Chapter 13
ㅡRrrrk!
The van door swung open in a rush, and Bureau agents poured out one after another. Every one of them wore a black suit, sunglasses, and carried a submachine gun.
ㅡClack!
The agents formed a combat line and aimed their muzzles at the hospital.
And then.
"Is this it?"
Unlike the other agents.
A man with a Japanese sword at his waist was the last one out, cigarette between his teeth.
His rolled-up sleeves were striking. The veins in his forearms bulged like they might burst, his face was covered with scars, and frankly, his white hair tied back in a knot was pretty damn cool.
"Yes! This is the place, Chief Lee Dohyeong!"
Chief?
"Huff."
Chief Lee Dohyeong exhaled smoke and tossed away the cigarette butt.
"So these anomaly bastards found our intel."
"Looks like it!"
"This place. Did we say there wasn't any intel at all?"
"That's right!"
"What can you do? Then we'll just handle it with our bodies."
With our bodies?
"Move in."
The instant Chief Lee Dohyeong jerked his chin.
"Begin entry!"
"Begin entry!"
One of the agents pulled a bazooka from the van, dropped to one knee, braced it, and then.
ㅡPeeeeep!
He fired the shell at the hospital's main gate!
ㅡKRAAAANG!
The main gate exploded apart and shattered to pieces.
I could only gape at this insane sight.
No, is this really right?
They're just teaching those monsters a lesson with artillery?
With a bazooka, no less?
Is this the power of the Bureau!
These bastards were my enemies, my mortal foes, but right now my fists were clenched tight!
Go on, blow this hospital to pieces!
"The anomalies are appearing!"
One of the agents shouted.
Looking closer, patients with their eyes and mouths sewn shut were crawling out from the collapsed entrance. No, could this even be called appearing? It was more like this hospital was a giant egg sac and a mass of chicks were pouring out of it.
"Exterminate them."
ㅡChk!
At Chief Lee Dohyeong's command, the agents aimed their guns, and the submachine guns all spat fire at once.
ㅡRatatatatata!
ㅡTutudu!
ㅡTudadadada!
The patients were shredded in an instant. As if even monsters couldn't do a thing against a barrage of bullets.
There was no blood spray. The patients that burst apart simply collapsed. New patients advanced, trampling over the wreckage, while the agents kept firing.
"For an anomaly, that's awfully tame."
The chief muttered as he watched the situation with one hand on his sword hilt.
I nodded at those words, savoring the intense thrill.
This was it...!
Exactly this!
Watching the Bureau bastards smash those stitched-up monsters sent a rush of pure dopamine through me. Those crazy freaks weren't even doing some insane zerg rush—they were grinding down everything that came out one by one. Right now, goddamn it, human power was overwhelming the monsters!
"Long live the Bureau!"
"For humanity!"
The agents roared and continued the extermination. Just when I was certain they would wipe out every last one of those monster bastards.
ㅡFwoosh!
From inside, people in nurse uniforms appeared. They moved differently from the patients. Specifically, flesh-like tendrils sprouted from all over their bodies, and then they lashed out.
ㅡCHWAAAK!
They swept away the agents who were firing their guns!
You crazy bastards!
"Kraaaagh!"
"Aaaagh!"
In an instant, more than five agents were cut apart and rolled across the floor.
Were they seriously getting taken down here?
And it wasn't just one or two of them.
Nurses are pouring out endlessly!
"Chief! It's a higher-tier anomaly!"
"Yeah."
Only then did Chief Lee Dohyeong step forward.
ㅡSrrng.
He drew his long Japanese sword, gave it one swing to shake off the dust, and slowly advanced.
By then, dozens of nurses were already outside the hospital.
And then.
ㅡFwoosh!
Chief Lee Dohyeong vanished for a moment.
When he reappeared.
ㅡCHWAAAHAAAK!
The dozens of nurses were all already split apart...!
How could that possibly make sense!
There are people this superhuman in the world!
"Underwhelming. So underwhelming."
I couldn't even see the movement!
He sliced all those monsters apart with a sword!
Not just me, but even the agents were marveling when more nurses crawled out from inside.
"Those things aren't even worth my time."
Chief Lee Dohyeong kicked off the ground again.
ㅡSrrk!
His movements were beyond human. The chief swung his sword while running, displaying skill so divine it seemed unreal, and every nurse in his path was cut apart and fell.
Ten, twenty, already more than thirty nurses had been reduced to pieces. A smile was on Chief Lee Dohyeong's face, as if he were enjoying the slaughter.
It was a massacre in an instant.
With a superhuman like that, wiping out these monster bastards would be nothing... As expected, this world is mysterious. Just as monsters exist, superhumans like this exist too.
"I can feel a powerful reaction, Chief. Be careful."
"I see, so the master of this anomaly has appeared?"
The master?
For a moment I flinched, but I wasn't scared. No matter what monster it was, if it crossed paths with our Chief Lee Dohyeong, it wouldn't even be left with bones. Could those maggot-like monster bastards really beat our Heavenly Demon, Chief Lee Dohyeong? Absolutely not. Our chief would kill them all!
"At last, I might get to have some fun."
Smiling crookedly, the chief widened the distance. Then a guy in a doctor's outfit appeared from inside. He didn't crawl out. He emerged, pushing aside the rubble with some unknown power. His eyes and mouth were sewn shut as well.
"Hey, doc. If you're a doctor, you should be saving people, so what are you doing here?"
The chief joked as he approached.
Right after that.
ㅡWhoosh!
The chief vanished. He reappeared above the doctor's head and brought his sword down as if to decapitate him.
ㅡShrrrk!
"No way!"
Several tendrils sprouted from the doctor entity's body and seized the chief's body!
"Chief!"
"I'm fine!"
ㅡRiiip.
"I'll tear you apart right here! Wha— oh?"
Huh?
ㅡRIIIIIIP!
Chief Lee Dohyeong was torn apart left and right.
"Chief!"
"Th-the chief!"
Bright red blood and intestines spilled out.
Jagged bones were visible in the torn cross-section of his body.
No.
No.
What is this.
That powerful Bureau chief.
Died like this...?
ㅡThud.
The sword slipped from the chief's hand. His face, torn in two, was expressionless. Hollow eyes devoid of the light of life stared at me.
"..."
The doctor silently picked up that sword.
Right after, tendrils burst outward from his body.
"Fall back! Everyone, fall back!"
"Chief! We can't get out of the fog!"
"Damn it! Engage them!"
What happened after that was... a massacre, pure and simple.
"Hwaaaagh!"
"Aaaagh!"
"N-no! Nooo!"
The doctor dismantled the agents in a way I couldn't understand. Then the nurses appeared and cut the agents to pieces.
"Aaaaaaaagh!"
I forcibly swallowed the nausea that surged up.
The agents screamed.
They were torn apart alive, skinned, and all the organs in their bellies were ripped out.
"Hiiik!"
"Hik! Hiiiiiik!"
Only heads and empty torsos were left, unable even to die as they screamed. Just like I had back then. They twitched and trembled, missing their limbs.
The nurses approached the agents. Then they thrust in surgical tools and sewed the agents' eyes and mouths shut on the spot.
"Mmph! Mmmph!"
"Mmmph!"
Once the processing was done, all the agents were packed into black boxes. The doctor entity had already vanished long ago. More nurses came out from inside the hospital and cleaned up the area.
Before I knew it, the hospital's main gate was perfectly intact again.
The agents, sealed inside black boxes, were hauled back into the hospital.
[Chief Lee Dohyeong's resuscitation surgery is beginning. All nurses, please assemble in the operating room.]
With that broadcast...
I lost consciousness.
* * *
It felt like nothing had happened.
I was still in the car.
"..."
The hospital.
Was perfectly normal.
"Fuck."
Those insane Bureau psychos!
No, how are those bastards so damn good at terrorizing people, yet they get absolutely wrecked by monsters? There aren't any fools more foolish than these idiots! When they fired the bazooka, I thought this was action, not horror!
I had no doubt the Bureau would handle this. But just when it looked like they were going to suppress it with force, they were wiped out.
Their ending was miserable beyond words. Those terrifying agents were cut apart and taken alive, and Chief Lee Dohyeong, the one swinging the Japanese sword, was said to have been torn in half before being subjected to some kind of resuscitation surgery.
And on top of that, those damn boxes!
I never imagined the thing inside the black box the guard had to collect would be something that fucked up!
"This is goddamn horrible."
It was so horrifying, but maybe my mind had already been so broken that I didn't feel like collapsing. This carnage felt oddly familiar. In a way, it was even satisfying. Seeing the Bureau agents get thoroughly beaten.
"Haaah."
A sigh slipped out.
Even Chief Lee Dohyeong, who had displayed superhuman combat strength, had gone down like that. In this hidden world, even someone that superhuman is doomed the moment they make a mistake. Looking at how boldly he had stepped out, it seemed he had cut down some monsters with that sword, and yet he still went down like this.
If even a superhuman is like this, what am I supposed to do as an ordinary person?
Should I try running away through the fog like this?
As I looked at that pure white fog, the thought crossed my mind.
No. If I tried that for no reason, I'd only end up with some weird ending.
"..."
In the end, I'd have to finish the guard duty properly to get out of this. Having made up my mind, I went into the guard room.
"Rulebook."
There was a rulebook in the guard room.
Come to think of it, my shift hadn't started yet. I had plenty of time to memorize the rules. I immediately memorized the rulebook.
"Damn."
Of course, no matter how many times I read it, I still couldn't figure out what to do about the contradictory parts. After memorizing every rule and steadying my mind so I could deal with any situation.
I went into the hospital.
"..."
Did my expectations... miss the mark a little?
Like last time, there was no one inside the hospital.
And yet after going to war with the Bureau agents, there wasn't a soul in sight.
Was it reset?
Then what the hell was that war?
Did this monster hospital take no damage at all and just get dealt with pointlessly like that?
I thought I heard a groan from the storage room for a moment, but I ignored it. The Bureau agents were my enemies, and besides... I couldn't really do anything for them.
ㅡDing-a-ling-ling!
As expected, the phone at the desk rang. It must have been a call telling me to come up. I waited for it to ring a couple more times before picking up.
-Go up to the 9th-floor office. Now.
It was that guy.
The one with his skin peeled off.
"Alright."
This time, I'll make it happen somehow. Since the Bureau was proven to be useless, I had to find a way on my own.
I went up to the 9th floor.
After psyching myself up, I opened the office door. The spread-out human skin welcomed me, though it somehow felt like a 'hug me' sign. Then again, it wouldn't just be a hug-me sign, but a 'human hug me' sign.
ㅡCreak.
The inner door opened, and a bright red human walked out.
"Please don't be scared. Please. We don't have time."
"..."
"Huh...? You're not shaken?"
When I stared at him, he actually looked flustered. At that point I was certain. This man wasn't a monster in the hospital. He seemed more like someone who had gotten caught up in the hospital, just like me.
"Who are you?"
"I'm a doctor named Kim Seonghan, no. This isn't the time for a leisurely introduction! This isn't a normal hospital!"
"I know. Doctor, what do I need to do if I want to live?"
"Y-you... no. We don't even have time for this. If you want to live, you must follow the rulebook. You are the guard here. Do you understand?"
The rulebook.
"There's no time, no time. I was called into surgery in a hurry, so I don't have time to say anything else. Just follow the rulebook, please! Somehow!"
"Understood."
I wanted to ask for more details, but there didn't seem to be any time.
So I decided to ask the most important thing.
"But the rulebook is weird, Doctor! There were several contradictory parts!"
"Huh...? Ah, I see. I'll issue a new one. If you go down to the guard room, a fax should be there. Time, there's no time! Hurry down, now! You have to go now!"
I stood up without hesitation.
I was certain that the thing in front of me was human.
This doctor... even after ending up like that, he was doing everything he could to save people who had gotten caught up in this strange phenomenon, just like himself.
Even in that condition.
"Thank you! I'll definitely survive!"
"Ah...! That's enough! Please survive!"
"Yes!"
I ran out of the office then and there.
I went down to the guard room and got the fax.
I compared it with the existing rulebook.
"Right. If the rulebook is weird, then talking to the person in charge is the correct thing to do. That's the sensible thing."
The contradictory parts have been crossed out.
Then I can live...!