The Black and Dark Forest (2)
"Haa... this is such a pain~"
I looked up at the Apocalypse Bird.
My junior was probably chasing the Hunter by now.
The cabin held the mercenary—the core of this whole play—and every clue to resolving this situation was over there with him.
Which meant my job was already decided, wasn't it?
"Buying time."
"Buying even one more minute so our cute junior can finish this play~"
I let out a sigh.
"The thing I hate most~"
KRAAAAAAAK—!!
So loud.
Why did that thing always get in my way—back then, and now?
"You know what? I talk a big game, but the truth is... I'm still full of hate for you. I still can't forgive you for killing him. The only reason I'm doing this is because I'm following what he told me—and because I need to save the new bonds I've made."
"So~ hurry up and come at me~"
Countless eyes turned toward me.
I raised Abraxas.
"...Abraxas, you listening~?"
A snort of laughter slipped out.
"Smell."
"Hearing."
"Taste."
I thought for a moment.
What else would it take to satisfy this greedy little thing?
Then a good idea came to me.
"Ah~"
"That ought to do it."
I looked down at my left arm.
"The left arm too."
"I'll lend it to you for a week."
Abraxas trembled, just slightly.
Contract sealed, then.
The scent of the forest vanished.
The sensation on my tongue.
The sounds around me.
Touch.
And my left arm.
It had taken all of it, no doubt.
"Hahat~ expensive as always."
I reversed my grip on Abraxas.
"But I sent our junior off alone. Least I can do is this much~"
"Abraxas, deploy~"
At the same moment—
KRAAAAAAAK—!!
The Apocalypse Bird shrieked.
And a single light kindled in the darkness.
I raised Abraxas.
The small beak. Aim there first.
One by one. Slowly. Don't rush. Start with the weakest.
Ten shots ought to be enough, and then—
Wait~ now I'm curious~
Was the light that color the first time I saw it, too~?
I think it was yellow~
Or was it a little brighter~?
I narrowed my eyes.
Come to think of it, that light is kind of pretty. Floating alone in the middle of the forest like that—it almost makes you want to walk right up to—
KRAAAANG—!!
A yellow eyeball obliterated the tree I'd been standing on.
"...Huh~?"
The broken trunk toppled sideways.
Splinters grazed my face.
I flung myself clear a beat too late.
Landing, rolling, then back on my feet.
"...Hah. Almost got me again~ Same pathetic way as last time..."
The lamp before the Apocalypse Bird lit up once more.
Stronger than before.
I raised the rifle immediately.
The small beak.
So bright...
The small beak.
The small beak.
Pretty, and~
Start with the small beak—
Get a grip. Don't embarrass yourself in front of the junior.
I kept repeating it.
Don't think about anything else.
Don't look at that light. Only the small beak.
Even so, the corner of my vision kept snagging my attention.
As if someone were constantly tugging at my collar—my thoughts, my actions, twisting out of true.
"Wow~ this is seriously filthy annoying~"
Bang—!!
I pulled the trigger right away.
Before my mind could wander again.
A golden round streaked out.
Abraxas's attack—imbuing the bullet with the target's weak attribute.
Even if that wicked little partner of mine takes a lot, the results are solid~
It struck the Apocalypse Bird's small beak dead center.
A clean crack split right down the middle.
KRAAAAAAAK—!!
The Apocalypse Bird roared.
"Nice~ that landed well. About six more shots and the small beak should shatter, right~?"
KRA-KRA-KRA-KRA-BOOM—!!
Yellow eyeballs came screaming in again.
I leapt up into the trees.
"Ah~ does that hurt? You know what, though~? Ever since that day, just thinking about you—I've never once stopped hurting."
The Apocalypse Bird's gaze tracked me.
Another yellow eyeball fired.
To the right.
To the left.
Down.
Up.
The entire forest was being torn apart.
"Would you cut it out already~"
In the brief gaps between the Apocalypse Bird's attacks, I fired.
Bang—!!
Another round hit the small beak.
The crack widened.
In that instant, the Apocalypse Bird's beak yawned open.
A red light.
"...Ah."
"I really don't like that~"
KRAAAAAAANG—!!
A crimson flash swallowed the forest whole.
I twisted my body.
I didn't fully clear it.
My back tore open. My side felt like it had burst.
Blood sprayed—but I was alive. Small mercies.
And another small mercy: my left hand already had no feeling, so at least that didn't hurt?
"I told you it hurts~ seriously."
I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth.
Then raised the long rifle again.
Bang—!!
Bang—!!
Rapid fire, hammering the small beak without pause.
Whether from pain or to dodge, the Apocalypse Bird shifted its body.
The ground split. Trees toppled.
And then a long arm—a massive arm wrapped in bandages—moved.
"...That's the unfair part~"
With a jingle of a bell, the scale that always tipped to one side shifted.
"...Ah, I really don't like that~"
Another jingle—and pain like my entire body was being ripped apart crashed through me.
"Ghk... that hurts~"
Blood pooled in my mouth.
My knees shook.
My vision blurred.
"Truly unfair. Completely irrational~"
KRAAAANG—!!
A massive wing came down.
I rolled.
The spot I'd occupied a second earlier was pulverized.
Dirt erupted. Nearby trees were ripped clean out of the ground by the shockwave.
"Close one~"
KRAAAAAAAK—!!
The Apocalypse Bird shrieked again.
Among its countless eyes, the lamp glowed.
"...Again?"
My gaze was pulled toward it.
My mind went hazy.
Worse than before this time...
The wounds? Or the blood loss?
My concentration was slipping.
I couldn't tear my eyes away from that light.
"...Damn it."
A yellow eyeball came flying at me again.
Saw it too late. My mistake~
KRAAAANG—!!
The explosion hurled my body through the air.
I tumbled over and over.
My ribs screamed.
I couldn't breathe.
"Hah..."
"I'm really gonna die~ I've always been trying to die, but now that the real thing's here, it feels a little hollow... This is when you're supposed to down some Enkephalin and go out properly~"
I staggered to my feet.
The Apocalypse Bird closed in.
The long arm, the great eye, the small beak—all of them turned toward me.
"But~ you're hurting pretty bad too, right?"
Load.
Aim.
Fire.
Bang—!!
A golden round punched through the small beak.
Crack—the fracture ran all the way through.
And the last one. Carrying the wishes of the people I'd held dear.
One final shot.
Bang—!!
The Apocalypse Bird's small beak shattered completely.
Fragments scattered across the entire forest.
KRAAAAAAAK—!!
The Apocalypse Bird screamed like it had lost its mind.
"Oh~ one down."
I coughed up blood.
My left arm wouldn't move.
A few ribs were gone.
My vision kept swimming.
The Apocalypse Bird, on the other hand, was still strong.
The great eye and the long arm—both still intact.
"...Junior."
If you're late getting back from that cabin, you're getting an earful~
The Apocalypse Bird lifted a massive foot.
A stomp.
I raised the muzzle.
The foot, or the long arm.
If I shoot the foot, I can stop it.
I can hold out a little longer.
Five minutes, at most.
But after that?
My junior will come back.
If they succeeded, they'll bring the mercenary too.
But the Apocalypse Bird will still be strong.
They can't win against it like that. That's certain.
"...Then the answer's already decided~ An answer I should've submitted a long time ago~"
The muzzle shifted.
From the giant foot to the long arm wrapped in bandages.
The Apocalypse Bird's foot began to fall.
Like the sky itself collapsing.
But I didn't dodge.
I was supposed to die back then. Dying now instead? That's practically a bargain, right?
The muzzle didn't waver.
I looked only at the long arm. Nothing else.
"Rookie—no, Han~"
The corner of my mouth lifted.
"This senior might act like a psychopath sometimes, but she makes the right call now and then~"
"Abraxas, this is a treat~ I'll give you everything I've got, so make sure that last service is rock solid~"
I pulled the trigger.
Bang—!!
And in the same instant, the massive foot came down on me.
My vision flipped.
Huh... that's weird.
I can't hear a thing.
Ah... right.
I gave up my hearing too....
I could see the sky.
The black forest, the Apocalypse Bird—everything seemed to be falling away.
Team Leader.
Senior Doyun.
And our rookies, still fighting hard right now.
Yuri.
Han.
They'll all be fine, right?
Hahat~
When it's time to die, the laughter just keeps coming~
And what about Abraxas?
Once I'm gone, finding a new owner is going to be rough...
That greedy little thing.
Took so much this time, and on the last go no less—man...
Come to think of it, when I first met Abraxas, its personality was absolute garbage.
Compared to now...
It was so different...
My soaring body began to fall.
And then someone caught me—someone warm.
Brown hair spilled across my face.
I have to say it..... I have to ask Han for help.....
My eyes closed.
They say the protagonist of your life is yourself.
But the important point is this: even if everyone is the protagonist of the performance called life, that performance is different for each person.
I came from the Backstreets.
If you graded the performance called life, mine would have been an F.
The absolute bottom of the bottom.
Because the place I happened to be born was a Backstreet ruled by the Thumb.
Every day, someone became one of the Thumb's art pieces and vanished.
Without a sound. Without a trace.
And among them was my family.
The kid who lost her family that way lived like she was dying.
She became a Fixer in her early teens.
Murder.
Kidnapping.
Escort work.
Tracking.
If it paid, she did it.
To survive.
To see tomorrow.
Something in her must have broken around then.
Living on the run, she somehow made it to her late teens.
She became an adult, and started earning a decent reputation among Fixers.
And one day, she received a job offer from a fledgling Wing—L Corp.
Back then, she was genuinely happy.
It felt like the grade of her life's performance was climbing from F to S.
Thinking about it now, it's a joke.
Fuck.
She should never have done it.
At the time, she was proud of being assigned to Headquarters.
Disciplinary Team, even.
A department with real power even among Fixer Offices.
That was where she first received Abraxas.
And she was a loner.
If someone approached, she pushed them away.
If someone spoke kindly, she started with curses.
She didn't trust anyone who tried to help.
After enough of that, people gave up.
They started leaving her alone.
Everyone except one person.
That person was the Disciplinary Team Leader.
A high-ranking officer.
High enough to trade jokes with Gebura, the Sephirah in charge.
Kind. Naive. And yet capable enough that everyone recognized him.
That was how he'd climbed so high.
"Nova? What are you doing out here?"
"..."
"There's plenty of work, and you should get closer with the team, don't you think?"
"What would you know."
"Hm?"
"Just leave me alone."
I'd spoken with irritation in my voice.
"I've never trusted a single person in this place."
"They're just company people."
"A place you work for money."
"Nothing more, nothing less."
"So leave me the hell alone."
The Team Leader looked at me for a moment, then smiled.
"I see."
That was it.
No lecture. No anger. No pressure.
He simply sat down beside me at meals like it was nothing and struck up conversation, and when I got hurt fighting Abnormalities, he wrapped the bandages with those warm, rough hands of his. That was all.
And that only made me more irritated. I hated the version of myself that seemed ready to give him trust over something so small.
Then, one day.
It appeared.
A day at Headquarters when the Trial of Dusk had been reached.
One office worker died.
And the bastard filled the condition for Big Bird—right on the verge of escape.
Big Bird breached containment.
In the process of suppressing it, Punishing Bird escaped.
And with the management gap, Judgement Bird escaped too.
That was how the Apocalypse Bird appeared.
The Disciplinary Team's mood hadn't been bad at the time.
We had a reliable Team Leader, and the members were strong.
I myself was a Grade 4 employee on the verge of promotion to Grade 5.
I thought we could beat the Apocalypse Bird.
At least until then.
It was instantaneous.
Truly instantaneous—there was no word for it but misfortune.
Of all places, the Apocalypse Bird moved into my sector.
Of all things, Big Bird's charm activated.
Of all the people there, it caught me.
I walked.
Blankly. Without a thought. Feeling nothing at all.
Toward my death.
And when I came to—
Someone had already shoved me aside.
I fell backward.
The Team Leader stood in front of the Apocalypse Bird. He had run all that way to save me as I walked toward death.
"...Huh?"
In that brief instant.
The Team Leader looked back.
And he smiled.
That was the last of it.
The Apocalypse Bird's maw closed.
And the Team Leader was split in half.
"...Why."
My voice shook.
"Why..."
I couldn't breathe.
"Why did you do that?"
"You..."
"You didn't have to..."
"I..."
"After how much of a bastard I've been this whole time..."
"Why..."
The Team Leader was still smiling, even as he coughed blood.
"Nova...."
"People, you see."
"When someone's about to die right in front of them—if they can save them, they save them."
"...Why."
"Why, you ask?"
The Team Leader smiled faintly.
"A man named Mencius once said."
"At the beginning of human life, nature is fundamentally good."
"People are born good."
"If a child is about to fall into a well, anyone would startle and run to help."
"Not to be praised. Not for any gain. Simply because they cannot stand by and watch."
"That is the goodness that exists in the human heart from birth."
"I.... I'm a murderer...."
"So am I."
"Don't talk as if you've never killed anyone."
"I've committed more sins than I can wash clean in a lifetime."
"But still."
"I still believe that humans are originally good."
"Because even people who have sinned."
"When they see someone dying, they hesitate."
"When they hear someone cry, it hurts them—and they want to protect them."
"A human without goodness wouldn't even feel that conflict in the first place."
"I knew."
"That you were just a child with too many wounds."
"And that is exactly why.... you have to live."
"If you've only lost your way because of hatred and pain, then you can still come back."
"So..."
"Shouldn't you live, rather than some old man like me?"
"If you survive and leave Lobotomy."
"Find a person named Okgirin."
"Tell them Cheonngoeseong sent you."
"They'll understand."
"..."
"So.... please. Live your life."
That was how he died.
And.
Even though he died, the company did not change.
The Apocalypse Bird was suppressed.
Separated back into three birds and recontained.
Everything was over.
Except for me.
At first, no one said anything.
It was just quiet.
When I entered the break room, conversations stopped.
When we passed in the hallway, their eyes wavered.
Some people tried to comfort me.
Some acted as if nothing had happened.
But I knew.
Or maybe I only believed I knew.
If I hadn't been there that day.
If the person caught by the charm hadn't been me.
The Team Leader would still be alive.
So the silence.
The glances—all of it felt like resentment aimed at me.
Even though no one had ever said such a thing.
Every day, I told myself.
That I should have died instead.
That he should have lived, rather than some Backstreets stray like me.
And little by little, I fell apart.
My performance dropped.
My evaluations scraped the floor.
Reports piled up unfinished.
And in the end, I was reassigned to a W Corp branch that had recently been torn apart by an ALEPH-class Abnormality.
There.
I met new bonds.
"Hello?"
A woman I'd never seen before waved.
"I'm Mir."
"Title: Safety Team Leader."
"Well."
"Right now it's just me and the Deputy, but."
"A Team Leader's still a Team Leader."
"..."
"Oh-ho."
"You've got the nerve to ignore your Team Leader and glare at her on top of it?"
"...So what."
"I don't acknowledge you."
"Hah."
Mir laughed.
"Then there's a good way to settle that."
"...?"
"Training grounds. Now."
"For the record, you're allowed to use your E.G.O weapon."
"...Don't die. Because I really will kill you."
And.
I got my ass completely handed to me.
I didn't land a single hit.
"That's impossible..."
"There's no way I... lose like this..."
"Well."
Mir shrugged.
"A loss is a loss."
"From now on, you listen. Got it?"
"..."
"Me."
"I looked into you a bit."
"Caused a mess at Headquarters, didn't you?"
"...That's—"
"I know."
Mir nodded.
"Happens all the time."
"Ah... happens all the time..."
"So... are you going to throw away the last wish of the person who died in your place, too?"
"Do nothing?"
I couldn't say a word.
"Our team, see."
"We've all got our wounds."
"So we've got one goal."
"Make sure there aren't any more of us."
"Make sure no one else loses someone and falls apart."
"..."
"So."
Mir snorted a laugh.
"Lighten up that face."
"The rookies who'll show up later are gonna be terrified."
The next day came, and I... put on a mask.
"Team Leader~"
"...?"
"Sooo~"
"What are you gonna do about it~?"
Mir stared at me for a long time, then said:
"Umm..."
"I didn't expect you to change like this..."
For the record, the look of pure horror on her face that day... was a little cute.