Stealing the Five Senses (8)
At Yoon Woo-jeong's report, I remembered at once — the nightmare that had unfolded in the Warehouse-Type Mart.
Back then, too, out of nowhere a crow had barged in and rattled the barcode-haired Employee.
"Understood. Please find us a new detour route."
Yoon Woo-jeong plotted a fresh path for us, and just like that we left the comfortable, walkable trail behind and started back up the mountain path.
This way of dodging them worked, sure enough — I simply didn't like the feel of it. We weren't about to get mauled like last time... right?
That was when Kwon Mu-seop, walking ahead of us, called out to me.
"Do-woon."
"Yes?"
"Do you happen to like birds?"
"I neither like nor dislike them."
"I see."
"Then why ask all of a sudden...?"
When I pressed him on what he meant, Kwon Mu-seop gave a soft chuckle.
"Nothing much. I was just wondering why, of all things, it had to be a bird."
What was that supposed to mean?
Then Yoon Woo-jeong's voice rang out again.
"D-3 is dead center of the narrow southeastern stretch."
The Ant No. 5 that the bird had lured away had planted itself, of all places, in the narrowest terrain on the mountain. If the thing dug in there, we could never use the stone tower we'd been carefully saving beyond it.
The situation had gotten tangled, but we weren't at the despairing stage yet. There were stone towers in plenty of other sectors, after all.
And then—
There was a note of disbelief threaded through Yoon Woo-jeong's voice.
No. 5 hadn't been enough — now No. 4, and then Ant No. 3, had all begun moving toward us as well. No. 4 from the north, No. 3 from the west. Thanks to that, we were now wedged squarely between three Ants.
"Where's the midpoint between No. 3, No. 4, and No. 5?"
The banter and playfulness had drained out of Yoon Woo-jeong's voice, and I moved toward the new waypoint with my nerves strung tight.
Even after that, the Crow kept shuttling back and forth among the three remaining Ants. This was no accident. Absurd as it sounded, the bird was herding us. Like a game of baduk — setting a black stone beside every white one, closing the net around us move by move.
Yoon Woo-jeong made the proposal. We were all but surrounded, and our route to securing the stone towers had gone sideways. Her idea was that, since it had come to this, we might as well clear out the Ants until only a single one remained.
Roughly nine hours of the clock remained. That was still a fair cushion, but the Ants were hardly weak. Unless we committed to hunting one down, it wouldn't die easily — so eking out the time against a lone Ant was a sound enough plan.
Kwon Mu-seop shook his head.
"Let's just watch where it herds us first."
Yoon Woo-jeong let out a sigh at his peculiar stubbornness. With Ant No. 2 trailing at our heels, we climbed the mountain, dodging Nos. 3, 4, and 5 as they closed in — until at last we reached the summit: the beacon tower that stood at the entrance of the Anthill.
"Haha."
For some reason, Kwon Mu-seop burst out laughing in front of the beacon tower.
"Deputy Chief, how exactly am I supposed to take this?"
Unlike the visibly delighted Kwon, Yoon Woo-jeong was all clipped edges. The mood between the two had turned on a dime.
What was with these two all of a sudden?
...I'm sorry, what?
I stared at Kwon Mu-seop, startled by her words. He was feeling around the beacon tower's square opening with his hand, though he couldn't see a thing in front of him.
"Going into the Anthill? What on earth are you talking about?"
"Do-woon, do you think it's a coincidence that we're standing right here?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Doesn't it feel like that bird sent us here?"
Instead of answering, he tossed the question back at me, his face strangely fervent. Seeing my usually composed superior wear an expression like that sent a chill down my spine. Some instinct of foreboding made me answer in dead earnest.
"Yes, it looks very deliberate. But is there any reason we should follow that intent?"
This was a situation that called for the exact opposite. We had safe extraction within arm's reach, and then out of nowhere a crow had appeared and started raising hell. If there was intent behind it, it was obviously malice — and if we'd been driven along by that intent, then it was a trap. That was the common-sense read. So what on earth was Kwon Mu-seop saying?
"That bird right now is the same kind that barged into the Warehouse-Type Mart. It might even be the very same one."
"I nearly died back there."
"Right. And yet, in the end, that bird barging in is what broke the Three Steps, One Bow."
"..."
"If that bird is what got a whole Special Zone conquered, then at best it's on our side — at worst, the enemy of our enemy."
Ha.
"For things to work out the way you say, Chief, that Crow would have had to predict that I'd figure out how the membership card worked. All the way to that."
"Couldn't it have?"
"It could have, sure. But that's pure conjecture—"
I was in the middle of my exasperated rebuttal when—
Pababak—!
Ant No. 2, which had been idling near us, abruptly came barreling straight at us.
Damn it — the brand had already worn off!
The moment I realized the brand on my wrist had vanished, I snatched for my gun in a panic. Or tried to — Kwon Mu-seop was faster. He plucked the gun right out of my hand, then aimed with pinpoint precision toward the exact direction of the sound.
Pipipipit—!
"...!"
The Ant shattered in an instant.
"Deputy Chief, how long until No. 3 reaches us?"
"And No. 4 and No. 5?"
"So we've got a forty-minute cushion. Let me know the moment No. 3 closes in."
Leaving me gaping, Kwon Mu-seop took the reports in stride, then leaned back against the beacon tower with markedly relaxed ease.
Was it just my imagination, or did he look like a man flaunting that he could take down an Ant whenever he pleased?
From that languid posture, he picked the thread back up.
"Do-woon, you've been dragged into Special Zones six times now, haven't you?"
"Yes."
"And all six of them were Type 1 zones. Doesn't that strike you as odd? Why Type 1, every single time? Maybe a Type 1 zone is the one calling you in? ...No, I doubt that."
"How can you be so certain?"
"Because to a Type 1, your very existence is a disaster and a calamity. You've certainly had a rough ride of it, but frankly, the Type 1 zones are taking far worse losses than you are. If I were one of them, I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole."
Kwon said it like a joke. It was pretty absurd — but I had no comeback, because it was simply the truth.
If I were a Special Zone whose whole reason for being was devouring humans, a human named Seo Do-woon — one who picked apart my every weakness and then promptly bolted — would be an absolutely insufferable thorn in my side. Though I wasn't sure it was right to personify a Special Zone quite like that.
"So then who keeps dropping you into Type 1 zones? That behavior certainly doesn't read as friendly toward them."
So that's why he'd said it — at minimum the enemy of our enemy, at maximum one of ours.
But this, too, was nothing more than conjecture. Part of me wondered whether I really needed to be picking through all of this right now. Then again — of course I did. If I didn't sort it out properly, I was about to walk straight into that Anthill.
"Chief, for your argument to hold, there has to be some agent behind the phenomenon of me being dragged into Special Zones."
"Correct."
"And that agent has to be identical to, or in league with, that Crow."
"Also true."
"And finally, the Crow's break-in at the Warehouse-Type Mart has to have been a genuine act of steering me toward that zone's solution."
"Hey — exactly right. That's it."
"And yet not one of those points has actually been confirmed, has it? They're all conjecture, and you're building a new conjecture on top of them. That's far too reckless."
I was essentially telling him to get a grip — so why, oh why, did Kwon Mu-seop's smile only deepen?
"Yes, you're right about all of it. But, Do-woon. You asked me earlier, didn't you? Whether I'd known we'd be dragged here."
"...I did."
I nodded for now. There were only three or four Special Zones that required cold-weather gear, Ant Hill included — and of those, the only one that demanded a stay long enough for a tent to be useful was this Ant Hill. So the fact that we had packed exactly that had certainly been startling.
But then Kwon Mu-seop came out with something even more unexpected.
"Actually, it was the reverse."
"Reverse, how?"
"I didn't prepare it because I expected us to be dragged here. I prepared it like this so that we would be dragged here."
"...?"
"It was a test. To see whether the thing that drags you into Special Zones can read my intentions — and whether it'll play along."
Hold on. What on earth was he saying right now...?
"And we were dragged to precisely this place. Out of sixteen Type 1 zones — minus the five you've already been through — that leaves eleven. An eleven-to-one chance, and it produced a result that matched my intent exactly."
So what he was saying was... that hadn't been a prediction. It had been a request? That he hadn't packed the tent because I seemed bound for Ant Hill — he'd packed the tent in advance, as a nudge, to get me dragged to Ant Hill?
What was this even supposed to mean? That the phenomenon which had toyed with me so ruthlessly was, all along, capable of communication — and even had taste?
My forehead grew hot at Kwon Mu-seop's claims. My head was already on the verge of exploding, and he just grinned and kept going.
"Shall I tell you something even more interesting?"
"...There's more?"
"Deputy Chief, what time was that bird first observed?"
"And what time did Team 1 launch their operation?"
"..."
"It ended up being a pincer operation by pure coincidence. Which means there's no chance of the Mercenary Entities crossing over to this side — the Island will have them far too busy."
I was struck speechless.
"When you knock on a door and a sound comes back, it means someone is inside."
Kwon Mu-seop said quietly. "You said it yourself, didn't you — that the Special Zone had made a game meant to be cleared? My read is a little different, but I do agree that the concept of 'clearing' exists."
"..."
"And if there's a concept of clearing, there should be hints for it. I don't know why, but those hints seem to surface actively for you, and you alone."
I couldn't deny it. My situation was special, unusual, and strange — I was the first to admit it.
So what? So what was Kwon Mu-seop's conclusion? That we receive the Crow's revelation and march into the Anthill?
"The call is yours to make."
Kwon Mu-seop said, having caught my turmoil. "My gut says we go in. But I can't force danger on you."
After egging me on this whole time?
"There are no cameras in there. You won't have the Deputy Chief's support either, so it'll be more dangerous than it is out here. So I'll go with whatever you choose. What'll it be?"
...You truly are a snake, sir.
I swallowed that retort and asked instead, "Were there hints like this back with Sol's father, too?"
"I believe there were. We just didn't know it at the time."
"Then let's go in."
Yoon Woo-jeong groaned, as if she'd been nursing some sliver of hope for me all along.
Survive nine more hours, and we would return home safe. If all I wanted was to live through tomorrow, there was no need to force a gamble like this.
But if I simply survived here? Then I'd go right back to trembling, never knowing where I'd be dragged next. Better, then, to dig in and find out — win or lose, feast or famine.
"Thank you."
Kwon Mu-seop beamed and clapped a hand on my shoulder. Yoon Woo-jeong let out a long, deep sigh — and somehow, I found myself remembering my physician: the one who frowned as grimly as the name Kwon Mu-seop implied.