Chapter 3
The next day, in the isolation facility director’s office.
Woo Cheonyeop went to discuss extending Baek San-a’s isolation, but unexpectedly found himself saddled with an errand.
“…? An outing?”
“Yeah, take her out for a bit. Let her get some fresh air once in a while. She’s been behind a partition for half a year; she must be getting restless.”
“Coming from someone who was telling me as recently as two days ago not to trust anomalies because they’d cause some huge incident eventually….”
“……How long have you been here, Team Leader Woo?”
“Today makes a year and a half.”
The director soon began stroking their chin, saying something Woo Cheonyeop couldn’t understand.
“…Has it already been over two years? My sense of time’s been way off lately.”
“Two years?”
“Yeah, never mind. Anyway, take her out, and on your way back, stop by Mayhem Donuts and bring me a box of the Deluxe Pack. Pay with this.”
Something flung with a whoosh landed in Woo Cheonyeop’s hand.
A thin cylinder about the size of a cigarette: a ‘terminal’ derived from a Sephira that had replaced communications, payments, and all sorts of other things around the world.
They’d intended to talk about extending Baek San-a’s isolation, but it seemed that would be difficult.
The facility director got incredibly irritable when hungry.
‘If I bring it up now, I’ll just get chewed out.’
Though there were a few suspicious things, Woo Cheonyeop had no choice but to leave the director’s office.
Given the circumstances, they had to keep a low profile.
They figured it would be better to report anything after the outing.
* * *
More than a hundred meters underground from the isolation facility building.
An isolation chamber deep underground, designed to be sealed immediately in the event of an emergency.
The girl living in Zone A floated in midair, kicking her feet and snickering.
She was probably doing her favorite thing: ‘gallery browsing.’
As Woo Cheonyeop approached, the panel, which had been in power-saving mode, lit up and displayed various information. It was all official data Woo Cheonyeop had reported to their superiors.
[Sephira-4-Vegan]
- Height: 1.39 m
- Weight: Minimum, 0 kg ~ Maximum, impossible to estimate
- Classification: Sephira-Hesed (4)
- Danger Level: Undetermined
(View detailed information)
*This anomaly has not been fully classified. This information was entered based on analysis and interpretation of measured data and visually observed phenomena, and may be revised at any time.
Her body floated horizontally through the air.
Her black hair, longer than her height, spread through the air like a blanket.
Her purple eyes, fixed on the terminal, gleamed with an unusual light.
Right now, she was undeniably an anomaly, but when she stood with her feet on the ground, it was easy to mistake her for an innocent girl who knew nothing of the world.
When she first came here half a year ago, even Woo Cheonyeop had almost been fooled.
They’d tensed up, wondering if she was trying to deceive them.
After that, they’d conducted the verification process even more rigorously than usual.
As a result, the isolation period had been set at one year, but….
「Long live my friend in the suit~!」
Starting with that reaction, as if thanking them for isolating her, Baek San-a had spent the entire half-year living like an unemployed shut-in from before the Anomaly Flood.
At first, Woo Cheonyeop had wondered if it was an act to lower their guard and tried to figure out her motives, but after watching her for half a year, they’d become certain.
「Aren’t you bored when all you do is eat and browse the gallery?」
「How could I get bored~? There’s a new idiot showing up in the gallery every single day~.」
An anomaly best described by the two words ‘sloth’ and ‘gluttony.’
That was Baek San-a.
She seemed to have grown so fond of her lazy life that even her goal of going downtown to eat Ssakssak Chicken had faded after just half a year.
Why did it feel like, rather than harming people, she’d keep living like this for tens of thousands of years until humanity went extinct first?
Thump, thump.
When Woo Cheonyeop knocked on the transparent barrier, Baek San-a whipped around.
Soon, her voice came through the speakers on either side of the barrier.
[What is it?]
She clutched the basic-model terminal they’d given her three months ago in one hand.
Judging by how her gaze kept drifting back to it, she looked like she couldn’t wait to get back to browsing the gallery.
Woo Cheonyeop said:
“It’s time for an outing. Get dressed.”
Woo Cheonyeop operated something on the panel.
A white bodysuit, a moto jacket, and Velcro boots dropped one after another into Baek San-a’s isolation chamber.
Baek San-a moved slowly as she looked at the clothes scattered on the floor.
She probably couldn’t understand what was going on.
[Am I getting kicked out…?]
“Please don’t twist this into something it isn’t.”
[But I haven’t had any reason to go out for half a year. And right after I happen to ask for an extension, you suddenly make me go out, so it’s only natural I’d, I’d…]
“It’s just an outing. You know there’s no reason we’d deliberately kick you out in the first place.”
[Oh, right. I’m a budget bonus.]
If it was meant as comedy, the way she described herself like some kind of buff was pretty funny.
Woo Cheonyeop sighed and muttered.
“The director probably wants to get you out because if you don’t get some fresh air, you’ll spend the rest of your life cooped up in your room.”
[A-ah, I just got hit right in the bones with facts.]
“You don’t have any bones.”
[You can see right through me… how embarrassing~.]
Though she kept saying it was a hassle, Baek San-a did obey orders.
As she slipped a leg into her tights, the metal expulsion device around her neck, about the size of her head, glinted in the light.
[But what’s with these clothes? I feel like my presence is being erased or something~?]
“They’re clothes that block anomalous wavelengths. Some fixers hunt anomalies indiscriminately for money, so this is a disguise.”
[But don’t I look human even without this?]
“Scanners identify you as an anomaly.”
[I heard you can’t tell unless it’s a fixed scanner, like the ones used at an isolation facility….]
“…Sometimes some bastards load one into the back of a truck and drive around scanning people.”
[Wow, that’s kind of creepy.]
Before long, Baek San-a had finished getting dressed.
Normally, she wore her black hair like clothes, so this was the first time her body had been visible since half a year ago.
She had the same slender figure as before, as if she’d snap if someone gave her a light poke.
No one would go and attack this little girl, who didn’t even give off an anomalous wavelength, would they?
‘…Still, should I at least make sure?’
Having wandered battlefields of both humans and anomalies, Woo Cheonyeop found the facility director’s reaction earlier extremely suspicious.
It was like something was about to happen that Woo Cheonyeop wasn’t supposed to know about.
They say the proper way to be a company employee in Seoul is not to care what becomes of the work your boss assigns you, but….
Unfortunately, Woo Cheonyeop wasn’t selfish enough to live with no interest in anything in the world.
「That app I got from Godeu shut off for a moment earlier.」
More importantly, Baek San-a, who was always active through untraceable IPs, had somehow slipped up today and exposed her IP.
A hardline fixer who figured out it was the isolation facility’s IP might launch an attack.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t had a chance to check until now, but do you have any combat ability?”
[I’m a mosquito, remember? I’m good at sucking blood. I don’t really want to suck human blood, though. Why do you ask?]
“I was asking to figure out whether I should protect you or myself if an emergency occurs.”
Maybe because Baek San-a had a good, objective understanding of her position, she made a remarkably detached remark.
[? Why would you protect me? I’m an anomaly who just eats up the food and internet budget. Just protect yourself, Team Leader~.]
Not every anomaly friendly to humans is useful.
This is especially true of Sephira-Hesed types like Baek San-a.
Harmless but not useful, like pets that obey or depend on humans.
As she said, they’re the kind you don’t need to protect.
[Why are you even hesitating? I’m harder to kill than you’d think, but you’re the priority, Team Leader.]
However, if she were a Hesed, she shouldn’t be acting so relaxed when she felt threatened.
Human classification criteria weren’t absolute, but fear, asking to be protected, and so on should come first.
‘So she isn’t weak; she just has no will to attack or resist.’
As they’d suspected during the interview, she probably wasn’t a weak anomaly.
That was just like her saying her power was like a ‘dolmen’ and there was no reason to swing it around.
It was as if she was deliberately suppressing her power just to get into the city.
Still, if she had no will to attack, that was fine.
No matter what happened, Woo Cheonyeop could handle it instead of her.
‘Right… let’s just let this matter pass quietly for now….’
The ceiling of the isolation chamber opened, and a consecrated cross fell toward Baek San-a’s head.
It was the final aggression check in the outing process.
The cross bonked her on the forehead and bounced off.
Baek San-a hunched over, sweating profusely and making a strange sound.
“Hweeeeee….”
* * *
Leader, vice-leader, and field captain.
The fixer office Cheong Clan Alliance was formed because all three were surnamed Cheong.
Since the three of them had gathered with confidence in their abilities from the start, the office had been fairly well-regarded just after the Anomaly Flood, when countless offices were springing up.
In particular, Windows similar to ‘Gates’ were their main prey.
But with anomalies appearing in the form of martial arts manuals, mages, weapons, and equipment, the presence of the Cheong Clan Alliance, which relied on pure physical ability and strategy, began to wane.
Pushed out of the city’s core, they were now on the outskirts.
At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before the city’s official list of fixer offices erased the name ‘Cheong Clan Alliance.’
The country’s leaders, having experienced losing nearly half the nation’s territory just after the Anomaly Flood, had long since given up on looking after the weak.
“I’ll follow your orders, sir, but is this really going to be all right?”
“Don’t worry, Vice-Leader. If this job succeeds, we’ll be set for five years.”
“It really pisses me off that this is the only option we have….”
Still, there was always a way to survive.
They’d used the money locals had raised to support the operation to buy anti-anomaly operation equipment, then sold it on the black market for nearly the price of new.
They used that money to bribe the bigwigs.
Thanks to that, the Cheong Clan Alliance had secured the right to manage this region for the next five years.
So they couldn’t let Anomaly Living Its Best Life 359 live.
They’d tried to stall as long as possible, but she was going to expose this secret.
Because of her, people were still talking about it on the Fixer Gallery.
… ─[[ Fixer Gallery ]]─ …
[Cheong Clan Alliance scandal resolved?] [1044]
[No matter how I look at the pic that Best Life posted, it doesn’t look AI-generated lol] [2291]
[Didn’t they say they’d catch Best Life today and prove it? Yeah] [509]
[Poor Jinsu, what a pain lol. Of all times, it happens when there’s no big case] [2410]
[Where the hell does Godeu get this kind of material every time lol] [846]
Fortunately, the isolation facility director was a reasonable person, and after they slipped them some money, Anomaly Living Its Best Life 359 quickly got a chance to go outside.
Since she was the isolation facility’s only Sephira, there was a 99.9% chance that the little girl walking over with Team Leader Woo Cheonyeop was her.
After reviewing the route, leader Cheong Jinsu radioed his subordinates stationed at each position through their terminals.
“I’ll brief you on the operation again. I’ll separate the escort from the target, the vice-leader will shoot the target, and the field captain will retrieve her.”
It was so simple that the three of them, who’d handled all sorts of bizarre missions involving anomalies, could yawn.
That’s why none of the three expected anything unusual.
Even if they had, they would’ve expected something from Team Leader Woo Cheonyeop, the escort, not Baek San-a.
Successfully spilled coffee on Team Leader Woo Cheonyeop.
Successfully led them toward a crowded coin laundromat.
If the vice-leader shot Anomaly Living Its Best Life 359 with a sleep dart, put her to sleep, and the field captain retrieved her—.
[Le……ader………!]
That would’ve been the end of it.
Suddenly, the vice-leader collapsed.
They’d definitely heard the sound of a sleep dart flying, and Baek San-a’s head had tilted slightly to the side as if it had hit her, and even a drop of blood had flown.
[Leader, I can’t see the target. The vice-leader’s down!]
Baek San-a had disappeared from sight, and the vice-leader had passed out.
“Vice-Leader, Vice-Leader. Answer me!”
Cheong Jinsu’s voice rose in panic.
Woo Cheonyeop, who’d been waiting for the one-minute cleaning cycle on their jacket to finish, asked:
“…Did something happen to your colleague?”
“Oh, um. Yes. There was a bit of an incident……….”
In an instant, the back of Cheong Jinsu’s neck went cold.
A colleague? No one had mentioned one.
Ding!
Woo Cheonyeop put their freshly cleaned, still-warm jacket back on.
“I see.”
Their right hand naturally moved toward their waist, hidden beneath the jacket.
The hand moving beneath the jacket stopped abruptly, as if it had gripped something.
“So something did happen to your colleague. Leader Cheong Jinsu.”