Recharge and Q&A (2)
"My purpose?"
"Yeah. The real reason you deliberately joined the Management Bureau."
"I already told you. My stocks crashed so hard I couldn't live like a normal person…"
"Not how you got in. Why."
The easy warmth leftover from the feast drained from Senior Choi Yuna's eyes, replaced by something sharp and focused.
"I looked into your history. Everything up until you went to the hospital."
She pulled out her terminal and played a NewTube video.
"Damn it. They said Level 0 would be empty. Nothing here at all."
"I'm recording this live so I have a record of the situation."
"Hey—!"
I lunged for her terminal. My hand cut through empty air.
"You can't just dig up other people's dark history like that."
"Why is it dark history?"
"It feels like having a stranger read your diary from when you were still an idiot."
"That was less than ten days ago."
"And it's been ten whole seconds since you said that, Senior. Time really flies."
These days, mourning by the second is trendy.
"If me crawling out of that hell alive is the evidence, then I should've died for a not-guilty verdict, right?"
"There's more."
A photo lit up on her terminal.
It was Why Are You Luckier Than Me? — the entity sitting inside its containment cell.
"I heard you managed this one."
"Yes. The Bureau didn't even treat me like staff, so they dumped me in with the N-Class Personnel."
"So why was your first thought to try and trick it?"
Why?
"Because I had to survive."
"Exactly."
She spooned some of the dessert ice cream into her mouth.
"How did you start hunting for a countermeasure the second you got the management order?"
But what happens if they catch that newbie browsing the gallery?
I mean, seriously — nothing he's shown so far looks like a normal new hire, right?
Management Bureau staff aren't complete idiots. You think they're gonna write off a guy this suspicious as some sucker who walked in through the Human Rights Waiver Track?
My answer: no chance.
I hit two Level 2 entities and still got sent to personal psych counseling.
Even with the gallery's help, the stuff the newbie resolved is way outside the normal range.
So take some good advice and start acting crazy while you can.
Screw it up and you'll get classified as an Ability User — or tagged as a Priority-1 Surveillance Agent.
The concept post I'd seen yesterday — or maybe the day before — flickered behind my eyes.
I'd been trying to lay some groundwork during the break. Build the right kind of reputation.
And of all people, the one who got suspicious wasn't Information Team, wasn't HR — it was Choi Yuna.
The world really doesn't run on my schedule.
"Ah—sudden vertigo."
"Don't even try the acting later."
Damn. There went one of my dreams.
"Does the Team Leader know?"
"No. Just me, for now."
As long as I kept my mouth shut, I wasn't getting out of this chair — not even if her ice cream melted into a puddle.
I never thought the thrashing I'd done just to stay alive would come back around like this.
I took a moment, sorted my thoughts, and opened my mouth.
"I don't know either."
"You don't know?"
"It's true I came into the Management Bureau with a purpose. But there's one thing I need to correct."
I woke my terminal and opened a forbidden address I hadn't looked at in a while.
A blue screen stamped with -99.99%.
My stock portfolio.
"Among the methods I used to get into the Bureau, a stock crash was not one of them."
Her pupils started to tremble as she looked at the chart.
"…My condolences. About the stocks."
"Thank you."
I'd prepared for so many things.
And right when everyone else was printing money, an entity just happened to crash the market — and just happened to wipe out the only stocks I'd bought.
This was a point of honor. I would correct the record even with a knife at my throat.
Who the hell wants to throw money into the dirt?
"And the reason I came here is to find my family."
"Family? Who?"
"I don't know. I only know the Management Bureau is connected to them somehow."
After that, I laid out a little of my family history — or rather, the absence of one — for Choi Yuna.
I'd been raised in an orphanage since before I could form memories. I knew nothing about my family.
There had only been a letter left beside me on the orphanage doorstep, and written on it — in characters only I could see — were the words Management Bureau.
So I'd researched and prepared every which way to join the Bureau, and then my stocks detonated, and that was how I got in.
"I didn't really have a life goal, you know? So I figured I'd at least try to find my family. I just didn't expect it to be harder than a reunification of separated families."
I'd heard of it as an urban legend. Did I think I'd get shipped to The Backrooms on day one?
"I see."
"Yes. I'd picked up a few things here and there, so the first thing I did was work the angles. Creepypasta rules, containment fiction — that stuff's everywhere."
"That alone doesn't explain how well you adapted."
"I can't explain that part either."
If someone asked how I managed to think that fast, what else was there to say besides because otherwise I'd be dead?
Fortunately, Senior Yuna seemed willing to accept it for now.
"Sorry. I wasn't trying to grill you for still being alive."
"It happens. This isn't exactly a workplace where common sense applies."
"I won't ask any more."
"Really?"
She stirred the fully liquefied ice cream with her spoon.
"But when you're sure — tell me. Promise."
"Is that a death flag?"
"A what?"
"Nothing. I'll tell you. I promise."
With that, I drained the last of my plum tea. The ice had long since melted.
Cold, but vaguely off. The kind of taste that comes from ice that waited too long.
"Then you'll take my questions too, right?"
"Sure."
"First — why did Seniors A, B, and C greet you like that when they saw you?"
"Ohhh! It's Choi Yuna! Looks like our luck's turning around!"
"You'll stick with me again this time, right? Come on — last time we recovered the entity thanks to me."
Their reaction hadn't been the simple pleasure of one more staff member joining the job.
It had looked like they were greeting a proven Ability User.
Senior Yuna didn't hesitate.
"Because I am one. An Ability User."
"An Ability User? Is the wooden doll your ability too?"
"More precisely…"
She explained that her power was to create and use degraded copies of managed entities.
On the mission with Employees A, B, and C, she'd used an entity that took major injuries in someone's place. At the hospital, she'd used an entity that mimicked humans — the wooden doll.
"Limitations? Cost?"
"One entity a day. And the ability always produces a degraded copy of the original."
"Read this. It's the original of the entity I used at the hospital."
Grade:Level 2
Classification:Entity-type
Mokgujin is an approximately 15 cm wooden doll discovered at ■■■ Martial Arts School in ■■ County, ■■ Province, China.
During the recovery operation, the entity assumed the form of the school's master and attacked the Field Response Team. The engagement killed two Field Response Team personnel and severely injured thirteen others; containment was only achieved after additional reinforcements arrived.
When a holder of Mokgujin recognizes or designates a specific target, the entity transforms within seconds into an exact physical duplicate of that target. Clothing, build, age, scars, and other bodily features are reproduced; the mechanism of this replication remains unknown.
Once transformed, Mokgujin displays extreme hostility toward the original. It approaches and physically assaults the target without pause until the target is dead. The entity appears to possess physical capabilities far superior to the original; when transformed into a martial artist, it has been observed using that martial artist's techniques.
Upon confirmation of the target's death, Mokgujin ceases all activity. It stands motionless for approximately 10–30 seconds, then reverts to its original wooden-doll form.
Discovery
Investigation determined that the master of ■■■ Martial Arts School used the entity against martial artists who came to challenge the school. All victims were killed by a being identical to themselves. These cases remained unsolved for years in martial-arts circles, earning the school nicknames such as "the dojo that never loses" and "the undefeated school."
After receiving reports of anomalous phenomena, the Management Bureau conducted a field investigation and executed a recovery operation.
The entity shows no autonomous behavior, and its activation conditions are clearly established; no further special management measures are currently required.
No wonder it had smashed through the hospital room door and taken off at that terrifying speed.
So that was the original. But something still didn't add up.
"Senior — the Mokgujin you used in the hospital room. There were two of them."
"Right."
Two Mokgujin, both copies of the rescue targets.
That flatly contradicted her claim that she could only use one.
"That's the ability of the Chungnam Branch aces."
"Seniors A, B, and C?"
"Yeah. They don't know it themselves, but they're Ability Users too."
Ability Users who didn't even know they were Ability Users.
Does the Bureau just run personnel management into the ground on purpose?
"I'll tell you later. If I say any more than this, I'll get chewed out."
"Chewed out?"
"By HR."
"Fair enough."
If saying more got her in trouble with HR, how was I supposed to dig any further?
Live long enough and the day will come when I find out. Or please, let it come.
"Then what about the message the entity posing as the hospital director left when we were leaving?"
For a hospital we'd just robbed of two patients, they'd let us walk out far too quietly.
And the director-entity had known we were pulling something — and still waved us through.
Senior Yuna, again, didn't even pretend to think about it.
"My ability is single-use."
"Right…?"
"So the Mokgujin I copy never turn back into wooden dolls."
"Ah."
They hadn't simply let us go.
The hospital had taken the transformed Mokgujin for real patients.
"Do entities experiment on each other?"
"They do. That's why they let us leave — or so I'd assume."
Fair point. From the records, the price of rescuing a patient was a body part.
Even with the Bureau involved, two intact human bodies? I probably would have waved them out too.
"Anything else you're curious about?"
She took another spoonful of the melted ice cream.
"That's enough."
"Good."
Her voice brightened a shade from earlier.
"Thanks to you, I got to try the legendary special meal."
"Come again next time, if you've got a free slot."
"Next time?"
I still have plenty of special meal vouchers left.
Worst case, I can just go say hello to Section Chief Kwak Chunbong a few more times.
And with that, the late dinner came to an end.
I'd come to empty my head and ended up filling it with more noise instead — but it hadn't been a bad stretch of time.
At the very least, Choi Yuna seemed to be on my side.
I counted that as a major win all by itself.
"Maybe next time I'll order the same menu as Senior."
The thought crossed my mind that it might even taste a little better than today's.
And then, the next day.
The chance to play crazy had arrived a little sooner than expected.