The next day, after hearing Alice's declaration, YuHan abruptly told her to come with him.
Alice immediately went on guard, wondering where he was planning to drag her this time.
"Ha! I don't know where you're taking me, but don't think things will go your way like last time! I told you—I've decided to get stronger!"
"…We're not going to fight anyone. Stop wasting your energy."
"Then what are you taking me for!?"
"You're planning to keep working as a sanctioner, aren't you? Then there are things you need to know. All you have to do is watch, so relax."
Alice followed him, still unconvinced.
Yet their destination turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary long-term care hospital.
The medical staff on duty gave YuHan distinctly sour looks.
"You were told I was coming."
"…Room 502."
That was all the nurse said.
YuHan headed for Room 502.
Naturally, there was a patient inside.
An elderly woman in critical condition—someone who, at a glance, was already dying.
"This old lady has terminal lung cancer.
Looks like she barely managed to file a euthanasia request online."
Perhaps it was a small mercy that she could operate the holographic interface with her eyes.
She lay motionless in bed, silently watching YuHan.
There was something bitter about the sight.
"But YuHan… what are you going to do?
Do you even know how to give an injection?"
"Of course I do. But why waste drugs every single time on someone who's going to die anyway?"
YuHan summoned his carbon-coated sword.
"YuHan, don't tell me you're actually going to swing that thing in here—!"
"Shut up and watch."
The blade moved once.
Alice barely saw it.
The patient had not been hacked apart. There was no obvious wound, nothing that even told Alice where the blade had passed.
The old woman simply closed her eyes.
She looked as though she had fallen asleep.
"I didn't sense any magic. How did you do that?"
"I'm a sanctioner. This much should be a given."
Killing someone that cleanly with nothing but pure swordsmanship was astonishing enough.
But what shocked Alice even more was something far simpler.
For once, she had just watched YuHan perform euthanasia in the literal sense of the word.
"Hey! Stop!! What the hell are you doing?!"
A man suddenly burst into the room, panting for breath.
YuHan merely looked bored as he prepared to leave.
"She asked for euthanasia. I gave it to her. Legally."
"You killed my mother however you pleased…! You murderer!"
"Your mother requested it herself."
"What the hell would you know?!"
"How could I not? I've seen a truckload of people like you.
You were keeping her alive so you could squeeze as much pension money out of her as possible, weren't you?"
"You bastard…!"
The man lunged for YuHan's collar.
Before his hand could reach him, YuHan's blade was already resting lightly against his wrist.
"If you love your mother that much, want me to send you after her?
I've sent nearly a truckload of devoted sons like you along with their mothers."
Faced with the sheer difference in strength, the man gave up and lowered his head.
Alice had been thinking YuHan might have gone too far.
Then the man spoke again.
"Hey… then are you going to pay for the funeral?"
Alice changed her mind.
"My job ends with killing her. The rest is your problem.
Incinerate her and throw what's left in a garbage bag for all I care."
Even after an insult that blatant, the man said nothing.
YuHan and Alice left him behind.
As they walked away, Alice found herself wondering whether he might actually use a garbage bag.
---
By the time night fell, YuHan had led Alice into the back alleys of Old Seoul.
Alice already knew this place.
"Alice. Don't tell me somewhere like this still scares you."
Alice silently shook her head.
At this point, there was no chance some back-alley thug from District B-4 could pose a serious threat to her.
"This place really isn't managed at all…
Times like this make me miss the police."
Alice sighed.
The military and police had disappeared from the Republic of Korea long ago.
Private organizations—sanctioners, private military groups, and others like them—had filled the vacuum they left behind.
"Well, if you wanted to make it sound nice, you could call it decentralized law enforcement.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have done a very good job replacing the old system."
YuHan pointed ahead.
"Look."
A woman was surrounded by several men.
To put it plainly, she was moments away from being raped.
"I'll handle this. Watch."
YuHan trudged toward them.
"Hi. I'm a sanctioner."
The men stared at him in confusion for a moment.
Then they relaxed.
"Yeah? Well, we're not euthanasia targets, so what?
You asking us to let you join in?"
"Of course not."
YuHan swung his carbon-coated sword.
A moment later, every man surrounding the woman was dead.
Alice rushed over in shock.
"Y-YuHan! You can't just kill people like that!"
"I can file them as targets myself.
The corpses just happened to show up before the paperwork did."
"You can't just—"
"Alice. Here's something even funnier."
YuHan crouched beside the bodies and searched their pockets.
He pulled out their identification cards and sneered.
"Looks like these guys were sanctioners too."
Alice stared down at the corpses.
So even sanctioners were willing to prey on innocent people, do whatever they wanted with them, and kill them afterward.
"You're from the famous Cheong-Am Center, aren't you? Thank you… Thank you so much!"
The woman bowed repeatedly and hurried to leave.
YuHan raised his sword and rested the blade in front of her throat.
"And where do you think you're going?"
She froze.
"Ten counts of fraud. Murder too.
You die as well."
"…You son of a bitch…!"
The gratitude vanished from her face in an instant.
Magic gathered in her hand as she made one desperate attempt to resist.
YuHan cut her throat before she could do anything with it.
"Looks like these sanctioners knew she was already a euthanasia target, so they figured they might as well enjoy themselves before killing her."
YuHan glanced at Alice.
"Well?
"Do you like the answer?"
"No.
"Not at all."
Alice's face had gone rigid.
---
YuHan brought Alice back to Cheong-Am Center.
This time, he led her into the supply warehouse.
Equipment of every kind was stacked there in bulk.
Naturally, that included weapons.
"See the magic circle? The whole warehouse is covered by it. Anything stored in here can be summoned from anywhere.
"You can't keep fighting with nothing but a beam sword and your bare hands forever. Take whatever you need."
Alice pulled one of the carbon-coated swords from a long container packed full of them.
At least that answered one question.
Now she knew where YuHan kept getting his swords.
But one mystery remained.
"If there are better weapons here, why stockpile so many of these?"
"Excellent cost efficiency. Decent durability. Intuitive to use. Plenty of room for expansion through magical engraving.
"It simply meets my requirements better than anything else."
"For something that supposedly makes so much sense, hardly anyone else seems to use them.
Why was this adopted as the standard weapon in the first place?"
YuHan smiled in a way Alice found deeply unpleasant.
Apparently, she had asked the right question.
"…Because the man who proposed it was the founder of the sanctioner system.
"He also founded SeoAnDang Center."
"And now some absurd legendary figure gets dropped on me…"
"He was the type who never shut up about how sanctioners had to kill with as little pain as possible. How we had to fight evil. That sort of sermon.
"The funny part is, one of his own subordinates betrayed him, and then he vanished without a trace.
"Useless bastard."
YuHan took the sword from Alice's hand and tossed it back into the container.
Alice immediately glared at him, competitiveness flaring in her eyes again.
"No. He absolutely wasn't useless!"
YuHan sighed.
"Alice, I dragged you around all day and you still learned nothing?
You saw all of that, and you can still say something like that?"
"Because I saw all of that!
"That's exactly why everyone needs that kind of conviction!"
"Believe whatever you want. Say whatever you want.
"Reality will prove you wrong eventually.
"You'll reach the same conclusion I did. In the end, this is just another job we do for money."
"Sorry, but I'll never reach the same conclusion as you!"
"That's what everyone says.
"Anyway, I'm leaving. Good luck."
YuHan left the center, leaving Alice alone in the warehouse to fume.
As he walked away, an old conversation with a certain man crossed his mind.
«You of all people should know that better than anyone.>»
«Who in this world can claim to know reality and fate perfectly?>»
«What are you going to do if you're wrong?>»
«Then the people who come after me can find a better path.»
«YuHan. You'll be one of those people too.>»
In the end, everything YuHan had said that day had turned out to be true.
He had never reached the same conclusion as that man.
And the man had, indeed, been an idiot.
So YuHan decided there was no reason to waste another thought on that pointless conversation from long ago.