Chapter 40
A week after the counseling ended, the entire granted vacation period had passed.
During that time, the three of us had been going in and out of the office every day, so it wasn't much different from work.
Since I didn't have to legally manage entities, I didn't have much to complain about.
If I stayed by myself, I'd only end up burning through red pills. A good thing is a good thing, and people need to get out and move around a bit to stay healthy, don't they?
Of course, there was another, much bigger reason.
[You have been blocked from the gallery.]
Block duration: 7 days
Reason: Posting hate speech
My second block since that flashy debut in the Backroom.
And the reason was even 'posting hate speech,' the sort of thing only burner accounts and anonymous trolls usually get hit with.
By the time I submitted the medical certificate and clocked out, the block had already been carried out.
A bolt from the blue.
[Team Leader reverse bunny-girl photo, post deleted after 1 minute]
Author: 갤질참쉽죠
[A meme of Dongtak approaching in a Dongtan MILF outfit while doing the Zero Two dance]
Dongtak: Looks like you were pretty surprised, Lu Bu♥ How about it? Do you still have Diao Chan on your mind?
Lu Bu: Hah, hah, I will serve only Father with all my love for the rest of my life!
Do I really have to see a meme like this after working so hard to survive?
But now that I've seen it, I can't be the only one!
Let's. See. It. Together.
[Comments]
으아들이대 : Kraaah, you crazy bitch
관리를관리 : Are you insane?
개체박이 : Oh
ㄴ게이괴이게이야 : What kind of reaction is that?
돈받고갤질하기 : Hey bitch, why didn't you tag the title as harmful content?
ㄴ(글쓴이) 갤질참쉽죠 : Then I wouldn't be able to show it to everyone, would I?
아빠는무림인 : Even if they say you have to read Romance of the Three Kingdoms three times in your life, I didn't want to start the third reading like this, you bastard.
Of course, the original post had already been deleted, and only screenshots remained, resurfacing every dawn through someone's uploads.
Thanks to that, I couldn't post anything for a week, so I had no choice but to take the 'go hang out at the office' route.
But this was a little unfair... I'd never posted anything like that.
Besides, I couldn't even use the gallery until I'd gone to the counseling room because my seniors were watching me like hawks.
I swear to heaven, I never touched the gallery.
Thinking it might be mental contamination, I even asked my seniors whether I'd been acting strangely.
'Not really?'
'Are you feeling bad or something, oppa? Should I tell them to do an exam or something?'
They both said it was definitely not that, and besides, even if it were slight mental contamination they couldn't notice, the possibility was low.
관리를관리 : Once mental contamination progresses beyond a certain level, gallery access becomes impossible.
Those were the words the head mod had said when the tone of gallery posts changed in the village where time had stopped.
I didn't know how much contamination counted as 'a certain level,' but acting unconsciously couldn't be below that.
Even if it was subtle enough that neither the gallery nor my seniors could notice it, I still had a third hurdle to clear.
'They say there doesn't seem to be anything seriously wrong? In fact, if they can send in a level 2 entity, you'd have to say he's improved, right?'
There was no way the counseling room would just leave me alone.
So that had to be one of three things: someone impersonated me, the gallery glitched, or I had sleepwalked or something.
None of the three was remotely plausible, but it was the best my pitiful brain could come up with.
“What are you thinking about so hard? Not enough vacation?”
“No, nothing like that. Thanks, I'll enjoy it.”
Imina placed an iced Americano on my desk.
“It's fine if you zone out. We won't be assigned to entity management for a while.”
“That's news to me?”
Kang Chae-young, who had been playing a fighting game on a handheld console, stopped and looked over here.
“I suppose it's a reward of sorts, since the entities we handled recently were high-level and the information has been updated a lot?”
“And maybe because certain people were so active that the higher-ups are thinking about a reward.”
“A reward?”
I had heard in the hospital that, since my contributions were the most recognized, the Bureau might give me some kind of grand award.
So the bonus that came in yesterday wasn't the big award?
“Usually they give you an entity that helps you survive. They might even give you something better than the degraded versions I make.”
The original versions of things like the throat stopper or the straw doll?
“Didn't you say things like that have strong costs or side effects unless you degrade them, senior?”
“That's right. Even the straw doll originally was an entity that sucked the blood of the people linked to it.”
Should I refuse?
As if Choi Yuna had read my reluctance from my expression, she poked my cheek with her index finger.
“Take it. The more usable entities you have, the longer you live.”
“That's too much~. Then I'll just die young.”
But... wasn't Team Leader at a level where she didn't need things like that anyway?
The Team Leader's profile picture when she came back from the Backroom was one where she was doing a gyaru peace sign with a huge hammer on her shoulder, covered in blood.
Now it was a photo of her smiling leisurely while covered in blood and wearing brass knuckles fitted with saw blades....
Wait, then the brass knuckles in the photo weren't even an entity?
She was the kind of person who naturally made me wonder whether an 'incident response team' was even necessary.
“Don't joke like that~. If everyone in the Bureau were at Team Leader's level, the entities wouldn't make trouble at all.”
“The Gwanak Branch's ultimate weapon.”
“Seong-bin, you're going to misunderstand!”
Choi Yuna and Kang Chae-young were playfully jabbing at each other.
And Imina, who looked genuinely flustered, the composure gone from her smile.
Since beauty is best when you can help it, seeing a bunch of gorgeous people chatting noisily made me feel pleasantly content.
“Oh my.”
“... Oppa?”
“…….”
“Yes?”
As if they'd felt my gaze, the three of them suddenly all looked at me at once.
What was that. Was my expression maybe too lewd?
“The sight of the three of you getting along so well is nice to see.”
“Want us to include you?”
“No, I was taught not to butt into girls' talk. I'll go to the bathroom for a bit.”
It was about time my one-week gallery ban was being lifted.
That meant I could have some guy time of my own, too.
Just as manholes and womanholes are split apart, if there's girls' talk, there must be gallery talk too.
***
Creak.
As soon as Seong-bin left the office, the expressions of the three people who had been cheerful just moments ago turned serious.
“I-I mean, is it really okay to just leave him like that...?”
Kang Chae-young, her cheeks red as a beet, forced out a barely audible voice.
“They said at most two weeks? So is there really any need to bring it up and get embarrassed over it?”
“If he finds out, I don't think he'll be able to come to the office.”
Park Seong-bin, who had been showing strange symptoms since entering the 'Forest of the Faceless Ones.'
In the hospital, it had been manageable as long as someone occasionally put a hand on his cheek, but after discharge, with less time together, even the stopgap no longer worked.
“Still, it's getting hard to keep pretending not to know, isn't it...?”
“I'm fine, though?”
“If they tore into your brain and studied it, Yuna, you'd definitely be an entity...”
Clap!
Imina gave a light clap.
“For now, they say natural healing is the answer~. If time is the medicine, then all we can do is keep feeding him medicine, right?”
As she said that, Imina took out a handheld terminal and played an audio file.
[Heh-heh, these ladies have some incredible bodies. Makes me want to teach people why humans still manage to have kids even during wartime.]
[One girl means one pair of breasts! Two girls means two pairs of breasts! Three girls means three pairs of breasts! The more, the better!]
[Why are there only women in the office~ Dunno. Why is everyone equally pretty~ Dunno. Do they all have boyfriends~ Dunno. Let's go, little Grace!]
The voice coming from the terminal was the embarrassing dark history that a man who had just left the office had been spouting until moments before.
“An amplification and corruption of small desires, huh. If you don't explain it properly later, I'll probably hand in my resignation.”
Choi Yuna nodded as she looked at Imina, who was trembling as if holding back laughter.
“I agree. Please share the file.”
“I-I do too...”
***
[Eternal Life General Hospital]
“What the hell. Why. Why are you suddenly doing this to me.”
I had definitely left the office and was heading to the bathroom.
By the time I came to, what was in my sight wasn't the Bureau's hallway but the foggy outdoors.
Houses and shops dotted here and there through the hazy fog.
Most noticeable among them were a school that looked like a high school and, of the places I recognized, the 'Eternal Life General Hospital.'
What on earth had happened?
I hadn't even left the Bureau in the first place, so why had I gotten caught up in an entity?
I was so flustered I couldn't close my mouth, but I decided to stay calm and sort through the information first.
First, the gallery.
Newbie, I told you that was mental contamination, didn't I? [52]
What kind of 'outing' is that supposed to be? [47]
Head mod, explain yourself. [32]
This is a secret post. [346]
I'm stifled, so I'm slacking off at work [0]
[I'm stifled, so I'm slacking off at work]
Author: 갤질참쉽죠
Nice to see you, you old Meriho bastards. It's been a week.
Just because I meme-baited once, they wouldn't let me use the gallery for a whole week.
Does the head mod have no dad? No, am I the one without a dad?
I can't stay cooped up inside the hospital and the Bureau forever; it's driving me crazy.
When I tried to go outside, the old geezer tried to stop me, but I couldn't bring myself to be rude to an old man, so I said I'd take care of it myself and came out.
Tsk... Don't you lot go acting like the youngest.
[Comments]
What the hell. Who the heck wrote this, and when.
I took the pill bottle out of my pocket and swallowed one of the red pills.
Of course, I didn't feel any different.
Luckily, it didn't seem like I'd been suspended from the gallery again, so I tried to figure out the situation from the posts and comments that had been uploaded.
Then, at that moment.
Creak. Clunk. Creak. Clunk.
An unpleasant sound started coming from behind me.
Creak. Clunk. Creak. Clunk.
The sound of getting closer, stopping, getting closer, stopping, over and over.
I shoved the terminal into my pocket and slowly turned around, and a huge silhouette appeared in the fog.
Creak. Clunk. Creak. Clunk.
Something taking shape along with the sound of its approach.
It was an old handcart.
The sort of handcart you see all around, the kind older folks in the city usually use to collect recyclables.
The problem was what was in the cart.
Scissors were piled up into a mound nearly as tall as a person.
A crimson mound, heaped with plenty of what looked like blood and rust.
Creak. Clunk. Creak.
The person pulling that handcart was a young woman.
Wearing a trench coat, she kept her head bowed and silently pulled the cart toward me.
Thinking I needed to get out of there, I kept my guard up around the woman and looked around.
Going into the 'Eternal Life General Hospital' right behind me felt far too suspicious.
Since I knew the director was after me, going into the hospital would be suicide.
The only remaining options were the school and the shops visible in the distance beyond the residential area.
But the thick fog wouldn't easily let me move my feet.
Because I couldn't tell whether the fog was harmless or a trap meant to move me somewhere else.
Clunk!
Jingle!
While I was turning things over in my head, the woman approaching with the handcart stopped walking.
At the same time, the red scissors swayed, filling the area with a loud metallic clatter.
Then the woman lifted her bowed head and looked at me with sharp eyes.
Where her mouth should have been, there was a blood-red mask so crimson it looked as if it had been dyed with blood.