I'll Retire After Saving the World

TL: SHW

The Director, Hong Seok-young, rescuing the kidnapped children from Ark's Research Lab was something that could not be hidden, no matter how hard anyone might have tried.

It was an incident that shook all of South Korea. A secret research lab beneath a closed Training Center, where human experimentation had been carried out? Of course it made front-page news. And it wasn't just Korea; the whole world was in an uproar.

On top of that, it was a case that had already been drawing attention. Some of the rescued children had appeared in the media. Not because a father had been careless, or because reporters had chased them around without a shred of ethics. It was because quite a few of the children Ark kidnapped back then were the children of famous people. Famous enough that a lawyer's kid couldn't even hope to compare.

The son of a famous Hunter and the daughter of a politician. Those two had appealed openly to the press. Return our children to their parents' arms.

Well, so I heard, anyway. I only learned about it later, once I'd grown up a bit more.

A politician and a Hunter appearing side by side on the news to talk about their children was still about half a year away.

Whether Ark would have the nerve to kidnap those same children this time around, I couldn't say. None of them were children of bigshots on that level, but a few kids had already been taken some time ago. Lee Mi-seon was in the middle of tracking down the children who had scattered after the Research Lab was shut down. The orphanage director's notebook, found with Kang Tae-woo's help, had been a huge asset.

...No wonder Lee Mi-seon looked so worn out. But then, there was no one quite like her. There was a reason Father had worked her to the bone.

In any case, what happened at that Research Lab wasn't something that could be covered up even if someone wanted to. Father, enraged over what had been done to the children, had the entire nation's support behind him and had, by all accounts, turned absolutely everything upside down to find those involved. This from a man who tried to avoid saying anything extreme in front of me while I was still a student. That alone gave me a rough idea of how it must have gone.

And in the process, it came to light that a certain pharmaceutical company had been connected to Ark.

"......"

I looked over the documents Lee Mi-seon had been reading and left on the table. Potions. Agreement. Joint development.

I knew the inner workings of the Research Lab well, but I knew little about anything involving the outside. Even back at the Orphanage, there had been a tendency to hush that kind of information up, on the grounds that it wouldn't be good for the children's stability. After Father adopted me, he cut off the information himself. Maybe because one of the victims' parents was a politician, it barely appeared in the media except at the height of the uproar, and so it didn't spread by word of mouth either. I could have looked into it if I'd wanted, but honestly, back then I was too busy keeping my own head above water and adjusting to a drastically changed environment to even be curious.

Thinking back on it now, though, it did seem like Father had deliberately kept me distracted so I wouldn't take an interest.

Still, after I joined the Agency, I'd gotten curious about the old records and looked up the files on the Research Lab once. It was an incident from before the Ability Management Agency even existed, so there wasn't much material. When I casually asked Father about it, he said it had been under the jurisdiction of the National Police Agency or some other body back then, so the records would be over there.

Which was why, when I'd dug through the data left on the Mana Watch, I'd found nothing beyond a short report on the arrest of personnel from the pharmaceutical company involved.

Right.

And the pharmaceutical company stamped on that report had used the exact same logo as this one.

Daeyeon & ATLAS. Co

There was no way I'd know anything about a pharmaceutical company from twenty years ago, was there.

Still, if it had been big enough to develop Potions with Daeyeon, I would have heard of it at least once. And a company of that size wouldn't just collapse easily.

I racked my memory, but there was truly nothing there.

...Father would have torn them apart, so maybe they'd changed the company's name, or actually gone under because of it.

I took out my phone and searched for Atlas Pharmaceuticals.

Maybe because it was a foreign company, hardly any Korean-language pages came up. The joint development agreement must still have been internal and confidential, since there were no related articles either. Was this really a document I was allowed to be reading?

I went to the English homepage and skimmed through it quickly.

What came up was a half-hearted company introduction page that looked like it had been thrown together out of courtesy, nothing but empty platitudes. I hadn't expected much anyway, but there really was no information to be had. All I learned was that it was an American company.

"Teacher Woo? Is something bothering you?"

Seeing me flip through the documents without a word, Lee Mi-seon stopped muttering to herself.

"...Well."

Should I tell her this company was suspicious and that they shouldn't do any joint development with it? If she asked why it was suspicious, what would I say? If I said it was just a hunch, would she believe me?

...If I said I'd learned about it while I was in Ark, it did seem like that might get through somehow.

But I shook my head. I couldn't push forward with something even I wasn't sure about. And it was far too big a matter for me to handle on my own.

"Is it all right for you to let me read documents like these?"

"What were you look, ah. That. There'll be an article next week anyway. As far as our Guild is concerned, as long as we can purchase high-performance Potions, it's all good, and from my personal standpoint, if it goes well and the stock price rises, so much the better."

"The stock price?"

"I happen to own a small stake in my father's company, you see."

Ah. That.

I had no interest in chaebol inheritance or any of that. Losing interest, I went back to looking through the documents. Aside from Atlas, nothing else caught my eye.

I raised a finger and tapped it against the table.

To think I'd forgotten such an important clue. Unbelievable.

But it wasn't as if I was omnipotent. How was I supposed to remember every line of a report I'd skimmed through once? Besides, back then I'd had my hands full bringing Woo I-rok home, and after that I'd been busy with the forum and everything else.

Look on the bright side. Wasn't it fortunate I'd realized it now, at least?

After a moment's thought, I sprang to my feet. Lee Mi-seon looked up at me, startled.

"Where are you going?"

"There's something I need to ask Gamble."

"Is it something I should hear as well?"

"That depends on what comes up..."

No. There was no telling what might come out.

I waved a hand at Lee Mi-seon, who was about to rise and follow.

"It's about I-rok and Tae-woo. I'll tell you what we talked about later."

At the mention of Woo I-rok and Kang Tae-woo, a flicker of sorrow crossed Lee Mi-seon's face.

Lee Mi-seon nodded with a resolute expression. As if trying to comfort me.

"They'll be all right."

"They'd better be."

I answered evenly and left the meeting room.

*

Gamble was still staying at the Villa.

Debris that hadn't been cleared away still littered the place, but the building was so luxurious to begin with that it had taken on a certain charm of its own.

"It's like an apocalypse movie. So cool. Doesn't it just make the inspiration come pouring out?"

Awkward pronunciation aside, her command of vocabulary was no different from a native Korean's.

Watching Gamble, who somehow looked entranced, I took a step back. Were all geniuses like this? I had yet to meet one who was a properly functioning human being.

Then again, no one in their right mind would have stepped up to help a monster. No matter how much that child was like a little sibling she'd watched over since childhood.

"Ah. So, what was it you wanted to ask?"

"I didn't get the chance to ask in detail last time."

Gamble quietly waited for me to continue.

"The children. The ones Ark used for its research."

"...Yes. What about them?"

She was on guard. I had never sweet-talked Hope the way Hong Seok-young had. So why this?

Ignoring Gamble's gaze, I spoke.

"I believe I mentioned that we're protecting two of them."

"......"

Still wary in her movements, Gamble nodded quickly. She was tense, but not surprised.

Hope had attacked one of them, and Sem Bloom had tried to kidnap the other. After all that chaos, surely she could guess what I was about to say.

Sure enough, when I paused for a moment, Gamble spoke first.

"You want to know what experiments they went through?"

"More precisely, I want to know whether they'll be all right."

I sat down across from Gamble and crossed my arms.

"I still don't really know the final goal of the research, either. The kids believe it was about creating Artificial Awakened."

"Uh..."

"I know roughly what experiments they underwent. The first thing we did after bringing them in was examine them from head to toe, so I also know there's nothing seriously wrong with their health."

But I knew the results of those experiments. A body sensitive to Mana; eyesight capable of seeing Mana with the naked eye. Whether Kang Tae-woo would come to see Mana, I still couldn't say, but Woo I-rok was a certainty.

"I need to know why Sem Bloom tried to take that child. No, I understand why you didn't want to talk about it. I don't like it, but for Hope's sake... fine. Let's say that's how it is. But I can't back down either."

At the mention of Hope's name, the look in Gamble's eyes changed. Same as last time, her weak spot was far too obvious. Did that weakness apply only to her own family?

Part of the reason she'd smuggled out the children Noah Michel had tried to kill was probably to secure Hong Seok-young's cooperation. No matter how useful someone might be to him, that man would never join hands with people who killed children.

"You see, my little brother is one of them."

Gamble's eyes went as wide as they could possibly go.

"Your b, b, brother?"

"Yes."

"Brother?"

"Yes."

"...As in, you decided to make him your brother?"

"No. My real brother."

I drove the point home.

"'Noah Michel is holding off for now because she's wary of Hope' isn't going to cut it. I can't allow even the possibility that my brother might be targeted."

"Uh, umm.... R, right."

"So I need to know why Sem Bloom tried to take my brother."

"...That kid is, um, your brother, Mr. Hunter?"

"Call me Teacher. Teacher Woo. I may be a Hunter, but I don't clear dungeons."

As if she hadn't heard a word I said, Gamble fidgeted busily with her hands. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly before she finally squeezed the question out.

"Your, your real brother, then, Hong Seok-young, kn, knows... too?"

"He'd have to. He's the one who helped me when I got out of Ark."

"Uh, uhh...."

"You know what a Cleaner is, don't you?"

Gamble couldn't process my words right away. But slowly, shock spread across her face.

"Y, you! You said you were Hong Seok-young's student!!"

"Yes."

"But Ark? A Cleaner?! How did you become his student?"

"Surprisingly enough, it just worked out."

"Shanshan never said anything like that!"

"That's because I never told that punk either."

"Ah, wait. Wait a minute. Then, uh, so? No, but if you were a Cleaner...."

Gamble narrowed her eyes and looked at me with suspicion.

"...You. Were you experimented on?"

Ah. Going straight there, are we?

I shrugged.

"Yes."

"...That shouldn't be possible for a Cleaner, though?"

"For an ordinary Cleaner, it wouldn't be."

Judging by how precisely she knew a Cleaner's limits, Gamble knew Ark, or at least the inside of the Research Lab, very well. Hope didn't seem thoughtful enough to explain such things one by one, so had she figured it out on her own?

Feeling a strange amusement at this odd situation, where I was speaking nothing but the truth yet somehow telling nothing but lies, I said,

"My parents were researchers for Ark."

Clatter!

Gamble tumbled right off her chair. I firmly held back the laugh threatening to escape at a reaction far more intense than I'd expected.

Hm. I really shouldn't be developing a taste for this.

***

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