Escape Amidst the Smoke
Escape Amidst the Smoke
Thud!
The fist drove deep into the monster’s solar plexus. The monster, its life ended, detonated. Blood and viscera scattered, and the faint star-power it held dissipated along with them.
No end to them.
I had no time to rest. I pulled back and kicked the next monster charging me in the temple.
As it reeled and fell, I seized the monster in front of me.
Crack!
The ground where I had stood split like glass. I gathered force from my toes and hurled the grappled monster upward.
Whoosh!
A bug-like speck against the bright afternoon sky.
While it was still airborne, I snapped my hand to the Belt and turned the buckle.
[DUBHE.]
A white ring formed from the Belt and enveloped me without delay.
My green armor bleached into pure white, and heavy, sharp claws like a bear’s grew over both hands.
Dubhe.
Alpha star of Ursa Major, first star of the Big Dipper.
Also called the Celestial Pivot, the star nearest the North Star among the seven.
The Greedy Wolf Star.
The foremost of my stars, the star whose province is said to be the governing of vitality.
And, paradoxically, more lethally specialized than any other star I possess.
[SET. White Bear Twin Thunder Strike.]
A tingling sensation rose in the lengthened claws. A visible current crackled across the razor metal. White-green starlight flooded both hands until it brimmed over, and while the star’s power amassed, a horde of monsters closed in around me.
I pivoted on my right foot and slashed the claws twice.
The force alone overturned the ground and pulverized rock. Monsters close by were torn apart by the pressure wave. Even the ones too distant for the full radius lost their footing and lifted briefly from the earth.
But it did not end there.
Lightning erupted in the wake of the claws.
Boom—!
The white bolts delivered death to every monster still breathing, without mercy.
Smoke, blood, and the stench of shattered buildings mingled. A shockwave spread across the land like ripples from a stone dropped into a lake. A storm without rain blooming from the ground, a tsunami of lightning surges. A cataclysm.
[White Bear Twin Thunder Strike successful. Replication Rate: 40%.]
White Bear Twin Thunder Strike.
The white bear unsheathes its claws and rends, and where it rakes, colossal lightning strikes.
An electric flyswatter really is the thing for bugs.
I swept my gaze over the scattered limbs of the caterpillar-like monsters. At the same moment, I returned my hand to the Belt’s buckle.
“Still one left.”
The monster I had flung skyward was flailing on its way back down.
I reverted to the original green armor. Bent my body, twisted my waist, fixed my sight line.
[SET. Rising Star.]
Dull green fire coiled around my fist.
The monster dropped, and I drove my fist upward. A star climbing in reverse. The monster’s body burst apart in a surge of starlight gushing toward the heavens.
[Rising Star successful. Replication Rate: 58%.]
My body was finally getting used to combat. I was developing an instinct for which technique to use and when.
Someone utterly ignorant of battle had become proficient in two days. The Belt’s excellence played a role, but Han Jae-jung’s body surely contributed too. A body that overturned a violent gang in middle school.
Truly formidable power. I felt it again.
And the more I felt that power, the more I thought: This power is dangerous.
The sense of crisis swept through me first. Any feeling of superiority never had a chance to form. It shattered against the rock like a blocked wave.
What am I going to do, wielding this power for personal reasons?
It was too immense for any individual to hold and use without restraint.
Even if the system of quests is meant to control it, the coercive force is minimal. Frankly, if a quest isn’t active and I chose to wield this power according to my desires, who could stop me? A cold, hungry, broke young man. Any legal path out of hardship looks long and uncertain because of the Belt’s random quests.
But tilt my gaze just a little, and countless possibilities open. Useful prey for violence overflows in modern society. I could simply return to nature and reenact the law of the jungle.
Not that I will.
That moment, I’d be a monster. Ah, I already hit a magical girl, so I’m no different from a monster anyway.
But I still consider myself not a monster, so it doesn’t matter. What’s important is the mindset, isn’t it?
For now, since I am designated a Guardian—though I have no idea what I’m guarding—I have no intention of raising my hand against anyone outside a quest target. Why would I go out of my way to make genuine enemies of magical girls?
No, shouldn’t power like this have been given to someone a little more righteous, someone with conviction about power?
On what grounds did it hand me the role of Guardian?
And I’m so furious about earning no money I could die.
I can’t guess the Belt’s intentions in the slightest.
Look at it, able to read my thoughts and staying silent anyway.
Am I supposed to figure it out myself? Infuriating.
[All monsters eliminated.]
But even these worries are a luxury. A wretch so desperate to survive he’s become a monster-slaughtering machine hasn’t earned the right to luxurious contemplation. Those ancient Greek philosophers had slaves to do all their work, so their time overflowed and they had the leisure to ponder philosophy. Warm backs and full bellies—belches of the bourgeoisie, weren’t they, while they prattled about essence and humanity?
For now, I’ll focus on survival. My own nose is barely above water, and I’m thinking about protecting others. I’m starving.
I turned my eyes and saw the magical-girl electronic billboard. A beauty that seemed to fill the soul’s provisions just by looking at it. Though my appreciation had shifted a little since my fanboy days.
They at least get paid.
Of course, since they risk their lives, they should be paid. But right now, they were objects of my envy.
No, wait. At their age, to take that much attention and risk their lives fighting monsters—that’s abuse. Without even the kind of help the Belt gives me, at that. Later on, there are monsters carrying three stars as a baseline.
Who should be envying whom here?
A laugh slipped out.
Rethinking it, they weren’t people to envy. They were people to pity.
“Poor things.”
“What’s so poor about that?”
Was that a hallucination? Starvation driving me to see things?
Ah, hell.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t a hallucination. Where I had looked, a magical girl was unmistakably present. Not only Red Vega, whom I’d just parted from.
“A lot of you.”
Pink Deneb and Golden Aldebaran, White Dabih. And—
Blue Sirius too.
They had assembled en masse.
The sight could be compared to a beautiful jewel box. My fanboy favorites arrayed in a line. Overwhelming presence. Joy clogged my throat, and fear made my hands tremble. To me they were lights infinitely close to a cursed jewel—beloved and terrifying.
“Since when did you notice us?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb.”
“...”
Notice what? Since when have you even been there? Belt, a heads-up on things like this.
[Detecting multiple magical power signatures in vicinity.]
Why are you telling me now.
Nothing in the world goes the way I want.
I forced down the sigh and refocused, scanning my surroundings.
No way.
Cameras. Artificial light more menacing than any starlight.
Surely no one was filming this scene right now? The thought alone brought nausea surging up.
“This is your warning. You are now an S-rank monster—“
“Cameras.”
“What?”
“Are there cameras?”
I cut off Blue Sirius, who had stepped forward as if representing them, and stuck to my point. Regrettable, but this one involves trauma. It isn’t even something I personally experienced, and I feel so wronged by how acutely I have to react that I could die.
“Cameras? Why cameras?”
“...Isn’t it obvious!”
Red Vega answered Blue Sirius’s puzzled echo.
“That monster is already certain he’s going to win! He wants to broadcast us losing live on TV!”
Me?
“What? Really? That’s incredibly offensive!”
“Arrogant... an amusing fellow.”
Why are they all believing that without a trace of doubt? Granted, my exterior looks monstrous, but I’m not some inferiority-riddled fool who uses violence against others for a sense of superiority.
I was worrying just moments ago about how to eradicate this very violence.
I feel so wronged.
“Ridiculous.”
I refuted it immediately.
“Why would I enjoy such a worthless game?”
I wouldn’t have said that if cameras were present. Judging by the reaction, it was an emergency summons, not one disclosed to the media. There are no cameras. I was sure of it.
Which meant I didn’t have to feel the panic boiling up from deep in my core. The thought of feeling that tremor in my fingers again, the dizziness I felt at the PC bang—just imagining it was horrifying.
But if I stay here, the ones who catch word will come prowling.
The Belt was silent, so there were no additional quests. I had zero reason to face down five magical girls.
Time to leave at once.
“Listen, all of you.”
“Wha—what. He’s coming already?!”
“Relax. You weren’t my objective today.”
I gave them the same assurance I’d given yesterday, then laid my hand on the Belt.
“Wha—?! Don’t make me laugh. I’m not scared. Right now, fight me again—“
“I hear professional fighters rest fifteen days after one match. You took quite a hit flying yesterday. Wouldn’t rest be wiser than burning with passion like that?”
No, is she insane? Fight me back-to-back yesterday and today? Pros don’t fight the day after a KO.
Click. The buckle turned.
[ALKAID.]
Alkaid, the last star, positioned farthest east in the Big Dipper.
One of the East Asian interpretations of the Big Dipper’s shape was maidens drawing a coffin. So Alkaid, at the end, was identified with the guide of the coffin, regarded as the most ominous star.
Phantom.
The inauspicious star.
Flicker.
The star that blinks most to the naked eye.
Alkaid’s power brings no change to my form. It only makes me vanish, as stealthily and eerily as the flickering star.
“Good work, all of you.”
With a courteous farewell.
A thick fog scattered wide. My body, suffused in the fog, flickered between transparency and visibility—the image of a blinking star. Flickering like that, I surrendered to the mist and concealed my form.
Alkaid. The escape form, usable only immediately after a quest completes.
**
“Whoa... that was terrifying.”
Each of them was overwhelming alone. With the entire group glaring at me, I felt my heart shrivel. Escaping in a cloud of smoke really was the universal rule!
Anyway, I’d managed to survive another day.
A life where survival alone is sufficient—how wild.
Despite all that power, survival was the only thing on my mind. I laughed at my own pettiness.
What ideal should I have emulated? What should I guard? Knowing nothing, deciding nothing, I merely crow my joy at surviving in modern society.
Continuing that hollow self-interrogation from earlier led to the same conclusion. However much power I have, even those worries are a luxury. Anguish must always be a house built atop survival.
I still have nothing to complain about in my fights against monsters, so now is not the time for anguish.
So let’s establish a basic livelihood fast.
After that, some breathing room will come. I’m no starving Socrates, unable to be happy because I haven’t solved meals and a place to sleep. No conclusion reached through pain-clouded judgment can be normal.
My destination was a bank. I still didn’t know how much money I had, but I figured he must have an account, so I came here.
Until now, I couldn’t go anywhere because of the quests.
But wait. Quests should come with a reward for completion, shouldn’t they? If there’s a penalty for refusal, there must logically be compensation for performance. I can ask the Belt about that later. For now, I pushed the bank door open to check my balance.
Rattle.
“Huh? What.”
Locked. No way. Had it gotten that late already? It shouldn’t be closing time yet. Just as I was puzzled, I saw a printed notice attached nearby.
-Closing early today due to a monster attack in the vicinity.
“Argh!”
I yelled as if I’d been struck. I’d already suffered the cash card’s insufficient balance, and I had less than thirty thousand won left after buying food! I can’t even get a motel with that!
Is sleeping rough confirmed for tonight?
At least I’ll see a lot of stars.
No ceiling, after all!