The Coach Was the Real Monster

Daeun tightened a hanbok sleeve with hands that had killed before and healed after. That careful balance made her valuable as a coach and dangerous as a liar. She trained new hunters at the edge of the Bureau while quietly studying how gate creatures ate, nested, and reacted to human movement. Her work had already been marked sensitive, and her private life was worse. A hidden teleport scroll sat behind her credit chip. A locked certificate waited in her bureau locker. A shielded camera was sewn into her boot lining. When a subway clear went wrong, her old rank came back with blood on it, and the first system window opened inside a sealed room. Daeun kept teaching because that was the only w...