It was obvious that Yehyeon knew something.

Of course, that didn’t mean I had the guts to cling to my highest superior and press him for answers. Especially since my mentor had just returned with urgent news.

Yun clearly hadn’t expected Yehyeon to be back. When he saw the two of us eating sashimi together at the table, his eyes went wide.

Then he immediately tried to throw me out.

“Yehyeon, you’re back? I told you to call before coming. Hey. It’s settled, so you can head back now.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you. I won’t forget this favor.”

“Yun. How can you kick him out at this hour?”

Flustered, Yehyeon stopped Yun from driving me away.

As Ami had once told me, Yun was weak when it came to Yehyeon, both in private and in public. In the end, I was allowed to stay the night.

We quickly cleared away dinner. Afterward, Yehyeon handed me a banana pudding.

His face was soft, his expression almost gentle in private.

“So Mühlen really did meet Hilde, then? Yun, you stopped him?”

He gave Yun a look that was half surprise, half approval. From that glance alone, I could guess that Yehyeon had been the one to rein in Yun’s behavior in the past.

At the unexpected praise, my mentor answered in his usual dry voice.

“I figured if I encouraged him, Mühlen would end up killing the kid.”

A sharp observation.

“And since I already got the test results out of him, I’ve got nothing to lose.”

After that, I retreated quickly to the guest room.

I quietly prepared for bed, washed in the small bathroom across the hall, then shut myself in again.

I fiddled with my phone for a while before lying down. Tomorrow morning I’d get up early and return to the old wing.

I slept deeply, dreamless.

***

And then I woke in the early dawn.

Beep!

The sound of a door opening, then—bang!—slamming shut. The noise of someone kicking off their shoes jolted me awake. I forced my heavy eyelids open.

The room was bluish-dark, light from the entryway spilling harshly through the crack of the door.

Staring blankly at the ceiling, I slowly pieced things together. Ami must have returned. She had said she might be back as early as last night.

The men seemed to be coming out to greet her.

“You’re back.”

That was my mentor’s low voice.

“Good work. You’re a mess.”

And that was Yehyeon’s soft murmur. The house was so quiet that I could hear everything they said.

I held my breath and stayed completely still.

Ami spoke.

“There are so many. Outside the Core, it’s swarming. All level 5 and above. We switched shifts in a brief lull between waves.”

“And the squads that went beyond D Sector?”

“All returning to F Sector.”

Her voice was sharper than usual, stripped of its usual brightness.

Yehyeon’s tone was businesslike as well.

“And the Portal Zone?”

“They’re not gathering there, only heading toward the Core. The train station has been sealed off. Supply depots in F Sector are all locked down under maximum defense protocols.”

“Good.”

A short silence, then Yehyeon’s calm voice again.

“Nothing unusual from A-Tech?”

“Nothing. Core condition stable.”

Yun’s reply was curt.

After that, their voices fell quiet. Only the tick of the clock echoed in the chill of dawn.

So the creatures were clustering near F Sector—the area around the Breath barrier that John Mühlen had created and Choi Yun had commercialized.

Did this happen often?

Yun’s cold voice answered the question I hadn’t dared ask.

“This is because of the rookie, isn’t it?”

My heart dropped like a stone.

Yehyeon didn’t answer right away. Time stretched ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ taut, suffocating.

At last, the Commander-in-Chief broke the silence in his unhurried tone.

“At most, he lit the fuse. This was bound to happen eventually.”

“What is Hilde, exactly? You know something, don’t you?”

That was Ami.

My heart was hammering so fast it hurt to breathe. But I kept silent, afraid they would realize I was awake.

I caught the sound of Yehyeon sighing.

“We’ll need to reassign personnel out to the outskirts for now. Yun. Add Hilde and the other rookies to the call-up system. With manpower in the Core stretched thin, they’ll need to be trained in civilian rescue and put into regular missions sooner than expected.”

“Yes, sir. But if the rookie’s the cause, shouldn’t he be pulled aside for special management instead? If he runs around trying to rescue civilians and ends up drawing in creatures, we’ll be screwed.”

“Hilde isn’t drawing in all the creatures. Only the ones that want to kill him are gathering.”

...What?

I stared blankly at the dark wall.

So that’s what it was?

In the end, it didn’t change much. But all this time, I thought I was emitting some kind of creature-attracting pheromone.

Turns out, that wasn’t the case.

Yehyeon really did know something.

Yun voiced the question that I most wanted to ask. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

“Then why? Are you just going to leave it like this?”

“For now. Until it becomes impossible to keep Hilde hidden.”

“Hidden from what? The creatures clearly know already.”

Yehyeon didn’t answer.

I imagined him smiling bitterly, or maybe just lowering his gaze in silence. Either way, the others must have understood, because they didn’t press further.

The house fell quiet again. I stared at the wall, more unsettled than ever.

Why are they keeping me alive? I told them more than once to discard me.

I said I didn’t want to cause problems, didn’t want to be a burden to those who had shown me kindness. I was desperate enough to call the Commander-in-Chief’s private number out of the blue, desperate enough to accept Mühlen’s offer without hesitation.

What now?

If the situation kept worsening, maybe I’d have to find a way on my own....

Ami’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

“Even so, I like Hilde.”

Her youthful voice pierced straight through me.

“He’s warm, solid, and good. He doesn’t rush ahead recklessly, but he’s not too timid either. Everything’s unfamiliar, and he’s cautious, but he doesn’t let fear control him. He’s a really good junior. I like Hilde.”

“Do you? That’s good.”

Yehyeon’s voice smiled in reply.

“Hearing you say that makes me think he really is a good kid. Seems like he’s getting along with Yun too.”

“He’s interesting, I’ll give him that.”

“Yeah. And Ricardo really likes Hilde too. He claims it’s only because Hilde came out of a Portal, but the way he fusses over him says otherwise.”

Ami let out a bright laugh.

“He says he hates how that shabby body of his keeps running into danger. Coming from Ricardo, that’s practically a compliment, right?”

...How is that a compliment?

I wanted to protest, but had to keep pretending to sleep.

I heard Yehyeon’s quiet laugh, then Yun’s scoff.

The dawn conversation wound down with Yun’s dry voice.

“Anyway, if that’s the decision, then I’ll see to it the rookies are ready for regular missions starting tomorrow.”

***

Not even three days later—

I jolted upright at the blaring sound from my phone. I had just finished training with Yun and was on my way back to the old wing.

The phone buzzed violently, shouting its orders.

[Deployment Order. Zone 1, Sector B, creature emergence.]

[Deployment Order. Zone 1, Sector B, creature emergence.]

[Level 5. Severe civilian casualties expected. All Badgers in Zone 1 to deploy.]

This was Zone 1.

Where was Sector B again?

[Zone 1, Sector C, creature emergence.]

[Zone 1, Sector C, creature emergence.]

[Estimated Level 6. Scientific classification: unassigned.]

Why do the levels keep going up?

Should I head toward the higher-level one? The moment I wondered that, the glowing red screen of my phone switched to an incoming call. It was my mentor.

When I answered, his voice came without preamble.

[Go to Sector B. If you tap the alarm, a map will pop up.]

“What about Sector C?”

[I’ll take it.]

His voice sounded irritated—or was that just me?

[I was going to have dinner with Yehyeon.]

No, not my imagination.

[There are more civilians in Sector B, so two others are being dispatched there as well. You just focus on evacuating civilians.]

“What if I turn out to be the target again?”

[If it looks like they’re after you, lure them toward Sector C.]

His voice was calm, matter-of-fact.

I started running through the growing chaos of the streets, searching for a bus, a taxi, anything to hitch a ride on....

[Take the car. Destination’s already programmed. It’ll self-drive.]

Screech!

A sleek white car pulled up beside me.

It was Yun’s new ride. How the hell did he know exactly where I was and send a car here? The man really was like a ghost.

I jumped into the driver’s seat.

“What if this one gets wrecked too?”

[Another one’s already on the way, so it doesn’t matter.]

I heard the sound of a gun being loaded over the line.

[If you need to, ram it into the creature. It’s not worth much anyway.]

I shouldn’t have worried.

He had a way of making me feel both insignificant and oddly relieved all at once. Grumbling, I buckled my seatbelt and shut the door.

The polished sports car roared as it launched forward.

***

Sector B.

Now I understood what he meant about high foot traffic. It was a bustling downtown. People out for appointments were now running for their lives, panic etched into every face.

The white sports car got trapped in the human tide, the crowd flowing in the opposite direction. It felt like being stuck in the middle of a stampeding herd.

The self-driving system gave up trying to advance. I slipped out of the stalled car.

“Move, move!”

“Mom!”

“Ah! My leg!”

[Creature sighted at H Tower. Evacuate immediately to the nearest shelter. Creature sighted at H Tower. Evacuate immediately.]

The chaotic noise of the city blared around me.

I breathed in the air, thick with fear, and checked the map. The GPS urged me deeper inside.

Damn it.

I pushed my way through the stream of people like a fish fighting upriver. I wasn’t armed, but Yun had explained a few hours earlier that carrying a weapon wasn’t the critical part.

“Hey, you there! You can’t go that way!”

A uniformed man shouted at me.

“You’ll just get yourself killed! Leave the creatures to the Badgers and evacuate!”

“I am a Badger!”

I yelled back at the policeman waving a glow stick.

“Let me through!”

Eyes turned toward me.

One by one, people glanced at me as I passed. I ignored the heavy stares, focusing instead on not colliding with the desperate civilians charging past.

Too many people—my pace slowed to a crawl—

Whshhh!

A sharp sound sliced past my ear.

My white hair whipped in the gust and settled again. Something had stopped right beside my head.

I snapped my eyes wide and turned sharply.

There, hovering in midair on a board, was a woman.

Pink-and-yellow two-tone hair.

“Taleb?”

Known as Shu Diamond, she looked down at me with expressionless blue eyes.

“H Tower?”

“Yes.”

“Excuse me.”

Her voice was flat, without urgency. I answered quickly, and the short-haired senior bent at the waist.

She grabbed me by the chest with both hands—and yanked me clean off the ground.

“Ugh!”

Like a stuffed toy in a claw machine, I was hoisted straight into the air. My view of the world shrank as it rushed away beneath me.

The fleeing civilians slowed, staring up at us.

“What the hell is that—”

“Hold on tight, don’t let go.”

Her husky voice carried the instruction as our altitude climbed.

I clung desperately to the senior who looked even smaller than Ami and nodded furiously. If I fell here, it would be a massacre. I’d collide with the people below and kill someone for sure—

Whoosh!

The board shot forward.

“Uwaaaah!”

“Estimated arrival in three minutes.”

Her deadpan report was almost lost in the rushing wind.

“Proceeding with the rookie.”

Clutching her arm with all my strength, I forced my eyes open.

The city blurred beneath us. Wind lashed my face, tears streaming from my eyes. Blinking against the sting, I fixed my gaze on the building rushing closer. The pristine glass windows loomed terrifyingly fast.

I was growing huge, the silhouette of a massive man carried in the hands of someone so small—

Crash!

We shattered through the glass, bursting into the tower.

“Arrived.”

Shu dropped me unceremoniously to the floor and leapt off her board.

“I’ll take the second floor and above.”

Someone must have given instructions through her comms.

After a brief pause, she turned her head and looked up at me.

“Taleb, first floor. Assist Jonathan Kudo in subjugating the creature. Also, help civilians evacuate.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“In Core subjugations, the most important thing is that Badgers do not cause civilian casualties.”

The two-toned senior added her own commentary in a flat voice.

“You know what that means. We may fail to save civilians—but we can never kill them ourselves while fighting a creature.”

Remembering Yun’s explanation from earlier, I nodded.

Of course I knew.

The thing the Black Badgers feared most—

They had surpassed human limits, overcome aging, escaped the fate of death. Naturally, they had ascended to superior ground.

What they feared was exposure. To reveal their grip on such power, to remind the world of their existence’s danger. To make all of humanity realize that the true threat might not be the creatures outside the Core—but the Black Badgers living within.

“I understand.”

Even if I had been Yehyeon, I would have given the same order.

It was because he had continued to issue orders like this that the Badgers still existed at all.

I gave a small nod. Then, leaving the senior who had taken off again on her board, I sprinted down to the first floor.