I met Section Chief Lee Jahaeon—the one I’d escaped with from the Bridegroom Legend—the very next day.
The agents had secured permission for a short outing to stabilize my condition (condition: there must be no people nearby), and we’d come out to hold a strategy meeting.
There was already a guest waiting at the pavilion of the shabby park we were headed to.
Ho Yuwon.
“Welcome, Mr. Roe Deer!”
Somehow, the director who always jumps the gun had known we’d be talking about the Se-gwang Special City expedition and claimed the spot first.
And seated beside Ho Yuwon with perfect posture—
“You said you needed additional personnel for the expedition project? As it happens, I heard Mr. Roe Deer had long wished to meet him, so I brought him along.”
A familiar lizard stared at me with vertical pupils.
“Mr. Roe Deer.”
Section Chief Lee Jahaeon.
Greetings and welfare check
“Yes. I’m back at the company.”
Judging by the timing, he must have come looking for me the very day I was rescued, but he’d found a gentle, low-stress moment to meet me, considering my situation.
As expected of a modern manager....
A very different character from a certain director.
Section Chief Lee didn’t bat an eye even at my quite grotesque Security Team state.
He had already seen me like this when we entered the Resort at the Cheerful Theme Park last time, and even then the [N O V E L I G H T] lizard chief had recognized me and treated me exactly the same as before.
Just like now.
“Have there been any other peculiarities since your return, Mr. Roe Deer?”
No special issues
“Confirmed.”
Then even Deputy Eunhaje began chatting as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
“My, seeing you after so long, your face is shining, Section Chief. Ah—it’s a metaphor. A metaphor.”
“? Yes.”
By lizard standards, this was an exceedingly warm and friendly conversation.
Apparently to the agents, though, the scene seemed bizarre....
Choi Agent managed to wedge himself into the talk.
“Yeah, really. You’re looking quite dashing. Citizen.”
“Yes.”
“...Hah... you remember us, right? We’re the agents who suddenly dropped into your HQ~ Thanks again for taking those rescued kids to the bathroom.”
“Yes.”
“.......”
“.......”
“Podo. Is he actually willing to join the expedition?”
That was less a question than an expression of reluctance, but the lizard answered honestly.
“Yes.”
“.......”
“.......”
Agent Cheongdong finally forced his mouth open.
“A-are you answering with a full understanding of what this job is?”
The lizard replied as if it were obvious.
“No.”
“...!?”
Heh heh heh....
Before Agent Cheongdong got more flustered, I raised letters in smoke.
Request: a more detailed explanation
“Yes. Since Mr. Roe Deer assisted in my rescue, I judged it ethically proper, in the course of conducting a similar rescue operation, to accompany you. What exactly I must do in that process will be determined later.”
In short, he was repaying my help.
Section Chief...!
From my perspective—having already received compensation from the alien reptiles including himself for their escape—this was not only something to appreciate; it was moving.
It seemed even the agents caught this nuance through the lizard’s manner of speaking.
“...Tsk.”
“There, see?”
Deputy Eunhaje nudged Choi Agent, whose face now read maybe he’s alright?
I chimed in as well.
Further good deeds by the Lizard Section Chief:
Payment of 130666’s rent during the period of disappearance
Section Chief Lee has also been paying my rent!
“Oh? Covering rent?”
Yes!
I frantically spelled out in smoke: When I received the wish coupon, I entrusted all remaining items to Section Chief Lee and asked him, if possible, to use those to cover my rent.
Roughly counts as renting storage space, so calling it “rent” isn’t wrong.
“Wow, I knew the Section Chief was loaded, but he even did that for Roe Deer? Now that Roe Deer’s back, you’re not billing him?”
Exactly, Deputy Eunhaje. That’s the truly admirable—
“I see. I’ll bill him now.”
......
......?!
“The assessed value of the items Mr. Roe Deer entrusted for disposal has been fully deducted as of last month. The currently accrued debt is 2.3 million won.”
Ah.
“.......”
“.......”
Everyone looked at me.
I desperately raised smoke.
Request: extension of payment period
Please.
Plan:
Debt to be repaid after this expedition
Performance bonus scheduled
Payer: Director Ho Yuwon
Please wait until I wring the money out of Ho Yuwon.
And furthermore—
Planned recipients of project compensation:
Includes the Lizard Section Chief
So you can get paid too, sir, please.
“Yes.”
Thank you!
Watching all this, Ho Yuwon smiled and spoke.
“Truly heartwarming. If you carry out the expedition faithfully, of course you should be paid.”
“Oh~ as expected of a Baekilmong director. Only takes care of his own company’s people. Ha!”
“It’s so very SDRA of you—government workers with a ban on side jobs drooling over extra pay. Shameless and hypocritical....”
“Side jobs, my foot. Earning money in supernatural disasters is the agent way of staying legit—tsk.... Well, call it helping distressed citizens.”
Despite the words, it didn’t seem Choi Agent actually intended to take money; he just wanted to pre-empt Ho Yuwon from demanding SDRA supplies or equipment for the expedition.
He wants to set terms before we re-enter Se-gwang Special City.
[Hm, it feels about time for a new story to begin.]
Exactly.
We’d recruited the Lizard Section Chief as additional personnel, and we’d tidied things enough to conceal, to a degree, the sharp hostility toward Ho Yuwon.
We’d finished briefing Section Chief Lee about Se-gwang Special City. So at the very moment the rescue operation was truly about to launch—
From the fully briefed Section Chief came that remark.
“...Additional personnel?”
“Yes.”
A recommended addition to the roster.
And the person was—
“Baek Saheon?”
“Yes.”
“...You mean Roe Deer’s cohort? That slippery, smirking punk.”
“Yes.”
“What’s his precise profile?”
To Agent Cheongdong’s question, Deputy Eunhaje propped his chin on his fist.
“Hm, picture an old-school boomer. You know those prejudiced, stereotype-ridden keywords that pop into your head when you think ‘Baekilmong Corporation employee’?”
Horrible personality, self-preservation, selfishness, slyness....
Even without opening his mouth, I could tell exactly which words were marching through Agent Cheongdong’s head....
And—
“That’s him.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s that kind of guy.”
Deathlike silence pooled over the table.
And you recommended that psycho?
Everyone turned their eyes to the lizard with that look on their faces.
“?”
But the lizard didn’t react.
Because they were using him wrong....
Question: reason for recommending “Section Chief Goat”
“Because he has the ability required for the expedition.”
“Hm, could you explain in more detail?”
“Yes.”
“.......”
“.......”
“Uh... please explain?”
“Yes.”
Only then did Section Chief Lee begin to explain. Somehow, Choi Agent already looked a little older and wearier....
[Mr. Roe Deer. Sometimes the sharing of pain breeds a sense of closeness, it seems.]
Yeah. If it has even that effect, I’ll take it....
“I understand the site consists of noose-like snares that induce strangulation, corpses of suicides, trees, and a dense fog that is difficult to distinguish with the naked eye.”
“That’s right.”
Faces of the previous explorers, who had died side by side in that strange fog of the Se-gwang area, hardened slightly at the memory of the pursuing snares.
“In that case, if we recruit someone with vision suitable for distinguishing those factors within the fog, we can expect a marked improvement in maneuverability for multiple members.”
“...!”
“Then this Baek Saheon possesses suitable vision?”
“Yes.”
I thought of it immediately.
Baek Saheon’s trait.
A semi-permanent device worn in the empty socket of his missing left eye:
Vision that discerns danger
“...!!”
“Judging that extracting only the eyeball and implanting it into one of the expedition members would be difficult, I propose recruiting the owner himself.”
The color in everyone’s faces changed.
They realized it was fairly plausible.
“Mm. True... Most of the Bureau’s gear of that kind borrows the sight or senses of a numinous person.”
“Yes. If it’s a situation where an entirely new body part is implanted, there’s a high probability the system will adjudicate it as the owner himself.”
But Choi Agent shrugged.
“Will a guy with that personality even join a rescue op?”
As for that—
Method: an order from his superior
“Oh.”
All eyes turned to Ho Yuwon, who smiled sweetly.
...It was the very expression Deputy Eunhaje had once hoped for, when he asked this fox to recruit Section Chief Lee.
“Need him for the Se-gwang Special City expedition? Then of course we’ll make it happen—I’ll kidnap him right now.”
Yep.
That expression.
***
“Fuck!”
Baek Saheon was cursing inwardly.
No—he could only curse inwardly.
Because he was being moved somewhere with a gag in his mouth and a cloth over his head!
—Section Chief Baek Saheon, Director Ho is calling for you.
He’d gone up to the director’s office at that summons—and ended up like this.
...Am I screwed?
The instincts of one who’d worked at a deranged urban-legend company screamed.
He’d spent a few minutes sweating cold, thinking they might drag him to the Research Team, anxiously scouting for a timing to bolt somehow—
The movement stopped, and the cloth over his head was removed.
“...!!”
And what he saw in front of him—
W-what is this.
The Fox Counseling Office.
To be precise, people wearing masks were seated at the waiting-room table of the Fox Counseling Office.
Two of them he knew.
A lizard mask and a peregrine mask.
W-wait.
One had been missing and returned yesterday; the other had already resigned long ago.
At that point, a thought flickered across Baek Saheon’s mind.
Director Ho’s project team?!
The existence of a “project” known only by word of mouth among those in Director Ho’s line. It had even reached the ears of Baek Saheon, now a section chief.
Are they drafting me into the project?
But in the next moment—
Baek Saheon noticed how the two people seated in the table’s shadow were dressed.
...Disaster Bureau!
Government agents. Except—
The agents were wearing masks.
What is that supposed to be.
—We cannot expose our agent status to a person so untrustworthy it’s dangerous.
—Then why don’t you wear masks too?
—Oh.
And so they’d procured them in a hurry.
Two people wearing Hahoe masks—the Aristocrat and the Butcher—looked extremely suspicious, yet in another sense radiated heavy SDRA agent vibes.
In any case, the mere fact that agents were sitting calmly and amicably in the same room with Baekilmong was shocking enough to Baek Saheon.
But—
“Section Chief Goat.”
“...Yes.”
The person Baek Saheon was most conscious of here was Director Ho, seated at the table.
Smiling as always with that eternally youthful face, his eyes today looked oddly ecstatic.
Baek Saheon knew those eyes.
The eyes of a zealot with the goal right before them.
“We’ve gathered to offer you a good proposal today, Section Chief.”
“...A proposal, you say.”
“I’m running a little project, and we’re selecting those who’ll work with us.”
As expected.
“Congratulations. Mr. Saheon, you’ll be working on the project team from now on.”
Suspicious.
No formal appointment, just an introduction like this?
Sounded like a cult.
He raised his guard even more, but forced a smile onto his face for the moment.
Because he had to fool them.
“Thank you for thinking so highly of me, Director!”
“Don’t mention it. Then how about you greet your teammates?”
Greet, my ass, you son of a—
Swallowing the simultaneous urge to spit in that never-once-suffered face and the fear, Baek Saheon turned to look them over.
They were all wearing masks anyway, but he focused on the two agents who weren’t the two he knew.
“.......”
Then, suddenly, he realized.
Under the table, one of the masked agents clenched a fist at the sight of him.
As if they’d recognized him.
But the gesture felt less like what an agent facing a Baekilmong employee would do, and more like... someone at an unexpected reunion....
......!
“You.”
Baek Saheon snapped his gaze to that agent.
“You were in Jisan Village then, weren’t you??”
“.......”
The one in the Butcher mask looked at Baek Saheon.
He radiated displeasure, but that didn’t matter.
Baek Saheon blurted out the question that had been nagging him.
“Where’s the other agent who came with you then?”
“.......”
“The one who drew the golden bar.”
“I have no reason to tell you.”
Bastard.
Figures—he was the agent who’d tried to leave him in the village. Predictable. A bastard who only cares about his own business, doesn’t keep promises, and changes his story.
Hard to believe the difference could be so stark—even among agents.
I mean, compared to that agent I’d communicated with by paper boats....
“.......”
That agent wouldn’t dip his toes into something this shady.
Looks like they’re cooperating with Director Ho.
No matter how you looked at it, it reeked.
Thus Baek Saheon finished taking stock of the situation. Or so he thought.
“Ah, and here’s our last member.”
Creeeak.
Until the counseling room door opened and it appeared.
“......!!”
Black smoke, a gas mask, countless branching antlers, yellow gas lamps. Black combat boots, a full uniform.
A Security Team monster.
Sh—shit.
A guard to keep employees from running?
“Mr. Goat?”
“Y-yes.”
Feigning wiping his sweat, Baek Saheon tilted his head to set his eye patch slightly askew. He meant to gauge the other’s threat level....
.......
It was Kim Soleum.
“...!!”
After the Mermaid Grave, again.
Again, meeting him in some inscrutable form.
Gooseflesh rippled over his whole body.
So he really wasn’t human.
Cat, child—and now Kim Soleum appeared as a strange being of the Security Team, approaching the table.
Flinch.
Baek Saheon almost sprang from his seat, but barely calmed himself, keeping his eyes off Soleum and staring under the table.
Son of a bitch.
No question—he was going to keep his identity hidden and gag him again....
“Ah, someone familiar to you as well, Mr. Goat? This is the employee you knew as Section Chief Roe Deer.”
“...?!”
“You’re cohorts. Have a chat.”
W-wait.
“You two will now be on the same team, exploring the same darkness.”
Baek Saheon screamed a silent scream.
“Now then, shall we begin the expedition?”
Second attempt to enter Se-gwang Special City.
T-minus 30 minutes.