Call It Protection
Protection.
A flash of red light swept past.
Rin didn't even blink.
And still she missed it.
A black coat hem skimmed the edge of her vision for a single instant, and in the next the Knight-class entity that had been pressing Dam So-hye was smashed into the barrier wall at the end of the roadway.
BOOM!
The wall crumpled inward.
Metal and concrete became shrapnel flying in every direction. The rough shockwave lagged behind the explosion, arriving late.
The tips of Rin's silver bob whipped hard. Inside the lead vehicle someone braced against the wall; the refugees crouched between the vehicles pressed themselves even lower.
Dam So-hye couldn't move either.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the wall where the entity that had been shoving her moments earlier was now embedded.
The surrounding pollution beasts reacted.
Ones about to spit spines.
Ones burrowing under the vehicles.
Ones scattering along the walls.
All of them too late.
Thud.
The nearest one's head slammed into the roadway.
What followed was instantaneous. The ones burrowing under the vehicles crumpled; the ones climbing the walls had their backs snapped. The ones about to spit spines burst first from inside their own mouths.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Short sounds overlapped all at once.
There were no screams.
Bodies crumpled first, necks snapped, leg joints folded the wrong way. Spines that had been flying lost direction midair and came back to pierce their owners' napes.
A small entity trying to flee scraped across the roadway.
Screeeech.
Even that sound cut off at once.
Its body, crushed from the back, stuck flat to the floor.
Crunch.
Rin opened her senses.
It was reflexive. If her eyes had missed it, she had to at least trace whatever residue remained—the place the impact had passed, the trail magic had swept, the lingering compression of air that had been crushed and then released.
But what her senses caught was never the starting point.
The places the magic had passed were already solidified into results. Collapsed pressure, broken trajectories, bodies stuck to the roadway. All of it only reached her fingertips after Ezekiel had already gone by.
Rin had to admit it. How Ezekiel had moved, where he had unleashed his power—she had not seen any of it at all.
No slash marks. No bullet holes. The creatures had folded to the ground as if they had suddenly been unable to bear their own weight, and only the aftereffects of that force reached Rin's senses belatedly.
A metallic sound came from the barrier wall.
Screeeech.
The Knight-class entity moved again.
The body embedded in the wall twitched. Black fibers crawled out from between the crumpled armor plates, and irregular pale-blue light flickered deep in its chest.
It wasn't dead yet.
As expected of Knight-class.
A shattered arm braced against the wall. Armor fell away; black fibers stretched like cables, trying to regrasp the broken structure.
In that moment red eyes looked that way.
The thing's body was dragged forward, tearing through the debris.
Like a beast hooked on a fishing line, its heavy mass scraped across the roadway.
Sparks flew in long trails.
It swung its remaining arm.
Ezekiel did not dodge.
The arm stopped in midair just before contact. After a brief pause, a ripping sound burst out.
Crrrunch.
Shoulder armor split open. Black fibers stretched taut and then tore all at once. Metal cables burst out like blood vessels, and the heavy arm was ripped free joint and all.
Bang!
The severed arm slammed into the roadway.
The Knight-class entity howled. Neither human nor beast made a sound like that. A broken warning-siren wail leaked from inside the flesh.
As Ezekiel took another step forward and narrowed his red eyes, the thing's chest caved in.
There was no mark of being struck from outside. It collapsed from within. Chest armor folded; the neck vanished. Head armor drove downward; the shoulders rolled into the chest cavity.
Black fibers that had been trying to regenerate surged outward and were immediately pressed flat.
Flesh and metal tangled without being able to push each other apart. The torso shortened, the waist folded, the knees followed late in snapping. The massive body crumpled into itself.
Crunch.
The last remaining toes drove into the roadway.
And it was over.
Below the barrier wall there was no longer any form that could be called a Knight-class entity. Only a lump of metal and black flesh pressed together remained.
A short but heavy silence settled over the sealed roadway.
Rin checked the indicator on her recording device with her fingertips. It was on. But she could not be certain the scene just now had been properly captured.
Her eyes had not been able to keep up.
The ground tilting underfoot, breath crushed, the sensation of the world folding only after those red eyes had passed—only that remained belatedly inside her body.
The Holy Light Council investigation team members could not easily move either.
They knew the name Ezekiel Vermilion. They knew what the position of Chief Executor meant. But standing at the edge of that power in person was a completely different matter from knowing it by name and title.
Among the refugees someone muttered like a breath.
"Red eyes······."
As the words fell, the surroundings grew even quieter.
Even a child's crying cut off.
Someone bowed their head. Someone held their breath.
Where a single name had passed, people's bodies reacted first.
The female warrior beside Dam So-hye recovered first.
She raised her sword reflexively. Her fingertips trembled minutely, but the tip of the blade did not lower.
Ezekiel's red eyes touched her.
"Step aside."
The warrior's jaw clenched.
"Stand back."
The blade tip did not lower.
Ezekiel did not stop. Another step came in.
In that instant the blade tip lowered.
She had not lowered it. The arm holding the sword shook as if pressed by an invisible weight. The roadway underfoot creaked low.
Ezekiel had not even raised a hand.
The warrior gritted her teeth.
"This person is the Director of External Strategy of Mudang Corporation."
Ezekiel did not react.
Dam So-hye called quietly.
"Baek Mu-gyeong."
At that single word the warrior's eyes wavered.
"Lower the sword."
"But—"
"Lower it."
Baek Mu-gyeong gritted her teeth, then slowly lowered the sword.
Dam So-hye stepped forward. Her coat was torn, the external armor did not fit her body, and blood beaded on her fingertips. Even so, the moment she raised her head she did not look like someone who had been rescued.
Dam So-hye drew back her bloodied hands and clasped them before her chest. The fingertips trembled too roughly, the form too disordered, for it to be called a proper fist salute. Still the courtesy was clear.
"Thank you for your help."
Her voice was small but did not waver.
Dam So-hye steadied her ragged breath. Fatigue and pain remained on her face, but her gaze did not retreat.
"Thanks to you we were able to protect those people. If you had been even a little later, the damage would have grown."
Baek Mu-gyeong's lips stiffened.
It was a face of wounded pride. But she could not interject into those words.
Ezekiel looked at her briefly.
"No need for thanks."
His gaze stayed not on the refugees but on Dam So-hye.
"Yes. Mudang Corporation's Director of External Strategy."
Baek Mu-gyeong's eyebrows twitched.
"Come with me. There are things to confirm."
Baek Mu-gyeong's sword tip tried to rise again.
"You're crossing the line."
Ezekiel did not look at her.
"Unauthorized vehicle. Entry into sealed roadway. Engagement with a Knight-class entity."
Red eyes fixed on Dam So-hye.
"Even if you are Mudang's successor, it is not something you can pass without explanation."
Dam So-hye's mouth corners stiffened very faintly.
She knew the Holy Light Council would not simply let this pass. Whether investigation or detention, in the end only the name placed over it would differ.
"Is it protection?"
Ezekiel did not deny it.
"If you call it that, it will be less noisy for both of us."
"Convenient words."
Ezekiel did not answer.
Then Karin spoke lowly while looking at the refugees' wrists.
"Exiles······."
Rin's gaze moved that way.
Karin was looking at the faint remaining brands.
"Outer-district disposal brands. The kind they stamp on the ones they cast out under the excuse of zone capacity overrun. On paper they'll attach nice names—criminal, debtor, whatever sounds proper."
Karin's mouth corner twisted down crookedly.
"There'll be ones who really committed crimes. Ones who got framed too. And people who just got thrown into the trash bag together."
The woman holding a child bowed her head.
Dam So-hye briefly closed her eyes, then opened them.
"I have no intention of packaging them all as virtuous. If they have debts they should repay them; if they have sins they should receive punishment."
Her gaze lingered on the people crouched between the vehicles.
"But after death, nothing can be asked. Not sin. Not responsibility."
Dam So-hye's eyes turned to Ezekiel again.
"Leaving them outside to die is not punishment. It is the easiest method chosen by those who do not want to take responsibility."
Rin looked at Dam So-hye.
Vehicles still bearing subsidiary transport company marks, external armor that did not fit the body, only Baek Mu-gyeong as the single warrior, a procession hard to see as having received main-house permission. And even the direction where the circumstances of Jema-dae leader Yeon Mu-jin's solo intervention remained.
Rin did not ask further.
Why Dam So-hye had come this far was already sufficiently clear.
Ezekiel spoke.
"Hand them over to the rear vehicles."
His gaze did not linger long on the refugees.
Dam So-hye's eyes stiffened for a very brief moment.
Then Rin spoke first.
"I'll take care of it."
Dam So-hye's gaze turned to Rin.
Rin continued calmly.
"I won't hand them straight over to the zone association. We'll send them under investigation-team management."
Karin snorted a laugh.
"Even that much is luxury around here."
Dam So-hye looked at the refugees for a moment.
The woman holding a child. Torn protective suit. The faint brand on the wrist.
She said lowly,
"Please."
Rin nodded shortly.
Baek Mu-gyeong stepped up beside Dam So-hye.
"Director."
Dam So-hye turned her head.
"Send the people first."
"And you, Director—"
Baek Mu-gyeong stopped speaking.
She swallowed her breath as if gritting her teeth, then corrected herself lowly.
"Director······ no. So-hye."
Rin did not miss that short gap. In the place where the title was stripped away, the private warmth between the two briefly showed.
"I can't send you alone."
Dam So-hye looked at Baek Mu-gyeong.
After a short silence she said,
"Alright."
Baek Mu-gyeong's eyes wavered.
"Come with me."
Only then did Baek Mu-gyeong exhale.
Ezekiel did not wait. He was already turning toward the lead vehicle.
"Get in."
One word.
Rin quietly added,
"It would be better to come to the lead vehicle. The rear will get chaotic with refugee recovery."
Dam So-hye looked at Rin for a moment.
"Alright."
Baek Mu-gyeong stood wordlessly at Dam So-hye's side.
The refugees began being moved toward the rear vehicles, and Dam So-hye and Baek Mu-gyeong headed for the lead vehicle.
It was then.
A low rumble pushed in from the barrier side.
Boom.
In the sky far toward the outer barrier, black smoke was rising.
The rumble reached the structures here as well.
At first I thought it was the after-echo of a distant explosion. But it wasn't. The vibration was pushing from the barrier side all the way here. It spread, shaking the waste compression plant's old steel frames and illegally expanded floors, down to the observation deck below in turn.
I was sliding toward the edge of the deck with my body lowered.
Black Beak and Noise were already moving toward the slope path going down. Outside could no longer be dismissed with the word chaotic.
The city was crying.
Then AI tapped inside my head.
Snake. This ain't a joke. You gotta bounce right now.
I know.
The deck underfoot trembled shortly, and that tremor returned a beat later from deeper down.
This ain't the time to play dumb, Snake. The ones that came over the wall—their trajectories are way too big. Some of them aren't just falling. They're pushing into the inner structures.
What the hell.
Literally. Means they're flying in.
AI's voice rarely dropped that low.
And one more thing—too fucking close!!
Black Beak said without looking back,
"Run."
Noise spat a curse.
"Shit, what now—"
The words never finished.
The darkness above shook as a whole and a shadow crashed down.
BOOOOM!
The next moment an unidentified black mass slammed straight into the upper structure of the waste compression plant.
Metal plates twisted; old reinforcement bars burst out all at once. There was no time to distinguish living flesh from debris. Black flesh and carapace fragments embedded between the steel frames, and the entire deck twisted as it sank.
The slope path leading down roared.
Screeeech.
Iron plates lifted; bolts flew; reinforcement bars snapped in sequence.
My body tilted downward. There was no chance to grab on.
The floor vanished. Vision flipped. Black Beak's shout, Noise's curses, the sound of metal tearing—all grew distant at once.
Structure collapse. Lower support deficiency. Bottom line: you're falling!!