Chapter 81
I feel a deep sense of betrayal toward that man, Kim Sungjin.
Didn't we share true friendship there?
He's capable, brave, and trustworthy enough to compare with my true comrades, the vampire hunters.
And for Kim Sungjin to have returned to Earth without contacting me was truly shocking—enough to tear at my heart.
For a moment, I let myself think that.
Then I recalled my trust in Kim Sungjin once more.
Premise.
There was no way that guy wouldn't contact me. If he didn't, it meant he had a reason. Then what reason was it?
1. He escaped, but not in a normal way.
So the corpse was the problem after all?
He returned to reality, but perhaps in a compromised state?
"Wait a second, Team Leader Jjaaldi. That detector machine? Does that mean Kim Sungjin is on Earth right now?"
"Yes. He's on Earth."
"Is he alive? And where exactly is he?"
"..."
At my words, Jjaaldi closed his mouth for a moment.
"In truth, it doesn't determine life or death. Nor does it pinpoint an exact location. That detector only tells us whether the target exists on Earth or not."
"..."
Alive or dead, it didn't matter.
A bad feeling suddenly flashed through my mind.
Kim Sungjin... could he have been canned and delivered to reality after all? He crossed the veil, but in the end was caught by the butcher monsters and shipped off as product?
No, that can't be!
Kim Sungjin would never have been taken down!
"Grong. There's no need to worry so much. You saw him go beyond the veil, and now you've learned that he has returned to our reality. There's no need to jump to conclusions. He's on Earth now."
"Yes."
I nodded at that.
Overthinking things. That's my flaw. In some ways it might be a strength, but right now it's an inconvenient weakness.
Calm down.
"Grong. Don't worry. We've already figured out all of his personal details, haven't we? If we check the CCTV around where the anomalous response was detected, we'll find him in no time."
Jamtree soothed me.
"Thank you for saying that."
Going through CCTV footage is a bit of a grind. But now that his return to reality was confirmed, there would naturally be traces left behind.
I just have to find those.
"Team Leader Jjaaldi. May we begin the CCTV check right away?"
"The other team will narrow down the candidate locations first. After that, we'll start."
"Understood."
Then until then, let's do something else.
"Then may I take a look around the World Politics Board? He might have posted there, after all."
"Understood. Investigate that side today."
"Yes!"
I sat down in front of the computer at once.
Kim Sungjin is a World Politics Board regular. They say they have their own messenger, but would a guy who returned from hell really use only that? In my opinion, he'd be itching to post on the board right away.
"Grong. Is that man named Kim Sungjin that precious to you?"
"Ah, Senior Spangdal."
As I was about to work, Spangdal came over and spoke beside me.
"Of course he's precious. He's a soul partner with whom I shared true friendship."
"A soul partner... Grong. I understand how you feel, but he's only one of the many victims you'll be rescuing in the future."
"Huh?"
"You don't need to care that much about each individual. If you get obsessed like that, it'll just become your weakness and increase the chance of making mistakes during missions. So put your feelings for Kim Sungjin aside."
I knew it.
So that was it.
I thought he was just putting on a nasty face again, but he was really worried that I might get too wrapped up in individual victims and make a mistake.
If Jjaaldi and Jamtree weren't here, I'd have wrapped my arms around him and told him that wouldn't happen.
"I understand, Senior Spangdal. It's not good to get too wrapped up in each victim individually."
"That's right."
"But I think doing things this way will make my resolve and strength even stronger."
"Huh?"
"To put it simply, it's my conviction. By carrying out my conviction, I'll become an even stronger agent. Do you understand?"
He spoke with such confidence that Spangdal hesitated, as if he wanted to say something.
So let's press the issue here.
"Senior Spangdal! Please praise this junior's courage and enthusiasm! Hurry!"
"Ah, y-yes. G-good conviction. Certainly, that kind of conviction can help. But to carry out a conviction like that, Grong, you have to be that much tougher—"
"I'm tough enough! You know that!"
Spangdal knows how tough I am!
"Ah, uh, uh-huh..."
Sure enough, when I pushed hard, Spangdal trailed off and left the seat.
"What was that? Spangdal wasn't usually like that, was he?"
"Hehe, I guess he's a little weak around Grong. He's been like that a lot lately."
"Hmm..."
Jjaaldi stroked his chin and looked at me.
"Team Leader Jjaaldi. As you know, Kim Sungjin and I..."
"This makes the forty-first time we've had this conversation. Get back to work."
"Yes."
* * *
-BREAKING) U.S. decides to level North Korea
-There's something weird about the functions scientists use
-Protect your head from radio-wave attacks!!!
-If I spray house meds on Zaku Kunu's place and it still breaks, y'know,
-There's a tapping device in my ear
-What do I do if a ghost that steals Chinese faces appears?
As expected, it's full of psychotic posts.
Even if I turn page after page, more than 90 percent was psychotic rambling, and the rest were malicious bastards tossing bait for fun.
Only a tiny fraction of those are the real, hidden World Politics Board users. And among those users, Kim Sungjin is included.
Maybe he left a post.
With that thought in mind, I hit refresh.
-Someone who got taken by the human meat factory and came back?
For a split second.
A post that instantly grabbed my eye had appeared.
ㅡClick!
I clicked at once with an agent's reflexes.
-Share info, please.
A simple one-line post.
But my heart was already pounding fast. This human meat factory must mean the Hanseol Human Meat Factory, right? Then is this Kim Sungjin? Or another escapee?
Whatever it is, this is extremely important!
Of course, there's also the possibility that the person who posted this just used a provocative keyword like human meat factory to stir up attention.
So I left a comment as an anonymous user.
-K.S.J.?
Then.
-The post has been deleted.
The post was deleted immediately!
There really is something here!
This guy... is he really Kim Sungjin?
Then why isn't he contacting me?
For now, the fact that he posted something means he doesn't seem to have ended up in the worst-case-scenario canned state, so I'm a little relieved... But then why is he posting on the board instead of contacting me?
"Ah."
No way.
Kim Sungjin, that bastard, contacted the World Politics Board regulars first before talking to me?
I started piecing it together from there.
Kim Sungjin, having returned to reality, would naturally have wanted to call me in tears of joy.
But just then he remembered his comrades on the World Politics Board, and before asking me for a memory wipe, he shared the information with them first.
Well, he'd lose his own memory, but he would have told them to know about it and be careful. If it's the Kim Sungjin I know, he'd definitely have done that.
In the process, the World Politics Board regulars would have driven a wedge between Kim Sungjin and me. They probably told him that some Bureau agent named Grong can't be trusted and should be approached with extreme caution. They would have told him to think carefully before making contact.
Kim Sungjin is a World Politics Board regular and a seasoned survivor.
After hearing that, he must have nodded.
"That makes sense."
This deduction is built on my trust in Kim Sungjin and my prejudice toward the World Politics Board regulars, but more or less, it lines up logically.
Then the conclusion.
This human meat factory post on the board seems to be a kind of bait thrown out by the World Politics Board regulars in order to contact me.
And by deleting the post as soon as I reacted, they made it even clearer that this was bait for making contact.
Good.
Those World Politics Board regular bastards.
You want to get in touch with me, a Bureau agent, huh?
"Team Leader Jjaaldi!"
"Did you find him?"
I immediately reported in. I showed him the recording of the post being checked and then deleted, and added my deduction on top of it.
"A reasonable inference."
"Right?"
"This seems like a good opportunity. We may even be able to learn about this secret underground organization."
The phrase 'secret underground organization' coming from Jjaaldi's mouth bothered me a little.
"A secret organization, yes. But isn't our Bureau the true secret organization?"
"That's true."
"Thinking about it, it's a little awkward. We're the Bureau, and these guys are nothing more than board users, so it feels like we're losing ground, and that bruises my pride. Not even being able to track them and all."
"Hmm... I suppose you could see it that way. Of course we're a secret organization, but we can't control everything in the world."
That may be true, but...
"In fact, there are underground organizations the Bureau can't control besides World Politics Board."
"What?"
What the...!
There are even more things like World Politics Board?
"World Politics Board is only a group that's out in the open, at that."
"Then what kinds of groups are not out in the open?"
"For example, a coven of witches or a shaman alliance."
What else now?
"And farther down the line, there are also cell networks made up of psychics."
No, there are even secret societies like that despite the Bureau?
What the hell is the Bureau doing!
It can't even control something like that!
"Well, that's not important right now, so focus on World Politics Board."
"Understood. I'll try making contact first."
This isn't the time to argue.
"But, Team Leader Jjaaldi. What will you do if we find them?"
As I said that, I studied Jjaaldi's demeanor.
"Are you going to eliminate them?"
"Of course not. They're not our enemies. In the first place, it's not like they're doing anything particularly bad. Besides, they're not that harmful either. But..."
But?
"They sometimes expose dangerous information. That has to be stopped. More importantly, we also have to stop them from becoming endangered through that information in return."
I analyzed Jjaaldi's attitude as he said that.
He isn't lying.
They definitely don't seem to be hostile.
"Come out for a second. Before you make contact, let's run the program once."
"The program?"
"We'll need to do some tracking first."
Jjaaldi, seated in his chair, manipulated the program.
"Basically, this World Politics Board is a very mysterious site that even the Bureau's technological strength can't trace."
"Then isn't this useless?"
"The tech team keeps upgrading the version. I'm thinking of updating it now and trying again."
So there was a tech team too.
After a short while, Jjaaldi began typing as an anonymous user.
-Hello? I have something I'd like to ask the members of this site.
What the heck.
"Team Leader Jjaaldi! What are you writing right now?"
"It's a test post. I'm asking them for a conversation."
But why does the post sound like that!
"I'll write it!"
"Hmm... Don't go impersonating fake Bureau agents."
"Of course."
He wrote a test post while running the program.
After waiting a moment, instead of a comment the program reported an error.
"So it still doesn't work?"
"We'll have to tell them to bump the version higher."
"I'll have to give the tech team a talking-to. I'll check a little more for now."
"Understood."
I went back to monitoring World Politics Board.
Ah, right.
Let's make a fixed-nickname account.
I registered on the site right away and posted.
-Welcome, newbie
-Raise your hand, you bastards who came back from the human meat factory
I posted two threads, but...
-The post has been deleted.
They delete it right away!
"Ah!"
Just as I was about to start rage-spamming, an alert popped up.
-A new post has been registered in the guestbook.
The guestbook?
When I checked the guestbook, sure enough,
there was one private post.
"...A suspicious link."
They sent a suspicious link.
Are they telling me to go in here?
"..."
For a moment, I felt the urge to copy that link and spread it all over the internet, but I just obediently clicked it.
ㅡFlash. A chat room appeared.
A pure white chat room.
There was no response from the other side.
I typed first.
-You bastard, are you Kim Sungjin?
-You want to talk to me through World Politics Board, right?
-Looks like your rank was pretty high.
I waited for a reply.
How long had it been?
-Kim Sungjin is nothing more than a regular user.
A reply came in!
-A regular user? Then who are you?
-I'm a World Politics Board junior mod.