Chapter 171: Eyes of the Fairy (1)
TL: SHW
Bzzt.
My phone buzzed briefly, then stopped. The screen, which had been dark, lit up and dimmed again, as if urging me to hurry up and check the message that had arrived.
I knew what it was. They'd been coming in frequently these past few days.
But precisely because I knew what it said, I felt no urge to check it. To be exact, having to look at it and send a reply felt like a chore.
So I turned my gaze away, and the documents scattered messily across the table came into view.
"......"
I picked up the phone.
I entered my passcode and checked the messages.
As expected, it was nothing much. Just dozens of photos there to greet me. Group shots, solo shots, even a photo of a streetlamp whose meaning escaped me. I skimmed through them with an indifferent hand and scrolled on.
They must have gone to an amusement park or something yesterday; the kids in the photos were grinning away in ridiculous headbands.
Where did Lee Mi-seon send these kids again....
[Pics from yesterday!!!!]
[Lee Seung-yeon looks so ugly]
[My eyes were closed!!]
[Why is Oh Hyun-wook sleeping over there?? Did nobody wake him up???]
The moment Lee Seung-yeon posted the photos, messages came racing up from below.
Nothing much to them. Who was funny yesterday, what they hadn't gotten to try. What they wanted to do today, what they wanted to eat.
Honestly, I had no idea why they'd added me to this. Did these kids really want to chatter away with their teacher watching? I didn't know. I really didn't....
I watched the flood of messages, too fast for my eyes to follow, then muted the notifications and set the phone down. At the same moment, Lee Mi-seon, seated across from me, opened her mouth.
"So underhanded."
Lee Mi-seon pouted like a little kid.
I knew what she was about to say. Just like Lee Seung-yeon, who posted dozens of photos every morning, Lee Mi-seon had been muttering the same thing at me for days now, every time she saw my face. No mistaking they shared the same blood.
"Seriously, so underhanded...."
Lee Mi-seon, the older of the two, shot me a blatant sidelong glare. She wanted me to ask.
I let out a sigh.
"What is it?"
"I told you first that I had my eye on her!"
This, too, was a conversation we'd been repeating for days. Lee Mi-seon spoke as if she'd been terribly wronged.
"And you just swooped in and snatched her away!"
"First come, first served."
"That's true, but...!"
Honestly, wasn't this better for Gamble herself? Better than getting hired by Daseon-slash-Daeyeon-slash-the-Association.
It was far more humane than "I joined a Guild and it turned out the company was working three jobs." It wasn't like anyone had lowballed her salary, either. Vacation days in line with Korean labor law, too....
......
Well, Hong Seok-young's Guild was a workplace with fewer than five employees, mind you. Counting Gamble, it had only just reached three.
"Then you shouldn't be making me do all this work!"
"I'm truly grateful for that part."
"...What's with the sudden pleasantries?"
"I'm saying I look forward to your continued support."
"Ugh, seriously!"
I pretended not to hear Lee Mi-seon's grumbling. It wasn't as if I was the one who put her up to it in the first place. And whose fault was it that she'd caved the moment Hong Seok-young said he'd like to ask for her help again this time?
The Association had said Ark was giving them quite the headache, too. Attacking Raid Parties and killing innocent Hunters, or killing them and then stealing the bodies. It was a miracle none of it had reached the press yet.
The Association would want it resolved as quickly as possible, and with Hong Seok-young conveniently stepping up, they must have jumped at the chance. Enough to assign Lee Mi-seon to him.
In any case, Lee Mi-seon had more or less sorted out Sandra Gamble's employment issues too. Things like her work visa, a place for Gamble to stay.
Still, I had the impression she was helping with far too many of the little details for this to be simply Association business. Kim Chae-min had said hers was a personal revenge connected to The Mage's Domain; did Lee Mi-seon have a personal reason like that, too? Enough to pour her own time and money into helping Hong Seok-young like this? Calling it gratitude for looking after her nephew felt a little... excessive, really.
"When will the school building be finished?"
"The blueprints were only completed a few days ago, and you think it'll just pop up overnight?"
"Well... I feel like you could pull it off, Hunter Lee."
"I'm not some miracle-working archmage, you know."
With part of the building ruined by the explosion, the Villa was no longer a place to stay for long. The actual damage amounted to little more than a small kitchen, but the area left without working plumbing and electricity was considerably larger. Repairs would take a long time, and however spacious the Villa was, given the number of people living there, sealing off the closed section had made the place start to feel cramped.
It wasn't for nothing that we'd sent the kids out. Though the lack of a decent place to talk with Gamble had been part of it too....
Which was why Lee Mi-seon continued, with a knowing look in her eyes.
"Gamble's staying at a hotel right now, so she probably hasn't realized... but once she finds out she joined a Guild that doesn't even have a Guild office, won't she think she's been scammed? Maybe she'll even say she can't do it and back out?"
"She signed the Employment Contract Hong Seok-young put in front of her. You think she can back out?"
I snorted.
"Besides, didn't Hope say he delivered the news to Michel himself? There's no way she can be the one to quit first."
I mulled it over for a moment, then shrugged.
"So the kids will be fine, too."
Right.
That was how it was.
As long as Gamble was here, Hope now had the threat that Ark's information could be handed over to us at any moment. At Gamble's explanation that this would let him mess with Michel, Hope had agreed without asking a single further question.
We hadn't stopped him, either. Because as long as Gamble remained here safe and sound, Hope couldn't approach us as a Fairy, a monster, or a member of Ark. The children's safety was secured. Not a bad deal.
Lee Mi-seon, who had been quietly studying my face, let her shoulders slump.
"That part is a relief, at least."
"It is."
"So I-rok will be able to go to school too?"
"......"
"What's with that face? The kid's been studying hard because he wants to go to school."
"Well... it's a good thing that he can go, sure."
Whether he'd adjust well was another matter. Then again, watching him humor Hong Seok-young, who trailed after him everywhere, before apparently getting fed up and ignoring him to focus solely on his tablet PC, maybe he'd manage just fine.
I sighed. That damn cat. Like any long-running animated series, it had episodes beyond counting, and when I told Woo I-rok to give it a rest already, he'd started glaring at me.
If it were up to me, I'd have banned him from touching the tablet PC entirely, but if I did that, he might actually bite me. Whoever he took after.
Perhaps reading something else into my sigh, Lee Mi-seon studied my expression carefully.
"...Is this about what Hope said?"
"No."
The denial came out reflexively; then I shrugged.
"Though I can't say it's entirely not that."
"Well, of course it is, after hearing something like that!"
"Is it, now?"
"Yes!"
Lee Mi-seon scowled, her voice thick with displeasure.
"I mean, seriously... are they out of their minds? What absolute bullshit!"
Bang.
The table shook. The solid wood table stoutly withstood the fury of an active-duty Hunter.
Listening to Lee Mi-seon's complaints, I thought back to what had happened two days earlier.
*
-Riling Noah up? I'm great at that! I'm seriously confident I can pull it off!!
This time, Gamble was at our side, and Hope's pallid face was on the screen.
"Shanshan! You absolutely, absolutely cannot say anything else!"
-Okay, okay.
"And what are you supposed to say?"
-Uh.... What was it again?
"Alex Hope!!!"
-Kidding. I just have to say you've become Hong Seok-young's subordinate, right?
Hope beamed, his face without a care in the world. In inverse proportion, Gamble's expression grew darker and darker.
-And warn her not to overstep any further. I can manage that much with Noah! I mean, whatever else she is, Noah's human, so she's slightly... beneath me, I guess you could say? That's why Noah hates me even more!
Hope's laughter rapped sharply against my eardrums. Thanks to the less-than-stellar call quality, the laughter frayed at the edges into something grating. Whether he knew it or not, Hope went on laughing for a long while.
"There's something I want to ask."
Hong Seok-young, who had been waiting for Hope's laughter to die down, spoke in a low voice.
Hope abruptly cut his laughter short and straightened his posture. He was on guard. No, was he scared? Either way, it looked much the same. Like a mouse with a cat right in front of it, tensed up and eyeing every corner for an escape route.
Of course, Hope had nowhere to run.
"With Doctor Gamble here, do you still intend to keep targeting the children?"
-Hmm....
"No, why did you kidnap the children in the first place? What was Ark planning to do with those kids in the Research Lab?!"
-Uh....
Hope furrowed his brow. Arms crossed, holding fast to his defensive posture, Hope deliberated at length before finally calling on his humanity.
-Sandra. Am I allowed to talk about this?
Needless to say, Gamble, suddenly finding every eye in the room on her, began to panic.
Gamble's face flushed red, and she stammered out a reply.
"Uh, um, ah, well... I, I think it should be fine to tell theeem?"
-Is that a yes or a no?
"...It's fine. You can tell them."
Permission granted, Hope got straight to the point. No embellishment whatsoever.
-They're sacrifices.
Naturally, it was not a pleasant thing to hear. Being closer to monster than human, he was incapable of smoothing over his explanation out of consideration for his listeners' feelings. Though even if he could have, he was the type who wouldn't have bothered.
-No, wait, not sacrifices so much as... parts? Switches? Something along those lines?
"Switches?"
-They'd been at it for over ten years with nothing to show for it, so Noah finally decided to shut the whole thing down. It cost a fortune, you see. Noah likes to act tough, but she's thrown fits over money more times than I can count.
Hope said this with a proud look on his face, as if it were some tremendous secret.
-But who'd have thought something you could call a success, more or less, would turn up in Korea? If it weren't for Sandra, I really would have killed him.
"Shanshan!!!"
-What, I didn't kill him, did I.... Half-baked success or not, it'd be a disaster if Noah caught on. Wouldn't it be better to just clear him away so he never enters her sight at all?
"What did I tell you...."
-Which is why I didn't kill him!
"Enough."
Gamble and Hope, mid-squabble, both shut their mouths.
"What do you mean by 'parts'?"
-Hnng.... I'm really not confident I can explain this well. How do I put it....
Hope hemmed and hawed before finally managing to continue.
-Just so you know, this research was a failure. To do what Noah wants, you'd have to take a different approach, but she never listens to me. I told her over and over that it wouldn't work, that humans and Dungeon Power handle Mana in different ways.
Hope muttered a few curses about Noah Michel, then spoke with visible reluctance.
-Noah is looking for a way to control Dungeons from outside the Dungeon. Those kids are for the connection, something like that. Hence, switches...? No, that's not it. I guess you could say she was trying to make something like a simple remote controller.
"......"
Hong Seok-young listened to Hope's words without so much as blinking.
-I mean, with how many Dungeons there are, managing them one by one is a pain. It'd be nice if she could access the Central Control Panel, but.... Oops. Said too much.
Hope scratched his cheek, looking sheepish.
-Anyway, like you said, with Sandra over there, it'll be hard for Noah to order me to dispose of the failures. No, she can't. Because if her people ever come after me, I'll have Sandra spill everything. Ah, I should tell Noah that part too, right?
"Yes. Are you certain?"
-Yeah. Sem's dead anyway, so she probably doesn't even know exactly which one was the success. Noah never changed her eyes, see.
***
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