Chosen
For the moment, I stepped out of Headquarters into the protected zone beyond its walls. I'd decided to squeeze a little more out of Clock-out Man about the safe routes.
"I marked it all on the map, but you sure this is enough? If you're nervous going alone, Bro, I can come with you."
"You say that like you'd actually come along for free."
"I could cut you a discount. A sale, okay?"
"No need."
A long-haul run meant a long list of preparations, and food and consumables were the real problem. I had to choose carefully and commit. Obvious as it was, I couldn't haul every last supply I'd need for a round trip to Busan from the very start. Hocheol couldn't handle that kind of weight and bulk either. So I needed a solid plan for resupplying along the way.
I'd already bought myself a fair amount of time. The mission was set to leave with the second wave, but the destination being what it was, I'd been granted a little extra for advance prep. A week at the outside before departure. Enough to get everything in order.
Out in the world, the safest and cheapest place to get consumables was, of course, a post office. I belonged to one, after all. One of the very few shelters that actually looked kindly on a Postman.
Naturally, every region had its own post office. The local governments were organized nothing like Headquarters in Seoul, the central government. Each region did things its own way. Tied to the center only loosely, they were barely under its control at all. That was the biggest difference from the old era. In practice, the relationship between the central government and the local ones resembled the old world's alliances between nations: pooling their strength for mutual gain for now, perfectly capable of turning their backs on each other the moment it suited them. Well. No one's turned yet.
That was only because the New Government Complex in Seoul held overwhelming power, and the source of that power was obvious: thirteen railguns. Seoul was the only government organization left that could still maintain anything like an intact civilization. They said the old country had been called the Republic of Seoul. If anything, it was more true now than it had been then.
Local governments without railguns, unsafe from air raids, had scattered their internal organizations to the winds. One strike couldn't be allowed to wipe them out entirely. The trouble was that those scattered offices shifted constantly, following the raids. I'd confirmed the location of every post office I could visit along the route, but there was every chance I'd arrive to find nothing but empty ground. Nothing for it but to go and see.
"All you have to do now is head to the Human Meat Factory and rake in the money."
I wasn't sure Clock-out Man had any talent for trade, but the deal was so heavily tilted in his favor that it hardly mattered. So long as he did exactly as I said.
"If it's like Bro said, it's basically just sweeping money into a bag... You really think it'll go like that?"
"It will. You checked the going rates? I don't care about the rest, but sell the ammunition and the antibiotics at market price."
That, too, was strategy. Sell the most essential goods at a fair price and earn a little goodwill, and people won't look at you too sourly when you take an open profit on everything else.
"But if I sell at market price, I don't make any money."
"Which is why you only bring a little ammunition and a few antibiotics. You don't need to sell a lot. What matters is planting the idea that you sell at a fair price."
"Aha! And the rest? I find what those guys actually need and sell it expensive, and buy up cheap whatever the Factory's drowning in. That right?"
"Just like that. When you sell, take a hundred and twenty-five percent of market. When they sell, you buy at seventy-five. No haggling, and only with whoever's actually authorized to deal."
"Exclusive trade, so no competition. That's what you're saying."
"That's why you can afford to be brazen about it."
"Okay!"
And one more thing that mattered.
"In particular, consider buying everything the General puts up for sale, and get your hands on anything the Savior says he needs, then sell it to him."
"The General—that's the big guy from back then, right? And who's the Savior?"
"You'll know the second you see him."
Hard to miss a man wandering around alone in some bizarre scrap of cloth. What did they call that again—an attention hound? He dressed that way on purpose, to look the part of a savior. He wasn't right in the head either.
Anyway.
"The General's standing inside the settlement has shrunk, so he'll be scrambling to build his power back up. For that he needs funds, which means he'll be busy dumping everything he doesn't need. Knock all of it down to seventy percent of market."
"Stuff the General sells, I can buy cheap. Okay."
"Cores are the exception. Pay eighty for those. A merchant who gouges too hard on core prices is violating the ethics of the trade."
Losing the people's goodwill would be a problem.
"Roger!"
"The Savior's the one in charge of industrial production, so he's already got money. If it's something he needs, he'll pay a steep price to get it."
"So sell to him expensive. I got it."
Clock-out Man did as he was told, so I wasn't worried about him. The problem was that he couldn't possibly handle that volume of trade alone.
"So the partner you said you found... this woman?"
He'd brought along a perfectly suitable colleague. Someone I knew.
"The night view of Seoul from here isn't bad, is it, Postman?"
"It's beautiful. But the more it looks like this, the more careful you have to be."
"Guys? Am I the only one standing in broad daylight?"
The Match Girl. She still had a match between her teeth, as if asking me to recognize her. She'd dumped her two companions somewhere and attached herself to Clock-out Man. The jerky peddler and Pot Lid. The pair had found her impossible to talk to and uncomfortable to be around, and they'd kept her with them anyway. The reason was obvious. She'd been worth that much.
If Clock-out Man had recruited her himself, there was nothing more to look into. She had a Core ability. No question.
"There's something I'm curious about."
"Ask me anything, Linda."
The look said she'd answer whatever I asked. She would, too. The problem was that I wouldn't understand a word of it.
"Nothing major. Just seems like we'll be seeing a lot of each other, so I figured I ought to know your name."
"Bal Yoon-ju."
"Your surname is Bal?"
"Park Yoon-ju. My tongue slipped."
I'd been braced for some strange name. It wasn't.
"Oh, Bro, perfect timing. Mind staying here with Yoon-ju for a bit?"
"Hm?"
"Yeo-jin's supposed to hand me a new hunter pistol. I've got to get to the meeting spot, but she won't come outside Headquarters herself, you know?"
"So you have to go alone."
"Yeah. I haven't told her about the partner yet."
"I get that. Why do I have to stay here?"
"Um... that's—"
Clock-out Man's eyes slid toward Park Yoon-ju. I understood. He doesn't trust leaving her alone. Fair enough. It wouldn't have been the least bit strange to come back and find this odd woman gone, never to be seen again.
"Go on."
"See you soon!"
He took off at a real sprint. Uneasy about leaving me behind, too, was he?
Park Yoon-ju said nothing, only stared at Headquarters. I got bored enough that I had to be the one to speak first.
"First time seeing it?"
"You can see it from far away, can't you? Not the first. But this is the first time I've seen it from this close."
"So you've never been inside Headquarters."
"No."
"You seem skilled enough. Never thought about becoming a civil servant?"
If Clock-out Man was willing to vouch for her, becoming a hunter would have been nothing.
"Skilled? And how would you know that?"
"I can see it all."
"You speak your own language too, then. One it doesn't matter if other people understand."
"It matters. There are just a lot of people who don't."
"And what do you do then?"
"I try to make them understand."
"And if they still don't?"
She kept the questions coming with dead eyes. I could guess the answer she expected. That I give up on making them understand, or that I refuse to give up until they do. Whichever came out, it wouldn't satisfy her. Fortunately, that wasn't my answer.
"Then I understand them."
"Hm?"
"If a person can't understand, I just have to understand that person."
"Ah."
She looked amused.
"Born under a special fate. Just like my first impression."
"And what was your first impression?"
"A man there'll never be another of."
More nonsense. I'd pretend I hadn't heard it.
"Shall we talk business, then? Man of special fate."
"Where did that come from?"
"The mercenary promised me. Fifteen percent of whatever this job brings in, cut my way."
"That's generous of him."
"I heard you take fifty percent. And you don't do anything."
"I don't do nothing. You heard every word I said to Clock-out Man just now."
"That's just the basics of trade. Anyway, the contract between the two of you is none of my concern. What I want to know is how you cracked the Human Meat Factory. That part."
I hadn't given Clock-out Man the details either. Not because I'd meant to hide them. He simply hadn't asked. Tell him to do something and he believed me and did it.
"No reason not to tell you."
She meant to go do business in a place people said you entered once and never left alive. Of course she was suspicious. Best to tell her all of it, straight. She didn't seem the type to go blabbing it around, and even if she did, no one would take this woman's word at face value. And if she was a capable figure from the outside world, there was value in lowering my guard with her a little.
"It started as a kidnapping—"
The longer she listened, the brighter her eyes grew.
"—and that's how it ended up."
"The most beautiful story I've heard in a while."
"My life's a little pretty."
"It looks it. Your face, too."
A creepy joke.
"I can tell it's your taste, but I'll pass. I'm not interested in that direction."
"No? A shame. I'll be waiting, though, so think it over again whenever you like."
What was with this woman? She'd been serious.
She spat out the match she'd been holding and drew a fresh one between her teeth. Anyone else would have wondered what a waste it was, but I could understand it well enough.
"An extravagant hobby."
"You can't go against fate."
Clock-out Man was late.
"Was it true, what you said about buying cores in bulk?"
"Probably."
"Does the Human Meat Factory have an appraiser?"
"No. That's why unappraised cores are piled up in heaps."
"How much of a heap?"
"More than one or two deals could clear out."
"Then wouldn't it make more money to bring an appraiser along?"
She knew a thing or two. They wouldn't sell every core they had. Handing over a core that looked truly precious while it was still unappraised would be a brutal loss. They'd be dreaming of the day it got appraised and sold for what it was really worth—a windfall. To sweep up cores like those, you needed an appraiser. And in a place that didn't have one, you could charge an appraisal fee above the going rate. Then, once the appraisal turned up a valuable core, you bought it back at eighty percent of its true price. Profit for me, profit for them.
But I don't have an outside appraiser close enough to drag along. Appraisers existed out in the world, of course. Anyone who could enter Headquarters regularly, the way I could, had no reason to get an appraisal done outside. Which meant no connections, either.
"Do you know an appraiser?"
If she could bring one, I could see my way to cutting her a little more of the profit. About one percent.
"Do I know an appraiser? That's like asking if there's a way to dodge fate."
"Just say you don't."
"I don't."
Tsk.
"Appraisers are another kind of person heaven sends down. Like doctors. You could call them similar professions."
"What could those two possibly have in common?"
"They can both change someone else's fate. That's the resemblance."
"Appraisal is just something you get from using a Core. By that logic, isn't every hunter heaven-sent?"
"Even if you use a Core, some people gain the power to fight, and some gain the power to appraise. What else could decide that but a god?"
"It's just probability."
"Didn't you know? That probability is the game the gods play."
Then was I someone who could go against a god's will?
"If you've gained the power of appraisal, that means you've received heaven's favor. Just like... you, receiving my choice."
Someone worse than Min Yeo-jin had appeared.
Anyway. Talking as if she knew everything about Cores was a stretch. There were things like this, for one. The Core Elder Heo left behind. He'd said the chance of a successful use was one hundred percent, and that it would grant the power of appraisal without fail. There was still so much we didn't know.
"A Core is still a thing full of unsolved riddles. And people go looking for gods most of all when they're ignorant."
"So I drag the gods in because I'm ignorant? Quite the provocation. Linda would be shocked to hear it."
"...I'm only asking because I'm curious. Is Linda a real person?"
"Talking about another woman in front of me? Are you provoking me on purpose?"
"Forget it."
But the next piece of nonsense out of Park Yoon-ju was not the ordinary kind.
"Use too many Cores and you can turn into a madman. Did you know that if you succeed at reckless gambles enough times, you start talking to yourself? A god has come down. Divine possession."
"What does that mean?"
"The meaning? If I knew that, do you think I'd be like this?"
"This talk of madmen. Is it about you?"
"No. I'm only a witness. I saw it with my own two eyes. I said Cores are full of riddles, didn't I? Someone knows the answers. They've simply gone mad."
"You seem plenty mad yourself."
"Thank you. I love you."
Did this one actually know something? What do I do. I was never going to get a straight answer out of her. But she wasn't straining to avoid reacting, either. Her expression was a mess, nothing more. In her own way, she was answering me. She doesn't seem likely to stab me in the back, at least. Maybe I'll sound her out.
The Core Elder Heo had left behind. The one that would make an appraiser of whoever used it, at the cost of carving away their lifespan. I took it out.