Chapter 172. Beneath the Surface (3)
Eun-Ho first met Swear-Master at the MS Tower exhibition hall. It took place during a trial where participants had to balance on a floor that tilted according to headcount. Back then, the guy was the epitome of selfishness.
“Stop right there! Don’t move any further!”
“What the fuck, do you want me to die?!”
He ran around like a madman to avoid the surging flames, breaking the delicate balance that had barely been stabilized for survival. In the end, Eun-Ho had to drag him along using Acceleration.
“Thank you. If you hadn’t taken care of those idiots, I’d be dead.”
Just as Lee Ye-Ji put it, the usual first impression of Swear-Master was an idiot. Nothing more nothing less. He wore his cap pulled low over his face. His clothes didn’t fit in at all with an office building full of salaried workers. On top of that, he’d been wearing a pair of worn out slippers.
“The fucking fire was chasing us, shit was raining down from above like it was about to crack my skull open! Fuck, if it weren’t for you, I’d either be dead or a cripple right now!” the man had rambled on.
Every time he opened his mouth, it was just curses, so Eun-Ho had wondered what kind of person he even was.
“Fuck! Pick me! Let’s team up!” the man had shouted during the TF trial.
Then, during the Shadow Path trial, Swear-Master had looted over an armful of weapons from someone who’d died in the tunnel. When Eun-Ho gave him the Razor Beak Blade, he practically jumped for joy.
The guy was not as sharp-edged as he seemed. If anything, it felt like he was covered in spikes to hide a surprisingly soft interior. He snapped and complained, but he always did what had to be done.
Then after joining the company, he’d gone so far as to get language-polishing lessons from Ji-Eun, saying he wanted to do better at sales.
“... Teach me,” he had even asked first.
“So what do I start with? I’ll do anything. Just tell me,” he’d said earnestly.
No matter what his original nature was like, he genuinely wanted to change in order to survive. He wanted, just like everyone else, to carry his own weight.
“What’s going on with that guy? Did something happen?!”
“The Swear-Master?! Why?! What happened?!”
Since they all knew how human he really was beneath those barbs, everyone was panicking together, unsure what to do.
“What do we do? He’s not even reading the messages!”
“Messages?”
“It says he can’t receive them... Damn it! Why can’t he receive them?!” Lee Ye-Ji practically screamed with both her expression and her voice. She even raised her hand, her face set with determination. “I’ll go!”
“Me too!” said Jae-Hyuk.
This was coming from a man who used to freeze up, his legs shaking at the slightest fear, and a woman who would often collapse to the ground or squeeze her eyes shut in horror. They had been the most easily frightened of them all.
Those two... They’ve grown.
It wasn’t that they’d stopped being afraid. Their legs were still trembling even now, but they stepped forward anyway. Eun-Ho could not help but admire that pure, unfiltered courage.
“I understand how you feel, but I think this time we should go with a small, elite group,” Eun-Ho said calmly. “Ji-Eun, Jae-Hyuk, and Yul. Of course, if you’re okay with it, Han-Wool.”
“What? But wouldn’t it be better if we all went together? What if you end up fighting or somethi—” Lee Ye-Ji said.
Eun-Ho cut her off before she could spiral further. “No.”
Honestly, if he could, he wanted to move one by one at an easy pace, too. He wished to bring the fidgety Lee Ye-Ji, and even the security guard. However, with the situation more urgent than ever, mobility came first. Whether they clashed with the Operations Bureau wouldn’t matter at all if Swear-Master was already dead.
“There’s no time. Let’s fly,” Eun-Ho said decisively. “Ji-Eun, I’ll need your help.”
“Huh? But we don’t even know where it is—”
“I know.” He had to use Choi Seung’s coordinates right away. “And Ji-Eun, there’s one more thing I’d like to ask.”
“Yes! Go ahead!”
“There’s a way to increase your flight speed by twenty percent.”
“Twenty percent?! How, Eun-Ho?”
[Shoes of Swiftness]
- Sneakers crafted from Wyvern leather, and dyed using pigments made from White Dewgrass and Black Dewgrass raised on fairy dew.
- Increases walking speed by ten percent, and flying speed by twenty percent.
Now was the perfect time to make use of the shoes gifted by the mentor from the Audit Bureau.
“You’ll need to return them afterward,” Eun-Ho added.
***
“Uh... Is this really the place?”
“Yes. The Operations Bureau.”
Following the star-shaped marker on the map, they arrived at a bleak, single-story building. It was a plain, boxy structure with no discernible design elements whatsoever. On top of that, the dull gray paint on the outer walls had peeled away almost entirely, making it look like a prison or an abandoned hospital.
“H-Hyungnim! It looks like a ghost might pop out any second,” Jae-Hyuk whispered after swallowing dryly.
Just as Jae-Hyuk said, it seemed like a location that would be featured in a horror movie as a haunted hotspot. Then, they noticed a sign hung crookedly nearby.
NO ENTRY EXCEPT AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL
It had been painted in a vivid red. Whether it was blood or paint was hard to tell.
“Looks like you need special clearance to get in!”
“If we go in without permission we might be in trouble, no?”
“It’s fine,” Eun-Ho replied, heading for the courtyard in front of the building.
Even so, the timid Jae-Hyuk and the ever-worried Ji-Eun froze in place, their feet seemingly glued to the ground.
The moment Eun-Ho stepped onto the open space that resembled a schoolyard, an announcement rang out.
[Caution!]
[Entry is restricted to employees with authorized access.]
[Verifying access credentials.]
“Eek!”
“Gah!”
The two of them clapped their hands over their mouths in shock, but Eun-Ho had already prepared everything. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
Ding!
[The Employee of the Year title has been activated.]
[Restrictions on internal facility access have been lifted.]
He had a free pass that let him enter anywhere within the company.
[The Multi-Level Marketer title has been activated.]
[Sharing Employee of the Year title effects with Sub-Sales Agents.]
Naturally, that applied to his companions as well.
[Your access authorization has been confirmed.]
Swoosh—
Eun-Ho extended his foot into an invisible wall. His toes, the top of his foot, then his leg slowly vanished, as if being swallowed by transparent mist.
[Welcome to the Operations Center.]
[Please enter one at a time.]
***
Eun-Ho had seen children in developing countries being exploited for labor on farms on the news. There were scenes of those forcibly conscripted, enduring backbreaking work with nowhere to turn.
“But I never thought I’d see something like this here,” he murmured.
The Operations Bureau building felt less like an office, and more like a warehouse. The watchtower rising tall at the center reminded him of something else.
“A prison?” someone muttered.
Aside from the sheer number of people constantly moving in and out, it was probably the closest thing to a prison.
“Where did all these people even come from?”
“That’s what I was wondering.”
The interior of the Operations Bureau was divided into four large zones, all radiating outward from the watchtower.
Sector one was where countless workers cooked, sorted, and packaged food nonstop. Sector two was where piles of monster corpses and byproducts were stacked like mountains, then processed and dismantled. Then, sector three was where each person sat in front of hundreds of floating screens, entering data without rest. Finally, sector four was where there was less foot traffic, but cleaning tools were piled high enough to make the sector’s purpose obvious.
The problem was that they had to find Swear-Master among tens of thousands of people bustling about. At first glance, it seemed impossible.
“How do we even find him in all this?”
“He’s not here,” Eun-Ho muttered.
“What?”
“They said he couldn’t receive messages. That means he wouldn’t be walking around freely like this.”
“Ah!”
Eun-Ho thought that someone would be holding him, and it wasn’t something as simple as being asleep or unconscious.
“There has to be a hidden area,” Eun-Ho said firmly. “We need to find it.”
That was his conclusion.
There are too many people to use the Third Eye. We need to move fast...
As his thoughts raced, Ji-Eun pressed her lips together, before saying quietly, “I-I’ll try.”
“Try what, exactly?”
“Detection.”
“Detection?”
Under everyone’s puzzled stares, Ji-Eun closed her eyes. “During the physical exam, when I was looking for you, Eun-Ho... Anyway! Please just trust me!”
Her brows knit, lashes fluttering faintly, lips pressed tight. She clasped both hands together as if in prayer and even held her breath.
Then, after a moment, she opened her eyes. “Follow me!”
***
They passed through a side door, an alley, a narrow crawlspace, another alley, and down a set of worn stairs before arriving at the basement. Even then, they had to navigate a path so convoluted. If not for Ji-Eun’s confident stride, they would’ve turned back several times.
“Huh?”
“What is that?”
The floor was engraved with ornate patterns, akin to a massive magic circle. Resting atop it were hundreds of cylindrical tanks, each around two meters tall. Various machines and hoses were attached to them, and each cylinder was filled to the brim with blue liquid.
“They look like tanks,” Ji-Eun said hesitantly.
She was right. Though empty now, they seemed like containment tanks meant to store something. Perhaps because of that, the air reeked of a briny stench, as though stagnant water had gone bad.
“I don’t see anywhere he could be.”
As Ji-Eun’s uncertain voice faded, an ominous chill crawled up Eun-Ho’s spine. There was no sign of life anywhere inside, which meant Swear-Master wasn’t here.
“N-Noonim! T-there! Look over there!”
“Huh? What do you—aaaah!”
No one said another word and they all broke into a run, sprinting past the empty cylinders filled with blue liquid toward the front row. There was Swear-Master—naked, submerged, and soaked in some unknown chemical solution.
“Swear-Master!” Eun-Ho shouted.
[Work Pending]
Between the floating screens above the cylinders, a familiar yet unfamiliar face came into view. Suspended in an unrealistically blue liquid, the Swear-Master floated akin to a test subject.
I can barely even recognize him, Eun-Ho thought.
IV-like tubes dangled from his arms and legs, snaking across him. The mouth that never stopped moving was blocked by a black hose descending from the top of the cylinder. The black hair that had always been hidden beneath his cap drifted freely in the liquid.
The instant Eun-Ho’s grip tightened around his sword, the shrill sound of a door scraped against his ears.
Creaaak—!
A powerful light snapped on overhead. Then, blinding illumination poured down. Everyone shielded their eyes, their sprint coming to an abrupt halt.
Had even a second passed? By instinct, Eun-Ho clamped a hand over his mouth and yanked Yul close.
[You have entered the Hide and Seek domain of the Subject Kim Yul.]
Swoosh—
It felt as though a thin layer of mist briefly settled over them, before the world brightened again. Perhaps because everyone had stilled even their breathing, the air around them sank into an eerie quietness.
Click!
The door opened fully.
“... So they’re throwing a fit, asking if we’re even running this place properly. Fuck. I barely stopped myself from cussing them out to their faces.”
“Hah. Let them come down here and work for once then see if they can say that shit.”
“Exactly. Like anyone’s doing this kind of grunt work because they want to.”
Amid the manufactured silence, coarse voices stabbed straight into their eardrums.
“Damn bastards. I need to get out of this shithole as soon as possible.”
“How many promotion points do you have left, again?”
“Just a million. Just a little more of this crap and I’m done.”
Step. Step. Step.
They heard two sets of footsteps and two voices.
Could they be Operations Bureau staff? Eun-Ho wondered.
Keeping his nerves in check, Eun-Ho held Yul’s hand tightly with one hand, and gripped his sword with the other.
“Ah, there it is.”
Eun-Ho spotted them weaving between the towers of screens and approaching the central area. The two men wore outfits that looked somewhere between spacesuits and factory sanitation gear, with red gloves reaching up to their wrists. Masks covered the lower halves of their faces, making them impossible to identify.
Hmm... I don’t recognize their voices, Eun-Ho thought.
“Three from Sector Thirteen. Confirmed.”
By three, they probably meant the Swear-Master and the two Americans who had been captured with him. Eun-Ho frowned slightly and strained his ears.
“Seriously, why is this batch so damn small? It’s driving me nuts. After the restructuring, only the leftovers are here, and their condition’s crap.”
“Just do it roughly. They said we only need to match the weight.”
As the men drew closer to the cylinders, Jae-Hyuk, Ji-Eun, and even Yul whose eyes were shut tight in Ji-Eun’s arms, flinched.
It’s not time yet.
They had to wait. Eun-Ho had to understand exactly what this place was and what kind of fucked-up operation was going on here. With that in mind, Eun-Ho watched their every move.
The oblivious staff went about their work.
Beep—
One of the men stopped in front of a cylinder and summoned a translucent system window, tapping away at it. A message appeared on the surface of the cylinder holding the three captives.
Beep—
[Processing...]
[Separation procedure has been initiated.]
Beep—
[1/10000]
[2/10000]
[3/10000]
...
Then, numbers began climbing steadily, starting from one.
Wooong
The three coffin-like capsules vibrated, trembling in fine increments.
After confirming that, the two men nodded to each other.
“We won’t get caught, right?”
One of the employees slowly turned his head, scanning the area like an astronaut surveying a familiar planet. “Relax. Don’t be a jerk. With this many people, no one can manage them all anyway. Who’s going to notice if one or two go missing?”
“That’s true. Even if I disappeared, only you or the manager would be the only one to realize.”
So they are saying they would siphon off a few people since they won’t get caught? Why?
Eun-Ho clenched his foot in place, forcing himself not to rush out. Then, he heard the killing blow.
“Enough bullshit. Just check that all the limbs are intact.”
“Ah. If something’s wrong, it’ll come up when we debone them, I guess.”
What? Debone? Like stripping bones from livestock and trimming meat?
For a moment, he wondered if he’d misheard. He wanted to have misheard because otherwise it meant they were treating people as nothing more than animals.
“Those damn bastards...”
“How many promotion points do you have left, again?”
“Just a million. Just a little more of this crap and I’m done.”
Fuck. They were doing all this for points?
How was he even supposed to describe this dogshit feeling crawling up his spine? He wanted someone to curse for him.
“Jae-Hyuk.”
“Yes, Hyungnim!”
Keeping his voice low as he watched the backs of the retreating employees, Eun-Ho said, “Get your mace out.”
“Huh?”
“We’re smashing that.”