Black Badger

Everything moved at a dizzying pace.

The undertaker must have tended to Sion’s body. I know what a corpse looks like when no artificial hand has touched it.

The dead truly look dead.

But Sion just looked as if he were peacefully asleep.

I stood there for a long while, looking down at him.

Then I was pulled away by my seniors and taken to the hospital.

I was examined without rest, had an IV inserted, laid on a bed, and wheeled into a private room.

While being escorted, I said to the seniors guarding me,

“I have an urgent report for the Commander.”

“I’ll contact him.”

Ami answered immediately.

“Just rest.”

Once again, I arrived at that same private room—the same one I’d been hospitalized in before.

It felt like another home now.

While staring at the ceiling, I organized what I had to report once my superior arrived.

After some time, the leadership entered.

Ricardo and Carl stood and greeted him.

Yehyeon gave a light nod in return.

“Good work. Could you two step out for a bit?”

Neither man was the type to argue.

Soon, only the leadership and I remained in the room. The Commander and his aides had already changed into immaculate suits. Ominously, all three were dressed in pitch-black.

Even their ties were black—it was definitely strange.

But this was not the time to ask questions.

I swallowed them down, and as soon as Yehyeon approached my bed, I said,

“During the standoff, Sequoia said something strange.”

The three executives looked down at me in silence.

I reported the situation in detail.

The report wasn’t long. As soon as I finished, Yehyeon—who had stood there with a grim face—moved. He must have judged that acting immediately was more useful than asking further questions.

He nodded and strode quickly out of the room.

His two aides followed.

“Gilbert. Contact the Science Division.”

The brown-haired aide nodded.

The door opened, and the hallway noise spilled in.

The neat sound of shoes faded away.

Only then did the exhaustion catch up to me.

I’d delivered the most urgent information—now I could rest.

I watched the men’s backs as they disappeared, then drifted into sleep.

***

When I woke up, Shu was there.

Shu?

Shu Diamond?

“What brings you here...?”

“I’ve got something to tell you.”

With her usual unreadable expression, Shu looked down at me.

“But I think it’s better to tell you later.”

“Huh?”

A dream?

I blinked, still hazy, unable to shake off the drowsiness.

Why does everything feel so unreal?

But it didn’t seem like a dream. The dull pain left by anesthesia lingered in my abdomen, and the faint scent of disinfectant tickled my nose.

I forced my eyes open.

“What is it? Is it about the From series?”

“No, but watching that series made me think of something.”

“What is it?”

Blond hair tinted pink at the ends.

Bright blue eyes that matched the two-tone hair perfectly. Though even younger-looking than Ami, she was the youngest of the formal Badgers yet always carried a calm far beyond her age.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile.

That useless thought passed as I waited for her to continue.

But Shu said nothing more.

“Rest.”

“Huh? I can really hear it now, it’s fine.”

“No.”

She replied evenly, stepping down from the chair.

She pulled out her phone, tapped a few times, and her hoverboard floated up to her eye level.

Shu caught it and tucked it under her arm.

“It’s a long story, so I’ll tell you next time. Contact me when you’re discharged.”

“Alright, then... Ah, do you have no questions about the From series?”

“I’ll ask them after you’re discharged. After I tell you what I need to first.”

She spoke in riddles.

Then came a shocking remark.

“I think I might know how you ended up popping out in front of us.”

“Huh?”

My voice jumped.

“In front of you? You mean when I first appeared?”

“Yeah. I think I know a bit about how that happened.”

“How did it happen?”

I shot up from the bed.

A stabbing pain shot across my abdomen, but I ignored it. Honestly, I wanted to leap out of bed. I could remember fragments from before the war, but everything after it was a complete blank.

A stretch of white emptiness.

We hadn’t put much effort into investigating it—neither Yun, nor the leadership, nor I.

I must have looked desperate. Yet Shu showed no reaction.

Instead, she answered with an even calmer voice.

“Contact me after you’re discharged.”

“...At least a hint.”

“Look into the Portal accident.”

She said briefly, then disappeared out of the room.

“There are more interesting anecdotes than you’d think.”

Those were her last words before she vanished from sight.

***

I needed to look into the Portal accident.

That was the only thought filling my head the next day as soon as treatment ended.

But I couldn’t carry it out.

I was told I wasn’t ready for discharge yet, but could take walks with my IV—then the leadership summoned me. Not to their office, but to some place I’d never been.

They said Yun would escort me.

Indeed, as soon as the message arrived, Yun entered the room.

“Let’s go.”

True to form, my mentor gave no additional explanation.

“We’ll have to drive.”

Where are we even going?

Curious, but I didn’t ask. I’d already learned that following Yun always brought the answer sooner or later.

Could I even take the IV along?

That question was quickly resolved when I got into the ambulance. Yun had driven it himself.

“My condition isn’t that bad though.”

“Yehyeon was worried sick about you.”

My mentor replied gruffly and started the engine.

“We could’ve gone yesterday, but until Samuel gave his OK, he refused to call you.”

So they had planned to summon me yesterday.

What kind of talk needed a car ride to some distant place?

Sitting on the ambulance bed, I retraced the territorial recapture battle. So much had happened, but after spending days confined in a hospital room, the victory felt like a fleeting dream.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t watched the news since being admitted.

I hadn’t even properly turned on my phone.

“Yun.”

Before checking the messages in my hand, I asked quietly.

He didn’t turn around.

“What.”

“Were there casualties among the Badgers?”

“Thirteen.”

Ah.

“That’s fewer than during the previous recapture.”

His tone wasn’t exactly comforting—it was more like stating a fact.

Still, the reality made it hard to breathe.

After a short pause, I asked,

“Do I know any of them?”

“No one you know.”

His low reply brought deep relief.

Cowardly as it was, I couldn’t help it. The moment my mind eased, I sank into thought. I didn’t bother examining my mixed feelings.

Instead, I went over my situation objectively and organized what I needed to do.

Sion’s funeral

Investigate what Sequoia meant by “It succeeded”

Find the From K Easter egg

Obtain and play the other From series titles

Research the Portal accident

Ask about the ‘one-third’ of my kin

Colton...

As soon as I finished mentally listing those notes, the ambulance stopped.

Yun threw open the driver’s door.

“This is the Video Center.”

I got out, dragging the IV stand with me.

“It’s not in the research building? I thought it’d be somewhere inside there.”

“The security level’s different.”

He replied curtly and headed toward the building.

“You won’t have access to this place normally, so don’t try sneaking in on your own.”

It was an utterly plain building.

Gray walls that looked unpainted. Square windows arranged in equal, monotonous rows. I hadn’t noticed during the ride, lost in thought, but this place seemed to be ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ somewhere in the hills.

The surroundings were filled with greenery.

Barbed wire separated the forest from the Video Center’s grounds. Smooth pavement cut through the lot.

We walked the empty road and stepped inside.

Yehyeon and Gilbert were waiting on the third floor.

“Hilde.”

A spacious room. Numerous monitors. A huge walnut desk large enough for ten people to sit at. Behind it sat Yehyeon, lifting his head from one of the wall-spanning screens.

“Sorry for calling you before you’re discharged.”

I said it was fine and took the seat he indicated.

Yun closed the door behind us and sat next to me. The heavy door sealed shut, muting the world outside.

Silence wrapped around us.

The conversation began.

No preamble.

“We still haven’t figured out what the Titan did.”

Leaning back in his chair, Yehyeon gestured toward one of the screens.

“We combed through every bit of battle footage after the barrier collapse, but found nothing decisive.”

Ah. So that’s why he’d called me here—to show me the footage.

It could probably be played in the headquarters office too, but he must have wanted to show multiple feeds at once.

The video quality was poor—dust and explosions obscured everything.

I squinted at the screen Yehyeon pointed to as he continued.

“One of the hardest parts of this war is that we have no information on the enemy.”

True.

That was one of Kyle’s sources of confidence.

Hearing Yehyeon’s words stirred a fragment of memory. He was right—‘We know humans, but humans don’t know us.’ That was the foundation of Kyle’s confidence. In truth, humanity knew little of the Creatures—beyond “absorption” and “transfer,” there was almost nothing.

I had agreed with Kyle back then.

I’d even helped him silence our kin.

The problem was, even now, I had no idea what they had done.

“You probably reported it with a puzzled face because you had no clue either.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“No. Thank you for reporting quickly.”

Yehyeon’s answer was gentle. He then asked me to give a more detailed account.

He wanted me to describe everything I could remember from the second battle. A hard task, he admitted, with a trace of weary sympathy. Seeing the concern and guilt shadowing his pale face, I smiled faintly.

He didn’t have to feel that sorry.

Still smiling faintly, I obeyed.

After finishing, I let my body relax.

Silence settled.

“Hilde.”

At last, Yehyeon’s voice broke it.

The man was slowly emerging from thought.

I saw him unclasp his fingers. His freed hands rested on his lap.

Then those large eyes fixed directly on me.

“I think your kin—the ones you saved—are still inside the Core.”

The owner of those eyes dropped a bomb.