Chapter 11
The Bureau has branches in every country.
Besides Korea, there are branches in the United States, Japan, China, Russia, India, and elsewhere. Most countries that survived the Tower crisis have one.
Of course, there are exceptions. In some places, the organization goes by a name other than the Bureau.
For now, here's what each Bureau branch does.
They exchange magic stones and monster byproducts for currency, collect and manage information on the Awakened, monitor monsters in the Towers and those spilling out into the world, and devise plans to reclaim territory.
Surprisingly, you could say they do their best to preserve and protect the international community.
"Therefore, we must devise plans to train Awakened to deal with monsters remaining in fallen countries and certain regions—"
At regular intervals, the Bureau holds meetings among the heads of its branches.
For some reason, though, the person leading the meeting is chosen at random from among the branch heads.
'This is so damn boring...'
'I'm sleepy. I'm going to nap.'
'What a drag...'
Maybe that's why meetings sometimes dragged on so long that the branch heads, other than the one leading them, would start doing other things.
The most notorious example was when the Holy Sword wielder from the UK branch was chosen to lead the meeting.
'Just get to the point. Why are you dragging this out so much...'
Then there were people like Han Mi-reu, who tuned it out completely and secretly played with her phone.
They were recording it anyway, so she could just go back and watch the important parts later.
But then she saw a headline on the news while scrolling, and couldn't take it anymore.
[Shocking! Awakened Person Who Jumped to Their Death Revives Completely Unharmed. Discovery of Another Special Class?—]
"Fuck."
Thump!
"Mi-reu-chan? What's wrong?"
The tengu beside her, who was drawing a flipbook comic on some papers, spoke to her. But Mi-reu couldn't answer him.
"This is why I didn't want to come to this meeting..."
"Han Mi-reu!! Can't you see we're in the middle of a meeting!? Why aren't you standing up right now—"
"Fuck you, you boring-ass piece of shit..."
"W-what?"
"So. Do you know what you did wrong today?"
"Uh... I touched Ms. Mi-reu's computer?"
"Not that."
"I fell off the railing?"
"You're all over the TV right now."
Beep—the moment Mi-reu turned on the wall-mounted TV with the remote, a photo appeared beside someone who was talking about something or other.
[At four this afternoon, a shocking incident occurred when an Awakened person jumped to their death, then revived completely unharmed and went home.]
"...?"
-Whoa, what is that?
-It's Fire Chicken.
-No, holy shit, what's with the mosaic on the street?
-Mom. I'm on TV.
"What? When did you turn on the broadcast?"
"I was just messing with it, and it turned on."
"Oh dear... what do I do?"
'I never taught her how to use that thing.'
As So-jeong tilted her head, having caused trouble without even realizing it, Han Mi-reu pressed a hand to her forehead.
[Experts say that being crushed to that extent and then reviving is practically the same as creating something from nothing, and that it confirms yet another possibility of special classes—]
"Oh, this is bad. The government found out."
"Why does it matter if the government knows?"
"You keep coming back to life no matter how many times you die, so there's no telling what the government might do. This might've reached other countries, too. Shit, what if they kidnap you and try to run some kind of experiment..."
"Could I die if they experimented on me?"
"Huh?"
"Then can I go get experimented on right now?"
"What?"
-'You could die during the experiment? Nice!' What the hell is that???
-Why is she happy about it? lol
-That expression is practically saying, 'Hurry up and kidnap me! Now!!!' Holy shit
-Why does her face light up at the idea of dying??
"So-jeong, listen. This really isn't the kind of thing you should be excited about. Forget whether you might die, it's obviously going to be incredibly painful—"
"So when are they kidnapping me?"
"No, for fuck's sake, come on."
-She really is something else.
-Is this that 'madness in clear eyes' thing I've heard about?
-Kidnap me! Any experiment is fine! Then kill me! Hurry!!
-If there's a secret lab somewhere, she looks ready to storm it herself.
-I said don't get excited about this!!
Seeing So-jeong's eyes light up at the thought of being tortured during experiments and possibly dying, as she begged them to kidnap her right away, Mi-reu developed a headache.
But an unexpected viewer sent a donation, and Mi-reu realized the situation had changed.
-I'm one of the researchers employed by the government. After seeing Joo So-jeong's reaction, everyone got scared and scrapped all the experiment plans. Does that mean we have the green light?
-What, they ran away?
-Holy shit, they really were going to experiment on her and then backed out? LOL
-Well, people have always said you should never mess with someone who's got madness in their eyes...
'What? It turned out like this? So I don't have to worry after all?'
Astonishingly, the government was the first to get scared and give up.
In fact, Han Mi-reu was one of the Awakened—and a Bureau branch chief at that—so government employees watched her stream to keep track of the situation.
The president probably watched anything related to the Awakened, too. Maybe even he realized something had gone wrong.
But...
"What? They gave up already? You're the government—why are you so spineless?"
"No, don't be disappointed."
-Why are you the one who's disappointed?
-Wait, what? Why does it feel like their positions have been reversed?
-Is this what it means to be a special class?
-Even most special classes don't make suicide their future career.
-She's so bad off she needs therapy... Sigh, never mind.
-What? Don't give up.
"That's right! Don't give up! Jumyeolhoe or whoever you are, bring down the Tower if you have to and try to kill me! I've only made it to floor 20! I'm still practically brand-new!"
-I think even Jumyeolhoe would run away from a crazy bitch like that?
-They say the best thing to do is stay away from lunatics.
-Don't run aw—no, just run. Don't look back.
-Is this really something you hear from an Awakened who's only climbed twenty floors???
-I can see concern building in Mimir-chan's face in real time.
-Same here.
Realizing that they had no intention of killing her even after all that, Joo So-jeong's expression seemed to change in real time. Then she grabbed the camera, shoved her face against the lens, and shouted.
"Don't run away!! You cowardly bastards!!! Don't run away!!! You were just people with nowhere to vent your grudges, so you chose humans instead of monsters, and then you even forgot your original purpose and turned into murderous psychos!!!! The number of people you've killed!! It's greater than the number of people monsters have eaten so far! You're better at killing people than actual killers!! You're trash wanted internationally as an entire organization because you've killed so many!!! And now you're going to do nothing and run away!!? You idiots are worse than—"
"Can I turn off the stream?"
-Turn it off, yeah.
-Why are her eyes bloodshot?
-Today's stream is fucked, damn.
-How messed up does someone's life have to be for an Awakened person to scream on stream and beg people to kill her?
-At least we know the Tower's resurrection skill has trapped her in this world.
-Well, this is a disaster.
Beep.
[Raising a Vampire: Day 15]
[Posted by: NotTheNanny]
Today, the vampire burst out of her room crying and threw herself into my arms.
The reason was absurd.
She'd seen a "really scary person."
Wondering what on earth had happened, I checked the phone she'd been using and realized she'd watched a certain stream.
The moment I witnessed the madness of a certain woman who appeared on that stream, I understood why she'd run out of her room.
I did want her to come out from under her blanket, but not like this.
-I Am Empire: She's really insane...
-Clacker Maniac: She even made our hikikomori vampire-chan run outside...
-Future Archmage Pro: She'll keep acting like that unless there's some kind of Immortal-Slaying spell.
└Deep Sea Diver: Is there one?
└Future Archmage Pro: No;;
└Deep Sea Diver: Magic's fucking useless.
└Future Archmage Pro: Fuck you.
-World Peace: See? I told you we have to make her a deputy mod somehow. If she's too busy dealing with tactical-nuke-level hag porn, she won't even have time to think about suicide.
└Environmental Protection: What are you going to do about the salary Fire Chicken asked for, then?
└World Peace: Does maintaining peace require a salary?
└Environmental Protection: Just say you don't want to pay her, you bastard.
└Fashionista: Force her into the deputy mod role and make her work for free, and she'll probably celebrate by putting on a show reenacting every kind of death.
-Turtle King: Seriously, what do we do about her? It seems like her desire to die has filled most of her mind, right down to her subconscious.
-Dragon Chicken: This really isn't easy...
└Caw Caw: For real.
People started talking all over the community about Joo So-jeong's abnormal mental state.
News had spread that someone who wanted to die had become a special-class Awakened who couldn't die, and was going insane.
What kind of deranged Tower would do something like this? Did it want to experience some kind of sick pleasure?
Anyway, it didn't seem like anyone could stop Joo So-jeong now that her madness had come to light and she'd started running wild.
But...
"She started climbing the Tower."
-?
-Whaaat?
-Why?
"Well... it was nothing. I just mentioned that she might get skills or weapons related to killing immortals if she climbed the Tower, but her climbing motivation—which had been nonexistent as recently as yesterday—suddenly shot up... To cut to the chase, she said she'd start climbing in earnest tomorrow."
-That's... good, right?
-How is wanting to die a reason to climb the Tower?
-This is a legend for a whole different reason.
-You get a chance to die if you climb the Tower? I'm heading straight for floor 100!!
-Is this for real???
"I don't know, either. Do you know how many times I've had to grab her when she tried to throw herself off a building because she was in a good mood?"
-I don't want to know. Don't tell me.
-What does it even mean to want to die because you're in a good mood?
-She's going to end up like Sato at this rate.
-If she's a phoenix who can keep reviving forever, she might be capable of even worse.
"Thanks to that, my flying ability got pointlessly good. Hahahaha... haaa..."
-Wow, that's really impressive.
-I'd congratulate you, but given the circumstances, it feels kind of wrong.
-How many times did you have to go rescue her?
-Looking at that face, she must've missed saving her a few times and seen her end up in a censored state.
-This phoenix will die for free. (Seriously.)
Will it be possible to heal Joo So-jeong's horrifying mental state?
Neither Han Mi-reu nor the viewers knew the answer yet.