Oh, Pigeons (1)
A few days had passed since Eunseo came to live with us. Maybe it was because I hadn't taken any of the usual petty jobs coming down from the county office or city hall for a while, but my contact at the Environmental Division called me for the first time in ages. If that man was picking up the phone himself, this wasn't going to be some water deer ambling down the street.
I needed the money anyway if I was going to buy Eunseo a water pocket, so I answered with a little flicker of anticipation.
"To what do I owe the pleasure? Didn't expect a call from you personally."
"You've been so quiet I figured you'd actually retired, Huntsman Jang."
"Not a chance. I was just busy with the village fish farm for a bit."
"That so? Good to hear. Think you can take a job that just came in?"
"What kind of critter are we talking? If you're calling me yourself, I figure the other huntsmen aren't too keen on it."
"It's not that they're unpleasant, exactly… there's just a lot of them this time. I'll send you a video first. Take a look."
A moment later I opened the video he'd messaged over. On the screen, pigeons were throwing themselves a feast all over the neighborhood—pecking open garbage bags dumped in front of a convenience store, waddling into the yellowing rice paddies to tear up the grain. They were making a genuine nuisance of themselves.
If it had just been a matter of bagging a few fat pigeons, I would have hung up on the spot. The problem was that the things in that video were mutant pigeons.
"Pigeons only get so big. The police can handle that themselves."
"They're a bit too big for the cops to deal with."
"What about the other huntsmen?"
"They all got pulled out for hunting jobs in other regions. Right now you're the only one sitting idle around here, Huntsman Jang."
"Alright then. Want me to grab my gun and head over tomorrow?"
"Well… the thing is, these things are only hanging around the residential areas of Seosan and Taean…"
Ah. Now I understood. They were near people's homes, so I couldn't use a hunting shotgun—and they wanted me to beat those giant pigeons to death with my bare hands. No ordinary huntsman would take a job like that. And the Hunters would ignore it because it didn't pay.
"Why don't you swing by the county office, grab some rat poison, and scatter it around?"
"What civil servant in the world wants to wrestle those monsters?"
"Haa… fine. Fax the paperwork over to the police box. I'll take care of it."
"Thanks, Huntsman Jang!"
"Where are these pigeons, exactly?"
"Near Seosan. I'll text you the exact location."
The call ended, and I found Nureongi, Poppi, and Eunseo already gathered around me, staring.
"It's a job. What's with the looks?"
"We heard laughing through your phone."
"You're faking another job so you can go drinking, aren't you?"
I had, more than once or twice, announced I was heading out on a job and then opened up a drinking party at the village hall, so I couldn't really blame them for starting with suspicion. Instead of explaining, I just showed them the mutant pigeon video the officer had sent.
"Pigeons?"
"Yeah. Pigeons."
"They're huge…"
Eunseo had apparently never seen a monster like this. She peered at my phone screen with her eyes gone round as a rabbit's.
"They're still just pigeons. Think you could read these things' minds, by any chance?"
"How would I know! It's just a video!"
Eunseo shouted and leaned forward so hard inside her tank that water went splash over the rim and soaked Nureongi's tail.
"Ah, that's cold!"
"Ah! Sorry, Hana Unnie! Anyway, I don't know!"
She looked so horrified by the whole idea that this was clearly going to be my problem to solve.
"Anyway, I am not going drinking. I am actually going to hunt pigeons."
"Then when will you be back? We have to start dinner."
"He said it's near Seosan, so I'll stop by your favorite place on the way—Hwaryeong Unnie's shop—and bring something back."
"Yes!"
Nureongi and Poppi perked their ears right up. Eunseo, who had never met Miss Jeong, just tilted her head and looked back and forth between me and the other two.
"Hwaryeong Unnie?"
"Ah… she runs a cafe and restaurant together downtown. She's a fox beastfolk, and she's an unnie who absolutely adores Hana and Hayeon."
"A fox beastfolk? Then does she, like… shoot fire out of her hands?"
"Say that in front of her and I'll be banned for life…"
"That's what you get for hitting on Hwaryeong Unnie and ticking her off in the first place."
"That was Unnie's fault, though."
Nureongi and Poppi always took my side—except when it came to Hwaryeong. Which is to say, anything involving Miss Jeong, and then I was automatically in the wrong. I was the one raising these kids, too…
Eunseo seemed to find the scolding entertaining. She propped her chin on the rim of the tank and listened to us with a wide, bright grin.
"Alright… I'll be back in a bit."
"Pigeon feathers are dirty, so don't touch them with your bare hands, Unnie!"
I had no idea where Poppi had picked that up, but I didn't particularly want to wrestle those mutant pigeons barehanded either.
"Eunseo, do you like Western food? Spaghetti and stuff like that."
"I like it too!"
"Got it. It's a bit of a trip from downtown, so I'll grab something that won't suffer if it gets cold."
I went to my room, changed into my old work clothes, and turned the key in our junk truck out in the yard. Time to stop being the kids' mom and go back to being Huntsman Jang Sajeong.
The drive out to the location the Environmental Division officer had texted me was longer than I'd expected. Somewhere between downtown Seosan and Taean County… for a bunch of birdbrains, they'd picked their spot pretty well.
As I got close, I could see police officers blocking the road with yellow tape. I pulled the truck over and walked up, and they gave my work clothes a once-over before stepping in front of me.
"A Variant has appeared up ahead. Access is currently restricted."
"Yes, thank you for your hard work. I took the job, so I'm just here to survey the site for a bit."
"…Are you a Hunter?"
"Reservists and active duty are all soldiers. Hunters and huntsmen are all hunters, same difference. Want me to give you the name of the Environmental Division officer who issued the request?"
I said it so calmly that the young officer hesitated a moment, then obediently lifted the tape and waved me through.
"Honestly… these pigeons really found themselves a buffet. A shopping district right by the industrial park, of all places."
"Uh… you already know they're pigeons?"
"Of course. I'm a Quasi-Awakened myself, so don't worry. I can handle a scuffle with a bunch of birdbrains."
I gave the officers a light wave and started walking slowly into the empty shopping district. The evacuation looked finished; every building had its shutters locked down tight. Here and there along the street, unpleasantly enormous pigeon droppings had hardened white as cement.
If they'd just let me use a gun… I hear pigeon droppings eat right through asphalt.
I clicked my tongue and headed toward wherever the mutant pigeons were likely to be. Beyond the second-floor windows of the residences above the shops, people who looked like locals were watching me. They couldn't do business, but this was still home—so they hadn't been able to bring themselves to leave.
Deeper in, a rummaging sound drifted from up ahead. A metal trash can tipping over. A heavy, rhythmic pecking against the pavement. The dull thud of bodies bumping into each other. The mutant pigeons were right in the middle of dinner.
I moved carefully toward the noise. Rounding the corner of the alley, I spotted several enormous pigeons in the distance.
Three… four of them, maybe. They really are huge…
Massive bodies, so well-fed their fat rolled on them, their feathers a complete mess. Whatever they'd been eating hadn't agreed with them either—patches of their gray plumage had bleached sickly white, like something diseased. They noticed me, cocked their heads for a moment, then went right back to their meal as if I weren't worth the interest.
Fair enough. A pigeon might peck a person, but it wouldn't eat one. To these things, a human was just something you couldn't swallow—and those bloated bodies weren't built for real hunting in the first place.
I eased a little closer and took a proper look at their condition. They were pecking the ground without rest, as if they'd been possessed by the ghosts of pigeons that had starved to death. Through the feathers I could see bloodshot pink flesh, and their skinny legs were a wreck of wounds, struggling to carry all that weight.
"Haa… if I could just use a gun, these things would be done in five minutes."
Nothing I could do about that. I left them to their meal and quietly turned another way. Even so, I was starting to get a sense of how I was going to handle these ravenous giant pigeons.
I kept circling the shopping district, picking up their traces. The trash heaps they'd torn apart, the half-eaten food they'd abandoned, the droppings smeared disgustingly across the pavement—I went over all of it. First I needed to know what they were living on.
Fortunately, a pigeon was still a pigeon. They didn't seem to be picky; they'd eaten just about everything. And more fortunately still, I couldn't find a single sign that they'd harmed an animal or a person. Their bodies had gotten so fat they'd apparently forgotten the hunting instinct altogether.
I gathered everything I needed and walked back to the officers at the tape line.
"Did you, ah… find anything useful?"
The same young officer who'd let me in asked.
"Yes. That those pigeons eat extremely well, for one."
"How well? Starting from the food-waste bins and working all the way through the liquor bottles stacked behind the shops. There doesn't seem to be anything they won't eat."
"…They drink alcohol?"
"They do. They like it enough that they'll go for a smashed liquor bottle before a puddle of standing water."
To the officers it was idle chatter. To me, there was no information more valuable. Fat pigeons that had acquired a taste for booze. I could take them without a gun.
"Thanks. That's good information."
"Pardon? Good information?"
The officer blinked at me, baffled. I smiled.
"You didn't know? Birds can't hold their liquor."
I didn't say another word. I just turned and started walking toward the truck.