Jae-hee and Iljimae spoke in low tones.

“Have you been hospitalized ever since the mission?”

“Mhm… I haven’t been getting any better. So I’m just resting here…”

A mixture of bewilderment and delight flickered across Iljimae’s gloomy face. “So, you actually remember me…?”

“Huh? Of course I do!”

It would have been harder not to remember the person he’d nailed with a Rider Kick out of nowhere.

“It’s just… I don’t really have much of a presence. I’ve always been ignored…”

Iljimae let out a sigh. “It was like that when I was a kid with my family, and even in the organization I’m in now, they’re always forgetting about me, ignoring me…”

“That’s rough.”

“They even forget I exist here at the clinic… I’ve been lying here for days without them settling my bill…”

“Hey, that part’s not so bad!”

A free hospital stay? What a stroke of luck!

After a moment of quiet admiration, Jae-hee bowed his head again.

“I apologized that day, too, but I’m really sorry about kicking you like that. It just seemed like the only way to complete the mission in that situation…”

“It’s okay. I forgive you. Because… no one’s ever apologized to me before… You’re the first person who has…”

A sad smile touched Iljimae’s lips as she gestured toward him with her eyes.

“You’re Boy, right?”

“Yes.”

“Heeheehee… If we meet on another mission, I’d like for us to be properly in sync next time…”

Just as their quiet conversation was winding down, the clinic door flew open, and a new patient was wheeled in on a gurney.

Who’s that?

Jae-hee and Iljimae craned their necks to see.

“Huuuuuurrrk.”

The person being wheeled in, spewing a rainbow of alcohol-scented vomit in real time, was a woman with a long, traditional braid.

It was Silken Bodhisattva.

The Doctor, seeing the trail of rainbow stretching from the hallway into her clinic, pressed a hand to her aching forehead.

“God, she’s back in this state again.”

“Huuuuuurrrk!”

After a long session of emptying the entire contents of her stomach in the clinic’s bathroom, a haggard Silken Bodhisattva crawled out. Her face was so pale it was almost blue.

The Doctor forced her onto a bed and jabbed an IV into her arm, scolding her all the while.

“This is acute alcohol poisoning, Silken Bodhisattva. You’re going to die if you keep this up.”

“Leave me alone… Shit, just let me fucking die…”

Watching from the side, Iljimae whispered to Jae-hee. “That shaman, Silken Bodhisattva… I hear she’s been in and out of the hospital constantly lately…”

“Man… She must be really torn up after losing Little Lamb, her boyfriend.”

As Jae-hee watched with pity, he heard Iljimae let out a soft chuckle.

“I think there’s only one way to soothe a heart wounded by love…”

“Huh? What’s that?”

“Finding a new connection.”

Iljimae’s gloomy face curved into an unsteady smile—dark and disturbingly close to wicked.

“A completely new… connection…”

***

The sun sank below the horizon, and night fell upon the prison cruise, Paradise Lost.

Darkness settled just as evenly over the clinic on the 10th Deck.

The patients had a simple dinner of porridge and white kimchi, washed up, and were soon tucked in for a long night’s sleep.

“Lights out! No funny business, everyone go straight to sleep.”

With a great yawn, the Doctor flipped the switch.

Click.

The lights in the ward went out.

In the quiet, pitch-black room, Silken Bodhisattva didn’t lie down. She remained sitting upright on her bed.

She stared blankly out the window.

It was the night of a full moon. The enormous orb cast a pale light down onto the sea. The ship’s surroundings were bathed in moonlight as it cut through the waves.

The round moon and its brilliant light against the dark sky looked just like the colored lights spilling from a spotlight onto a dark club floor.

And dancing beneath them, her Little Lamb…

“Be happy, Lady Bodhisattva.”

Silken Bodhisattva squeezed her eyes shut as Little Lamb’s last words echoed in her mind.

She could never forget the sight of her lover’s face as it burned away, just moments after he spoke those words.

“…How can I be happy without you?”

Her fingers pressed against the cool glass of the window.

She swallowed back a dry sob.

“How can I possibly…”

Suddenly, without a single sound of approach, a voice came from right behind her.

“Hello, Lady Silken Bodhisattva. I’ve been waiting here… to meet you.”

“…?!”

Startled, Silken Bodhisattva slowly turned around.

Iljimae was standing there.

In this eight-person female ward, their beds were at opposite diagonal corners. And just a moment ago, she’d been certain Iljimae was asleep, buried under her covers.

Yet she had approached without making a single footstep.

And while Iljimae had been in a patient’s gown before lights-out… she was now dressed in the black leather armor she wore for combat.

Iljimae offered an awkward smile.

“The leader of our organization is very eager to meet you… Please come with me.”

“…”

Though devastated by her lover’s death, Silken Bodhisattva was still an AA-Rank prisoner, one of the most formidable inmates on the ship.

She slowly reached to her side. Her hand closed around the ornamental hairpin she always carried.

“What organization do you belong to that you can just summon me? What deck are you from?”

“Well, um… it’s not an organization on this ship.”

“What?” Silken Bodhisattva asked, confused. “Then where is it?”

“…”

“Who… are you?”

Sensing something was deeply wrong, Silken Bodhisattva’s voice turned sharp. “What the hell is your organization?”

In response, Iljimae slowly drew something from her waist. A mask.

A traditional Korean mask known as an Imae mask, shaped so that the missing jaw left the lower half of the wearer’s face exposed.

Slipping it on, Iljimae’s lips curled into that unsteady smile of hers.

“The name of our organization… is the Crimson Poverty Front.”

***

10th Deck, the Clinic. The Doctor’s office.

“Ah, finally done for the day.”

Having finished the last of her paperwork, the Doctor sank back into her desk chair and stretched.

I hope there are no emergencies tonight.

As befitted a prison for Villains, incidents never ceased, day or night. The stream of injuries and deaths was constant. In fact, it felt like more trouble broke out at night than during the day.

I wish they’d get me more medical staff… I’m so tired…

Yawning, the Doctor was about to lie down on the cot when a thought struck her, and she paused.

Right, I had an idea for a potion that might suit Boy…

Maybe I’ll just mix a batch before I rest.

She got up and started walking toward the medicine cabinet.

But then…

Knock, knock, knock.

A rapping sound came from the clinic door.

It was after hours, so the Doctor’s first instinct was to ignore it.

An emergency call would come through the guards. This was almost certainly just an ignorant prisoner who didn’t know visiting hours were over.

But she couldn’t ignore it for long.

The man who had been lurking outside the door suddenly appeared inside the clinic in a brilliant flash of light—he had teleported.

Stunned, the Doctor’s eyes shot to the man’s wrists.

There were no Null Cuffs.

Not an inmate?

But he wasn’t a guard, either.

The man was dressed less like a correctional officer and more like a beggar. A sleeveless hoodie, a tattered coat, ripped jeans, and worn-out boots…

His light brown hair was long and unkempt, as if it hadn’t been touched in ages, but a pair of mischievous eyes peeked out from the matted locks.

For all his ragged appearance, his face was strikingly handsome… though one corner of his mouth was locked in a perpetual sneer.

The Doctor broke into a cold sweat as she sized up the unidentified man. “Who are you?”

“Ah, my apologies. You didn’t answer my knock, so I let myself in.”

The man smiled sheepishly, scratching his greasy hair with a hand clad in fingerless gloves.

He glanced around. “I heard my little sister was admitted here… I came to pick her up.”

“I’m in charge of all patient admissions and discharges. No one leaves without my permission.”

“Eh? Shouldn’t it be fine with the consent of the patient and their guardian?”

“This is a prison. Nothing happens without the attending physician’s consent.”

“Spoken like a true doctor. You’ve got quite the backbone.”

The man grinned and pulled something from his pocket.

Click.

A pistol fitted with a silencer.

“You know, back in the old days, I hear there was something called the Geneva Convention, which meant you could hold your head up all high and mighty and still be safe…”

He aimed the barrel at the Doctor.

“But the Gates blew up Geneva, Switzerland and all, a long time ago. So we don’t have to worry about that stuff anymore. Yeah?”

“…”

“This is your last warning. Stay right where you are, m’kay? If you don’t want to die.”

The Doctor scoffed. “You’re not planning on letting me live anyway.”

“Oh? How’d you know?”

“An intruder would never leave a witness. Especially…”

The man’s brow furrowed at her next words.

“A blood-soaked murderer like you.”

“My, you have a real shitty way with words, Doc.” The man’s finger flicked off the safety. “You’re hurting my feelings.”

In the instant their eyes met, the Doctor lunged for the emergency button under the table—but the man’s finger was just a little faster on the trigger.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

The silenced pistol spat fire.

Blood sprayed violently across the Doctor’s white coat.

***

Outside the Clinic.

Ghost stared up silently at the Clinic sign with a sullen expression.

She’d heard her disciple had been carried in after overexerting himself and had come to visit, but the Clinic was already closed. Visiting was out of the question.

It’s already late.

Living on Deck 0 tended to warp one’s sense of time.

With every last window boarded up, it was hard to mark the passage of a day.

Can’t be helped. I’ll have to come back in the morning—Hm?

Just as Ghost was about to turn away, she noticed a commotion inside the clinic. 

The next moment, an emergency siren blared.

WEEEEEE-OOOOOO!

It was the alarm system wired throughout the clinic, designed for various emergencies.

Either a critical patient had appeared, or…

An intruder!

Ghost didn’t hesitate.

The Clinic door was locked solid, but that was hardly a problem for her.

Shhhk!

She brought the blade of her hand down in a sharp chop. Wreathed in black energy, her hand sliced cleanly through the locking mechanism.

Kicking the door open, Ghost stepped inside and took in the carnage.

“Hk, ugh… khh.”

The Doctor was covered in blood and collapsed on the floor, pressing her hands to her gunshot wounds. Even as she was hit, she had desperately reached out and managed to slam the emergency button.

Standing over her was the man in beggar’s clothes, his gun still aimed at her.

The face peeking out from between strands of matted, light brown hair offered a sheepish smirk.

“Well, damn. Looks like I’ve been found out. And by the legendary Ghost, no less.”

Not an inmate. Not a guard.

The man was an unknown.

“Who the hell are you?” Ghost spat.

“If you must ask, I suppose it’s only polite to answer?”

The man slowly drew something from his waist.

It was a mask.

A traditional Korean mask known as a Choraengi mask, carved with a sneering, crooked mouth and bulging eyes.

The man slipped it on and grinned.

“The Taoist of the Crimson Poverty Front… Jeon Woo-chi, at your service!”

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