How Dare You, to Your Elders

"The patient left ages ago. And you show up now?"

"Sometimes there's a diagnosis you can't tell the patient."

So that's what this is.

"Clock-out Man. Fatal?"

"What? No. Nothing like that."

"Arms and legs staying on, then?"

"It isn't that kind of thing."

Fine, then.

"The reason I didn't tell him is—well, for one, I don't know it precisely myself—"

"Even you don't know. So it's some unknown disease."

"That's about the size of it. I'm not sure. And the real reason is that it's tied to that guy's ability."

"Ability?"

"His Core ability. You can't just go around talking about those."

A matter of courtesy, then.

No matter how close you were, you did not ask about a Core ability. Unwritten law. It wasn't only the direct question that was forbidden. Sounding someone out sideways was off-limits too—an offense worse than turning on your own blood.

It hadn't always been like this.

Early in the apocalypse, when Cores first appeared, ability users went around announcing what they could do of their own free will. On a ruined earth where bragging about money and everything else had turned worthless overnight, a Core ability was the most valuable thing left, and the people who had one became saviors on the spot.

That stretch didn't last. Before long the world's Core users split in two—allies and enemies. An ally was still a savior. An enemy became a demon. Ability users appeared who had to be removed, and the first step in taking a demon apart was knowing what the ability was. The habit of declaring one's power died on its own, and asking about an ability became a good way to get yourself killed.

"So this unknown illness is connected to a Core ability?"

The illness that had taken his memory and numbed his sense of smell.

"Mm. That Clock-ou—god, what an embarrassing nickname to say out loud. You don't know his real name?"

"Forgot it. Nobody uses it."

"Ha. Then let's call him Smallhead. Small head, low intelligence. That about right?"

"Is there a medical basis for that?"

"You didn't hear that. Anyway, I think I've got a rough idea what Smallhead's ability is—"

"Relax. I won't say you told me."

"He triggers it through his nose, right? He was a tracker, so he smells a target and follows them. Something like that."

Dead accurate.

"This unknown illness. The part of the body tied to the ability goes numb. That the idea?"

"Close. Lately a few hunters have come in complaining of similar symptoms. I saw one myself, and other doctors say they've seen them now and then. Add them all up and it's still only a handful, but every single one lost their memory for a while, and when they came to, they couldn't use their ability."

A hunter who can't use an ability might as well be under a death sentence.

"The fortunate part is that even if you do nothing, the ability comes back after a few hours."

Clock-out Man had been the same.

"But he was tied up, too. Doesn't it make more sense to call it an attack than an illness?"

"There were some among the patients with the same symptoms. Signs they'd been bound. Or attacked."

"Hm."

"Someone ambushes them, then arranges for them to catch the illness. Or else—"

"A Core ability."

"...So you think so too?"

Had Myeong Hwa-young already been treating this as a Core user's work?

"The patients. Any common traits?"

"Well... nothing particular comes to mind. Oh—if I had to name one, they all had the symptoms inside headquarters. Smallhead was the odd one, outside. Maybe because he isn't an active hunter?"

Maybe. Clock-out Man might not have been a planned target at all.

Either way, some brazen bastard was attacking hunters inside headquarters.

"When did it start?"

"Early this year."

If the timing meant anything, it could be a rookie. That was when a hunter fresh off the trainee tag first dug in at headquarters. It overlapped with trainee selection, too, but for chicks that green the scale of the thing was hard to credit.

"Nothing like this among Postmen, then."

"I'd have to know a Postman for that."

"Ah. Fair. Anything else coming to mind?"

One thing was certain.

"Whoever it is, it isn't one person."

"Huh?"

"A power that erases memory, and a power that paralyzes a Core ability."

"If both of those are abilities, then it definitely isn't one person. Two, at least?"

"More than that. Erasing memory or paralyzing an ability is non-combat. Two of those alone would have a hard time ambushing an active hunter, so there must have been a combat user in the mix."

"Three, minimum? And the more of them, the easier the job, right?"

"No. Pulling this off inside headquarters, too many bodies would be a problem of its own. Not too few. Not too many."

"Then how many—"

"If it were me, I'd make it five."

"Mm. Five... What kind of bastards are they?"

She'd said most of the patients turned up inside headquarters. People moving together ought to have stood out.

What mattered was that life at hunter headquarters was solo play down to the bone. Lower stations—the military and the like—mostly lived stacked in communal quarters. Hunters were each assigned an apartment. Orders came in and reports went out one-on-one with a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠superior, every step of the way. The only times you saw hunters gathered inside headquarters were the training ground, or the wait before an operation. Three or more running around together could not have gone unnoticed.

"So this is what a former hunter instructor looks like? Talking it through, my head's clearing. I should have asked sooner. Thanks for hearing me ou—"

"I'm not finished."

"Huh?"

If he had to guess, there was exactly one sort he could picture. Hunters for whom drifting around in twos and threes wasn't strange at all.

"Hunter trainees."

"Trainees? What do you mean, trainees?"

Trainees were bundled by cohort for the whole of training. They did nearly every hour of the day together, so a cluster of them walking around was nothing odd. If anything, a trainee in uniform walking alone would have made the instructors wonder whether someone was being frozen out, and they'd have had to start paying attention.

"Get lucky, and we might pin down who's doing it pretty fast."

Anyone wearing a trainee's status right now would be in Min Yeo-jin's survival course.

"Oh? Really?"

Being able to find out didn't mean he had to.

"Well. Somebody else's problem."

"Uh, well... right? For you, it is."

"Isn't it somebody else's problem for you, too? Even if someone's churning out patients, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a doctor isn't an investigator."

"Honestly, I don't care who's doing it. I care how you diagnose it, and how you treat it."

"Listen to you. Bursting with professional spirit."

"Not really? It's more of a... pride thing?"

"Pride taking a bruise. That's exactly what professional spirit is."

At any rate, they'd reached the main gate of headquarters.

He rested his hand on the red button and left it there. He did not want to press it. To think a day like this would come for him, too.

"What are you doing? Press it."

"Having to press this thing bruises the pride."

"Oho? Such professional spirit, our Post—"

Beep.

"Not even slightly."

Look at the mouth on this thing.

He'd only ever pressed the green button, so he hadn't known. The scanner could talk down to you, too.

The place in the complex famous for the best rations. Unexpectedly, it was not a room set aside for VIPs or veteran hunters. They didn't take rations at all. This was for people of high station who had no money, which meant most of them were hunter trainees.

"Did you hear? They say the Postman came back alive."

The arm that had been moving in a blur paused, just for a moment.

"We expected that much, didn't we?"

The ease came back at once. An air raid that could fall at any time, dropping of all places on that Postman's head, was not an easy thing to count on. He'd only thought it would be amusing if it happened.

Trainees did not get along evenly across a whole cohort. Factions always split. Genius's group was only five, a small headcount, but in influence they were an overwhelming first. They had gathered ranks one through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠five of the cohort. Of course they were.

"Still, sounds like the mission failed? So it went Genius's way in the end?"

A smile of deep satisfaction. But for the sake of the fun still ahead, caution was going to be necessary.

"Everyone listen. For a while, we don't meet."

"Huh?"

"Why?"

"We've been sticking our necks out too far. Might be time to lie low."

They had stirred trouble only up to the line where a tail wouldn't catch. Senior hunters, one decisive mistake apiece—that was the interference they'd been running. The method was simple. Seal the Core ability.

All of it was groundwork for the day they shed trainee status and became real hunters. Work the seniors whose positions would overlap with theirs, then take those seats fast. That was the point. All five of them would climb to the peak of this world and close the hunter world in their fists. That was the goal. And a trainee's status was excellent camouflage for the ambition underneath.

"Especially you."

"Huh? Me?"

"You cannot get caught. Not ever."

"O-of course not!"

The ability to erase the last ten minutes of memory. The colleague Genius needed most, and the colleague whose tail was easiest to catch. Among active hunters, no one else had the same ability. If it was ever laid bare, every debt they'd piled up would come down at once.

"So for the time being, we scatter. Until I contact you again, the five of us do not meet."

"Ugh... I don't want to eat alone."

"Idiot. I said scatter, not walk around alone. No—if you walk around alone, absolutely not."

"Huh?"

"We're trainees. Walking alone stands out more, got it? Each of you latch onto some other kids' group and live there."

"Uh..."

"Mm."

"What? Why are you all reacting like that?"

Genius was the only one who didn't understand the mood. It figured. Where people were concerned, he was a dunce—and that was also the side of him that lined up with Min Yeo-jin.

"Well... the other kids probably won't be all that glad to have us."

"Why?"

"It's, um."

They only looked at one another.

"Why? What is it?"

Not one of them could step forward and say it, and not because it was something that mustn't be said. They simply knew Genius would never understand.

"Oh, just that we're too outstanding? Haha!"

"A prodigy simply can't mix with ordinary people, that's all!"

"But don't worry! Living scattered from here on out—message received!"

That conversation was the end of it. For quite a while, they really did not meet.

He thought it every time. Myeong Hwa-young's patience was an ocean.

"When the hell are they coming? I pressed that button forever ago."

Salty, though.

"You don't get it because you're a doctor."

"Why are we suddenly talking about doctors?"

"A doctor figures you press whatever pops out and something starts. The post office doesn't work like that."

Fail a mission, and the agency you belonged to handled the aftermath. In his case, that meant the post office's cleanup unit rolling out. Those people were never quick.

"Haa... I want to get inside and wash."

"Is it true that if you wash too often and stay sterile too long, it's bad for you?"

"Shut up."

Arms folded, leg jiggling. He'd been about to get a word in when she went suddenly calm.

"I thought about it again."

"The sterile thing?"

"Shut up. I've seen a group of hunter trainees, five of them, going around together. Usually they swarm in packs of ten or more, right? Those ones weren't many, so they stuck."

"I keep telling you it isn't my business."

"Looking at your eyes, you seem short on vitamins. I happen to have some IV fluid left."

"Five of them moving together makes them suspects. What else do you remember?"

"That's all. Just a sense that kids like that existed. I never treated them myself. But couldn't a pack of ten split off into five only when they're about to cause trouble?"

That was the kind of thing you could say if you'd never been a hunter.

Well. As Myeong Hwa-young herself had put it, advice was free.

"Once a bond is made in trainee days, the culture is that even a trip to the bathroom is a group event. And five of them peel off whenever they feel like it? They'd draw suspicion for certain."

"Oh! Next time I see them, I'll try talking to them...!"

Already too late.

"It might be useless now."

"Huh?"

The hunters targeted inside headquarters, and Clock-out Man, ambushed outside it. A very large gap lay between those two. What mattered was that it hadn't been a robbery. They hadn't laid a finger on anything Clock-out Man was carrying.

What he could infer from that—

Maybe hitting Clock-out Man was an accident.

A chance it had nothing to do with their usual purpose. And once you did something that far off-pattern, the next behavior was obvious. You spent a while lying low, in case a tail had caught.

"Those kids might not go around as five for a while."

"Why?"

"Explaining would take a while. Do you remember their faces?"

"Uh... roughly? Enough that I'd know them if I saw them."

Then there was a way.

"Watch whether they scatter and wedge themselves into other groups."

"Huh?"

"They won't meet for a while, so a tail doesn't catch. They won't walk alone, either. A trainee alone stands out. So there's a chance they'll shove into groups they were never close with."

And that wasn't all.

"They forced their way in, so it'll feel awkward. They'll be the ones on the outside. They might have split one by one. If that was too hard, twos and threes."

If he was right, they were some badly mannered trainees.

Then again. They're trainees because they still need the lesson.