Nice to Meet You, Everyone. Ah, Another Swarm Has Appeared
“What the hell are you babbling about, barging in at this hour of the night?”
The security chief wanted to throw her out on the spot, but he couldn’t. The problem was that woman. She might look insane, but she was a bounty hunter who never crossed the line. And then there was the idiot rookie noble. Seeing Klaus—the man who usually strutted around like he owned the place—standing there in guilty silence, the chief didn’t even need to ask who had caused the mess.
“......”
Still, he couldn’t exactly ignore it. Fighting off a pounding migraine, the chief spoke.
“......Stop talking nonsense and explain yourself properly.”
Every trace of life was visibly draining from the chief’s voice in real time.
“Tsk.” Thirin clicked her tongue.
In just a few seconds he looked like he had aged thirty years. Her original plan had been to flip the desk at least once. But watching the chief suddenly shrivel up like that made something in the corner of Thirin’s heart feel distinctly uncomfortable.
This was the immediate execution of the “Respect Your Elders” protocol—DNA-level brainwashing, Winter Soldier-grade hypnotic indoctrination from the Peninsula. The result of extremely Confucian K-brainwashing.
The reason for Thirin’s discomfort was absolutely, positively not because it reminded her of that senile old fart she had met before.
Thirin let out a deep sigh and shot a glare at the stalker standing beside her.
“Chief.”
She spoke with as much politeness as she could muster. The chief clearly didn’t see it that way.
“This uniform-fetishist patient has been stalking me. It’s the sort of thing that should make the Imperial Army’s dignity and honor shoot straight into the sky. So I came here to hear your official opinion, Chief.”
The chief was utterly floored. Soldiers stealing hair? Fine, that happened. Soldiers did pathetic things all the time. But an officer who was supposed to set an example was tailing a woman around? The security force’s discipline was a complete joke.
The chief barely managed to open his mouth and interrogate Klaus.
“Klaus. Explain. What exactly is going on here?”
“Chief, I…”
Klaus hesitated. His eyes wavered. Could he really explain everything? The way the priest’s incomprehensible words had paralyzed his body, the ambush by those thugs that followed, and then owing his life once again to this bounty hunter. His pride wouldn’t let him say it all.
So he decided to speak only about what he had originally intended—the suspicion that had caused this entire situation. Klaus had his own logic. The strange consistency in the captured criminals’ statements. His independent investigation. The irregular contact with the Pantheon. Only one possibility remained.
The theory that this woman called Thirin was secretly colluding with certain priests of the Pantheon and running wild under their protection.
“......I personally confirmed the scene—”
“Hah, so that’s what this was about?” Thirin cut Klaus off with a sneer.
“Chief.”
Thirin’s eyes were fixed on the security chief, not on Klaus. Her attitude suggested the rookie beside her wasn’t even worth glancing at anymore. The chief merely twitched an eyebrow in response.
“That witch, witch, witch… Are you planning to run that witch verification every single time a newcomer shows up?”
“......What are you talking about?”
“You already locked me up for days and checked before, didn’t you? Was that still not enough?”
“......”
A vivid memory flashed through Thirin’s mind. After arriving in this city and living comfortably as a bounty hunter for a while, the sudden few days she had been detained under the pretext of being a “person of interest.”
The polite yet clearly suspicious attitude that never let her leave the station. At first she had thought they were just doing something bizarre. Her background was flawless. A passage certificate guaranteed by an Imperial officer carried that kind of weight. She had never had trouble in any city or village before. On top of that, her bounty hunter license came from an Empire-approved guild. Her identity was doubly verified.
So why the sudden fuss the moment she set foot in Lutetia?
Once she thought about it that way, the questions they asked her as a “person of interest” became distinctly odd. How exactly had she caught the criminals? How had she done it without taking any damage? Persistent questions about her abilities. And then, crucially, the day she happened to encounter the priests of the Pantheon.
That was when Thirin had realized it.
‘Ah. So this is that witch hunt thing? They’re trying to verify whether I’m a witch or not?’
Your understanding of another person has increased!
Deepen your comprehension to obtain Enlightenment (Simdeuk)!
Thirin was furious, but she held it in. What these people were doing was more refined than she had expected. They had brought in a priest, asked polite questions, and even fed her. In the movies and novels from her homeland, the verification method had usually been “throw them in the fire—if they burn, they’re human; if they don’t, they’re a witch.”
Of course, if Thirin had gone through something like that, she would have been filled with enough killing intent to retaliate by a factor of twenty. She would have kindly demonstrated exactly what an immortal-mode disaster looked like.
Still, she could endure the annoyance once. The city was large, and she had planned to stay here for a while. She didn’t want to needlessly antagonize the security force.
But…
“......So you knew.”
“If someone gets locked up for no reason, only an idiot wouldn’t notice. No matter how lacking in common sense I am, even I can figure that much out.”
“......”
“Anyway, whatever. I wasn’t planning to make an issue of it. However…”
Thirin jerked her chin toward Klaus.
“Why has another stalker been glued to me?”
“......”
The chief closed his eyes. He wanted to escape reality. Thirin, however, refused to let him.
“Chief. You already owe me once for doing unnecessary things to me last time. I was going to let it slide, but this stalker you failed to control caused yet another accident today.”
“......”
“Are you planning to keep this up? Are you going to harass me every time a new recruit arrives?”
The chief spoke as though sighing.
“......What do you want?”
Thirin pointed her chin at Klaus, who was still keeping his head bowed.
“The custody of this pervert stalker. I have a use for him.”
The chief asked with genuine confusion.
“What could you possibly need this guy for?”
Thirin smiled coldly.
“This uniform-fetish patient seems to have way too much free time if he’s leisurely following me around. I think we should make that wicked talent serve humanity.”
“......”
“His stalking ability is outstanding, so he must be an expert at finding people, right? Even if it’s a horrible, inhumane talent, putting it to proper use and making it contribute to society—isn’t that exactly what a progressive and efficient policy looks like?”
Thirin nodded, seemingly impressed with herself.
“A blade is only as good as the one who wields it. Same with this woman’s-sock enthusiast. I really am so considerate.”
The chief frowned.
“......That won’t do. No matter what, he is an Imperial Army officer. You are not in a position to arbitrarily order him around. This is……”
“A question of authority?”
“It is also a question of dignity. I trust you understand what I mean.”
Thirin snorted.
“Well, if dignity is the issue, the Imperial Army should expel him. Dishonorably discharge the guy. He was never qualified in the first place.”
“If this is about the surveillance on you, then—”
“That’s not what I’m saying. He nearly got himself stabbed by some pathetic back-alley thugs. I saved him. This women’s-underwear aficionado now owes me a personal debt on top of everything else.”
The chief’s eyes turned icy.
“What are you saying? He may be pathetic, but he is not the kind of man who would lose to common street trash.”
“But he did, didn’t he? Hey, Mr. Stalker. Go on, make your excuses.”
Thirin jerked her chin toward the sidelined Klaus.
“Try begging with those dainty cherry-like lips of yours, Mr. Women’s-Fingernail-Specialist Chef.”
The chief glared at Klaus. An Imperial officer, defeated by mere gangsters? How could such an absurd thing happen?
Klaus had no answer. Silence. Which meant the woman’s words were true. This could not be overlooked.
The chief spoke coldly.
“Klaus. What happened?”
Klaus squeezed out his voice.
“...The priest who was with that woman said something incomprehensible to me. After that, I lost control of my body.”
Thirin added with a mocking snort.
“‘Move,’ she said, and he really moved. And that wasn’t enough—he even knelt.”
“......Enough. That’s all.”
The chief closed his eyes completely.
This rookie had no idea. This woman didn’t seem to understand the meaning either. Who could force a highly trained Imperial officer to his knees with a single word? Who could render a human body completely immobile?
Divine Speech. The voice of a god. The representative of the Pantheon had truly been channeling one of the gods in that moment.
No—more accurately, one of the gods had descended. To meet this woman.
This woman was…
The chief closed his eyes and rubbed his face with dry hands. Fatigue crashed over him like a wave.
Watching the chief suddenly age as if he had lived an entire century in an instant, Thirin thought to herself.
‘Does this neighborhood have some kind of rapid-aging disease? Well, it has no foundations, so I guess that tracks.’
“......”
For some unknown reason, Thirin suddenly felt depressed.
‘...I absolutely must make him a solid-gold tombstone.’
The one who broke the silence was the security chief.
“......I understand your request. There are many things to consider, so please come back another time.”
“Hmph.”
Thirin let out a satisfied snort and turned away without the slightest hesitation.
Once Thirin had left, the chief sank deep into the back of his chair.
“......”
Two days passed.
Thirin, who had declared she would take custody of Klaus, never showed up. The security station remained peaceful. That peace made Klaus uneasy. It was the calm before the storm. The eye of the typhoon. Had that woman forgotten about him? He simultaneously hoped she had and felt that she absolutely must not.
On the third day, the long-awaited disaster returned.
Thirin spoke privately with the security chief for a long while, then emerged with a satisfied expression. Shortly afterward, the chief—face now rigidly stiff—called for Klaus.
“That woman says she’s going to search for a missing child and intends to use you for it.”
“Understood.”
“Follow her. Do whatever she tells you to do.”
It was an order. Klaus could not refuse.
“......Understood.”
What exactly was that woman planning to make him do? Klaus fell into thought as he left the station.
What was the true nature of that woman? An arrogant being who wielded the crude weapon of beauty and judged the world solely according to her capricious emotions. Klaus had grown sick of seeing that type at noble social gatherings.
But Thirin was different. She seemed impulsive yet possessed a cold rationality. She could rage like fire one moment and turn ice-cold the next. Her goals appeared extremely personal, yet somehow not. She looked ready to slaughter every serious criminal, yet spared them for incomprehensible reasons.
He could not understand her. She was an existence outside Klaus’s frame of reference. Therefore she was unpleasant.
And rising alongside that unpleasantness was another, very subtle emotion.
What on earth was it?
Lost in thought, Klaus suddenly had something tossed at his feet. It was a cheap robe that covered the entire body.
“Put this on.”
Once he had draped the rag-like garment over his uniform, Thirin pulled the hood deep over his head so no one could recognize him. She did the same to herself. Only their eyes were visible.
The two of them, bodies concealed, began walking without a word. Klaus silently followed behind Thirin. There were many things he wanted to ask, but speaking first felt like it would wound his pride.
Once again, Thirin was regressing the Imperial Army’s mental age to that of a middle-schooler. She was truly the enemy of evolution.
The place Thirin led him to was a gray zone—the boundary between light and shadow. It was where adventurers traded acquisitions without going through the guild, where information of dubious origin flowed freely. A place where thugs came and went, growing mold and scraping it away.
Thirin entered the basement of a shabby building with familiar ease. Thick cigarette smoke, the stench of alcohol, and the mingled curses and laughter of people filled the space.
It was a gambling den.
“You just stand there quietly, Mr. Stalker. I know your body is itching to stalk something, but people need to learn patience.”
“.........”
“This isn’t a joke. Stay still. Don’t forget what your chief told you.”
Thirin kept Klaus behind her and approached the noisiest table. The thugs running the game gave the arriving woman interested glances, but after seeing Klaus standing behind her they lowered their eyes and focused on the table.
Thirin tossed out a few words and inserted herself into the game. And then…
“......”
Klaus was dumbfounded. This woman… was gambling? After all that fuss, the only thing she brought him here to do was gamble? Heat slowly began to rise in Klaus’s chest. Had she caused all that commotion just to use him as a gambling escort?
“......”
But something was off. This woman was losing. And not just one or two rounds. Thirin kept losing money. The relaxed attitude she had shown earlier had completely vanished. Her hand slamming the table clearly carried real rage, and even through the mask he could hear her breathing growing rough.
That wasn’t an act. That was genuine. This insane woman was truly trembling with anger because she was losing money!
Thirin shot to her feet and shouted.
“You damn bastards! You cheated!”
The thugs running the table looked up at her with snickering laughs.
“Hey, missy. You can’t just throw a tantrum because you lost. Got any proof?”
“If you act cute for us, we might throw you a little tip. How about it?”
“You, you son of a, son of a……!”
Thirin’s fury left her unable to finish the sentence. She spun around. With eyes burning with rage, she strode straight toward Klaus.
“!”
Then she suddenly grabbed his robe and ripped it off.
The shining golden hair hidden in the darkness and the crisp Imperial Guard uniform were revealed in an instant.
“The newly appointed Decurion of the Imperial Guard Security Force, Sir Klaus, has something to say! You cheating bastards are all under arrest, yah!!!!”
“...!”
“!!!!!!”
“!!!!!!!!!”
Thirin began stirring up the hornet’s nest using Klaus’s name.