Chapter 49 - Operation (1)

How could he try to abandon me like this?

Richard Green ignored Yun's rude reply. As far as I could tell, these people knew one another far too well. They must have been sick to death of one another by now. Green didn't even seem angered by Yun's irritable retort.

"Now that it's come to this, don't think you're getting any sleep either."

["Yes, yes."]

No one was surprised by the perfunctory answer. Apparently that was how he always responded to Richard Green's lectures.

So much for sleep. Everyone gathered around the rusty table in the control room.

It hurt a little that most of my seniors wouldn't sit beside me. They seemed less unnerved by my ability to attract creatures than betrayed by the fact that I'd kept my mouth shut all this time.

Ami and Sylvia were the only exceptions. Ami knew my circumstances. Sylvia... didn't seem remotely interested in them.

The more I saw of her, the more she seemed cut from the same cloth as my training officer.

At any rate, I was grateful to have someone on either side of me. I sat quietly between Ami and Sylvia, keeping my mouth shut.

My seniors were talking to my training officer over speakerphone. A map of the safe point floated in midair.

Still furious at me and everyone who'd concealed the truth, Tvein shouted, "You crazy bastard. You knew too, and you didn't say a fucking word to us?"

My training officer sounded indifferent.

["Nope."]

He had no intention of making excuses. Nothing more followed.

Tvein, who'd briefly fallen silent expecting more of an answer, grew even angrier.

"You fucking psycho! They should scrap every last one of you brain-damaged bastards!"

["Isn't Sylvia there?"]

Yun gave a soft scoff over the phone.

["Going for collateral damage?"]

"Enough of this nonsense."

"Hey. Feels good, doesn't it? Getting all that special treatment from your superior? Tell us the truth. You two are fucking, aren't you?"

"Jason Tvein!"

"Oh, for God's sake!"

Green and Ami exploded at the same time. Iho's face hardened, as did that of Bobby, the blond senior. Yet Yun himself wasn't angry. His voice came through the phone, dripping with mockery.

["Is this because you're scared, or because you're jealous Yehyeon doesn't play favorites with you?"]

My training officer had a natural gift for getting under people's skin.

BANG!

A dent appeared in the table. Tvein rose to his feet, trying to hit the phone too. In the end, we had to suspend the meeting for a while.

Richard Green ordered everyone out, saying he'd study the terrain and devise a plan himself. The seniors headed upstairs in a crowd.

Iho took charge of the agitated Tvein. "Come on, sir. You're not some amateur. What's gotten into you?" His distinctive, goatlike voice carried back to us.

The control room emptied. I stayed where I was until the seniors had left, then met Richard Green's eyes and bowed my head before leaving.

"You."

His voice was heavy as he stared at me with blazing eyes. I didn't look away.

"Yes, sir."

"I trust you're prepared for what's coming."

"Yes, sir."

In truth, I'd been prepared since accepting Yehyeon's offer to become a Badger. I'd never told anyone, but I'd made my own resolve before accepting his offer.

I had no intention of being shocked or giving in to despair now. Whether in my personal life or my duties, I wouldn't turn away from the problems I unintentionally caused.

Ami was waiting on the stairs. Sensing her presence, I bowed my head to Richard again.

"Whatever plan you devise, I'll follow it."

With that, I turned toward the stairs.

* * *

We were surrounded by creatures, but the safe point was surrounded by a miniature Breath too. We weren't in immediate danger. Ami pulled me upstairs to the second floor.

"You'll feel awkward around the other seniors if you stay downstairs."

She gently tugged my arm. Hearing her easygoing voice brought a sudden lump to my throat. I was grateful for the effortless kindness she'd shown me ever since we first met.

We climbed the stairs and headed to the room with the largest windows on the second floor. One entire wall was glass. The moment I pushed its old door open and stepped inside, something filled my view.

The head of the creature estimated to be level seven loomed right before me in the darkness. It looked straight at me with an eye that took up nearly half the wall of glass.

"Looks like some freaky human."

Ami pattered into the room, sounding perfectly casual.

"Hilde, have you heard of the Eight-Foot Ghost?"

"No?"

"It's this really tall, lanky ghost. It kind of looks like that."

You don't sound very scared, considering.

Still, I could see what she meant. Gray strands, indistinguishable as fur or hair, covered its elongated face like a curtain. Amid them, a huge eye with black sclera stood wide open. Bloodshot, it stared at me resentfully.

What the hell did I ever do to you things?

As I walked diagonally across the room, the creature's enormous eye rolled to follow me. Its body remained utterly motionless, but its eye tracked my every move.

Ami made a noise of disgust.

"That's creepy."

"It really is. It's grotesque."

"You've never fought a giant creature before, have you, Hilde?"

I nodded, still watching the bloodshot eye that filled half the window, and Ami came to stand beside me. Looking at the creature with me, she offered some advice.

"The easiest way is to get underneath it, hit its legs, then attack when it loses its balance."

"Ah, I think I understand. Thank you for the advice."

"Sure. Time it right and get inside its reach, and it'll have a hard time attacking you."

Just as Yehyeon had slipped into the opening the level-ten creature had left.

His swordsmanship had been textbook. That video I couldn't get out of my head came back to me again: the flawless draw, the fluid technique, the practiced footwork. Yun's remark that he'd been properly trained.

Who had taught him?

I rested a hand on the hilt of the sword at my side. My desperate shouting in the underground garage where I'd stabbed the Pig to death had paid off: Yun had given me a larger sword.

As expected, a long, thick blade felt much better in my hand than a short, thin one. Sometimes even this sword felt strangely unsatisfying, but...

I had no real complaints. Just a faint sense that something was missing. This sword did its job perfectly well too.

Now that they'd heard Yun's irritable insistence, they'd let me use a sword instead of a gun once the operation started, wouldn't they?

I really hoped so.

"But how do they know where you are, anyway?"

Ami murmured as she watched the eye outside the window, still fixed on me.

"That's really strange too, isn't it?"

"Exactly. That's what I'm most curious about."

"Anyway, let's kill them all."

My youthful-voiced senior made the suggestion quite readily.

"The scientists at headquarters have spent decades trying to tame creatures, but they just can't be tamed."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Especially the more human-shaped they are."

Her next words were almost to herself.

"It's like they're much more vicious than the others..."

["I'm telling you, look."]

A voice suddenly popped into my head.

Words spoken to me by the person with long, flowing black hair.

["Think back. To the things our world gave us. What only we can feel. You feel it, don't you? That vitality, ready to burst at any moment. The feeling that we're connected. That vivid sense of life flowing through your body."]

He burst into his characteristic, hearty laughter.

["They don't know a thing. Not that blue-haired researcher, not that narrow-eyed human, not those old fools."]

He'd always mocked the two-tone-haired researcher like that. I sank into the faint memory that had surfaced.

["Who could know? Who could even begin to imagine the bond between us?"]

In my memories, we were always in an obsessively white room. Whenever we were left alone together in that fastidiously clean space, he'd freely reveal the thoughts he'd kept hidden.

The words he used to say so often echoed in my head.

["They're blind. They don't know a thing."]

["Not a thing..."]

But what didn't they know?

In the end, I couldn't remember that far.

* * *

Bring down the bridge.

Noon. The sun was high overhead, giving us a clear view. It was time to begin the operation. A bridge stood a few kilometers away, so thick and sturdy that it was still intact.

Beneath it lay a sheer drop. Anything that fell would never make it back alive unless it was a flying creature.

I would drive there, luring the creatures after me. My seniors would follow behind the creatures as they chased me headlong, hunting them down one by one from the rear.

Most of the creatures would be too distracted by me to think of looking back. No matter how many there were, it shouldn't be too difficult. Ami and I just had to do our part properly.

Ami would come with me because she had the best mobility. Her job was to scoop me up and take flight on the far side of the severed bridge.

We would eliminate any creatures the others hadn't finished off by destroying the bridge. As soon as Ami and I crossed, we'd throw a bomb.

BOOM!

The creatures would plummet with the exploding bridge.

It was a simple but effective plan. There were no obvious problems.

I'd memorized the entire map.

"I'm ready."

Sitting in a vehicle as sleek as Yun's sports car, I checked the gears and reported in.

"I'll move as soon as you give the signal."

["Ami."]

"All ready here too."

Wearing jet-black gloves, Ami opened and closed her small hands.

"Give the order."

The radio cut off. A brief silence followed. I was gazing through the window with my mind empty when I felt eyes on me and turned my head.

Ami grinned.

"Let's do this!"

My eyes crinkled in return.

"Yes. I'll floor it."

"You're not nervous at all."

She gave a clear laugh.

"Isn't this your first time facing a creature that big? You're really something, Hilde."

Was I?

I blinked a couple of times. I really wasn't nervous, but I didn't think that was unusual. I doubted my fellow recruits, Heshy or Tom, would have been particularly nervous either.

Heshy might even have enjoyed it.

VROOM!

As I wondered how my fellow recruits were doing, I heard the sound that signaled the operation's beginning. It didn't come over the radio, but it was too loud to miss.

The sound of the Breath activating.

With my foot on the brake, I watched the gate. It stood wide open inward, a translucent membrane in front of it. The membrane trembled, making a sound as it opened.

An immense, unearthly sound.

VROOOM. VROOOM.

Like a balloon.

The membrane opened. I stepped on the accelerator.

SCREEEEEECH!

As we plowed through the creatures massed in front of the Breath, the operation began.