A New Deviation Is Permitted
A new deviation is permitted.
A man in a black coat lay crumpled on the ground a few steps in front of me.
He was covered in blood.
One arm was bent at an angle no arm should bend.
“……”
He seemed to fit the conditions I'd mentioned earlier pretty well.
Right then, three people came leaping over the broken wall.
“It's over, Choi Minseok!”
“Drop your weapon and surrender!”
Uniforms that looked like bulletproof vests.
I recognized the emblem on their chests, too. I'd seen it on the news plenty of times.
The Awakened Crimes Investigation Unit.
“Ah.”
So I had found someone in danger.
The man sprawled on the ground swallowed a groan and pushed himself up. Then he spotted me.
“……Hey.”
The man's face twisted into a scowl.
“Kid.”
“Yes?”
“You stay here, you die. Get lost.”
I looked back and forth between the bloody man and the investigators.
“……”
A criminal, huh?
That was a little surprising.
He was about to get arrested himself, and he was telling me to run. But he hadn't asked for my help.
Too bad. Oh well.
I turned to leave.
At that same moment, the bloody man twisted his body as if to bolt as well.
One of the investigators blocking the alley raised a hand.
“Stop!”
KWA-BOOM!
A shockwave burst outward.
The man wrenched himself aside. The blast missed him head-on, scraping down the alley wall and spreading sideways—
Toward where I was standing.
“Civilian!”
The squad leader shouted.
“You lunatics, there's a kid here!”
The bloody man gritted his teeth and flung out a hand. The shockwave bearing down on me suddenly changed course.
KRAK!
The side wall blew apart.
I blinked.
The man swung his hand toward the investigators instead.
“Then how about you people take a—”
“Choi Minseok!”
But before he could finish, another officer raised a hand first.
KWA-BOOM!
This time it landed clean.
The bloody man was hurled across the alley and slammed into the wall.
“……”
The squad leader clenched his jaw.
“Cease area attacks! Get the civilian out first!”
One of them came running at me. I took a step back.
“I'm fine.”
“It's dangerous, so come this way—”
He reached for my arm.
I don't want that.
The moment I thought it, something strange happened.
His hand didn't stop. It was definitely still reaching for my arm, stretching closer and closer. But the nearer it came, the strangely slower his movement grew.
Only a few centimeters remained between his fingertips and my arm.
And those few centimeters refused to shrink.
The officer took another step forward. His arm moved, his whole body leaned in. His fingertips still didn't touch.
It was like trying to punch someone in a dream.
That feeling of pushing your body to move and yet everything is inexplicably sluggish, and the moment of contact never quite arrives.
“What the…?”
This time the officer thrust his hand out as if to snatch my arm away in one grab.
His fingers closed around empty air.
It wasn't that I'd dodged. My arm was right there in front of him, and yet every time he reached, the last few centimeters stretched on forever.
“What is this?!”
I quietly watched him struggle.
[Minor Deviation.]
[Contact the Owner does not desire shall not be established.]
“Aha.”
So that's how it works.
In a dream, all you have to do is make the people you dislike unable to touch you.
“She's Awakened!”
The atmosphere shifted instantly.
The officer who'd been approaching immediately fell back, putting distance between us.
The squad leader spoke shortly.
“Measure her.”
An officer in the back drew a palm-sized device from his belt. He didn't ask for my permission.
The front of the device pointed at me.
Beep.
The officer looked down at the screen.
“……No reading on the subject.”
“Again.”
Beep.
This time a number flickered up for a moment.
The officer's eyebrows twitched.
“Measurement range: one point two kilometers.”
“What?”
“That's what it says, sir.”
The squad leader glanced at me once, then turned his eyes back to the device.
I was standing right where I'd been standing. The distance between us was barely a few meters.
“Do it again.”
The device pointed at me a third time.
Beeep.
This time the results came up immediately.
“F-rank…”
The officer started to lower the device, then stopped. Other information was displayed on the screen alongside the rank.
[Rank: F]
[Registration: None]
[Measurement Complete: 13:48:12]
“……Hold on. What's wrong with this thing?”
The officer checked his wristwatch.
13:47:12.
The hand gripping the device went still.
“Why?”
“The completion time is one minute from now, sir.”
The squad leader's gaze swung back to the device.
At that instant, a black dot appeared at the edge of the screen.
13:48:12.
The black blotch spread slowly around the timestamped digits like ink soaking through paper.
13:48:1■
13:4■:1■
1■:■■:■■
The numbers were devoured one by one.
Soon the words F-rank and the registration data were swallowed by the spreading stain as well.
Finally, the entire screen went pitch black.
Click. Click.
The officer pressed the buttons a few more times, but the device showed no reaction at all.
“……It's dead, sir.”
The squad leader stared at the blackened screen for a moment, then jerked his chin at the officer beside him.
“Send a records request to headquarters. Girl, unregistered Awakened. Estimated age—”
That was when it happened.
Crackle. Crzzzt.
Before he could even finish, the radio at the other officer's belt crackled to life. He hadn't laid a finger on it yet.
[Field team. Here are the results of the records check on the unregistered juvenile Awakened you requested.]
[Identity: Unable to confirm.]
[Registration data: None.]
[Rank determination: Unable.]
[Anomaly.]
The transmission cut off with a burst of static.
The officer holding the measuring device looked down at its blackened screen.
“……”
No one could find their voice right away.
I tilted my head.
How fascinating.
So this is what a lucid dream is?
The eyes of everyone who'd been staring at the device turned back to me.
“……Kid. Don't move.”
“No.”
“We're here to protect you.”
“Don't need it.”
“This is an active criminal apprehension.”
I looked back and forth between the bloody man and the investigators.
Yeah, I'd figured that out already.
“So what?”
“……I'm sorry?”
“What does catching that man have to do with me?”
The investigator's mouth opened and closed.
Now that I'd said it out loud and thought it over, it really was true.
I wasn't a cop. I wasn't an investigator. I didn't have any especially well-developed sense of civic duty. Whether that man got arrested or not was none of my concern.
Then the bloody man laughed.
“Kgh… this kid's got some nerve.”
I looked at him.
“Mister, are you a bad person?”
The question was so blunt that the whole alley went quiet.
The man stared at me, dumbfounded.
“Yeah.”
“Really bad?”
“Probably?”
“What did you do?”
One of the investigators answered for him.
“Armed robbery, distribution of illegal awakeners, obstruction of official duties, aggravated assault. And that's just what's confirmed.”
“Did you maybe kill someone too?”
“……That's under investigation.”
I looked at the man.
“Did you?”
The man was silent for a moment.
“Two.”
The investigators' faces went rigid.
“You little—!”
“I killed two people.”
The man offered no excuses. Instead, he looked at me and said,
“Got it? I'm not planning to play the good guy, so just go, kid. Don't hang around and get yourself hurt for nothing.”
Grrrrumble.
The hunger came back.
I thought for a moment, then spoke.
“Do you want to live?”
The man's eyes moved.
“……What?”
“I asked if you want to live.”
One of the investigators cut in.
“Kid, don't listen to him. He's dangerous—”
“I wasn't asking you, mister.”
I stared at him, and his mouth shut on the spot. As if his lips had been glued together.
“Mmph?! Mmmph!”
The officer's eyes went wide.
I ignored him and looked back at the man.
“Do you want to live?”
This time the man didn't answer jokingly. He looked me straight in the eye.
“I want to live.”
Ding.
[The target genuinely desires salvation.]
I smiled.
That was enough.
“Then I'll save you.”
“……?”
“In exchange.”
Wariness flickered in the man's eyes.
“What do you want?”
I pointed a finger at my own head.
“Praise me.”
“……”
“If I save you, tell me I did a good job. Sincerely.”
The man's mouth hung open.
The investigators couldn't say a word either.
I knew the situation was absurd. I did.
Right in the middle of an alley, with a blood-soaked criminal squared off against the investigative unit, a girl who looked like an elementary schooler was sticking out her head and demanding praise.
But what could I do? I was hungry.
“Kgh-hh……”
The man let out an incredulous laugh.
“Am I losing my mind?”
“You don't want to?”
“No. Save me for real and I'll say it a hundred times over.”
No notification appeared.
Because right now, those were only words.
I nodded.
“Okay then.”
The squad leader stepped forward.
“Halt.”
His gaze traveled slowly between me and Choi Minseok.
“Are you saying you'll make a deal with that man?”
“Yes.”
“You heard him just now. He's killed two people.”
“I heard.”
The leader stared hard at my face for several seconds.
“And you'll save him anyway?”
“It's not because he's a good person.”
“Then why?”
“Because he said he wants to live.”
The leader shot back immediately.
“And the two people he killed—do you think they didn't want to live?”
I thought about that for a moment.
“They probably did.”
“Then—”
“But I don't know those people, do I?”
The leader seemed, for an instant, at a loss for words. I pointed at the bloody man.
“The person standing in front of me right now is that mister. And that mister genuinely wants to live.”
“If we let him go, more people could get hurt.”
“That could happen, I guess.”
“You're saying that knowing full well?”
“Yes.”
The alley fell quiet for a moment.
I truly, genuinely didn't understand.
I'd already heard whether that man was a good person or a bad one.
But what did that have to do with me?
The leader let out a short breath.
“There's no point in talking further, is there.”
His voice dropped low.
“Final warning. Disperse your ability and step aside.”
“No.”
“What you're doing right now is helping a criminal escape. Keep interfering and you'll be arrested too.”
“Me?”
“That's right.”
I was a little baffled. The officers around us were subtly spreading out, shifting their positions.
“Why?”
“That man is under arrest. You have no authority to obstruct an investigation.”
“I still don't want to.”
“This isn't about what you want.”
“I just promised that mister I'd save him, though.”
The leader didn't answer right away.
“That is not yours to decide.”
I turned those words over in my head.
Not mine to decide.
Hmm.
Was that so?
It felt strange.
This was supposed to be my dream, wasn't it?
Then why?
“No, it isn't.”
I answered.
“It's mine to decide.”
In that instant, the world went silent.
The sound of cars, the voices of people, the wind, the sirens that had been wailing in the distance—all of it vanished.
The investigators' faces froze.
The criminal said nothing either.
Only I was perfectly fine.
Slide.
A black status window unfolded before my eyes.
[The Owner has recognized ownership of the world.]
[Proficiency of Master of the Dream (EX) has increased.]
[0 → 1]