Let's Respect Her Privacy
Ari walked with light, bouncy steps.
The hallway was filled with shrill, chaotic beeping, no doubt triggered by her unauthorized escape.
“Ari-nim! Ari-nim! Where are you?”
“We ordered some delicious late-night snacks! Would you like to join us? Have you ever tried tteokbokki?”
Amid the commotion, she watched the research institute staff calling out desperately into thin air.
Late-night snacks, huh.
Do they think I’m some kid who’ll follow them for candy?
She had things to do. There was no way she’d reveal herself just to eat.
“Set some aside for me.”
“Huh…?”
“Ari-nim?!”
Her stern, serious tone left them visibly flustered.
Gotta take what’s mine.
She enjoyed the sight of the staff waving their hands at empty space for a moment, then continued striding down the hallway with a confident gait.
The reason she’d slipped out of the room while using Stealth was simple.
To destroy the CCTV cameras that were spying on her room!
She understood being treated as an otherworldly immigrant, but her privacy still needed to be protected, didn’t it?
That was why she planned to ransack every place that might house a control room.
If I ask them outright if there are CCTV cameras in the room, they’ll just say there aren’t.
Or they’d admit it, apologize, and only pretend to remove them.
She didn’t even need to bother communicating. The outcome was painfully obvious.
So she decided to act immediately.
There was no doubt that hidden cameras were watching her.
Even before she opened the reinforced door.
The moment she erased her presence with Stealth, the alarms had blared instantly.
She was being monitored in real time. The hallway had already been in an uproar by the time she stepped out.
It was truly lamentable how little trust existed between them.
“Fairy-nim! Faaairy-niiim—!”
She brushed past a teary-eyed Han Ji-hyeon as well. Speaking of which, why was this girl working overtime again?
She’d looked exhausted after all that shopping and had even told her to go home and rest properly once her shift ended.
Ah, is that it?
She must be trying to earn overtime pay!
She’s really living diligently.
I should take a page from her book.
Hmm, yes. Han Ji-hyeon was a perfectly suitable role model for adapting to modern life.
She’d have to keep observing and learning from her going forward.
……And so, after thoroughly wandering around the research institute and poking into every corner for quite some time.
She passed by an area that isolated a space rippling like a gate.
She even waved at the armed personnel searching the area.
Finally, she succeeded in locating a room packed with CCTV monitors.
This also let her verify another goal.
The fact that modern science was completely incapable of detecting her Stealth!
As expected, I really am a genius in this field.
With a pleased little chuckle, she stood beside the busy, darting-eyed staff and scanned the wall of monitors.
She’d smash every suspicious device in her room based on this.
And since they might secretly reinstall them, she’d check periodically.
Until they started respecting her privacy.
Let’s see who wins.
……Before the research institute was thrown into emergency mode.
At the Hunter Management Bureau headquarters, they had been in the middle of a frantic meeting reviewing the events of the day.
It had become necessary to reestablish guidelines for handling Boss Ari.
How should they treat an entity that couldn’t be controlled, pursued, or even properly monitored?
It was an incredibly difficult problem.
“Should we teach her common sense and correct her behavior so she acts like a cultured person?”
“That’s right. We must reintegrate her into society. If we fail, it’s over for Korea!”
“How about inducing her to leave for another country? There’s no need for us to willingly embrace a bomb, is there?”
All sorts of opinions flew around.
While the suggestions varied wildly, they all shared one common point.
The fact that Boss Ari was an existence beyond the nation’s ability to control.
“You all remember the Southeast Asia Incident, right? To prevent history from repeating itself, we must decide with extreme caution.”
“……”
“……”
The mention of the Southeast Asia Incident brought a momentary silence over the conference room.
A sovereign nation being overthrown by an otherworldly immigrant had been that shocking an event.
And Calamity-class Boss Ari carried an even greater threat than that.
Is it even right for us to be sitting here holding meetings and making decisions?
No matter how I look at it, we’re clearly at the bottom of the food chain…….
A few of them even let out hollow laughs.
It had only been two days since the Break occurred, yet the more they dug, the more horror stories kept piling up.
“Still, it’s a relief that she obediently returned to the isolation room for now……”
Maybe there was still room for negotiation.
Just as someone muttered that.
“Report!”
A staff member hurriedly delivered a message from Han Ji-hyeon.
— BIG TROUBLE!! Ari-nim completely wiped out the Ilhyeon Guild raid team —
“…?!!”
“?!?!”
A different kind of silence fell over the conference room.
A sudden murder threat!
The stiff-faced officials stared at one another.
But just as the mood was settling into the belief that it was too early to judge based on a single message.
“Boss Ari, who was in the isolation room, has suddenly disappeared!”
“It’s an escape! She’s escaped! The isolation room entrance was forcibly opened! Boss Ari is missing!”
Urgent reports poured in one after another.
The situation looked, to anyone watching, like a planned terrorist attack against the Ilhyeon Guild.
Worse, every hunter who had participated in Boss Ari’s raid party was a valuable high-rank hunter.
The headquarters, now in a state of urgent countdown, hurriedly discussed countermeasures.
Even as they spoke, the situation continued to be relayed in real time.
“There are reports of a voice being heard! She is still inside the research institute!”
“She reacted to the late-night snack tteokbokki!”
“Detection team dispatched but unable to sense her! Location cannot be determined!”
And so, eventually.
Just as the prevailing opinion was leaning toward issuing an evacuation advisory to the Ilhyeon side no matter how they responded.
“S-she’s back, they say.”
“What?”
“Just like that?”
“Then why did she escape?”
The news that she had suddenly vanished and then suddenly returned made everyone frown.
The staff member who had been communicating with the scene relayed the updated situation.
“She is currently rummaging through the items in her room, precisely identifying and destroying the CCTV cameras.”
Furthermore.
“She reportedly sent a message to the research institute staff saying, ‘Please respect my privacy.’……”
“……”
“……”
Sighs erupted from all over. Some clutched their heads and groaned.
Soon, resigned mutters followed.
“Yeah… we should respect it……”
“What can we even do? Sigh.”
“Make sure to instruct them not to install any additional surveillance devices inside Boss Ari’s isolation room.”
It was a scene of Ari’s intentions being accepted in a single blow.
“Ji-hyeon, aren’t you going home?”
“Is it really okay for me to leave…….”
“?”
What is she even saying.
Ari looked at her in bewilderment and stabbed a piece of tteokbokki with her fork.
Chew chew. Gulp.
“Are they harassing you from above?”
“It’s not that, but… Ah, maybe it’s not entirely wrong?”
It’s because of you, Ari-nim!
When Han Ji-hyeon puffed out her cheeks in a pout.
“Should I scold them for you?”
“……No, it’s fine.”
She immediately deflated with a long sigh.
She had no idea who was supposed to be scolding whom.
Completely unaware of that feeling, Ari tilted her head cutely and stabbed another piece of tteokbokki with a different flavor.
She brought it straight to her mouth.
“Ack…”
She clutched her mouth.
Even while making a teary face, she swallowed it, then chugged an entire can of soda in big gulps.
Haaa— She stuck her tongue out slightly and made an adorable distressed face. Han Ji-hyeon stared at her in a daze.
It was a face so pretty it could melt away even the frustration that had been building up inside her.
If it’s that spicy, she could just spit it out…
She really does have a stubborn side.
Thinking that, she ate a piece of the same spicy tteokbokki. The moderate heat was perfectly delicious.
In that natural division of labor, they focused on clearing out one particular flavor of tteokbokki.
Ari, who had been gently rubbing her stomach, suddenly asked something that occurred to her.
“That thing called a gate. I saw one inside this research institute too. What’s it for?”
“A gate?”
Han Ji-hyeon echoed the question briefly before falling into thought.
Since she wasn’t a research institute employee, she couldn’t recall it immediately.
She pulled out her smartphone, fiddled with it for a moment, then spoke.
“Ah, it’s a high-rank gate that appeared during the early days of the Great Cataclysm. Apparently this research institute itself was established to study that very gate.”
Worried that Ari might not understand, Han Ji-hyeon gave her a basic explanation about dungeons and gates.
Ari nodded and said,
“So it’s a gate that’s maintained because the boss stays inside… Why doesn’t it come outside?”
“There were various theories about that part, but in the end, since it’s a monster-type that can’t communicate and its research value has dropped, it’s now considered a nuisance gate.”
Clearing it out would require mobilizing expensive manpower.
But leaving it as is and simply managing it didn’t bring in much money either.
That was the true identity of the gate Ari had discovered while wandering around the institute earlier.
In that instant, an idea flashed through Ari’s mind.
Oh, this…
Wouldn’t this be perfect for helping out and then showing off about it?
This seemed like a good way to legitimately squeeze something out of the Management Bureau!
Having found her prey, Ari lightly licked her lips.
Han Ji-hyeon, who had been cleaning up the table, saw that expression and instinctively froze.
What on earth is she about to say?
She even held her breath, waiting for the words that would follow.
“I’ll take care of it for you.”
“Uh… yes?”
Take care of what?
“That nuisance gate! In return, I’ll need compensation, of course.”
You said that if I want someone to do something for me, I have to give them proper compensation, right, Ji-hyeon?
After adding that, she placed both hands on her hips. Then she thrust her chest out majestically!
She looked ready to barge in even if no one asked her to.
Han Ji-hyeon, who had been listening carefully, felt her eyes grow slightly moist.
C-can’t we… just leave it alone…?