Retire 349

349 Interference (2)

“Alex?”

I led Kim Chaemin to Sandra Gamble.

Even then, Kim Chaemin remained silent. Now that I thought about it, there hadn’t been many occasions for Kim Chaemin to meet Hope directly. Not that there were none… but at those times, Kim Chaemin had always said there was something he needed to check and had cut off contact, leaving the scene.

It was only later that I learned Kim Chaemin had been cultivating mana grass in the collapsed territory during that period. Given that, it was no wonder he’d been out of touch. Lately, he seemed to be troubled by the fact that the mana grass had stopped growing.

In any case, I had relayed everything that had been discussed with Hope during Kim Chaemin’s absence. But from the start, Kim Chaemin’s curiosity had never been directed at Hope. If it could be called curiosity at all—no, it was closer to a sense of rivalry, and the object fueling that feeling was always Noah Michel. Something about Noah Michel always seemed to ignite that competitive fire in him.

It was Hong Seokyoung who had harbored something like anger toward Hope. Even that, though, had mostly settled now. As long as Sandra Gamble was here, Hope wouldn’t be able to betray us.

“Hm…”

How could I possibly know what others were thinking?

For instance, Lee Miseon simply tolerated Alex Hope. She didn’t like him. In fact, she probably disliked Hope even more than I did.

Which was understandable. Later, we learned that Hope had never intended to kill the children and had actually spirited the supposedly dead children overseas… but the fact that her niece had been attacked remained unchanged. If it hadn’t been for Hong Seokyoung, Lee Miseon would have done anything to catch Hope. This, despite all her fuss about recruiting Gamble, whom she called a genius.

“I see…”

Conversely, Sandra Gamble’s stance was that whatever Hope did, it was to be expected. Probably because she had watched Hope up close since childhood.

According to Gamble, Hope was now human enough.

Even now, he was like this—what must he have been like as a child? I didn’t even want to imagine.

“I see…”

And perhaps because of that experience, Gamble accepted my hypothesis about Alex Hope with an almost uncanny calm.

Her reaction was a far cry from how she’d responded to Han Taekyung.

In fact, I found myself watching Gamble for her reaction.

“Hmmm…”

“…Dr. Gamble?”

“Mmm…”

“Excuse me?”

“Is that so…”

Gamble muttered something to herself, then nodded alone.

Even when I called her a few more times, she seemed lost in thought, not hearing me. After a moment’s hesitation, I decided to leave her be. She needed time to collect her thoughts, too. Besides, I didn’t feel like disturbing Gamble when she looked so composed.

Instead, I looked around the lab.

The small space near the door, which Gamble treated as a sort of sitting room, was the tidiest area in the lab. There was a water dispenser, a small sink, a cupboard stacked with snacks, an electric kettle, a coffee machine, and instant coffee.

On the guest table where I sat, there was a single artificial flower in a glass jar. I remembered there used to be a real potted plant there, but at some point, it had been replaced with a fake.

This area was narrow, but Gamble’s domain was vast. Mana engineering wasn’t a field where contamination was a major concern, but even so, the lab was divided by reinforced glass between the research area and the break room. Beyond the glass, I could see expensive equipment bought with Hong Seokyoung’s bank account, indecipherable blueprints, and scattered papers. With Kim Chaemin’s addition, the number of mysterious items had only increased.

It would probably be quite some time before they produced any real results. Still, I believed that this present was more hopeful than the time I had come from.

“If it’s him, I suppose it’s possible.”

Gamble finally refocused her eyes and looked at me.

I waited for her to continue.

“……”

“……”

“……”

But Gamble said nothing. Naturally, I had nothing to say either, and Kim Chaemin, who had followed me here, had been silent for quite a while.

A strange standoff continued.

“Why? Didn’t you come here to talk about Alex?”

It was Gamble who first declared surrender in the silence.

She rolled her eyes and asked,

“Well, yes. You got so worked up over Mr. Han, but you’re fine with Hope?”

“It’s not about being fine or not…”

Gamble’s vocabulary seemed to grow every time I saw her. She shrugged with a nasal hum—a simple gesture, though she was a foreigner.

“What are you supposed to do with a kid who hasn’t even woken up yet?”

Gamble pointed out the practical problem.

“We already took him apart years ago.”

And she added something that caught my attention.

“Took him apart… Pardon?”

“I didn’t do it. His parents did. Especially Yijun—she was very worried.”

Chen Yijun. I recalled the Hunter who had withdrawn from public life after her son’s death.

I didn’t know Chen Yijun personally. I’d never met her, and likely never would. But from what I’d glimpsed of her in Hope and Gamble’s calls, she seemed just an ordinary mother. Not some extraordinary woman whose maternal love could reform a monster, just a regular mother.

“When he was young, he was too insensitive to his surroundings. He fixated on Yijun. They thought he might be autistic, so he went to a lot of counseling, had all kinds of… tests done.”

“Mm.”

“Maybe that’s why, even after Shanshan grew up, Yijun kept making sure he got regular checkups. He’s human. If there was anything inhuman about him, it would have come out long ago.”

Gamble spoke calmly.

I realized, belatedly, that her quiet attitude wasn’t because she knew something about Hope. She’d simply gotten used to it—Hope’s behavior, and the consequences.

Right. I should remember the first time I met Gamble. Hope had ignored her and acted on his own. It probably wasn’t the first time. It must have happened again and again since they met as children.

So Gamble had become numb to new information about Hope that she didn’t know.

“Alex doesn’t like complicated questions, so even if I asked, he probably wouldn’t give a straight answer. I know him best, after all.”

Yet, Gamble wasn’t entirely at ease. I could see her fingertips trembling on the table.

Noticing my gaze, Gamble clenched her fist and dropped her hand below the table. I hadn’t come to torment her. I’d only wanted to offer an idea that might help with what she was working on.

“…Rather than not answering, I think he just wouldn’t have understood what I was asking.”

“I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything.”

“……”

Gamble looked at me with distrust.

What on earth did she think of me now? I was sure our first meeting had been more amicable.

It was all Hong Seokyoung’s fault. Everything was Hong Seokyoung’s fault.

“When dealing with Alex… you have to be clear about what you want. If you’re vague, he won’t understand. If you’re lucky, he just won’t get it. Otherwise, he’ll interpret it in his own way and act on it. If I ask him to bring me something over there—”

Gamble pointed at the sink.

“He’d take the whole sink apart and bring it to me. Without ever asking what I actually wanted.”

“Mm.”

“You have to tell him specifically to bring the cup over there.”

“I see.”

“And he doesn’t like using abilities humans can’t use in front of me. Actually, I doubt he even knows how special those abilities are. He knows it’s something humans can’t do, but he doesn’t understand what that means.”

Gamble’s words grew more forceful. Seeing her voice rise, I started to feel wronged myself.

No, really… I only came to ask if she’d ever thought about studying Hope in a straightforward way. If she knew about his abilities but hadn’t referenced them, there must be a reason, so I wanted to ask about that too.

I really… hadn’t come to interrogate her.

Why did the conversation keep taking this turn?

“…Sandra, there’s something I’d like to ask too.”

At last, Kim Chaemin spoke up.

Ever since they’d bonded over tormenting Han Taekyung, Gamble’s guard toward Kim Chaemin had dropped. She seemed to think they were kindred spirits.

Maybe that’s why, as soon as Kim Chaemin spoke, the tension in Gamble’s shoulders eased. Seriously…

“You say Hope can tell the difference between things humans can and can’t do?”

“…Yes.”

“His parents really didn’t know anything?”

But when Kim Chaemin asked this, Gamble’s tension returned.

Kim Chaemin, however, didn’t seem ready to back down. He waved his hand and explained,

“No, that’s not what I meant… I wanted to ask if Hope’s parents ever noticed anything strange about him—if they ever suspected something.”

“Something strange?”

“Honestly, he’s not exactly normal, is he? I don’t think Hope could convincingly act like an ordinary person. Sandra, you said you realized right away, too.”

Gamble hunched her shoulders as if struck.

“…Alex did have some peculiarities, but if you said he was an awakened child with autistic symptoms, people would accept it. I intervened a lot, too.”

“So, they really didn’t know?”

“…Maybe they thought there was something odd. But that’s all. I was there from the start, but Alex said he didn’t want his parents involved in this. I agreed.”

The more you know, the more dangerous it becomes.

That was how Gamble explained it. Who knew what Chen Yijun would do to protect her son? And that might only end up exposing him to Noah Michel.

“I wanted to avoid that, too.”

“I think you did the right thing. If they’d found out, who knows what would have happened at the funeral.”

Come to think of it, Kim Chaemin had attended Hope’s funeral with Gamble. He’d said the funeral itself was uneventful, but… his assessment of Chen Yijun was rather harsh. No, harsh isn’t the right word. She’d lost her son overnight, after all.

Apparently, Chen Yijun’s temper was fierier than she appeared.

“What I really want to confirm is something else—you said you kept it hidden from his parents, right?”

“…Yes.”

“And I can understand why Hope avoided using his abilities in front of you.”

“Yes?”

“You met Sandra as a human. He probably didn’t want to remind you that he’d once been something other than human.”

“Ah…”

“But what about people who knew from the beginning that he wasn’t human?”

Kim Chaemin spoke sharply.

“Didn’t Hope use his abilities in front of Noah Michel or Henry Lehmann? At least, he must have helped Michel with her work, even if I’m not sure about Lehmann.”

Gamble couldn’t keep up with Kim Chaemin’s line of thought. But I understood. Hadn’t we just been discussing Michel’s magic at length in the staff room?

“Are you saying Noah Michel is after Alex Hope’s abilities?”

“A convenient subordinate… Well, ‘subordinate’ isn’t quite the right word. But if she considered him something like that, it’s fortunate. However.”

“How-ever?”

Gamble echoed Kim Chaemin, looking dazed.

“Until now, that so-called king or whoever was blocking her, so she had no choice but to listen to Hope. But now that Hope is believed to be dead, if that counts as betrayal…”

“Uh…”

“What if Noah Michel isn’t trying to kill Hope, but waiting for a chance to dissect him?”

If nothing remains to stop Michel, who sees Hope as a thorn in her side, then in that situation—

“What if Michel finds out Hope is still alive?”