A Gift from France (1)
Lee Jun opened the front door and looked at the group standing before him.
A teddy bear. A rabbit plushie.
And a braided-haired… girl.
Well, "girl" wasn't quite accurate anymore—she'd turned nineteen this year—but that was the image she projected all the same.
"Jeanne."
"It's been a while. I'm sorry for the suddenness—were you surprised?"
"…A little."
"I see. It really has been a long time, hasn't it?"
"Is there any need to say 'really'? It's barely been a year and change."
"You never contact me, Oppa."
Jeanne looked up at him with those expressionless eyes.
And yet, appearances aside, there was an unmistakable current of keen attention in the way she studied him right now.
It just never made it to her face.
You could argue her emotional expression was broadly similar to Seo Yoon's, but in truth the two were one hundred and eighty degrees apart.
Seo Yoon feels plenty of emotion.
Whether she deliberately hides it or simply isn't used to showing it, he couldn't say—but the feelings are there. Living beside her all this time had made that clear. On a normal day it was hard to tell, but whenever something caught her off guard, the reactions slipped through. The fact that she could control it all so flawlessly was almost frightening.
Jeanne was the exact opposite.
She wants to express herself—she just can't feel anything to express.
That was why her voice stayed flat and her face stayed blank. To the casual eye she seemed gentle enough, but only because there was nothing behind the surface to disturb it. Even so, she had learned what emotion was, so she always understood how the person across from her must be feeling. It was only her own emotions that were missing.
Though of course, she didn't grasp them naturally—she parsed feelings the way she parsed everything else, by running the data she'd accumulated over a lifetime.
Every single time. She's fascinating.
That was why talking with Jeanne always left him with a strange, undefinable feeling, no matter how many years they'd spent together.
"Hmm…"
"……"
Honestly, it had been so long that he had no idea what to say. Conversations needed a topic, and he had nothing.
Ah.
"…The suitcase?"
"Yes. I was hoping to stay here for a while."
"What about France?"
"It runs fine without me."
"…Do the people there see it that way too?"
"I told them as much, so I imagine so."
Right. Like anyone could stop an S-Class hunter from leaving the country.
And wait—wasn't the bare minimum of courtesy, before moving into someone's house, to call ahead?
"Um, Hyung?"
"Are we invisible or something?"
The two plushies.
Siara and Timothy had been clinging to Jeanne's sides this whole time.
"I saw you two yesterday."
"In the flesh, though. That's different."
"Aww, that hurts my feelings? I'm sad now?"
"……"
Now that he thought about it, these two were probably the root of all evil here.
Jeanne was a plant of a child; left to her own devices, she pulled no stunts. If she'd behaved the way she just did… nine times out of ten, these two were behind it.
"So what wind did you two blow up her skirts this time to drag her all the way here?"
"We explained everything already? Kyle left a message behind."
"And that couldn't have been a phone call? You could've passed it along yesterday the same way."
"Come on, Hyung. Isn't it nice to see each other's faces like th—"
"Answer."
"Hmm…"
The problem with these two was that their minds, housed separately in plush bodies, were only loosely tethered to the conversation at hand. Which meant dialogue with them had a way of wandering off the rails. Constantly.
In a word: scattered.
"You'd better come clean and talk properly. Unless you want to be handed over to Armea for adjustments."
"Ah—don't hand us to Armea—!"
"Mm… let's stop the teasing there, Siara."
It was teasing?
"Hyung heard from Yelena too, right?"
"I did."
"Something similar happened on our end as well. We'll probably need to stay for a while. A long while."
"…That's enough. We'll talk inside."
Whatever was coming, it sounded bigger than he'd expected.
First Russia, now France.
Liberation… had it always spread this wide?
"Jun looks serious."
"I think something's bothering him too."
"If we pool what we've dug up… we might get close to the truth."
The two plushies whispered back and forth. So they'd been running their own investigation, then.
Fine. Gathering intel first, then. The situation might be even uglier than he'd imagined.
With that, Lee Jun ushered Jeanne through the front door. She paused at the threshold and tilted her head back to take in the whole building.
"So this house was finally finished."
"It was."
The house that had once been meant to hold all of Arcana together, under one roof. After Kyle died and they scattered to the winds, Lee Jun had taken the blueprints and built it himself, as a private residence. Jeanne had seen it once, back when construction was barely underway—no wonder she was curious how it had turned out.
"Bigger than you pictured, right?"
"Yes. Much."
"Come on in. I'll show you which room is yours."
"Thank you."
Lee Jun took her suitcase and led the way inside.
He had no way of knowing, of course, what kind of trouble would erupt in there a few minutes later.
Lee Jun saw Jeanne and the two plushies inside first, then stepped back out to call Yelena.
Assistant-kun! You're finally calling me! I'm moved!
"Keep it down. Can you talk right now?"
I can always talk~ Hold on a sec, will you?
She must have been in the middle of something, because she went quiet for a moment.
And then—
BOOOM!
"……?"
A thunderous explosion bled through the speaker. Now that he listened, the line was sheer pandemonium.
KRAK-BOOM!
WHUMP!
GRAAAAGH—!
Over there! Take the one on the—
Dammit! How did—
BOOOOOM!
…What.
"…What exactly did you pick up the phone in the middle of?"
Hm? Can't hear you, Assistant-kun. Say again?
"I asked what… you're doing right now."
Ohhh, that job I mentioned before! I'm tearing through a suspicious little site. Almost done, so be a dear and wait for me?
"……"
Already? Seriously?
"Hold on—where is this place?"
An abandoned factory out by Saint Petersburg. Why? Worried about me?
"I'm not worried about you, I'm worried about those bastards! At least one of them has to stay breathing, you hear me?"
Of course, Assistant-kun. Isn't that a bit violent of you, though? I have it all planned out, you know?
"No, that's not the point! If those bastards get desperate they'll self-detonate—cut their mana first!"
Huh?
KA-BOOOOOM!
A violent concussion roared through the speaker. So loud the phone itself rattled in his hand.
"Haah…"
For the record, Yelena wasn't the one he was worried about. She wasn't the type to fold to something like this. Going by everything he'd witnessed from her over the years, she'd walk out without a scratch, guaranteed.
No, what had him on edge was the very real chance that every last Liberation rat in that building had just been blown to paste. They'd be planning to burn the evidence along with the witnesses, every scrap of it—and judging by the noise a moment ago, they'd probably all just gone up together.
Those bastards always used self-destruct magic to clean up after themselves.
Lee Jun asked after her through the still-connected call.
"You alright?"
Yup, all good. But what do I do about this? The whole area around here is a flat plain now.
"Damnable bastards."
The Yelena of old could have reverse-calculated the detonation the instant before it triggered. Apart from Hecate, no mage alive could match her on pure speed. But because Lee Jun had been the one to call her first, she'd apparently gotten carried away.
"Focus when you're in a fight, will you."
Sorry, sorry~ The timing was just terrible, though?
"Then let it ring and pick up later."
As if I ever could? When Assistant-kun calls me first? Letting it go to voicemail is not an option!
"……"
Something he was reminded of every single time: this woman was exhausting.
"Ha… anyway. No other problems?"
Aww, you were worried about me.
"Not a chance. How could something like that put a dent in you?"
Fufu, Assistant-kun, so shy~ Just be honest and say you were worried about your big sister.
"…Hanging up."
Ah, wait, wait! You called for a reason, right? It can't be that you just wanted to hear my voice.
Sharp as ever.
"Jeanne just arrived here. She mentioned you, too."
Hmm? Already? That was fast~ Timothy spearheaded it?
"Probably. Once he sets his mind on something, he doesn't waste time."
Even Yelena, it seemed, hadn't expected the triplets to make it to Korea this quickly. Which, put another way, meant she'd already known they were headed here at all.
"A heads-up would've been nice."
Then I'd have obviously gotten scolded by you, no?
"……"
Fufu, kidding, kidding. You're scary when you go silent like that, you know?
"…I'll hear the full story of what happened in France soon enough. And if there's movement on the Russia side, report it to me clearly."
Naturally. The great super-genius-beautiful-girl-magician and mistress of infiltration, Yelena Nikolayevna Zaychik, will soon bring you news worth losing your composure over.
The list of titles had somehow grown again.
"…Hanging up."
Ahh, wait! So cruel, already?
"Jeanne's waiting inside. She called you the moment she saw me."
Which means… I'm your first-choice person to lean on, Assistant-kun?
"I'm actually hanging up now."
Click.
He cut the call before she could get another word out.
Conversations with this woman spiraled the longer they ran. The only defense was to never surrender the initiative—never let her set the pace.
"Haah…"
Ring-ring—
Ring-ring— Ring-ring—
Ring-ring— Ring-ring— Ring-ring— Ring-ring— Ring-ring—
"…Even your texts are loud."
Reading them, his ears somehow felt like they were burning. If being grating were a talent, she'd be a prodigy at it.
Well… given her unique ability, the scattered mind wasn't exactly her fault.
"Still… on my end, there's at least rough progress."
Which left France.
What had happened, and where? Why did Liberation keep acting differently from the previous cycles? Those were the questions he needed answered.
Thinking this, Lee Jun opened the door to the dorm and stepped inside.
The hinges creaked—
And then…
"B-Boss! Boss…!"
"…Ms. Jeong-hyeon?"
The instant the door swung open, Choi Jeong-hyeon came rushing to the entryway in a panic, then shouted in a strangled whisper.
What now? Something happen? With those three here, a real disaster was practically impossible…?
"The person who just came in…! Th-that's Ms. Bernadotte, isn't it?!"
Ah.
Those three were the disaster.
"Uh… okay, first—Ms. Jeong-hyeon? Breathe. Just breathe."
"B-but Boss! She's, she's S-Class! An S-Class hunter…!"
"……"
Right. Of course.
For a normal hunter, this was exactly the reaction. He'd completely forgotten that these people weren't normal.
That damned superstar aura…
For Seo Yoon, this was the second time, thanks to Yelena and Evrah—but for Choi Jeong-hyeon, this was her first time seeing an S-Class up close. And unlike Seo Yoon, nobody had even given her a heads-up that S-Class hunters would be coming and going here.
So of course it ended like this.
"…Haah."
Maybe it was his imagination, but today of all days seemed unusually full of sighs.
……
No. On reflection, it wasn't his imagination.
Yelena…!
Granted, Lee Jun was partly to blame for never picking up her calls before. But… he picks up now, doesn't he? Would it kill her to give a little notice before making a move?
And that one, too…!
He meant the Chief of the Technology Bureau. That woman has a direct line to him, for crying out loud! How hard would it have been to drop a hint?
"…Fine. Complaining about it now changes nothing."
Call it karma, then. From here on out, he'd actually check his messages from his comrades.
…Except Yelena's. Nine-tenths of her messages were filler anyway.
With that resolution, Lee Jun turned toward the three figures on the living room sofa—or rather, one person and two plushies.
"Jeanne. Timothy. Siara."
"Yes, Oppa."
For now, the conversation was with Jeanne only. Timothy and Siara seemed intent on playing statue.
He had no idea how long they could keep that act up… but if that's what they wanted, all he could do was play along.
"…Let's talk in my room for a minute. Grab your things and follow me."
"Understood."
She seemed to have read his intent, gathering up the plushies and rising to her feet. Lee Jun took the suitcase from her hand and headed for the second floor.
Things just got busy all of a sudden.
Liberation's intentions. The hint Kyle left behind. Too many things demanding interpretation—and nowhere near enough time to do it. No wonder all he could do was curse the way disasters always came in bunches.
Would it hurt the world to space them out and send them one at a time?
"Sigh…"
Somehow, it was shaping up to be a day that never ran out of sighs.