Walker truly captured illegal implant users by the handful.

Shu and I caught about the same number. The police came to haul off the limp bodies of the illegal implants, all subdued by the Green Dream.

Most of those taken away were in bad shape.

I watched the police cars vanish down the street, feeling uneasy.

“Not bad,” Walker said, glancing at us. “You won’t be embarrassed when we meet the Old Spider.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

Though honestly, I hadn’t done much.

Walker began walking without another word.

Shu and I followed him quietly. It had grown quite late after all that chaos. Dinner time had long passed. I was hungry and tired, and it stung that we’d gone to the game store only to come back empty-handed.

Still, now we had no choice but to meet the Old Spider before calling it a day.

I felt a little sorry for Shu, who hadn’t eaten either.

We walked in silence until we arrived at our destination. The Old Spider’s home wasn’t far — a rusted metal-frame house deep within the harem district.

The house looked completely out of place, untouched by the noisy Halloween atmosphere outside. Walker pushed open the door.

“Wow.”

Shu, who had been standing in front, gasped as she looked inside.

“It’s huge... and fancy.”

Just as the senior had said.

Beyond the shabby iron door, an entirely different world appeared.

A marble entryway with gold-plated sculptures hanging from the ceiling. A smooth mirror over two meters tall. A stuffed bear holding a silver tray.

Nothing in sight looked cheap.

I entered the ivory-marble interior with my mouth slightly open.

A faint musk fragrance drifted through the air.

Following Walker’s back, I inhaled the pleasant scent as we walked into a warmly lit parlor, a Persian carpet spread across the floor.

Someone was already waiting for us there, seated on a sofa.

The spacious room held only one person, and even the number of drinks on the table matched the guests expected. There was no mistaking that this was the rumored “Old Spider.”

I blankly stared down at the small old woman sitting with a cup of cocoa in her hands, wrapped in a cable-knit cardigan.

She looked... small and kind.

“Walker, you’re here.”

Her tone was that of a friendly grandmother.

“Looks like you were delayed by those idiots rampaging again.”

Scratch that first impression.

Her words were sharp despite the gentle smile.

Still, she had the air of a sweet, generous grandmother — the kind of old lady you’d want to help if you saw her on the street.

Walker didn’t respond. He simply stood in the corner of the room.

The Old Spider smiled softly and turned her gaze toward me.

“Hildebert.”

Ah. She knew my name.

“And the young Badger. You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Come sit and have some panini with me.”

“Why not just get to the point and finish this quickly,” Walker muttered.

“You may not be hungry, but the other two might be,” she said as she sipped her cocoa, sounding exactly like a kind old lady.

“Sit down. There’s no poison in it. Oh dear, look how thin you both are.”

Shu quietly went and sat beside her.

And so, unexpectedly, we had dinner together. A table decorated with cute Jack-o’-lanterns.

As I chewed on a stringy bite of melted cheese, I studied the Old Spider sitting nearby.

She said she knew me.

I couldn’t remember her at all. Not even that faint sense of familiarity I’d had with Lee Seunghyun — just complete blankness.

Maybe time had changed her face.

The parlor was quiet except for the sounds of eating.

Just as I thought she might begin talking, the Old Spider looked at Walker and Shu.

“Could you both step out for a bit?”

Walker and Shu exchanged glances with her.

“I have something to discuss privately with this new Badger.”

“Don’t do anything shady to my junior,” Walker said as he stood up without hesitation. He added, “I don’t feel like getting chewed out by the Commander for failing to look after one of his favorites.”

He left smoothly after that warning.

Shu followed him without argument, but before exiting the room she mouthed, If anything happens, call me.

I nodded, and the door closed.

Once their footsteps faded, the Old Spider spoke.

“Do you remember me?”

Ah.

I looked at her, smiling at me with gentle eyes, and answered awkwardly.

“...I’m sorry. Not at all.”

“Oh, that’s perfectly understandable.”

She didn’t seem offended.

Instead, she chuckled softly over her cocoa, as if she’d expected my answer.

Feeling uneasy, I apologized. “I’m sorry.”

“Not at all. It’s completely understandable. I just admired you from afar, really. It’s not as though we truly knew each other.”

“You admired me?”

Why?

The question must have shown plainly on my # Nоvеlight # face.

The Old Spider laughed again, setting her cup down.

“So it’s true that your memories are gone.”

“Yes...”

“You were the kind of person a little girl could look up to,” she said, smiling softly. “Your white hair stuck up stylishly, and you always stood at the center of things, smiling calmly. Whenever I went to the lab with my parents, I used to watch you from afar.”

“The lab?”

The long hair part didn’t surprise me — I’d already heard that before.

But the mention of a lab made something twist inside me. The spotless white floors came to mind. The memories of sitting there, playing games with Rei. So it had been some kind of laboratory, after all.

Was that where I had given humanity eternal youth?

Meeting someone who knew that version of me made my stomach churn.

Yehyeon didn’t know that past, and Colton refused to speak of it.

Maybe this person could tell me something.

The Old Spider swallowed a marshmallow floating in her cocoa.

“My parents were brilliant scientists, and I was recognized as one too, even at a young age.”

A prodigy, then.

“Because of that, I was sometimes allowed into the lab’s reception area, which was under the tightest security. I wasn’t authorized to go deeper inside, unlike the other scientists.”

“The lab had a reception room?”

“Of course. You always represented them. Don’t you remember?”

The underworld broker spoke words that made no sense.

“You and Kyle were their representatives.”

What?

I leaned forward, staring at her.

“What did you just say I was?”

“The leader,” she said calmly, her keen eyes fixing on mine.

“You were their leader, Hildebert.”

I froze.

For a long while, I forgot how to move. I didn’t even know what expression I wore; I just stared blankly ahead.

Then, from deep in my mind, voices began to echo.

Not one — many. Voices of different tones and cadences, all speaking to me. I recognized each of them. Deltei, Nol, Yvonne, You, Lin...

And countless others.

The ones I had sworn to protect until my last breath.

And the moment we had set foot on Earth together.

Another flood of memories came crashing down.

Nausea surged up my throat.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

“Go straight down the hall outside the parlor,” the Old Spider answered calmly even as I jumped to my feet. “Ask if you need a sedative.”

I didn’t look back. I just ran.

I shoved open the door. I didn’t have the strength to close it.

As soon as I reached the toilet, I vomited everything I’d eaten.

Even that wasn’t enough. I gagged until bile burned my throat.

The acrid stench of stomach acid filled my nose. Tears blurred my vision.

After a long bout of retching, I slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

I barely held back the urge to cry. The memory of a vow long ago — to devote my life to protecting my people — stabbed through my heart. That memory was now a hazy mirage, a fading dream I could no longer grasp no matter how hard I tried.

With the same sword I’d sworn to protect them, I had ordered Rei’s death.

I’d told him to see if even a fragment of emotion still remained.

And that sword now rested in Yehyeon’s hand.

“No wonder he’d want to kill me,” I muttered, remembering what Jin had said. “Even grinding my corpse to dust wouldn’t be enough.”

Why had I betrayed them?

Why had I turned my back on Kyle and pointed my blade at Rei? Why had I abandoned the ones I’d sworn to protect and sided with humans?

I’d known war was coming. I’d known I’d one day face Rei. I must have made a reasoned decision.

But no reason could change the fact that I’d betrayed my own.

That sin would never be erased — even if I spent a lifetime in atonement. Even if I reclaimed my sword from Yehyeon and slit my own throat. Even if I died torn apart by Colton’s hands.

“And to think I’ve been living comfortably, having forgotten it all.”

A hollow laugh escaped me.

“The worst leader in history, aren’t I.”

I didn’t even deserve to cry.

I stayed slumped there in the sour-smelling bathroom until Walker and Shu came to find me and pulled me out.

***

I couldn’t stay there any longer.

The Old Spider told me to go rest. She said she had nothing more to add anyway.

She explained that back then, she had been a young prodigy and a guest of the lab. She could only watch from a distance, rarely having a chance to speak to me — I’d always been surrounded by people, busy with important discussions.

She said she’d spoken to me twice.

“Each time, you gave me chocolate,” she said, laughing behind her hand. “You said you’d heard from my parents that I liked it. You handed it to me with that easy smile... You looked so cool.”

“Did I really?” I asked weakly.

I couldn’t remember.

And I didn’t have the strength to try.

I smiled faintly. “I’m sorry. I can’t recall.”

“It’d be strange if you did. You met so many people then. I was just a young girl longing to be one of them. My parents liked you very much too.”

“What were your parents’ names?”

Her smile turned sly. “If I told you that, you’d know my name too.”

Right. I’d forgotten I was talking to one of the underworld’s biggest figures.

And that brief meeting ended there. The Old Spider handed me back to my seniors waiting outside. Walker grumbled as he helped me up.

The broker smiled kindly and saw us to the door.

“Take care, Hildebert. You’re welcome here anytime.”

“For someone who just broke him into mush, you sure have polite manners,” Walker said roughly. “And wipe that blush off your face, it’s creepy.”

We left the Old Spider’s house, his words audible enough for her to hear.

I didn’t have the strength to ask how a once-promising young scientist had become an infamous information broker, how she knew Walker, or why she lived in such a shabby district despite her wealth.

I couldn’t.

Even when Shu looked at me with faint worry in her blunt expression, I barely reacted. The broker’s single revelation had shattered me completely. Without Walker, I probably wouldn’t have been able to walk.

Like a ghost, I let him drag me along.

Somehow, he didn’t take me back to the dorm but to a small hut instead.

“If anything happens, call me,” Shu said, her blue eyes filled with concern. “We’ll tell Senior Yun.”

“Thank you,” I said hoarsely.

“I’ve caused you both too much trouble.”

“Sleep,” Walker said grimly as he stepped out. “We’ll finish the conversation later.”

The door closed softly. Across from the hut, Ami and Yun’s house — decked in pumpkin decorations — vanished from sight.

And I was left alone.

As their footsteps faded, silence seeped in.

I stood there for a long time, unmoving, even after their presence was gone.

When the pain in my legs became unbearable, I finally turned and stumbled to the bed.

After that, I remembered nothing.

Maybe because I didn’t want to.

***

The next morning, Yun woke me.

He entered the hut and shook my body lying sprawled on the floor.

“Ah...”

“I heard what happened,” he said, straight to the point as always.

“Can you get up? Let’s take a look at that game first.”