Ryu Family Trip # 1
Ryu Family Trip # 1
After Kim Geun-cheol left.
"Gaaaaah!"
Lee Si-hoo threw herself onto the bed in a fit, punching and kicking the sheets and blanket to vent her compressed humiliation.
From the moment she couldn't resist a momentary impulse and went to buy a bikini, to asking her closest friend Geun-cheol to judge how she looked—
Every bit of it was mortifying.
"Ahh!"
She'd been in a kind of runaway state. Lately those thoughts kept creeping in. Maybe this was the manifestation of classic adolescent rebellion... She'd never been like this before. It started after entering the academy.
"Geun-cheol...!"
This was all Kim Geun-cheol's fault.
Every time she heard that absurd guy's laid-back attitude and his casual "whatever, it's fine" remarks, the influence seemed to rub off. Teenagers in puberty are highly susceptible to their friends' influence, after all.
Leona and Yu-ri. Those two friends, with their strong wills and firm convictions—if they thought something was unjust, they'd blow it sky-high no matter what.
Kim Geun-cheol is the same.
He looked haphazard, but he had a clear line and solid principles. So if any family tried to force cross-dressing or a male disguise on those three friends... they would never accept it. Of course, in Geun-cheol's case, cross-dressing would have been impossible to begin with.
"..."
Her friends are like that, but she isn't. Lee Si-hoo found that version of herself pathetic.
She felt like she was falling behind.
Behind her friends, of all people.
"Haah."
That thought lasted only a moment.
Once again, the memory of what happened earlier resurfaced.
"Khh...!"
Inside her room... a bikini show.
It almost felt like a beach vacation.
What would it have been like if she'd worn that bikini and gone to the sea with Geun-cheol, just the two of them? Without a single care about the male disguise or anything else, just having fun...
"I can't do this."
Heat was rising in her body.
—Shluck.
Lee Si-hoo sat up.
She couldn't do anything in this state. No way she'd sleep, and trying to meditate would only fill her head with strange thoughts.
So Lee Si-hoo took hold of her sword.
A true master is not bound by location during training. The room wasn't that large, but Lee Si-hoo wrapped her body and weapon in mana and executed her swordsmanship.
"Haap!"
She sliced away the stray thoughts.
—Whooo.
A glow kindled in Lee Si-hoo's eyes.
* * *
After dropping Kim Geun-cheol off, Lee So-ra returned home.
Every time traffic clogged up, she checked her phone—and sure enough, a flood of articles was spilling out about whether she and Kim Geun-cheol were dating or whatever.
Evidently, the fact that Kim Geun-cheol was her assigned cadet had also come to light.
"This is maddening."
She could expect this crap from the Superhuman Daily bastards, a newsroom staffed entirely by superhumans, but for even purely civilian-run media outlets to pull this—she truly felt the fickleness of the times.
It seemed they'd gotten complacent after her retirement.
The thought crossed her mind that she ought to pay a visit to those media companies soon.
Writing articles that can drag an innocent person's reputation through the mud without fact-checking comes with a price. Pulverizing the president's office and smashing the company signboard would probably be enough.
Or she could just seize their company funds, pay cash for an excavator, and ram it into the front entrance.
She wouldn't face punishment anyway.
She could just beat up the superhuman judges and that'd be that. Her honor was damaged. Unless they were insane, no judge would spout nonsense about rulings after hearing that.
That's how superhuman society often works—on honor and justification. Superhuman honor stands above the law.
—Squeak.
She arrived home like that.
—Trrrr.
A phone call came in.
It was Agent Ham Woong-cheol.
"Ma’am... please spare me... I mean, a whole month’s salary just vanished..."
"Isn't that your own fault? The problem was conducting an illegal investigation to begin with. Damaging an innocent cadet's honor and inflicting trauma. Think about it. If that cadet had been stronger than you, your life would've ended in that interrogation room."
He'd been in the middle of an illegal interrogation, so even if she'd actually killed him, she'd have walked free.
"Well, that's true, but... I don't run interrogations like that on anyone stronger than me in the first place."
"I know. Anyway, I plan on holding onto your card for the time being. If you cancel it or anything, I'll kill you—so keep that in mind."
"No, ma’am! That’s too much!"
"It won't be just you dying. I'll crush every last one of the bastards under you, too."
"Please!"
A squeal of despair.
"How much are you planning to spend?!"
"That's none of your business. Go complain to the Minister if you have a problem. This is discipline from me."
As she said that, Lee So-ra indulged in a pleasantly self-satisfied daydream.
Now that she'd come into a nice credit card, starting next semester she could do group dinners with the students, gift exchanges... stuff like that would be nice.
She could buy loads of teaching materials and weapons for class, too. Anyway, it was definitely going to be enjoyable.
She was essentially in a position to siphon Special Operations Division funds into the school at will.
"Aaahh!"
"Or would you prefer I go visit the Minister and drop your name?"
"I'm sorry!"
A rapid reply came—apparently that was the one thing absolutely impermissible.
"S-still, ma’am? If you act too recklessly, they’ll pressure you to return to active duty..."
"I'll handle that myself."
Lee So-ra was well aware that her instructor post was a kind of leave.
"Anyway, is that all you had to say?"
"Ah, no, ma’am. The thing is, I don’t think we need to worry about Kim Geun-cheol."
"That should be old news. Did you run a separate investigation or something?"
"Even so, it's my job. I started it, so I have to see it through. I looked a bit deeper on my own, and... as expected, there's no room for doubt. That attitude he showed in the interrogation room—apparently, he's always been like that, even back then."
She already knew that.
"Word is he caused tons of accidents at the orphanages, too."
"Yes. It turns out he freely used insults toward parents and violence back then as well. It seems to happen when he can't control his anger."
Everyone's like that.
"So, is that it?"
"Ah, no, it's not over. The fact is, I think Woo Yu-ri and Lee Si-hoo need further inspection as well, and I also feel like we might need to check Cadet Leona..."
"They looked clean to me."
You can tell that sort of thing at a glance.
Not one of them had been brainwashed. They're all top-ranked students to begin with. The idea of kids like that suddenly getting brainwashed in the middle of combat is absurd. If that were the case, every superhuman in the world would be brainwashed.
"It's not as if there's no precedent... Ah, but while I was investigating, Cadet Lee Si-hoo also struck me as a bit odd."
"What?"
"When I tried to investigate, it seemed like some records had been erased. Looking into it further, orders came down from higher up, too."
"Hmm?"
Did Lee Si-hoo have connections to national power circles?
"Then leave it alone. To think you've been running background checks on students—you must be dying to get killed."
"I’d better not show my face for a while. Anyway, ma’am, here’s the main point: apparently, the higher-ups have detected renewed activity from the Void Princess."
"What."
Even Lee So-ra was taken aback by that statement.
S-rank monsterkin Void Princess.
An extremely dangerous monsterkin with no clear means of subjugation at present. She'd been lying low and quiet for some time... and now resuming activities?
"The top brass is treating this situation with the utmost gravity. We have abnormal gate phenomena and now high-rank monsterkin stirring—so naturally, missions are being assigned accordingly."
"..."
"Ma’am, if you get the chance, please do some information-gathering. And if you could clean up some high-danger monsterkin or villains, I’d appreciate it."
They were telling her to come back, in other words.
"Right now, what exactly are you asking of a schoolteacher?"
"Ma’am, if you were just any schoolteacher, I’d be some neighborhood idiot. But something is going on. Every indicator is pointing toward Korea."
Anomalies were occurring worldwide, but no intelligence agency was unaware that analysis showed them concentrated on the Korean side.
"Doesn't that mean there's something those bastards want in Korea?"
"..."
"Remember the incident where Void Princess attacked the lab. At that time, vast amounts of data were seized... including data that the Sovereign Commander personally amassed."
The call ended there.
"Huuh."
Lee So-ra tossed the phone onto the sofa and looked at the photo on the table. Her proud subordinates, smiling in their suits.
Among them, she was the only one left alive.
* * *
Legs crossed, chin propped.
"Hmm, well, this is a mess."
The woman known as Void Princess spoke.
"Because something that shouldn't have happened happened... Kitty? What are you doing?"
"A game, sis."
"Oh?"
Kitty had brought over a computer and was absorbed in something. Void Princess walked up to Kitty and looked at the screen.
"So this is the game humans go crazy over?"
"Yeah."
"There's a warrior fighting inside."
"That's my character."
"Character?"
Kitty gave her sister a detailed explanation of what a game was. Humans want to raise something. The character in a game is that kind of entity. They spend time raising a warrior and enjoy never-ending battles.
[Level Up.]
Just then, Kitty's character leveled up.
"Level up?"
"It means she gained a level. In the game, everything is displayed as numbers. Like this."
A status window appeared.
A window with various stats listed.
"If you distribute the stat points you got as a level-up reward, you get stronger, like so."
She raised the strength stat, and the warrior's attack power increased. That's how humans invest a huge amount of time raising their in-game characters' stats.
"It doesn't seem particularly realistic. I can't see the meaning."
"Yeah. True. Everyone knows that. But when it's expressed like this, you can see right away how much stronger you've gotten, right? That visible growth is apparently what gets humans hooked."
"Fufufu, is that so?"
Void Princess studied the screen intently.
* * *
"You Taliban scumbag!"
"Hey, pal. You gonna start that the instant you see my face?"
"Shut up...!"
As expected, Ryu went into convulsions the moment he saw me.
Which was, of course, perfectly fair. Going on a family trip you don't want to take, while stuck with a guy who pisses you off—I'd spasm too.
But I'm not the least bit offended... no, just the fact that I get to watch Ryu spasm up close from the sidelines fills me with joy.
"Hey. Come on. We're going on a fun trip. Starting first thing in the morning, huh? Gotta enjoy it."
"Save your bullshit for the bamboo forest and talk to yourself! I had no intention of going in the first place! But then you had to show up and—!"
"I didn't just show up. You're the one who dragged me along."
"Shut your mouth!"
Anyway, today was the day I joined the Ryu Family Trip. It'd be a bit awkward at first, but things would probably get better once we got going.
Let's see.
"So, are we driving there together?"
"Fufufu, you two really are close."
While I was thinking, Ryuna came over and spoke.
"Well, hello, ma'am. Good morning."
Special Operations Division Agent Ryuna.
I wondered if Ryuna knew about Ham Woong-cheol.