Kim Je-Hyeon had no idea what was going on.
When Yuna, a top influencer, challenged Yu-Han to a duel, he had been thrilled. She would solve his problem for him, and he wouldn't have to lift a finger.
But somehow, it had ended with a woman named Alice being hailed as a legendary heroine, with the Vermilion Bird and Azure Dragon at her side.
"The public are a pack of idiots! They actually believe this superstitious garbage? And who the fuck is that bitch Alice anyway?!"
The more prestige Cheong-Am Center gained, the harder it would become for him to make a move against them.
So the answer was simple.
He would drag their name through the mud.
---
As usual, Yi Rang had been dragged into training with Yu-Han.
Yu-Han faced her himself, wielding a long wooden staff reinforced with mana. Yi Rang carried a carbon-coated blade—the standard weapon of a sanctioner—but even with a real blade in her hand, she posed no threat to him whatsoever.
"That's no good, Yi Rang. React like that, and your opponent'll do this!"
Taking advantage of Yi Rang's clumsy movement, YuHan drove the end of his staff into her lower abdomen.
"Nnh—ahh...!"
A breathy moan slipped from Yi Rang's lips as her knees gave out beneath her.
Yu-Han checked the time, then dropped his staff into a basket.
"Well, look at that. It's my break. I'm out. Make sure you drill the standard counters to the situations you're most likely to face. It's no different from memorizing common openings in chess."
"Haah... Haah... Openings? I know anime openings..."
"..."
Yu-Han looked as if even replying would be too much trouble. He turned toward the stairs, but Alice stopped him before he could leave the basement.
"Yu-Han, are you sure about this? Making Yi Rang work as a sanctioner, I mean."
"If she doesn't want to, she can spend the rest of her life paying off her debt with grunt work. She's the one who said no to that."
"But... can she really handle fights where her life is on the line?"
Yu-Han's answer caught Alice off guard.
"I think your standards have gotten warped. By ordinary standards, she's actually pretty capable."
"Seriously?"
"Put any random woman in her shoes. You'd be lucky if she made it through a fight without pissing herself and running away."
Now that Alice thought about it, Yi Rang had never run from a fight. Maybe her nerves were tougher than Alice had given her credit for.
Still, did Yu-Han really have to use that example in front of her?
"And... I wouldn't say she's hopeless. If she gets the fundamentals down first..."
Yu-Han trailed off and suddenly looked toward Yi Rang.
She was sitting with her back to them, apparently resting. Somehow, though, her body had tilted slightly in their direction, and her ears were twitching as she listened.
"Which means you need to review and train on your own too!" Yu-Han barked. "Stop wasting all your time fooling around!"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it..."
Yi Rang grumbled, though her shoulders seemed to rise ever so slightly.
"And Alice, you're in no position to worry about her!" Yu-Han added. "You still haven't fixed the way your battery and mana both crap out in no time!"
For no apparent reason, Yu-Han had rounded on Alice as well.
Alice could only think that he was hopelessly bad at being honest.
Just then, the doorbell echoed through the building.
They checked the entrance camera and found a crowd of strangers gathered outside. Strangely, every one of them was beastkin.
One of the protesters shouted through the intercom.
[Director! Get out here and face justice!]
"What is the meaning of this?" Alice asked. "You show up without warning and start hurling abuse at us..."
A protester shot back.
[You people have no right to lecture anyone about manners!]
Judging by the bizarre signs reading "Save Yi Rang" and "Beastkin Lives Matter," they had come to stage a protest.
"What are those signs supposed to mean?" Alice asked. "None of this makes any sense."
Another protester yelled into the intercom.
[That bastard Deputy Director of yours saddled young beastkin girls with debt, then repeatedly violated them!]
Yi Rang sprayed out the water she had been drinking and rushed over to Alice.
"What the fuck are ya talkin' about?! I'm doin' just fine in here!"
One of the protesters answered her in an almost pitying voice.
[Yi Rang C! They have you fooled. You may have no choice but to say that now, but we promise we'll free you from their brainwashing.]
"What kinda fucked-up bullshit is that?!" Yi Rang shouted.
Someone in the crowd murmured solemnly.
[The trauma's clearly severe already... We need to act fast.]
Faced with people who twisted everything she said, Yi Rang felt her blood begin to boil.
Alice tried reasoning with them next.
"Our Deputy Director may not look it, but he's a pure, innocent virgin!" Alice insisted. "He'd never do anything that filthy!"
"Alice, you are defending me, right?" Yu-Han asked. "And how exactly do you know whether I'm a virgin?"
"...A woman's intuition?" Alice replied.
The beastkin protesters clearly had no intention of listening to any explanation.
Their apparent leader raised his voice.
[We stand against discrimination and hatred toward beastkin! We will rescue Yi Rang C and Ga-Eun C from the hell in which they suffer! Time's up—disperse!!]
Having said everything they wanted to say, the protesters simply scattered.
Alice stared after them in disbelief.
"How could anyone get things that wrong?"
"That wasn't a misunderstanding, Alice. It was a political hit," Yu-Han explained. "Kim Je-Hyeon loves using protest groups to run smear campaigns."
Yu-Han then turned to Yi Rang.
"Yi Rang, stay inside until I sort this out. It isn't safe."
"Yeah, all right."
Less than a day later, Yi Rang pulled up her hood and secretly slipped out of the building.
The beer in the fridge had run out, after all.
'The convenience store's right there. What could possibly happen?'
She had guessed wrong.
A tranquilizer dart came flying out of nowhere and buried itself in her shoulder.
Yi Rang went down like a sack of bricks, and the attackers carried her away...
---
"...Wake up, tiger girl."
The line sounded as if it had come straight from the opening of a bargain-bin fantasy novel.
Unfortunately, the owner of the voice was neither a fairy nor a goddess. He was a rough-looking middle-aged man.
And he had wolf ears.
"Yaaawn... Did I suddenly get narcolepsy or somethin'? Who're you, mister?"
Yi Rang had only just awakened and clearly had no idea what was happening.
"You're beastkin, and you don't know who I am?!" the man demanded. "I am Park In-Hyeok, Director of Cheon-Rang Center—the socially conscious euthanasia center for beastkin, dedicated to fighting anti-beastkin hatred!"
"Cheon-Rang Center...!" Yi Rang gasped.
Cheon-Rang was famous for being a Center where only beastkin could find employment.
As a fellow beastkin, Yi Rang naturally knew its name.
In fact, she had once applied there herself—and been rejected.
"So you do know us," Park In-Hyeok said. "Now we're getting somewhere."
The moment Yi Rang realized another euthanasia center was behind this, she knew these people were probably enemies.
It was a cutthroat industry where everyone killed for a living and competition was fierce. Different Centers rarely had any reason to get along.
"Uh... thanks for clearin' that up. Anyway, I gotta get home, so I'll just—"
"Where do you think you're going?!" Park In-Hyeok roared. "You're doing one job for us first."
"Huh?"
"Nothing difficult. All you need to do is testify that Cheong-Am Center has subjected you to constant harassment, beatings, and sexual abuse. We'll pay you handsomely."
The offer of payment told Yi Rang everything she needed to know about the request.
"Hell no! I ain't never had any of that filthy crap done to me! And ya want me to sell out my own crew for money?!"
"According to our beastkin civic group's investigation, that Yu-Han is a beastkin-hating human supremacist!" Park In-Hyeok declared. "If you're truly one of us, you should be leading the charge to get rid of him! Do it for the pride of our people!"
"How's that s'posed to protect our pride?!" Yi Rang snapped. "It'd drag it through the dirt! I'm nothin' if not loyal!"
"Then if you refuse to cooperate, we'll have to dispose of you," Park In-Hyeok threatened. "We'll either kill you or sell you to human traffickers!"
The mention of human trafficking made Yi Rang's mind go blank.
Still, there was an old Korean saying: even inside a tiger's den, you could survive as long as you kept your head.
Yi Rang needed to find a way to stall for time.
First move: pull aggro with the most provocative thing she could think of.
"Ha! Now I see what y'all really are," Yi Rang taunted. "Ya got no pride at all, do ya?"
"What are you babbling about now?" Park In-Hyeok asked.
"Trash with no pride can't be all that strong! Bet I could wipe the floor with every one of ya one-on-one! Well... maybe seventy percent of the people here."
Worried that she might be forced to fight someone at the Director or Deputy Director level, Yi Rang hastily tacked on that qualification.
Still, her bait had struck Park In-Hyeok's pride.
"Then I'll give you a chance to prove it," Park In-Hyeok said. "You can fight every member of this Center, one at a time."
Yi Rang cheered inwardly. This could buy her an absurd amount of time.
Then a second thought crept in.
'Did I just get myself into something I can't handle?'
---
Yu-Han and Alice sat across from each other on opposite sofas.
"So, Director," Yu-Han began. "It hasn't even been a full day since I told Yi Rang not to leave the building, and now she's vanished. Care to explain?"
Alice looked deeply wronged.
"She said, 'I think I'll go look at the night view from the roof,' so I let her!" Alice protested. "By the time I checked on her, she'd disappeared!"
"That useless damn tiger..." Yu-Han muttered.
Truthfully, Yu-Han did not care all that much what happened to Yi Rang.
She was not much of an asset in combat, nor did she know any earth-shattering secrets.
Alice, however, left no room for argument.
"Yu-Han. You're going to save her, right?"
"Why would I—"
"They're after Ga-Eun too," Alice cut in.
"She can take care of herself."
Alice fixed Yu-Han with a silent stare.
After several seconds of staring back, Yu-Han grew embarrassed and looked away first.
"I just don't want people thinking I'm some disgusting sex offender," Yu-Han muttered. "So yes, I'll deal with it."
Alice smiled, satisfied.
"Who exactly are you going to 'deal with'?" she asked.
"I traced the funding behind those protesters back to Cheon-Rang Center," Yu-Han explained. "They claim to care about beastkin rights. If someone took Yi Rang, that's where she'll be. Ga-Eun!"
"Yes, Yu-Han C!"
Kim Ga-Eun popped out of nowhere the instant he called her.
"Slip inside," Yu-Han ordered. "You know what to do."