Chapter 169: Employment Fraud (2)
TL: SHW
"Uh, ah, grh, uh, hello!"
The Sandra Gamble I was finally meeting face to face, at twenty-six years old, was young.
Well, it wasn't exactly a young age, yet she somehow gave off a strangely youthful impression. Was it the clumsy Korean? Or was it because the Gamble of Pharos was so firmly lodged in my mind?
If we were simply talking about differences in impression, Lee Mi-seon was just as different as Sandra Gamble. That woman used to sink into bouts of melancholy while staring at the photos on her desk. I was more used to seeing her screaming at Hong Seok-young not to treat her like an errand service, or shrieking in a voice caught somewhere between fury and surrender whenever an Academy student blew up the director's office.
Yet even that Lee Mi-seon was now nothing more than a young aunt giggling over lame jokes while teasing her nephew. Running around lately with a haggard face, crushed between Hong Seok-young's affairs, Daseon's work, looking after her nephew, and Association business.
Time does that. When did Gamble establish Pharos again? By the time she built that, she might have accumulated enough experience to become the person I knew.
Yeah. She might.
"He... llo?"
Though at this very moment, I had my doubts.
Besides, that future was no longer certain. The Sandra Gamble of Pharos might never exist.
So I wiped the face of the older Gamble I knew from my mind and took a proper look at Sandra Gamble.
Nothing had changed from the video call.
Still the same unkempt short hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses. Right down to the plaid button-up that could serve as the textbook image of an engineering student.
"……."
I narrowed my eyes.
At the same time, Gamble's gaze darted rapidly between me, Lee Mi-seon, and Hong Seok-young standing behind me.
"...Um?"
Gamble ended up looking at me, since I was standing at the front.
"Th-the, um, the Hunter I spoke with on the phone... right?"
The halting speech carried a peculiar hint of the sheltered straight-A student who'd spent her whole life buried in books. The Sandra Gamble I knew, and the Sandra Gamble that Lee Mi-seon had investigated, were exactly the same.
A model daughter raised under a father who was a mana engineer.
Since her father had worked alongside the guild that Hope's parents belonged to, Gamble had moved to Australia as a child. She came back to the States around the time she entered high school.
Unlike Alex Hope, who had Awakened early and followed the elite Hunter track, Gamble didn't Awaken until after entering university. Apart from recently founding Museion, hers was truly a life of nothing but studying.
Though setting up a paper company to cleanly erase any connection to herself was not something a bookish straight-A student should have been capable of.
I extended my hand to Sandra Gamble.
"I'm Woo Hwijae."
"Oh! Yes! Hello!"
Gamble shook my hand with predictably awkward movements.
Lee Mi-seon hadn't coveted Gamble solely for mana engineering research. After confirming how Museion had been set up, Lee Mi-seon must have been quite impressed, because she kept marveling as she relayed the information she'd gathered from Gamble. Hard to believe, looking at the woman currently gripping my hand and trembling.
Or maybe Gamble had a reason she'd had to become that cold-blooded, tearless businesswoman? Considering she died under suspicious circumstances... there was also the possibility that Hope hadn't made it out unscathed in that future either.
Well, regardless.
I completely shook off the image of the future Gamble of Pharos that had still been lingering in my mind. In all likelihood, the Sandra Gamble before my eyes would never become that woman.
When I released Gamble's hand, Hong Seok-young, who had been watching silently, stepped forward.
"Hello, young lady."
Gamble swallowed hard.
"At last, we can talk face to face."
Gamble was an Awakened. Not enough to work as a Hunter, just barely able to sense mana. An adequate level for a mana engineer.
But sensing mana was sensing mana. Whether she'd picked up on the faint pressure radiating from Hong Seok-young, Gamble's body began to tremble.
I let out a sigh.
I'd already briefed him on the future Sandra Gamble, so I didn't see why he insisted on testing her.
It wasn't as if I couldn't understand the desire to see for himself, but....
If Gamble fainted over this, it would just be a hassle.
I shoved Hong Seok-young to the side.
Gamble's eyes went round.
"We're not going to stand here and talk, so let's head inside."
I'd left Woo I-rok with the Daseon Hunters, so.... Hm. He was actually pretty useful as a Hunter, and I was starting to feel a bit guilty using him like a babysitter. Not that I'd stop doing it.
I led Gamble to the meeting room. At last, I could obtain a clue about a world whose destruction had been confirmed.
*
"Uh, yes. Ark's goal is to open dungeon gates."
Once the conversation started, Gamble quickly regained her composure.
"More precisely, it's to extend the lifespan of monsters that have emerged outside of dungeons."
"Lifespan? Is there a way to do that?"
"I don't know. Shansh, Alex said it's not his area of expertise, so he can't give Michel the help she wants, and Michel doesn't expect it from him either. So he said he doesn't even know how far the research has progressed...."
The lips that had stayed firmly sealed around Lee Mi-seon opened without resistance in front of Hong Seok-young.
"Anything inside Ark... anything Michel manages directly, I can only learn through Alex, so I don't know anything beyond that."
"And matters Michel isn't directly involved in?"
"...Some things Alex found out, some things I found out."
"Things you found out?"
Whether she'd decided that laying everything bare was the price of Hong Seok-young's help, or she'd been scared by the raid from the men in black suits, I wasn't sure.
Honestly, she'd been half-dragged here by force. Thinking about it that way, Gamble was accepting the situation remarkably well.
"Yes. Since the operation runs on people, it's not like there are zero gaps. They use computers, they use networks, so one way or another.... But could you please stop with the 'young lady'? Being called agassi in Korean is really embarrassing."
"It's not as though we're close enough to call each other by name."
"...You have a point."
She'd gone beyond accepting the situation to adapting rather well. No need to worry. Not that I was in any position to be worrying about Gamble.
"Then please just call me Doctor. I do have a doctorate, you know."
"Sure, why not."
Hong Seok-young shrugged and accepted Gamble's request.
"Then, Dr. Gamble."
"Yep."
"Let's say Noah Michel extends monster lifespans to open dungeon gates."
"Yep."
"What comes after?"
"Yep?"
"Is the goal the annihilation of humanity?"
"……."
For the first time, Gamble's ready answers stopped.
"Similar, I suppose?"
"Why the uncertainty?"
"...I can't say."
"Why?"
"Shanshan...."
Gamble avoided Hong Seok-young's gaze, eyes darting, fingers fidgeting.
"Shanshan said that if he dies, please protect me."
Words Hope had spoken before fleeing Kim Chae-min's magic.
"It's the same for me. If me, or Yi Jun, or his father... if any of us die, Shanshan is left all alone. I don't want him going on a rampage for revenge. I just want him to go back to his kind and live a good life."
"...You're betraying humanity?"
"Everyone wants their family to live without suffering, don't they?"
Gamble said it without flinching.
"But if too many of his secrets get out, Shanshan will think he's been betrayed. I have to leave him a way back."
Lee Mi-seon, who had been watching silently from the side, scowled. If Kim Chae-min hadn't held her back, she would have said something.
But Hong Seok-young said nothing, simply gazing at Gamble's face. This time, Gamble didn't look away. She stared straight back at Hong Seok-young.
There was a stubbornness on her face that said she would never back down.
"Alright."
"...What?"
But when Hong Seok-young simply nodded without pressing further, Gamble gaped at him with a dumbfounded expression. She clearly hadn't expected her demand to be accepted just like that.
...Lucky her. She'd stumbled into it. That man was weak to that kind of talk. Family.
Well, it wasn't as if there were no ways to force her mouth open. There used to be someone who typically took the lead on that sort of thing, the piece of shit. I recalled Oh Hyun-wook's information, so heavily redacted.
But that approach would lose more than it gained. Gamble was maintaining a cooperative attitude, and Hope's combat power was enough to take an Archmage down with him in a mutual kill. If we touched a nerve with someone like that and earned his grudge, things would only get more troublesome.
And....
"Saying you'd talk if the way back were gone, aren't you?"
"...What?"
"Does that sound strange?"
Hong Seok-young scratched his chin and looked at me.
"It does."
"Right?"
"Yes."
I let out a sigh. So what that man was trying to say was....
"If Michel or Ark's forces weaken enough that it wouldn't matter even if Hope's betrayal came to light, would you be willing to talk?"
"……."
Gamble blinked slowly.
Whether she hadn't understood what I said, or she was calculating my words against what lay ahead, it was a long time before Gamble opened her mouth.
"Then I'll tell you."
"Good."
"What?"
"I said let's go with that."
The reason they were trying to crawl out of dungeons didn't matter in itself. What mattered was the fact that they'd succeeded twenty years from now.
And that the grace period I'd been thinking of as twenty years might actually be shorter.
It could be that every dungeon in the world burst open only after twenty years because Gamble had held out for nineteen. That, as promised with Hope, they hadn't proceeded with their plans as long as Gamble was alive.
If that was the case, it became impossible to know exactly when Ark had completed all its preparations. If Gamble and Hope's parents died tomorrow, monsters might start crawling out of dungeons.
...If Gamble just stayed alive, would the apocalypse not happen?
The end of the world depended on this woman's lifespan?
Absurd. Had it really been that way? All this time, the thing saving the world had merely been a monster's love? A desire to protect family?
An emotion difficult to name churned inside me. Part of me wanted to burst into hysterical laughter; another part wanted to scream.
But I swallowed it down. Because someone who had to be feeling the exact same way I did was sitting right here.
I could see Hong Seok-young's hand on the table, clenched into a tight fist.
Think of it positively.
If Gamble just stayed alive, the apocalypse wouldn't happen.
A far simpler solution than running around in every direction, cultivating talent, and preparing for a catastrophe whose cause was unknown sat right before our eyes.
"By the way... Gamble ssi?"
"Ugh. Can't you just call me Doctor?"
"Dr. Gamble, then."
"Yep."
I tapped the table with a raised finger.
"Since things have come to this... don't you think you should maintain a cooperative relationship with us?"
Gamble hesitated briefly, then nodded.
"You were originally planning to start a company, right?"
"Yes.... I have research I've been working on. To help Shanshan, I need to build up my own influence."
"But you're also aware that doing so could draw Ark's attention?"
"……."
"So here's my proposal. Why don't you join our guild?"
"A gui... ld?"
"Yes. Hunter Hong Seok-young's guild."
I smiled gently.
***
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