I hadn’t expected there to be a lunatic who could recognize someone just from the veins between their glove and sleeve.
‘Agent Choi.’
And even less did I expect to be the one caught by it.
‘This is driving me nuts.’
A situation that went beyond chilling, to the point that it made a person freeze.
But I couldn’t afford to freeze.
I just had to show a little confusion. Anything more would look suspicious.
So…
“Sorry?”
Might as well reverse the suspicion.Feigning nervousness, I swallowed audibly as I looked at him.
Then, like someone cornered by a street cultist, I backed away.
“I, I’m s, sorry, but… I’m here with someone.”
“Huh??”
“I’ll be going now.”
In other words, I pretended not to recognize Agent Choi.
‘A rookie agent, mentally wrecked after losing an arm, might very well fail to recognize a sunbae who visited once in the hospital just by their eyes…!’
Especially if that rookie had mustered their last bit of courage to step into a terrifying place like this ghost-story realm.
‘This way, he might get flustered too and start explaining things…’
“Aigoo, alrighty. Take care~ See ya at work.”
“……”
Wow, fuck.
‘No way out of this.’
In the end, I opened my mouth.
As if I was speaking out of vague uncertainty upon hearing the word ‘work’.
“…Um, are you… the, um. The superior I met at the hospital…”
“Oh~ Now you recognize me. Good.”
Agent Choi patted my shoulder and casually tried to guide me toward the edge of the plaza. Wait, hold on…!
“Um, sorry, I was actually going to buy that…”
“Eyy, I told you already, that thing’s been sitting there unsold for five years, yeah? Let’s talk instead. I’m just happy to see you here. …Why’s a rookie who should be in a hospital showing up in a place like this?”
“……”
Deliberately, I reached under my coat and touched the fake right arm.
I felt Agent Choi’s gaze.
“…In this place, um, I heard that there might be something here that could be used temporarily to replace an arm.”
“Aha~ And who told you that? Jaekwan?”
“I can’t say, sir.”
It’s a trap!
Dropping a name just like that would scream ‘I’m lying through my teeth to get out of this.’
It also didn’t fit the persona I’d been building back at the bureau. That would’ve been pathetic.
“Loyal, huh.”
As expected, Agent Choi chuckled and gave me another pat on the shoulder.
So this approach was working after all…
“Or maybe you figured I’d see through a made-up name right away.”
“……”
“Isn’t that right? Uhahaha!”
Aaaaack!!
“It’s fine. What agent doesn’t have secrets? Maybe there’s a reason you can’t say.”
“……”
“Let’s see… you were trying to buy that, right? Mind if I take a look?”
Agent Choi turned his attention to the arm I’d been about to make a deal with.
A hand missing its pinky finger, clutching a bloodstained, crumpled scrap of paper.
“But that doesn’t really look like an item linked to the arm itself.”
“……”
“Why were you trying to buy it? I don’t get it.”
Shit.
In that case!
“…Because, um.”
“Ohh?”
I lowered my head.
“…It looks desperate.”
“……”
“It’s gripping that paper so tightly, and there’s blood on it, so… I thought maybe the hand’s owner was holding onto some kind of distress message.”
It’s the truth.
Not right now, but that had been my theory when I first read the entry about this arm in the <Dark Exploration Records>.
Either way, Agent Choi didn’t respond for a moment.
Now’s my chance. Time to explain…!
“I didn’t know it had been here for five years, though…”
“Hoobae-nim, let’s think about it for a sec.”
Agent Choi placed a hand on my shoulder and gently turned me around.
From the front, the wall of the plaza came into view, covered in undulating, grotesque arms.
“Does this really seem like the kind of place where someone would be sending a distress signal?”
“……”
“Everyone here came voluntarily into this bizarre space to sell things. Doesn’t seem like a likely setting for someone in need of rescue, does it?”
That’s…
“Seems like we can pass on this one then, yeah?”
…not something Agent Choi would normally say.
That is, not the Agent Choi I knew from the Dark Exploration Records.
‘He was the type who would do anything to save even just one more person.’
Agent Choi was a named character of the wiki’s early-era.
And in the founding days of the <Dark Exploration Records>, back when only the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau existed, the logs had emphasized the government agency’s core mission—to save civilians.
To enhance immersion and narrative cohesion, additional settings were added for tonal consistency and ease of story progression.
The Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau prioritizes the lives of its agents above all else during all operations.
Moreover, they placed more weight on ending the ghost story itself than on rescuing civilians. Thus, occasional civilian casualties were an acceptable risk.
But Agent Choi had been a named character before those worldbuilding details were added.
Naturally, that meant he was the type of agent who pushed himself to the limit to save every last civilian.
In the process, he used underhanded or clever tactics, gained various abilities and items… but his essence had never changed.
Not until he was presumed dead after going missing during the Looky Mart incident.
“……”
As expected.
Looks like I can go through with this.
“Still, I’d like to try, sir.”
“…?!”
I suddenly pulled out the item I had prepared and reached out—
Toward the hand missing its pinky finger.
“That arm doesn’t even do trades—”
Whip—
The arm lunged out aggressively.
“…!”
And then a crunching sound came, as if the hand without a pinky swallowed the item I had offered.
In return, the bloodstained, crumpled scrap of paper it had been holding dropped to the filthy floor, and I barely managed to catch it.