Chapter 9 - What Cannot Be Seen

RIIING!

“Hm?”

The sudden ring broke Limon’s train of thought. He fished his phone out of the sofa, saw [Yu Na-gyeong] on the screen, and frowned in puzzlement.

'What's got her calling me?'

After a moment, he tapped the answer button.

["Hello, Team Leader?"]

Her cheerful greeting came the instant the call connected. Limon answered the voice of the teammate he heard more than anyone else throughout the year without much enthusiasm.

“Yeah. What?”

["There's something I need to tell you. You're home, right?"]

“Yeah. So?”

["Oh, good. I'll come over now."]

“... What?”

Limon blinked. It wasn't that he failed to understand her out-of-the-blue remark. Quite the opposite: he knew exactly what she meant, and that was what startled him.

“Hey, wait!”

CLICK!

His protest came too late. By the time she hung up on him, the air in front of him was already warping. The distortion vanished, and a woman appeared before him as if she'd dropped from the sky.

“Hiyah! Special Agent Yu Na-gyeong, report—”

Her foot slipped.

“—ing?”

There was just one problem: she'd appeared right on top of the pile of comics Limon had read and tossed aside. Striking a dramatic entrance pose atop a spire of books was a feat of extraordinary difficulty, and the price of attempting it was steep.

CRASH!

“Huh? Aah!”

“Tsk.”

Limon clicked his tongue as Na-gyeong lost her footing and toppled backward from the collapsing tower of books. He caught her flailing wrist and pulled. Thanks to his quick reaction, she dove into his arms instead of cracking the back of her head against the corner of the table. She sighed in relief.

“Whew. I almost died.”

“Died, my ass. You think a high-level player in the seventies would croak from a knock to the back of the head?”

“Even players can die, you know!”

“Not from stumbling and hitting the back of your head.”

Limon snorted. A player above level seventy had a body as tough as steel. It varied with their Endurance stat, but a fall like that wouldn't so much as break their nose. They could smash a rock with the back of their head.

Na-gyeong puffed out her cheeks at his cold assessment. “Is that what you say to a subordinate who nearly died just now?”

“Who told you to teleport in without warning?”

“I didn't know your place was such a mess, Team Leader!”

Limon gave the indignant Na-gyeong a look of disbelief. She wasn't some novice player. Yet this klutz, who'd botched a teleport badly enough to lose her footing, was one of the country's leading spatial-type players.

Limon remembered an age when even the most accomplished witches had gone to all kinds of trouble just to manage a single teleport. All he could do was shake his head.

'These damn players...'

Sighing at how much times had changed, Limon suddenly remembered something he'd forgotten.

“Hey, when are you getting off me?”

“Huh?”

She tilted her head as if he'd said something absurd. Then she blinked. Only after noticing how close Limon's face was, and the arm around her waist, did she flush bright red and scramble back.

“Ahaha, sorry. I wasn't thinking.”

“You never are.”

“Tch...”

Na-gyeong shot him a sharp glare at his continued lack of consideration, but Limon didn't bat an eye. He merely perched on the sofa again and asked, “So what is it?”

“What's what?”

“Didn't you come here because you had something to tell me?”

“Oh, right. I did.”

“...”

His golden eyes turned cold at once.

“Hey! Why are you looking at me like that? A person can forget things after a brush with death!”

“Something to be proud of, huh?”

“Don't be like that when I've brought you good news for once.”

Apparently deciding that shamelessness was her best defense, Na-gyeong delivered the line with brazen confidence. Limon looked puzzled.

“Did you find out the winning lottery numbers or something?”

“Come on, it's better news than that. Besides, the lottery? That went bust ages ago thanks to precognition-type players.”

“Then what is it?”

“Well, it's kind of like winning the lottery.”

“... Did you come all the way to my place because you wanted me to hit you?”

“Ah, wait! Just wait! I'll tell you, all right?”

As Limon curled his fingers into a fist and pressed her for an answer, Na-gyeong waved her hands in alarm. She glanced around as though afraid someone might overhear, then whispered, “The truth is, I've found the Liberation Brigade's base.”

* * *

The Liberation Brigade.

Despite the word brigade in its name, it was certainly no army. If anything, it was closer to the opposite: an organization that sought to liberate oppressed and exploited players from the government and create a world where everyone could live freely.

That was the Liberation Brigade. As with any organization, its ideals sounded reasonable enough. But the assessment of those who'd actually encountered it could generally be summed up in one word.

“You found those psychos' base?”

“Yes.”

Na-gyeong answered without hesitation. Calling the Liberation Brigade psychos was practically common sense. Players were among the highest earners in modern society to begin with; the very notion of liberating them was nonsense.

The real problem was the Brigade's goal. They called it “a world where everyone is free,” but look closely at their demands, and they amounted to letting players commit any crime without punishment. So ordinary people and even other players considered them psychos. The exceptions were those who agreed with their ideals—in other words, criminals desperate to murder, rape, and commit arson, or people who were genuinely insane.

“How did you find something even the National Intelligence Service couldn't?”

Limon's surprise was only natural. With so many former criminals in its ranks, the Brigade was adept at evading pursuit and surveillance. Its base, in particular, was so well hidden that no one had ever managed to pick up its trail.

“Heh heh! I have my ways.”

“I'm asking what those ways are.”

“I can't tell you that. But I guarantee the information is solid.”

“Hm...”

Limon studied her triumphant expression with suspicion for a moment, then nodded. Na-gyeong might be a klutz, but she was still an agent of the Player Administration Bureau. If she was confident enough to guarantee it, there had to be some truth to it.

“But why tell me?”

“Why else? This is your chance to get promoted, Team Leader.”

“Promoted?”

Limon blinked as though she'd spoken an alien language. Na-gyeong launched into an impassioned pitch to her superior, who'd spent the last few decades getting demoted and had never seen a promotion.

“Think how much credit you'd get for wiping out the Liberation Brigade's base! They'd lift your suspension immediately, and a promotion would be in the bag.”

She had a point. The Brigade committed all manner of atrocities while remaining hidden, making it a nationwide menace. Taking down its base would be no small achievement, especially within the PAB, which considered the Brigade a thorn in its side because it had so many dangerous high-level players.

But Limon didn't fall for her sweet talk. He merely asked, “So what's your real reason?”

“There's a bounty on them.”

“You want to make some money while you're at it?”

“I need to save up for my wedding somehow.”

“Aren't you being a little too honest?”

“You wouldn't believe me if I fed you pretty words, would you?”

“Well, no.”

Limon chuckled at her unabashed answer. Then he folded his arms and considered the proposal.

'It's not a bad offer.'

He had no interest in promotions. Long experience had taught him there was nothing to gain from them in the end. The bounty, though, was tempting. It was large enough that he could make a tidy sum.

Of course, to keep the whole bounty between them, he and Na-gyeong would have to take down the Brigade without any backup...

'No matter how many of those vermin there are, it'll be a piece of cake.'

Limon gave a faint snort. High-level players or not, they were still a band of criminals. No number of ragtag fighters who knew nothing of real war would be a match for him.

That left only the fact that he and Na-gyeong were suspended, and it hardly mattered. As she'd said, taking down the Brigade would make their suspensions disappear.

'Hm. The more I think about it, the less reason I have to turn it down.'

But once he'd thought it through, Limon's expression abruptly hardened.

For an instant, darkness seemed to seep across his vision. Then another image began to overlay Na-gyeong's face as she watched him expectantly.

“... What the fuck?”

“Huh? Why are you suddenly swearing?”

“Not at you. Just hold still.”

Limon raised a hand to stop Na-gyeong from making any sudden moves. It wasn't merely that this bizarre turn had caught him off guard. He'd experienced this sudden change in how someone looked once before, not long ago.

*'It's like when that bastard Seo Yong-chan looked like he had a bull's head...'

Fortunately, unlike Seo, Na-gyeong's entire head hadn't turned into a bull's. Her face had simply gone corpse-pale, and her hair suddenly appeared much longer.

The problem was her slender neck—or, to be precise, the snake that appeared to have sunk its fangs into it.

'Given what happened with Seo Yong-chan, I doubt it's a hallucination... but it can't be physically there, either. Na-gyeong wouldn't be this calm if it were.'

It was just like with Seo Yong-chan. A flash of darkness had crossed Limon's vision, and someone's appearance had changed. And he was the only one who could see it.

But this time, given who it was and what was happening, he thought about it seriously.

'Have I actually gone crazy and started seeing things?'

If he saw something strange once, he could simply conclude that something was wrong with the other person. But twice? Even Limon couldn't help having some doubts about his own state of mind. That was why he hadn't drawn his sword and cut down the snake on the spot. Hallucination or not, it didn't seem likely to kill Na-gyeong right away.

*'If it isn't a hallucination...'

Like any sensible person, Limon first tried to rule out the possibility that he'd gone mad. Then he sought the explanation that seemed most reasonable to him.

'... Have I suddenly gained the ability to see things other people can't?'