A Fantastic Combination

While the veteran hunter stepped out, offering to handle the departure paperwork in our place—

"Woo Jungkook……. Pretend you never heard what I just said……."

Dr. Myung ducked her head and spoke lower than I had ever heard her. I bent to see her face. She looked sunk, hard, in self-disgust.

"Did you hear me or didn't you. Answer……."

"Heard you."

I'd been planning to treat it as unheard anyway.

It couldn't have been what she meant. The notion of wanting someone didn't exist anywhere in that head. She'd just grabbed whatever words were nearest and thrown them.

Dr. Myung, I could follow. Stranger was that the veteran had bought it.

"You're really not taking it wrong? Don't get the wrong idea."

"I said I got it. Then why'd you go and say a thing like—"

"Hey……."

Dr. Myung lifted her head, slow. A red light flashed in her eyes.

"We never bring this up again……. Understood?"

"Understood."

"If you actually get the wrong idea, I will kill you!"

Which part I wasn't supposed to misunderstand, I couldn't begin to tell. Ask, though, and I had a feeling those eyes would burn me where I stood, so I put on the look of a man who'd followed well enough.

"I really will kill you……."

……Hadn't the point of taking this operation together been to try living side by side? She was promising to kill me. Did I actually have to bring her?

Dr. Myung quietly started putting the armor on. Wherever she'd learned it, she knew the order exactly. No weapon had been issued to her either. However steep the rating—A+ or not—a postman's work wasn't a combat assignment, so weapons weren't provided. That was why every round I fired was bought with my own money.

"Hey, brother."

The Physiognomist was still here? I'd forgotten him.

"Why are you still standing around?"

"And leave a show this good? Where would I go?"

He'd watched the whole fuss from the side. He'd have the shape of it by now.

"Not bad at all~"

"Not bad how."

"Better to take the beating first, isn't it? Every postman has to drag desk staff out with him once. That's the rule, no? I'm jealous you get to go first, brother!"

I had my doubts.

"And the lineup! A sage heavy with years, and a brains-of-the-outfit doctor besides!"

"Wouldn't know."

"Like, you know……. A white-haired wizard and an elf healer?"

"What's your hobby, normally?"

"Hobby? Why? Me, I enjoy contemplation!"

If he meant the kind of contemplation I knew, that man wasn't built to enjoy it. I'd sooner believe Contemplation was the title of a novel. There had been fantasy books in the Old Man's cabin too—elves, dwarves, all of that. Nonsense. Fun nonsense, though.

"But will you be all right? First time for anything, the information's always thin, no?"

Saying I wasn't worried at all would have been a lie. The veteran hunter had told me we'd be wearing some strange device for the whole operation—something to keep us from drifting past a set distance from the desk staff. A nuisance, on top of the two walkie-talkies I was already hauling around.

Wait. Walkie-talkies……?

"Mr. Physiognomist."

"Hm?"

The veteran happened to be off the floor.

He was never going to let me wander off looking for someone to hand a radio to. If a radio was getting passed along, it had to be now.

"What's the matter, brother? You need my help, maybe?"

Nothing wrong with his nose.

"That's what family's for~ Lean on me all you like! Well? Want a hug?"

……Loose colleague or not, not the sort I wanted kept at my side.

"When's your next delivery?"

"Me? I only just got back. Still a few days yet?"

So he'd be staying at Headquarters. Give the Physiognomist a radio, and I could get word out of Headquarters ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whenever I needed it—unlike Boss, already gone, and Kkamagwi, leaving soon. Martial law had the place running hot. I needed a look at the inside, and often. Boss had better pick up.

Good. That was enough.

I put the radio in the Physiognomist's hand at once.

"A radio?"

"Let's make a trade that helps us both."

"Family doesn't trade!"

"Then you'll just do it?"

"But money—the closer the family, the more you've got to—"

"Enough. You were on about the black market earlier."

He'd said it himself.

This worked out.

"One of the people on this radio is the black market's boss."

"Oho? Watermelon Mask, you mean? Years I walked that market, and the times I traded words with that man don't fill one hand."

"Now you can trade all the words you like. The black market's gone, but you might come out of it with a new counter to deal across."

"You've got my interest."

"What I need from you is simple. If the air at Headquarters turns bad, pass just that much along on the radio now and then."

The veteran hunter was already on his way back.

"We split here."

"Leave it with me! Ah—but how do you work this thing? I've never used a radio."

"Press whatever looks pressable. I'm going."

"Eh? Just mash it? It won't break, will it?"

I slid into line beside Elder Heo and Dr. Myung. With that, the preparations—such as they were—were done.

"Then the Postman, Myung Hwa-young, and Mr. Heo Seong-chan. The devices go on the three of you now."

The veteran, returned, started the briefing. Maybe because Elder Heo was there, the man who'd been spraying plain speech had switched to honorifics.

"Should the postman and the desk staff move too far apart, the equipment logs that distance on its own."

He did the talking. The fitting itself was handled by strangers in red uniforms. Not hunters. Not soldiers.

Watchers, maybe.

It fit, once I thought about it. Every order on this job had come down from the Geofront, but the hands carrying them out were all surface people. Would a thing like that actually run straight? A gadget like this—someone could take a bribe and never seat it right.

So they sent watchers, to see it done properly.

Possible. Likely, even.

"The neck may feel tight. Bear with it."

Opened, the device was a thick bracelet of iron, and the place ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it closed was the throat. The clasp bit shut.

"It won't explode merely because the distance opens, so you may rest easy."

I hadn't been picturing anything that grim.

"Well. Try to force it off, and then it might."

Not a funny joke.

……It was a joke. Wasn't it?

"I assume we're not meant to walk along holding hands. How far is allowed?"

"I don't know either."

What kind of answer was that.

"I truly don't know, which is why I can't tell you. Gauge it yourselves, and manage."

A miserable bastard of an arrangement, from the first detail to the last.

"Myung Hwa-young and Mr. Heo Seong-chan will be issued four days of survival goods."

At his signal, two bags came over. One look inside and it was plain these people had learned the words four days as one.

"If at any point it feels like too much, you may give up and return. Ordinarily there would be a penalty. As a special consideration, this once, there won't. You have only to say you're quitting."

Listen to him. As if it would come to that.

"Should you come back that way, the desk staff will be sent out on an operation again later. As for the postman……."

He folded his arms and settled into an arrogant stance.

"Nothing will happen to the postman. He'll simply go on living as a man who gave up."

Noise.

"Yaaawn……. Light's going. We clear to leave?"

"Whenever you like."

The last thing he put in my hand was the parcel for this run.

"Received."

Right before we stepped off, Elder Heo made a scene over a small pouch, insisting it was a treasure he absolutely had to take. Some fine ration he was doling out to himself, maybe. The veteran looked inside, then allowed it.

"Let's go. Mr. Heo, stay right at my side."

"Unseemly!"

"That word's more unseemly than I am."

I made straight for Headquarters' main gate. Dr. Myung fell in behind, quiet.

After the postman's party passed the main gate, a subordinate came up beside the veteran hunter. There was something he had wanted to ask the whole time, and only now was there room for it.

"Senior. Were you needling the postman on purpose?"

"Too obvious?"

"I see you every day, so I caught it. I doubt the postman thought much of it."

"Whatever that one thinks, it doesn't matter."

"Then why?"

"Hard to say……."

What had decided it was a whisper from the kid hunter. One line in particular.

Those words had twisted something strange in the veteran's gut.

"That cocky brat. About time something didn't go his way, don't you think?"

"Sir?"

"Myung Hwa-young volunteering to follow him—survival, at least, that one's got. No question about it."

"They're bound for Yeongdeungpo, aren't they? Run into the Human Meat Factory crowd and none of the three come back alive. Postman or not."

"Well……. We'll see."

The veteran's eyes were on the far mountains, and the subordinate found the look strangely unfamiliar.

"If you're putting stock in him just because he's first in performance, I couldn't say. He's still only a postman, isn't he?"

"Ah. First in performance. I'd forgotten."

"……Is there something else odd about him that I don't know?"

"Nothing grand enough to call odd. But there is something."

What had cleared the veteran's sight was Myung Hwa-young's outburst.

Until then he hadn't thought much of it. After those words he looked the postman over with care, and only then understood.

"He looks like him."

"Like who, sir?"

"That postman. He looks like my old teacher."

"Teacher……. You mean the instructor?"

"Yeah. Survival instructor. I had him for exactly one day."

The subordinate scratched his head.

"One day? Some kind of special lecture?"

"He quit the next morning."

"The instructor?"

"Hunter work. All of it."

"He climbs all the way to a soft instructor's post and walks away from that? That's absurd. He caused some trouble and got thrown out, didn't he?"

"I don't know the details. Word was, the man left for the outside."

There was still a point the subordinate couldn't make fit.

"Wouldn't have guessed. I didn't take you for someone who'd honor a man as teacher over a single day."

"What are you talking about? You know how I am. A senior who doesn't act like one doesn't get treated like one. It was a day, but I learned it properly, so he's my teacher."

He wasn't saying the teacher and the postman were the same man. Only that they looked alike. Someone who had stood as a hunter instructor turning postman didn't make any sense.

"But something about it……. The feeling was similar."

That was why he had let himself expect anything of the postman at all.

The gate thudded shut at my back.

From here, the outside. Someone swallowed, loud, and I couldn't tell whether it was Dr. Myung or Elder Heo. Then the other one did it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠too, so it hardly mattered.

The tension needed letting down.

"It'll feel strange if it's been a while, but for a stretch from here this is a protected zone. It's safe."

"For Heo Seong-chan, 'a while' doesn't begin to cover it."

Fair. Elder Heo was near the Old Man's age. He might have been here since Headquarters first went up. For Dr. Myung it would be five years. Five years, and nothing much out here had changed.

"A protected zone……. What's that?"

"Doesn't matter."

Tell him now and he'd have forgotten ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it again by the time we came back.

……He wasn't going to start treating me like a total stranger halfway through this. Was he.

"Hmph! Secrets, just between the two of you!"

"Dr. Myung probably doesn't know either."

"Me? I kn—"

I gave her back a habit of hers. Eye-beams.

"—I don't. What's a protected zone? Something you eat?"

"Ha! Didn't you say you were a doctor? Thought you were clever, and you're a fool! How is a protected zone the name of something you eat! It's a zone that's protected, is it not!"

"You heard him."

"…"

Dr. Myung's beam had nowhere left to land.

"Yes. Battery's precious, so if you've got nothing to say, leave the radio off."

I remembered a middle-aged man in a whale mask at the black market, more than once. Same build as the Physiognomist, now that I thought about it. They'd probably handed it to him for the other kind of whale—the drinking kind.

"This time I was in a rush."

So Boss didn't care for the Physiognomist. Well. A temporary colleague. It would be fine.

Even in the middle of that, Elder Heo and Dr. Myung kept at it.

"Myung, was it? A doctor really ought to learn a thing or two from me!"

"Excuse me?"

"What if a doctor's head is no good! You've got patients to fix! That one says a postman can get by with a bad head, but still!"

"I…… I did study enough to treat patients—"

"There is no end to learning!"

"Um……. Mr. Heo Seong-chan?"

"Call me Master!"

Perfect. If Dr. Myung took Elder Heo in hand, that would do.

And I couldn't even switch the damned thing off.

"……How do you figure that."

"What's that machine that keeps talking? Hey, Myung—you know?"

"Haven't you seen plenty of radios at Headquarters?"

"Ahem! You put Master on the front when you speak!"

"M-Mas……."

"Out with it!"

"No. Not doing it. Not a chance."

I was going to lose my mind.