No Time to Rest [Secret Post]
Heh.
The guestbook let you view every past post and comment left by the gallery’s users. The one I opened for the first time today contained…
Four users’ comments and two secret posts were registered.
One of them I don’t need to look at right now.
After steeling myself, I clicked on the secret post left by ManagingTheManagers.
[This is about the gallery]
Author: ManagingTheManagers
You may have already noticed, but the Bureau Gallery is not a place you can access through normal channels.
The majority of the people who stay here are already dead.
We don’t know why the dead from the Bureau can gather in this place, so just keep that fact in mind.
As for the small number of remaining users, it’s better for you if you don’t learn their identities.
It could put GalleryLurkingIsEasy’s safety at risk, so please stop digging.
There is currently no living human among the gallery users whom you can meet.
Please think of the gallery as nothing more than a tool that assists with Bureau operations.
If you leak even the slightest part of what I just told you inside the gallery, a permanent ban will be applied immediately.
“I expected it, but not to this degree.”
The information imbalance surrounding the Human Rights Waiver Admission, the strangely off-point conversations I’d had with them; so that was why. They weren’t even alive to begin with.
“Then what the hell are these two?”
UghItsAGirl, who spammed his guestbook begging girls to comment and constantly posted sob stories about getting rejected, sounding like his dick was running his brain.
The WhiteHacker who wrote “[SECRET] Newbie, give me your account number so we can split the profits 50/50” and had physically helped me even though the gallery supposedly had no living people.
Were these the ones whose identities I was better off not knowing?
Slap!
When useless thoughts started to balloon, I smacked both cheeks hard with my palms.
“Ugh…”
As my old man used to say: Don’t obsess over things you can’t solve. Rather than wasting time and energy on stuff you can’t change right now, spend it somewhere else. Never thought a line I heard back when I was a snot-nosed brat would actually help me now.
I flipped the mental switch off and threw myself onto the soft bed. Less than half a day had passed since I escaped the Backrooms; what I needed most was rest.
“…Ah, the account…”
I fell asleep thinking I should have replied to the WhiteHacker’s comment asking for my account number.
.
.
.
Bba bba bba-bba-bba bba-ra-bba-bba bba-bba-bba bba-bba-bba
“What the fuck! Which bastard set the military wake-up bugle as the dorm alarm!”
I jolted awake feeling like absolute shit. It was 7 a.m. If I’d known the alarm that rang an hour before work was this nightmare, I would’ve begged them to turn it off beforehand.
To shake off the foul mood I tried to open the gallery, but noticed a different icon glowing.
“BureauTalk?”
Looked like the internal company messenger. This place really had terrible naming sense…
The message was from Team Leader Lee Mi-na, the one I’d exchanged numbers with yesterday.
“What the hell kind of profile picture is that?”
Her profile image was grotesque. Covered in blood, shouldering a massive hammer while throwing a gyaru peace sign. The expressionless face combined with a background that looked like an abandoned building created an indescribable, eerie vibe.
I’ll ask her about it once we’re closer.
I was insanely curious what the story behind it was, but we weren’t close enough for me to pry, so I kept the question to myself.
I sent a short reply. The “1” disappeared instantly and a new message popped up.
What the hell was this all of a sudden?
What the actual hell.
It was nice not having morning duty, but I had no clue how to interpret an order this cryptic. As expected, it was time to visit the gallery.
Author: GalleryLurkingIsEasy
My boss told me not to come in during the morning and asked if I play gacha games. I answered without thinking that I did, and now she’s telling me to install the game on my terminal and come in the afternoon. This isn’t a date, right? Is this a death flag?
The comments were filled with reactions that didn’t feel the least bit reassuring. Of course the ominous feeling was always right.
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
If you’re lucky you die, if you’re unlucky you live. Wasn’t it usually the opposite?
So that was what they meant.
By piecing together the fragmented information from the rising comments, I could roughly guess the characteristics of the thing I’d be meeting this afternoon. Looked like that bastard would never be able to visit a teahouse.
Knock knock.
“Come in.”
When I opened the door to the Field Response Team office, only Team Leader Lee Mi-na was holding the fort.
“Good afternoon.”
“Is it? If I were Seong-bin I’d be cursing me out nonstop right now, no?”
“It’s work hours, so working is only natural.”
“Is that so?”
I rate you in the top 65th percentile purely for giving me time to come up with a response, I swallowed the words and kept my expression neutral.
“Sit down first. Take out your terminal.”
I sat and looked at Mi-na’s face. She was definitely older than me since she was the team leader, yet that vacant expression made her look nothing like a superior. Maybe you had to be the type who didn’t react to most things to earn the team leader title.
“Today you’ll be entering entity containment with five N-Grade personnel, Seong-bin.”
“With N-Grade personnel?”
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“Yesterday you clearly called me an employee…”
“Ah, that.”
During yesterday’s interrogation, Mi-na had definitely told me:
She had acknowledged me as a proper member of the Field Response Team. So it was all empty words?
Suddenly Mi-na stretched both arms out, grabbed my hand, and wrapped the back of it with both of hers.
“I do consider you a full-fledged employee, Seong-bin.”
Even though we were different genders, the completely different texture of her skin traveled through the back of my hand. What was this feeling?
Maybe I really wasn’t human and had been an N-Grade all along? How else could human skin feel this soft…?
“Seong-bin?”
“Y-yes? Yes, I’m listening.”
The hand that had been gently stroking the back of mine suddenly tightened.
At the same time Mi-na began earnestly kneading my hand.
“However, the Bureau still hasn’t accepted you as an official employee.”
That damn Human Rights Waiver Admission. They recruit people through it and then refuse to trust them—what the hell do they want?
“So make sure you come back alive.”
“Team Leader…”
It was genuinely touching. Even though her first impression had been terrible, what did that matter? Wasn’t she worrying about me and taking care of me like this right now?
Ah, Team Leader. If I could work with you, any mission would be—
“You have to come back alive so I can finally delegate some of my workload.”
Never mind.
“Is that what this is about?”
“Why else would there be only me in such a big department? Everyone else is out on field duty.”
I’d loved her for a second. Now the only thing that mattered was survival.
“Did you install the game on the terminal?”
“Yes.”
“Mmm~. I really hope your luck is absolutely terrible, Seong-bin.”
She said that and handed me a single document.
“Read it and head to the isolation room. Consider it an overtime gift.”
DESIGNATION:Why Are You Luckier Than Me?
GRADE:Level 2
TYPE:Entity Type
IMAGE:[Photo of tablet running mobile game]
‘Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’ is a tablet discovered in 2023 inside an apartment in XX-dong, Daegu. After receiving a report that the tablet was killing people, the response team arrived to find three casualties already on site.
Upon detecting the Field Response Team, ‘Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’ forced each member to perform gacha pulls on the mobile games they were currently playing.
Of the five dispatched, the two who refused were [CENSORED].
The remaining three personnel subsequently [CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED].
Even after entering the Bureau, the entity periodically demands new personnel for gacha pulls.
An average of twenty N-Grade personnel must be deployed per day before the entity produces the desired outcome.
With this much censored, what was even the point of giving me the report?
“Team Leader, most of the information on this document is hidden.”
“Ah, that’s normal. Lower ranks can’t see a lot of details.”
So she gave it to me knowing that.
“Still, since I entered as a team leader from the start… I’m not sure what exactly is hidden?”
So she gave it to me without knowing. This sadist.
“Still, it’s better than knowing nothing at all, so if you come back alive, remember that I have a stake in this, okay?”
“I will definitely return alive and help share the workload, Team Leader.”
“Yeees~.”
After giving Lee Mi-na a light bow, I headed toward the isolation room where ‘Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’ was contained.
“When’s the next batch coming? No one succeeded today.”
Squelch. Squelch. Squelch.
“That thing looked like it was in a bad mood today. Won’t the next ones die too?”
“Who knows. It all depends on their own luck.”
In front of the isolation room, other employees were casually joking while stuffing headless corpses into body bags. And maybe—just maybe—one of those gaping body bags might end up holding me. The thought crossed my mind as I stood there.