Unequal Treaty
At the moment the explosion went off, Kang Jiye was already running.
The instant she sensed unidentified mana waves erupting from every direction at once, she had turned toward home.
Getting back isn't going to be easy.
Ability users had been trailing her halfheartedly for a while now. As expected, civilian screams and the wet sound of flesh bursting apart rang out from up ahead — and then dozens of glittering lights flooded her vision.
Kang Jiye immediately pulled something from her thigh and swung it.
Takakang!
The blades rushing toward her lost all force and clattered to the ground.
She was gripping something that looked like a dark stick, from the tip of which a dense white light the length of a human torso poured out. The moment that white light shifted to green, she muttered:
"Trace reverse. Disrupt."
Her hair whipped wildly as a gale slammed into the street — powerful enough to flip nearby vehicles — and something at the far end of the road began being forcibly dragged toward her.
A figure in a white robe and black mask pulled a gun from their robes. No matter how many times they pulled the trigger, it refused to fire. In an instant, they arrived before Kang Jiye.
"Wait just a—!"
Slash!
The path the green light traced vanished as if deleted. The cultist, cleanly bisected from the crown of the head down, scattered entrails and blood as they tumbled across the pavement several times before going still.
"What an idiot. Using something like that in a large-scale engagement."
This was a battlefield where high-tier magic ran rampant. Even without deliberately sabotaging them, weapons with complex mechanisms prone to deformation had no place here.
"This is why experience matters."
Kang Jiye sneered and looked up at the building. Windows shattered all over, and white-robed figures dropped from above, landing in a formation that surrounded her. An unusually tall man spoke.
"Kang Jiye, Deputy Director of the Incheon Branch of the Hunter Administration. We will escort you to the Fifth Cult. We promise you will not be treated discourteously."
Kang Jiye pointed with her chin at the fragmented corpse.
"You've already been plenty discourteous."
"An A-class hunter wouldn't die from a mere dagger. We only coated it with sleeping poison for capture."
Kang Jiye watched the man while gauging the atmosphere around them. Most of Incheon's police and firefighting forces were paralyzed by the terror attacks. The Hunter Administration had almost certainly been hit as well. No immediate reinforcements were coming.
The man pressed on.
"Don't make this more complicated than it needs to be. The cult has prepared everything you and your daughter need. And if the Queen simply accepts our proposal, your life and your child's will be guaranteed."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"I see… But I don't believe in flat earth. What am I supposed to do about that?"
The man sighed.
"If you want to die cleanly, don't spew such blasphemy. That is not something to be compared."
"Ah~."
Kang Jiye nodded and smiled slightly.
"You're right about that. You people have your own beliefs too. Sorry."
The man nodded.
"That reflection just saved your life."
"I don't believe in ancestral gods either. What am I supposed to do?"
"…"
The man looked slightly angry now.
"If you're waiting for support from the Seventh Cult, you'd best give up. We've already occupied the Bukhan Mountain maze. The current Queen cannot handle the Specter King, and will have no choice but to cooperate. Even if you kill all of us, you cannot stop the King's manifestation."
"…"
Specter King — did that mean they'd opened an A-class gate?
She had no idea what the Seventh Cult was supposed to be, but Kang Jiye replied naturally for now.
"Doesn't a King need Mental Power? The sixth one hasn't even appeared yet. How is your king supposed to come out?"
That seemed to hit the mark. The man closed his mouth, and a heavy silence settled over them.
"…"
Suddenly a crack appeared on the man's black mask with a sharp tick — and the right side crumbled away like a broken cookie. Murderous black eyes were revealed.
"So you know that much. That makes this easier. Final offer. Surrender quietly and come with us. You're in a position of serving the Queen yourself, aren't you? I know this isn't some simple mother-daughter game."
"No, no — wait, wait. Where did you gather that much Mental Power? Enough mana to summon even Royalty."
The man drew a longsword from his waist as he answered.
"It was never consumed in the first place. The Queen of Siphonside was summoned in a weakened state — that seems to be the cause. You'll have to ask the person herself about that part."
"…"
"I'll ask one last time. Does the Seventh Cult intend to cooperate with us?"
Kang Jiye tilted her head inwardly. Why was he asking her about the intentions of a Seventh Cult she'd never even met?
Looks like they think of me as some new executive or something…
After a brief consideration, she decided to play dumb.
"Her Great Majesty the Queen has ordered us to crush you lot who act on your own!"
Before she even finished speaking, the man muttered low:
"Engage."
"…!"
Suddenly an explosive aura surged from the south — the kind of combat-oriented mana waves that appeared when humans slaughtered each other. This was clearly a separate engagement from the current local battle. The scale was considerable, and the savage waves unique to criminals tangled together in the air.
While Kang Jiye's attention was drawn south, the man's form suddenly vanished — and a razor-sharp blade tip arrived right before her eyes.
"Ugh!"
Whoosh!
Kang Jiye twisted her head to dodge and immediately swung her mana blade. The two began exchanging fierce blows, sparks flying between them.
But not long after the clash began, their expressions diverged.
"What… is this? All that… posturing…"
Kang Jiye was a hunter who had invested over ten years into human combat. Just from the way someone thrust a sword, she could gauge their level.
Stable stance and high speed. A mana capacity estimated at the absolute top of A-class. The basic balance was excellent — but he struggled to handle curveballs.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
As Kang Jiye's one-sided assault began, the man's wounds started multiplying. Of course she took minor injuries too — but that was purely due to supporting fire from the surrounding cultists. In a one-on-one, the man would have been skewered long ago.
"Call more support! Why is this all you've gathered?!"
A cultist answered the man's shout.
"The Hunter Administration bastards are holding out better than expected! Not just the central office — the Incheon Branch people were attached to Kang Jiye too!"
"Damn it."
BOOM…!
Right on cue, flames erupted a couple of blocks away. A house-sized fireball formed in the sky and fell along with smaller fire orbs. From the ground, a yellow slash dozens of meters long surged up and split the fireball apart. Before the fragments could even fall, golden lightning blanketed the heavens and evaporated everything.
KRAAAAAASH—!
Magic of unknown casters kept erupting one after another. At this rate, neither the cultists nor Kang Jiye could claim a clear advantage — the combat waves were that fierce.
The man tried to shake her resolve.
"Even… now. Make… your choice. If you… want to… save your… daughter."
CLANG!
Kang Jiye, who had been listening quietly, knocked his sword aside and opened the distance.
"Sorry, but we've got agents deployed over there too."
They'd been personally selected by the Director, so there was no worry of spies mixed in. But the man charged again as he spoke.
"If you were going to rely on agents for help, you should have stuck with them from the start. An executive has already moved. An A-class that your teddy bears can't handle."
"…A-class? One?"
"That's right."
Kang Jiye looked at the man with pity.
"Pray for a clean death. Your comrade."
"…?"
When Eldrisa arrived, she saw one of a cultist's arms — still gripping a staff — go flying. The cultist clutching their severed arm let out a scream.
Thwack!
Kang Jiye, who had cut that throat in a single stroke, weaved between the cultists like a marlin cutting through water. An arrow aimed at her back struck a cultist on the opposite side. Firebolts sprayed indiscriminately set the battlefield ablaze without discrimination.
They were attacking each other.
"You idiots! Restrain yourselves!"
The man who seemed to be the leader urged composure, but no one listened. And of course they wouldn't — instead of the operations captain who should have arrived with hostages long ago, some random mage had shown up riding a broom. They were bound to be considerably shaken.
Even worse for morale, what appeared to be that operations captain's head was dangling from the front of Eldrisa's broom.
When Eldrisa grabbed the thug's head and tossed it downward, the cultists froze for a moment. In that gap, Kang Jiye's form moved like lightning — and another neck went flying.
"Eldrisa!"
"Hmm?"
"I'm fine! Support the side!"
Eldrisa rested her chin on the back of her hand and smiled.
"This is awkward… That side does look more urgent, sure. But this is outside the contract? I only came to pick you up."
Even so, she couldn't help for free. With the magical beasts joining in, the Hunter Administration side was being pushed back. If a few of them started dying one by one, Kang Jiye would panic — and then, as the Queen's adoptive mother, she'd be able to offer a rather nice bargaining chip.
Kang Jiye, still clashing swords with the man, immediately made an offer.
"If you don't move right now, Pecia's going to demote your rank! You wanna die or level up?!"
"…"
"You hate shrinking again so much you'd rather die, right? If you got that, then move already, you freeloader!"
"You don't seem to grasp the situation."
"It's a binary choice! Die? Or die?!"
"I—"
"I'll tell! I'll tell Pecia! I'll tell her? You wanna be happy?!"
Eldrisa spat out a curse.
"Of all the goddamn lunatics to get stuck with…"