The Old Man’s Hideout Got Raided (1)
The problem was the pen.
Mana could be pinned down and stopped with telekinesis. Killing intent could be compressed until it was needle-thin, and skills could be forced into reverse.
But there was no stopping a reporter’s pen with any of that.
The warning signs had been there for days.
Association staff had started sneaking glances my way, and a system alert had popped up saying someone had accessed my personnel record.
It had the same smell as gossip in the gallery just before it turned into print.
And today, that print had come straight to me.
"You’re Chief Kang Taehyun, right?"
It was just after lunch when an unfamiliar woman stood in front of the civil affairs counter.
She was wearing a suit, carrying a laptop bag, and had an access badge hanging from her neck.
Her eyes weren’t the least bit easy to take lightly.
They were the eyes of someone who had learned to read people in the field, long before any system correction could help.
"I’m Seo Jingyeong, a reporter for the investigative media outlet Eye of Truth. Would you have a moment for an interview?"
So that was it.
I slowly set down my paper cup and put on the most sluggish expression in the world.
"An interview? Me? You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m just some old man working the desk."
"Recently, Yu Seoa of the Baekho Guild and Jin Seojun have stood out in mutant response operations. Both of them seem to have some connection to you, Chief."
Seo Jingyeong opened her laptop.
"Even more than that, your personnel record at the Association has a rather large gap. Your hiring route is unclear, too. I’d appreciate a comment on that."
She’d come prepared.
She was on a different level from the gallery shut-ins.
People like her didn’t respond to intimidation, and they sure as hell didn’t respond to mana.
If anything, the more pressure you put on them, the more headline material they got out of it.
And I couldn’t exactly twitch a finger and make her mana run backward, either.
Reporters weren’t the sort of creatures who fought with mana in the first place.
A pen wasn’t something you could crush just by pinning it down.
So I had to go the opposite direction.
If threats didn’t work, bury it under boredom.
"Ah, that."
I smiled brightly, with all the soul of a paper doll.
"The reason my record’s blank is that the data got lost during a systems migration years ago. The Association’s network is ancient. I even filed a complaint about it, what, three years ago? Still haven’t fixed it. Why don’t you write a piece about that? About how sloppy the Association’s systems are."
The reporter’s pen paused for a second.
"…And your relationship with Yu Seoa Hunter?"
"That young lady keeps calling me her master, and honestly, I have no idea why. One day she just showed up with coffee and bowed to me. These days, maybe it’s trendy for the younger generation to take care of the old first-generation folks? Filial piety content, or whatever."
"But Jin Seojun shows the same pattern."
"Sounds like the Baekho kids are all out doing filial-piety volunteer work together. I’m grateful, really. They even bring me coffee."
I tapped the box of Mocha Gold on my lap.
"Then how do you explain the completely absurd combat ability those two showed against the mutants? They took down system-immune mutants without even looking at them. That’s impossible unless someone taught them."
"Reporter."
I cut her off and gave her the most harmless face I could manage.
"How exactly am I supposed to teach those terrifying mutants from this wheelchair? I can’t even get into a dungeon. I’m the kind of man who needs help taking off his socks before bed."
It was a lie.
I could take off my socks on my own, at least.
Still, a single picture that made people feel sorry for you was more effective than a hundred excuses.
Seo Jingyeong’s brow furrowed.
My nonsense wasn’t a lie, exactly.
I was just serving up the most watered-down slice of the truth.
You could interrogate a lie, but you couldn’t interrogate a boring truth.
"Chief."
Seo Jingyeong lowered the pen.
Then she dropped her voice a notch.
"In the first-generation hunter list I investigated, there’s no Kang Taehyun. But in the survivor records from the Grand Hall Incident twenty years ago, there is. Unless it’s a case of the same name, the birth year matches exactly."
I took a sip of coffee.
This woman had dug farther than I’d expected.
"What, there’s only one Kang Taehyun in the world? It’s a common name."
"That Kang Taehyun was recorded as dead. Twenty years ago."
"Then I guess I’m a ghost. If a ghost were sitting in the civil affairs office making coffee, that’d be newsworthy too. Write it as an exclusive. Zombie spotted at the Association."
"Chief. Your white hair isn’t from aging. It’s the result of damage to your mana circuits. That’s a common trait among first-generation survivors. And no matter how I look at it, you don’t seem thirty-nine."
Seo Jingyeong stared straight at my hair.
That was a dangerous question.
Because she’d hit the nail on the head.
I scratched at my white hair with a back scratcher.
"This? I bleached it when I was twenty because I thought it looked cool, but it fried my hair so badly that it all grew back white. Once it’s ruined, even new growth comes in white. And looking young isn’t a crime, is it? Don’t take out your own bad eyesight on me."
One of Seo Jingyeong’s eyebrows twitched.
For the first time, her composure slipped just a little.
She knew it was a ridiculous excuse.
But she also had no way to prove it was ridiculous.
Proof that the bleaching was a lie would mean tracking my hair back ten years or so.
"That’s enough for today. The article’s going out, though. Something like: Wheelchair-Bound Civil Affairs Clerk and Baekho’s Two Geniuses Have a Suspicious Connection. I’ll probably go with that."
"And here I was hoping I’d get paid extra for the cover model treatment."
Seo Jingyeong ignored that and gathered her laptop.
Just before she left, she added one more thing.
"Chief. I’ve seen more people who only speak half the truth than people who lie outright."
I shrugged, as if to say that at least she’d been generous enough to give me half.
The door closed.
I clicked my tongue quietly.
Pens really were a nuisance.
They couldn’t be crushed, and they couldn’t be stopped.
If a problem could be finished with strength, that was much easier.
One flick of the finger and it was over.
But that woman had left without giving me even that chance, merely laying down a neat little bundle of perfectly sound suspicions.
My head started to throb.
Then my phone rang.
It was Yu Seoa.
"Senior. I heard a reporter came by. The Baekho intelligence team gave us a heads-up in advance, but we were a step late. I’m sorry."
"Why are you apologizing?"
"Because I went around publicly boasting that I was your disciple, and your identity ended up…"
"You did boast, yeah."
"…"
"But if you hadn’t done that back then, you’d have been bitten to death by a mutant. A noisy disciple is better than a dead one. Noise can be endured with coffee."
There was a brief silence over the phone.
"…Still, if things get dangerous, please tell me. This time, I’ll block them."
"Block what, exactly? Are you going to freeze the reporter to death?"
"If necessary."
Her tone made it hard to tell whether she was joking or serious.
These days, that kid was getting more and more like me.
"Forget it. Go collect more gravel. I’m hanging up."
"Senior."
"What now?"
"…What did you tell the reporter?"
"That I’m a pathetic old man who can’t even take off his socks by himself."
I heard Yu Seoa laugh softly on the other end.
It was a laugh that had grown much more relaxed over the past few days.
I hung up, left comforted by that sound.
Then, feeling stifled, I rolled my wheelchair outside for a bit of fresh air.
There was a huge LED billboard standing along the main road in front of the Association.
At just that moment, a familiar face was smiling brightly on the screen.
It was Han Bokhui.
It was an ad for a home appliance brand.
She opened the door to a brand-new refrigerator and broke into the happiest smile in the world.
Text flashed across the screen.
Warming your day.
A woman who couldn’t feel warmth was filming an advertisement that sold warmth.
The world believed it was sincere, and it opened its wallet for that smile.
People passed beneath the billboard without a second glance.
Not one of them recognized the first-generation hunter hiding behind that radiant expression.
The most exposed person in the world was hiding the deepest.
I stared up at that giant fake smile for a moment, then rolled my wheelchair toward a nearby convenience store.
I’d run out of Mocha Gold and was planning to buy another box.
But once I got inside, I stopped moving.
A woman wearing a cap pulled low and a mask over her face was standing in front of the drink shelf.
It was a perfectly ordinary disguise, but I recognized her immediately.
Anyone else would have seen just another customer in a hat, but my eyes saw something different.
The feel of her presence.
The unmistakable texture of a first-generation hunter soaked in mana, as if time itself had stopped around her.
It was the same woman who had just been selling refrigerators on the billboard.
Han Bokhui recognized me, too.
Her eyes widened slightly above the mask.
We stood there for a moment, saying nothing.
Right in the middle of a crowded convenience store.
Both of us hidden behind disguises.
She was the first to speak.
"...It’s been a while."
There was no emotion in her voice.
No pleasure, no surprise.
Just that flat, level tone, like she was reading from a script.
"Saw your ad. The refrigerator one."
"I’ve got to eat, same as everyone else."
"A warm day, huh? Not very like you."
Han Bokhui’s eyes wavered for a moment.
Then she slowly pulled the corners of her mouth upward.
A perfect smile, refined through practice.
"It’s my job. Even if I can’t feel it, I can still make the expression."
"…"
"You’re no different. Is playing the old man in the civil affairs office comfortable? That dead-fish stare of yours, and the way you pretend to smile."
"I don’t even pretend to smile. That’s the difference between you and me."
Han Bokhui made a faint sound that might have been laughter behind her mask.
I couldn’t even tell whether it was real or just an act.
The girl from twenty years ago hadn’t laughed like this.
She had been someone who truly laughed and truly cried.
What remained on her face now was only the shape of a well-made smile.
I didn’t press her any further.
Digging through a fellow first-generation hunter’s scars wasn’t something we did to each other.
She picked up a drink and moved to pass me.
Then she stopped for a moment and said quietly through the mask,
"Docheol says he’s making another list. Don’t put my name on it. I just want to... keep living like this. Smiling. That’s the dream I achieved."
"I didn’t put it on."
"Because I said I didn’t want it, huh?"
"There’s no reason to if you don’t want it."
"Even if the mutants keep multiplying?"
"That’s something to think about when the time comes. Right now, you said you don’t want it. That’s enough."
Han Bokhui looked at me for a long moment.
Her expression was hidden by the mask, but those eyes of hers seemed to tremble for just an instant with something that wasn’t acting.
"...You’re the same as ever. Never worrying about duty or the greater good or any of that."
"Thinking about it is exhausting."
"Thanks. Baekjeong."
She left the convenience store with only that.
The door closed, and a moment later there was a burst of cheers from outside.
It seemed people had recognized her and crowded around.
Through the glass door, I could see Han Bokhui waving at the crowd with a dazzling smile.
The empty face she’d worn while talking to me was nowhere to be seen.
She was wearing the most beloved smile in the world perfectly.
The dream of becoming a mood-maker had, in the end, come true.
It was just that the price of making that dream real had erased her right to enjoy it sincerely.
I set a box of Mocha Gold on the counter.
A reporter was digging into my past, and an old comrade was hiding behind a disguise.
The world was getting louder and louder.
The funny thing was, Han Bokhui was standing in the place the world looked at most, and still nobody had figured her out.
Everyone was looking, and no one recognized her. That was the hideout she had chosen.
By contrast, I had been stuffed into the corner of the civil affairs office where nobody ever looked, and that corner was the one getting turned over now.
The girl hiding in the brightest place was fine, while I, hidden in the darkest place, was about to be exposed.
Apparently, there was an art to hiding.
Still, the Mocha Gold I bought today somehow felt like it would taste sweeter than usual.
As my peace grew thinner, I figured I ought to stock up on sweetness while I still could.
That was the only way a washed-up old man like me could face the noise on the horizon.
That evening, a new post went up on Hunter Gallery.
Normally I wouldn’t have given it a second glance, but today the title caught my eye.