Chapter 30
I spent a whole week stuck in my room, not moving an inch. The only time I went out was when I had to go to the cafeteria to eat.
I spent the time just scrolling through the gallery, politely turning down all the messages from my seniors and the team leader asking me to go out for some fresh air.
[Kang Chaeyoung senbaem : Stop being mad already~. I’m sorry, really….]
[Me : I said I’m not mad.]
[Kang Chaeyoung senbaem : Then why aren’t you coming outsideeeee!]
On the very first day, Mina and Yuna had dragged me out.
When I asked Yuna, she said it had actually been Kang Chaeyoung’s idea—to cheer me up rather than just let me rest.
There weren’t any exact management records after Dokkabi, but she said it definitely wasn’t something a rookie should have had to go through.
If I was going to be given time off anyway, wouldn’t it be better to give me a little mood change while I was still outside?
Seriously, why send pictures of my busted arm too, just to make it look good?
So they apparently shoved me into it by force, made me sing, fed me something tasty, and kept chatting with me.
Come to think of it, it feels like the two of them had more fun than I did.
But if the web novel I was reading really died, then I guess I could cut them some slack.
So, I’m not angry right now.
Trembletrembletrembletrembletrembletrembletrembletremble
Click-click-click-click-click
Shivering as if my whole body had turned into a vibrating toothbrush, unable to put down the device for even a second.
I just didn’t want to show this state to anyone else.
I’d even relapsed into that forgotten Backroom photo-taking habit, so it wasn’t easy to keep pretending to be normal for more than thirty minutes.
Of course, Manager Kwak Chun-bong noticed.
In this weather, if someone pulled up a hood and trembled while saying, “H-hello.”, who’d see them as normal?
The manager didn’t ask me anything and just patted my shoulder as soon as I came out of the mountain of eel sushi.
“If you’ve recently used the psychological counseling room, I wouldn’t recommend using it again. Did they by any chance give you medicine when you left the counseling room?”
“I did receive some tranquilizers.”
“If you have to go out for anything other than the cafeteria, I recommend taking them beforehand. The entity byproduct really kills the effect.”
When the memory ended, I noticed the pill bottle I’d left on the table.
Could that thing... if I took it, would I feel a little better?
Crash!
I hurriedly got up from bed and fell flat onto the floor.
My knees and elbows hurt, but I didn’t care at all. I crawled to the pill bottle, opened the lid, and tossed one pill into my mouth.
Nothing changed. If it says to take it in advance, does that mean it isn’t fast-acting?
My eyes were drawn to the opened bottle. Dozens of red capsules were piled inside.
Maybe my condition is so bad right now that one pill isn’t enough.
Yeah, if I just take one more... maybe I’ll be fine.
Buzzzzz-!
Just as I was about to dump the bottle into my mouth, the device I’d tossed onto the bed buzzed.
The vibration meant a messenger notification, not the gallery app.
It could only be the team leader or my senior.
That made sense, since I didn’t really have anyone else worth saving in my contacts.
The security guard old man wasn’t exactly a close friend, though. I guess I should say I was moved by how much he worried about me, like I was his own body.
As for the rest, let’s see... there wasn’t anything worth saving among the Gallery people to begin with.
“Hm?”
My thoughts became strangely well ordered all of a sudden.
My mind felt clear. So clear that the thoughts I’d just had a moment ago felt strangely out of place.
So that’s what “entity byproduct” means. This stuff really does knock it out.
Dozens of capsules gleaming red inside the bottle.
By the time the medicine wore off, I felt like I should probably go to the counseling room.
[Team Leader Mina : If you want to rest more, tell me. I can extend your leave as much as I can~!]
If I’d at least taken a taste when I first got it, I would’ve enjoyed a whole week off.
***
Creak.
“Junior?”
“Oppa!?”
After a full week, the office was still just the two of us.
There’d been a minor issue of the member changing from the team leader to Kang Chaeyoung, but anyway, it was still two people.
“Yep, yep. The newbie is back in perfect condition. Fully taken care of—yahoo~.”
I deliberately exaggerated my gestures and even added the trendy line to show I was fine.
“…You’re still sick, aren’t you?”
“Oh dear, oh dear....”
A grim-faced Choi Yuna and tearful Kang Chaeyoung. Hm, not quite.
“I’m all better now after resting for a week. I’ve been eating well too.”
And I bowed my head.
“Thank you for looking after my mental state, senbaems.”
A little more explanation would have been nice, but my teammates had looked out for me in their own way.
“Next time, I’ll put resting first.”
“I’ll never, ever suggest mood changes again, oppa!”
“Honestly, having fun seems better. I slept really well on the first day.”
Surprisingly, the first day, when I’d come back completely exhausted, I slept like a log.
“By the way, Senior Chaeyoung, why aren’t you using the dialect anymore?”
“What? Oppa, I’ve always only spoken standard Korean!”
“Standard speech doesn’t end sentences by raising the final syllable like that.”
Kang Chaeyoung had suddenly gone from a native Gyeongsang dialect speaker to a cyborg from the capital region.
“Th-that’s because people from the provinces tend to speak more dialect when they go back home….”
“You didn’t care about that until just before this brat showed up. Dehyeo~ dehyeo~ halkae~.”
“Yuna, you need to calm down!”
Kang Chaeyoung was definitely 24, and Choi Yuna was 26.
“Is Senior Chaeyoung one of those fast-year babies?”
“I told you to drop the honorifics. It’s easier for both of us that way.”
“Exactly! Why are you calling someone two years older ‘older sister’ and making it all cringe!”
Choi Yuna answered coolly, as if it were no big deal, and Kang Chaeyoung chimed in.
Looking at them like that, the two of them actually seemed pretty well matched.
“I’m only a year younger, so why am I the oppa?”
“If it’s a one-year gap, then you’re oppa!”
“Yep.”
Maybe because I hadn’t slept well, I was barely hanging on and couldn’t muster the energy to answer properly.
I passed by the two of them and walked over to the coffee machine, made an iced Americano, and downed it.
By the time I’d gotten through about half of it.
[Employee Park Seong-bin of the Management Response Team, Employee Park Seong-bin of the Management Response Team, please come to Interrogation Room 39 right away. Thank you.]
What the hell? Why is my name suddenly being announced? I thought it was only entities?
“What’s that?”
“Probably they’re trying to hear about the intruder entity.”
“Intru—g‑entity?”
“You know that old man you saw, the old man.”
After that, a passionate explanation from my seniors went on for a while.
To sum up, since the old man was an unobserved, unverified entity, they were going to use me to draft the entity report.
“What happens if I lie in there?”
“It’d be dangerous the next time we met the old man.”
“That’s quite the hostage you’ve got there. We made a little pinky-swear promise.”
I’d forced myself out because I thought I’d just chat with my teammates, but now I was thinking I should’ve just told the team leader and taken a few more days off.
But then again, work is just a series of things you don’t want to do.
“I’ll be going.”
“Want me to go with you?”
“Should I tag along, oppa?”
“No, no. How long is it going to take? I’ll just go by myself.”
A flustered Kang Chaeyoung and Choi Yuna, who kept trying to say something only to swallow it back down again.
I left the office behind, leaving the two of them with the look you’d give a child left at the water’s edge.
What a coincidence.
Interrogation Room 39 was the same place where Team Leader Mina had interrogated me after I came out of the Backroom.
That seolleongtang and katsudon she gave me back then were delicious. Wonder if she’ll give me food today too.
The medicine was working so well that my head was going soft more than necessary.
Like taking Uihwang Cheongsimhwan before an exam.
Smack!
After slapping both cheeks with my palms to steady myself, I stepped into the interrogation room.
A man who looked to be of fairly high rank was sitting there, with two staff members beside him.
Looking at the thin patch of hair in the middle of his head, he didn’t seem like manager level either.
Unfortunately, it seemed that even entities couldn’t stop male pattern baldness.
“You’re Park Seong-bin?”
“Yes. Field response….”
“Yeah, enough. Sit down in front.”
The man didn’t look like he’d come here to interrogate me at all.
I sat down as he told me to.
He took out a cigar from his pocket, lit it, and then took a deep drag.
“Puuuuuu.”
And then he blew the smoke straight in my face.
“Is it true you encountered an intruder entity that ignored the Gatekeeper’s schedule in the village where time stopped?”
“Before I answer, could I know which department you’re from?”
“What, you’re going to snitch to Mina because I blew smoke at you? Since when do the lower ranks care what department someone else is from?”
Puuuuuu.
Smoke spread across my face again. No, this old man—seriously?
“No. I encountered the intruder entity, as you said.”
“Hoooo….”
Holding back my irritation as I answered, the man grinned, revealing a neat row of gold teeth.
“Why did that entity intrude on you?”
“I don’t know. From our conversation, it seemed to have become curious about the outside world.”
“It had been quiet all this time, and it picked you of all people?”
“I can’t say I know that much.”
The best answer I could give without being able to talk about the Gallery.
Puuuuuuuu.
“Here.”
Once again blowing smoke in my face, the man this time held out a paper covered in dense writing.
“Sign it.”
“Pardon?”
“I said sign it. Your hearing’s fine.”
[Exclusive Contract]
The contents of the contract the man handed me were to break off my existing contract with the Bureau and join his personal unit.
There was money, of course, and permission to profit from entities in the Seoul region, plus a dedicated bodyguard.
It was nothing if not an outrageous set of conditions.
All I had to do was take part in missions that required a large number of personnel.
“If you sign, you won’t get hurt anymore, and you won’t have to go on missions alone. You’ve only been here a month anyway, so you probably don’t know much. Just come over.”
“Why would you offer something like this to a lowly junior like me….”
Puuuuuuuu.
“Hey.”
The man frowned, clearly displeased.
“If it looks like you’re stepping up in the world, just say ‘oh, I see’ and move on. Why do you have so much to say? You don’t want to die cleaning up monster bastards in a dump like this, do you?”
What can I say? Since I came to the Bureau, I’ve learned there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Puuuuuuuuuu.
Before long, the interrogation room was so thick with smoke that the front of it was hard to make out.
“There’s an entity I’m looking for personally. So I’m gathering the ones with potential. You’re one of them.”
He seemed to think that, based on the old man who had intruded without warning, I had the ability to attract entities.
I didn’t know whether I had such an ability, and even if I did, it would probably be the Gallery.
There wasn’t much merit in me joining his direct unit.
Sure, a lot of questions might get answered faster, but….
Puuuuuuuuuu.
Because genre logic says a guy who blows cigarette smoke in someone’s face isn’t going to honor the contract.
“I’m sorry. I’m happy with the current Field Response Team.”
I politely held the contract back out toward the man.
“Hah….”
The man looked at my reaction with an incredulous expression, clicking his tongue as if he hadn’t expected it.
“You’ll regret it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sorry.
“No, you’ll definitely regret it starting tomorrow.”
“Branch Chief, Mina has come to headquarters.”
“Did she catch wind of it? That fox bitch, honestly.”
Puuuuuuuu.
The man blew smoke in my face one last time, then took the cigar butt and pressed it hard into the signature line of the contract, crumpling it up.
“Before long, the day will come when you beg me to let you sign again.”
Spouting a classic villain line, the man stood up and left the interrogation room.
The staff members on either side of him left with him.
My interrogation? The entity report update? What the hell are those bastards doing?
The man called the branch chief. If it was the branch chief I knew, then the only one would be Branch Chief Park, the one Kang Chaeyoung had been trash-talking.
No way, right?
“Oh? Has the waste already gone home?”
“Team leader?”
“Yes! That’s me?”
The one who opened the door and came in was Team Leader Mina, who hadn’t been there a moment ago.
She frowned at the smoke-filled interrogation room, pinched her nose, and then knocked on the wall a few times.
Whirrrrrrr.
At the same time, the smoke was pulled out in every direction at incredible speed.
So there really was a ventilation command in the interrogation room after all.
“Did you sign it?”
Mina’s question came out of nowhere.
She wore an expression that said she already knew what had been discussed.
“No. The pay was too low.”
“Oh dear~. That’s the best-paying place around.”
After that, an Information Team employee who had truly come to write up the entity report entered the interrogation room and cooperated for quite some time.
“Anything at all, even small things, are fine, so please tell me everything you know, Seong-bin?”
Like the team leader said, I told them everything I knew about the old man, except for anything related to the Gallery.
Except for the part about how I’d need to go see his face at least once before the year was out.
A lot had happened, but I could still finish my return to the office on a reasonably successful note.
Please let tomorrow be uneventful too.
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[Entity Report]
Forest of the Faceless Ones
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