Masquerade Ball (7)
"S-sir, as I was trying to say..."
The staff member planted in front of me was sweating buckets, completely at a loss for what to do.
"Are you kidding me?! Is this how you treat a guest who actually helped you?"
Far from putting the poor man at ease, I only raised my voice and poured more gasoline on his panic.
"Th-the thing is, sir..."
He squeezed his eyes shut and forced the words out.
"I truly hate to say this, but given the circumstances... I sincerely apologize for having to treat you as a suspect."
Allow me to explain how we got here.
I had spent a solid stretch of the night helping the casino guards put down those bizarre fish-men inside the black market. Afterward I linked up with the other guests — the ones who had done absolutely nothing except keep themselves alive — and waited at a polite distance for the situation to settle, lingering for the items I had won at auction. The casino, for its part, apologized profusely for the chaos and did everything it could to accommodate us, compensating people in assorted ways for goods the fish-men had damaged. And of course, for the man who had actually fought beside the guards, they promised the royal treatment and a generous reward.
The trouble started somewhere in the middle of all that. Once the casino realized that a certain stone — a stone whose bidding had soared to ninety-three billion won, thanks to those uninvited fish-men — had vanished, they started looking at me. And honestly, who could blame them? A white worm had burst from a fish-man's gills, torn the auctioneer's wrist open, and made off with the stone. I was the one who ripped that last white worm apart. Anyone with eyes would have put me at the top of the suspect list.
Not that I hadn't actually taken it, mind you. But that stone was clearly connected to the fish-men, and as a player it was my duty to confiscate it for the sake of protecting the world. I did not take it out of simple, honest greed. I mean it!
The casino, sadly, was not privy to the purity of my motives. They pulled me aside, asked for my understanding, and proceeded to search me from head to toe — which is how I ended up here.
"It didn't turn up, did it? Right? And you're still doing this?"
They had just gone over every inch of me and found nothing. Faced with my thoroughly aggrieved protest, the staff member broke out in a fresh sheet of sweat, screwed his eyes shut as if steeling himself, and said,
"Would it be possible to... inspect your subspace? Just once."
What they called a subspace in this world was, in language I knew far better, an inventory. And in this world, anyone who awakened as an ability user — shooter, esper, no exceptions — received a subspace of their own.
"Are you joking right now?"
"If you would just let us check this one time, we truly will not press the matter any further."
"It's not about pressing the matter. If you look even in there, there's nothing left to interrogate me about. That's the whole point. This would be over."
"I am genuinely sorry... but we are in a terrible rush, so as shameless as it is, just once... I am begging you, just this once."
"Unbelievable."
I clicked my tongue and looked at the man planted firmly in my path. There was not a hint of give in him. Then again, they had already considered every other possibility, turned over every stone, and come up empty. Of course they had concluded that there was no one left to suspect but me.
"You do realize how incredibly rude this request is."
"I am truly sorry. We will prepare a separate token of apology for this later."
"Tsk."
Showing someone your subspace was an extremely sensitive matter — the kind of thing that could violate an ability user's privacy in the ugliest ways. Imagine getting caught carrying around a curated collection of adult magazines and sex toys. The humiliation alone would kill you.
"Fine. Look."
I threw my inventory wide open right in front of his face. It was a brazen move, the kind of thing no one who had actually stolen a stone would ever dare.
"Nn... nngh..."
The staff member stared into the open subspace as if he meant to bore a hole through it. Inside, there was nothing but a tidy row of iron swords and Levatein.
"Satisfied?"
I shut it with a look of profound offense plastered across my face.
"I am so sorry, sir!"
He folded at the waist in a deep, sincere bow.
"Forget it. Just make sure the compensation is worth my time."
Still wearing an expression that said I was thoroughly disgusted, I put some distance between myself and the staff. And once I had put enough of it between us, a wicked little smile crept onto my lips all by itself.
No way they were going to find it.
No matter what those casino people tried, they would never lay a hand on my beloved — well, my grotesque — little stone. Because that stone was no longer here. By now it was probably drifting in midair somewhere outside the casino, nestled in the hands of my darling partner, Angel. I had cracked a window earlier, just in case something like this happened, called Angel over, and had her move the stone out ahead of time.
"Heh heh heh."
I smiled, thoroughly pleased with myself. I was walking away from this masquerade with quite the haul.
The masquerade finally ended, and I dragged my exhausted body home. The girls, who had been locked in a heated discussion late into the night, came out to greet me. Alice and the Vice Chairwoman looked oddly pleased with themselves. Cheonghwa's cheeks were flushed pink. When our eyes happened to meet, she went uh-bub-buh and jerked her gaze away.
I stepped inside, grinned, and took a good long look at all of them. Then, with the same energy as a father coming home from work with a box of fried chicken, I laid out every last item I had picked up at the masquerade.
"Kyaaaaah!"
I handed them out — pieces I had chosen with a veteran's eye — and Alice and Cheonghwa both let out shrieks of pure delight. Even the Vice Chairwoman muttered a thank-you and tipped her head in a curt little gesture of gratitude, her expression as deadpan as ever.
Watching them light up, I puffed out my chest and helpfully added the price tags. "That one's a billion won." "That one's three billion."
Alice and Cheonghwa nearly dropped what they were holding. The Vice Chairwoman, who lived with the Chairwoman and had presumably seen numbers like this before, did not so much as blink.
"J-Jojun, is it really okay for us to take these?"
"This is worth a whole house?!"
Watching Alice and Cheonghwa spiral into a full-blown panic, I was more convinced than ever that going to the masquerade with the Chairwoman had been the correct call. If I had gone with Alice, or with Cheonghwa, both of us would have been so overwhelmed by all that glittering luxury that we would have wasted half the night just standing there with our mouths open.
"The Chairwoman bought them. Everyone say thank you."
"Kyaah! I love you, unnie!"
"Chairwoman...! Is it really all right for us to accept this?"
The Chairwoman wore the same gracious smile she always did and said, "Oh, it's nothing, really," looking every inch the picture of a capable woman. Alice and Cheonghwa melted on the spot and proceeded to squeal her praises without pause.
Once the items had been divided up, we lingered over warm, easy conversation — until the hour finally caught up with us, and we parted with genuine reluctance. Alice, the Chairwoman, and the Vice Chairwoman said their goodbyes in turn and stepped out the door. Cheonghwa, last to leave, kept sneaking glances at me with her cheeks on fire, as if she were wrestling with something she could not quite say. I smiled and waved her off. She made a face like she had just been caught red-handed and bolted through the door. And just like that, I was alone.
"Nngh."
I rolled the stiffness out of my shoulders and checked the clock.
Five-thirty.
"Ugh. It really is late."
Masquerades already ran long on a good night, and the fish-man incident had dragged me home even later.
Pop!
Right on cue, as always, Angel appeared at my side.
"Player!"
"That's my girl! Nice work, Angel!"
I held out my hand to the star of tonight's ninety-three-billion-won heist.
Smack!
A satisfying high-five cracked between us.
"Oh, right. Angel — what the hell were those fish-men that showed up tonight?"
The stone brought the fish-men to mind as naturally as breathing, and I asked before I could stop myself.
"Ah... those? That's actually why I came."
Angel let out a long sigh and raked both hands through her blonde hair until it stood on end.
"How am I even supposed to explain this..."
"Take your time. Just walk me through it."
While she blinked her russet-amber eyes and turned it over in her head, I stripped off my clothes, pulled on my pajamas, and flopped onto the bed.
"Ahh. Now this is comfort."
The casino's absurdly expensive chairs had been nice enough, but nothing in the world beat your own bed. I stretched out until every joint popped, and Angel drifted over.
"Player."
"Yeah? You figure it out?"
"Yes. Player — do you remember what you talked about with Mubaek last time?"
"Obviously."
It would have been weirder if I had forgotten. Mubaek — that pale, hollow-eyed man with white hair sticking out in every direction and dark circles carved deep under his eyes. Every insane word that lunatic had said was still burned into my memory.
"Back then, Mubaek said the price of you coming to this world already existed here."
"He did."
His little metaphor about the white scales surfaced in my head without any effort at all.
"The truth is, that price was a penalty — a nasty one, buried under a pile of conditions so strict it never should have come due. That Mubaek bastard dragged it here by force."
"That son of a bitch."
I could still see the look on his face, acting like he knew everything, asking me, So, what do you suppose the price is? The curse slipped out on its own.
"Going into the details wouldn't help you right now, and it would only do more harm than good. So, short version: that price is a virus from the outside."
"A what?"
Angel went on, calm and even.
"And that virus latches onto this world, exerts its influence, and its goal is to stain everything here with itself."
"Then those fish-men tonight — they're that?"
"Yes."
So that was why I had not recognized them, even with those nightmarish faces. If Angel was right, the fish-men were not the "demons" that had always belonged to this world. They were a "virus." Of course my game knowledge had a hole where they should have been.
"So, Player. You need to be careful from here on."
Her amber eyes locked onto mine. There was not a tremor in them — just a steady, unshakable hold, the look of someone who was worried about me and meant every word of the warning.
"The viruses that crossed over are old. Really old. The kind that make your skin crawl just thinking about them."
I swallowed a sigh and, unbidden, Cheonghwa's face rose in my mind. Cheonghwa as she had been that day — seven black horns crowning her head, burning everything in sight — had handed me despair on a platter. And the one who had put an end to that despair was Tialfi, a being so far beyond us it had seemed impossible to ever catch up. After watching the two of them, I had been swallowed by a single question: Can I actually save this world?
But...
"Angel."
"Yes, Player."
"Can I really save this world?"
"Yes, Player. No matter how strong those viruses are, the Player I have watched is the best there is. I am certain..."
Her eyes did not waver. They held me, and only me.
"If you go all the way to the end, I believe you will find a way through. No matter what it takes."
"That so."
Yeah. Even if I did not believe in myself, I had an Angel who believed in me completely.
"If you say so, then that's how it is."
This was the same Angel who had already saved my life once. If she said it, that was good enough for me.
"Yes, Player. And if it ever gets too hard, I will find some kind of loophole and help you. Whatever it takes!"
She bunched her tiny hands into fists. I snorted a laugh and wriggled my way under the covers.
"You do that. I'm going to sleep."
"Yes, Player! Good night!"
Angel huffed and tugged, dragging the blanket all the way up to my chin.
"I turned in late, so wake me around two tomorrow. Lights out."
"Yes! Lights out!"
Click.
The lights died with Angel's bright little voice, darkness settled over the room, and I sank under almost before I knew it.