and out of a general store like this had to be an ability-user of some kind.
I was brushing my chest in relief when it suddenly struck me that this voice was familiar too. Quite a seasoned voice, but one I'd definitely heard somewhere before.
…
Who is it! Now I have to exchange greetings again—what a pain!
This was exactly why I tried not to go outside. It was just one unexpected situation after another.
I lifted my head a little dejectedly, and standing there was none other than the Director of the Hunter Administration. He looked down at me with a pleased smile.
"Been well? Come talk with me a moment."