Hey! Harang, Where Should We Go Today?
I turned ten and entered the third grade of elementary school. Unfortunately, I ended up in a different class from Ryu-yeong — I was assigned to Class 3, while she went to Class 1.
Ryu-yeong was disappointed we wouldn't be together, but she also seemed a little excited about it, telling me to turn Class 3 into her rival.
Even though we were in separate classes, she still walked me home every day. She still thought I was a girl, and figured I was the weakest among the girls our age, so she promised to protect me if I ever got into a fight on the way. The moment school let out, she'd come find me in my classroom and take me with her.
I'd already gained a bit of a reputation the previous year from going around helping other classes train for Field Day, and now, on top of that, I'd picked up the nickname "Kang Ryu-yeong's favorite stuffed animal" — courtesy of the girl everyone called the strongest in our grade. My fame only grew from there.
During break times, my new classmates would come up to me with sparkling eyes and ask if they could become strong like Kang Ryu-yeong too. It wore me out a little, but I couldn't bring myself to brush off kids who approached me with that pure, shining desire for strength. So I answered them as best I could and helped however I could, even if only in small ways.
Before I knew it, a full month of third grade had passed. It was April, and once again Ryu-yeong came charging over after school, flung our classroom door open with a bang, and hauled me out by the hand — leaving my classmates staring after us with glittering eyes.
"Hey! Harang, where should we go today?"
"I keep telling you, stick to the main roads as much as possible…"
Lately, Ryu-yeong had taken a real liking to exploring the neighborhood with me. Now that I was finally allowed to go out without my parents tagging along, I'd told her that my body had gotten a lot better — that as long as we didn't go too far, I could wander around with her instead of having to head straight home because I was too frail. Her eyes had lit up, and the very first place she dragged me was the villa where she was staying.
I'd expected some enormous mansion, but Ryu-yeong's villa turned out to be an ordinary detached house not all that different from ours. When I looked at her with a faintly disappointed expression, she burst out laughing and reassured me that the real mansion was the main family estate. So there was a mansion after all.
Going back and forth between her villa and my house, we'd occasionally peeked down alleys we normally had no reason to enter, and somewhere along the way that neighborhood exploration had become one of Ryu-yeong's favorite pastimes. These days, she wanted to take me around to every corner of the area on the walk home from school. I didn't mind either — strolling through the neighborhood like this beat going straight home — and my parents said they felt reasonably at ease as long as I was with Ryu-yeong, so they gave their permission.
And so Ryu-yeong and I wandered all over the neighborhood, discovering buildings I'd never noticed before and quiet little cat families tucked away in alleyways.
To my surprise, Ryu-yeong wasn't comfortable around animals. It wasn't that she was scared of them or disliked them — it was the opposite. Animals went berserk and fled the moment they saw her, and that made things awkward for her.
When I asked Mother about it, she explained that people with Mutation Type abilities tended to get along well with animals matching their own power, while their compatibility with other creatures split along the lines of natural predator-prey relationships. As an Imugi, Ryu-yeong would look like a colossal monster to any small animal — so of course they'd panic and run. That made perfect sense.
When I passed that explanation along to Ryu-yeong, she thought it over for a moment, then gave a small smile. "Well, nothing I can do about that, then!" she said, her mood bouncing right back.
"Huh? Harang! A new place!"
"…Little Dragon, let's not go near that one. We should turn back."
"Hm? Well… okay, fine. Got it."
The place we'd stumbled across today was a somewhat dilapidated abandoned building. Old buildings weren't unheard of in this neighborhood, so that alone wouldn't have been a problem — but something was off. The broken glass doors that seemed to serve as the entrance didn't have nearly as much dust on them as the rest of the crumbling exterior suggested they should.
If the wind had simply blown the dust away, that would have been fine. But if someone was using the place as a hideout — the way bandits and mountain thieves did back in the other world — then the smartest move was to stay far away. No matter how strong Ryu-yeong was, she couldn't beat an adult, and people who lived in places like that weren't exactly going to fight fair. There was no winning scenario here.
Thankfully, Ryu-yeong just tilted her head a little at my words, took one look at my face, and agreed to turn around without any argument.
We didn't run into anyone on the way back. I let out a quiet breath of relief, and together we stopped by the police station to report the location and what had seemed strange about it before heading home.
The officer smiled and patted my head, saying they'd look into it — but even after I got home, a lingering sense of unease refused to go away.
May arrived — Children's Month — and our school began preparing for the small festival it held every year.
It wasn't the kind of festival with flashy performances. Instead, the upper grades set up various attractions for kids from nearby kindergartens and daycare centers, as well as for the first-grade underclassmen. Seol-hwa, who had just turned seven this year, was coming too, and the news that she'd be there lit a fire under both me and Seol-hee unnie. We threw ourselves into helping with the preparations.
Over winter break, Seol-hee unnie had trained so hard with Mother that she'd pushed herself to the limit — and the results showed. Where it used to take her two full seconds to form a single lightning spear, she could now create one in under a second, and the stamina cost had dropped significantly too. Her actual throwing technique still needed work, but a thrown lightning spear packed more raw power than one launched on a wire, so for now she mostly used them at close range.
On top of the wire launchers she already wore like bracelets on both wrists, she'd added a pair of launchers at her hips, one on each side. I'd worried out loud to Mother that she might be relying too heavily on tools, but Mother just said it was fine to lean on equipment while you were young and gradually wean yourself off it later.
Those extra hip launchers let Seol-hee unnie break free of her old limitation — having to choose between attacking or defending. Now she could keep moving and attacking at the same time. Lately, Ryu-yeong had even started losing matches without ever managing a proper approach. When they sparred with the wires restricted, though, Ryu-yeong still held a slight edge.
"Harang. Hang this up over there."
"W-wait! Unnie, come on! Haa… fine, okay."
Seol-hee unnie was a fifth-grader now, but instead of helping with the fifth-grade preparations, she'd come over to pitch in with the third-grade setup where I was. She was a little taller than me, and when she decided she wanted to hang decorations in a spot neither of us could reach, she came running over, grabbed me, and hoisted me up onto her shoulders.
The first few times, I'd been so startled I'd nearly toppled over backward and seriously hurt my back — but by now I was used to it. I still jumped a little, but I found my balance right away.
Sitting up on her shoulders, I couldn't help noticing the little horns on Seol-hee unnie's head more clearly than usual. Normally she was just tall enough that they didn't stand out, but looking down from above, there was no ignoring the two small horns planted firmly on her head. According to her, touching them didn't hurt at all.
They weren't sharp, devilish spikes — more blunt and a little thick. If I had to compare them to something, they were closest to a deer's antlers just starting to grow in.
"Okay, unnie, stick this on. Whaaa—!!"
Snap-snap-snap!!!
"Next is over here."
"Oh, come on!!! At least warn me first!!"
Once I'd confirmed the decoration was secure and wouldn't fall, I told Seol-hee unnie — and she smoothly pressed a small button on the palm of her glove, working the wire launchers at her hips to swing us over to the next spot without ever putting me down. The instant I felt the wires fire, I wrapped my arms around her head and hung on through the burst of speed.
No matter how much I scolded her, Seol-hee unnie just chuckled softly, said she was sorry, and very carefully never promised she wouldn't do it again.
I sighed and went back to hanging decorations. She'd seemed a little down lately, so if this was enough to make her laugh, I'd take it.
"Alright! Move us!"
"…Okay!!"
Once the decoration was up, I locked my arms tight around Seol-hee unnie's head and told her to go. She hesitated for just a second, then broke into a bright smile and started moving.
Why was she walking on her feet instead of using the wires just because I was holding her head…?
June. Everything was peaceful. Everything about today had been perfectly ordinary — right up until the moment it wasn't. I was walking home with Ryu-yeong as usual, exploring the neighborhood along the way.
The suspicious building we'd found before had been investigated by the police and written off as just another ordinary rundown structure. Even so, I'd told Ryu-yeong we should stay away from that area.
Should I have been more careful? Should I have asked the police to check it again? Looking back on the past didn't mean much now.
"Hey, this kid's a boy."
"What!?! For real!?!?!!!"
I was tied to a chair, arms and legs bound, something like tape sealed over my mouth. And standing in front of me, grinning down at me, were two adult women who looked like nothing good.