It's Not Easy... 3
Truthfully, Officer Dan Ahyeon's proposal had its own perfectly reasonable grounds.
First of all, the government needed concrete, verifiable proof that I—no ordinary succubus but an Empress—was being properly managed, with no signs of going berserk.
Setting aside my terrible relationship with the government, the Hunter Association, and the so-called powers that be, any sane ruler or politician would have done the same. It was simply the correct course of action.
There had been a case in France, after all, involving an anomalous returnee bearing the power of Famine, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The French government treated the poor man like garbage, and in return, an entire region of northern France was wiped off the map.
That incident drilled a certain understanding into the modern consciousness: S-Rank hunters and so-called Special Management Returnees were, for all intents and purposes, walking human nukes. If controlled, such beings could devote themselves to the national interest. They could protect people. One could even argue they were an asymmetric force far more formidable than any nuclear warhead.
Of course a nation would want to manage a being like that with the utmost care.
The ideal scenario was this: cooperate willingly with the government, keep my danger level as low as possible, and cultivate an image that wouldn't provoke public outrage.
'But my relationship with the South Korean government started off bad and then burrowed straight through rock bottom into the bedrock core of the earth itself.'
Looking back on it now, it was past unpleasant and almost funny.
Formalin. No, wait—did they actually dump undiluted formaldehyde on me? That stuff tastes genuinely revolting. The smell is even worse.
In any case, if the Korean government and I were ever on good terms, that in itself would have been stranger than anything. So a person in their right mind would have taken a different approach. Something like: 'We sincerely apologize. This was our fault. It won't happen again. Just say the word if you need anything.'
But our wise and illustrious powers that be….
—Isn't a returnee still a citizen of the Republic of Korea? If you're a citizen, you should fulfill your duties and obligations. Why are you making demands of us?
—Ah, that was the previous administration's doing, so it has nothing to do with the current government. Therefore you cannot be designated a compensation victim for the Gate incident. Future compensation payments would be unlawful, so we have no obligation to pay you anything.
That was their fundamental stance.
Back then, I truly did come within a hair's breadth of seeing red. If Officer Dan hadn't appeared at exactly the right moment and defused everything, I genuinely don't know how things would have turned out.
Am I a pushover, you ask? Why should I put up with that kind of treatment, you say? Why didn't I just kill them all, you ask?
Of course I was furious. I'm a person too.
"…Hoo. Still, I couldn't exactly go around killing innocent people along with them."
Even a government this incompetent. Even the powers that be who do nothing but deserve curses.
At the end of the day, they were members of the executive branch—bureaucrats processing the endless machinery of state. Somewhere, low-ranking civil servants were still handling citizens' complaints out of nothing but a sense of duty. For every corrupt, old-boys'-network lawyer, there was another offering free legal defense out of pure goodwill. At the bottom of this country there were still so many people left vulnerable by the Gate crisis and the gaps in the welfare system. Public order had to be maintained. Welfare, policy, diplomacy, trade—there were people trying to steer the nation through this utter disaster of a world, somehow or other. And now, on top of gates, monsters, abominations, dungeons, and rifts, awakened criminals and so-called villains ran rampant. For ordinary people, this was an exhausting, brutal era to survive in.
But if I killed the president and everyone else just because I was angry… what then? What happens if I rampage so badly the state ceases to function?
Making examples of the National Assembly members and a few illustrious dignitaries who crossed the line—turning them into living demonstrations of consequences—would be trivially easy for me. But if the government, if the entire framework of the state, collapsed here, the first to suffer wouldn't be the rich or the privileged. It would be the innocent and the weak.
No matter how furious those old fossils made me. One drop of ink falls into a pond—should I evaporate the entire pond over it? How could I ever disregard the overwhelming majority of ordinary, decent people?
Their good dreams would, in the end, become my food—my tribute, my vitality. All I could do was vow to be patient and hold onto my humanity.
'I mean, whatever you say about it… at the end of the day, I'm a Succubus Empress who feeds on human love and attention.'
The Succubus Empress was a truly strange and peculiar kind of being.
She never gives love to another, yet she kindles love across all nations and all peoples—and demands that love. As for me, I give love to no one. I am a creature that does not love.
'In a way, that too is a curse. An existence that lives within love and beauty, yet can never give its own love to anyone.'
Anyway, I could understand a great deal about why Officer Dan had suggested actor, celebrity, or singer as a cover.
For one thing, people would be seeing me through a screen, which would blunt the indiscriminate mass charm considerably.
'Besides, these days mental protective wards come standard on every TV and computer screen, don't they?'
Ever since some terrorist sprayed a wide-area mental pollution meme across the internet, protective wards against memetic hazards had become the baseline specification for all screens.
Of course, nothing was going to block my charm at a hundred percent. But since I had no intention of deliberately punching through the wards to enchant anyone, containing the charm I passively radiated would be more than enough.
'The problem is… if I end up on TV, the range of my absorption becomes far too broad.'
I'd once compared the life-force of ordinary people to fried chicken for a succubus.
Life-force was delicious. It filled you up with nutrients and calories. Best of all, a succubus never gains weight no matter how much she eats, so you could gorge yourself to your heart's content.
'But even the finest thing in excess is a poison, as they say….'
Have you ever eaten fried chicken 365 days a year, every single day? You'd get sick of it. You'd gag on it. It would turn greasy and heavy, and you'd end up with a stomachache and indigestion.
Me, debuting on television as a singer or an actress? Then the floodgates would open. Boundless, indiscriminate popularity, attention, affection, curiosity, love, awe—even the jealousy and hatred of anti-fans—every fierce emotion imaginable, pouring toward me twenty-four hours a day, without limit or pause.
For an ordinary succubus, no problem. Once intake exceeded capacity, the excess would simply overflow. If it overflows, you just… don't drink it. Done.
But my vessel was fundamentally different from a common succubus, down to its very nature. I would be force-fed that grease and bloat nonstop—chicken poured straight into my stomach, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.
And above all, vitality and life-force were… a kind of pleasure to me.
Addicted to pleasure, you say? A Succubus Empress? Me—the one whose beauty induces love in others, whose very existence siphons the pleasure of others—enslaved to pleasure myself? A situation where the guest lords it over the host? I decline.
"Mmm, no… I can't live like that…."
Just hypothetically, mind you. Say I was on a stage. Say I felt that giddy, intoxicating rush from the torrent of love the crowd sent pouring into me. What would become of me then?
Ugh, it's horrible even to imagine.
I must be beautiful. Not cheap, not vulgar, not lewd—or if lewd, then lewd in a way that is beautiful and elegant.
Otherwise it violates my aesthetic. Back when I was human, aesthetics or no aesthetics, I just lived. But now that I'm the Succubus Empress, my aesthetic and my beauty matter to me as much as my life does.
"Be quiet. The matter's already settled, isn't it?"
Well. It seemed this violin—the 187 boys and girls sealed inside it—had been absolutely dying to appear on TV.
From the moment Officer Dan proposed actor, singer, and the like, the children's cheers had been reverberating through my skull. And from the moment I refused, a chorus of disappointment, fury, and full-blown tantrums had followed, and was still going strong.
"…So that's why even earplugs don't block out the Ego Violin."
"That's enough. If you keep it up, I'll get angry."
"…"
Apparently the children had thoroughly enjoyed that performance I gave in the middle of the city back on the day the fog rolled in. Ever since then, the begging for more performances hadn't stopped—as if, reborn in the form of a violin, they now wanted nothing more than to be played as one. The children's whining and cheering were truly terrifying.
Good grief. Babysitting children I never even asked to have. Now, in day-to-day life, a violin doesn't really need any intensive maintenance—but whenever one of these tantrum-laced, whining fits of "play us" burrowed into my skull like this, it was monumentally annoying.
Not that I could just throw the thing away.
Even if I did, it would probably find its way back to my side before I knew it….
"Haah. Fine. I'll play for people every now and then. Happy?"
In the end, I let out a long, deep sigh and picked up the violin.
It wasn't as if this instrument brought me nothing good, after all.
Me, performing a bewitching melody. Utterly beautiful and elegant, as befits me.