Drinking the Blood

Stay calm.

If I wanted to live, I had to stay calm.

The core—I already used it...

The core in question was an Ability Core. No doubt about that. Heat had poured out of it and come riding up my veins, the exact sensation I'd felt the last time I used my probability ability.

Did the core take?

I was alive, at least. If it had failed, I wouldn't be this intact. So had I punched through odds of one in ten thousand?

I didn't know yet. There might be a side effect I simply hadn't noticed.

Or maybe that was the side effect.

The anti-aircraft gun's chance of functioning, still hanging in my sight. Only the digits looked nothing like they had before. They shivered—trembled, as they never had. After the core, that was the only thing that had changed.

Try a different probability? This one had been the odds of normal operation, so something close to it.

The chance I get hit by the AA fire...

The same. And the tremor in the numbers hadn't changed either. They vibrated hard enough to make me dizzy if I kept staring. This had never happened before. Not once.

A side effect wrecking my vision? Did that mean the core had failed? For a side effect, it was awfully mild.

A clack from the gun. Busy movement over there. When the core had flared red, the man on it had looked rattled too. He'd left his post, come back, and was setting up to fire again.

Move. Now!

My body still wouldn't listen. The only thing I could move freely was my head, and maybe that was why the senses in it felt unusually sharp. The strong metallic taste was probably because of that.

My lip...

It had split when I'd shouted Sergeant Jeong's name, and blood was running from the tear. The cold iron reek of cooling blood made my head swim. Without thinking, I flicked my tongue out and wiped my lip clean. Lukewarm blood slipped into my mouth, and I swallowed it before I knew I had.

Huh?

That was the instant.

What is this...?

Right then, my world turned upside down.

The figures that had always shown blue began, slowly, to bleed red.

"Ghk—hot—!"

At the same time a tremendous heat surged up out of my bag. Something hissed. Had it burst? What in there could throw off heat like that—a lighter? I couldn't lower my head to look inside, but one thing was certain. This was not normal.

"Nngh..."

My arm wouldn't move, so I couldn't pull my hand free. The burn was vicious. I was so busy enduring it that I noticed what had happened in front of my eyes a beat too late.

...?

The numbers had gone completely red. And yet—

The value had changed. A moment ago it had definitely been 99.9%.

What?

Had I switched, without noticing, to the probability of not getting hit? Maybe the pain had sent my mind wandering.

Try again.

The odds I get hit by the AA fire...

...

Had my ability to read probability broken? Was this the side effect? The core had probably failed. There was no way I'd beaten one in ten thousand.

Anyway.

The gun whirred, and whirred again. Why wasn't it firing? It was even slewing left and right on its own.

"Corporal! What are you doing!"

"S-sorry, sir! The thing won't listen to—"

Something had gone wrong. The top of the wall was in an uproar.

No. No way...

The gun wasn't doing its job, but that didn't change my situation. They were handing me time, and I still couldn't run. My body was locked. Any minute a pursuit team with working rifles might come pouring out.

Move, damn it...!

While I wrestled with the paralysis, the wall above me went suddenly quiet. They seemed to be swapping gunners. The distance was long, but I could tell, because the new man was visibly different from the last. I couldn't make out his features. I didn't need to. The replacement had his whole face covered by a mask.

A clack, then another. The masked Postman.

Why him, all of a sudden?

It—it's moving!

That was when the paralysis broke, as if on cue.

The paralysis lifted the moment Mask showed up...

When a coincidence feels that precise, it usually isn't one. No time to think about it now.

If the number in front of my eyes was real...

The gun whirred, clunked, and locked its barrel on me again.

There's no gap to slip a barrage. None.

Turning my back and running would be pointless. I wasn't getting out of that gun's range. The best strategy I could actually think of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was the other one.

Neutralize them.

The enemy was a settlement packed with hundreds of people, and an anti-aircraft gun sat on the wall. Going at that with a few smoke grenades and a single pistol was obviously insane. But—

All or nothing. I'll trust it once.

The gun roared. In the instant it spat fire, my body was already cutting left, clear of the line of shot.

Huh?

I was sure I'd moved of my own will, and yet part of me felt I hadn't. Even before the gun fired, the muscles in my legs had already been contracting, as if I'd known exactly where the shells would come.

It whirred and hammered again, never letting up, rotating to chase me. But—

What is this feeling?

To shake a spinning barrel I had to keep going left. And yet a fierce instinct said I should break the other way. Right.

Go right and I walk straight into the gun's arc.

The number hadn't changed. A lie of a whisper: one in a thousand that the AA fire would actually hit me.

Same either way. There's no answer.

Dodging left would only buy a few more seconds. There was no getting clear of that barrage. So—

I shut my eyes and threw myself deep to the right.

Pure madness. But if I believed in that 0.1%, then maybe the next moment the gun would simply break.

It didn't. Hope was trampled flat under dozens of shells pouring down.

"Damn it—!"

And yet, somehow, I didn't flinch at all. Anyone in this situation ought to drop and cover their head. That's instinct. My body did the opposite. It opened. I straightened, arms and legs flung wide in different directions. I was moving by my own will, and still it felt like I was following an order.

In the blink of an eye the shells came down—the rip of them tearing wind, then the ground shuddering as if the earth itself had split.

And yet.

...I'm alive?

The shells had licked past my body. A few felt as if they'd definitely touched me, and my stomach dropped, but when I checked, nothing had hit. They'd only brushed my clothes on the way by. Improvised rounds with the powder pulled, so there was no secondary blast to catch me either.

Had I dodged the shells, or had the shells dodged me?

Butterfly shells.

And a nice natural smokescreen, thrown in for free.

Wherever they'd swept, dirt rose without fail. Thanks to that, the men on the wall couldn't see that I was still perfectly alive. They must have assumed I was already a honeycomb. The gun had stopped.

Is this a lucky day, or an unlucky one?

Either way, I had to settle it while my shape was hidden. If I could trigger what had just happened one more time...

Was that red probability a power I got from the core?

My body was fine. Too fine. A 99.99% failure didn't leave a side effect this invisible. The higher the odds of failure, the worse the wreckage, and there was no wreckage. Which meant the core might have succeeded.

No. It had to have succeeded.

Did I get an ability that can change probability?

If so, I needed the trigger. As fast as possible. I could already hear soldiers moving inside the settlement, brisk and busy.

The gun whirred again. The barrel was creeping around toward me. Dust still hung thick; they shouldn't be able to see me. Maybe they were only realigning. Or maybe it was a blind shot to make sure of the kill.

I have to hit first.

I drew the hunter-grade pistol. Against the chance I'd ever have to face an anti-aircraft gun, I'd already loaded it with armor-piercing rounds—special-spec ammunition that only a hunter-grade pistol could fire. The problem was the savage recoil, which gutted both accuracy and rate of fire.

First round. One shot. That's the best I get.

As the dust settled a little, the top of the wall began to show. I aimed where the gun ought to be and froze like ice. If I didn't, they'd realize I was still alive.

A few seconds passed. At last a piece of the gun peeked into view.

The odds the first ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠round hits and knocks that gun out...

Low. Very low. If I was right, a low number was exactly where the hope lived.

No matter how I turn it over, that's the only thing that feels like a trigger.

The iron taste of blood came back. Remembering that moment, I slipped my tongue out and dragged it along the lip where the bleeding had already stopped.

...Nothing. Then—

I bit down with my upper teeth until the lip split again, licked the fresh blood, and sent it down my throat.

A hiss from the bag.

So that was it.

Heat bloomed inside it once more. But I'd been through this once. There would be no second panic. Let the bag barbecue. This time I kept my eyes on what was in front of me, and the result was exactly what I'd expected.

...It really works.

The probability had changed. More precisely, it had flipped. 99.9% had become 0.1%. 0.7% had become 99.3%. This was, beyond any doubt, Probability Inversion—a core ability I had never heard of anywhere.

The gun's rotation clunked to a stop. Had they spotted me? It didn't matter.

Not yet.

The laws of the world were on my side, and I still didn't feel like pulling the trigger. The dust thinned by degrees. The gunner's shape began to resolve.

Huh?

Mask was already gone. A soldier stood the gun again.

I was going to switch targets to that bastard's head if I saw him. Shame.

A heavy clack—the gun chambering. At the sound, strength gathered in my arm before I knew it.

Backscratcher. I'm trusting you.

Muscle and tendon contracted in sequence until my index finger finally pulled.

The shot cracked. Recoil from the armor-piercing round shoved my whole body backward. The gunner pulled his own trigger a hair later than I did.

The result: the round was swallowed into the barrel as if the gun had inhaled it, and it struck the shell that had just begun to nose its way out.

Nothing to be surprised about. I'd known it would work. The men on the wall wouldn't have.

A dull, enormous boom. The anti-aircraft gun stopped dead. The wall above me came apart into shouting.

"The fuck was that just now?"

"This AA gun is down too, sir!"

"Shit—! How the hell do you people maintain anything? Why is there not one working piece of gear up here!"

"Did that bastard just break an anti-aircraft gun with one pistol round?"

"Talk sense! This piece-of-shit gun is acting up again, that's all."

"Did you just call the anti-aircraft gun a piece of shit...?"

"S-sorry, sir!"

"I'm telling you, that guy ate a direct barrage and didn't die!"

"Like hell. The shots went wide."

"I saw it!"

"You can't see shit through that dust. What are you even saying."

"You bastards! I asked how you maintain this thing on a normal day!"

"When are the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠working rifles getting here? Why is this taking so long!"

"The armory door is locked, sir!"

"And a locked door ends your military career, does it?"

Time to finish it. The breakout had to end.

The inside of the bag was full of hot vapor; I couldn't see a thing. I groped until I dragged the smoke grenades out, and they were, thankfully, still usable. That was when a familiar voice rustled up beside me.

"Postman, sir! Is the situation over?"

"Sergeant Jeong? The hell. Why are you alive?"

"Well... I think it's because I didn't die, sir?"

Beside him gaped a large hole. Not from the anti-aircraft gun. Someone had cut it on purpose. And I remembered what Sergeant Jeong had said when I'd first arrived at AAA, walking out to meet me.

So the bunker mouth had been here. Even with the anti-aircraft gun throwing a fit, I understood now why he'd called for me so desperately.

A sound came from the other side as well.

"Hhh... hhk..."

A woman, sobbing.

"Are you all right?"

Looking closer, I saw the sisters dragging Captain Choi, who was soaked in blood. He was unconscious, and one arm and one leg were simply gone. The sisters, by contrast, were intact. There hadn't even been a bunker mouth on their side.

"What happened over there?"

"That's..."

I couldn't make sense of it.

How are they in one piece?

At first I thought Captain Choi had shielded them and taken the hit alone, but that didn't hold. Losing a limb apiece was a grievous wound, and still, measured against the scale of that barrage, it wasn't nearly enough. An attack like that should have left all three of them unrecognizable. And they'd endured this?

How?

This was not the time to stand around talking.

First, get clear of this place.

I threw every smoke grenade I had and cut off the settlement's line of sight.

"Run! Like your life depends on it!"

All of them broke into a desperate sprint, the kind of running that says if death is coming, it can catch them on the move. Jeongguk ran at the front even with Captain Choi across his back.

Maybe the headlong pace helped. In a short while ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the heat inside the bag had gone completely cold, and the night air was warming under the rough pull of their breath.