What's With That Face?

I tumbled across the ground in a single roll, and a streak of gold swept past just above my head.

I stayed low and looked at the woman in front of me again.

An unusual outfit, her whole body sheathed in black leather. At first I'd taken it for some new kind of armor, but a closer look said otherwise. The material was wrong. The construction was wrong. Nothing like anything I had seen before.

It clung to her without getting in the way of how she moved. Combat wear, at least — that much I could tell.

And she was human. In appearance, anyway.

I had lost count of how many times things that wore a human face had gotten me. Trusting a shape was a fool's habit, and I had kicked that habit a long time ago.

So, an enemy. She had drawn first. She had shown hostility first. She had even swatted aside the probe I'd thrown out to read her, easy as breathing. Being careful cost me nothing.

The distance between us was about three times my height.

I pointed my sword at the ground, threw myself forward, and watched what she would do.

She knew the moment I entered her range. The same golden slash came for me again, the arc a little lower than before.

I rolled back and waited for the counter, or the trick tucked behind it. The opening was there. She did not take it.

Then I would have to make her.

I closed on her again — and deliberately arrived a beat late.

A single beat in a fight. That sliver of time is enough to steal the other person's rhythm. Looking at a gap like that and doing nothing is harder than it sounds.

And, as expected, she took it.

The instant I left myself open she stepped in and cut, her blade coming for me as I rushed her. I did not slow down. I rolled sideways instead. Gold kissed the tips of my hair on the way past.

"…The foot."

That last cut had given me one thing. When she swung, the power started in her left foot. She had been trying to put her lower body into the blade, but the motion was too big.

I opened the distance again. Once more, she did not chase.

Cautious, or just green… It wasn't that she lacked skill. The strength in that ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠last attack, the speed of it — both had been considerable. But the sword itself was rough.

Put simply, she had power and no continuity to string it together. Not one technique into the next. One technique. Then another technique. Separate things.

To my eye it was not a sword someone had been taught in any proper school. It was a sword someone had picked up to stay alive, the same way I had. The finish on it was just worse than mine.

"…Dammit."

As if she had heard the thought, the woman clenched her teeth and let a short curse slip. Real words. An actual sentence.

Good news. If she could talk, she was not the black-magic sort, and she was not the outer-god sort either.

An enemy you can speak with is precious. Win the fight, take them alive, and you can pull out as much information as you want.

"In that case…"

I took the sword in both hands again and dropped my stance. I had decided she did not have anything left in reserve. If she had, she would have used it when she had the chance.

I stamped the earth and leapt. The cut came from high to low.

"Kh—!"

She caught it, her other hand bracing the spine of her blade, and our swords crossed exactly the way I had expected.

I let go of the strength in my wrists.

My sword was already broken in half. She was still pouring power into the block. Yank the force out of a clash like that and the other person has no choice but to shove the blade away.

The dead weight of the sword sprang up under her push. The broken edge started to spin toward me — which meant the grip on the other end was spinning toward her.

I ducked, stepped into her guard, and threw the deciding blow. Just above the solar plexus. The butt of the hilt, not the edge. Nothing that would kill her.

"Ghk—"

I had found the spot. She went down without any real resistance. I ended up holding her by accident, and I eased her the rest of the way to the ground and laid her out carefully.

"All right, then…"

Time to start the interrogation.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

Interrogation. It was not something I knew well. I did not particularly intend to get good at it, either.

Almost everyone I had met up to now either kept their mouth shut until they were a breath from dying, or their body simply burst, or human language did not work on them at all. Holding someone I could actually talk to was a rarer chance than it had any right to be.

I crouched on the ground and looked down at the unconscious woman.

Golden hair. Clothes cut from some black material I had never seen. She really did look like a person.

"…For now, anyway."

I had seen more monsters wearing a human face than I could count, and I had paid for it more times than I could count. Sometimes they cried. Sometimes they laughed. Some of them even said help me and used that to draw people in.

"I'd better hope she isn't one of those."

I stood the sword I had taken from her a short distance away, then bound her hands and feet a few more times with the tough tendon of a monster. Even if she slipped the knots, I could catch her again. This would do.

The real problem was the other thing.

"…What do I even ask first."

Where this was. Why I had been sent back here. Whether there was a way out. What that dark-red lightning had been. And…

"…Earth."

No. I erased the word the moment ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it left my mouth. Nobody who lived in a place like this would know that name. No point getting my hopes up for nothing.

I dragged over a loose stone from nearby and dropped myself onto it. There were more questions than I had expected. I was still lining them up in my head when her eyelids began to twitch.

"She's awake."

I took the sword in hand.

"Don't move."

"…!"

Her eyes snapped open and found mine. The pupils shuddered.

"Ah…"

She looked at her wrists first. Then her ankles. Then, last of all, the point of my sword leveled at her throat.

She dragged in a few breaths and swept the area with her gaze. Once she had confirmed there was nowhere to run, she started letting the tension out of her body, slow and careful. So she could at least read a room.

"Answer a few questions and we're done. Nod if you understand."

She looked at me for a moment, then nodded, very slowly. I watched her and flicked the necklace at my throat with a finger. A red gem on a cord swung left, then right.

"And don't lie. This necklace can tell when you do."

That, of course, was a lie. It was an ordinary necklace, a gift from the only friend I had made in this place. There was no reason to tell her that.

"…I understand."

Good. She was buying it. And from the look of her, she was willing to answer besides.

"Then…"

I tipped the sword, thought for a second, and opened my mouth again.

"Your name, first."

"……Shin Seo-ah."

"Huh?"

Three syllables that were painfully short on fantasy. A stupid sound fell out of me before I could stop it. I got my face under control in a hurry, but the shock was still there. The name was familiar in a way it had no right to be.

"Right…"

The world was full of people with similar names. I forced down the hope that had started to surface. I was not interested in being disappointed by another empty ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wish.

"Next. Affiliation, or where you're from."

I kept my voice as even as I could.

"……The Hunter Association of the Republic of Korea."

"…Come again?"

Had I heard that wrong?

"Say that again."

"The Hunter Association. I belong to the Republic of Korea."

"Come again??"

That was it, wasn't it? That was it. This was the part I was allowed to hope for, right?

I stepped in until I was right in front of her and set the flat of the blade against the side of her neck instead of the point.

"…Kh."

She squeezed her eyes shut and her face tightened.

No — the reaction was real. She had actually come from Earth?

"The Republic of Korea?"

"…That's right."

"Earth?"

"…!"

Her pupils shook in a way you could see. It was the face of someone hearing a word I should never have known how to say.

That was enough. Whatever she had been telling me, it was not a lie.

And more than that. The Republic of Korea. Earth. The Hunter Association. I knew all three. Even if the last one had only ever existed in a novel.

I drew a slow breath. My heart was hammering like mad.

There might be a way back to Earth. No. Maybe I was already halfway there. I had met someone else who knew what Earth was.

Certainty, though, was poison. If this world had taught me anything about staying alive, it was this: the more hope painted itself over what you were looking at, the harder you had to doubt it.

I lowered the sword anyway. She looked human enough. If she wasn't, I could always pin her again. She would just have to pay dearly for lying to me.

"Explain."

"Explain what."

"The Hunter Association."

What I needed right now was information, not a threat. The books I had read a lifetime ago had said that in a moment like this, a friendly attitude mattered.

Maybe I should smile. I dug through my memory and lifted the corners of my mouth as gently as I could. The face she was looking at was probably bright. Friendly, even.

The color in her face, watching it, went darker by the second.

"Tsk."

Interrogation really is difficult. I dropped the expression and decided to do it my way. Not a perfect method. It had never failed me yet, though.

"Hunter. Gate. Status window. Nation-class. Awakening."

"…?!"

"Oho."

Secret technique: say everything you know. Shin Seo-ah's eyes went wide all by themselves, exactly as intended.

"So you do know those."

"…You."

For the first time, the voice of a woman who had been composed through all of this actually shook. Fair enough. Who expects to run into someone from the same hometown in a world like this? Watching her, I had the distinct feeling of a plan working. Once you rattle a composed person, they stay rattled.

…I would know.

"Just what are you?"

"Eh, that doesn't really matter."

I waved it off and asked the only question that did.

"Just tell me one thing."

"…?"

"Earth."

I set the next words on my tongue slowly.

"How do I get there?"

"What?"

Maybe that had been hard to follow.

"I'm asking how you get to Earth."

I said it more clearly this time. The blood vanished from Shin Seo-ah's face in an instant.

I was not even holding the sword. She still looked at me with more wariness than she had shown at any point before.

"…Don't tell me."

The words that left her mouth were very small.

"Earth."

Her voice trembled.

"You want to go to Earth."