Assassin VS Map
"All I need is a pest-repelling spell and a wolf, and I can sleep anywhere."
Ever since I'd first taken up a knife at eight years old, my sleep had mostly consisted of catnaps of two hours or less — but ever since I'd been locked inside the seal, my sleeping hours had stretched out considerably. It couldn't be helped. Aside from the times the useless goddess came down to moan about her problems, there was nothing to do inside the seal but sleep.
In that sense, letting the wolf into the seal had been an excellent decision. She'd been rebellious at first, sure, but once I'd carved her up this way and that until she was properly tamed, she'd turned into a perfectly obedient pet wolf.
And the most satisfying part of all was this:
"......Mmgh."
[Sniff, sniff.]
She made a perfect bedroom for me, any time I wanted one.
The park bench was a little hard, but someone had clearly kept it well maintained, so it was clean enough. When I drew back the curtain the wolf had made, the blazing sunlight stabbed at my bleary eyes. Not a single cloud in the deep blue sky. I liked it.
"Mayday."
[Yes. How may I help you?]
"Where does the Hero live?"
[The residence of the Hero, Hunter Baek Siwoo, is not publicly known, but I can tell you about the guild he belongs to. Are you perhaps curious about the address of Baekya Guild?]
"Yeah."
[Baekya Guild Headquarters is located on Hero Road, in Cheongram-gu, Seoul, South Korea. Shall I show you the exact location on a map?]
"Yeah."
[Of course. Launching the map and navigation app now.]
I hated leaving my head cluttered, so I'd deal with this quickly and then rest.
"Wolf. You can't read a map, can you."
[Whine......]
"Ugh. Fine, I'll find it myself, so get in."
The wolf, who had served as my tent all night, melted into my shadow. This place was Cheongram Civic Park, and there was an observation deck off to the east, so......
"Over there, then."
It didn't look that far. I'd take a leisurely walk over.
"......"
Something was wrong.
I was clearly doing nothing but following the map, yet the map on my phone kept wobbling about, twisting its head this way and that.
"......Why is the map moving?"
If it's a map, shouldn't it skip having a self of its own and just tell me where things are?
I had definitely been following the map, yet for some reason I'd been circling around the observation deck, round and round.
For nearly three hours, at that.
[Whuff. Woof.]
"Shut up. I've got this."
Right. If the map moves, then I just have to make it stop moving.
Print. Yes. If I print it out......
But where do I even go to print something?
"......Hm."
Information gathering was, in the end, part of my skill set — so intelligence obtained by interrogating the locals could also be said to fall within the scope of my abilities, couldn't it?
The sun was already well past its zenith, so let's do that. With a battle possible at any moment, I couldn't afford to waste mana, which made interrogation the rational choice here.
After glaring for a good while at the convenience store where air conditioning surely awaited, I shoved open its doors with great resolve.
Lee Hyeon-seong. Twenty-three. Military service completed. On leave from university. Hooked by "insider info" a friend had given him, he'd sunk money into Hunterism stock and watched it crater, and now he juggled part-time shifts at a convenience store and a barbecue joint; his hobbies were gaming and trawling internet forums.
"Man, I wanna Awaken."
Record-breaking heatwaves, the end of the world — Hyeon-seong couldn't have cared less about such nonsense. At least while that vicious sun kept people out of the park, his workload dropped noticeably.
Just as the desire to laze around sucking honey all day like this was creeping up on him—
Ding. Ding.
"Welcome to J24."
"Hah. Ah......"
From beyond the shelves, a strange moan that stirred up odd emotions drifted in from the entrance.
It happened once or twice on days when the AC was cranked to maximum. Though what usually came through that door was the tormented screams of middle-aged men who'd been biking over from the park next door.
Leaving the shuffling footsteps to sort themselves out, he played the news about the boss who was currently setting NewTube on fire.
Couldn't speak for the rest of her, but she was damned gorgeous — the moment Hyeon-seong thought that—
"Hey, you."
A goddess stepped out of the monitor.
"Uh, ah...... This is— no, wait, what? No, hold on, how?"
Arte, of course, had simply come up to the counter to ask for directions after getting her fill of the AC, but Hyeon-seong's brain had frozen solid at the unexpected encounter and couldn't manage even that basic deduction.
"......?"
It wasn't until Arte, brows faintly furrowed, was seriously deliberating whether she should try a different store that he finally snapped out of it.
"Wh-what can I help you with?"
"This. The map's broken."
What she held out was the screen of a smartphone with the map app open. A map with absolutely nothing wrong with it.
"Broken how, exactly......"
"Look."
As Arte turned her body, aiming the map in a new direction, the on-screen map rotated to follow wherever she looked. A map — not a compass — spinning in circles was, apparently, a profoundly baffling phenomenon to her.
"See, the map just keeps spinning. Round and round."
"Ah. Ah, I see. Shall I make it stop?"
Nod, nod. As her fluffy long twintails swayed, a faintly sweet scent of flowers wafted over.
"Yeah. Fix it."
When Arte leaned her upper body over the counter and her face drew close enough that he could feel her breath, Hyeon-seong — a healthy young man, after all — began to have certain thoughts......
[Grrrr.]
A beast's growl inside his head sent his long-dormant survival instincts bristling.
Misbehave, and you die.
Prime-tier urges be damned — staying alive came first, and Hyeon-seong grasped that with remarkable speed and began solidly, wholesomely explaining the smartphone's functions.
"Mayday, you idiot......?"
Somewhere in the process, Arte realized the limits of her AI assistant and had a dream or two shattered, but so what. With survival instinct and a desire to impress working in tandem, Hyeon-seong went the extra mile — he dug into his own pocket, bagged up a power bank and some snacks he'd bought with his own money, and handed them over.
"Why would you give me this......?"
[Grrr.]
As long as the wolf was watching, those items absolutely could not be anything tainted by ulterior motives.
His brain overclocking faster than on CSAT day, Hyeon-seong finally landed on the perfect justification.
"Ah...... We've got no customers and I was bored. A thank-you for keeping me company."
"......I see."
Arte, mulling something over, pulled a fist-sized lump of gold out of thin air.
"N-no! That's fine, but could I maybe get a photo?"
"A photo?"
"Ah, that, um— something that records how you look, like a portrait......"
"I know what a photo is. I'm asking why."
"You're carrying a sword and everything, so you're a hunter, right? This is my first time seeing a real one, so it's just amazing. A memento, yeah, a memento."
Arte tilted her head as though wondering whether "hunters" were really such a big deal, then gave a small nod and struck an awkward pose.
"Th-thank you."
Click. Ding-dong.
After Arte — a midday storm given human form — swept out of the store, the first thing Hyeon-seong did was brag.
Hyeon-seong had never been one to post often, but having just met the most talked-about person in South Korea, he couldn't hold it in.
With authenticity debates, sexualized comments, and a celebrity abruptly joining the fray, the gallery was burning hot — and Hyeon-seong decided to pour oil on the fire.
That the United Kingdom's S-rank hunter, Merlin, had suddenly declared a trip to Korea — and thrown [Round Table] into an uproar over it — was, once again, a story for another time.