Chapter 75 : Counter-Attack (7)

Before long, the sound of sirens began to echo from outside.

Every time we were called out, the ones the police were dealing with were usually mutants.

But today, the target was different.

It was likely about protecting the chairman of an interstellar corporation that played a significant role in this country… or something like that.

Of course, the chairman wasn’t here.

I wasn’t sure whether they deemed it more important to protect the chairman or to safeguard the company’s critical facilities from my attack, but in the end, they had decided to be cautious about “both.”

And I had no choice but to acknowledge that their judgment wasn’t wrong.

If the chairman had actually been here, I would have broken at least an arm or a leg.

Well, with Hayoon and Iris by my side, I wouldn’t have gone as far as to kill him.

Probably.

Even if I had been alone, I wouldn’t have actually killed him.

That would be outright murder.

Wait, no… breaking someone’s arms and legs is also a serious crime, isn’t it? Is it different from just an assault charge? Hmm.

Then, I guess stopping at mere threats would be the best option.

Hayoon and Iris looked at me.

There was still some time.

The police wouldn’t come in right away.

Even if they tried to take me down with a sniper rifle, they knew that wouldn’t be enough to incapacitate me in one shot.

They also understood that sending in just a few officers wouldn’t be sufficient to restrain me.

Would they wait until I stepped out?

Even so, I didn’t want anyone coming in to cause unnecessary trouble.

I moved a table in front of the entrance to block it.

To make it take a little longer to break through, I also propped up a half-broken wardrobe behind it.

Would the police try coming through the large window we had broken in from? If they used a helicopter, it was certainly possible.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a good way to block that side, so I left it as it was.

The second floor was empty.

That wasn’t surprising.

The space was too small to hide anything significant.

Compared to the outside, the empty spots stood out too obviously.

More importantly, the building had a flat rooftop structure.

Even if something important was hidden, there would only be cramped spaces where a person could barely crawl in.

Just in case, I smacked the ceiling in each room to check, but all I found were maintenance spaces for wiring.

James hadn’t come inside yet.

At the very least, that meant the police weren’t planning to deploy forces from helicopters.

Iris looked at me.

She didn’t say anything, likely because she was wary of wiretaps, but she had sensed that something about this place was off.

No matter how I looked at it, there was an alarming lack of equipment prepared to deal with us.

Did they think I wouldn’t come here because this was the former chairman’s residence? Or did they assume I would track down his actual location instead?

Or… did they simply lack the resources to mobilize more mutants?

Maybe all the mutants they had were the ones we had fought before, and now their numbers were nearly depleted.

Another possibility was that, instead of wasting mutants against us one by one, they were preparing more advanced combat equipment to deploy against us.

If that were the case, then this location might have been classified as “relatively unimportant,” just as James had predicted.

There was no reason for the chairman to be here.

He could have several—no, dozens—of other buildings to stay in.

And if he was secretly hiding in an expensive hotel suite, we would have no way of finding out.

Even if we did find out, we would have to be cautious about attacking.

After all, civilians could get involved.

It was frustrating, but… this place might be a dead end.

I hesitated for a moment.

Should we just leave now? Or would it be better to check if there was a basement?

Just as I was deep in thought—

“What’s wrong?”

I heard James’s voice.

“I didn’t hear any destruction from inside, so I came to check. It seems there really wasn’t anything important here,” he said, as his drone hovered around, scanning the area.

“You don’t have to worry about wiretaps. At least from what I can detect, there aren’t any.”

“If that’s the case, wouldn’t it have been better to tell me earlier?”

“I was busy monitoring for helicopters and drones. How was I supposed to inform you? It’s not like I brought any wireless communication devices.”

Maybe we should prepare one in the future.

“Well, we weren’t expecting much from this place anyway, were we? Our main goal was to make them believe that you’re after the chairman’s life. The point is to divert as much of their forces away from our real target, so there’s no need to be too disappointed.”

Something about the way James said that felt strange.

Was he… trying to console me?

I couldn’t see his expression.

He was a hamster, after all.

Even when looking at his face, I could only judge from the shape of his mouth or the size of his eyes.

But still, there was a significant difference between having those cues and not having them at all.

It definitely wasn’t because James felt any personal attachment to me.

Most likely, he was worried that if I lost all motivation, it would interfere with his own revenge.

Just as I was about to say, “Let’s call it a day and leave”—

“Th-then… do you have a function to scan the surroundings?”

“Huh?”

Hayoon suddenly spoke up, and James’s drone turned toward her.

Even though the voice coming from the speaker was slightly distorted, the surprise in James’s tone was clear.

James wasn’t particularly close to the other magical girls.

I wouldn’t say he was close to me either, but at the very least, I saw him as an emergency food source.

Aside from Iris, who sometimes worked with him on repairs and inventions, I rarely saw James engaged in conversations with anyone.

Usually, even if someone spoke to him, he would just say what he needed to and leave it at that.

Especially with Hayoon—she seemed uncomfortable with the fact that James was once an “enemy executive,” so I had never seen her initiate a conversation with him before.

“To check if there’s any empty space…”

Hayoon’s voice grew quieter.

Even though James’s drone had no facial expressions, the way it stared at her in silence made it seem as if he had momentarily forgotten how to respond.

“Well… I do have methods to do that.”

“And?”

“But it’s not like I can see through walls like an X-ray. The most I can do is scan the area and identify places that seem suspicious.”

Hayoon, Iris, and I exchanged glances.

Then, we all turned to look at James.

“Then we only need to scan the first floor, right? Why didn’t you say that from the start?”

“Because I have the blueprints of this house. There’s no underground facility that could be a research lab.”

At James’ words, we fell silent again.

I stood there, my mouth slightly open for about five seconds, then glared at him.

“Why didn’t you say that earlier? No, more importantly, didn’t you act like you had no idea in the beginning? What were you thinking when we were planning this mission?”

But James smoothly ignored my words and turned back to Hayoon, asking,

“Then, let’s scan the first floor and leave. If there’s anything special, we’ll either destroy it or take it with us. Though the chances of that are low.”

He just wanted to see me suffer, didn’t he? Damn bastard.

Still, since we had already achieved the main goal of coming here, there wasn’t much point in arguing further.

I followed James as he led the way back down to the first floor.

Once in the middle of the living room, James activated… something on the drone.

Lasers shot out in all directions.

At a glance, it looked like the laser from a surveying instrument, but the pattern was far more complex.

It was probably some kind of alien technology or something like that.

I wasn’t sure if it was okay for us to stand in the middle of it, but since James didn’t say anything, I stayed put.

As we stood there in silence, sirens wailed outside, and the sound of people murmuring reached our ears.

By now, the police had probably surrounded the building.

They hadn’t started demanding our surrender yet.

They were moving cautiously.

After all, it hadn’t even been 30 minutes since we arrived.

From their perspective, the best outcome would be for us to just leave quietly without causing any trouble.

“…Why?”

Once the laser had scanned everything from above to below, James fell silent.

I waited for a moment, but when he still didn’t say anything, I spoke up again without bothering to hold back.

“…There are no facilities.”

“Really? Then should we leave?”

“No, wait a moment.”

There was a trace of confusion in James’ voice.

“…Why?”

“There is a circuit beneath us. It seems to be powered by the magic you use.”

“You can see that? I thought you said it didn’t have a penetration function.”

“I can detect vibrations.”

That meant the vibrations were extremely subtle. After all, none of us had noticed them.

If something was embedded in solid flooring, the vibrations would likely be nearly imperceptible.

The thick concrete would absorb most of them.

Even more so if there wasn’t any surrounding empty space.

“So what? Is that circuit important or something?”

If the circuit was running, it was probably because of me.

Making the ground vibrate, even slightly, would naturally require my power.

“It is important. Or rather, it could be important.”

James paused briefly before continuing.

“The circuit is highly unstable. And it’s big.”

“…Huh?”

“To put it simply, it’s as unstable as the circuits you used when you were a combatant. But this one is much larger.”

“…And?”

“That means there’s a risk of explosion.”

Silence fell between me, Hayoon, and Iris.

“Let’s go.”

“…Wait a moment. You’re not seriously thinking of creating a black hole here, are you? Do you want to get blown up along with the mansion? If too much magic is poured in, it’ll explode. The enemy must have planned for this.”

“Are you saying they set up a bomb in a place they expected us to come?”

“It’s not exactly a bomb. It’s a crudely made circuit, but yes, it seems to be intentional. Since it operates on your magic, it would have been easy to hide. If you didn’t come here, it wouldn’t have activated in the first place.”

“Then why didn’t it go off the moment we arrived?”

“…Didn’t you drop from midair?”

Oh. Right.

“Then we should fly up right now—”

“No.”

James’ voice was serious.

“When you were wrecking this place earlier, you used propulsion devices, right? That seems to have already pushed the circuit into extreme instability. The vibrations aren’t consistent.”

Oh.

I see.

To use my propulsion system, I had to channel magic intensely.

I had been heating up different parts of the house, causing mechanical components to warp from the heat.

Some areas had even caught fire, though I had put them out by brute force.

In other words, while I was rampaging through the house, I had been recklessly spreading my magic everywhere.

And I needed that same magic to fly.

If I added more magic to a circuit that was already overheated—

We all fell silent.

Outside, the sirens blared even louder.

[You are surrounded!]

The inevitable broadcast began to play.

[Disarm yourselves immediately and—]

I let the announcement wash over me and turned to Iris.

“So, you’re saying we have to escape without flying or teleporting?”

I looked at Iris.

“What about you? Can you send us somewhere else? You know how to use warp, right? What if you shot Hayoon and me with that gun?”

I pointed at the rifle.

“We’ll run away first, then decide on a meeting place later. As long as we get out of here, we can figure something out.”

“No, wait.”

James interrupted me again.

“The magic applied to the circuit makes it unstable while also holding it together. If they really wanted to make it explode, they would have ensured that the control mechanism wouldn’t function the moment the magic disappeared. So, that circuit will probably explode the moment you disappear from here.”

James was explaining the situation as calmly as he could, but he couldn’t completely hide the tremor in his voice.

“If anyone could use that rifle to warp, it might not be a problem. If it only explodes after you disappear, then there’s no issue. After all, by the time it detonates, you won’t be here. But…”

I rubbed my forehead.

That’s right. Even if that rifle has such a function, I can’t use it.

The type of magic I use is different.

Naturally, handling all these monsters with my magic alone is impossible.

No matter how useful my magic is, I’ve only been fighting with magic for less than three months.

Of course, my efficiency is lower compared to these kids who have been fighting for years.

Plus, if I share my magic with everyone, I might not have enough left for a truly crucial moment.

So, when moving for battle, we naturally give the circuits back to the magical girls who were using them.

For a few minutes, tracking us becomes impossible.

On top of that, James has been continuously tweaking the tracking device to delay it even further.

…If I’m the only one left in the end, it’s meaningless.

No matter how I try to escape, the bomb will detonate.

“What’s the blast radius?”

I recalled the moment my own circuit exploded.

It wasn’t that big.

Then again, back when I saw one explode, I was just a combatant, and the output was lower than it is now.

The circuits I’m using now, and the ones beneath my feet, are—

“It’s not exact,” James mused for a moment.

“But I’d estimate about a 50-meter radius.”

Fifty meters.

Fifty meters doesn’t seem that big at first, but in an area where houses are packed so close together, it’s a different story.

A 100-meter-wide explosion zone means everything inside could be wiped out.

If this bomb were buried at the boundary between the mansion and its garden, it might not be a huge problem.

The damage could’ve been limited to just part of the mansion and a section of the road.

But it’s buried underneath the mansion.

Even at its smallest estimate, the blast radius won’t stop short of the neighboring houses.

And worse, this is right in the middle of Seoul.

There’s city gas, which makes everything more dangerous.

Bombs don’t just explode outward in a flat plane—they go up and down as well.

“What about the police?”

“When I last checked, they were surrounding the entire area. Yes, there were even some stationed right in front of the main gate. At least a few of them will get caught in the blast.”

“And if they come inside to fight you?”

“If you don’t use magic—”

“Your magic is influenced by your emotions. Have you forgotten?”

“So, what, I need to start thinking positive thoughts right now?”

“Did you not just hear what I said? The moment the magic sustaining that circuit disappears, it’ll explode!”

Then what am I supposed to do?!

Of course.

This whole setup was meant to trap me.

That’s why they planted this damned device.

Coming here was a mistake.

Not because I failed to predict the future, but because this place was already worthless to the chairman.

That’s why they rigged it like this.

Even if it blows up, they won’t lose anything.

And an explosion makes for a great narrative.

Even if all the civilians have already evacuated, if innocent people get hurt by this blast, public opinion will turn against me again.

They’ll brand me a terrorist even more easily.

Any positive reactions to my broadcasts will become meaningless.

Damn it.

“Can we get the police to back off?”

“You think the people who came here to arrest you are going to just leave?”

“What if we tell them there’s a bomb?”

“You want to completely nullify all the work you put into that broadcast?”

Is he picking a fight with me?

No.

I need to calm down.

If I lose my temper, the bomb might go off right now.

“Hey.”

While James and I were talking, Hayoon raised a hand slightly.

“Can I… suggest an idea?”

There’s no need to be that cautious.

Sure, the situation is bad, but in times like these, even an absurd idea could be important.

We might be able to modify it into something workable.

“First, what if we just break the floor and take the circuit out?”

“It’s possible.”

“Then, what about tampering with the circuit?”

“Also possible, but—”

James sighed.

“I can’t guarantee the bomb will stay stable. If we’re not careful, it might explode while we’re extracting it. Or while I’m trying to disarm it.”

Right. It’s unstable.

It’s like removing a computer part while the power is still on.

You could get electrocuted, or the component could get damaged.

Except in this case, the whole thing might explode.

“And if we call in another expert?”

“The company is unlikely to help us.”

Hayoon glanced at Iris.

“Jo-ah. You said their circuits are structurally almost identical to ours, right?”

“…Not exactly, but… yes. Since they also use ‘emotion’ to function, they’re similar. If we had someone with more expertise than me, then… Ah.”

Iris suddenly realized something and looked at Hayoon.

Hayoon nodded and turned to James.

“There’s someone I can recommend. An adult like you, and an expert on circuits.”

“Are they from the Federation?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why don’t you two escape first? I’ll handle the bomb.”

“No.”

Hayoon’s response was firm.

“Jo-ah, you go back first.”

Then, turning to Iris, she repeated the same thing I just said.

“Why should I do that?”

Iris looked utterly dumbfounded.

Then she shook her head and stated firmly,

“Let’s go with Blossom’s idea. Evacuate the surrounding people and call Cherry. More importantly, if I leave, that’s one less person who can help.”

Not a single one of them listens, huh?

I let out a deep sigh and ran a hand down my face.