Lemming

"Tell me. You know how to get rid of the side effects, too?"

"Boss!"

"All of you, stay out of it."

The side effects were riding him hard, by the look of it.

"Well, if you want a method, it's quitting the combat stimulant."

"You think I asked because I don't know that? I mean a way to skip the side effects without quitting. Acting all smart, and you don't even know that much? If you can't wipe ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them out completely, then at least a way to suffer a little less..."

He was talking like a complete ass, but his eyes were desperate.

"There's an order to these things."

"What are you talking about?"

"We had a deal going, didn't we?"

"...Fine."

He called his five lackeys together. They squabbled for a while, but in the end every one of them started shucking off his body armor.

And then—

"Jeong-guk."

Jo Shin-hye, silent through all of it, came up to me as if she'd made up her mind.

"Why pull a stunt that reckless?"

Her reaction to the bare-handed fight I'd fought with my eyes covered. Just as I'd expected. I'd figured she would scold the recklessness long before she celebrated the win. In that, she was like me—only a little like me. We differed in far more ways, and this was one of them. If it had been me, I never would have let the fight happen at all.

"What if you'd lost while you were playing it so loose? Armor or no armor, that's your property, so it's none of our business. But you're supposed to be guiding us. What were we supposed to do if you'd gotten yourself torn up?"

There was no fee attached to guiding them. The twenty-five Cores the captain had paid me were an escape fee, nothing more. The escape was already done, so everything after was none of my concern. I was only taking them to headquarters because I'd volunteered. By that measure, she had no standing to complain about the quality of my service.

She'd caught on, though. She knew I wasn't hauling them to headquarters for free, and that I meant to get something out of Jo Yong-han, that explanation fetishist. That was why she didn't bother bowing and scraping. A sharp woman.

"Well, that's—"

Answering with I won, so what's the problem? would not have been the model answer. She was calling out the cocky attitude itself, result be damned. Hocheol and Jo An-na only shifted on their feet and watched. They looked ready to take my side, but Jo Shin-hye was a formidable opponent.

Either way, I had a method. One cut exactly to her.

"Because you didn't use your pass, Shin-hye."

"A pass...?"

"The yield pass. We had an agreement, remember? One backing-down apiece."

Jo Shin-hye bit down hard on her lower lip.

"...You've got to be kidding me."

When I'd started covering my eyes, she had kept at me, telling me to fight properly and trying to talk me out of it. But she never once, right to the end, brought up the promise from before. There was no way someone that sharp had forgotten it. So why hadn't she invoked the promise and told me to back down?

The reason was simple.

"You didn't like the attitude, but you were sure I'd win. That's why you didn't bother spending the yield pass."

Jo Shin-hye looked away.

"...I just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠forgot. Now that I think about it, there was something like that."

Her eyes were a disaster when she lied. Watching me cover them with that much confidence, she must have decided I was only doing it because I couldn't lose. She trusted my judgment absolutely. If anyone had thought I might lose, it would have been Hocheol and Jo An-na. Winning was still winning, and Jo Shin-hye still hadn't liked the attitude. In the end, what she wanted to say was simple. Never let your guard down. Not for a moment. Don't get cocky. She'd come up a hunter instructor, and it showed. The woman had the temperament for the work.

"Thank you. I could feel that you genuinely believed I'd win, and that's how I did."

"...I should just keep my mouth shut."

Jo Shin-hye turned away, grumbling just loud enough to catch.

Her parents had named their daughter wrong, if you asked me. Shin-hye—you can hear modest sitting right in it, the demure, eyes-lowered kind—and she was nowhere near that. Or maybe they'd named her that precisely because they were afraid she'd turn out this way. Modest would have been dull, so I preferred her as she was. None of my business, anyway. We were only traveling together as far as headquarters.

"...The six sets we promised."

He held out a heaping stack of body armor. The suits were built in pieces, covering even the arms and legs, so the pile was no small thing. Running my hands over them, I found the workmanship even finer than I'd expected—and then something more surprising. Look closely, and the sets differed from one another in subtle ways. Not one of them was identical to another.

Custom-made. Every piece, to the body that would wear it.

Not stamped out on a machine. Body armor shaped one at a time by an artisan's hands. I'd never seen craft like that, not even at headquarters. Could human hands really work to this degree of precision?

"You really did make them well."

"Hmph. Of course we did. It's special forces armor."

"Special forces?"

"We may not look it, but we're no ordinary search party."

Suit himself.

Stacked like that, though, they were heavier than I'd thought.

"Awful stingy. How am I supposed to carry them like this? You ought to put them in a bag before you hand them over."

"Hey. The guy who wouldn't shut up about the deal is changing the terms now? The deal stopped at the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠armor."

"Right. The deal stopped at the armor. I've got no reason to fix a thing like your side effects."

"Ngh... Wait."

He snatched a bag off one of his lackeys, emptied it, and packed the armor inside. The lackey who'd been in a full-blown rage a moment before didn't voice another complaint. He only wore the face of a man who'd given up.

"...Take it."

"Oof. Heavier than I thought. This won't be easy to haul."

"Then pull a few sets out."

"How's a man supposed to get by doing only what he feels like? That's why nothing works out for you."

"..."

I handed him a small pill bottle that had been lying at the bottom of my mailbag. Demand for it was nearly nonexistent, so on the black market it went for next to nothing. Still, it was small and light, and I'd carried it on the off chance someplace would pay decently.

"Antihistamine."

"Anti... what?"

"Just remember it as medicine that chases off itching."

Itching doesn't kill you. People have their hands full stocking the emergency drugs that might actually save a life. Almost no one goes looking for something like this on top of that.

"One pill a day."

He opened the bottle and peered inside. The bottle was small, but the pills were smaller, so plenty of them fit.

"Forty pills in there. That should hold you for a while."

His fingers pinched up a pill, cheerful about it, and were just heading for his mouth when—

"Boss, wait!"

"You can't just swallow something like that!"

At those words, the hand slid smoothly back out.

"You thought I'd give you something you shouldn't take?"

"Mm..."

Fair enough. Gulping down whatever a stranger hands you is a bit much.

"Give it here. I'll take one first. Then you'll believe me."

"...You mean it?"

I did. Provided I didn't mind wasting the medicine.

"If you want, I can take two. Three, even. Every pill I swallow is one more day you get to tough out the side effects."

"Uh... uhm."

"What are you waiting for? I said hand it over."

I reached out.

"Ah, forget it! It's all mine!"

"Boss!"

The pill in his hand went straight down his throat.

Silence dropped all at once. Every one of them looked wound tight. The breathless hush held for a moment, and then it ended with his sigh of relief.

"...Not the kind that kills you the second you swallow it, anyway. Whew."

"You won't die later, either. Want me to take one right now, so you can watch?"

"No—I'm good, I'm good!"

The itching would ease. He was on borrowed time all the same. Once the combat stimulant's real addiction set in, there would be no other way out of it. Chills and fever, hallucinations, voices that weren't there—he'd suffer every side effect there was, and then he would die. When a man in the unit reached that state, the next operation zone became his grave. Until things turned that bad, the itching was the hardest side effect to endure, which was why the unit had been issued antihistamines too. What I'd just handed him was stock I'd been given back then and kept.

"Something this small really stops the itch? You're sure?"

He was thoroughly worked up. He must have been losing sleep every night, scratching himself all over.

"It'll work. No question. People differ, so I can't promise you how well."

"Guess I ought to thank you for this one."

For the first time, his expression softened a little. He must have felt as if he'd slipped free of torture. He wouldn't be able to wear that face for long. If he didn't quit the combat stimulant, the addiction would start before much time had passed, and more than half the medicine I'd given him would still be in the bottle.

"That diagnosis earlier was nothing close to ordinary. You switch careers? Doctor or pharmacist, and now a postman?"

Not even close. Believing it was better for him, though.

"Call it a feeling along those lines."

If a man knows a quack prescribed it, even good medicine can fail to take.

"What kind of answer is that?"

"Hm? What was it I said?"

"Anyway, I'll take the medicine and be grateful. High-grade talent like that, ending up a postman. Means you screwed up and got demoted... Still, the diagnosis seems solid. I'll trust you."

He really did seem grateful.

In that case—

"If you're that thankful, mind if I accept a little more of it?"

"...Grateful is grateful, and it stops there. I gave you plenty. The armor, the bag—"

"Forget the goods. How about one simple piece of information?"

"Information?"

It came to me all at once.

The recipient of the letter Gyeong-su had left in my care.

"You know someone named Tata at your settlement?"

Why had I suddenly thought to ask? I had not the slightest intention of making a delivery that dangerous. Well, whatever. I'd run into settlers by chance, so I might as well ask. No telling when I'd get another chance like this.

"...Why?"

His eyes changed. So did the lackeys' behind him. Their looks turned far warier than when they'd been snarling at one another a moment ago. The air made it plain I'd spoken a name that should not have been spoken.

"Why 'why'? Can't I ask?"

Better to keep it light. Like it was nothing.

"I can't tell you a thing. Why bring that name up out of nowhere?"

Even a scrap of information would have been worth having. Tata was probably an alias. I couldn't even get a feel for whether the person was a man or a woman.

"Nothing much. There's a parcel about to be scrapped over unpaid delivery fees, and that name's on it as the recipient. If anyone's interested, come pick it up."

"A parcel? From who?"

"It was lodged straight at headquarters, so I never met the person who left it."

"The sender's name would be written on it, wouldn't it?"

"You ever seen a postman who remembers every little thing like that? Knowing who it's for is enough."

"Hmph. Easy work you've got."

"The wrapping felt like a gift for a lover, though."

At that, the lackeys behind him started muttering.

"He had a woman?"

"Idiot. Like that would ever happen."

"Oh, sure. He'd be so interested in that sort of thing."

So. A man. Unmarried. No lover.

"What's with the mood? Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it isn't real. Plenty of people keep a lover stashed outside the settlement. Don't tell me you don't know how it goes—slip out on a search and meet up on the side."

They all burst out laughing at once.

"Pfft... A search? Sure. Think whatever you like."

Someone with no reason to leave the settlement, then. Definitely not a fighter. Not even assigned to the search parties. Search duty was ordinarily an obligation of the settlers, and a fair rotation was the usual way of it. Only a few kinds of people were left off those parties. The very young, or the sick under strict protection. Those locked up for committing a crime. And last, those holding posts important enough that they weren't sent into dangerous work.

"I don't know the person well, but don't be so sure, all of you. You never really know what's in someone. Harsh as the world gets, people still need to find a match. Before Tata gets any older—"

They exploded, clutching their stomachs as they laughed.

Was Tata on the young side? That was enough.

"If you don't want to talk, then don't."

"All I can tell you is that nobody's coming for that parcel. Just scrap it."

He let out a short laugh and held out his hand.

"What's the handshake for?"

"That stuff from before. The anti..."

"Antihistamine."

"What bastard named it something like that?"

"That's what I'm saying."

"Anyway. Thanks for the medicine."

I took his hand, light about it. A handshake doesn't wear a hand out, and there was no need to trade names. Postman and special forces were name enough.

"Go back without the armor and you'll be punished, won't you?"

"Well. I'll probably get chewed out a bit."

"So the Human Meat Factory isn't as vicious as the stories."

"Think what you like."

The moment our hands parted, I saw something marked on his palm. I leaned in. A tattoo in the shape of a rodent.

"Oh, this? Don't worry. It won't rub off on you."

"A lemming?"

"Oh? You recognized it?"

An animal some people call the wandering mouse. Of course it was familiar. Back in the military, it had been the code name high command used for our unit.

"Why a tattoo like that?"

"A proud mark of the special forces! Honestly, it doesn't really go with special forces—ha ha! Still pretty cute, though, right?"

He clearly had no idea what that particular rodent was famous for.

As for the name Tata, engraved very small in a corner of the lining of every one of the six sets—I wouldn't learn about that until long after.

After we parted from the Human Meat Factory's special forces, we crossed the mountains without a rest. The four of us rotated the bag of armor between us, fair and even. It wasn't a weight anyone could keep carrying alone. I'd never offered to split the armor among the three following me, and I didn't intend to. They carried the bag anyway, without a word of complaint.

At first they still had breath enough for small talk. I didn't join. The three of them trailed at my heels, locked in a heated debate over whether I'd truly been a doctor or a pharmacist once, which only made me less inclined to join them. By the time we finished the descent, the talk had died, but they were breathing as loud as they'd been speaking. From then on I carried the bag alone.

Jo An-na, though, looked the whole way as if she had something she wanted to say to me. While we rested partway along, I gave her an opening, casual about it. She hesitated, and in the end she said nothing.

We walked, and we walked, until the sun was going down.

That was when we found the body of a postman I knew.