Dancing with the Wolf (1)
Korob, her true nature laid completely bare, laughed as her appearance shifted.
A slender beauty.
Her clothes, however, were exactly what she'd been wearing before—which now made for a rather dangerous outfit.
Lee Jun didn't so much as blink.
“Not even a little shaken, huh?”
“I figured you might already know. Dolores sang your praises, after all~”
With that, she picked up the wine sitting on the table.
The red liquid pooled along the curve of the glass.
“How about it? Care for a drink?”
“I don't drink before an operation.”
“Aw, come on~ You can sober up anytime with magic, can't you?”
She paused for a beat, then added:
“Ahaha, no?”
“No.”
“Must be inconvenient, living like that~ What a shame.”
Korob smiled slyly and took a sip of the wine.
What followed was a heavy silence.
The two of them simply held each other's gaze, neither saying a word.
It was Korob who broke the silence first.
She had decided to start with the thing she was most curious about right now.
Perhaps driven by that impulse, she tossed out a question with no particular order to it.
“How did you find out?”
“The room? Or my identity?”
“Your identity.”
That one was easy to explain.
“I saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“Behind your right ear.”
A geometric sigil, like two circles overlapping atop a trident.
The symbol of Liberation.
He'd caught a glimpse of it when he followed her into the room just now.
The moment Lee Jun pointed it out, Korob heaved a deep sigh and lamented.
“Haaah, honestly. This is exactly why I told them I shouldn't take jobs where this kind of thing shows.”
In truth, she could have covered that spot with her disguise as well.
She'd apparently forgotten while busy setting up all sorts of pointless flourishes.
She was nowhere near as thorough as the Korob he'd known in his previous loops, and watching her carelessness somehow wrung a sigh out of him.
So this was what Korob had been like before she was worn down, huh.
Still, from Lee Jun's perspective, it was a blessing if anything.
She was far easier to win over this way.
If she were the Korob he'd last seen… even remembering it made his skin crawl.
“Is that a sufficient answer?”
At his question, she nodded.
Then she fired off the next one.
“Okay, then what about the room?”
He had no intention of answering that one.
It was a card he couldn't afford to reveal.
So he said, perfectly calm:
“If something's given, something should be given back. Let's trade one at a time.”
“Hah, haha~”
Chaaeng—
“Why should I?”
The wineglass in her hand shattered.
The red liquid inside ran down her wrist.
“Seems you're having a little trouble reading the situation. You're in the palm of my hand right now. One little squeeze and you'd pop like a grape. So why are you so calm about it?”
Swoosh—
She leaned forward and stroked his cheek.
The pressure settled over his shoulders like a weight.
She was deliberately making her mana tangible, physical, just to press it down on him—a courtesy, since he couldn't sense it at all.
“One twitch of my fingers and you're dead. Got it?”
Korob trailed her thumb over the cheek she was holding.
The red wine followed the line of her touch.
Drip—
A bead of wine fell to the floor.
“Then kill me.”
“Hm?”
“If you've already made up your mind to kill me, there's nothing I could do to stop it anyway, right? So do whatever you want.”
Lee Jun looked her dead in the eyes.
She isn't going to kill me right now.
No—she can't.
However insane she is, she keeps the fundamentals. She's not the type to gut an important figure without the Commander's orders.
And that order… probably never came.
Liberation is currently without its Commander, after all.
Just as he predicted, Korob's eyes shifted, and she flicked her tongue out.
A scarlet tongue traced a full circle around her lips, entering his field of view.
She spoke with lips gone glistening wet.
“Ahaha, this is fun~”
“Right back at you.”
“Your face is way too stiff to say that, though? Smile a little~”
Korob hooked her fingers into the corners of his mouth and pulled them upward.
Lee Jun continued to stare at her with utterly expressionless eyes.
Korob beamed at the sight, as if she liked it.
…She's a hard one to please.
Korob let go of his face and leaned back in her chair.
At a flick of her finger, the scattered shards of glass and spilled wine fused back into one.
The wine smeared across his cheek flew off and returned to the glass as well.
She took another sip, just as before, and smiled faintly.
“Good taste.”
“…Honestly speaking, that's kind of gross.”
“Ahaha, yeah. I like that reaction too. It hits my tastes dead center~”
This time it was sincere.
Is she out of her mind?
“…Anyway, that means it's my turn to ask questions, right?”
“Sure~ What's got you so curious?”
Whatever shape it had taken, he'd apparently won her favor.
That's half the battle done.
So what question would complete the other half? What could I say right now to turn that goodwill into something absolute?
The answer was simple.
Set aside everything else he wanted to know.
One question couldn't possibly uncover it all anyway.
So… let her volunteer the rest herself.
Which meant there was only one thing to ask right now.
No—it was barely even a question.
“That appearance just now. That wasn't your real one, was it?”
“Hm?”
Her eyes widened slightly—it must have been unexpected.
Going by that reaction, I landed it.
But she seemed unwilling to have that guessed correctly, and answered after quickly correcting her expression.
“Who~ knows? I'm not really the type to have a single 'true face' to begin with~”
“Really? What I saw just now should've been it.”
“Hmm….”
Korob had only gained her transformation ability after Kaufman's death was confirmed.
Which meant the form she'd been hiding in as HIM even before then—that had to be her true face.
“…Oho~ You got me. Sharp eyes, as expected~”
With that, she casually—too casually—released her disguise.
But it was a little different from the prim, elegant look of yesterday.
Purple odango buns, and a star planted squarely in the middle of each pink eye.
Even at a glance, it was a wildly conspicuous getup.
“Honestly~ if you compare both appearances side by side, wouldn't you say the prettier one is the real face?”
“Dunno.”
“Ah, or maybe this one's more your type?”
As she said it, she began undoing the buttons of her shirt.
Well… not my type.
Definitively.
Seeing his utter lack of interest, she pouted and buttoned herself back up.
“Hmph. You won't beg me to show you later?”
“That's not going to happen, so don't worry.”
Korob shot him a sidelong glare at that.
And the stars in her pupils spun round and round.
…What on earth is going on with that particular quirk of hers.
Korob held that sulky expression for a moment, but when no notable reaction came from Lee Jun, she returned to business.
“Okay, so it's my turn to ask again, right?”
“That's right.”
Lee Jun felt a flicker of tension at that.
It would be a problem if she lobbed a question he couldn't answer.
It was better to answer this round as fully as he could.
But as expected, he showed none of that on the surface, and simply waited for her question.
She held his gaze for a while, then began laying out her thoughts alone.
“There's one thing I want to know. Did you already know my name? No—sure, that's possible~ Then what about knowing I'm a Liberator, beyond just my affiliation? Yeah, okay, that's possible too.”
Is all of that actually possible?
“Then what is it you're curious about?”
“Everything.”
“What?”
“I want to know all of what you know about me. Just how far does this person's knowledge go~?”
Lee Jun paused to think it over.
That's… just asking me to dump everything I know, isn't it.
The problem is that this absurd exchange can, in fact… go through.
Because right now, he's the one who came asking.
He wasn't showing it, but the mere fact that he'd sought her out first was already an error on his part.
It was, by her account, an act of desperation.
“…Damn it.”
“Ahaha~”
At Lee Jun's sigh, Korob let out a pleased-sounding laugh.
She'd noticed he'd finished his calculations.
And she'd also noticed what the result was.
“Everything else is fine~ You only have to talk about me~”
He hadn't intended to talk about anything else from the start, anyway.
Lee Jun rubbed his aching forehead and recited a few lines concisely.
“…Korob is your real name. You were born in Russia, but both your parents are Korean. You came over to Korea after the Gate Calamity, overland through North Korea. Your current residence is—”
“Whoa, whoa, wait wait wait. Are you trying to give me goosebumps right now?”
Genuinely flustered, she flapped both hands wildly to cut him off.
Then she mulled something over for a moment before speaking again.
“Hmph, seriously. Just how far do you know?”
“Hmm. Let's see—I even know that you insisted on the No. 12 seat, on the off chance you had some heels fetish.”
“So… information's been leaking from inside the organization, huh~?”
“Let's just say I'm very competent.”
It wasn't as if anything was actually leaking, anyway.
He'd learned it all through regression, so they had no way of tracing the source of the information.
But he answered evasively anyway, to make her suspect her own organization.
It was a win for him if they turned on each other.
And… it's a trick they use themselves, isn't it?
He'd deliberately let slip that there was a mole inside the Artisan Guild.
All he was doing was paying them back in kind.
Granted, he'd denied the existence of a spy on his own side at the time… which would only make her doubt them all the more.
{Hold on—you said you were going to win her over. If she reports back, doesn't this lose its meaning?}
That's exactly why I let it slip.
Even if the persuasion fails, she'll carry that information back with her.
If they purge their own ranks from the inside, that's a gain for me.
{Oh…}
It's insurance, in other words.
Well… at this point, the persuasion is basically ninety percent done anyway.
That girl has no real attachment to Liberation.
And the same goes for the other executives.
They stay in that organization because they have nowhere else to go.
Which means… if he offered them somewhere to stay, there'd be no reason for them to remain there.
She hasn't committed any atrocities yet, either. Pulling her out now would cause no problems down the line.
Aside from the part where his life had been the collateral, this was a win-win situation.
Besides, he'd been nearly certain she wouldn't kill him from the start.
And if the worst-case risk was dying—well, that was a gamble worth taking, wasn't it?
If this attempt at persuasion failed… things would only get harder later, far worse than dying now.
While he was mulling this over, Korob seemed to reach her own decision.
“Well, fine~ You've answered more than enough, so I suppose I should give you something in return.”
Done.
At least, this time.
“Hoo….”
“Hmhm~ A sudden sigh?”
“It's a habit, more or less.”
Having gotten this far, Lee Jun decided to probe a little further, just in case.
After all, it would be ideal if she turned away from Liberation entirely.
“So—how about leaving Liberation altogether? It'd be better for you.”
“Hmm~ I'll decide after I watch you a little longer and see just how great you really are.”
So a full turn is still out of reach.
Well, of course—the two of them had only met yesterday.
It was far too short a time to instill any real conviction.
“…Then why offer me the information at all?”
“Hm~ ahaha~ Just goodwill. Pure goodwill~”
Korob answered with a laugh.
Then, flicking her tongue out, she added:
“It's goodwill, not affection—don't get them mixed up, okay?”
“…I won't.”
Lee Jun found himself recalling the Korob of his memories.
Her face from back then overlapped with the one before him now.
“…….”
Going by the memories of my previous loop… she's someone who's going to suffer terribly from here on.
“—Would you understand? That pain, do you even know it…? You know NOTHING, nothing at all—!”
He knew.
That was exactly why it gnawed at him.
The information sharing complete,
Lee Jun was able to leave the room with everything he'd wanted in hand.
She really was a treasure, this one.
A treasure trove of information.
He hadn't expected her to talk this freely, and it had been a tremendous help.
“Hm~ It's such a shame that time is limited, you know?”
“Then step out of it.”
“Ahaha, persistent, aren't you? Hmm, maybe if you courted me a little more, my heart might change~”
So—still undecided, then.
Lee Jun nodded and turned away without regret.
Seeing him off, Korob spoke up.
“Still, I looked at you differently after that, you know? I was gritting my teeth and playing the seductress, and you didn't budge an inch.”
Ah. That.
“Of course you didn't.”
“Hm?”
“You're 145 centimeters tall. What kind of femme fatale does that make you?”
“…….”
At those words, Korob's expression froze over, visibly venomous.
That one… felt pretty sincere.
“Hmm….”
“Your heart's leaving me.”
“Go easy on me there.”
“Ahaha, I'm kidding~ I'll think over your little offer~ Which means we'll have to meet often, right?”
With that, Korob punched her number into his phone.
Not a public-facing line, apparently, but one she used as the Liberator Korob herself.
“One phone call a day. Two hours each!”
“…That's not happening.”
“Then a week? I won't compromise beyond that~”
And before he could even answer, she shoved him out the door.
Korob saw him off in that thin shirt, a gauzy chemise fluttering beneath it.
Truly… an outfit that made him fear being seen by anyone.
Lee Jun was in the middle of hustling her back into the room and making his escape when—
A familiar voice came from behind him.
“…Boss?”
Ah.
Um….
Ah…?
{Oh, I know this one. This is what they call a popcorn moment, right?}
Shut… up.
This was really, truly bad.