Chapter 14
The procedure for buying jelly was very simple.
1. Go to the counter and fill out the sign-in sheet
2. Go to the blood donation bus and donate blood.
3. Once you’ve donated, collect your jelly and exit through the bus’s back door (to keep the flow of people from getting tangled)
But for Cheong Harin, it was no different from a matter of life and death.
This was her chance to earn the approval of Baek San-a, the Grade Ga fixer(?)!
‘And the simpler the task, the harder it is to know what might happen. Stay calm…!’
She was all the more thorough because she was a Grade Ra fixer who couldn’t control the power of anomalies.
But didn’t Grade Ra fixers have talents that shone all the brighter for it?
One of her most notable talents was identifying an anomaly’s weaknesses and figuring out how to deal with it, even if she’d never encountered it before.
That was how she’d claimed the fourth spot in the Cheong Clan Alliance.
“…Huh?”
When faced with a suspicious situation, she became especially cautious,
transforming from her usual foolish self into a beast with razor-sharp instincts.
Just like now.
“What is this?”
She filled out the sign-in sheet at the counter and followed the person ahead of her onto the blood donation bus.
It was supposed to be a bus…
But the hallway in front of her was far too wide and long to be inside one.
It felt as if she’d wandered into the middle of an abandoned hospital.
She couldn’t even see the person who’d gone in ahead of her.
“Ugh…”
Cheong Harin covered her mouth with her sleeve against the stench of blood stabbing at her nose.
Somewhere, water dripped endlessly, tapping against a stainless-steel sink.
Not a single other sound could be heard.
She couldn’t even hear the people lined up outside chatting.
Which meant…
“It hasn’t even been that long since I nearly got killed by an anomaly……”
Even in that moment of overwhelming emotion, Cheong Harin managed to hold back her scream.
She knew what might happen if she screamed.
When caught up in an anomalous phenomenon, she had to keep a cool head.
But.
But…
She’d only just gotten the chance to work with a Grade Ga fixer.
Even if she couldn’t become a proper fixer right away, she could at least be an aspiring fixer and watch an incredible person in action from the sidelines.
She could cry blood.
It was truly unbearable.
It was the second most painful thing in her life.
“My life is such a fucking mess…!”
* * *
Donating blood took about thirty minutes on average.
She’d already waited an hour, so waiting another thirty minutes was nothing.
All I had to do was browse the gallery at my leisure, then take Cheong Harin and the jelly back to the office once she returned in triumph.
And so, thirty minutes passed.
It was about time Cheong Harin came back with the jelly.
“—Tell me honestly. You didn’t just gather people here to sell jelly, did you?”
“No! That’s an absurd misunderstanding…!”
“Then why hasn’t my friend, who came to buy jelly two hours ago, come back? I asked around, and people clearly saw them go to donate blood! There’s something going on here!!”
“B-but the blood donation bus’s back door leads to the back of the store, so of course the other customers waiting here wouldn’t have seen your friend leave…!”
I’d gone around to the back of the bus to wait for Cheong Harin, but suddenly there was a commotion inside the convenience store.
As much as I liked browsing the gallery, I couldn’t resist watching a real-life argument, either.
I hurried over and peeked inside.
“…Huh?”
Wasn’t that the person who’d posted on the gallery earlier?
The one who’d said their office coworker hadn’t come back.
That distinctive red outfit left no doubt.
I didn’t want to get dragged into it by sticking my nose in, so I watched from the sidelines as the people in line muttered irritably.
“Hey, I’m busy as hell. What are you doing?”
“Looks to me like they ran off with it. Quit bothering the owner and put out a wanted notice.”
“What? No, I’m telling you someone’s missing?!”
“Thanks to you, I’m about to lose my jelly.”
“You just came to buy more jelly, didn’t you?”
“No… sigh.”
As I watched, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
‘Come to think of it, why did that office send only one person?’
Think about it.
This was an event with a purchase limit per person.
Even if awakened people were out of the running because of the blood donation issue, wouldn’t it make sense for everyone else at the office to line up and buy their individual allotment?
And this wasn’t some dirt-poor office, either.
It was a stable, mid-sized office known among Grade Da offices for working hard.
“Ugh… This is driving me crazy…”
The man who’d caused the commotion eventually couldn’t take the stares anymore and ran out of the store.
I darted over and grabbed him by the wrist just as he was about to leave.
“…Huh?”
“Sorry, but I’m really curious about something. Can I ask you?”
“What now…? I’m busy. Let go.”
“Please. I’m so curious. Just one question. Please.”
My current body was especially good at getting adults to do me favors.
It wasn’t a trick I used often, but if I pleaded with sparkling eyes, nine out of ten people would listen to me.
Apparently, even in a world this messed up, cute, pretty, handsome, and lovable people still got special treatment.
“……Tsk. I’m short on time, so hurry up and ask.”
“Thank youuu.”
I bowed to thank him first, then asked the question that had just occurred to me.
“This kind of event is a rare opportunity. Why did your office send only one coworker?”
“…Huh?”
“If there’s a per-person limit, shouldn’t your whole office have come and bought as much as you could? It’s not exactly cheap, but you don’t get many chances to eat this stuff.”
“……”
The man frowned.
Then his gaze drifted aside, as if searching for a memory that should have been there, but wasn’t.
“Uh… Huh?”
Something strange happened.
He suddenly burst into tears and sank to the ground.
“Th-this is weird. My friend…? Their name… I can’t remember, I can’t remember….”
But if you wondered why he was crying, that would mean you had no sense for anomalies.
These days, if someone suddenly reacted like this, the first thing to come to mind should be:
‘Anomaly-induced amnesia.’
Some anomalies suck people into their own dimensions. When one of those anomalies erases someone, it causes a kind of memory-erasure phenomenon.
It meant their existence was being erased from reality.
‘I came here to buy jelly, and now what is this?’
It was a world where even what you thought was a dream could turn out to be an anomalous phenomenon.
I pressed my fingers to my temples and asked the trembling man:
“It’s been about two hours since you got separated from your coworker, right?”
“Uh… yeah. About that long.”
“What do you remember? You said you can’t remember their name. You remember they worked at an office, but not which one.”
“Almost… almost everything’s gone. Their face is blurry, too….”
The anomaly had nearly finished digesting them.
That meant it took this anomaly about three hours to digest the people it swallowed.
“Contact Loki Office. Tell them you need the Tower Master.”
“They’re probably really busy right now… Would they take a request like this?”
“She’s stationed nearby. If you call, she’ll come.”
“O-okay.”
The situation was what it was, but I still had to do what I could.
Rather than asking another office, calling Auntie Rok-hee, who was stationed nearby, was better for me.
Half the reward would be mine!
‘The time limit is three hours.’
Of course, I’d have Auntie Rok-hee take the mission, but I wasn’t going to leave everything to her.
The ‘contributions’ Vice Director Woo Cheonyeop had mentioned only counted if I earned them myself.
Even if it wasn’t made public, some important people higher up would hear about my achievements.
After all, he’d handed me full authority over the Ghost Office right after I closed Window Da-112.
He’d recognized my contribution for closing the Window, even though I’d only been trying to save Cheong Harin…
He’d even cover for me if I got a little carried away.
For someone like me, who could be expelled for moving a finger the wrong way, what better support could I ask for?
I’d get the reward and the recognition.
I’d get a pass into downtown and have the bomb collar around my neck removed.
‘The blood donation bus is definitely the most suspicious…’
No one who’d gone in during the last thirty minutes had come out, including Cheong Harin. That settled it.
The exit at the back was hidden in the alley, they’d parked several buses right up against one another to make it hard to see the rear, and they’d insisted people collect the jelly on the blood donation bus instead of at the convenience store.
Every last clue pointed to the blood donation bus.
‘There’s no harm in being cautious.’
But just because I’d picked a target didn’t mean I could charge straight into an anomaly’s mouth.
Anomalies were each out for themselves, so with a few unusual exceptions, they were enemies.
And once you entered territory formed by another anomaly, even an anomaly of relatively higher rank was often put at a disadvantage.
You know, like that white-haired, blue-eyed sorcerer who was popular for a while said.
When your opponent deployed their domain, it was easier to counter if you deployed your own.
He wasn’t just saying that for no reason.
But in my case, I had to unseal several crosses before I could exert influence over a space.
If I unsealed too many? Someone’s portable measuring device would pick it up.
It might even get detected by a stationary device far away.
‘I’d rather not make things complicated, so hopefully this one can be dealt with by following its rules.’
So I’d go in as I was, for now.
If I couldn’t think of a way to deal with it, I’d pull out a cross.
Still, even if it ate people, it seemed passive, so it probably wasn’t that dangerous.
But if I barged straight onto the bus, I’d miss the chance to get an important clue.
After all, the convenience store owner was the one who’d organized this event, right?
‘There were several fixers in line, but none of them noticed anything… That means there must be something more to it, right?’
That strawberry jelly they were selling today…
Could it really be ordinary jelly?
I wasn’t sure if my guess was right, so I opened the Fixer Gallery first.
The first gallery you should open when you get caught up in an anomalous phenomenon.
It was a survival guide that surpassed any wiki, built from the firsthand experiences—or deaths—of countless fixers. That was the Fixer Gallery for you.
There were anomalies like me who posted nonsense all the time, but there was plenty of useful information, anyway.
Look, here’s a post from just a week ago.
[Ddu-ttai warning]
It doesn’t have an official name yet, so I’m just calling it ‘Ddu-ttai’ for now.
The Management Bureau will probably classify it soon, but I’m posting this as a warning because it seems like it’ll keep spreading until then.
(Photo)
It’s being sold in roughly this form, like a red pudding? Jelly?
I don’t know exactly what it is, but even just smelling it makes people a little Ddu-ttai.
You can only think things like ‘Heehee, jelly, heehee,’ you know?
My coworkers and I thought it was something sold downtown, so we put in an order. But after we went to pick it up in person, all our credits were gone. Fuck.
The effect lasts about four hours, and it doesn’t seem addictive or habit-forming.
The smell just leaves you in a daze for a few hours.
For real, you become Ddu-ttai.
ㄴ Ddu…
ㄴ Dyu……
ㄴ How many credits did you du……ttyaa
ㄴ Ttya-ttya
ㄴ Ddu-ttya?
ㄴ Ddu ddu-woo
ㄴ It’s a whole mess, ttu…
ㄴ Here we go again, ddu…… ddu-woo
ㄴ One-Punch Man🔸) Does this spread online, too?
ㄴ No, they’re just normal Fixer Gallery users, du… ddu-woo
ㄴ One-Punch Man🔸) Ugh
ㄴ One-Punch Man🔸) Can you all get back to normal before I block every one of you?
ㄴ Yep
ㄴ Right away
ㄴ We’re fine, haha
Was I not becoming Ddu-ttai because I was an anomaly?
There were things that only worked on humans, after all…
Anyway, I’d leave the idiots acting dumb in the comments alone and organize what I’d learned.
First of all.
The convenience store owner had probably survived the blood donation bus anomaly.
He likely knew how to escape, and the trigger was probably simpler than I expected.
Since he knew how, he’d used Ddu-ttai to turn people into mindless idiots and lure them inside.
So they wouldn’t escape within the three-hour time limit.
The question was, why had he gone to all this trouble in the first place…
‘He won’t answer if I ask, so I’ll have to play a little dirty.’
Sorry, boss.
I didn’t expect to get caught up in this when I came to buy jelly, either.
I casually made my way over to the convenience store entrance and waited for the next customer to go in.
The moment the door opened, I flicked my wrist.
I tossed a droplet onto the convenience store owner.
After a customer filled out the sign-in sheet and went out, there was a gap of a few minutes to account for the blood donation wait time.
During that time, the owner kept scribbling something in a paper ledger, probably checking the sales.
‘Look at him, so relaxed while people are getting sucked into the bus.’
His behavior was infuriating, but I tried to keep my emotions out of it.
I was angry, sure, but getting emotional wouldn’t change anything.
All I had to do was wait for the droplet to bring me the sound.
Once I sensed the vibrations through the blood I’d taken control of and converted them into human words I could understand…
[This should meet the requirements….]
[Then I’ll be a fixer too…!]
The requirements were met.
Now I’m a fixer, too?
‘…I think I saw something about this not long ago.’
Was it a fixer recruitment post? It was probably an office that had just put out a new job listing.
Didn’t one of their requirements say you had to exterminate an anomaly that had caused at least a hundred casualties?
“…Oh.”
So that was it.
He’d put on an event using an anomaly whose method of defeat he already knew, all for something as trivial as this.
He probably wanted to quit running a convenience store and become a famous fixer who got treated with respect…
‘He’ll get found out and kicked out before long anyway. He’s going to kill a hundred people for this?’
If Ms. Rok-hee heard about it, she might’ve split his head from his torso on the spot.
That auntie really couldn’t stand people who sold out human lives.
He hadn’t committed murder yet, but it was attempted murder.
I wanted to punish him myself before he faced the judgment of the law, too.
More than anything, I was furious that there hadn’t been any jelly at this event in the first place.
He’d tricked people—no, an anomaly—who genuinely just wanted to eat jelly?
Then I had a brilliant idea.
After all, what do you get when you donate blood? Blood.
I get along pretty well with blood myself.
“Bad people always think they’re the only ones who can be clever.”
I squirmed beneath the blood donation bus and flicked the tip of my finger.
Like a tightly wound ball of thread coming undone, red droplets began to spread from my fingertips.
When I spread my palm wide, the blood dispersed into a fine mist, slipped past people’s notice, and made its way through the back door by the convenience store’s stockroom to the owner.
‘It’ll be easy to see if I write it in the ledger, right?’
Hello, human.
I’m the blood donation bus.
I’m talking to you.
Scratch, scratch.
— Hungry
The convenience store owner, who’d been looking at the ledger, muttered in surprise.
[…What?]
As soon as I got his attention, I splattered, splattered.
I kept writing words in the ledger with blood.
— I’m so hungry I could die
— Hungry
— Hungry
— Give me more
— This isn’t enough
— More
— I need more
— A lot more
— Give me you first
— Yes, you first
— Human arms
— Human arms human
— Heehee
— Let’s give you first
— Food gives food
— Ha ha
— Heehee
— Food food food food food food
— Food that gives food
The convenience store owner went quiet, looking tense.
I took that chance to give the bus a little butt-bump.
Despite being an anomaly, it seemed the bus still had the weight of an actual blood donation bus. The buses lined up beside it crashed into one another and shook noisily.
Thud, ka-thud! Clang!
A little while later, the convenience store owner came running out, his eyes looking like they were about to pop out.
“Th-this can’t be happening…?”
His expression was so funny that I gave the bus another butt-bump without thinking.
The buses rocked excitedly, too.
The convenience store owner jumped in place, then started sprinting at full speed.
Where to?
In the opposite direction from the blood donation buses.
“H-huh…!”
Only after he’d disappeared completely around the corner of the alley did the people seem to realize what was happening and start shouting.
I bet even the convenience store owner hadn’t known.
That his Ddu-ttai would make people go berserk.
“W-what?”
“Hey! Where are you going without selling the jelly?!”
“That fucking bastard’s running! Get him!!!”
“Give me my jelly, you son of a bitch!!”