Injected Rage (1)
"Alright then, I'll go show Yuri around~ You've already seen it once, so you'll be fine~"
"H-Han... Fighting!!"
Damn senior... Is it really okay to just ditch me in front of an Abnormality like this?
Well, it wasn't the first or second time Nova had pulled something like this, and I'd already done plenty of work, so I figured I might as well get started.
I operated the system in front of the Abnormality containment unit and opened the door.
Clunk.
The containment door slowly swung open.
Stepping inside, I was met with red lighting and the sharp smell of metal.
Looking toward the wall, I saw the mercenary leaning against it, sitting there.
The dark crimson coat, the red hood, the old long gun, and the axe with dried bloodstains frozen on its blade—exactly the same as yesterday.
She didn't even lift her head, just kept sharpening the axe blade on a whetstone.
Scrape.
Scrape.
"This work is Insight, huh...?"
A low, gravelly voice.
I checked my terminal once.
> Work Commenced — Insight
"Yeah, looks like it."
"Hey. Starting today, I'm your assigned employee. Name's Han."
The sound of the axe against the whetstone stopped for a moment.
From beneath the red hood, her gaze slowly lifted.
"You... the one I saw yesterday? So you lived."
"What... were you going easy on me?"
"Don't flatter yourself."
The mercenary let out a low laugh.
"Back then I was just tearing apart everything in front of me."
Scrape.
The axe blade dragged across the whetstone again.
"Funny, though. Someone who looks way weaker than the usual ones just walked in."
"Keep talking like that and you're gonna hurt my feelings."
"It's the truth."
Hah... I couldn't even argue. Right now I was only a Grade 3 employee at best. Without being able to handle Penitence, I'd be even weaker.
For a while, the only sound filling the containment unit was metal scraping against stone.
"So why do you lot always get so tense during Insight?"
"Huh?"
"You come in, try to talk, check my reaction, make sure I'm not about to snap—that's all it is, right?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Then don't tense up. Just sit still. I don't kill much in here. As long as you don't piss me off, that is."
The mercenary snorted and went back to sharpening her axe.
Scrape.
Scrape.
"Well... sitting still for thirty minutes is boring, and it's been a while since we got a newbie."
From beneath the red hood, her gaze slowly rose again.
"This time I'll specially tell you a story."
I carefully sat down on the chair placed across from her.
"...The big bad wolf."
The mercenary suddenly spoke.
"That bastard ruined everything."
"My family. My life. My dreams. Everything I had."
The hand sharpening the axe paused for the briefest moment.
"I used to be a flower shop owner's daughter, you know."
"Huh?"
This was a story I didn't know. It hadn't even appeared in the original Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary's story...
"That surprised look on your face."
She gave a short laugh.
"What, did you think I was just some crazy bitch who started beating and killing people from the beginning?"
"A little...?"
"I like the honesty."
Scrape.
The axe blade scraped the whetstone once more.
"I loved flowers. Their scent. Their colors. I hated the sound of them being snapped. And now... here I am, sharpening an axe."
She laughed low. A low, bitter laugh.
"One day... that wolf came. And it attacked my family. Killed them all. Left no one. Cruelly. If I hadn't gone to Grandma's house that day, I would've died too. At first I was terrified. My family was dead. I'd lost everything. So I kept running. Like something was chasing me. I did whatever it took. But after being chased long enough, at some point..."
Scrape.
"All that was left of me was the name 'mercenary.' In the end, nothing remained except killing. So I'm going to kill it. That damn wolf that took everything from me. Someday."
"I'll chase it down, rip it to shreds with my axe, punch holes through it with bullets, and in the end... hang what's left of its head over my bed..."
I listened to her quietly.
The big bad wolf and the Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary. A pitiful fate.
Abnormalities that endlessly chase and kill each other for the sake of mutual destruction—stories like that were familiar to me from my time at Lobotomy Corporation.
But the being in front of me was not the original. Not the Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary housed at headquarters.
She was an Aberration.
An existence injected with only the original's memories, emotions, obsession, and hatred—copied and implanted.
In other words... she had never actually had her life destroyed by the wolf.
The memory of being a flower shop owner's daughter, the terror of being chased, the endless cycle of killing and being killed—all of it was fabricated.
And yet...
The mercenary before me felt those emotions with complete sincerity.
As if they had truly been her life.
It was a little... no, considerably pitiful. A marionette dangling from the strings of rage, being puppeteered...
Still... I couldn't say that out loud.
If I did, that axe might end up buried in my skull.
"What's with that look?"
"It's nothing."
"I've seen a lot of people. You've got a face that can't lie."
Scrape.
"Even so."
The corner of her mouth slowly curled upward.
"Don't pity me. It makes me feel so filthy I want to kill you."
After that, silence fell for a while.
Only the sound of the axe being sharpened continued to echo.
A short time later, the notification signaling the end of the work arrived.
Ding.
> Insight Work Complete
"Already over, huh."
The mercenary muttered indifferently.
I slowly rose from my seat.
"Then I'll be going."
"Yeah. Since you're my assigned employee now, I'll keep seeing you anyway."
"Probably?"
"Hmm... If it's Instinct work next, bring some bread."
"Huh?"
"The last ones only brought tasteless crap."
At those words, a laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.
An Abnormality being picky about food? Still, her age itself was probably around mine, so maybe it made sense.
"Alright... see you next work."
Clunk.
The containment door closed.
A twist of fate, huh... Next work is Instinct...
I grabbed bread and soup from the hallway storage locker and headed back into the containment unit.
Inside there were plenty of strange things—weird meat chunks, orange liquid, and more.
That orange liquid, though... it couldn't be the sticky goo, right...?
When I went back in, the mercenary was still in the same spot, sharpening her axe.
"Oh... this one actually listens."
"You said you like bread, right? There wasn't anything particularly normal in there anyway."
"Any reason to hate it? It still lets me remember the good old days..."
She looked at the soup in my hand and laughed low.
"Give me that too."
I carefully handed over the bread and soup.
The mercenary accepted them surprisingly quietly.
She roughly tore open the packaging and took a big bite of the bread.
Then she dipped the bread into the soup and ate it again.
I couldn't be sure, but it seemed like the corner of her mouth had lifted just a little.
"That bread's cheap crap. Is it actually good?"
"When you're hungry, you eat."
She took a sip of the soup.
Steam slowly rose.
"Instinct work really is better."
"Why?"
"It's quiet."
Scrape—the axe blade in her other hand dragged across the whetstone again.
"No prying. No trying to understand me for no reason."
"..."
"I hate Attachment."
A low, heavy voice.
The hand gripping the axe paused for the briefest moment.
"The ones who come in for Attachment always make that face. Pitying eyes. Eyes that say they want to understand... You did it earlier too."
Her red eyes slowly turned toward me.
"Seeing that makes me want to kill them. It's disgusting. All I have left is revenge, you know?"
"And Repression is just a power struggle. If you're weak, you get torn apart and die."
I shut my mouth for no reason and just stared at the soup.
If I messed up the mood, my neck really might fly. So she'd been going easy on me earlier after all...
Ding.
> Instinct Work Complete
"It's over..."
The mercenary set down the empty soup cup.
"Take it."
I slowly stood up.
"Then I'll head out."
"Yeah."
Scrape—the axe blade slid across the whetstone once more.
"You're adapting fast, though."
"Huh?"
"When you first came in, even your breathing was stiff."
The corner of her mouth lifted just a fraction.
"Now you at least look like a person."
"Is that a compliment?"
"Who knows."
The mercenary snorted a laugh.
"I like that you're not dying. Live a long time. It's been a while since I had an employee I actually like."
Clunk.
The containment door closed, and as I stepped out, cold air rushed in.
And across the hallway—
Yuri was leaning against the wall with an almost vacant expression.
"Han... I really think I'm going to lose my mind..."
"Why."
"The Funeral Director keeps whispering right next to my ear and butterflies are flying around and she keeps calling out the names of everyone who's died so far—Kevin, Donghun, Java..."
"Whoa... are you okay?"
"Hah... Luckily, whenever I feel like I'm about to snap, Nova injects me with some weird drug from the side, so I'm fine..."
"You do not look fine at all..."
"Anyway, what about you, Han?"
I glanced back toward the mercenary's containment unit for a moment.
The faint metallic sound coming through the iron door—how hard was she sharpening that axe, seriously.
"She's just sharpening her axe the whole time."
"That's plenty scary too, you know? Just thinking about her coming to kill me with that thing... Ugh..."
She was right. So I had to be careful.
After that, the work continued without pause.
Insight.
Instinct.
Record organization.
Then work again.
In the middle, when Instinct came up several times in a row, the way the mercenary visibly flustered was a little cute.
Before I knew it, the next work period had arrived, and the Ordeal passed by quickly as well.
Nova would show up every now and then just to check our condition before disappearing again—damn her, she never even helped.
The mercenary still glanced my way while sharpening her axe whenever I came in to manage her. Later on, we ran out of things to say and just sat there staring at each other.
And through all of that, Yuri's expression kept growing more and more dead... Seriously... Hang in there, Yuri!!
Maybe it was for the best that I hadn't gotten stuck with a mental-type Abnormality...
And after being worked to the bone for several hours like that—
The end-of-day announcement rang out from the hallway speakers.
"It's over..."
A long sigh escaped me.
At the same time, the hallway door opened and Mir walked in.
"Oh~ Still not completely broken, rookies."
"Is that supposed to be a greeting?"
"Having all your limbs and still being alive is already something."
Mir snorted a laugh and pointed at the two of us with her finger.
"Alright... You know what the last schedule before clocking out is, right?"
"...Excuse me?"
"Training, of course?"
Yuri's expression immediately hardened.
"Right now...?"
"Follow me. You said you'd do it, didn't you? Did you lose your will overnight?"
And so we were half-dragged toward the Safety Team training room.
And under the excuse of our first sparring session, we got the absolute shit beaten out of us.
My whole body hurt. Fucking Team Leader Mir.