The Terrifying Mad Dog
—Heh heh heh. So, my friend. You were upset that someone was impersonating you, is that it?
"Quit the cosplay. I'll kill you."
—I'd love to take it easy, but I've got a mountain of work piled up. Grow up well and help me out later, will you? Then I can finally rest.
"This old fart is pissing me off. For real… You know what? Just hang up, you son of a bitch."
Kang Jihun huffed and flung the smartphone onto the table.
What on earth had made him this furious? Deep down, he did respect the Director—but he wasn't the type to lose his temper every single time someone impersonated the man. Even online games and random community boards tossed around the phrase "Director-class" like it was nothing.
No—the real fuse had been something else entirely. He'd received help, however unintentionally, from a being he'd written off as insignificant (Pecia), and then, completely out of character, he'd come to thank her. That sheer embarrassment was the detonator.
"Hey! You can't just throw other people's stuff around like that!"
Elaine barely managed to catch Pecia's smartphone and snapped at him. Grumbling, she wiped the fingerprint smudges off the screen with a handkerchief and held it out toward Pecia.
"Pecia?"
"……"
But Pecia didn't so much as glance at it.
She was still frozen in the same posture as before, both hands clamped over her mouth, staring straight at Kang Jihun.
Did the shock hit her that hard?
Come to think of it, she'd been acting strange ever since the phone was snatched away. Normally, anyone would pitch a fit demanding it back—especially with someone still on the line. But Pecia's reaction had been as still as a calm sea. If anything, it looked like she was holding her breath.
Elaine shook Pecia's shoulder.
"Hey! Koala!"
"……"
Still no answer.
Elaine's eyes narrowed at the corners.
"Adriel! This is your fault! What are you going to do about our fragile little Pecia?!"
Of course she'd been hit hard. Even at their first meeting, she'd been a timid girl who shied away from making friends. And now someone she was close enough with to exchange greetings had been hit with a sudden barrage of abuse… No wonder her heart might have stopped.
At this rate, she might never leave the dorm again.
But Kang Jihun just snorted and clicked his tongue.
"Over something that small."
"That small?! Are you going to apologize right now or not?"
"I'm not, you fucking bitch."
That was when Pecia's mouth opened.
"Oh no……"
Both of their gazes snapped to her.
"That was the real Director……"
"……?"
Ordinarily, no one would believe a muttered claim like that. Who would buy that the Director of the Hunter Management Bureau—a man busy enough just running the place—would take an interest in some academy student's personal life and even call her?
But the two of them couldn't help freezing.
Tears of laughter had already filled Pecia's eyes. Her breathing was oddly ragged, and her upper body kept tipping forward and rocking back as if she couldn't control it.
Then, after a brief silence, the decisive sound burst out.
"……Kkak!"
When you suppress "that" to the absolute limit, a high-pitched little squeak like this tends to escape.
Elaine, her head full of question marks, pulled Pecia's hands away—and the corners of Pecia's mouth, soaring skyward like they were about to ascend to heaven, were laid bare for all to see.
Flustered, Pecia covered her mouth again and smacked Elaine on the shoulder.
"Hey! You can't just yank them off like that!"
Elaine blinked, then broke into an incredulous laugh.
"What? You weren't in shock?"
"I wasn't in shock—ah, seriously, what do I do. He said he respected the guy with his own mouth, and then it was all 'this bastard' this and 'that bastard' that…!"
Pecia buried her face straight into Elaine's chest. Her shoulders shook as she wheezed with laughter.
Truth be told, she could have reclaimed the phone from the very beginning.
She'd simply stopped her own reflexively reaching right hand with her left.
Kang Jihun had clearly had no idea who he was talking to. She was certain something entertaining was about to unfold—and that prediction had hit the mark with deeply satisfying accuracy.
"……"
Watching the scene, Kang Jihun was seized by a strange feeling.
For some reason, even though she was laughing at him like that, words like "I'll fucking wreck you" refused to come out.
That genuine laughter of Pecia's… made him re-examine, belatedly, the person he'd just been talking to.
No way?
Normally, when adults got cursed out by a kid his age, they blew up and started screaming about mothers and fathers. But that old man had been far too composed. Almost exactly like the Director.
Kang Jihun—this self-proclaimed real man—was feeling, for the first time in his life, the sensation that something had gone terribly wrong.
Right on cue, a vibration buzzed from his pocket.
"Ah, yes. Family Head."
Not Father. Not adoptive father.
He was a real man, after all.
But his voice was oddly unsteady, and his palms were sweating. His father almost never called him.
"……Ah, yes, yes. No, it's nothing. Haha."
Tak.
A moment later, he finished the call and flipped his smartphone face-down on the table. Pecia's eyes lit up as she asked,
"What'd he say? What did he tell you?"
Kang Jihun's lips worked violently, as if concentrating pure rage. Then he groaned, expelling the clotted mass of indignation.
"Kkeuheum!"
The Joel Family Head hadn't scolded him at all.
He'd simply passed along the news that the Director had praised him—said he "had good spirit." And that was precisely why Kang Jihun's breathing grew even more ragged.
The exact same reaction as the Director he knew.
A man so magnanimous he'd just laugh it off with a heh heh even if a random pedestrian spat in his face. No matter what insults Kang Jihun had hurled, he was never the type to snitch to the Family Head or file a complaint.
Which meant he'd just been told, indirectly: Yes, I really am the Director.
"You……"
Kang Jihun ground his teeth and stared at Pecia, looking ready to bite her head off on the spot.
Pecia flinched.
"Y-yeah?"
"You deliberately didn't stop me."
Pecia put on a straight face a beat too late and shook her head.
"No…… There's no way I'd do that."
"Don't give me that. After laughing your ass off like that."
"I'm just gonna hit the bathroom real quick. Talk later?"
Kang Jihun's eyes looked exactly like a rabid dog's. Judging that she might get bitten if she stuck around, Pecia slipped out of her seat as smoothly as flowing water, leaving only the two of them in the private room.
……
Elaine swallowed for no particular reason.
She was just as anxious about where this deranged Adriel might lash out next. He already had a reputation for being violent on a normal day—and now that he'd accidentally dumped a full bucket of curses on the idol he respected, he looked completely out of control.
"Uh, so—"
Woom—
Just then, a message arrived from Pecia.
I absolutely was not going to reply.
The scariest ghost in the world is a changgwi, after all.
A victim claimed by a tiger always ends up dragging their own family or friends down with them.
Elaine was no different.
She'd clearly been eaten by Kang Jihun—or blackmailed into calling me over.
Sorry for ditching you. But honestly, you had fun too.
I made her laugh, so she had to pay the price. You couldn't buy a comedy show that good even if you threw money at it.
"Yaaaaah!! You wanna die, you disloyal koala?!"
But in the end, I got caught.
First I let my guard down at Elaine's shameless voice through the door insisting "nothing happened," and then I fell for the lie that she'd prepared a sleep-pillow gift for me and opened the door.
The second she burst into my room, she locked her arms around my neck from behind and bit the top of my head.
"Aaaagh— khek!"
"How could you just ditch me like it was nothing?! Do you have any idea how terrified I was?!"
I thrashed in her grip and shouted,
"Don't do this! Th-the world is survival of the fittest and every man for himself. Elaine was just too naive. And if you wanted to live, you should've followed me out then and there."
"Wow— not an apology, but blame-shifting? Look at this shameless little— I tried to follow you, but you pressed down on my shoulder! Hold still! Wait, why is this kid so strong?"
…Well, the ones who can live should live, right? Die together?
Honestly, sticking around together wouldn't have actually killed anyone. A genuinely warm-hearted person would have comforted Kang Jihun, wouldn't they?
Of course, I had zero interest in doing that.
Mad dogs are scary.
When I kept playing shameless, Elaine suddenly grabbed a pillow and started beating me without mercy. I grabbed one too and counterattacked, and within seconds the room was a war zone of exploded pillow stuffing.
……If the Party Bears had seen it, they probably would have thought it was a brutal murder scene.
"Huff… huff… Temporary ceasefire. We've got class tomorrow. Let's not burn ourselves out."
"We? Did you just say we?"
"W-we're going together, aren't we?"
Elaine wordlessly lifted the corners of her mouth, then shook her head.
"You go alone. Go face the enraged Adriel yourself."
"Ah, I'm sorry. My friend."
From this day forward, Elaine was my precious soulmate. We would die together and live together.
Watching my sudden attitude change, Elaine plopped down on the bed with an incredulous laugh.
"You're really something else. I had no idea you were this much of a little schemer. Fine—if I go with you, what do I get?"
"I heard friends aren't supposed to attach conditions……"
"Then forget it. I'm leaving."
"Aaaah!"
I grabbed Elaine's sleeve.
"I've learned a little mana now. I'll make you a doll golem."
No matter how I looked at it, I did not want to face Kang Jihun's rage alone. It wasn't about winning or losing a fight—once that guy fixated on something, he had a tendency to obsess over it to an insane degree.
If he acts up again, I might not be able to stop myself from chucking him into the amusement park.
That was a problem I hadn't considered when I was busy messing with him.
"……"
But Elaine started staring at me intently.
An expression like she couldn't quite understand something. If you looked at it a certain way, she almost seemed a little scared.
I tilted my head, not knowing why she'd suddenly gone stiff—and then something from her mouth nearly made me faint on the spot.
"Um… weren't they already golems? I thought that's what they were."
"……What are you talking about?"
"Those things move around at night…… They even talk among themselves. When they noticed me watching, they froze for a second, went 'byoo,' and scurried back into the doll storage."