Black Badger

“Yes.”

San wiped her eyes roughly with the back of her hand before answering.

“There’s still no new news?”

Tom looked down at her with sorrowful eyes.

He stared at the child quietly, then held out a chocolate bar. Every time field agents of the Black Badgers encountered San with flowers in her hands, they would give her something.

At first, she had refused, saying she was fine.

At some point, she began accepting what they offered.

They were standing in front of the space set aside in a corner of the lobby for flowers.

A wall covered in Post-its.

Aside from the stacked bouquets and sticky notes, there was nothing else. Some of the flowers were chrysanthemums, others were extravagant roses. Those who brought roses stubbornly insisted that Hildebert was not dead.

San was one of that type.

Today as well, she had brought a bouquet of yellow tulips.

“Aren’t you overdoing it?”

Tom looked down at her with concern.

“You’re already busy with school. Are you still going to climbing practice?”

“Yes.”

San murmured while looking at the newly attached Post-its.

“I’m going regularly. I’m keeping up with school too. I couldn’t go during the week the news broke, but....”

“That’s understandable. It’s okay. We were the same.”

“The climbing instructor said I could take a break if I wanted. But I’m still going.”

“You’ll get really good at this rate.”

She did not answer the gentle remark.

Tom suppressed his grief as he looked at the profile of the child still sunk in shock.

And he thought that since that day, it wasn’t just her who had failed to come out of it. He too kept thinking about Hildebert. About the moment of arrest Hesh had seen but he had not. About the blood and body parts said to have been left in some unfamiliar agency building.

It was a constant cycle of anger, sorrow, and hope.

How had he not known that his colleague had been framed with something so absurd?

After hearing that he had been taken away, he had foolishly thought Hildebert was innocent and would come out safely.

Why had he thought that?

“I’m not being a nuisance, am I?”

Tom was pulled out of his thoughts by the student’s cautious question.

His eyes widened, and he quickly answered her.

“Not at all. Did someone say something like that to you?”

“No. Everyone’s been kind.”

San answered.

“The senior with the two-tone hair gives me marshmallows whenever she sees me. The famous blond war hero and others called me a taxi because it was late. Yesterday, a Badger with green eyes stayed with me for a while. He said Hilde was a troublemaker and gave me chocolate before leaving.”

“That’s a relief. But don’t come too late in the future. It’s dangerous at night.”

“Yes.”

San answered obediently.

Then she fell silent.

She stared at the piled flowers for a long time before speaking again.

“How is everyone else doing?”

“The Badgers?”

She nodded.

Tom steadied his trembling voice.

He had no intention of comforting her with lies.

“Everyone’s on edge. It’s extremely rare for a Black Badger to suffer like this at the hands of humans rather than Creatures.... The atmosphere is vicious. Even on patrol, they’re avoiding conversations with civilians. It’s not the civilians’ fault at all, but....”

“I think it would be like that.”

San pressed her lips together, then looked up at Tom.

“I heard there won’t be a funeral.”

“Yeah.”

“What about a will?”

“He hasn’t been legally declared dead yet....”

“Are they trying to find the body?”

San asked.

Tom looked down into the desperate eyes of the child.

“Everyone is trying.”

“I heard that since they processed Don Child as deceased, they can’t avoid processing Hildebert, who seems even more clearly dead. Is that true?”

“It’s a matter for the higher-ups. I don’t really know.”

“I hope they don’t process Hilde as dead.”

Tom did not say that he felt the same.

He did not mention that the people in the Science Wing were still thinking of Hildebert and crying. Nor that ordinary staff were writing greeting emails to his work account, knowing they would never reach him.

Instead, he held her grief-filled gaze.

“He’ll come back alive.”

He said it.

“Right?”

San rubbed her eyes again and began crying.

“He’ll come back, right? Hilde’s alive, right?”

***

What exactly is a sweet smell?

I was thinking that as I shopped at Ellie’s store.

Perfume?

Or food?

The reason I was staring at mangoes and pondering this was because there was a sentence in Don Child’s hard drive that caught my attention.

It concerned the internal spy Kyle had planted.

So Don Child had known most things. He hadn’t rushed at me blindly without information. He knew Colton, Eric, and Yekaterina. He even knew the fourth Elder. He knew about the human-side traitors who smuggled out Green Dream and about Luca, who had received the first enhanced body.

It was almost easier to ask what he hadn’t known.

He even knew about Eve, though he seemed far less curious about who had reduced her to a brain in a tank.

What interested him instead were those contacting our kin outside the Core.

The reason was simple—he thought that if he aligned with them, he might find a way to cure his son.

In other words, while attaching himself to Colton’s side, he had simultaneously attempted to cross over to Kyle’s faction.

And in the process, he had made non-face-to-face contact with the spy I so desperately wanted to find.

Not through cyberspace. He had gone to a location to retrieve a message the spy had left.

The person was already gone.

But the place reportedly smelled faintly sweet....

“What are you staring at like that?”

Elizabeth came over and grumbled.

“Are you buying the mango or not?”

I held up two fingers. Elizabeth snorted.

“With that build, you’re only going to eat two?”

She forcibly placed six mangoes into my basket.

I purchased six mangoes, milk, eggs, butter, croissants, and salmon. Then from the neighboring shop I bought golden-brown fried pork and fried Spam before returning.

The laundry and cleaning were already done.

As I carried bedding upstairs, the flat owner Tim clicked his tongue.

“How did a fool like you end up getting taken in by someone like Lin....”

For two weeks, he had smoked in that same spot nearly every day. Sitting on a chair on the stairway between the second and third floors, he looked out over Harlem as though it were his daily routine in old age.

He exposed himself openly like that—an easy target for a sniper.

Tim did not worry about gunfire.

He was the old fixture of this place.

“I’m telling you because you seem naive.”

Three days ago, perhaps?

He had stopped me while I carried an armful of bathroom cleaning supplies.

“Lin isn’t just some frivolous idiot like you think. How do you think he managed to move into this apartment?”

This building was a hidden penthouse in the middle of Harlem.

Lin lived on the third floor. A major drug distributor lived on the fourth. The owner of this street lived on the second.

Lin, living among such people, was not the harmless, flighty fool I might imagine.

I know.

But I couldn’t say that out loud, so I thanked him vaguely with gestures.

In any case, I have no intention of touching Lin today.

That neglect won’t last forever, but still.

I returned home and prepared dinner.

After putting away the groceries, I ate the fried pork and Spam, then peeled and ate mango for dessert.

I was debating whether to peel a fourth mango when someone entered.

Lee Seunghyun.

He closed the front door and calmly surveyed the interior.

“Hello.”

I didn’t bother getting up.

“Thanks for stopping Colton’s forces from pushing into CIS headquarters back then.”

Seunghyun’s gaze turned toward me.

He had been the sole victor of that fierce clash. Jaeyeon, Shashinsky, and Levi had all suffered severe injuries. Lee Seunghyun alone had come away with only minor wounds. Because of that, Colton’s side had failed to enter and finish me off while I was captured. I only had to deal with ordinary humans craving enhanced bodies instead of a mass of enhanced-body owners.

He learns quickly.

I watched him check for listening devices.

It wasn’t so much talent with the sword as it was a dazzling instinct for combat.

Unfair as it was to compare innate aptitude alone, Lee Seunghyun surpassed Lee Yehyeon.

“Illegal enhanced-body owners have begun lingering around the Black Badgers.”

That was the first thing he said.

I was thinking about what to offer as refreshments and frowned.

“So they’re not going to show restraint anymore? Fast.”

“You succeeded in stealing the Core device a few days ago.”

He answered.

True.

Rose, Igor, and Yoow had succeeded. Chairman Choi had tried desperately to keep it secret, but before the Elders, was anything ever truly secret?

Once, there had been other hardline Elders between Colton and me.

Now only he and I remained.

The time to settle the game we had postponed for decades was approaching.

And fights with people like that are inevitably filthy and sticky.

Please, let no one get dragged into the Elder conflict because of me.

After hearing that eyes and ears had been placed around those close to me, I exhaled quietly and offered Lee Seunghyun mango.

Naturally, he refused.

“Did you make those scars yourself?”

He asked instead, staring at my face.

I nodded.

“When you go farther out, dye your eyebrows too.”

Lee Seunghyun continued looking at me with an unreadable expression.

Why is he staring so hard?

“If I absorb it later, it’ll disappear anyway. If it’s unpleasant to look at, I apologize.”

“That’s not it.”

Well, that’s good.

I considered asking why he was staring, but I doubted I’d get an answer.

So I told him to stay for dinner if he had nothing urgent. Instead, he asked abruptly,

“Are you even doing that third-rate criminal’s laundry?”

...Third-rate criminal?

Lin?

“Well... yes.”

“And the cleaning?”

“I’m staying here. It’s only fair.”

“You’re training him badly.”

For the first time, Lee Seunghyun showed a visible expression.

I looked at the obvious displeasure on his face and said,

“If local punks riot later, I plan to toss out the drugs he’s hiding as bait and slip away.”

Lee Seunghyun relaxed his brow and looked at me steadily.

“I don’t intend to compensate him for the drug money.... So I feel a bit guilty in advance.”

“Are there drugs in this flat?”

“Yes.”

I had already confirmed their location, quantity, type, and market value.

After I told him, Lee Seunghyun observed me and asked,

“Do you plan to pay him?”

“No. It’s mine now.”

It was too expensive to pay for anyway.

My accounts were frozen, and the money I’d saved had to go to Choi Hyunjun later.

Lee Seunghyun nodded slowly, as if it were a reasonable answer.

I looked at my disciple quietly.

Then I asked,

“So do you like me, or do you like Yekaterina?”

His brow immediately furrowed.

“Again?”

“It’s an important answer.”

“I answered you last time.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

His ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ stubborn mouth pressed into a line.

I laughed softly at the man who clearly did not want to answer.

“You don’t question orders.”

“I am a soldier. I am not someone who questions.”

“That’s probably why she values you. There’s no better pair of hands. You don’t express doubt, and you’re the most capable among humans. Unlike Jaeyeon, you don’t deviate.”

A look shot at me asking what I was trying to say.

I studied the deep furrow between his brows and curved my lips.

“Have you ever seen the Ice Empress?”

I asked gently.

Lee Seunghyun remained silent for a long moment.

Then he slowly shook his head.

“Yekaterina and she certainly resemble each other.”

I did not like that fact.

But I did not press further. I knew that would only breed resentment.

Instead, I asked about the Elder faction aligned with me and then which Black Badger was most imminently targeted.

“Ricardo Sordi and Asil Fiscer.”

Ah.

Among those who frequently encountered illegal enhanced-body owners, those without strong backing had risen to the top of the list.

I stood.

As I stepped away from the table, Lee Seunghyun said,

“You’re going yourself?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve already assigned hands and feet.”

“Fingers and toes, at best. The useful ones like you were injured or killed in the last clash.”

That would apply to Colton’s side as well, which was likely why they had stirred up illegal enhanced-body groups in the back alleys instead of deploying their own pieces.

There was probably a bounty.

Ricardo and Asil were frequent participants in Colosseum missions.

Those driven by vengeance and greed would certainly have moved.

“I’ll handle those two. Watch the others.”

“Don’t get caught.”

Asil would be no problem.

Ricardo would be more troublesome....

I went to retrieve my sword.

***

Two weeks had passed since Hildebert’s hand and ankle were found.

That arrogant junior was surely alive.

Yet even knowing that the probability of him not being alive was far higher, Ricardo’s insides turned over periodically—whenever he saw people crying with bouquets, or when he read reactions to articles about Hildebert.

It happened whenever he remembered the moment he had realized how easily someone who felt invincible could die.

Not that he could do anything about it.

So Ricardo simply lived as usual.

Answering Jonathan, who asked every single day if he had seen Hildebert, with a single “X.”

He went on patrol around the Core outskirts. He rested. He smoked.

He went out on assignment again and returned....

Creak.

He had been asleep.

Ricardo heard a faint sound leaking from the ceiling.

Ah.

He smiled and rose from the bed.

Wasn’t that a familiar sensation?

So that reckless junior really was alive after all.