The Great Showman #1
The clock struck nine in the evening. It was time for my appointment with Yu Yeoleum. Standing under a streetlamp in the park near my house, I was getting seriously annoyed by the palm-sized moth-like fairies called Tinkerbells that kept dive-bombing me.
“You crazy moth bastards!”
It was all-out war between man and moth. Right in the middle of this life-or-death battle between species, the air suddenly grew scorching hot. A searing heat ray brushed right past my face.
Ziiiing—.
Smolder—.
The moths fluttering around me turned to ash in an instant and scattered. The strangely sweet smell of burning hit my nose, and my head spun.
“Hey, what the hell? You can’t just fire a laser the second you show up. What if you hit me?”
I turned my head. From the darkness, a girl approached with glowing eyes. She was dressed entirely in white—a white dress, white socks, and white sneakers.
“How do I look? Does it suit me?”
“It suits you. If I had to describe the vibe… it’s like a girl from the sports club finally realizes she has feelings for her childhood friend, only to get caught by a sleazy gym teacher and end up becoming an adult way too soon.”
“What kind of review is that? And Jin-ah, you’re wearing a tracksuit. School gym clothes, no less. I thought this was supposed to be a date?”
Yu Yeoleum gave my outfit a slightly disapproving look. She’d dressed up nicely for once, and my sloppy appearance seemed to be the problem.
“It’s fine. My underwear is stylish, at least. If possible, I’d love the chance to show it off today.”
“Pfft. You never stop joking, do you?”
“Who said I was joking?”
“Something like that… should only happen when both people are ready to take responsibility.”
Yu Yeoleum, you’re not as easy as I thought. No need to worry about the sleazy gym teacher. If anything, the gym teacher was the one who needed protecting. After all, this girl shoots lasers from her eyes.
“Is it really okay to waste a laser on a bunch of moths?”
“It’s fine. I absorbed plenty of sunlight today. My charge is high.”
“Really? On a phone battery scale, what percentage?”
“Seventy-five percent. Just so you know, each laser uses about five percent.”
Which meant Yu Yeoleum could fire fifteen more lasers from now on. I filed that information away and started walking with her.
###
There were a lot of abandoned houses in our neighborhood. Imagine two high school students—one guy about to turn twenty and one girl—wandering around those places. A boy and girl at their physical peak, blood running hot, walking together down dark, secluded paths. Of course something was bound to happen.
“Jin-ah, want to play Can Smash?”
Can Smash, of course!
Yu Yeoleum lined up empty cans and blasted them all down with lasers from her eyes. Three shots. That left her with twelve shots remaining.
“Back in the day we used to throw rocks at cans. I wonder why we stopped doing stuff like that?”
Despite her cool exterior, Yu Yeoleum was full of childish innocence and loved playing around. She’d rummage through abandoned houses, suddenly shout “Boo!” to scare me, or walk along the white lines on the road doing little hops. We were as comfortable with each other as childhood friends who’d known one another forever. It almost felt like we really had played together in this neighborhood since we were kids.
If I didn’t already have the unshakable rose named Seo Gaeul firmly planted in my heart, it wouldn’t have been strange at all if I’d fallen for Yu Yeoleum. Those large breasts visible beneath her dress and those smooth armpits were poison to my eyes.
Yu Yeoleum seemed completely unaware of how her actions and body language affected men. Or maybe she was doing it on purpose?
Lost in those thoughts, we arrived at our original destination: the New Sprout Orphanage.
“This place…”
The playful bounce in Yu Yeoleum’s step vanished instantly, like oil settling on water. I decided to be honest with her.
“This is where the remnants of the Villainers were spotted. It looks like a lot of unregistered Awakened who came from this orphanage are involved. I thought you should know.”
Creak—.
Yu Yeoleum touched the horribly rusted swing in the orphanage playground. For a moment, the seesaw and merry-go-round reflected sadly in her eyes.
“That can’t be. There’s no way they’d get involved in something so terrible.”
“Go talk to them yourself.”
I had contacted the short-haired girl, Kim Mari, and arranged a meeting here today. The Villainers had been treating Yu Yeoleum like a thorn in their side, so they were bound to have set up an ambush. That would lead to a wasteful skirmish. Yu Yeoleum’s lasers and charge would run out. Then I could snatch her while she was drained—!
A perfect plan. With this strategy, I wouldn’t even need to sacrifice the life of “The Day With No Leftovers.”
“Kim Mal-i!”
I shouted loud enough for the whole orphanage to echo, eager to put the plan into motion. But the person who appeared wasn’t the short-haired girl, the school uniform girl, or even the chubby one. It was a man with curly hair.
What was his name again?
“You’re the Level 3 wanted criminal, Piccolo, right?”
“It’s Pinocchio.”
Right, that guy. So the Villainers really had set up an ambush at the meeting place between Yu Yeoleum and her old friends.
As I was thinking that, Pinocchio spoke.
“You came to meet Mari and the others, right? But you won’t be able to see them. I don’t know who shook their hearts, but they tried to leave the organization. That’s not allowed, is it?”
“What did you do to my friends?”
Vrrrr—.
Yu Yeoleum’s eyes began to glow so brightly it was blinding. Pinocchio flinched at the car-headlight glare and retreated behind a building pillar, only poking his head out to shout.
“They’re safe for now. But I don’t know what’ll happen from here on. You, of all people, should know what happens when a hungry monster reveals its true nature, right, Miss Yeoleum?”
“What? Monster?”
“I’m really curious what’ll happen when that cute little creature shows its true colors. By the way, only I know where it is. The lock we put on the monster has exactly one hour left before it opens.”
This Pinocchio guy. Using his stupid brain to cause trouble. Non-combat types really are the most annoying with their petty tricks.
Fortunately, I had already accounted for a variable like this.
“Miss Yeoleum, the truth is, we want to get along with you. We don’t want to turn someone with as much power as you into an enemy either. So if you just do one simple favor, I’ll tell you where your friends are.”
“A favor?”
“Our reputation is in the gutter right now. We can’t become the object of citizens’ fear just because we got beaten by some high schooler, can we? So we need payback. Break the legs of the male student standing next to you. You don’t have to kill him. Just make sure he can’t walk anymore. One leg for one life seems like a fair trade, doesn’t it? How about it?”
Make Yu Yeoleum destroy my legs? My precious, lovable legs? He wanted to send me back to my limping days? Back to living in that shack?
Even setting that aside, there was a contradiction in his words.
“Hey, Piccolo. Didn’t you say you have three people locked up? I only have two legs. Even if both get destroyed, that still leaves one person dead, doesn’t it?”
“Come on, friend. A man has three legs, doesn’t he?”
“Fair enough.”
He’s more reasonable than I expected.
As I was thinking that, Pinocchio, hidden in the shadows, continued.
“Three lives. One leg. Which is more valuable? Don’t they have these kinds of ethical dilemma debates a lot at Youngsa High? Like, when you can save many lives by sacrificing one person—how should you act?”
“……”
Yu Yeoleum’s expression grew serious. I could practically see the calculations running through her head.
“You can’t negotiate with terrorists. Even if I broke your leg, there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t just add more conditions afterward. Jin-ah, what do you want to do?”
She was right. There was no reason to naively trust Pinocchio. Sensing our hesitation, the voice from the darkness added another line.
“How about this? Every time I break one leg, I’ll give you part of the address. I’m Pinocchio, but I don’t lie. I only speak unpleasant truths.”
I had the Emotion ability. From what I could tell, Piccolo wasn’t lying right now. So I put weight on my left leg and slammed it as hard as I could into the solid asphalt.
“Give me the address.”
Crack—!
Snap—!
The sound of my shin bone breaking in half rang out. It hurt like hell, but I clenched my teeth and refused to scream like a wimp.
“Jin-ah!”
“Whoa, damn. I didn’t think you’d actually break your own leg. But a promise is a promise. Miss Yeoleum’s friends are somewhere between number 1 and number 50 in Gaecheon-dong.”
How many houses were between 1 and 50 in Gaecheon-dong? The pain in my left leg made it hard to calculate, but luckily I had friends who had recently gotten really into search missions.
⊳ Ha Namjin! We’ll find them for you!
⊳ Kids! It’s between 1 and 50!
⊳ Narrowing down locations where people might be trapped with monsters will make this easy!
A reliable voice came from my smartwatch. Right now, I didn’t just have three legs. If I combined everyone’s, I had more than ten.
“Pinocchio, I’ll tell you an unpleasant truth too. If I catch you, you won’t die a clean death.”
All we had to do was find the location where the butt-slapping friends and short-haired Kim Mari were trapped within the one-hour limit. During that time, Yeoleum and I would catch and beat the crap out of this Pinocchio. Once my broken leg was fixed by Taeseong, I could reverse our conditions.
When I leaned my back against a nearby wall, Yu Yeoleum spoke.
“You stay here and rest. I’ll catch him.”
“No, don’t go. The truth is, this whole place is a trap. That Piccolo bastard knew you were coming, so the orphanage is definitely fully prepared against you. Using your weaknesses—”
“My weakness? I don’t have any.”
Yu Yeoleum shook her head. That was when we heard it.
Clank. Click—.
The sound of some mechanical device activating. Then—
Grrrrr—.
Beasts with glowing red eyes poured out from inside the orphanage building. Raccoons, cats, dogs—common animals you’d see anywhere—but all of them had completely lost it. Looking closer, their appearances were also quite different from normal animals.
“Huff, haa, huff—”
Yu Yeoleum’s breathing suddenly grew ragged. Her eyes, which had been glowing like car headlights, now burned like a crimson sunset.
“M-Monster…”
The moment Yu Yeoleum saw the monsters, her condition became extremely strange. Even an idiot could figure it out at this point.
Yu Yeoleum’s weakness was monsters.
That was why she was deployed to fight illegal Awakened instead of entering the Great Labyrinth. Because the Labyrinth was full of monsters.
In other words, Yu Yeoleum had a phobia that made her go crazy when she encountered monsters in dark places. We could call it “Fear of Monsters Encountered in Dark Places.”
The exact symptoms were probably—
Rampage with no ability to distinguish friend from foe. It reminded me of the first time I met Ing-ing in the underground waterway. Of course, the current situation was even worse than back then.
“I have to kill the monsters!”
A fist like a steel pipe flew at me. To Yu Yeoleum, whose eyes had turned completely red, I must have looked like a monster too.
Clang—!
I quickly raised my arm to block, but the punch was so heavy it made my bones sting. With one of my legs already broken, there was only one option left.
I pulled out my phone and played a saved video.
“Ma…”
Maybe turning the smartphone volume all the way up had an effect? The red glow in Yu Yeoleum’s eyes began to scatter like a colorful prism.
━Aang! Hyaah!
The video of flesh slapping together and passionate exchanges played across her rainbow-colored pupils. To put it bluntly, it was porn. Overcoming her trauma toward monsters by replacing it with disgust toward porn!
I hadn’t originally saved it for this purpose, but still!
“Yu Yeoleum! Darkness and monsters are no longer objects of your fear! What you’re truly afraid of isn’t monsters! What you’re truly afraid of is porn!”
“Por….”