The Saintess Who Became a Barley Sack
Interrogation.
Eila knew the word. She had never conducted one herself, but she had spent plenty of time watching the specialists of that field — the inquisitors — at their work.
Was there some misunderstanding? She turned it over. Nothing came to mind that she had done wrong enough to be interrogated in a place like this.
“Um, the reason I need to be interrogated...”
Is there one?
She never got the rest of it out. Her mouth closed.
The man in front of her was pouring off a killing intent dreadful enough to stop the breath. Not the mindless malice monsters gave off — a clear, willed intent to kill. It had been so long since she had felt anything of the kind that, for an instant, Eila faltered.
“I’m sorry, but given my position, I can’t let you run your mouth. Answer only what you’re asked.”
“......”
If I fought him, could I win?
Eila ran the numbers. She had no idea what this was about, but one thing was certain: the man before her was exceedingly rude. She could allow for that. There might be circumstances she didn’t know, and she had no intention of flying into a rage on the spot over a discourtesy. But surely they could at least talk first. Being treated like a criminal out of nowhere was more than even Eila could swallow.
“Eila. Estimated date of birth, July 4, 2011. White hair to the shoulders, golden eyes... Correct? No answer required. Don’t open your mouth. Nod.”
“......”
Eila nodded, eyes smoldering. The anger was stacking, little by little. The man ignored the heat of her stare and went on in a purely clerical voice, laying out facts she knew all too well.
SUBJECT:Eila
FIXATION:Strong obsession with a sword carried at all times
NOTES:Partial absence of common knowledge
ASSESSMENT:Speech and vocabulary suggest a foreign national
COMBAT:Engaged a killer-whale-class Kraken
DESTINATION:Seoul
OBJECTIVE:A person
Report forwarded from the Fourteenth Naval Base, Busan.
“That’s what’s written in the report that came up from the Fourteenth Naval Base in Busan. Correct?”
Eila nodded. So that was why they had looked like they were hiding something back then. If they were going to make this much of a nuisance of it, they could have just asked her everything on the spot. Something about it refused to sit right. She felt as if she had been turned into a clown. One thing, at least, was certain: this was not pleasant.
“What’s your purpose? What did you come to this country to do?”
“...I told you from the very start. I’m looking for someone.”
She tried to keep her voice as level as she could, but a thread of irritation slipped in anyway. For five years, the only people she had met were comrades she was already as close to as she could possibly be, and gauging emotional distance with ordinary people was a little difficult. Twenty-two years of accumulated social sense let her keep the basic courtesies, but a five-year blank was simply too wide.
“And I’m meant to believe that?”
“I never asked you to believe me. I only told you the truth.”
“......”
The man stared quietly into Eila’s eyes. Then he slipped a hand into his pocket, drew out a small orb, and set it on the table.
“We’ll know that from here on.”
“This is...?”
It was no ordinary bead. Black, without a gleam of luster, reflecting nothing at all, it sat exactly where he had placed it and did not so much as tremble. A bead that would not roll. That alone was enough to know it was no ordinary bead.
“An S-Rank artifact. Truth’s Eye.”
He tapped the fixed orb with a fingertip. It glimmered, lifted into the air, and a black membrane unfurled from it in every direction.
S-Rank Artifact
Within this field, a lie cannot be spoken. Speak one anyway, and the agony will be enough to kill.
“From now on, you can’t tell a lie. Well. You can, if you like. It’ll only hurt enough to kill you.”
“......”
Eila blinked. Disbelief sat plain on her face.
“If you really can’t trust it, why not test it?”
“...Do you trust me so little that you have to use something like this?”
“Obviously.”
“How should I put this... You’re being terribly rude.”
“The rude one, I’d say, is you — barging around someone else’s country however you please.”
The man frowned. It was the first emotional response he had shown.
“The dungeon in Cheongju. You’re the one who closed it, aren’t you?”
“...Pardon?”
She couldn’t hide her confusion at the sudden question. A dungeon? She had closed every gate on the road from Busan to Seoul. Asked so pointedly — Cheongju — she had no proper answer to give.
Where even is Cheongju? And before that, if I closed a gate, shouldn’t they be thanking me?
She didn’t understand. Eila shut her mouth.
Taking the silence for a yes, the man went on.
“Looks like you cleared a number of other dungeons besides that one. What were you after? An artifact like that sword?”
“No — wait. I don’t understand, so may I ask just one thing?”
“The one asking questions is m—”
“Be quiet for a moment and listen. No — I closed the dungeons, so why are you talking as if that were a crime? Shouldn’t you be glad?”
“......So this is what they meant by an absence of common sense.”
He pressed a hand to his forehead.
“That—”
The instant he tried to speak—
BANG!!!
A crash like a door being smashed. No. The door really had been smashed. A chair came into view, and the person holding it. Someone familiar.
“Whew~ So this is where everyone was?”
“Miss Seon-ah?”
“...Kang Seon-ah.”
“The fuck you looking at, you piece of shit.”
As always, Kang Seon-ah let her mouth run exactly as filthy as it was. The chair she had brought was crumpled. From the look of things, she had smashed that door with it.
“Hup.”
With a creak, the chair unfolded. Kang Seon-ah set it down beside the one Eila was sitting in and dropped into it without ceremony. The man’s expression grew colder still.
“How did you get here?”
“How do you think? Is there anywhere else you’d go? Fuck... and all you did was station a crowd of people on the way in...”
The backlight had kept the details hidden before, but now it was plain: her clothes were soaked in blood.
“Why did you come here?”
“Why do you think.”
Kang Seon-ah stretched her legs out and planted them on the desk.
“I came to help our cute little rookie.”
“...You’ve lost your mind. Do you have any idea how many charges are hanging on that woman right now?”
“Nope. Don’t care. All I know is this — she’s our company’s precious asset— our employee.”
“And what does that matter.”
“An employee’s in trouble. A boss can’t just sit on her hands, can she?”
“Get out. Now. If you’re going to spout useless nonsense.”
“Nonsense? That’s harsh... Seongho, was our friendship only worth this much?”
“Shut up.”
A blade of words, cold-forged.
The blade flew at Kang Seon-ah. The man — Seongho — turned on her a gaze that burned with frost.
“......”
Suddenly left out of it, Eila stole glances toward the outside.
“You. Don’t you live with your shoulders cranked up way too high? Was that Association President title really so sweet?”
“...Is that something you get to say? You, who set everything down and ran off without a shred of responsibility?”
“Well, if you’re gonna take it there, I’ve got nothing to say~!”
The two of them had fallen into a world of their own, holding a conversation that belonged only to them. Eila carefully rose from her seat.
“To begin with, what could a kid who looks this harmless possibly have done wrong?”
Eila sat back down at once.
“You people are planning to slap all kinds of collars on a kid who doesn’t know how the world works and then use her, aren’t you?”
“Um, Miss Seon-ah.”
“Sit still. Leave this one to the boss.”
No, that’s not it. Just now — didn’t you say “you people too”? That means you were planning to do the exact same thing.
Eila looked at Kang Seon-ah with eyes gone cold. Feeling the stare, Kang Seon-ah winked at her once, then turned her head again.
“Know when to quit with filthy tricks like that. Keep it up and she won’t be able to sleep easy either.”
Kang Seon-ah drew a cigarette from her coat pocket, pinched it between her fingers, and lit it with a lighter.
“Even for that bastard’s face—”
The moment she brought the cigarette — its tip glowing red — up to her lips for a drag, the man flicked his fingers.
Tok.
The cigarette rolled across the tabletop.
“......Ha.”
Kang Seon-ah looked at her right hand. Caught between index and middle finger was something: a cigarette filter, with only the tiniest scrap of tobacco left on it. She dropped her gaze. What had been a cigarette was tumbling there, still lit.
“This is a no-smoking area.”
Seongho was cold.
“...That was my last one.”
And Kang Seon-ah—
“Not even my parents touch my smokes.”
—was hot.
Caught between the chill and the heat, Eila quietly rose from her seat.
“You looking to die?”
“Get the hell out. Now.”
Killing intent flooded the room.
“Oh, we’re fighting? You never beat me once while we were active. I’m S-Rank. You were A-Rank back then.”
“You’ve been retired for over three years, and you think you can win? If what I just cut hadn’t been a cigarette but your neck, could you have stopped it?”
“......”
“And as I am now, I’m S+ Rank.”
“Well, aren’t you something. So what — scared?”
“...Die.”
Seongho swung his arm again, only to be caught from behind by a man who had come in, and stopped.
“P-please, that’s enough, President!”
People poured in through the shattered door.
“...I believe I said not to interfere. How did you get in here?”
“Th-that’s — the girl over there...”
“Girl?”
The two of them turned their heads. At the end of their gaze was white. Eila was waving.
The man holding Seongho’s hand hurried on.
“She said a fight was about to break out... and asked us to come stop it...”
“P-puhahaha!! Ha, ahahahahaha!!!!”
Kang Seon-ah clutched her stomach, folded over the desk, and laughed.
“Ha, haha... Ah, wait, I can’t stop laughing...”
“...Shut up.”
“Still gonna fight? You confident you can do it without dragging your subordinates in? I’m not.”
“...Crazy bitch.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
The two of them sat back down where they had been. Seongho spoke.
“What are you doing. You sit too.”
“...You’re not planning to fight anymore, are you?”
“Pfft...”
“Shut up.... Yes. I’m not. Unless that woman picks a fight first.”
Eila nodded and sat again. The moment she did, Kang Seon-ah opened her mouth.
“I’ll take responsibility for this kid.”
“You will?”
“Yeah.”
Looks passed back and forth. Eila’s will, of course, was not taken into account.
“Um...”
“Sit still. I’ll handle all of it.”
“......”
Why did I even come here? If this is how it’s going to be, the two of them should just talk by themselves.... Ah. I was dragged here, wasn’t I. Forgot.
Eila sighed.
“Specifically. How do you intend to take that responsibility?”
“Well, you’ve probably got all kinds of reasons for acting like this, but the big one is you’re thinking she might be a spy from another country, right?”
“Close, but wrong. That cannot be controlled. Strength that cannot be controlled is no different from a natural disaster. The most recent record is from two days ago. She appeared on Jeju Island.”
“I get that her identity’s a blank. Still, how dangerous can a tiny little girl like this actually be...”
“On Jeju Island she helped hold off an A-Rank dungeon. In Busan she engaged a killer-whale-class Kraken. The periodic dungeon in Cheongju... A-Rank as well. She handled that one alone. On record, that’s all of it — but isn’t the threat sufficient with this alone?”
Kang Seon-ah heard him out, said nothing, and turned her head to look at Eila.
“Liar.”
“It’s the truth.”
“No — I thought she felt strong the first time I saw her, but... to that extent?”
“A-Rank at minimum. That is the conclusion our Association reached.”
“......Shit, then this is a problem.”
Kang Seon-ah muttered it under her breath.
“Hey. Let’s do it like this.”
“What.”
“Leave her to me. I’ll control her.”
“You think you can?”
“Fuck, I can kill a kraken too, you little shit!”
“...That wasn’t what I meant...”
“Ahem! Anyway, it’s no loss for you either. If the danger is that she can’t be controlled, the way you say, then isn’t this enough?”
“...What do you want.”
“Quick on the uptake. Just two things.”
“What.”
“An identity. And a hunter license.”
“The first, I understand. Is the second necessary? Apply tomorrow and it will be issued regardless.”
“That’s because there’s a condition.”
“A condition?”
“C-Rank.”
Seongho shifted his head, just slightly. Pointing at Eila, Kang Seon-ah spoke clearly, every syllable distinct, in a voice that didn’t waver.