The Greatest Showman #2
Everyone has something they fear. Even a man like me—Ha Namjin, the self-proclaimed Alpha Male who fears nothing—actually had a few things that terrified him.
The Permian Mass Extinction, known as the third great dying, was one of them. During that period, ninety-six percent of marine life and over eighty percent of terrestrial vertebrates were wiped out. The Earth had nearly become a lifeless rock like Venus or Mercury.
I never showed my fear in order to uphold my manliness, but I was genuinely scared of that Permian Mass Extinction. Second on the list was the fifth mass extinction that killed off all the dinosaurs. Still, compared to the Permian event, the fifth one felt less frightening. That was the point.
When two scary things clash, one of them inevitably becomes less scary. Maybe both stop being scary altogether. Movies like Alien vs. Predator or Freddy vs. Jason proved exactly that.
“Fight fire with fire! Face fear with fear!”
I played straight-up porn for Yu Yeoleum, who had fallen into a panic because of the monsters, using one terror to crush another. You could call it a counter-fire tactic. My strategy worked perfectly. The mad-bull crimson glow in Yu Yeoleum’s eyes shifted into a sparkling, multicolored prism.
“Uuuu─.”
Yu Yeoleum clutched her head and sank to the ground. Soon, intense heat rays burst from her eyes and melted the monsters in an instant.
Ziiing—!
That’s right. Yu Yeoleum had a constitution that made her shoot beams from her eyes when she got excited. The heat ray just now could be interpreted as sexual arousal and climax overpowering her fear of death.
“Jin, what the hell did you just show me? I was so shocked it actually cleared my head.”
Yu Yeoleum covered her face with both palms. The colorful light leaking between her fingers glowed like stage spotlights. The moment Yu Yeoleum became the true protagonist of the scene, Pinocchio’s voice rang out from inside the orphanage building.
“Porn? You controlled Yu Yeoleum by playing porn? You crazy bastard—I never heard about that plan! But whatever, it’s fine. I still have plenty of cards left.”
That was the end of his speech. He was probably preparing for a full-scale siege inside the orphanage.
Throb. Throb.
I endured the pulsing pain in the arm that had blocked Yu Yeoleum’s fist and examined the monster corpses scattered nearby. Using my Appraisal, I identified them: this one was a raccoon of Rock, that one a dog of Leaf, and the other a cat of Sand. Thanks to them, I obtained the concept stones for Rock, Leaf, and Sand. Not a bad harvest at all.
All that remained was to enter the orphanage, beat Pinocchio to a pulp, extract the rest of the addresses from him, and locate where Shortcut Girl Kim Mari and her friends were being held.
With that thought in mind, I limped toward the orphanage entrance when Yu Yeoleum grabbed my shoulder.
“Jin, you’re injured.”
“I know. But I can handle it.”
“Why do you push yourself this far? You’ll get yourself killed. Aren’t you scared of anything?”
“I’m like a blazing steam locomotive.”
“…A locomotive?”
“Once someone shovels coal into me, all I can do is spew steam and charge forward. I just keep running until the heat inside cools down.”
“…So that’s how it is? I think I understand. I’m the same as you. I’m also a blazing hot train.”
Yu Yeoleum nodded as though she fully understood and accepted my words, but honestly I had no idea what the hell I was saying. It just felt like the right moment for something cool, so I spouted nonsense that sounded profound. It meant absolutely nothing.
“Jin, I’ll take the lead. I still have enough charge for about two more beams.”
Two shots left in Yu Yeoleum’s tank. That would be plenty.
The inside of the orphanage was unnaturally dark—like an entirely separate world without a single ray of light.
“Yeoleum, stop.”
I carefully dismantled the tripwires installed at ankle height.
Click!
“This bastard really prepared every annoying little trap imaginable.”
Seeing the improvised explosive devices scattered everywhere reminded me of the end-of-days bandit base I’d visited months ago. This place was extremely dangerous. As a first-generation graduate of the projection school, Pinocchio seemed to have learned bomb-making from his instructors. Why on earth would they teach minors how to build explosives? Were they planning to create a superhuman special forces unit to infiltrate North Korea?
“Jin, who taught you how to do this?”
Yu Yeoleum watched in open admiration as I disabled the traps one by one using my phone’s flashlight. The light in her eyes had taken on a faint pink hue—she was clearly impressed.
Who taught me? “Hunger.”
“So you learned it from the experience of hunger and pain.”
No, there was actually an old man named Hunger. I met him while collecting scrap. But that wasn’t important right now.
“Yeoleum, from my experience, bastards like Pinocchio love using slippery words to throw people into confusion. So we need to crush him before he gets a chance to speak.”
“Understood.”
After advancing for some time, we reached the basement. Surprisingly, there were no traps down here. Instead, documents that looked like profiles were plastered across every wall.
What was this?
I flipped through them.
Profile: Kim Nuri
Age: 8
Note – Awakening signs are beginning to appear. Intensity of deprivation must be increased.
Profile: Lee Haon
Age: 9
Note – Early stage of awakening. Showing emotional instability; requires attention and care.
They were personal files on the children. Just as I was wondering what they meant, someone emerged from the darkness. It was the woolly-haired Pinocchio.
“Familiar faces, aren’t they? These kids are—”
“Yeoleum, now!”
Ziiiiiiing—!
At my command, Yu Yeoleum fired her laser instantly. The heat ray shot straight at the woolly head. He should have turned into a donut! Victory! Episode over!
Except the heat ray missed Pinocchio completely and grazed my side instead.
“Huh?”
Sizzle—.
While I stared at my scorched flank in confusion, Pinocchio held up a round hand mirror and laughed creepily. Hot smoke rose from its surface.
“Mirrors reflect light.”
“Wait, what the—?”
Yu Yeoleum’s heat ray had a weakness like that? It felt both perfectly logical and completely forced, which somehow pissed me off even more. Had Yu Yeoleum known about this?
When I glanced at her, she answered calmly.
“…There’s no need to go around announcing the defensive counters to my own ability. It would be troublesome if enemies learned about it.”
Too bad the enemy already knew.
The important thing now was that Pinocchio was blocking Yu Yeoleum’s laser with a mirror. Also, one of my legs was wrecked, making it difficult to use Leap. Even so, we still had Yu Yeoleum. She was essentially a tank in the shape of a high-school girl. Normally it would take three high-school girls to destroy a state-of-the-art tank, but Yu Yeoleum was a super high-school girl, so one was more than enough.
“Go! Yu Yeoleum!”
I decided to deploy her. But Pinocchio tore a sheet of paper from the wall and thrust it toward her.
“Wait, wait, wait! Look closely at the faces on these documents. Don’t they look familiar? They’re the friends who disappeared after that night. The missing children. Aren’t you curious what happened to them?”
“What did you do to my friends!”
“I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who did it. The friends who vanished from the orphanage that day—were they really missing? Or did they die from a punch thrown by someone terrified of monsters?”
“What?”
Yu Yeoleum killed her orphanage friends? This was the first time I’d ever heard anything like that. I was about to use Emotion to check whether the claim was true or false when—
“Yeoleum. You’re a murderer. You’re not like us. Just because you wear a cool cape and shoot beams from your eyes, you think you can play hero of justice? Do you really believe you’re allowed to do that?”
“I… with these hands…”
Yu Yeoleum’s breathing grew ragged. As expected, Pinocchio’s specialty was captivating people with that silver tongue of his. What an unmanly bastard. A real man proves things with actions, not words!
“Who says I’m not allowed?” I shot back.
“Who made that rule? Are you the president or something?”
“Are you being serious right now?”
Continuing the debate would have been fine, but I was a man among men who proved things through action rather than words. I took a light breath and leaped forward at full speed.
Papabat—!
My ruined leg screamed like it was about to snap, but that didn’t matter.
“Namjin Kiiiiiiick!!!!”
I clenched my fist and slammed it into Pinocchio’s face with everything I had. The force sent him flying; he rolled across the floor, and the mirror he’d been holding shattered with a satisfying crash. Beautiful.
“Kuhuhuhu… You said kick but used your fist? Kuhuhuhu…”
My blow must have been too strong. Pinocchio lay sprawled on the ground, laughing. Had his brain finally broken?
Ssss, suaaaa—.
A strange wind began to swirl inside the windowless basement. Soon Pinocchio’s body floated upward.
“Levitation?”
What the hell? As I stared in confusion, Pinocchio raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot.
That was the symptom of consuming an unpurified concept stone—like the one called Yama.
“Like I thought, the two of you need to disappear here. So this is what it feels like to have power overflowing through your body. If I had this strength from the start, I wouldn’t have needed to bother with persuasion and lies—!”
Had Pinocchio become a Main? Was he ready to die? At this point I was actually curious.
“Hey, why do you guys go this far? Aren’t you afraid of death either?”
“We—”
The moment Pinocchio tried to answer—
Ziiing—!
A heat ray erupted from right beside me and pierced straight through his groin.
Sizzle—!
“Ah……”
Pinocchio, who had been floating in the air, collapsed onto the floor like the moths I’d fought earlier. He wasn’t dead, was he? I still needed the coordinates.
When I turned, Yu Yeoleum—light gone from her eyes—had slumped to the ground.
“I told you… to take him out before he could speak. Full discharge… I can’t… anymore…”
She began groaning like a smartphone that had completely run out of battery. Then someone’s voice burst from my smartwatch.
They must have rescued the hostages Pinocchio was holding at just the right moment. We’d gotten lucky in more ways than one.
I carried Yu Yeoleum back up to the surface.
“Jin…”
Yu Yeoleum was slumped over, completely unlike her callsign of Invincible. Still, her lips moved like she had a lot to say.
“Was what Pinocchio said true? The children who went missing from the orphanage… were they actually…”
“It was a lie. He’s Pinocchio, remember? The guy who lies. I have Emotion, so I can see through nonsense like that.”
“…Really?”
“Yeah. I swear on my incredibly stylish panties—it’s the truth.”
Yu Yeoleum’s complicated expression finally softened.
Limp. Limp.
I supported her as we left the orphanage.
“Yeoleum, my leg hurts. Can’t you walk on your own?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve completely discharged… I’ll recover if I get some sunlight. Sorry. I really can’t move a single finger.”
It was already eleven at night. Unfortunately, sunrise was still a long way off. I took Yu Yeoleum into a dark alley.
“Jin, I’m so glad you transferred here. If I’d been alone, I would’ve ruined everything. I always end up breaking things. It was the same back then… If I hadn’t suggested keeping that cat…”
Yu Yeoleum’s face crumpled and she began shedding fat tears. Even a beauty’s crying face was beautiful.
“…How nice would it have been if you had been by my side back then too, Jin?”
“Yeoleum, from now on we can always be together.”
“Wait, is that a confession?”
“No. Sorry, but my heart already belongs to Seo Gaeul.”
Pfft—.
Yu Yeoleum finally burst out laughing. After laughing for a long while, she spoke in a somewhat sad voice.
“…I’m jealous of Gaeul.”
“There’s nothing to be jealous about. You’ll be together with Gaeul from now on too.”
“Huh? What did you just say?”
Clank. Creeeak—.
I opened the basement door and shoved Yu Yeoleum inside. Seo Gaeul, hands and feet bound in chains, stared at her with her mouth wide open.
“Oh.”
“…Uhh?”
Yu Yeoleum blinked, clearly failing to process the current situation. Seo Gaeul spoke to her plainly.
“Yu Yeoleum, you look like you don’t understand what’s happening, so I’ll be honest. That bastard Ha Namjin is the psycho who kidnapped me and locked me up here. He’s a crazy psychopath! A perverted dog bastard!”
“Wha…”
Yu Yeoleum’s eyes turned toward me. The warmth that had been in them until moments ago was replaced by bewilderment, betrayal, and a swirl of other emotions, making them sparkle with an eerie light. They were literally prism-like eyes.
In a situation like this, there was only one perfect thing to say.
“The culprit is the limp!”