Black Badger

I lifted my head from the Creature compendium and smiled faintly.

Ami was sitting on the sofa, tapping at her tablet and humming. Yun, seated beside her, didn’t even spare his little sister a glance.

Ami didn’t care.

She fiddled with the tablet, then proudly showed me the screen.

“Here!”

An Antarctica map was displayed.

In the middle of it was a red arrow.

“Right now, the Ice Dragon is here!”

“Looks like it moved.”

“Yeah. But I think it’s going to stay in Antarctica for a while.”

Ami’s smile widened.

“That means we’ll get to see penguins!”

With an excited voice, the senior chattered away at me about penguins and Antarctica.

She said it had been her dream to go to Antarctica. She liked Adélie penguins, and she really wanted to see them in person. The Ice Dragon had abruptly moved its nest from Everest to Antarctica about two weeks ago, so she beamed, saying she was unbelievably happy.

“I can’t wait!”

“You haven’t told Jack, right?”

“Yeah. Hilde, you told me absoluteabsoluteabsolute don’t tell him.”

“Yes. Seriously.”

“How many Mongmong did you say we’ve caught so far?”

Yun cut into the conversation.

Forty-five.

But it would soon be sixty-five. Rose had contacted us a few hours ago to say she’d captured twenty more.

The Double Mong Plan was moving along smoothly.

“Even at the latest, I think we’ll be able to capture a hundred within this week.”

“Good.”

Yun answered dryly without lifting his eyes from his phone.

His face didn’t even have what you’d call an expression.

“I’m very happy, for once.”

“Totally looks like it!”

Ami nodded and affirmed Yun’s words.

How?

He’s completely expressionless....

Maybe Ami can see something I can’t.

Thinking that there was no way I could match siblings’ instincts, I watched as Ami took her eyes off her biological older brother, sitting there like a statue.

She looked at me and grinned.

“I’ll get everything ready so we can leave the moment the Double Mong Plan ends.”

“Thank you. I’m planning to tell Jack at the very, very last moment.”

“Yeah. Do it however you want, Hilde! I don’t think Jack would suddenly run off, though.”

I couldn’t confidently agree with Ami’s opinion.

If I thought back to the incidents he’d caused in the Empire....

Anyway, hearing that everything was progressing smoothly put me in a good mood. The Double Mong operation, and the plan to go see the Ice Dragon.

I’d also figured out what the flower was used for.

I still hadn’t grasped Kyle’s true intentions, but....

“Rare earths.”

It had been three hours now since I’d holed up in Yun and Ami’s living room.

As I dug through materials on Mongmong and old records about Colton, my mentor came over.

“At the latest, it’ll be wrapped up within a week.”

“Did you hear from Yehyeon?”

“Yeah. Heard from Choi Hyunjun too. Looks like raw material prices are finally settling down.”

I hadn’t gotten involved at all in the raw-materials war.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know how that market worked. That was exactly why I stayed out. It was a place swarming with hyenas who’d gone mad with obsession over achievement, and no matter what an individual did, it wasn’t a place where anything could be changed.

Simply put, it wasn’t my territory.

Good. I’m glad it got resolved.

Now all that’s left is to reach a conclusion with the Double Mong operation.

“I haven’t heard how Kyle has been moving lately.”

“Even if you did hear, it wouldn’t change anything right now.”

Yun shot it down with the correct answer.

“Jaeyeon still not showing up?”

He wasn’t.

From the moment I was asked onward, all the way until the moment Kairos and Rose captured the ninetieth Mongmong, the leadership and I still hadn’t been able to find Jaeyeon.

The fact that Jaeyeon was absent wasn’t particularly strange. He hardly ever showed himself. If you saw him, you were unlucky.

But at a time like this, it would’ve been convenient if he had appeared.

It wasn’t like Jaeyeon could create a duplicate of himself.

If, while escorting the Emperor, we had also witnessed Jaeyeon, we could’ve scrapped the Double Mong operation altogether. It would’ve meant the Emperor was the real thing.

But that didn’t happen, and on the day I succeeded in capturing a hundred Mongmong, I received an invitation message from Erhart.

I accepted his invitation.

“I’m pleased to see you again.”

It was a place I’d been to once before.

The residence I’d visited with Yun. A building lined with headless statues, with paintings stored underground.

A man who had been standing in front of the main gate descended the steps with elegance.

“Your body can’t be in good condition. It’s an honor that you came anyway.”

“I want to be back in before dinner.”

I handed my car key to the valet.

“It’ll be finished before then, right? It’s not a place I want to stay long, anyway.”

The Elder laughed at length and murmured, How unfortunate.

Everyone knew it was the sort of remark that wasn’t worth caring about. Shashinsky and Levi stood side by side as usual, ten steps behind Erhart.

I walked up to Erhart without expression, then entered the mansion with him.

The suit I wore for the first time in a while hung a little loose.

The Elder’s gaze settled on my white hair, tied low.

“A suit suits you very well.”

“Thank you.”

The vast mansion was empty.

The chill that came with a space devoid of people.

When I’d visited last time, it had been crowded enough to feel almost stifling.

“This isn’t some trivial errand, is it.”

I let my eyes rest on a winged angel statue that had only a torso.

“Let’s go straight to the point.”

When I finished speaking and turned my head, Erhart was smiling.

It wasn’t his usual smile. Not the smile of someone who feels happy while looking at the unhappy, but a smile spread thin with sharpness.

I knew well that this man hadn’t climbed to his position on strange lust alone.

Someone with no talent for maintaining power couldn’t sit in the world’s third-ranked seat.

Erhart spoke.

“Once, you were nothing but the protagonist of rumors. I entered the arena of power late, and I had never faced Michael in person.”

“Please don’t use that nickname. Prometheus would be better than that.”

When I grumbled, Erhart’s smile grew wider.

Even today, the man was dressed in a bright suit that made his face look radiant.

With a smile that had lost some of its edge, he continued.

“But the rumored protagonist I met in person was more charming than I expected.”

“Yes, yes.”

“It seems you’ve made up your mind to go back to that time.”

At last, Erhart brought out the point.

Then the man crossed the hall. The sound of his shoes striking the floor rang clear.

Without changing my expression, I matched his stride as he headed toward the underground gallery.

“Why do you think that?”

“I heard your conversation °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° with Yekaterina’s first hands-and-feet.”

So he hadn’t left right away back then, after all.

“You seemed unusually impatient, for you.”

“My body was unwell. It left me uneasy.”

“You’re sometimes chillingly indifferent and cold to those outside your line. It seems that man was standing on that boundary—and you went to the trouble of trying to pull him inside.”

Erhart let out a laugh full of enjoyment.

His tone was lower than usual.

He didn’t care about my silence.

“After you pulled him inside, you started giving this and that instructions. It’s not like anyone was pressuring you to cut off the neck of someone who refuses to repent. It was obvious you wanted the opponent to change quickly. That must be because you’d already finished steeling yourself to strike at Yekaterina.”

“I’ve listened well to the background explanation for your enlightenment. Let’s move on to the point of the point.”

“The point is this: even if I have no interest in the seat at the summit, I do have interest in the present world.”

For the first time since entering the mansion, I smiled a little.

Letting out a low chuckle, I stopped in front of the elevator. It was the elevator that descended to the gallery. Back then, I’d ridden it with Yun.

At the time, the Elders had been nothing more than irritating power-holders.

With my returned memories, many things had changed.

I thought about Erhart’s elegant phrasing—offering to join hands, saying he would help me strike down Colton and Yekaterina.

I’d known he would say something like this.

I’d had a similar conversation long ago with Colton.

“Are you enjoying life?”

“Very.”

When I asked as we rode down the elevator, Erhart answered at once.

“Because I know magnificent works are still being made, even now.”

The elevator doors opened.

A dark gallery appeared. The cold air wrapped around my body as I stepped inside.

“Fine.”

I followed Erhart, who said he had something to show me.

“We’ll be seeing each other often, then.”

His smile.

The smile he wore as he turned back to look at me the moment the words ended. A smile that held countless things within it—innocent cruelty, twisted pleasure, and other elements I didn’t particularly want to know.

It wasn’t a smile that resembled Colton’s or the Ice Empress’s.

I liked that fact.

I stepped deeper into the gallery.

Passing works by Francis Bacon, passing photographs of myself.

Passing something like a bird that had come from another world.

Walking on like that, I reached a painting hanging alone.

I stood in front of it with one hand shoved into my pocket.

“A hobby like appreciating art gives you more than you’d think. A person’s taste in art says a great deal about who they are.”

Erhart said this at my side.

I didn’t answer, but I felt like I could roughly guess what he meant.

I kept looking at the painting.

Erhart broke the silence.

“The Commander-in-Chief sometimes buys seascape oil paintings, and Yekaterina likes photographs of Earth taken from space.”

“Hm.”

“The fourth Elder favors works related to revolution.”

“I see.”

“And this painting was bought at auction by Colton Wiseman when he was young.”

It was a painting he’d bought before meeting me.

Before he’d even set foot on the ladder of power.

“It’s the only reproduction in this gallery. The original is at Colton’s estate.”

The painting wasn’t large.

Inside the frame was a figure whose gender was impossible to tell. Someone with upturned eyes and a pretty nose. It was hard to guess what country they were from.

It wasn’t a famous work.

It probably hadn’t been that expensive, either.

He wouldn’t have bought it to evade taxes, and it wouldn’t have been an investment.

Even less likely that it was meant as a gift for someone.

He’d simply bought it because he liked it.

The figure depicted against an ashen background.

Because he liked this ordinary portrait—something others would glance at once and forget.

Ah.

I couldn’t hold it in and let the words slip out.

“Poor Jaeyeon.”

Even that face wasn’t yours.

The upturned eyes and the pretty nose weren’t his. It wasn’t Jaeyeon, and it wasn’t Jaeyeon’s taste. It was Colton’s.

Someone whose very name wasn’t fully his own couldn’t even make his unchanging appearance truly his.

What a lonely existence.

“Don’t pity him.”

Erhart muttered.

“You know very well what the Commander-in-Chief went through for pitying him.”

Who knows.

My attitude would probably depend on the outcome of the Double Mong operation.

Etching the figure in the frame into my mind, I thought that to myself.

***

Operation D-Day arrived.

At last!

In just a few hours, freedom!

I woke up feeling refreshed at the thought that the escort duty would finally be over, one way or another.

Already tasting anticipation and happiness, I stretched—

—and was greeted by a phone on fire.

[Bobby Winter: Don’t come to headquarters!!!]

What?

What on earth was happening at headquarters....

I found out why Bobby, of all people, had sent such a serious, urgent message after reading through the pile of notifications.

It was simple.

Rumors had spread like wildfire, and someone had lodged an official protest with the leadership.

So today, Yehyeon—who had just wrapped up the rare-earths issue yesterday—was apparently going to face the protesting Badgers in person.

At the very venue where the year-end dinner was being held, the leadership and the Personnel Director were scheduled to receive direct questioning.

About me.

And dozens of Badgers were said to be attending. So I was told not to come. Messages poured in telling me to stay quietly at home if I didn’t want to get beaten up by agitated seniors.

But I needed to use the headquarters portal zone.

The Double Mong operation was scheduled to take place at headquarters....

I stared at my phone.

Messages from seniors and peers telling me not to even think about leaving the cabin, and slanderous messages flooding in from unknown numbers, filled the screen as I hesitated.

Postpone the operation and avoid senior backlash or lynching (add a few more days of escort duty) vs. face senior backlash or lynching but finish the escort duty.

The answer was painfully obvious.

And yet, I just couldn’t choose the former....

So I made up my mind and created a group chat.

I invited every senior who knew about the Emperor’s existence, then made my declaration.

[Me: I’m really sorry for not listening, but I’m going to headquarters today.]

[Me: I’m planning to confirm whether he’s the Emperor or not. I finished all preparations yesterday.]

[Me: I’ll be sneaking in using the leadership elevator anyway, so please don’t worry too much.]

[Me: I really want to stop doing escort duty now....]

Naturally, the group chat exploded.

Replies from the seniors came flooding in.

[Ami: Gasp.]

[Ami: Oh, Hilde made this group chat! (surprised sparrow emoticon)]

[Ami: But wow, Hilde, you must’ve been really struggling. You didn’t show it, so I didn’t know.]

[Ami: I should’ve treated you better....]

[Ric: What is this?]

When Ricardo’s name popped up in the top notification bar, my body flinched.

[Ric: Did you make this?]

[Ric: You’ve grown up. Dragging seniors into a group chat by force and making announcements on your own.]

[Ric: And what’s with that announcement?]

[Ric: Did you drink plum wine in the morning?]

[Ami: Ric. Don’t get so mad. Hilde must’ve really had a hard time with escort duty....]

[Sophia Kalak: You want to get hit?]

[Carl Dow: Well, if you’re confident you won’t get caught, I guess it doesn’t really matter.]

[Carl Dow: Though I doubt it’ll be that easy.]

[Carl Dow: Can’t you endure just one more day?]

[William Walker: You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that.]

[William Walker: I can save you from a lynching, but it won’t be a pleasant memory.] 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

[William Walker: You need to be aware that you have an extremely eye-catching appearance.]

[Yun: What is this.]

[Yun: Inviting people to a group chat on your own?]

I steadfastly typed my reply into the group chat.

[Me: Anyone here, except Yun and Ami, who’s confident they can do nearly two weeks of 24-hour escort duty for the Commander-in-Chief, step forward.]

For about three minutes, no one replied.

I felt smug.

See?

[Me: I’m going. Headquarters.]

[Ami: I’ll protect you!]

[Ric: Fine. Do whatever you want now.]

[Sophia Kalak: When are you coming?]

[Carl Dow: Don’t drive your car.]

[William Walker: And don’t even think about parking in the underground lot.]

[Yun: Come here and grab the Mongmong.]

The account with my Mario picture that irritated me spoke up.

[Yun: One died, so there are thirty-eight.]

And so, the Double Mong operation began.