Chapter 43
After that, I spent the day doing the same thing.
I tended the tooth tree without any trouble and fed teeth to the Tooth Fairies. I was doing exactly what I had done before the basement was consumed by madness.
Repeating the same thing over and over... only made me even more confused.
Where, exactly, did the truth begin and end?
Right now, I have a gift box the Tooth Fairy handed me in my hands. It feels like there's something about the size of a basketball inside.
It feels about the same weight as when Spandal's head was inside it.
If I open this...
Will Spandal's head be inside?
Just holding it makes me tense up and start sweating. What happens if I open it? Even as the urge to open it and check what's inside surges up, fear rises just as strongly that if I do, Spandal's head will be in there again and that hellish cycle will repeat.
“Why are you just standing there staring?”
“Huh? No. I was just wondering what was inside this box.”
“If you're curious, shall I open it...?”
Gasp!
“What kind of nonsense are you talking about!”
“Ufufu, I'm joking.”
Spandal smiled sinisterly and turned away. She definitely opened it out of nowhere on the first run. I'm glad that didn't happen.
“As a rule, you aren't supposed to open that box. It can only be opened after special procedures at the institute. It's for safety, you know?”
“A very sensible thing to say. We do need to ensure safety, since we don't know what might come out.”
Even while saying that, I couldn't shake my doubts.
The truth was... Spandal's human-like appearance was fake.
I suspected that the terrifying monster—the one that went pitch-black as if a shadow had fallen over it and then revealed eyes all over its body while spikes sprouted everywhere—was its true form.
I shook my head once.
The message had already appeared.
It'll be fine.
And so, I walked with Spandal.
It was the way to the Quarantine Team's research institute.
Since it was my second time going there, the route felt familiar.
“There it is.”
The door to the lab came into view.
A door just like the one in my memory.
ㅡBeep.
Spandal held up an ID card.
The door opened.
Feeling tense, I looked inside as I stepped in.
“Hmm...”
It was the exact same scene.
There were all kinds of displays and control panels. There were no twisted distortions anywhere, and the bright lights illuminated every corner without a gap, making the place look dazzlingly bright.
I could see the back of a man in a white lab coat.
Messy white hair.
The man turned around to face us.
Round goggles.
He looked just like a mad scientist.
“...”
After a brief staring contest, the guy spread both arms and shouted.
“Oh! Are you a rookie agent? Nice to meet you! I'm the research team leader, Gognijara!”
I had guessed as much the moment I saw the messy hair and round goggles. So he really was the research team leader. The one I'd seen chewing pills while looking fused to the displays... and the name I'd heard matched, too.
“Grong. The research team leader is a very important senior, so what do you think happens if you don't greet him?”
“Ah, right! I should! Nice to meet you, Research Team Leader! I'm Grong!”
“Grong! I look forward to working with you!”
The man, who looked like he'd hate the second law of thermodynamics, came over, grabbed my hand, and shook it hard.
While shaking hands, we made eye contact. But because of the goggles, I couldn't see his eyes and had no idea what he was thinking.
In that hellish situation, the research team leader told me to open the red door over there and activate the Reality Re-Cognition Device.
That red door is over there... Huh?!
Huh?!
The red door isn't there?!
I looked again, but where the door should have been was nothing but a wall!
“Where do you think you're looking?”
“Huh...?”
“You're looking at that wall as if something were there!”
What!
This guy... could it be!
“I was just looking around.”
“Hmm! Is that so!”
After I made up a halfhearted excuse, the topic changed immediately.
“Anyway, Spandal, it's been a while! You've gotten so busy you hardly ever come to the quarantine room anymore! Come by and show your face more often!”
“Ahaha, I've been too busy for that. By the way, where's that kid?”
“There she is! Since you brought it up, Dejure! Come make some coffee! Everyone here is required to drink sweet instant coffee!”
Dejure?
When I looked where the research team leader had shouted, I saw a woman half-hidden behind a machine, trembling as she looked this way.
“Hurry up and come out! I want sweet coffee! Raaah!”
The research team leader thumped his chest like King Kong. No—what the hell is this guy? Is he insane?
“Y-yes...”
A young-looking woman came out, trembling.
I memorized her features along with her codename.
Pingddok.
Oddly enough, her hair was pink. It was styled in twin tails, and she wore a black skirt suit. Her chest was puffed out so much it looked ready to burst.
Dejure approached hesitantly, looking scared.
Specifically, with the tips of her index fingers pressed together.
“Um, h-hello... You, y-you're the rookie, right...”
“Yes. That's right. I'm Grong.”
She spoke in a very timid voice.
She couldn't even make eye contact with me.
“Dejure? When will the coffee be ready?”
The moment Senior Spandal slid in between us.
“Eek!”
Dejure yelped and hopped back in alarm.
“Why are you so startled? Could it be that I make you uncomfortable? But how does it feel to have ditched the team? Jamtree and I were so good to you, and yet you ran off to the Quarantine Team. Don't you think that's really awful of you?”
“I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm really, really sorry...!”
What is going on?
“Senior Spandal?”
“Oh.”
So she used to be on our team and got transferred out.
“I-I'm Dejureee...”
“Dejure. This kid is Grong. She was supposed to be your junior, so you should have been taking care of her, but right now I'm the one taking care of her. You should be grateful, shouldn't you? Since you abandoned us.”
“Th-thank you...!”
Spandal leaned in close to Dejure, whose face had gone dark, and whispered furiously.
No matter how I looked at it, this was workplace bullying.
“Senior Spandal. No matter how I look at it, this seems like workplace bullying.”
“It isn't.”
“DEJURE!!! I want coffee now!!! Your greeting is way too long!!!”
“Y-yes!”
At the quarantine team leader's shout, Dejure hurriedly started making the coffee. She looked so clumsy that I couldn't imagine her being able to do dangerous field work as an agent.
“How is it? Doesn't she look unreliable?”
“She does seem like the type who makes a lot of little mistakes.”
“She really did. She's timid too. So field work was too much for her, and she ended up going to the Quarantine Team... I'm really disappointed. She was a good junior.”
Don't lie to my face, sir.
“Please drink the coffee...!”
“Ah! This is what I wanted!”
The quarantine team leader grabbed the iced coffee and gulped it down. Spandal and I just held our cups and sipped.
“So that was why you came today after all!”
When the quarantine team leader shouted, Spandal nudged me with an elbow.
“Ah, yes. Here. It's the gift from the Tooth Fairy.”
“Dejure! Come take it!”
“Y-yes...!”
Dejure received the box.
“So now we're checking what's inside?”
“That's right... W-would you like to look...?”
This...
Would it be okay for me to look too?
“Senior Spandal. Am I allowed to look as well?”
“Hmm, you should learn the gist of this kind of work too. Go on and watch.”
“Spandal, help me out here!”
Spandal waved me on, telling me to go ahead first.
“This way...”
I followed Dejure right away. The lab was fairly large and divided into sections. We went into one of them.
“N-now we're going to do the opening procedure on this... Mr. Grong.”
“Yes.”
“B-but when did you get here...?”
“Not long ago. I haven't even been here a month yet.”
Though honestly, it feels like I've been here a while.
“I-I seeee...”
Dejure's eyes darted around frantically.
As she kept sneaking glances, she spoke to me.
“Th-then I'm the senior... and Grong is the junior... so... i-it's okay to talk casually, right?”
So she wanted to talk casually after all.
“Yes. That's fine, Senior Dejure.”
“I-I seeee... Then I can talk casually... r-right...?”
An unsteady laugh.
Was she happy?
But more than anything, the way she talked was so frustrating I felt like I could die.
“Please relax.”
“R-right... Then look at this...”
Dejure put the box into a glass chamber. Then she went to the screen and tapped at the keys. After that, something like a mechanical arm moved toward the chamber.
ㅡWhirrr.
A laser shot out from the tip of the arm. It passed through the glass and struck the box inside.
“Hmm... no good...”
No good?
The machine stopped. Dejure opened the glass chamber, then immediately opened the box.
“This is...?”
Inside was something like a beast's bone fragment.
“This won't do... I'll keep it for a moment and dispose of it later...”
“Ah, so if something usable comes out of the box, you keep it. Otherwise, you dispose of it? And Senior Dejure is the one who inspects it?”
“Y-yes...”
“You look very skilled. It's impressive.”
“E-hehe... I-is that so...?”
Dejure scratched her cheek.
“B-but, junior, you seem to listen well...”
“Well, I should listen carefully to my seniors. I'm the one who's learning.”
“Th-then would you come to the Quarantine Team...?”
“Huh?”
Come to the Quarantine Team?
“H-honestly, Senior Spandal is weird... I-it's better to run... It's scary... that woman...”
Saying that, she kept looking toward the door with obvious unease, as if Spandal might burst in at any moment.
“I'm saying this for your own good... I-I'm scared of handling quarantine work alone too... S-so, what do you think? If you just submit a transfer request... I-I'll teach you well...”
“Ah, Senior Spandal. Is it time for us to go now?”
“Hiiiiiik?!”
When I threw out a light joke, Dejure jumped and dropped to the floor. She looked like such a small-hearted little creature that it was kind of cute.
“I'm joking, Senior Dejure.”
“Eh...?”
“Even so, you can't submit a transfer request the moment you arrive. I'll act like I didn't hear that.”
“A-ah! Don't tell Senior Spandal! Please!”
Suddenly tearing up, she started grabbing my collar, and if my mentor were this kind of person, I could see everyday life being a little rough.
Let's not go to the Quarantine Team...
“I'll keep it secret. Instead, if I ever have to stop by the Quarantine Team for work later, please teach me well.”
“I will! I will!”
We wrapped up the work more or less like that and came back out.
“What came out?”
“Nothing. Just some little beast-bone fragments came out, so Dejure said it was a dud and would dispose of it.”
“Hmm, can't be helped.”
A question came to mind around then.
“But, Senior Spandal. From the looks of it, something random comes out of the box, so what usually counts as a prize?”
“Ah, good question.”
Spandal smirked darkly.
“Usually, the prize is one of a staff member's internal organs or bones.”
“Huh?”
“There are times when they get stolen by those aberrations during work... Heh heh heh, for reasons I don't understand, sometimes we get them back via the Tooth Fairy. Aren't they really thoughtful little things?”
What kind of bullshit is that!"],
notes":"Standardized the chapter title to the split-part format and kept Dejure feminine because the source explicitly uses 여자. No major text changes beyond light naturalization."} like that? Need ensure valid JSON. I accidentally inserted a stray quote and formatting issue at end. Need carefully craft final actual JSON. Let's reconstruct with correct JSON syntax. Need no extraneous commentary. The array should end then notes then close object. Let's produce valid JSON in final. Be careful with line 321 string: no stray quote. Need use correct string. Let's ensure the note string includes apostrophe only. Let's rewrite final entirely. Since lengthy, risk of syntax errors. Need maybe simpler to omit some lines? No, must include all 188. Can't avoid. But maybe generate in a minified style to reduce chance? Yet many strings. Could still be okay if carefully typed. Need ensure commas between entries and proper closure. Probably best to provide as pretty-printed JSON with one entry per line. I'll copy the already numbered translations. Must ensure line 128 string contains em dash and no unescaped quotes. yes. Need maybe use typographic apostrophes? fine. Let's generate now carefully. At the very end notes key is string. Ensure no stray commas/quotes. Let's go. In final channel only. It will be long. Ensure every string enclosed by double quotes. Since strings contain double quotes as dialogue marks? Wait curly quotes are characters, not ASCII. That's okay. There are no ASCII quotes inside strings except maybe the line 128 has an em dash, okay. There is no need to escape any internal quotes except if any ASCII double quote character appears inside string—shouldn't. The note contains apostrophes only. Great. Let's produce. Prepare to be meticulous. If accidental curly quotes display as smart quotes and not JSON delimiters. Fine. The object structure at the end must be valid. Let's proceed. I'll keep line breaks and indentation. Need maybe not include notes with ASCII double quotes. Good. Let's ensure finalTitle string is