TRPM 420

The morning after the trip to Sinsegyo.

“Hmm… that’s troublesome… Have you reported it to the police? Yes… I see. Alright, I understand for now.”

When I woke up, my mother was on the phone with someone, looking very serious. Since she’d said she’d reported it to the police, it didn’t sound like anything good…

“Ah, Geon-woo, you’re up? I made breakfast, so eat with Mirae and Sophia from next door. I have to head out early.”
“Is something wrong?”
“It’s fine. It’s not certain yet.”
“……”

It didn’t look fine at all, but since Mom said so I didn’t press it. If she needed my help she would tell me.

‘Usually my mother doesn’t want to bother me; she’d probably try to handle it herself without telling me…’

Thinking that, I saw her out the front door.

“Hmm…”

Whatever the matter was, it seemed like my mother, the people she’d called, and the police could handle it. With that in mind I went to the bathroom, washed up, and then ate breakfast with Yeon Mirae and Sophia.

“Artist.”
“Hm?”

After breakfast, while I was putting the dishes in the sink to wash up, Sophia called me over. She seemed to have something to tell me.

“Message from Chairman Richard. He’s asking for cooperation with measures against special dungeons known in Korea as ‘concealed dungeons.’”
“Oh, that?”

It had been a long time since concealed dungeons first appeared. At first, to avoid panic, there were efforts to hide the existence of concealed dungeons, but even though they were few in number, globally there were enough of them that they couldn’t be hidden forever. So information about concealed dungeons had become known even to non-awakened people…

“And now they’re asking?”

It made sense to request cooperation regarding concealed dungeons, but asking for help after so much time had passed seemed odd to me.

“It’s embarrassing, but it looks like the researchers at the World Awakeners’ Association headquarters were overconfident. They boasted that with a few samples they could easily make a detector, but in reality the data didn’t come together well, and the detectors they made from the limited data can’t sense over a wide enough range.”
“In short, they tried to solve it with only the headquarters’ resources and failed.”
“There’s an explanation. A few months ago there was an incident where doppelgangers attacked the Association’s research labs and many of the researchers died. Most of the researchers currently there are relatively inexperienced and aren’t as capable as the previous staff.”

I wasn’t going to blame anyone, and I nodded at Sophia’s defense. That incident had indeed happened. The World Awakeners’ Association office in the U.S. and the Korean Awakeners’ Association were better off; the gaps left by the deceased researchers had been filled quickly. The attack had been an obvious terrorist assault aimed at the Association’s labs around the world, so some national offices said they couldn’t even hire new researchers easily.

‘Researchers don’t want to be killed either, so labs that were targeted by that organization on Mars would be avoided,’ I thought.

Enough about the shortage of capable researchers…

“Ask Arthur instead of me. I told him to gather data related to concealed dungeons.”
“He probably already has. This request was likely sent not just to you, Artist, but to everyone around the world with strong analytical and detection abilities.”

Ah—so it wasn’t a personal request just for me. Of course; making a detector for concealed dungeons would need to be based on as much data as possible.

“If I accept, what would I have to do?”
“As soon as you accept, you’ll be given the data the World Awakeners’ Association has collected. We want you to analyze it and produce a prototype of a detector.”

Hmm… If that’s all…

I couldn’t do it alone. I could probably analyze the data and figure out how to detect concealed dungeons, but making a prototype detector was beyond me. I know how to operate machines, but not how to build them.

“You don’t need to worry about that. Chairman Richard considered that part.”
“Really?”
“Yes. He’ll probably assign someone to assist with building the prototype. In your case, Artist, I think that role will fall to me.”

If Sophia—who understood organizational technology well—helped, it might be possible.

“All right. I’ll accept the cooperation request.”
“Okay. I’ll contact Chairman Richard and fetch the data.”

Sophia said that, took out her smartphone, and left our house. After watching her walk away, I finished the dishes, went back to my room, and prepared to go to school.

Brrr…
‘Hm?’

Just as I finished getting ready and stepped out of my room, my phone vibrated. An emergency alert? A message telling people not to approach because a crime was happening nearby. It had been a while since I’d seen one of those.

“Hah, a hostage situation. Are there really criminals who do this these days?”

I decided there was no need for me to get involved. If the police had been corrupt or short-staffed like in the old days it might be different, but that wasn’t the case now. I brushed it off.

That evening. After school, I was walking home with other kids headed in the same direction—Lee Ha-eun from my building, Elena from the next building, and Elliot—when we saw a crowd gathered.

“Huh? Is there some kind of event?” Ha-eun muttered, as if nothing special was happening. But…

“If there are a lot of police, I don’t think so,” Elena contradicted Ha-eun. The police were blocking people from entering. Had some incident occurred?

“It must be a case! Let’s go see!”
“What on earth are you talking about….”

Going to see an incident—definitely not normal behavior.

“Ah…”

Before I could finish, Ha-eun had already gone off into the crowd.

“She’s already mixed into the people over there.”
“I don’t know what it is, but it looks like fun; let’s go.”

I sighed and decided to follow Elliot. Whatever it was, we had to pull Ha-eun out of there first. Pushing through the crowd, I said, “Excuse me, we need to get through,” and moved forward; soon people who recognized me cleared a path so Elena, Elliot, and I could reach the police blockade fairly easily.

“Excuse me, officer. What happened here?”

When we arrived, Ha-eun was asking the police what was going on. Would the police really tell a group of high schoolers?

“Right now there’s a hostage situation. They’ve evacuated everyone who isn’t being held hostage outside the building and are confronting the perpetrator.”
“……”

The officer kindly explained the situation. Should he really be doing that…?

‘By the way, the hostage situation—could it be the same one the morning alert mentioned that’s been going on for hours?’

Looking toward the building, I saw…

“Huh? Mom?”

My mother was standing by the entrance, waiting with the police. When she heard me, she turned and looked surprised.

“Oh? Ah, it must be almost time to get out of school.”
“Mom, why are you in there?”
“It’s a long story, but come inside a bit. Ah, can I bring my son in?”
“Yes… um… sure.”

A tired-looking officer gave permission to let us in. …Is that allowed?

“Come inside for a moment. I don’t want to talk about it where others can hear.”

She led us to a quieter spot and explained why she was there. In summary…

“What? The kid who’s carrying out the hostage situation is someone who used to live in Sinsegyo?”
“Yes. It seems like he ran away from home sometime yesterday evening, walked here during the night, and is now staging a hostage situation.”

…Run away from Sinsegyo and end up doing a hostage situation.

“When the police compared our Sinsegyo records with their investigation, it looks like the person being held hostage is a family member of a guild master who responded when the kid’s parents died.”
“…Do you mean the guild master arrived late and that’s why the parents died?”
“It does appear the guild master arrived late, but it wasn’t because he dawdled. The guild master’s location was simply too far from where the monster came out of the concealed dungeon.”

Hearing that, I understood roughly what had happened. The guild master hadn’t been at fault. But the child who lost his parents probably didn’t see it that way.

“However, there are a few questions the police haven’t answered yet. One is how a child could have traveled here alone on a cold winter night. Another is how the child learned where the guild master’s family lives. And the last one is…”

How the kid even obtained a bomb.

“A bomb?” I said.
“Yes. If the kid had simply used a knife for a hostage situation, they could have been subdued from a distance with a tranquilizer gun. But the reason the hostage situation is still ongoing is that the child has a dungeon-destruction bomb.”

So the police are investigating on the assumption that the kid has been coerced, and that someone provided the child with the location of the guild master’s family and the bomb.

“Indeed… there must be someone behind this.”

I agreed with the police. A dungeon-destruction bomb is something even well-known guilds find hard to obtain. Even the Iron-Blood Guild would need a complicated process to acquire such a device. There’s no way a child could get one alone. But…

‘It bothers me.’

The kid I’d seen the night before at Sinsegyo’s restaurant had looked determined, as if he’d made up his mind. If that kid was the one staging the hostage situation now…

‘Maybe he’s not being coerced… maybe he’s doing it because he wants to.’

That thought suddenly crossed my mind.