Chapter 161
Chapter 161
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 161
Chapter Title: Even If I Fall into a Ghost Story, I Have to Go to Work
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The new recruit had been infected.
"Agent?"
Ryu Jaegwan had experienced similar situations multiple times already.
An agent who miscounted the numbers on the final step and stepped on the wrong stair. An agent who held out for two days without a drop of water but got contaminated by rainwater that fell into their eye mucosa...
They just vanish.
Just like that.
Without context or warning.
People call stories where that eeriness is considered entertaining "ghost stories."...
But to those involved, it felt like an all-too-common tragedy. Naturally.
Just like right now.
"Bronze."
At that moment, his senior tapped his shoulder and quickly threw an arm around it.
"...!"
And wrote letters on his back with a finger.
In a way that wouldn't look natural to the new recruit agent in front of them.
"Grape! Come on, we gotta go. Your hand's about to disappear too."
"Ah..."
The new recruit agent, Kim Sol-eum, peered at his right arm—which had been severed and vanished—with a surprisingly bright smile as he replied.
"I'm fine! The little mermaid princess said she'd give me a new one. I'll be okay!"
"...Really?"
"Yes! Look, she gave me this too..."
Kim Sol-eum proudly lifted up a few items he'd received from the children, showing them off.
In reality, they were all worn-out and shabby toys—the kind that only a child, not a full-grown adult, would like, even under the sparkling gaze of the Dragon Palace.
"...Okay. Hold on a sec."
The two left Kim Sol-eum to mingle with the children and stepped aside briefly for a hurried conversation.
"No idea what he did, but the infection's way too deep."
Half his face was covered in a tumor, and the infection source manifesting as a tail had grown excessively.
Cases like this usually didn't happen in just three days.
Did he actually go inside the 'Dragon Palace'? Or maybe something went wrong while interacting with the children, or perhaps Kim Sol-eum himself had a body particularly vulnerable to biological hazards.
Either way, there was a slim chance for a new recruit to encounter that, but confirming it right now through the newbie—who seemed mentally contaminated already—was impossible.
Or...
"That cat didn't..."
"......"
Maybe a more dangerous entity had intervened midway.
To hurry them along.
Ryu Jaegwan's face paled white before snapping back.
"Conch shells."
The antidote.
"We need to get them. Right now!"
"Hold on."
Agent Choi grabbed his arm.
"That cat gave us the antidote to save the kids."
"Grape looks like a kid on the outside right now too..."
"Listen to me. If that cat is a higher-grade, high-risk phenomenon than the goblin prank our boss put on us..."
"...!"
"...it might not count that guy as one of the 'kids' anymore."
Ryu Jaegwan nearly yelled, "So we just sit back and do nothing?!"
But his superior, Agent Choi, was looking at 'Grape Agent' with a strange gaze for some reason.
"......"
He calmed his junior down, then approached Kim Sol-eum among the children again.
"Grape."
"Yes?"
"So, you could just stay here forever, right?"
"Yes!"
Ryu Jaegwan couldn't hold back and yanked Agent Choi by the collar.
"Senior!!"
"Hey, hey, I was just checking the contamination level. ...It's bad. Not just the infection—his whole mindset..."
"......"
"Let's get him out now."
"Then..."
"No, the usual way!"
Agent Choi sighed and patted his junior's back.
"Bronze, Bronze. Get it together. Our escape method isn't based on contamination—it's based on time missing."
"...!!"
Right.
The Disaster Management Bureau's escape method worked on children who hadn't vanished into thin air via the bubble method if their disappearance hadn't exceeded 1,000 days.
Grape Agent, having only been here three days, qualified!
"Just persuade him properly to leave. I'll take him out—you keep an eye on the kids so they don't scatter."
And he turned to the infected Kim Sol-eum with a bright voice.
"We'll come back to the Dragon Palace next time, Grape! How about we play balloon ride instead? Like when we came here—floating up all light and fluffy!"
It was the escape route identified by the Disaster Management Bureau.
Remember?
Children's books with detailed appendix pages on 'How to Go to the Sparkly Dragon Palace' popping up in playrooms everywhere.
In fact, there was additional description.
To actually use this escape method, agents carried the required materials themselves.
Fortunately, since the entire preparation process was riddled with irrationality and interference, the escape method itself was narratively correct.
Up until this moment.
"It's not floating..."
"...!!"
This time was the exception.
Agent Choi barely managed his expression, looking like he wanted to bite his tongue, as he glanced at Kim Sol-eum dangling from the balloon.
Normally, a child hanging from the 'balloon home' closes their eyes, floats lightly into the sky, and at some point, the balloon pops, sending them tumbling down.
They'd then be found having rolled out of a slide.
That's how it should work...
But the balloon wouldn't even lift off.
This had never happened before.
No agent had ever been this infected...!
Moreover, the severity of infection usually matched eerily with the years missing, so escappable children always floated up on the balloon without fail.
But now, a new irregularity had occurred.
As if the parasite was clinging tightly to the host it had infected.
Kim Sol-eum's tail—covered in ulcerated tumors—was heavily rooted to the ground, wriggling.
'...It's almost connected to that ulcer mass.'
Agent Choi frowned as he thought of the bizarre cluster that appeared to be the Dragon Palace.
Still, his mouth kept chattering casually.
"Sorry~ I must've put too little air in! Let's try another way."
"Okay..."
Ryu Jaegwan, who had been watching the children, started moving the moment the two returned empty-handed.
"Bronze."
"We need to get the antidote right now. Prep..."
"Bronze!"
Agent Choi paused briefly, then spoke slowly...
"Didn't it occur to you that if Grape was in his right mind, he'd yield his spot to a kid?"
Ryu Jaegwan stopped his hands.
"It did."
"...!"
"Most agents have that mindset, so they need higher priority. Otherwise, they give up their lives too easily."
"......"
"Saving agents saves more people."
His senior fell silent, seemingly at a loss for words.
Then let out a small sigh.
"I... don't know. It's not like we're ranking lives... Wouldn't you just want to save a colleague?"
"......"
"Was our agency always like this? It feels different from before... At some point, everyone started staking their lives on that principle."
"Everyone realized it's necessary."
"......"
Ryu Jaegwan knew Agent Choi's silence was closer to denial than agreement.
But Agent Choi surrendered with a small sigh.
"Anyway, fine. We save Grape."
"...!"
"Let's go meet those cult company bastards."
Before that.
Of the eleven remaining conch shells, excluding one for the agent.
"We need to select ten."
"......"
Agent Choi's eyes darkened, but he approached Grape anyway.
"You sorted the kids by era, right? Can you tell us?"
"Yes!"
Grape Agent dutifully sorted the children.
How on earth? He'd gathered all two dozen kids scattered across the city.
'...Did getting contaminated and linked to the cluster let them communicate?'
He pushed aside the chilling speculation.
"These ones all know the same song!"
The children were sorted.
From 2010s kids to 1960s ones.
And a few were described a bit differently.
"These... seem like friends from somewhere a little different."
Fingers with six digits, eyes without whites, or claiming origins from countries that don't exist on Earth.
Bronze Agent immediately placed them lower priority. High chance they weren't 'citizens.'
...It didn't feel good.
Ranking human lives.
Ryu Jaegwan felt a deep fatigue he'd momentarily forgotten.
...Exhausted, as always.
And he implicitly selected kids with the most recent disappearance dates.
Based on the agents' info, they had the highest chance of successful escape.
"...We'll take the rest eventually."
"......"
Ryu Jaegwan nodded slowly.
"Alright. Grape. The kids might get scared, so how about we play-walk together? We'll meet the little mermaid princess tomorrow—today, play with me!"
"Got it!"
They decided to hide Grape Agent among the children to protect him as much as possible from Daydream Corporation.
If his agent status leaked, it became a weakness. An elite Daydream team would likely know the Disaster Management Bureau prioritized agents over civilians.
'A contaminated agent... is an easy target.'
At least until they took a conch shell and treated him.
With that, they hurried their steps.
And shortly after.
"Ooh! Over here!"
The pony-masked employee waving at the agreed spot, and the others eyeing them warily.
'They didn't run.'
Ryu Jaegwan confirmed the tracking device Agent Choi had attached to the conch shells was intact, then joined the Daydream Corporation humans.
They flinched at the dozens of 'baby mermaids,' but perhaps the cat's influence lingered—they didn't act rashly.
They just kept their distance.
The two factions exchanged brief notes, then moved while eyeing each other warily.
Under the city.
"Kids hardly ever come here..."
Even under the 'Sparkly Dragon Palace' gaze, it wasn't particularly beautiful or distinctive.
A shadowy spot under a culvert bridge.
In reality, under a somehow uncollapsed, rusted iron arch bridge, next to a stream of black sludge-contaminated water, there was a small door.
However...
"We can't see it with our eyes."
The door was completely invisible to the contaminated children.
Just like the conch shells.
"......"
In that case.
Agent Choi, aware of Daydream Corporation's gaze probing for weaknesses, casually closed his eyes and reached out.
...Yeah. It passes through.
"Ah. We just need to fool our senses entirely. Close our eyes and go in."
The problem: doing this with 28 kids.
"Kids! Let's bet who can walk the farthest with eyes closed."
"Uh..."
"Scary."
Usually excited kids, but some hesitated oddly.
As if instinctively repelled.
'Damn.'
...Did they have to leave the unselected kids here? A prickling foreboding hit the agents.
But then.
"Are you scaredy-cat?"
"...!"
"N-No!"
"Then close your eyes!"
Kim Sol-eum started egging the kids on.
"Don't you see sparkles when you close your eyes? You don't?"
"I do!"
"Look closely. Walk a bit if you don't."
Surprisingly, he succeeded in getting all the kids to close their eyes and walk.
"......"
"Agent."
"...Yeah, let's go."
Agent Choi, somewhat dazed watching the scene, snapped to and patted the anxious Bronze Agent's shoulder before stepping forward.
"Let's go!"
The eye-closed kids safely passed the 'wall' and entered.
And.
"Huh."
A place unlike the 'Sparkly Dragon Palace' appeared.
In Daydream Corporation's view—the ghost story 'Mermaid Graveyard'—it was just a less-rusted, foreboding iron passage than outside.
Like a hastily made staff emergency corridor.
But in children's eyes...
'Gone.'
A plain white rectangular path.
As if all its original texture had vanished.
Up to here, it seemed the 'Sparkly Dragon Palace' hallucination wasn't implemented.
A space slightly isolated from the contamination, presumably.
'...Getting more meaningful.'
Veterans knew higher meaningfulness meant higher chance of truth, so they hurried.
"Keep eyes closed?"
"Open 'em and see something amazing?"
Thankfully, the kids followed without collapsing in fear or wailing. Grape Agent soothed or distracted any criers.
"......"
The passage end appeared.
Through sun catchers, the true sight beyond...
"Ha."
A crudely made station.
Seemed to have held seven escape pods total.
Where mismatched mechanical escape pods had launched, only dust, filth, and dried infected fluids remained.
But one massive capsule-shaped escape pod, drenched in blood, sat there.
Approaching, the door device announced.
Hmm.
When Daydream Corporation folks only nodded half-heartedly without responding, Agent Choi quickly added.
Agent Choi nodded at the immediate reply and handed over cash on the spot.
"Yay!"
Ignoring the giggling pony-masked employee, he turned back.
"Good. Then... Grape. Come here? Bring the friend you were just talking about too!"
"Yes!"
Kim Sol-eum, standing with the kids, grabbed one child's hand and approached the escape pod.
Thankfully, Daydream employees didn't seem to realize he was an agent.
Ryu Jaegwan stood guard, snatching conch shells from Baek Saheon's bag like theft and handing them to Agent Choi.
"Here..."
Baek Saheon's disappointed curse-swallowing didn't transmit.
Agent Choi smiled, lifted a conch shell, and approached Grape.
"If Grape closes his eyes for a sec, it'll be quick..."
Then.
"What's that?"
"Whoa! A real white spaceship!"
A child next to Grape ran toward the escape pod.
"...!"
"Come with!"
Grape followed the child to the pod.
"No...!"
Forcibly boarding a severely infected child into the escape pod triggers acute shedding: ulcers sprout across the body, losing vital signs.
Do not attempt under any circumstances.
They absolutely couldn't do that...!
Plus, Daydream Corporation employees immediately went on alert. Bronze Agent blocked them.
"Grape!"
"Huh?"
At that instant, Grape turned at the call.
His tail naturally smacked the door device.
"...!"
Message reprinted.
"Whoa! You were right! It just sparkled!"
"Right?"
In that gap, Agent Choi rushed over, grabbed both, and pulled them back.
Bronze Agent, watching via sun catcher, sighed shortly and relaxed his threatening stance toward Daydream Corporation.
A suffocating tension hung briefly.
"Ha. At least the pod doesn't attack. Lucky."
Agent Choi pretended to wipe sweat but immediately lifted the conch shell.
But...
"......"
Bronze Agent felt something eerie from the scene.
The device reprinting when the living tail hit it.
And his senior's words.
-The pod doesn't attack. Lucky.-
"...!"
No way.
"Alright, treat the kids, give 'em cut tails for proof, and board..."
"No."
"...Bronze?"
"That's not it."
Bronze Agent reread the device text.
It read like: remove the infected body—the mermaid—and authenticate.
But...
"This is already a fallen city. This space with the pod looks hastily made, probably constructed mid-collapse for a last escape attempt."
"Then?"
"They must've assumed most entering this pod were infected."
"...!"
Bronze Agent glanced back at the last escape pod.
"Especially as the final escape means—even assuming all were infected—wouldn't be odd."
"...Yeah."
Agent Choi's eyes sparkled.
"So, minimal measure to prevent spread to other spaces..."
"Yes."
Both agents' gazes went to the tails.
Monstrous things with ulcer-secreting slime.
"Cut off the infection protrusions—the cause—and enter."
Then the device read entirely differently.
'Not attack other infected—remove your own infection source, the tail!'
Thus, only intelligent beings without tails, authenticating cut ones, could enter safely.
"Wait, that means ultimately..."
"Yes."
A faint smile of elation crossed Bronze Agent's face for the first time today.
"No need for full cure from infection. Kids just cut tails, authenticate—board without conch shells."
"...!"
"Use conch shells only on kids at risk of fatal bleeding from tail-cutting..."
If distributed properly.
"We can all get out."
Not leaving a single child behind.
Rescue them from this supernatural disaster.
'That's it!'
I clenched my fist discreetly.
Hidden among the kids, I wouldn't be noticed, but I suppressed sighs of relief and joy.
'Perfect.'
Blending Daydream Corporation knowledge naturally with Disaster Management Bureau intel, guiding them to a conclusion like my inference.
How much effort to steer suspiciously to this outcome...!
What a brutal day.
I swallowed.
'...Getting infected was the wise choice.'
It'd be a lie to say it wasn't gruesome and disgusting.
But the benefits from his infection were too hard to pass up.
From hiding his identity from Daydream employees with the face tumor, to directly hinting at 'cut tail to board.'
The one perfect answer to breakthrough all obstacles naturally without suspicion.
And...
'...Gets me off the suspect list too.'
That cat.
Agent Choi knew it could turn into a 'stray animal.' It was from his recommended item.
Of course, fake Necronomicon effect made direct link hard, but post-escape suspicion possible.
'Better cover with stronger impact.'
So I... tried infecting 'as far as reason could hold.'
Gradually increasing slime intake artificially.
'This was the limit.'
Half-face tumor-covered now.
Understand cluster will or kids' weird telepathy without losing self.
...Oddly, goblin prank making me 'kid version' helped. Forced-fixed me as 'kid me'?
Anyway, had Nostalgia Candy as backup... but looks unneeded now.
'Excellent.'
I trusted you, agents...!
Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau really different from that damn psycho potion company!
Even a bit感動.
'Early Bureau solution style, rare since Darkness Exploration Records boomed...!'
Striving to save all, succeeding.
Kid body making chest swell with emotion. Sniff.
Of course, as ghost story, half the time it'd end in total wipeout trying this—but smooth sailing this round.
Just all coordinate and escape now...
Zzt.
'...Huh?'
Then.
A strange sensation climbed the tail.
Zzt.
'Above?'
I snapped my head up.
...Next to me, a blue-dress kid muttered.
"Weird."
Indeed.
"Weird."
No, not just that kid.
All twenty-seven kids around me lifted heads, staring into void.
All still-tailed... baby mermaids.
"The little mermaid princess... is mad."
Seemed so.
All hosts sensing threat to survival.
From somewhere undetectable.
And found it.
The little mermaid princess.
Zzt.
"Grape?"
"Right now."
Chills from spine.
Mouth opens urgently.
"The little mermaid princess is coming."
Boom.
Ceiling collapsed, hundreds of tumor strands surged in.