Do You Wish to Die?
Baek Hanyul had not come here to track 404.
Hyun Gyeongju had flown into a panic at the news that the Kirin Society had shown itself at Paju Market, and Hanyul had meant only to tie the matter off quickly before going back to the hunt. That plan held right up until she saw the powder—the kind that paralyzed a person as neatly as a taxidermist.
"You're 404, aren't you?"
It was not a question pulled out of thin air.
Work like this took an A-rank hunter at the very least, or an unregistered Awakened of the same caliber, and the way the smoke had drawn its own boundary put the control behind it near S-rank. By every record she knew, no one among Korea's hunters—nor among the foreign operatives currently in the country—possessed an ability like it.
Even if it isn't 404, I can't leave without making sure.
A girl who looked about elementary-school age, lying with a straight face in a situation like this, was plainly not a normal person. She would have to be investigated. Items and skills that hid one's identity inside the Tower were not common, but they were not impossible to get. Hanyul settled it: the child had either been raised by an organization, or she was wearing nothing but a child's mask.
"..."
She's tense. The attitude's too different for this to be a simple misunderstanding.
"Relax a little."
Baek Hanyul smiled and took a step closer, and the stiffness in the girl's face eased.
"Haa..."
Then, all at once, the girl sighed in her direction, as if she were looking at something pathetic.
That sigh was the beginning.
"!"
"Aaaah! What the—!"
Baek Hanyul's body folded on instinct. Hyun Gyeongju startled so hard she dropped onto her rear.
...The air just changed completely.
Around the girl's body a black presence bloomed, as if the very idea of a predator had been compressed and set loose. It was too blatant to be a bluff. She was looking down on them.
She was the one craning her neck to look up, and yet she was not cowed in the slightest. The guileless face from a moment ago was gone. All that remained was contempt—the look one gives a bug that has crawled up onto one's skin.
"Haha. If I offended you, allow me to apologize."
Baek Hanyul's face was still smiling. She had always been abnormally resistant to fear, and to shocks of the mind.
Not against this girl.
This was not something a person grew used to, or looked away from. Instinct was grinding her brain under its heel, screaming at her to be wary of the child, to shake. She worked her face as if fighting a spasm and barely held the smile in place.
If she failed to keep this expression now—
"I-I was just dragged along!! If you're going to blame someone, blame Miss Hanyul! I'll just stay down here, nice and flat!"
—I'd end up every bit that pathetic.
She probably wouldn't even be able to keep the shape of a negotiation.
A silence settled over them, the kind that lifted the hair on the skin.
"You."
The girl jabbed a finger at Baek Hanyul.
"...Yes."
Her Majesty? Is that what they call 404?
The instant the girl spoke, the grown woman at her side flinched. Whether her station sat lower than the child's, or whether some other reason bound her, Hanyul—crushed flat beneath the tension—could not begin to guess.
The girl lowered the finger she had pointed and set her posture to rights. She was only standing straight, and yet a noble dignity seemed to seep from the mere act of it.
"I am Her Majesty's proxy, and this one is a court mage. For base creatures such as you to invoke Her Majesty's honored name in vain is no trifling matter."
"...I see."
"That you yet draw breath is entirely by Her Majesty's grace. Be grateful."
"And why is that? Because Her Majesty ascended the Tower, and charged all of you with protecting humankind?"
"What did you say...? Kyahahahaha! Amusing! How amusing! A clown would suit you better than a sage!"
The girl had been laughing behind a hand, bright and relentless, and it did not take long at all for every trace of that laughter to vanish from her face.
"That Her Majesty refrains from slaughtering these insolent vermin for her amusement is mercy itself. Know your place."
"..."
The Sage reached her judgment quickly.
There was no lie in the girl's eyes, and no deception.
Perhaps dealing with this 404—no, with the king of these people—would not be a negotiation at all.
One-sided charity, the kind where all we can do is match their mood?
They might be standing before beings for whom a single slip of the tongue could arrive as a crisis for the nation.
Please fall for it, please fall for it, please fall for it...
How much time did Arrogance have left? She hoped the bluff would land.
The moment the Sage tossed out that probing question, my thoughts spun.
Tell them everything that had happened so far—absolutely not. Claim that I was 404—better than nothing, but it raised the risk of assassination, or of being dragged off and interrogated about why I had done what I did. Not great. Invent a fake 404 entirely, and bluff that we were the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings with a stronger mastermind standing behind us—that made it awkward for them to swing first, and it made us look like there was something to us.
I took the last option, the one that had surfaced at the end.
Right now the Sage, and the government behind her, most likely knew neither our strength nor who we were. They were not people I could trust on the spot, and the odds they would treat us as enemies—or at the very least stay on their guard—were extremely high. Telling people like that our strength is such-and-such was idiocy. The sort of move you make when you go to war with every weapon's specs laid out on the table.
"..."
Fortunately, Enuk caught on to the act quickly and smoothed her expression.
Now all I could do was wait for the other side to step on my trap card.
"Might I dare pose a question? Lady Proxy."
"You are permitted to speak."
"Hehe, thank you. In that case, might I ask just how strong this Her Majesty of yours is? It may sound laughable, but the Republic of Korea has a rather high proportion of National Authority-class hunters and S-rank hunters. My own knowledge is narrow, you see, so I wondered if you might explain by comparing her to them."
Caught her.
The Sage's way of speaking was a little strange, but it didn't seem as if she were trying to mock me. Time to start cranking out the lore.
"Hmm..."
"You don't know? Or is Her Majesty simply that far beyond such measures?"
"No. The question is so absurd I can scarcely call an answer to mind."
"Would you explain it again?"
"In all your life, have you ever considered how many ants it would take to kill a single person?"
"......So that's how it is."
It was cringey enough to curl my toes, but right now, while I could still wield Arrogance, I had to act as naturally as possible and sell the lie.
If our side's strength were a flat zero, this would have been reckless and stupid.
But it wasn't, was it?
Set me aside entirely, and Enuk's raw power alone cleared the very top of S-rank without effort. Honestly, even a National Authority-class hunter was not an empty dream for her. A single city, she could reduce to scorched earth.
It was because we had force like that that a bluff like this could be played. Any remotely normal country, faced with losses on that scale, would not try to kill a counterpart it could still talk to.
"What is it that Her Majesty desires?"
This part was difficult.
Here I was, speaking in the diction of some otherworldly villainess, and I still had to explain why I was pretending to be a child, what orders I had been given, and why I was doing any of this. In that split second, the plot of an old classic I had once come across flashed through my mind.
"A play. And a role."
"A play and a role?"
"Yes. A performance, and a part to play. Her Majesty, only lately awakened, has taken a profound interest in insignificant humans such as yourselves. The ecology of that breed you call hunters, in particular."
The more I talked, the clearer it became—the figure who was 404, who was Her Majesty, and the rest of the setting along with her.
"Your pitiful struggling against the Tower appears to have caught Her Majesty's interest. And so Her Majesty, who had been lost to long slumber and to books alone, has set foot in person upon the stage called hunter."
"Is that truly the reason? And if I might ask Her Majesty's honored name..."
I glared at Baek Hanyul as venomously as I could.
"Did you possess the right to question me? You dare inquire after Her Majesty's name, and the depths of her intent. The sin warrants your tongue cut out and iron driven into the wound—but I have need of that mouth of yours, so I shall forgive you this once."
"...I apologize."
If they started to doubt me, I could just smack them with etiquette that didn't even exist. Incredibly convenient.
"Then might I dare ask whether the rest of you have been given roles as well?"
"Granted. We are Her Majesty's hands and feet, and so she has assigned us roles of our own. She commanded us to mix into this world of the lowly, act as hunters, and protect the people."
Put that way, it explained why we were pulling this nonsense, and it let us settle into something friendly with a comfortable amount of distance. More than anything, I told the lie because it might let us operate as official hunters again.
Baek Hanyul nodded without a word, as if persuaded. Or as if she had simply given up.
"What is it you want?"
"At last, words that make sense. You came upon us suddenly and without manners, so for now I will speak only of what is immediate."
The negotiation was a success. The thing we needed most—
"Register us as official hunters. In the speech of humans, I believe you call it a forged identity. For the present, we require it in order to fulfill the role Her Majesty has given us."
"Is that truly all you need, for now?"
"Hardly. You will also provide an attendant. One who, whenever Her Majesty or we demand something, swiftly presents whatever has been commanded."
"Understood. Might we offer a plea, rather than a negotiation?"
"Laughable. But I will hear it. Speak."
"Taking on the role of hunters—does that mean you have no intention, for the time being, of invading or attacking the Republic of Korea?"
"Her Majesty has said she has no such plans as yet. Though that will depend upon your attitude, and upon your insolence."
"We can only be grateful for Her Majesty's grace. And, if I may be so bold—are you familiar with the tale of the goose that lays the golden eggs?"
Out of nowhere?
"Is that not a fairy tale for human children? Has fear driven you into infantile regression?"
"No. I was hoping you might regard us as precisely that sort of creature. Even the occasional aid you give us—please think of it as the process of fattening us, for the tribute we will one day offer Her Majesty."
"Kyahaha! At last that head of yours is beginning to turn! Very well. A goose that lays golden eggs! Far better than a monkey."
Whew. This had gone far better than I expected.
Identities, secured. The government, reduced to an errand-runner.
Had we squeezed out everything there was to squeeze?
I was turning over what else I might reasonably wring from them when another demand surfaced.
I stared straight at Hyun Gyeongju—the one who was supposedly the Hunter Gallery's mod.
She was trembling.
Hyun Gyeongju panted with her chest puffed out like a baby bird's, still crawling as if in prostration. Even in that posture, she was slowly trying to inch away.
"...There isn't a scrap of etiquette on you, not if I washed my eyes and looked. I don't recall ever giving you leave to withdraw."
"I-I don't know anything! Lady Proxy! I wouldn't even taste good! I'd just be greasy, and—I don't have any authority either! Before I awakened I was a complete unemployed bum! Please believe me..."
"Silence."
"Hic!"
Hyun Gyeongju. No—there was something to wring out of the Hunter Gallery's mod.
"The truth is... allow me to speak. Her Majesty has taken a great interest in something called the Hunter Gallery."
"Y-yes?"
Hyun Gyeongju's mouth fell open like a fool's.
"Offer it up."
Legal manipulation of the Hunter Gallery's featured posts. The mod seat. Hand it over.