Chapter 16
About an hour earlier.
Trapped inside the blood donation bus—or rather, the abandoned hospital—Cheong Harin shouted excitedly.
“Even if a tiger drags you off, you can survive as long as you keep your wits about you!”
But her courage quickly began to fade.
“But this is an anomaly…. Sigh.”
If only anomalies were as simple as tigers.
The ones that tell you the rules you need to follow are actually the considerate ones. Most of them, like the blood donation bus, just say, ‘Find out through adventure.’
You might think that if it’s a blood donation bus, all you have to do is donate blood.
But is that really how you escape? Or is it how you get eaten?
But did Cheong Harin survive all this time for nothing?
‘I’m only unlucky because I used up all my luck surviving.’
A pioneering spirit. That alone was what had kept Cheong Harin alive until now.
It was impressive enough that a fixer with no special abilities had lasted ten years in a world like this.
Even fixers with Sephiras were dropping like flies.
If she’d survived this long, wasn’t that a side effect of being incredibly lucky in that one regard?
Honestly, life at the damn office had been awful, but she’d learned a thing or two from the Cheong Clan Alliance.
When caught up in an anomalous phenomenon?
‘Stay silent, but investigate.’
With that, she started walking and, to her surprise, found a distinctive area without much trouble.
Despite being an abandoned hospital, it had spotless hospital beds and well-maintained equipment.
Anyone could tell that this was the anomaly’s core.
“…The question is whether I should donate blood or not.”
She looked around for an instruction manual or anything like one, but there wasn’t a single thing with writing on it.
She even searched for pictures, but there were none of those either.
“Damn it, there’s not a single clue…!”
In the end, Cheong Harin had to make a decision.
Whether or not to lie down on the hospital bed.
“…Let’s think about it a little longer. Just a little….”
Twenty minutes passed like that.
Cheong Harin still couldn’t decide.
“Ugh. I have to decide……”
At that moment, she noticed her fingertips, faintly letting light pass through them.
Why could she see the floor that should have been hidden behind her fingers?
“Ugh…!”
Cheong Harin’s existence was being erased.
The longer she waited, the more she would disappear.
Which meant that not donating blood was an act of suicide.
“Damn it, I don’t know…!”
She hopped onto the hospital bed and lay down. There was a clatter, then a long tube wriggled out of the darkness.
“Eek.”
The needle at the end of the tube slid gently into Cheong Harin’s skin.
It was the kind of deft movement you’d expect from an experienced nurse.
“D-did that do it?”
A few minutes passed as Cheong Harin’s blood flowed out through the tube.
Suddenly, the hospital became a battlefield.
Bang! Baaang!
“Aah! What?!”
She hurriedly sat up, only to see pipes bursting all over the hospital.
Red liquid was rapidly flooding into the clean hospital room.
The bed, which had been standing firmly in place, suddenly unlocked and rattled forward.
It began speeding off like a boat caught in rapids.
“Ugh!”
The needle and tube were still stuck in her arm, but the situation had changed.
The blood was flowing in the opposite direction.
Instead of flowing out of Cheong Harin’s body, it was flowing into her.
“What? Why? Why, why? Why is it flowing into me? No, no. Stop, stop coming in. Ugh… it’s cold…!”
Something chillingly cold was already coursing through her veins.
But before she could even react, the bed she was on began to sink.
Blood was beginning to cover the entire wide corridor.
A wave of blood was even rushing up behind her, moving faster than the bed.
“Damn it… When was the last time I swam underwater…?”
Cheong Harin took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut.
Gurgle.
Even then, she never imagined she’d become a half-anomaly.
* * *
Sephira and Clipa—ultimately, they’re categories humans came up with.
But since the distinction depends on whether they harm humans, Clipa are taboo.
There is an official term for people chosen by those Clipa: ‘Clipa Awakened.’ But most people call them this:
‘Anomaly lackeys.’
I call them ‘blood insurance subscribers,’ but that’s meaningless while civilization is still intact, so I’ll leave it for now.
Even I can’t forcibly separate their blood now that it’s completely mixed together.
To separate it, I’d have to absorb them both completely, but that would destroy Cheong Harin’s sense of self.
‘First, I need to come up with a way for Ms. Harin to live like this.’
“Yeah, what was it…? Ato… what?”
“I am Rubina, the Atonement Servant. Please call me by whatever name you wish, my future parent.”
“Rubina, right. I’ll accept you as my retainer, but on one condition.”
“Please command me.”
“From now on, don’t come out unless I call you. Humans will try to get rid of that body as soon as they see you. In exchange, lend its owner some of your power. Any contributions she earns with the power you lend her will count as yours.”
“I am deeply grateful for this undeserved kindness. I shall engrave your will upon my blood and obey until the day it dries away.”
“All right, go back in. I’ll see you again when it’s time to recognize your contributions.”
Rubina closed her eyes.
Cheong Harin’s body, no longer under her control, started to fall, so I quickly reached out and caught her by the back.
Soon, the master-servant pact was complete: I branded the blood I’d absorbed with a mark and returned it to her.
“Hmm.”
There are fewer than ten Clipa Awakened on the entire planet.
And half of them are wanted criminals. If that became known, she’d be sure to draw a lot of suspicion.
If someone posted this story on the gallery, people would immediately call her an ‘anomaly lackey.’
And the way they’re treated really isn’t that different from how anomalies are treated.
She reminded me of the person I’d been as a human, back when every little thing I did seemed to lead to misfortune—at least, as far as I can remember.
Cheong Harin’s bad luck was so impressive, she made me think of that version of myself.
“Is this what they mean by birds of a feather? Hmm.”
But there’s no need to pity her.
People like me and Cheong Harin are unlucky, so we work harder than anyone and fight desperately to survive.
That’s why I’m not going to look at her with pity.
“Well, from now on, all I have to do is become Cheong Harin’s good luck.”
At least Cheong Harin was lucky.
I was the only one who’d witnessed her Clipa awakening, and I could control her Clipa.
Considering that half of all Clipa Awakened are wanted because they couldn’t control their powers and caused trouble, maybe we could just register her as a Sephira Awakened.
Retainers will obey my orders even if it means starving to death.
And I have no intention of starving her.
I’ve hunted plenty of magical beasts while protecting wandering humans outside Seoul’s borders, so I have plenty of blood to give Cheong Harin.
Instead of worrying about running out of blood, I’d be better off worrying that our neighborhood’s popular restaurant might suddenly close.
The most urgent thing was to get Woo Cheonyeop to understand the situation.
I’d try to convince him that Cheong Harin wasn’t dangerous. If that didn’t work, I’d just have to ask him to put an expulsion device disguised as a choker on her, too.
“Ugh. I’m too weak to eat jelly….”
But, well, I’ll think about it again later.
I came here to eat jelly, and all I got was a pile of trouble.
I’m tired….
* * *
“The anomalous phenomenon has been resolved. The Management Bureau will take over from here.”
“Good luck.”
“Thank you for your hard work, fixers.”
By the time I emerged from the collapsing space inside the blood donation bus, the bus itself had already become a heap of scrap metal.
That was only natural, since it had been compressed from the inside and then smashed apart from the outside.
It took a while to hand over the incident details to the Management Bureau, since Auntie Rok-hee had somehow ended up in charge at the scene….
It was nearly two hours before Auntie and I could return to the office.
Cheong Harin still hadn’t woken up, so Auntie carried her on her back.
“So, it seems Ms. Harin awakened in there? That’s good news.”
“Yes. It’d be great if you could prepare the registration paperwork, too.”
“Hmm. In that case, it’d be better to scrap the contract I prepared and draw up a new one, wouldn’t it?”
“Why go through all that trouble?”
“Because there’s a pretty big difference in how Awakened people and ordinary people are treated…? Her standard contract and pay will depend on the grade she’s assigned after the Management Bureau verifies her abilities.”
“Oh.”
Maybe it was because money was one of the Fixer Gallery’s taboos.
I’d never really heard about it, so I didn’t know.
Well, Auntie Rok-hee, as the office representative, would know more about this than I did.
“By the way, what kind of ability does she have? Did you check?”
“I’m not sure either. I only noticed the color change that’s characteristic of an Awakened person.”
“Hmm. Make sure to check properly later. That way, I can give the Management Bureau more details when I submit the fixer ability assessment request.”
“I will.”
“This might delay her hiring a little. Is that all right?”
“Well, about a week?”
“If it’s quick, about that long.”
“That should be fine.”
“The pay and contributions she earns in the meantime will be accumulated and applied retroactively later, so tell her when she wakes up.”
“I will. Oh, how many contributions will the office get?”
“Usually it’s proportional to the number of people caught up in the incident… There were about a hundred this time, so if you split the contributions between me and Harin, that’d be about a hundred.
“A hundred.”
It was a promising start, but still, that was pretty meager.
Just a hundred out of a hundred thousand. We had a long way to go.
“More importantly, did you see anyone unusual? Someone must have been making a mess inside the blood donation bus.”
“I was too busy looking for the person I was carrying.”
“Ugh, I thought this would finally be my chance to catch them. They’re not a ghost, so why are they so good at slipping away…?”
“Who?”
“Who do you think? The reason I’m staying at your office.”
So she meant me.
I wondered how Auntie would react if she found out the fixer she was looking for was actually an anomaly….
“But the more they run away, the better. It gets me fired up. I’ve never once failed to catch someone I’ve set my sights on!”
“If they heard you say that, they’d run away before they even got here.”
“Heh heh heh, that’d be even better! I love hunting!”
I hope she doesn’t think headhunting means actual hunting.
“Anyway, I’d better take her home and head straight back…. I came here on assignment and ended up working overtime I never signed up for.”
“But you’ll get paid and earn contributions.”
“It’s not enough. I’d need to take on at least a Grade Na job to throw a chicken party.”
The moment I heard that, I made up my mind.
As soon as Auntie got home, I’d use Ssaksak Chicken’s famous 24-hour nationwide delivery service.
I also needed to talk to Mr. Woo Cheonyeop.
I’d do that tomorrow. I needed to rest today.
And so, late at night, a chicken party took place in the secret room behind my little office.
There were two attendees: Cheong Harin and me.
I could’ve eaten alone, but I called Cheong Harin because there were a lot of things I needed to sort out with her.
I also felt a little bad that she’d ended up like this because of me.
But Cheong Harin paid no attention to the freshly delivered chicken. She kept her eyes on me the whole time.
She’d already been beautiful, but the change in her hair and eye color made her even more captivating.
“So… I’ve become an Awakened person?”
“Yes. But we don’t know exactly what your ability is, so we’ll have to figure it out as we go.”
“Uh… I’m really overwhelmed…. I mean, I never thought a day like this would come for me… No, wait. The blood donation bus was pumping blood into me, wasn’t it…? Don’t tell me I awakened as a Clipa?”
Even someone who knew all too well how unlucky she was could still end up in a situation like this.
It wasn’t easy to immediately think of a Clipa awakening.
“If you had, they would’ve treated you like an anomaly lackey and taken you away already.”
Cheong Harin, panicking, covered her mouth with both hands.
“Gasp. You’re right. Wow. I’m Awakened…? Was I actually lucky for once…?”
No, actually, you were unlucky.
You were unlucky, but getting tangled up with me made it an average outcome, more or less.
Wait, was it actually bad luck since it happened because of me…?
Still, I was glad that my meal buddy was less likely to die now. It’d be easier to save her even if she got a hole blown through her stomach.
“Auntie Rok-hee will help with your ability assessment and employment contract tomorrow. You’ll soon be a Grade Da fixer.”
“Grade Da?!”
“You’re Awakened, after all. Grade Da is the lowest grade.”
“N-no way. I’m Grade Da, Grade Da! Wow!”
“This chicken was hard to get, and I got it to celebrate you becoming Awakened, so don’t hold back.”
After sitting there in a daze for a long time, Cheong Harin asked timidly.
Even with the hard-to-find chicken right in front of her, she was looking at me as if I mattered more than the food.
“San-a…-nim, are you perhaps the representative of this office?”
I’d thought she’d drop the honorific if I treated her like a friend.
But instead of going away, it felt like she’d clung to it even more tightly.
“I heard it from the Tower Master. That you were the one who brought me out, San-a-nim.”
“You don’t have to be the representative to do that….”
“No, you didn’t just bring me out. You saved me.”
“All I did was swim around inside the blood donation bus?”
“You’re lying….”
Cheong Harin bit down on her lip.
She seemed to know something.
“The voice inside me told me everything. It said you saved me, San-a-nim. And that I got my power thanks to you.”
That was strange.
Rubina only came out when Cheong Harin’s consciousness wasn’t present.
Even though she was residing in Cheong Harin’s body, she couldn’t share her thoughts with her.
That was because the blood entity’s consciousness was spread throughout its blood, rather than located in its brain.
To communicate, she’d have had to write something down or scribble on her face, like in an anime where people switch bodies—but there hadn’t been time for that, had there?
I wondered if her bad luck had affected her in yet another way, and asked her:
“Do you often experience supernatural phenomena?”
“Y-yes….”
“And you often get caught up in anomalous phenomena, too.”
“At least once a week….”
“Do you often hear voices or see things that aren’t there?”
“…Yes! How did you know?”
I see.
I’d never seen anyone suffer so much despite having such a strong affinity for anomalies.
Usually, people with that kind of affinity awaken easily and rake in a fortune.
I shoved a chicken drumstick into Cheong Harin’s mouth and said:
“It seems like you’re mistaking your hallucinations for reality.”
“What? That can’t be….”
“Just eat this for now. Nothing helps with emotional distress like chicken~.”
“Mmph. Mm… Mmm.”
Poor thing.
She was the first person I’d ever met who was as pitiable as me.
But a life like hers would give her a fierce desire to succeed.
And work would come rolling in without her having to look for it.
With some power, she could become an outstanding fixer.
She didn’t have much power for now, but until she grew stronger, I could be her strength.
‘If Cheong Harin lets something slip, Uncle Woo Cheonyeop can take care of keeping it quiet.’
Gallery addict—no, information-gathering specialist: Baek San-a.
Veteran fixer Kim Rok-hee.
Anomaly bait, contribution generator, Baek San-a’s nutritionist, and the face of the office: Cheong Harin.
With the three of us, we can do it.
Build up contributions while living a carefree life!
“We might make a pretty good team, don’t you think~?”