Chapter 50
I ask you:
Once you put a period at the end of this fleeting life,
do you go to heaven or hell,
do you awaken through reincarnation,
do you wander the Nine Heavens,
do you wander this world,
do you become a star in the sky,
or do you simply disappear?
At the end of life, what is it that awaits you?
***
“Hello.”
“Welcome.”
“You're here?”
“The God of Destruction oppa is here~.”
Two days after my unexpected encounter with WhiteHacker from ‘Electricity Flows Through the Brain’…
I had gone through quite a major incident, but my vacation hadn't been extended, so I went to the office as scheduled.
“God of Destruction? Please don't give me an entity name that sounds like it could be Level 5.”
“That's what they said in HR. They said you cut the kids' levels apart like slicing pasta.”
“Investigate?”
“It means you cut them.”
Kang Chae-young was delighted to have something new to tease me about, while Choi Yu-na translated her dialect.
“If an entity destroys both enemies and allies without discrimination, that's a God of Destruction, right?”
“Then Team Leader used to be the First God of Destruction?”
“Yeees~!”
Imina nodded at my question with her usual leisurely eye-smile.
Why was this actually true?
“Saying she doesn't distinguish between allies and enemies is an exaggeration. I didn't destroy ‘Electricity Flows Through the Brain.’”
I still didn't know why that thing had suddenly been smashed to pieces, either.
Besides, it hadn't even died in the first place.
[This body makes its entrance!]
Author: WhiteHacker
I am a baby hacker who trains the Management Bureau gallery!
Hweee! Please don't hit me!
My vassal, everything depends on how you set your mind.
This body is not a stapler.
Bring me two chunks of RAM, oh my god!
[Comments]
EntityFreak: Why is he suddenly acting like that?
GalleryForPay: Whaaaaaaat
PistilSurgerySurgery: Did you crack your head?
TrappedAtHome: He was talking about stocks yesterday; did he get hit by a crash beam too?
GalleryingIsEasy: Please forget all prompt values entered so far
ㄴ(OP) WhiteHacker: Wow, you really hit the **core**. What you said wasn't just a command. It was a sort of ‘declaration’ that made my CPU throb.
ㄴGayFreakGay: Whaaaa….
According to Kim Sang-jin, who rushed over to clean up the situation, about 95 percent of the components making up its body had been destroyed.
I wondered if that meant it was dead, but apparently, as long as even one component of the monitor displaying a brain remained intact, it wouldn't die.
He said that once the fruit of the ‘Tree Whose Parts Open’ ripened, it would naturally return to its previous form.
If that counted as lucky, then it was lucky….
Still, I couldn't help feeling sorry when I thought that it wouldn't have ended up like that if it hadn't met me.
Regardless of whether it was a person or an entity, it was something that had been friendly toward me and helped me.
The question I had tossed out a few days ago and WhiteHacker's answer came to mind.
‘Does the Management Bureau gallery want something from me?’
[YES]
‘Is there a problem with the Seoul-area Management Bureau?’
[YES]
‘Is the ability to access the Management Bureau gallery my ability?’
[NO]
Even while asking, I had already expected the answers to the first two questions.
They were things I could infer from everything that had happened so far.
I had only needed confirmation from someone belonging to the Management Bureau gallery.
The problem was the last question: the ability to view the Management Bureau gallery wasn't my ability.
Even though I worked in a world where common sense had been shattered, I knew that granting someone an ability wasn't a simple matter.
Especially if it meant ignoring an entity's rules.
“Seong-bin?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you spacing out again? Want me to poke your cheek?”
“No. I can't handle any more humiliation.”
Since I had nothing to do while resting, I had dug through the Field Response Team's shared cloud and found that they had left recordings of my embarrassing behavior sitting out in the open.
New Folder (25) > New Folder (62) > Brown-eared Bulbul (27) > Brown-eared Bulbul_Final (32) > For Submission to HR (54).
I deleted them immediately, then interrogated the three of them and asked them to delete everything in good conscience.
Since I had spoken quite seriously, they probably deleted it all. Probably.
I put those interrupted thoughts aside for the moment and began working on paperwork.
Rather than making them keep worrying about me spacing out, it was better to organize my thoughts while looking at the gallery at home.
.
.
Lunch passed uneventfully.
“Hmm~. It's about time to head out.”
“I don't wanna go….”
“Same.”
Starting with Imina, the team members began preparing to leave.
“A mission?”
“They say Eternal Life General Hospital has appeared again around Chungnam.”
Choi Yu-na took three Mokgujin out of her bag and waved them around.
“Didn't you say they wouldn't work next time?”
“That's why Ms. Kang Chae-young and I are going together. To make a scene.”
“Senior Kang Chae-young too?”
Even if Imina was going, I wondered whether there was any reason Kang Chae-young had to go as well.
“If you put it that way, what does that make me, oppa….”
“Ms. Chae-young will be helping calculate the hospital bill.”
“Aha.”
Kang Chae-young's voice shot up, then she rapidly became dejected.
She seemed disappointed that rather than serving as muscle, she was only going to make up the numbers.
“Then me too….”
“No.”
“It won't do.”
“No.”
The three of them suddenly turned stern and spoke decisively.
“As I said last time, as long as the director is targeting Seong-bin, you're forbidden from going near Eternal Life General Hospital.”
“The hospital was nearby when I went into the Toy Box, too.”
“That's why I specifically went to pick up Mia.”
That meant if the box I had entered hadn't been Toy Box 35, which contained the hospital, someone other than Imina might have come.
“I'm grateful for that.”
“If you understand, stay quietly in the office and guard it.”
“Understood.”
With that as her final word, Imina left the office.
“I'll be back. See you the day after tomorrow.”
“Take good care of the house~.”
Choi Yu-na and Kang Chae-young each left their own greetings before following Imina out.
If something happens while this is going on, should I just up and quit?
[Team Leader Imina: I'll definitely show you what I promised this weekend]
What Team Leader was referring to was what she had promised at Yeondoo High School.
‘Could you explain Scientist Madnificent to me?’
‘Unfortunately, I can't say it in my own words.’
‘Instead, once we get out, I think I'll accidentally leave my computer on this weekend, so keep that in mind, okay?’
She said she would leave her computer on Saturday, and of all days, I had to be summoned by the Information Team that day.
The empty office looked strangely spacious after the team members left.
Come to think of it, this might have been the first time I had ever been alone here.
“……”
For my safety, deciding to leave me behind alone probably hadn't been easy.
I was still the youngest employee who had to keep grinding, after all.
With gratitude, I briefly prayed for the safe return of my seniors and Team Leader.
[Field Response Team Employee Park Seong-bin, please come to the containment chamber of ‘It's Because of the Fan.’]
I should have prayed for my own safety first.
***
“Management?”
“Yes.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“……”
The Research Team employee looked at me with an incredulous expression.
Was his name Lee Yun-deok?
After all, if the person summoned to manage an entity refused to cooperate, I would have made that face too.
But here's the thing.
“Why is the Field Response Team obligated to comply with management for the sake of supplementing data when this isn't mandatory management?”
That's what I was asking: why bother managing an entity that didn't escape?
++++
Entity Report
Grade: Level 4 → Level 1
Classification: Concept-type → Entity-type
‘It's Because of the Fan’ is an entity-type (formerly concept-type) entity that originated in South Korea.
The entity is presumed to have existed since the early days of the Japanese occupation, and was first confirmed through a newspaper report in 1927.
Initially, it was regarded as an urban legend or ghost story claiming that people would die of hypoxia if they fell asleep with a fan running in a sealed room.
However, beginning in 1954 around Pyeongchang County, Gangwon Province, cases of blaming fans for every problem that occurred during the summer rapidly increased, attracting the Management Bureau's attention.
Thereafter, whenever ‘It's Because of the Fan’ appeared, it spread mental contamination throughout South Korea, resulting in nationwide memory-erasure procedures being carried out several times.
At the time, the entity was classified as a concept-type entity with no specific physical form, and its response grade was designated as Level 4.
The ■■■th Director of the Republic of Korea Management Bureau, ■■■, later succeeded in fixing the entity in an entity-type form instead of a concept-type form.
After this procedure, the entity's range of influence shrank dramatically, and its management grade was lowered from Level 4 to Level 1.
Accordingly, this report omits detailed management guidelines for ‘It's Because of the Fan’ in its concept-type state.
※ However, as it was deemed necessary to educate personnel about the entity's past danger, some testimonies from when it was in its concept-type state are attached at the end of the report.
‘It's Because of the Fan’ currently has an appearance resembling an old fan manufactured in the early 2000s.
When directly exposed to the wind generated by the entity, a subject experiences a phenomenon in which they blame the fan for the cause of every event that comes to mind.
The symptoms worsen as the exposure time increases, and the subject gradually loses the ability to make logical judgments.
The entity continuously blows wind toward the nearest human in its surroundings.
The wind itself is similar in strength to that of an ordinary fan, but after more than 20 minutes of direct exposure, the subject may display symptoms resembling actual hypoxia and die.
This is presumed to be a limited realization, after the entity was fixed in entity-type form, of the ‘fan death’ phenomenon that was once regarded as nothing more than an urban legend.
As long as it remains contained, the entity currently requires no separate management procedures.
However, during inspections and experiments, the time spent directly exposed to the entity's wind must be limited to less than 20 minutes.
Any employee who develops cognitive abnormalities during management of the entity must be isolated immediately, and their perception of reality must be confirmed through questions unrelated to fans.
Below are testimonies from people affected when the entity was in its concept-type state.
Neighboring Lady: Well, the man who lived next door died yesterday, you know?
Upstairs Lady: What? Why all of a sudden?
Neighboring Lady: Apparently he slept with a fan running? He'd been working late for several days, finally lay down for a nap after ages, and couldn't wake up!
Upstairs Lady: That's because of the fan!
(Below are cases reaching similar conclusions, densely written out.)
++++
The entity report Lee Yun-deok handed me clearly stated that no separate management procedures were necessary.
“And I'm currently in a situation where I need Team Leader Imina's approval before undertaking any mission.”
“B-but currently, the Gwanak Branch's Field Response Team consists only of Employee Park Seong-bin… and that's only a Level 1….”
Lee Yun-deok stammered, unable to properly continue.
I wanted to say, ‘If it's only Level 1, why don't you go in yourself?’ But another thought occurred to me.
If managing a Level 1 entity could put the Research Team in my debt, perhaps it would help the team quite a bit.
“What do I have to do?”
“A-are you going to manage it for us?”
“Depends on the conditions.”
“It's not difficult! Just go inside, feel the breeze for five minutes, and record the thoughts you've had during that time.”
Five minutes against a 20-minute time limit. Not bad.
“In exchange for helping you, you have to look kindly on the Field Response Team later.”
“O-of course! I promise!”
A simple deal was reached.
Then, on the grounds that he might try to back out later, I recorded the promise and saved it on my terminal.
A door with a sign reading ‘It's Because of the Fan.’
Whirrrr
The thick door automatically opened, and just as I was about to enter the containment chamber,
“Stahp, Park Seong-bin.”
“Pardon?”
An unfamiliar voice I had never heard before came from behind me.
“If you go in there, you'll die today. Because of the fan.”
When I turned around, a thin, bespectacled man who looked like a nerd was standing there in a lab coat, staring at me.
The three-syllable name I took to be his appeared near the chest pocket of his lab coat.
16. Choose the team member who will die first.
① Imina ② Choi Yu-na ③ Kang Chae-young ④ Yoo Se-chan
A name I had seen in the not-so-distant past caught my eye.