Taesung (3)
"Why the hell would Lady Red Jade order us to kill that bitch Lebetri?"
The man tearing down the road on a motorcycle was one of Red Jade's officers. He was riding for Taesung, the place where Lebetri was presumed to be.
His reason for killing her had nothing to do with vengeance or anything of the sort. Red Jade had simply heard the contents of a deal from a woman named Tir and ordered him to kill — that was all.
"If we were still what we used to be, that bitch would be dead before a deal like that ever left her mouth."
The veins on his throttle hand swelled as if they might burst, and he twisted the grip all the way open.
Just then, in the very moment he found himself wanting to kill someone — anyone — he spotted a figure walking in the distance. Hollow eyes, white hair. A man in a black shirt, and one look was enough to tell there wasn't a shred of strength left in him.
He curled his lip into a sneer and pulled the throttle harder.
"Haha!! Get crushed under my bike and die, you civilian!"
"You... your monsterization is already well underway."
Just as the man said, the change was already consuming the officer's body. Three massive horns jutted from his skull.
"So what if it is!!"
"Hoo..."
"Of all the rotten luck, you had to cross my path?! Then just die!"
[Return to Ashes]
In an instant, flame erupted from the man's palm — as if a fragment of the sun itself had dropped into it.
The motorcycle that had come roaring at him couldn't even leave a trace behind. The lump of steel became ash without ever getting the chance to melt into slag, and the rider, of course, had no time even to scream.
When the wind stirred, only black ash drifted across the spot, as though it had been ash from the very beginning.
"Hah... hah..."
The moment the flames died, the man's breathing fell apart. Suppressing the fire scorching his chest, he clenched his fist.
"I've killed... another person..."
Guilt warped his face. But then he closed his eyes and made a quiet vow.
"Even so, I can't stop. Every last monster — I'll turn them all to ash."
With that vow, the man walked on. And though he couldn't have known it, that road led to a city ruled by the syndicate called Taesung.
With Dadan and the muscle man struck down, we... had no choice but to wait.
"Keke. This magnificent piece isn't finished just yet."
"If you're half the craftsman you claim to be, shouldn't it be repaired after a wait this long?"
Sapi said to the old man, plainly displeased. But I sensed something different about him — something off from his usual self. He was hiding his expression, no doubt about it. Impatience, most likely.
But why would he be anxious?
"And another thing, old man — that prosthetic arm you lent me broke down at the worst possible timing."
"Hmm... my apologies for that. I did hand you a cheap knockoff to save a little money."
"So... why, exactly, is it taking so long?"
The old man took his time, eyes closed.
"This arm is far too intricate — too exquisite — to be the work of human hands."
"Then you're saying it's a fairy relic?"
"What do you take fairies for?"
The old man bristled and pressed a button beneath the workbench. Countless holograms and monitors unfolded around us, and the shop that had looked like a second-rate junk stall moments before revealed itself, in an instant, as a proper machine workshop.
"Look closely."
The old man enlarged the holographic blueprint of the disassembled arm. Thousands of hair-thin filaments were woven together like nerves, and some of them moved and changed shape ceaselessly, as if they were alive.
"Fairy relics are uncanny things. Human knowledge simply cannot make sense of them."
He snapped his fingers.
"A fairy relic has no process for a human to understand in the first place. No power source, no circuitry, no working principle — only the result, appearing out of nowhere."
"And?"
"But this is different. It's merely complex enough to defy understanding — every single part has a role. A masterpiece, calculated from beginning to end."
The playfulness drained from the old man's face.
"I couldn't map its exact rules, but I did find out who built it."
His eyes were more alive than I'd ever seen them.
"J, I, M. Read it as 'Jim.' He carved his initials somewhere no one but a genius like me would ever think to look."
"..."
"Well, little rabbit... am I right? Keke."
He was right. The monster who had ordered me dragged to that laboratory — that monster had called himself Jim. And even this arm... to think he was the one who made it...
"Forget who made it. Can you fix it or not?"
"To a degree, yes."
"..."
"I've already repaired the broken joints and added an output unit. But the core is off-limits — fumble around in there and the whole arm goes with it. So I need a little more time."
Sapi paused, then asked the old man:
"When will it be done?"
"I just told you. I need time."
"I asked when I can have the arm."
There was a trace of anger in Sapi's voice, but it was as calm as ever. His fingers, though, were tapping the workbench at steady, even intervals.
I watched him in silence. Sapi looked anxious, no two ways about it. What on earth could make him this restless?
The old man studied him for a moment, then spoke.
"Five hours."
"No. One hour."
"Have you ever seen such a lunatic? A green brat barely out of the nest, barking orders!"
Sapi pulled something from his pocket and tossed it onto the workbench — something I couldn't make out. A heavy thud rang through the repair shop.
"Finish it within the hour, and you'll get more than that."
The old man picked the thing up, and the corners of his mouth curled upward.
"Keke. So the young pup knows how to work an old man to the bone..."
The old man turned back to the arm, and I stepped close to Sapi, lowering my voice.
"Is something wrong?"
"No."
A lie. He's definitely hiding something.
"We have to be out of this city within an hour. Don't we?"
Sapi's fingers stopped.
"What makes you think that?"
"Just a feeling."
At my curt answer, a short silence passed. Sapi looked out the window.
"We leave Taesung within the hour at the latest."
"Why? Give me a real reason."
"..."
Sapi hesitated.
"One of Red Jade's officers is coming this way."
"Why?"
"Because we sold Red Jade's name."
A lie. No — not a complete lie. It might well be true that Red Jade has her eye on us. But there's no way a single officer would rattle Sapi this badly. He's hiding something. Something far more dangerous than one officer.
"So the moment you get that arm, we leave Taesung."
Sapi said nothing more. Only his fingers, tapping the workbench at even intervals, betrayed the anxiety his face refused to show.
The old man glanced at him and smirked.
"Keke... staring like that won't make the clock move any faster."
Sapi didn't answer. He just kept looking out the window. I watched him for a while, then let my own gaze drift outside.
Out there, everything was peaceful. People wandered the streets, and vendors called out to their customers. And yet, strangely, I couldn't shake the feeling that this peace wasn't going to last.
Fifty minutes slipped by like that.
Clank. The old man tightened the last screw, then slowly raised the arm.
"Done."
He set it down on the workbench. Outwardly it looked much as it had before the repair, but beneath the wrist sat an output unit that hadn't been there before, and the once-broken joints were joined so seamlessly they might never have been severed at all.
The old man stroked the arm as he spoke.
"Taking a closer look, I found nanomachines inside. They seem to have been built for defense originally... so I reworked them into an auto-repair system. Keke."
I carefully picked up the arm and fitted it into place. It moved more smoothly than before. When I clenched my fist, the fingers followed exactly, without the slightest lag.
"How is it?"
"Feels good."
"Of course it does. It's your arm."
The old man chuckled.
"And you should test the output unit here, just once."
"No. We're leaving."
Sapi cut him off.
"Lebetri, you go outside and get ready to run fast."
I nodded silently at that and stepped out. Only Sapi and the old man remained inside the repair shop.
What is the future?
To me, the future looks like thread. The threads come in every color, in every thickness. Some are drawn taut; some hang loose. In that darkness, I take hold of a single thread and walk on through the dark. Others do the same, I imagine.
But with the Foresight Eye, I don't see one thread. I see tens of thousands. If I don't like the future before me, I let go and seize another — and follow where it leads. And so the future changes.
But every now and then, threads overlap. When they cross one another, it throws me off — me, who has always walked holding just one. And when the overlapping continues, when every last thread tangles into a single knot, that, I call fate.
Keep walking, thread in hand, and one day you come face to face with it. Even reaching for a different thread within it, trying to change course, changes nothing — for that tangled knot is the only road I have left to walk. Pull on it, and it doesn't give. Try to ignore it and pass it by, and there is nowhere else to go. All I can do is take hold of the knot and carry on to the next thread.
But for the first time, I saw a new thread stretch out — one that did not belong to the knot.
It was Lebetri.
So I must remove whatever would stand in her way — and leave untouched every possibility of her growing strong.
"Hey. I finished it inside the hour, didn't I? Don't I get the extra?"
"Hmm... I suppose you do."
I reached for the relic gun at my hip, and a suppressor bloomed from the muzzle.
Tick.
The gun fired with barely a whisper, and blood began to run down from the old man's head.
"Sorry, but you're a danger to the future."
This old man would go on to join hands with a being called Icarus — the man who would one day turn the Taesung of the future to ash. And in a future that might lie far, far ahead, the old man would kill Lebetri. That is why I killed him.
Of course...
"This was far too good to hand over to anyone else."
I picked up the thing I'd given the old man and tucked it back inside my coat. Then, as if nothing at all had happened, I opened the shop door. Outside, Lebetri was waiting for me.
She doesn't know yet, you see. Doesn't know that the old man — alive mere moments ago — had to die for the sake of the future. And doesn't know that at the end of the road we're fleeing down, a single fate is already walking toward Taesung.