Resolve
In the aftermath of the battle with Hemoregia, the Association’s directive was brief and absolute.
Under no circumstances was the monster Hemoregia to be provoked or antagonized. If it appeared, sortie only when there was no other choice. And if combat became unavoidable, lure it as far as possible into sparsely populated areas.
That was the conclusion drawn from the scant combat data on Hemoregia, from the patterns of behavior it had shown in the short time it had been active, and from conferences among experts and high command.
It was not, in truth, an entirely incomprehensible policy. Up until the moment it unleashed that devastating slash, Hemoregia had never inflicted harm on a scale worthy of its classification as a special-grade monster.
Left alone, its track record amounted to little more than a mild inconvenience. The first time it appeared at a disaster site, it did not join in the destruction—it even stopped other monsters from attacking civilians, a thoroughly bizarre display. Yes, it had committed the serious provocation of raiding a military base, but even then it had not harmed the personnel stationed there.
Choosing ruined Incheon as its primary stage of activity only reinforced the impression: for all its power and rank, the things it actually did were trivial. It was not a great threat.
But now everyone knew what happened when you pushed it. So the order to respond with the bare minimum and otherwise leave Hemoregia alone sounded, on paper, perfectly reasonable. Leave it alone and it would simply go on causing the same petty incidents as always.
I knew that. I knew perfectly well that if we simply did not touch it, Hemoregia was no real threat at all.
…But knowing it and accepting it in my heart were two different things. Countless people had been hurt. More than two hundred had lost their lives. Society had been thrown into such chaos that for days it could barely function, and the whole time people had trembled, terrified of when that thing might appear again.
To simply bow our heads and shake because we were afraid of a villain who had caused an unforgivable catastrophe… I could not bring myself to accept that.
A hero was supposed to defeat that kind of villain and give people peace of mind.
…My eyes fell on the picture book still sitting on the shelf, the one I had read until sunset. A childish story about a hero who defeated a Demon King—embarrassing even to look at the cover of now. Lying in bed, I switched on Pegasus.
“Hey, Pegasus. If it had been Unni… do you think she could have handled something like this with style and given everyone their smiles back?”
“Comparing yourself to Shining White is inappropriate. She was the best—beyond comparison with anyone. And the White of right now is already doing everything she can, isn’t she? So please don’t take it so hard. Are you depressed because you went looking online?”
A sharp observation, but that wasn’t quite it. Not that the internet had no influence at all—that would have been a lie.
A quick search was all it took to find people and articles pinning the blame on me. Even after it came out that everyone had agreed, you could still find the occasional claim that none of this would have happened if I had never spoken up in the first place.
If someone asked whether seeing that left me completely unmoved, the answer was absolutely not. How could any human look at that and feel nothing?
But Unni had taught me that people are foolish, and that they often mistake who they ought to resent. So I simply chose to believe those people had aimed their hatred at the wrong target. Not everyone can be rational. There are emotional people out there—people like me.
“Hey, Pegasus. If I went after Hemoregia alone… they’d try to stop me from above, wouldn’t they? Hard.”
“Not from above. I’d be the first one holding you back—even if it meant broadcasting every regulation you’ve broken and every illegal act White has committed to the entire world.”
“You don’t have to put it that harshly…”
“That’s the only way White ever listens.”
That was… true enough. I hadn’t been entirely serious when I asked, but it still stung a little. Even Pegasus, who always took my side, had clearly decided I stood no chance against Hemoregia.
…Not that I actually believed I could win, either.
“Fine… for now, I’ll do what the Association says.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day, White. The Director will be delighted as well—”
“But investigating is fine, right? That shadow-mass monster we ran into. It seemed like that thing and Hemoregia… didn’t get along very well.”
“White. Please tell me you are not about to suggest allying with a monster.”
I flinched a little, but it was only an AI—what was it going to do about it? I ignored the jab and made my demands.
“Comb the entire web. Tell me everything you find. And put a call through to my benefactor!”
Pegasus stayed silent for a long moment, then flashed a facepalm emoticon on the screen and warned me that if I got caught, simply stripping wouldn’t be the end of the punishment.
“I know what I’m doing. So stop with the lectures.”
“White, you really are—”
I felt bad for Pegasus, but I didn’t have time to sit through a litany of complaints. I called my benefactor at once.
I had suspended all activity as Hemoregia and spent a leisurely week meeting Su-hyeok every day.
There was no grand purpose to it. I just wanted to get a feel for how things were settling. What I had done had turned both the real world and the internet completely upside down, and I needed time for the dust to settle a little.
I liked a good mess—but a mess I hadn’t designed myself was another matter entirely. So I needed the chaos to die down first.
As for meeting Su-hyeok… well. That was, you know. Also so I could check whether White happened to contact him.
Which was why I had come looking for him again today, starting from midday.
“Good evening~ Or is it good afternoon?”
“Is every vampire’s sense of time like that?”
“Not all of us. The elders treat night as day! I’m young, and my blood’s thin, so it kind of goes back and forth.”
“Hmm. I see.”
He seemed used to my sudden visits by now—he was already waiting. I greeted him cheerfully and started unloading a mountain of convenience-store food from a plastic bag.
“These ones are for snacking on while we peel dried pollack, and these—”
“Hold on, Min-a. I still haven’t finished the food you brought last time. Aren’t you buying too much?”
Whether the sheer volume made him uncomfortable or he simply didn’t like being given so many things, Su-hyeok tried to refuse, insisting he already had plenty.
I had no intention of neatly packing it all back up just because he said no. Hauling it home would be a pain, and watching him keep eating those sad excuses for meals was starting to bother me.
“Hmm? I’ve got plenty of money, you know?”
“That’s not what I—well, that is part of it, but…”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. All vampires are loaded! Live that long and still be broke? That would be a problem of a whole different kind. Take it, take it! It’s not like the dark in that place of yours is cramped.”
I kept shoving food at the flustered Su-hyeok until he had no choice but to accept everything I handed him, one item after another.
I popped the lid off a milk bottle with a fingernail and sipped banana milk while asking if he remembered where our conversation had left off last time.
“…I think it was about the magical girls.”
Magical girls? Magical girls… hmm. Right. That was it.
“Ex. Act. Ly! It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? How can people insult the ones protecting them? Complete idiots, right?!”
I picked the conversation back up where it had broken off and let the outrage pour out.
The subject was those ungrateful bastards. You know the type. Ordinary civilians who get protected one-sidedly, then turn around and poison public opinion against their own guardians or spit insults at them. Powerless sand grains who would be swept away in an instant without the people watching over them—what on earth possessed them to spew that kind of garbage?
Ah, of course I was the exception. I was strong. And I wasn’t exactly on the side being protected, either.
While I tore into the stupid civilians with gusto, I snagged the last snack from the bag Su-hyeok had been eating from. He started to reach for it, then stopped. Hah. Should’ve eaten faster, then.
The fact that he didn’t say anything told me he knew perfectly well who had bought it.
“Humans are irrational beings… so, well, they make mistakes. Still, I think hatred aimed at the wrong target is wrong.”
“You think so too?! I knew it—soldiers and magical girls are both people who protect civilians, right? You’ve got something in common after all!”
…By the way, Shining White was being far too quiet.
I had expected the Shining White inside me to say something the moment this topic came up, but there was no reaction at all, which felt suspicious. Not a single word for an entire week—was that even possible?
Unlike with the vampire elder, I had never once told her to shut up. Until now I had been reluctant to address her directly, hoping to coax her out indirectly like this. Since she kept her mouth closed, I was going to have to speak to her myself.
That was what I was thinking when—
“…Min-a, may I step out for a moment? An urgent call.”
Su-hyeok asked if he could take a phone call outside. He didn’t say who it was from…
But other than me, there was only one person who would call Su-hyeok. I saw him off with a smiling glance and told him to have a good talk.
Yes. This was how you pulled the threads together.