Grandpa Tree (3)
Clang. The iron door swung open.
From several cells, children filed out in a slow, dragging line. They stared only at the floor, eyes dull as lightbulbs on the verge of going out, and across their bodies the veins stood out in angry red welts. A few of them scratched at the swollen tracks as if trying to claw the brands right off their skin.
"Team leader. One spot's empty."
"What do we do? Looks like another one died! Sh-should I go check, Team Leader?"
"…Number 99, is it."
The Jeokryeohui team leader answered the question with nothing but a number, then walked straight toward one of the doors. Children flinched and shrank away from his gaze; he ignored them completely and stopped in front of the cell.
"Come out, Number 99."
No answer. No movement.
The team leader let out a soft sigh laced with a smile and stepped inside.
The instant his head crossed the threshold, a small foot shot up and smashed into him.
"…Impressive. That kick didn't feel like it came from a ten-year-old brat at all."
He was completely unharmed. He simply scratched his cheek where the boy's foot had landed.
"Get out, Number 99. Get out and get in line."
"…No."
"I don't care if you don't want to. Line up. Or you'll just get hit."
"If I do that—"
"Not you. Your friends."
A child's scream tore through the air.
Young voices crying that they were sorry hammered against the boy's ears.
"Stop it…!"
"I'll stop. The moment someone steps out and lines up."
The team leader casually stepped aside from the doorway. The boy's murderous glare locked onto him, but it didn't last. The boy bolted out; the team leader followed with an easy smile.
While he strolled after them at a leisurely pace, the boy and a dozen-odd other children formed the same ragged line as before. No empty spots remained.
"…Want to leave this place, Number 99?"
The team leader asked from behind the boy. The sound of teeth grinding into a lower lip was answer enough.
"Then there's only two ways. First—" He raised his left index finger. "—you leave by dying."
Several children trembled at the words. The boy, by contrast, clenched his fists, as if steeling himself never to take that first path.
The team leader raised his middle finger next.
"Second—and this is the one I'm hoping for—you kill every last one of us and walk out."
"……!"
The boy's head whipped around, face blank with shock. Kill every last one of them and walk out. He clearly had never expected those words to come out of this man's mouth.
"At your current level, it's basically impossible."
"……."
The sound of chewed lips came again. Humiliation flushed red up along the boy's jaw.
"Still, Number 99—it's not like you have no options at all. I'm talking about this."
Tap. Tap. The team leader rapped the boy's neck—more precisely, the swollen vein rising there.
"Survive the experiments and you'll get stronger. Pretty lucky, don't you think?"
"Don't make me laugh!"
The boy roared. Raw fury at the Jeokryeohui exploded out of him.
"The experiments…! How many kids have died because of those experiments—"
"But you got stronger, didn't you? Strong enough to kick me in the face."
"Ngh…!"
The boy clamped his mouth shut before the retort could leave it—not because he agreed, but because the pressure rolling off the man's eyes and voice crushed him flat. Any other child would have fainted on the spot.
"See? Thanks to those experiments, you can even glare at me like that."
"I—I never wanted this. This kind of power…!"
The boy ground the words out anyway. The team leader's presence still pressed down on him, yet he forced the sentence through.
Looking at him, the team leader slowly shook his head. Surprisingly, something almost like regret colored the motion.
"No… no, you should want it, Number 99. Because that's how you get out of here. By slaughtering every last one of us."
"…You think I—you think I can't do it?"
The boy answered once more. The team leader grinned as if that had been exactly the reply he wanted.
"Be my guest, Number 99. I'll be waiting with a glad heart."
With that he turned on his heel. The boy stared daggers into his back; if a blade had been in his hand, it would have fulfilled its entire reason for existing right then and there.
…And then the boy's glaring face shattered.
Like a bowl dropped on the floor, cracks raced across him—and through the breaking image came a familiar voice.
"Yeon-ah. Hey, Choi Yeon!"
The rough shout arrived from far away. It was Dongdae Chief Kim Jaesang.
"…Chief?"
"Yeah, it's me! You back with us?"
Kim Jaesang waved a hand rapidly in front of Choi Yeon's face. Choi Yeon followed the motion and looked around.
Ko Sung-yoon, Park Chae-eun, and the great green weeping willow came into view one after another.
"…What? What happened?"
"That's what I wanna know! You took that buff and then just stood there like a damn vegetable!"
"I did…?"
Even as he asked, Choi Yeon looked at the Guardian Tree. Its leaves rustled—still with no wind at all.
This thing really is…
"So it wasn't an ordinary tree after all…?"
"Tell me about it. A tree that hands out buffs? First time I've ever seen one. Gonna have to check if anything else like this is out there."
"It wasn't just a buff."
"Huh?"
"Just now I saw the kidnapped kids."
"What? You saw what?"
"The kidnapped children. There were about a dozen of them."
"……."
Kim Jaesang eyed his subordinate with open worry. When a dazed underling starts talking about visions, what is a good superior supposed to do? That exact anxiety was written all over his face.
Choi Yeon pressed on to clear up the misunderstanding.
"The sense of reality was way too strong for it to be a simple illusion."
"Then what was it?"
"It felt like a memory. The memory of that guy whose right arm got huge earlier."
"You saw a memory? Hah…"
"Given the situation, I'm pretty sure the Guardian Tree showed it to me."
"Hmm…"
Kim Jaesang made a dubious noise. Not that he couldn't believe Choi Yeon—after receiving a buff himself, disbelief wasn't really an option—but a tree that handed out buffs and other people's memories was a lot to swallow.
And then:
"Grandpa says that's right! He says it worked because Fox Uncle's… wavelength? matched, so he could show it!"
The little girl who actually talked to the Guardian Tree added her firm confirmation. Reluctant or not, it was hard to keep doubting under the circumstances.
Kim Jaesang muttered under his breath.
"Talks, hands out buffs, and if the wavelength matches it even shows past memories? What the hell is this thing…"
"And."
Choi Yeon covered Park Chae-eun's ears. The girl looked up at him and tilted her head.
"The Jeokryeohui bastards were running experiments on the kids they kidnapped."
"What? They were doing what?"
"The swollen veins. That was a symptom of the experiments. The children's veins were swollen the exact same way."
"That's… the honest truth?"
"Yes."
"These goddamn sons of bitches…"
Kim Jaesang ground his teeth. Thankfully Choi Yeon's hands were still over the girl's ears, so she didn't hear the cursing.
"…All right. Let's go get ourselves some evidence."
Thud. He smacked a fist into his open palm. Only then did Choi Yeon gently take his hands away from the child's ears.
"Evidence?"
Ko Sung-yoon cut in carefully, sounding confused.
"B-but the Tree showed Yeon-i hyung the memory, right? Isn't that enough?"
"No. Memory magic is too easy to fabricate, so it doesn't get accepted as evidence. You can get it notarized, but that takes a fair amount of time."
"Ah. Fabricate…"
"Grandpa wouldn't do anything like that!"
Park Chae-eun jumped in, both hands planted on her hips, standing ramrod straight and looking thoroughly indignant.
Choi Yeon crouched down so their eyes were level.
"I know, Chae-eun. Uncle believes Grandpa."
"Then we're good, right?"
"Well… see, there are grown-ups in the world whose job is to doubt everything. Those people have to check for themselves no matter what."
"Doubting is their job?"
"Yep."
"Ugh, that's so dumb."
"Haha. Yeah, it is."
Choi Yeon gave a bitter little smile and agreed with her. He almost told her that plenty of idiots really had tried submitting fabricated memories as evidence in the past—quite a few of them, actually—then decided against it. What good would ranting about stupid adults do?
He had chosen silence, but Park Chae-eun caught his sleeve. Her small fingers held the fabric with unexpected care.
"Uncle."
"Hm?"
"The kids… you'll save them, right? Like you and Yunie oppa saved me."
"…Of course."
Choi Yeon answered with a gentle smile, then tapped the sprout on her headband with one finger. Beneath the dangling green shoot, Chae-eun beamed.
Still smiling, Choi Yeon stood back up—and found himself looking straight into Kim Jaesang's stare.
"…What?"
"Nothin'. Just… you gonna be all right?"
"Of course I will."
Choi Yeon shrugged. When a child asked with that much absolute trust on her face, there was no way he could say he couldn't do it, or that he didn't know.
"Then I reckon you'd better give it everything you got…? Unless you wanna go from 'incompetent Dongdae' straight to 'liar' on top of it."
"Ahem, ahem…!"
Choi Yeon coughed awkwardly at the chief's jab. As the person who had personally earned them the title of "incompetent Dongdae," he had nothing to say back.
It's already been six years—how long are you planning to keep using that…
He grumbled only on the inside. The whole mess had started because of him, so opening his mouth would just mean losing the argument.
"Let's see… before we go hunting for evidence, we gotta decide what to do about that thing…"
The Seonhwa Dongdae members turned as one toward the Guardian Tree. Watching Kim Jaesang wrestle with the problem, Choi Yeon offered his own thought.
"Do we… really need to report this?"
"Huh?"
"This isn't even our neighborhood."
"Well, that's true, but…"
"And the only person who can actually talk to the Guardian Tree is Chae-eun."
"Your wavelength matched, didn't it? That's why it showed you the memory. So can't you talk to it too?"
"Uh…"
Now that he mentioned it, that was true. Choi Yeon had even heard a voice calling him—not by name, but calling him all the same.
He looked at the Guardian Tree and waited quietly for a voice.
"…I don't hear anything."
"Hmm. That so? You sure you're not just pretendin' you can't hear?"
"I'm not pretending. Really."
"Chae-eun. Is that true?"
Kim Jaesang asked the girl—because of course he didn't trust Choi Yeon's answer.
"It's true! He says the wavelengths don't match right now. Mm, Grandpa says even the one that matched earlier was just good luck."
"I see…"
"Chief. Could you maybe try believing your subordinate once in a while?"
"Would you, if you were me?"
"I probably would? Maybe."
Choi Yeon couldn't give a firm answer. Was it because the child was watching? For some reason lying felt harder than usual.
"If we report the Guardian Tree, we can't leave Chae-eun out of it. And we're already…"
Hiding the artifact, too.
He let the sentence trail off, but Kim Jaesang understood and nodded. Since they were already concealing the artifact, keeping quiet about a mysterious tree you could talk to was probably the wiser move as well.
"Mm. That's a damn solid point."
"So…"
"So we'll say we didn't see a thing and didn't hear a thing."
"Yes. An excellent decision. It'll be remembered for ages."
"Who's gonna remember it?"
"Well—Grandpa, maybe?"
Choi Yeon pointed at the great weeping willow.