Now You See Me (1)
Moonlight poured in through the window.
And between the moon and Lee Jun, she stood there.
Though the moonlight was at her back, her eyes gleamed brilliantly all the same.
"You…"
Lee Jun knew that look. It meant danger.
"What number are you on?"
"Number 1."
"…Come in."
Screeeech―
Hearing her answer, Lee Jun rose from his seat and shut the window.
Of course, that meant letting Yelena into the room.
The answer 'Number 1' was, at least for the moment, a relief.
"Ahem. Assistant~ Still a lovely home, I see?"
"You've never even been here before."
"No, but I've seen it. Ahem, I also know that all of Arcana's finest technology went into building this place."
"Which still only amounts to enough for one person."
"Some of it's mine, you know. A little of everything I left behind—and all of it useful, I'll have you know?"
"You're the one who installed it all without asking. Everything you laid down is nothing but toys."
"Heh heh, just you wait. Every last one will come in handy."
She flashed a sweet smile and perched herself on the edge of his bed.
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she slipped off her coat and handed it to him.
"So what are you here for?"
"Came because I thought you might miss me. What, didn't you miss me?"
"Nope."
Lee Jun hung the coat on the rack, then watched as Yelena casually began to survey the room.
World S-Class Rank 9.
The pride of Russia.
A human strategic weapon.
The strongest special-type hunter alive, said to be blessed by mana itself.
Yelena Nikolayevna Zaychik.
Blue hair, green eyes. A confident bearing laced with a playful mischief.
She always wore a black shirt and white suit trousers, with the pure-white coat—her signature—draped over her shoulders.
…Not that it ever amounted to more than draping it. He'd never once seen her actually wear the thing.
"Assistant~"
She flashed a sly grin.
Unabsorbed mana drifted through the strands of her hair, glittering in the moonlight.
Even Lee Jun, who couldn't sense mana at all, could tell that this was extremely dangerous.
"I told you to stop doing that."
"But if I don't do at least this much… you never spare any attention for this beautiful magician, do you?"
"…Ha."
"Hohoho, just kidding."
At her words, the mana that had filled the room vanished in an instant.
He couldn't feel it, but visually, that was how it appeared.
"See? It's not dangerous at all. You're such a scaredy-cat, Assistant~"
"It makes no sense to generate that kind of effect in the first place."
"Stage production is a serious matter. Besides, are you really going to claim I can't control my own mana?"
"That's something only you can say, because you're a genius beyond all scales."
To the world, she was called a magician blessed by mana.
The sheer volume of mana she could wield was simply on another plane from ordinary hunters.
Thanks to that, despite belonging to the special-type category—the branch usually dismissed as vague and middling in every direction—she had been able to stand at the very pinnacle as a magician.
But Lee Jun knew a truth beyond even that.
The reason Yelena's mana never ran dry was her unique constitution.
In raw numbers, her body's mana production exceeded three times the hunter average.
She kept it hidden, insisting that the secrets behind a magic trick must remain secrets… but among the old comrades, at least, it was an open fact.
"So? This makes you even more impressive, doesn't it?"
"Of course a generator is more useful than an adapter… so yes, I suppose."
"Hohoho, that's a very Arc-like comparison~"
"……."
"Just kidding. You know your face looks pretty terrifying right now, Assistant?"
She smiled breezily.
But Lee Jun wasn't in the mood to laugh.
He simply wanted to know what this woman was really after.
"Let me ask again. Why did you come all the way here?"
"Because I thought you'd miss me, I told you?"
"If that were the plan, you wouldn't have needed to go this far. Under normal circumstances, you'd be in the middle of a different assignment right about now."
"Hmm… being too perceptive makes you unpopular with women, Assistant~"
With those words, Yelena narrowed her eyes and studied him.
The smile hanging on her lips, of course, never wavered.
This is…
"What number are you on right now?"
"No need to worry. Still Number 1."
Still perched on the bed, she swung her legs back and forth idly.
Lee Jun remained standing where he was, watching her.
A moment later.
Yelena closed her eyes and put on a serious expression.
A trace of her usual smile remained, but that was more habit than anything, so he let it slide.
"Ahem. Where should I even begin?"
"Start with what went wrong."
"You're always in such a rush. I need you to know the beginning before I can get to that, so bear with me a moment, Assistant~"
Yelena stopped swinging her legs and raised both hands.
Here we go again.
"Let's see… hmm, yes. This should do nicely!"
Whoosh―
With a dazzling flourish of her hands designed to blind the eye, she plucked a handkerchief out of thin air.
Then she took it by two corners, twirled it round and round…
"Ta-da!"
Pop!
Amid a burst of paper confetti, a single sheet of paper now sat in her hand.
Through the smell of gunpowder dusting the confetti drifted a faint trace of blood. It seemed to be soaked into the paper itself.
"Now, what do you think this is?"
"Beats me."
"Assistant, when the audience is this uncooperative, the magician loses her enthusiasm. React a little more actively, please."
"Haah…"
Lee Jun let out a sigh heavy with exasperation.
But there was nothing else to do.
He had to know what had happened, so he might as well play along for now.
"…A letter?"
"Close! To be precise, it's a security document left behind by an FSB agent."
"Did he die in the line of duty?"
"Unfortunately, yes. Now then—what would you say this agent's cause of death was?"
Cause of death, huh.
He'd have to read the actual contents to know for sure, but the fact that the man had managed to leave a document behind meant he hadn't died instantly.
And the document was clean, without a single tear—hardly something scrawled out in terrible conditions.
Then the possibilities were…
"He was attacked by a person, not a monster?"
"Mm, as expected!"
"The killer must have worked in too much of a hurry to confirm the kill, then fled. The agent survived the initial attack, but knowing he was dying, he left that document behind."
"A perfect answer! You really are clever, Assistant~"
So then—who was the killer?
The answer was fairly simple.
At least, it was for Lee Jun.
Liberation.
He had no way of knowing how skilled the agent had been… but at this point in time, the odds were good that someone at the cadre level—one of the Liberators—had stepped in personally.
And if it was a cadre whose main theater of operations was Russia…
…Hecate.
Damn it all.
She had been one of the few who could still be reasoned with… why would she suddenly stir things up?
Of course, he couldn't judge anything for certain yet.
Russia wasn't exactly operating normally these days, either.
He'd have to hear the whole story from beginning to end before drawing any conclusions.
"Hoho, Assistant. I see your appetite is finally whetted?"
Yelena smiled quietly.
So that, apparently, was the real reason for this visit.
"I get the general picture. Now you can get to the point."
"Hmm, but my point was to see you one more time. Won't you believe me?"
"Spare me the nonsense and talk."
"Oh, how cruel! To think you'd be so blind to my feelings."
She spoke like an actress delivering a stage line, and with an exaggerated gesture, handed over the document.
Even this very moment, she seemed to be savoring it.
Which also meant… she was fishing for something to tease him about.
"Go on, read it. Quickly now."
"…I can't read Russian anyway."
Lee Jun accepted the document with distaste—and couldn't help but be taken aback.
The document was written in Russian.
And across it, in red, someone had added new writing.
―Liberation is dyed in blood spilled red.
"…Ha."
Familiar letters.
It was unmistakably Hangul.
"Well? Getting a sense of why I snuck in like this?"
"So it was never a secret document in the first place. Then why did you call my answer correct earlier?"
"Hmm, that would take a while to explain. And what you said was the correct answer."
It was correct?
"What are you talking about?"
"This was written after the FSB recovered the document."
"What?"
"Meaning there's a traitor inside."
A traitor inside the FSB?
If that were true, then Liberation had rooted itself deep into Russia's core.
But it had been like this last loop too—so why had it never surfaced back then?
…No, let's think about it differently.
If it was the same as the previous loop, they had hidden it thoroughly then. So why parade it in the open now?
"Assistant, what do you think the culprit's objective was in doing this?"
"…Two possibilities."
First, that there genuinely was a traitor inside.
Second, that a fabricated traitor had been invented to sow mutual suspicion.
There was no way to tell which it was just yet.
But Lee Jun's instincts leaned toward the latter.
Liberation had someone extraordinarily gifted at disguise.
If that person had taken the field, infiltrating an organization would have been trivial.
In any case.
The reason Yelena had slipped into Korea in secret was now crystal clear.
"I'm making this an official request. Assistant, lend us your cooperation in investigating this case."
She said it, extending her hand.
But something about that hand still felt off—too slippery to grasp just yet.
"Why come to me? I'm not the Vice-Chairman anymore. I'm just the owner of a small mid-tier company."
"Hoho, you always undersell yourself, Assistant~ There's no assistant in the world as capable as you."
"Even so, a request through the Korean government or the Association would be far more effective than going through a private individual. The Russian government would want it that way too."
"But that's not what I want. Breathing works best when it's matched with the partner you've always matched it with, doesn't it? With you beside me, Assistant, this will be another fine performance."
In other words, she had decided on this from the very start.
Even if he refused, she probably wasn't going anywhere.
And… there's no reason to refuse, anyway.
The moment Liberation entered the conversation, this was one hundred percent related to them.
If he could tear the roots out in advance, there was no grounds to turn it down.
Yelena's hand was still extended.
When Lee Jun met her eyes, she gave a single shrug of her shoulders.
"Haah…"
"That's my Assistant. Knew you'd take it."
As he sighed, she beamed at him.
Then she rose from the bed and snatched his hand without warning.
They had rolled through battlefields together for the better part of a year.
Comrades who had spent over twenty-three hours a day in each other's company—by now, a look was all it took.
And that fact made Lee Jun all the more bitter.
"Damn bastards, all of them."
"Yes, I like you too, Assistant!"
Flap flap―
Yelena pumped their clasped hands up and down with vigorous enthusiasm.
Watching her do it, another question occurred to him.
"Hold on. Then what's Evrah's part in all this?"
"I told the old man in advance. I said something had come up, so he should enter the country in my place and draw the eyes. His job is to divert attention elsewhere, so he probably won't cross paths with us at all?"
"So that's the only reason he's here?"
"It wasn't anything important that they called him for, was it? So they just asked whoever had a free schedule."
"Pretty sure that was an official request for cooperation at the national level."
"And what makes that important, exactly?"
"…Forget it. Don't answer that."
Apparently Evrah had been a genuine misdirection.
And the misdirection pointed not only at Lee Jun, but at Liberation as well.
Either way, it seemed to have little bearing on this affair.
Lee Jun looked at Yelena.
She was still gripping his hand tight.
"…Fine. I'll cooperate."
"See! There's no one but you, Assistant!"
Plenty of things about this still felt off.
But this affair was as good as guaranteed to involve Liberation, so he had no choice but to accept.
Besides, it was a deviation from the previous loop—better to step in directly and cut down the variables as much as possible.
Information was still thin, but that could come with time.
Right. So then.
"First things first."
"First things first?"
Now that the two of them had agreed to work together, the very first order of business was…
"Clean up every bit of that confetti you scattered all over my floor."
"Eh… seriously?"
"Or were you planning to do it, me?"
"No, but…"
After that, he put her to work cleaning with great enthusiasm.
The robot vacuum would have handled it by morning, but he didn't bother mentioning that.
He simply wanted to see it done.
"Why am I the one cleaning…"
"Faster, faster. You too, over there."
"…Yes, sir."
Somehow, it felt deeply satisfying.