The Torture of Hope
"A slave's lot is a lucky one, is it?"
The rumored kid was dead asleep. After a duel that had burned through his stamina, and then the Boss's hands-on slave lessons on top of it, he hadn't been given a second to rest. No wonder he'd dropped.
"What, you want to be a slave too?"
"No, sir!"
"Sure you don't. Looks to me like you do. Get over here. You can take the lesson too."
"N-no, sir! I was wrong!"
"You're not coming?"
"I was wrong! I'll go back in!"
"In where?"
"I'm going!"
"I'll have you inside a minute."
"Please don't come after me!"
A familiar sight.
"Here we go. I'm betting the Boss catches him within a minute."
"Same."
"Same here."
"Ha. Nobody taking the long odds today?"
It was simply how the days went.
"The Boss is looking after that kid something fierce."
"There's a reason for everything he does. Don't go doubting the Boss."
"Who said anything about doubting?"
The only reason they could live like this at all was an absolute faith in the Boss. Nothing could shake their loyalty to him. Experience had taught them as much: let that loyalty waver, and something ugly befell the Gwanghwamun crew. Lose your faith, and you ended up dead.
"The kid, though. He lived up to the rumors, didn't he?"
"Raise him right and he'll be useful."
"Useful doesn't even cover it..."
"Hey, huddle up. I caught a snatch of it just now. Sounds like he's got a Core ability."
"For real!?"
"Watch your mouths, all of you. Slave or not, he didn't tell us himself. You know better than to talk about Core abilities."
"Unwritten rule. The Boss is strict about that kind of thing. He won't let it slide."
"And it wasn't even the Boss who told us, so everybody keep your lips shut."
"Yeah, yeah, we get it. So what is it? What kind of ability?"
"Word is even he doesn't know yet."
"Then what, that skill of his is just raw natural talent with no ability behind it, and there's a whole other power still waiting to come out?"
"I'm gonna lose it."
"I'll say it again. Seriously. Watch your mouths."
Not that the feeling toward the kid was friendly all the way down.
"Still, when I think about the guy who took the knife and is still groaning away in the hideout..."
"You. You were ready to mock him for getting dropped by a little kid, weren't you?"
"That was before I knew how bad he was hurt!"
"First time I saw him, I thought he was dead."
"Even so, they say if the recovery goes well, it won't get in the way of living."
"He steered clear of the vitals on purpose, don't you think?"
"I mean, it's just bad blood, that's all. Look at it straight and the kid didn't do anything wrong, did he? Put yourself in his—"
"Shh! He'll hear."
There was one man who couldn't stand that the kid had slipped into the crew without a hitch.
"I think he already heard. Don't look over there. You'll meet his eyes."
"Lower your voice."
"He still hasn't cooled off?"
"Would you have?"
"The duel's over, isn't it? Shouldn't that be the end of it?"
"You think it works that easy, just because you say so?"
"Leave him. Try to talk this kind of thing down and he only gets madder."
Even so, for the time being, the everyday still held.
"Boss!"
"Ah, what! I've got to catch that bastard!"
"Just a second!"
"After I catch him!"
"It's urgent!"
"Agh! Quit the fussing. What is it?"
"Mercenaries showed up at the hideout—"
"Mercenaries? What headache is it this time?"
"It's about the rumored kid. They're asking if they can see him for a minute. For payment they hauled in a whole pile of ammunition! A few Cores, too, apparently!"
"Hm...?"
"You remember that rumor, don't you? The hunter who went to the Geofront."
"That one, obviously—"
But what followed was something even she was hearing for the first time.
"Then you've heard about the son, too?"
The Boss abruptly changed the route back to the hideout.
"A detour along the mountain path...?"
"Yeah."
"Do we have to?"
"Yeah."
Go back the way they'd come, across the flat, and the return would be easy and quick. This was a whim out of nowhere.
"It's training. We've got a new slave now. He ought to learn how this route runs."
"If the Boss says so, that's how it is!"
"Let's move!"
"I'll mark the waypoints on the map. Vanguard sticks to that and nothing else."
"Yes, sir!"
"I'll take the rear, and I'll bring the slave."
"Hey. Slave."
"Don't wake him yet. I'll do it myself when we move out."
Snrrk.
"...This little punk's really got it made. Yes, sir!"
Snnrrrk.
I'd been awake for a long time. What I was doing now was practicing the act of being asleep.
Snrrk.
And this had to be the hardest act there was to practice. I had no mirror.
"...the kid... the Boss..."
Through the racket of everyone hurrying to get ready, I caught what sounded like talk about me.
This, I'm used to.
It had happened often, ever since I was little. Late at night, asleep in the cabin, I would hear the Old Man call only Brother Jeong-gu out to talk alone. Most of the time, no matter how hard I focused, I couldn't make out a word. Now and then, though, when the Old Man's voice rose, I got lucky.
Focus. Focus...
I could just barely hear.
"—then he's worth something."
"I don't know. You think he can be controlled?"
"He's the Boss. Feels a little wrong to put it like this, but once you're under the Boss, how easy do you think it is to get out from under him? A Core ability won't change a thing. He'll never get out."
"So there's some other reason the Boss is looking after him so much?"
"The torture of hope..."
"The kid never gets free. The Boss is clever."
"I don't really get it."
"Since when have you ever?"
Crash!
"Hey! Watch where you're going!"
"What's all this?"
"Extra gear. Since we're heading back by the mountain path."
"Anyway, why'd the return route change? Is it actually training?"
"As if. Bet he's doing it to stay out of the mercenaries' sight."
"Mercenaries? What mercenaries?"
Tap, tap.
"Slave! Up! The Boss wants you! Time to move!"
They called it a mountain path. It wasn't a path. Brutal ground, over and over, the kind where letting your mind slip for even a second was a fine way to go tumbling off. The Boss came right on my heels and kept the slave lessons going.
"Memorize the route. You'll be moving through here a lot. I'll check later."
Memorizing, I could do.
"Boss, shouldn't we at least put a leash on this one?"
"Don't worry. If he runs, I'll go get him."
Running, I could do too. The problem was the sniper rifle the Boss never went without.
"Hhk—!"
"Spare us! Please, spare us!"
The crew up ahead had stopped.
"What's going on up front."
The Boss poked his head out from the rear and asked it, bored.
"Ah, it's nothing. Doesn't look like a search party. Doesn't look like raiders, either. Seems like stragglers who got separated from somewhere. We didn't do a thing."
"Then why the noise?"
"They just spooked themselves before anybody—"
"Fellas, we get it, so get off the path."
"Aagh!"
Thud. Thud. Thud...
Something went rolling down, one impact after another.
"Uh... We really didn't do anything, though."
"They got tangled up in each other trying to run."
"All we did was talk. Nobody even shoved them—"
"Hm... All right. Move out again."
"Yes, sir."
"Man. That sits wrong."
It wasn't hard to understand. Once fear takes hold, all kinds of things happen.
Tmp.
The Boss, coming along behind, stopped. Right where those nameless people had gone over.
"Hm."
I'd glanced down when I passed the spot, too, but there was nothing to see. Past the slope, a cliff dropped away at once. To look below it, you had to go right up to the edge.
"A human life really is a single moment."
Even so, he shifted his steps, slow, toward the cliff.
"B-Boss! That's dangerous!"
The whole crew stopped dead.
"Coming all the way out here, they must have been on the run. You think they ever expected to die like this?"
He set one foot down at a time, careful and unhurried, and his balance never wavered.
"They might not be dead."
"Hm?"
At that, the Boss drew back the foot he'd been setting down.
"...Well. Optimism with nothing behind it isn't the worst thing."
"You don't know until you've actually looked, do you?"
The crew scoffed.
"Slave. Remember this. Drop a single stone down there. You know how many seconds it takes to hit bottom?"
"Is it bare ground below?"
"What?"
"We're in the mountains. There'd be trees down there, wouldn't there?"
"Well, yeah, but—"
"Then you never know."
They kept scoffing.
"Enough. I'll check."
The Boss stepped forward again.
Tmp.
He reached the lip of the cliff.
"Whew. Who survives a drop from this height?"
The Boss snorted, looking down, and the crew laughed all over again.
And yet—
"...Someone could survive this?"
He crouched at the edge.
"Ah, come on."
"Don't believe me, come look. You'd better hurry, though. They're running."
Even as he said it, he didn't take his eyes off what lay below.
"So Jeong-gu was right. They lived because the trees broke the fall...? How about that."
"Both of them made it?"
"Yeah. Both. Ah... Did they have some kind of gear? Right. Could be. The way they went over was a little unnatural, wasn't it?"
One of the crew started shambling toward the cliff.
"Well... I figured they were just that scared, but..."
"Maybe they were sure they'd live through it. That would make it make sense. Hmm."
He couldn't come on with anything like the Boss's steady footing.
"Keep that up and you'll go over."
"I-I can make it!"
"They're going to get away before you do, you know. They're almost gone."
In the end—
"Agh, they're gone. You gonna be able to get back?"
"Urgh... My hand... could you take it?"
No one but the Boss saw it.
"You're memorizing the route properly, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
The mountain path seemed nearly done. The worst of the ground was already behind us, and walking had grown much easier. For a while now the crew had been glancing around without a pause. Because we were passing beneath the cliff, maybe. They seemed to be looking for the two who had survived. Those two would have run long ago.
I looked up. It really was high. To have lived through that was a miracle.
"Everybody want to pick up the pace?"
Only after the Boss snapped at them did the crew turn their faces forward again.
"Something's off..."
"Off? What's off?"
"It's nothing, sir!"
The way they kept flicking looks at me was uncomfortable. I would have felt easier if they'd just said it to my face.
"I'm telling you, Jeong-gu's got good instincts."
The Boss saying things like that, over and over, sat just as wrong.
"Hah. Is that so?"
"What if..."
"...What if what?"
"Hm? Ah, nothing. Just that his instincts are good."
"Slave, keep up."
"Don't nag a kid who's already keeping up."
"Yeah, yeah."
Instincts.
"Instincts... This time it isn't just a feeling."
This time there really was a reason.
"I think we should stop here."
"Hm?"
Any farther and it would be dangerous.
"I think we should stop."
"...Everyone, halt."
"Sir?"
"Pass it forward. Everyone stop."
"Uh... Yes, sir. Pass it up. He says stop."
I had never seen it with my own eyes. Even so, I was sure.
"Is it a rest?"
"Mealtime?"
"Sounds like Jeong-gu got a feeling about something."
"Sir?"
A little farther on and it would have been dangerous.
"Boss, you can just tell them it's a rest, you know."
"We're already behind from the detour, and the schedule—"
"That's not what this is."
"So we really stopped on nothing but the slave's gut...?"
"Hey, Boss. Since a while ago—"
"I told you to memorize this route because you'd be moving through here a lot, didn't I?"
The Boss nodded, looking only at me.
"Yeah. And?"
"Was that tree always that tall?"
"Hm? Which tree?"
"That one."
"Which—"
A tree whose height stood out from all the rest at a single glance.
"...Huh. Was it?"
"Was it always like that?"
"Feels wrong. Also feels like it doesn't."
It wasn't strange only because it stood taller than the others alone. There was no shortage of other evidence. That just wasn't what mattered right now.
"We have to strike first. All of you, do exactly as I say."
The crew only stared at one another's faces, blank.