Please Call a Lawyer
"Oh, look—there's light up ahead. So it was a tunnel."
"What? We came the exact same way we went—how is this a tunnel? ......Wait, wait, wait. What the hell is this place?"
The moment they cleared the tunnel, the driver slammed the car to a stop.
A space so bright it rendered the headlights pointless, and the vivid landscape that light spilled across.
Houses and amusement rides in primary colors, like something out of a storybook kingdom.
Only then did they realize this was nowhere near their intended destination. They had been racing through the pre-dawn dark—and now, out of nowhere, blue sky and a wonderland?
"Everyone grab your tools."
The driver, taut with tension, drew a knife roughly a handspan long from his coat. The standard-issue D-class blade began to glow with a faint red light.
In the passenger seat, Park Intae started to pull his pistol—then froze.
"Grab our tools? Here? You serious, hyung?"
The driver cracked him across the head.
Pak!
"Get your head on straight, you crazy bastard. You think I'm screwing around with you?"
"……."
"You've got eyes, don't you? Look at that and tell me it's normal. You absolute idiot—can't even read the room and you're sitting there laughing."
No matter how you looked at it, this was not a normal place. They were in a situation where anything could happen at any moment, and this guy was cracking jokes?
Fury boiled up from deep in the driver's gut.
But Park Intae just stared at the amusement park the driver was pointing at, then sank back into his seat and let out a snort of a sigh laced with mockery.
"Ah, for fuck's sake."
"……?"
"You could just talk like a normal person. This bastard, that bastard—makes a guy wonder if life's even worth living."
At Park Intae's snide remark, the driver's eyes bulged.
"What did you just say. You little shit, you really want to die……."
Park Intae simply turned his head and looked at him.
I treat him like a hyung because he's a little older, and this is what I get.
Back when his own brother was around, the guy never chewed him out this hard. So why, the second the situation changed, did it feel like he was suddenly crossing every line?
"Keep looking at me like that and I'm going to want to kill you. Intae. Enough."
"……."
Park Intae's mouth twitched up at the corner.
"You smiling?"
"N-no. Not smiling. Sorry, hyung. The mood was just so goddamn shitty I thought I'd crack a joke. Haah—fuck. Anyway, where the hell even is this?"
The driver fixed Park Intae with a predatory stare, like a beast sizing up prey, as the younger man tried to play it off.
Sensing it, Park Intae forced a hollow laugh.
"Let's just cool it. I already said I was sorry."
"Hah, this fucking bitch just won't quit…… a bastard who only goes after little girls."
"Huh? Oh, so that's why hyung's been acting weird. What, you suddenly find religion or something? A guy who eats knife-meals for a living—what does it matter if she's a little girl or a big one? You just stick it in."
"You—what the hell are you—"
Then, suddenly, the man in the back seat spoke in a strangled voice. At the sound of shock and fear mixed together, the other two furrowed their brows and turned—and there sat the girl, already awake from her faint.
The bloodstains that had run from her head were gone without a trace, and the ropes that had bound her arms and legs had vanished completely.
She simply sat there with a face pale as porcelain, smiling faintly.
……!
The driver and Park Intae went white.
Instinct.
She hadn't bared sharp teeth. She wasn't holding a weapon. But the moment their eyes met hers, they knew—Pecia was no ordinary human girl.
Because she was a magical beast that had just revealed its hostility.
Just sitting there with the corners of her mouth lifted was enough to send fear crawling over them.
And the unnatural details only sharpened the sense of danger: a fragile-looking girl sitting unbothered among her kidnappers, meeting their eyes head-on, her restraints suddenly gone.
"Ha, haha. Would you look at that, boys."
He tried to sound unafraid, but the driver and Park Intae had already turned to stone under the weight of fear and confusion.
They were realizing it too late.
They had made contact with something that should never have been touched.
"Ah, fuck it!"
Park Intae suddenly yanked out his silenced pistol and started pulling the trigger at random.
Pishuk! Pishuk! Pyuk!
But after about five shots, he could only stare in bewilderment. Pecia had vanished, and in her place sat the man from the back seat.
The back-seat man looked down at the bloodstain spreading across his chest, then clenched his teeth.
"You…… you little shit."
Park Intae panicked and lowered the gun.
"H-hyung, why are you over th—?"
"You little bastard. You were exchanging looks with that bitch just now. You two in on this together?"
"W-what kind of bullshit is that, exchanging looks……."
There had been no exchange of looks.
From start to finish, the girl had been staring straight at the man in the back seat.
The one who'd locked eyes with her would have known that best. Unfortunately, that kind of basic reasoning had long since been wiped away by hypnosis.
"This fucking bastard—trying to save his own skin by shooting me?!"
The back-seat man climbed out of the car and wrenched open the passenger door.
He'd taken bullets, but as a tank-type he wasn't fatally wounded. He hauled Park Intae out with ease and immediately started hammering him with everything he had.
Puh-puck! Puck!
"You traitorous piece of shit!"
"Ghk! Hyung!"
After two clean hits to the face, Park Intae realized the man was genuinely trying to kill him.
In the end, fighting for his life, he emptied his remaining seven rounds into the man. He jammed the muzzle against his side and pulled the trigger.
Pyuk! Pik! Pik! Pik!!
"Khuh!"
When the bullets finally punched through that tough hide, the man's face twisted and he staggered, dropping to one knee.
Park Intae seized the opening, kicked him square in the jaw, then started slamming the pistol grip into the fallen man's side over and over.
"You! Fucking! Bastard! Can't! Get! Your head! Straight! Just die already, you son of a bitch!"
"Urgh! Urgh!!! Graaaaaah!!"
Pishit!
The man being beaten yanked a short blade from his coat and slashed back.
A long cut opened along Park Intae's right forearm; he dropped the gun with a scream as blood flooded the arm red in an instant.
"H-hyaaaaaah!!"
"Come here, you son of a bitch!"
Enraged, the man drove the blade at Park Intae's throat. Park Intae's eyes flew wide as he barely twisted his body clear of the arc, then clamped both hands around the man's wrist.
The two of them crashed down together.
…….
Meanwhile, the driver—who had been watching this sudden brawl in pure disbelief—felt a chill run down his spine.
He rolled his eyes quietly, scanning the surroundings…… and found a swarm of teddy-bear-sized figures gathering in a crowd.
Each one settled into a spot, snacks and drinks in hand, and started watching the two men's life-or-death fight like it was entertainment.
Ah, fuck. I knew it. Those idiots never got their heads on straight till the end.
He knew.
This place was a Gate.
And those things were probably some unknown type of magical beast.
Stay here and he was dead.
Once those two finished each other off, his turn was next—obviously.
The driver swallowed hard and quietly pressed the door-unlock button.
…Tak!
Hup!
The sound was louder than expected; his shoulders flinched on their own.
What kind of idiot designed a car this noisy?
With fear short-circuiting his reason, he started blaming people who weren't even there.
Those bastards. Not their problem, is it? Luxury cars so quiet you wouldn't even notice one going past, but the cheap ones—even opening the door sounds like this……!
With trembling hands, he eased the door open. Just wide enough to slip his body through. Slowly. Slowly.
So the teddy bears over there wouldn't notice.
Toh-ok.
Both hands on the ground, the driver confirmed the earth was soft, then pulled himself fully free of the car.
Sweat was already dripping off his chin. He clamped his left hand over his mouth to muffle his ragged breathing and started crawling sideways on his right elbow, half-lying down.
And in that instant, his vision went black.
"Hah...!"
His eyes snapped open.
Hoping against hope that what he'd just lived through had been a dream, the driver bolted upright and looked out the window.
A clear blue sky and white clouds. And beneath them, people in patient gowns strolling through a garden.
The driver's brow furrowed.
A hospital?
An IV was stuck in his wrist, so someone must have brought him in.
A car accident, maybe? Or had hunters clearing the Gate rescued him?
Didn't matter either way.
Whatever the circumstances, as long as it wasn't that bone-chilling fairy-tale world from before, he was fine.
"Patient, you're awake?"
He turned his head. A woman in a nurse's uniform stood there, smiling.
At that kind smile, the driver finally let out the breath he'd been holding. The nurse looked at the gasping man with concern.
"Are you all right?"
He nodded weakly.
"Y-yes."
"Then please answer a few questions."
Questions?
Was she going to ask about what happened? Come to think of it—what about that bastard Park Intae and the boar of a guy?
Suddenly worried about his own position, the driver lifted his head.
"Huh? Questions?"
The nurse grinned, folding her hands neatly in front of her.
"Have you committed any crimes?"
"Crimes?"
"For example—killing someone."
"Why would you even—"
"You're not denying it. Who did you kill? What were the circumstances?"
He shouldn't answer.
But the moment his eyes met the nurse's violet ones, every control in his head came undone.
His mouth started moving on its own.
A short while later, the nurse tapped her lips with a troubled look.
"……Criminals killing each other, huh. Hmm—. Tricky. Rotten to the core, but he doesn't like going after kids. Then again, I can't just overlook him selling out for money either."
She pondered for a moment, then seemed to reach a decision and snapped her fingers.
Tak!
In an instant, the view snapped back to the amusement park. The driver's eyes flew wide with shock—then rolled back, showing only the whites.
Looking down at the unconscious driver, Pecia slapped him across the mouth with her open palm.
Jjak!
"Ugh, so annoying. If you're going to be bad, just be bad. Here—take another one."
Jjaak! Jjak!
...
Jjak! Jjak! Puck!
Honestly, I'd been planning to just kill them all.
But maybe I really was a social animal after all. The thought hit me that I couldn't just execute them outside the legal process.
It could cause trouble for Auntie.
So in the end, I left the ringleader little brother who'd started the fight and the big guy from the back seat barely breathing, and put the driver's sentence on temporary hold—he at least still had a scrap of conscience left.
Which meant I'd basically made extra work for myself.
If I'd just subdued them from the start and handed them over to the police, none of this hassle would have happened. Now I had to waste even more hypnosis.
Grumbling about how Kang Jiye was going to scold me again, I opened a Gate and stepped out.
Whatever. What's done is done.
I'd had my fun, so I'd sleep on it and think later. From here on out, it was soft blankets and a real bed!
But the second that thought crossed my mind, someone stepped into my path again and spoke.
"What happened? To those guys."
…?
A man dressed entirely in black. I stared at him blankly—then sucked in a sharp breath.
Jet-black hair and eyes. Neatly falling bangs and a face sharp as a sculpture. Th-this guy was…….
Someone I don't know.
I pretended not to hear him and walked on, swinging both arms.
I tried to pass by naturally, but the man grabbed me by the scruff of the neck without mercy and lifted me clean off the ground.
"Hing."
I kicked my dangling legs for no particular reason.
I'd only just stepped into A-class—resisting an S-class hunter was pointless.
If I called out every Party Bear in the amusement park, maybe it would be different, but even then it wouldn't be easy.
Fighting each other here in the first place would have been a stupid idea.
Half resigned, I went limp and pouted. The protagonist guy peered down at me steadily.
Scary.
His level really was his level—just meeting those eyes reflecting the streetlight was enough to feel the pressure.
Like a midwinter blade of wind. If I'd run into him right at the start, I might have just fainted on the spot.
"You. What are you scheming?"
I answered weakly.
"What scheme.....?"
"Those guys are an affiliate of the Cult. Why are you eliminating your own slaves with your own hands?"