Chapter 112: A Sense of Wrongness (3)
Hanseong's eyes flew wide at the voice that reached him out of nowhere. They had every reason to. As of last night, Jihye had been inside the Alchemist's Tower.
From the moment someone entered a tower, not even the Blood Mark could carry a word between them. Time in a tower and time in the real world did not run together.
So if Jihye was contacting him now...
"You're already out of the tower?"
"Yes. I bought only the materials I needed and came straight back out."
There was only one reason she had gone in. At his request, she was purchasing what she needed to craft an Elixir.
And she was not in Japan. She was at the Suwon Air Wing — before entering the tower, she had been summoned by Brigadier General Lee Jongpil.
"I see. Then the Elixir..."
"I can have it finished in about half a day. Ah, but that isn't why I called."
"Hm? What is it?"
"Your younger sister has come to your base. What should I tell her?"
"What? Yuna's there?"
Hanseong's eyes went round all over again.
What was this, all of a sudden? Had she come to deliver another lunch their mother had packed, the way she had last time?
The guess had barely formed when Jihye went on.
"She says she has something urgent to tell you."
Then he would have to see her.
Hanseong nodded as he answered.
"Ask her to wait a little. I'll get a Warp Gate ready and come through."
"Understood. I'll tell her that."
Once the link with Jihye closed, Hanseong opened a Warp Gate inside the Moving Fortress. Then, with Phantom supporting him, he stepped through.
Meanwhile, at that same hour, in the Suwon base where Hanseong stayed, two women faced each other across a shabby table. One black-haired, one silver-haired. Jihye and Yuna.
Not a word passed between them. They had fought side by side in the Hwaseong rescue, and yet the air was so stiff it was hard to believe. Silence was not the only thing hanging in the room, though. A low growl kept rolling out of the two wolves at Yuna's side, fangs bared at Jihye the entire time.
Yuna herself showed no reaction at all. So why were the wolves acting like that? Jihye was tilting her head at the inexplicable hostility when the empty air toward the living room warped with a low hum.
A Warp Gate. Realizing Hanseong had come, Jihye rose from her seat, and Yuna's wolves grew warier of her still.
A moment later, he appeared.
"Hello, Mage."
Jihye bowed, polite as ever. Yuna, by contrast, looked thoroughly lost — and she had reason to. Hanseong was not in his own shape. He had borrowed Aewyn's appearance.
"Oppa...?"
Yuna tilted her head as she asked again.
What? Why is she reacting like that?
While the puzzlement still sat with him, Jihye abruptly pointed at the full-length mirror standing in a corner of the living room.
"...Ah."
Only then did he realize. He was still wearing the White-Faced Ghost Mask. The moment he took it off, his face returned to what it had been.
At that familiar face, the wariness coming off Yuna melted away like snow.
"Oh. It really was you, Oppa."
Only now did she look relieved. Curiosity gathered in her eyes.
"But what was that just now?"
"One of this mask's effects."
Hanseong gave her a brief account of what the White-Faced Ghost Mask could do. Yuna listened, then studied the mask with open interest.
In the middle of it, Jihye stood.
"Then I'll take my leave. I have something to tell my great-uncle, and I still need to make the Elixir for you, Mage."
"Right. I'm counting on you."
Jihye left the base.
The front door shut, and her footsteps grew distant. A short while later, once her presence had vanished entirely, Yuna let out the sigh she had been holding.
Hanseong snorted a laugh.
"Since when do you sigh like that?"
"It's nothing, really. Being alone with her was just a little uncomfortable..."
"Jihye? Why?"
"Honestly, it's less me and more these two. They don't even try to hide how much they hate her."
Yuna stroked the wolves' heads.
Now that she mentioned it, he remembered them baring their teeth at Jihye the moment he arrived.
Is it because Jihye's a vampire?
It was plausible enough. Everyone knew wolves and vampires were a poor match. Satisfied with a conclusion of his own making, Hanseong turned back to Yuna.
"Anyway. What brought you here?"
"Oh, right. I came to give you this."
A box wrapped in cloth. A lunch their mother had packed. Feeling his guess land, Hanseong grinned.
"Perfect. I was just getting hungry."
"Eat a lot. I already ate before I came."
"Then I'll enjoy it."
Hanseong started in at once. Yuna watched her brother eat and chattered about everything that had happened with the Vigilante Corps — their parents were well, and so were the other vigilantes. Partway through, as if something had just occurred to her, she drew out the whistle hanging at her neck.
"That whistle you gave me is incredible, Oppa."
Four days ago, Yuna and the hunters of the Vigilante Corps had gone on an expedition to Iksan, to subjugate an elite on the border between Iksan and Nonsan. It was the first time she had blown the Wolf King's Whistle he had given her. Dozens of phantom wolves had appeared out of nowhere and overwhelmed the enemy.
"I was shocked. I never thought that many phantom wolves would show up."
Yuna's face was bright with excitement. Hanseong's reaction was comparatively flat. The Wolf King's Whistle summoned more phantom wolves the higher one's affinity with animals.
Yuna's class is Spirit Beast Master. And she had received the Eternal Blessing on top of that. Her talent for handling animals had been proven long ago. Dozens of wolves answering her call was hardly something to be surprised by.
"The summon doesn't last very long, but the cooldown might as well not exist, so as long as I have the ether I can basically use it forever."
Heard that way, it sounded like nothing but advantages. In truth there was a flaw: the ether cost was monstrous. Because ether was spent for every phantom wolf summoned, a single blast of the whistle was enough to leave her all but exhausted.
"Even so, it definitely helps when things get bad, so I'm going to keep using it."
"I'm glad it helped."
"Yeah. Thanks, Oppa."
A bright smile settled on Yuna's lips. Hanseong smiled back without a word.
A little later, finished with his meal, he decided to ask about Daejeon in earnest.
"So. Nothing going on with the Vigilante Corps?"
"Ah, the Corps..."
Yuna trailed off, and her expression darkened with it. Sensing that something had happened, Hanseong pressed at once.
"Why? Did something happen?"
"No, nothing with the Corps itself. If there's a problem, it's outside."
"Outside? What do you mean?"
Yuna sighed again. She frowned for a moment, as if sorting out what she meant to say, then turned to him.
"I told you earlier that the hunters and I went to Iksan to take down an elite, right?"
"You did. So?"
"...Something went wrong along the way."
Iksan, Gunsan, and Jeonju. A large coalition of survivors from the three regions had come into conflict with the Vigilante Corps, and there was only one reason for the quarrel. Why, they demanded, had a corps based in Daejeon come all the way down here to hunt an elite that belonged to them?
"Wait. So they were claiming ownership of an elite in their territory?"
"Right. Exactly that."
Yuna nodded.
"They told us to leave every bit of the loot and go. We said we couldn't, and it looked like a fight was about to break out any second..."
The look on Hanseong's face was sheer disbelief. It sounded like nonsense too absurd even to laugh at.
As far as he knew, Iksan had had no survivors to begin with. A champion had kept its base in the heart of the city.
The champion. The Mist Spider Lord.
When that thing built its nest in Iksan, the survivors of Iksan and Gunsan had all fled to Jeonju. Only after Hanseong subjugated the Spider Lord did they return to where they had been. Had they held the region from the start, it might have been different. They had already abandoned the city once, and now they meant to claim the elites inside it?
A forced argument.
By their own logic, the rights ought to belong to Hanseong. He was the one who had killed the Spider Lord that ruled Iksan.
"So how did it end?"
"Uncle Sangmin and Yeeun mediated, and it wrapped up somehow. Even so, they said they'd come later to protest."
"Yeah? Call me when they do."
"Huh? You? Why?"
"I've got something to say to them."
More precisely, he meant to meet them and put the fear in them. The same way he had gone to the Sejong Provisional Government — show them an overwhelming difference in power, then tell them not to step out of line. Then Yuna could throw herself into hunting elites with an easy mind. Having settled the thought, he looked back at her.
"Anything else bothering you?"
"Mmm, other than that... oh!"
Yuna's eyes widened for an instant, as if she had remembered something forgotten.
"Maybe that Sejong's been acting a little suspicious?"
"The Sejong Provisional Government?"
"Yeah. The day before yesterday, soldiers out of Sejong stationed a unit on the northern outskirts of Daejeon. It happened all at once at dawn, so we couldn't respond in time."
Three units had come out of Sejong, taking positions in the north, the northwest, and the northeast of Daejeon. At her words, Hanseong examined the places she named in detail.
What he found made his eyes go wide.
They really...
Troops had been deployed — a large force, tanks and armored vehicles included. Worse, they had drawn up in a ring, as if they meant to surround Daejeon. His face crumpled.
Have these bastards all lost their minds?
He had gone there and warned them last time. Had they forgotten already? Eyes gone sharp, he turned back to Yuna.
"You don't know why they stationed the units?"
"Mm. We sent people to ask, but nothing came of it. All that came back was that they were only following orders from above..."
They had moved on the leadership's orders. The instant those words ended, Hanseong scoured the map around the Sejong Provisional Government as if he meant to turn over every stone. Before long he found the one he was looking for.
Foreign Minister Yoon Cheolmin.
Acting president, and the head of Sejong. Perhaps because the hour was late, the man lay in bed, sleeping soundly. The sheer peace of that sight sent anger surging up of its own accord.
Hanseong acted at once.
Remote: Inventory (Release)
Target: Replica — Living Armor Phantom
He released Phantom at those coordinates. The replica appeared inches from the snoring Yoon Cheolmin and kicked the bed without a word.
Thud! Crack!
The bed shattered with a terrific crash, and the shock sent Yoon Cheolmin, dead to the world, tumbling onto the floor. A bolt from a clear sky. He woke at once.
"Ghk! Wh-what... hah!"
Still half asleep, he peered around — and sucked in a sharp, empty breath. He had noticed Phantom a moment too late. Startled out of his skin, Yoon Cheolmin sat where he had fallen and scrambled backward, a shocked cry bursting out of him all the same.
"Th-the Fire-Lightning Mage!?"
The panic on his face could not have been plainer. He even pinched his own cheek, as if checking whether this was a dream. Hanseong stared at the pathetic display and spoke.
"You know why I'm here."
"I-I wouldn't know. Why have you come here...?"
"You broke your promise with me and sent troops to Daejeon. I came to call you to account."
"Ah! Th-that is...!"
He looked like a man with far too much to say. A moment later, Yoon Cheolmin stole a glance at Phantom and answered with care.
"That is a matter I know nothing of."
"...What?"
"I-it is the truth, I tell you! Believe me. I truly have no memory of giving any such order!"
At words that hardly deserved the name, fury took Hanseong, and he reached for his telekinesis. Sensing the danger, Yoon Cheolmin flung himself flat on the floor, even knocking his perfectly innocent head against it as he went.
When a man went that far, it almost sounded believable. In the end Hanseong used his Magic Eye and put the question to him once more.
"You really didn't do it?"
"Did I not already say so?"
Blue light coiled around Yoon Cheolmin's body.
The truth.
Which meant someone other than Yoon Cheolmin had issued the order on their own authority.
"Then find the one who gave it and drag him before me. Right now."
"Th-that is..."
Yoon Cheolmin hesitated. Hanseong lifted the objects around them into the air with Phantom's telekinesis, and the man, startled all over again, slammed his head to the ground.
"Y-you will not believe me, I know, but according to Lieutenant Colonel Park, the order to send the unit to Daejeon was none other than an instruction received from me."
"And you call that an answer..."
"I am losing my mind over it, I tell you! I have no memory of giving the order, and yet Lieutenant Colonel Park insists he received it from me!"
Yoon Cheolmin rambled on. Hanseong's eyes narrowed to slits.
...It doesn't add up.
Yoon Cheolmin's account contradicted itself. The man remembered ordering no unit to deploy, while his subordinates claimed they had carried out a command received from him. Then the answer was simple.
One of the two is lying.
Everything Yoon Cheolmin had said so far had been the truth, so the natural conclusion was that Lieutenant Colonel Park had moved the troops on purpose. Even so, Hanseong could not be certain. The moment he named the lieutenant colonel as the culprit, a strange sense of wrongness began to circle through his mind.
But why send troops to Daejeon?
No matter how he turned it over, there was no reason. Lieutenant Colonel Park had been right there with Yoon Cheolmin the last time Hanseong came to the Sejong Provisional Government and tore the place apart. That man, of all people, knew the measure of his power. For him to attempt something this reckless now was, by any sense Hanseong possessed, impossible to understand. That was the wrongness.
He was frowning in silence when it struck him.
Ah. Right.
He had that, didn't he? A skill that could read a target's memories. And unlike the inside of a rift, the Sejong Provisional Government lay within his range of observation — which meant he could read a designated target's memories in full. Hanseong designated Yoon Cheolmin at once and used the skill.
Remote: Mind Reading
Reading the target's memories.
His consciousness sank at once into the dark. Beyond a vision gone pitch-black, Yoon Cheolmin's memories lay scattered like the pieces of a puzzle.
A little while later—
...Found it.
Among the countless fragments, he caught a scene that mattered. Eyes bright, Hanseong opened the memory of that moment.