Kano was waiting at the front of Sherp’s building, merrily watching it burn, when the other two finally showed up. Catching sight of her home and place of business up in flames, Sherp let out a choked cry and rushed over. “What happened?” she demanded.
Kano shrugged. “I burnt it down. Or at least, I’m trying to. Honestly, it’s taking a while. I’m pretty sure I mentioned I was going to do that a while ago.” She was impressed that she’d managed to remember that. It greatly improved the glibness of her response.
“That’s it? You burnt my office down just for that?” The diminutive ghoul trembled, presumably with a little rage, though to Kano it seemed to be mostly fear. She even went so far as to almost meet Kano’s gaze.
Kano considered explaining how she’d found the slime, but that seemed like too much effort. There was too much background she’d have to provide, much of which was still uncertain to her. “I was just joking. I got ambushed by a small team, probably Eomonsa’s pawns, and during the fight they must’ve set fire to your office.”
Sherp took a deep breath. “You should’ve said that from the start.”
“I guess,” Kano said, unconcerned by Sherp’s show of emotion. “Anyway, we can talk about all that later. We should really get out of here in case the same guys come back.”
Sherp cast one last forlorn gaze back at her burning home before they left the street.
“What happened with the ghouls you were following?” Kano asked once they were far enough away enough for her to feel safe slowing down.
“It was insane,” Himin said, shaking her head. “We were heading toward the center of town, I think, when the ghouls went mad. One second they were walking along, and the next they were killing each other.”
“What? Are you sure?” Kano couldn’t see any reason why Eomonsa would do something like that on purpose. Had he made some kind of mistake with his orders? It was certainly possible, given the stupidity of most ghouls. And the ones under his control seemed exceptionally dim-witted.
“Yep. I mean, it’s pretty hard to miss when everyone around you starts shooting at each other. We’re just lucky we were at the back.”
Kano sighed. As odd as their experience had been, it didn’t provide her with any useful information. “Did you learn anything before that happened?”
“Um,” Himin said, “no, not really.”
Kano was about to lambast them as completely useless when Sherp spoke up. “Wait, there was one thing. I noticed one of the ghouls was acting different from the others, smarter. So I lifted this from their pocket.” Rummaging around in her coat, Sherp produced a rusty key and handed it to Kano.
“What am I supposed to do with this? I don’t know if you’re aware, but having the key is completely useless if we don’t know what it’s for.”
“Look at the back.”
Kano turned it over, squinting as she struggled to make out the worn markings on the back and read them out. “WMF-03. Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“It stands for West Munitions Factory 3,” Sherp said smugly. “Which just so happens to be one of the abandoned factories I was looking into.”
It took Kano a few moments to process the significance of what Sherp was saying. After all this time, they had an actual lead? Kano felt a bit like weeping out of sheer relief. Was this over at last? She could only hope so. She never wanted to investigate anything ever again. How did Sherp cope doing this sort of thing as a job? She really must be mad or stupid. Or both.
“Well? Take us to this factory already.”
After yet more walking, a footsore Kano reached the factory in the late evening. Most of the similar buildings around it still seemed to be in use, whereas this one had been left to rust and crumble.
It didn’t look like the safest place to be, but Kano could hardly send the other two ahead without her. She was done with other people screwing up on her behalf. It was intolerable. Whatever was in here, she was going to find some damn answers.
Inserting the key into a door on the side of the building, Kano unlocked the door and turned the handle. The handle didn’t budge, and Kano realized that she’d locked it. Grinding her teeth, she unlocked the door, threw the key on the ground, and stomped on it three times in quick succession. It didn’t damage the key or accomplish anything, but she felt better for having done it.
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Too irritated to bother with stealth, Kano threw the door open. When she saw a black-robed man standing amongst the old machinery turn toward her, Kano wasn’t sure if she was angry or triumphant. On one hand, this was clearly someone important, if not Eomonsa himself. On the other, Kano really didn’t want to deal with yet another necromancer in her life.
As the man tried to flee and Kano ran him down, she wondered if she wouldn’t be better off killing him without talking to him. But she found there was no way she could, not when he might have the answers she was so sorely lacking. Tripping the necromancer up, Kano caught him before his head hit the ground. She gave him a moment to appreciate her generosity, then, gently, with the utmost care, rammed his face into the concrete. After giving him a little time to recover, Kano flicked off his hood and pulled his head back by the hair.
“Hi. Are you Eomonsa?” His name was becoming all too familiar to Kano.
The necromancer swallowed before replying, “I am.”
Good, that was one mystery solved. “So, you actually are a necromancer, then?”
“Err, sort of. I never quite completed the process.” He squirmed beneath her, trying to get up. “But I swear I know more than any—”
Kano rapped knuckles against the back of his head, and he stopped struggling. “I don’t care about that. What are you doing? What’s your plan?”
“Right now? I’m just trying to clean up something that’s gone wrong.”
“Are you talking about how your ghouls were killing each other?”
He paused to lick his lips nervously. “That’s right. Now, can you let me get up? This really isn’t necessary. I’m willing to talk.”
“You won’t run?”
“I promise.”
“Good,” Kano said sweetly, “because I’ll break your legs if you try.”
“I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”
As Kano let him up, Sherp and Himin finished threading their way through the machinery to where Kano had Eomonsa.
“Go take a look around,” Kano said to them. “I’ll keep questioning this guy.” She turned back to her captive, who was now sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. “So, you were telling me about your problem.”
“Yes, there’s been a slight mishap with my ghouls, as you seem to have noticed. But it’s nothing I can’t fix.” He cleared his throat. “In fact, if you’d let me get back to work, I’d be well on my way to fixing it right now.”
Kano was unmoved. “You can get back to work once I’m done with you, if I let you live. I suggest you not get ahead of yourself and presume that I will. So, the ghouls. What went wrong?”
“I’m not sure exactly. But I’m trying to find out.”
“How can you not be sure? Didn’t you make whatever it is that controls these ghouls?”
“Of course I did, but there are certain aspects of it I don’t yet fully understand.”
“You’re putting this stuff all over Shorinstown without even understanding what it does?” He seemed reckless, even for a necromancer.
“Well, I did think I had a pretty good understanding of it. It just proved to be more complicated than it initially appeared. More a flaw in the initial design than anything.”
“Isn’t that also your fault?”
“Oh, no. I developed the working prototype, but much of the foundation wasn’t my work.”
“Then you’re not actually using something you developed?” Kano was amazed. Eomonsa was worse than any of the necromancers she’d known. Where had this idiot sprung from? And why did he have to end up here? As if this town didn’t have enough fools running around.
“No, no. I did develop it. Before I took over the project, the substance was purely theoretical. I’m the one that made it actually work. You wouldn’t believe how much work it was.”
“You say that, but if you’d worked longer on it maybe you could have avoided this disaster.”
“Disaster?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “This is just a minor setback, barely worth noticing. Though the timing is quite unfortunate.”
“And why is that?”
“Some of my plans are, um, rather time-sensitive. At this stage, things are largely beyond my control, all that’s left is to ride things out and try to make the best of it. Regardless of what either of us does, the citadel will fall.”
“You sound awfully sure about that given how pitifully your last attempt went.”
“Please, that was just for the sake of testing the citadel’s defenses.”
There was enough confidence in his voice that Kano could actually believe he thought he was telling the truth.
“But this time it’s completely different, huh?”
“That’s right. This time I… have made adequate preparations.” He seemed to nearly let something slip, but caught himself before revealing too much. “But I’m sure you’d much rather hear about the little problem with the ghouls, no?”
Did he really think he was fooling anyone with such an obvious attempt at misdirection? Kano took a step closer until she was standing right over him. She was getting tired of his half-answers. “Stop wasting my time and tell me what you’ve been doing.”
“Ah. Yes. Right.” He paused between each word, clearly trying to buy time.
Kano was reaching down to grab him when a bullet whizzed by her head. Eomonsa tried to use the opportunity to crawl away, but Kano lifted him up, holding him between her and the direction of the gunshot. “Okay, okay, I’ll talk. Just put me down.”
Spotting another of the brown-armored figures who’d attacked her previously advancing toward her, Kano rotated her human shield so that Eomonsa continued to obstruct the line of fire. “Tell them to stop,” Kano said.
“I can’t, they—” A hail of gunfire cut him off as the gunman took aim and fired. Kano instinctively let Eomonsa go and threw herself to the ground. Several bullets went right through Eomonsa’s body, and he fell to the ground, looking quite dead. Abandoning him, Kano ducked behind the machinery and ran off to find the others.