Chapter 249
Chapter 249
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 249
Chapter Title: Grillside Gambits
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Ten days had passed since the unprecedented incident at the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau headquarters, where two agents from Hyunmu Team 1, two Daydream Corporation employees, and an unidentified supernatural disaster had suddenly appeared unconscious.
The parties involved had gathered at a BBQ restaurant.
The somewhat shabby meat joint appeared to be a longstanding favorite in this office worker neighborhood, buzzing with lively chatter, but a weary silence hung over their corner table...
It was the calm they had barely managed to reclaim.
“......”
“......”
Sizzle.
The sound of meat hitting the sizzling grill. The three haggard-faced individuals exchanged pleasantries.
“Eat up.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Agent Choi deftly scooped the meat from the grill and popped it into his mouth.
It was hard to believe this was the same person who had spent an entire week surviving on nothing but water and liquids, barely clinging to recovery.
The same went for Deputy Manager Eun Ha-je as she cracked open a bottle of soju.
“Going dry is no way to live.”
“Heh, even so, a government outfit can't just hand out booze. But the treatment was on the house, right?”
“Dropping tax jokes here? That's some real jerk behavior.”
“You know it?”
This woman had already been outed to the Bureau by an agent she'd encountered as a newbie in a horror tale—spotted as a Daydream employee despite her granny disguise.
After days of interrogation and treatment, she'd been granted permission for an outing, conditional on escort by the agents.
Her gear had been confiscated by the Bureau, but they'd humanely provided replacements to fill the gaps. Her gloved hand—no sparking electricity—gripped the tongs and flipped the meat.
“Come on now, you old fogey too.”
“......”
Among them, Bronze Agent Ryu Jaegwan—the one with the most intact complexion—accepted the hanwoo with a complicated expression.
It wasn't just him mentally calculating a meal cost that skirted bribery laws. He was far more lost on how to even begin handling this situation.
That's right.
All these people had their necks noosed in Seogwang Metropolis, died, then awakened—barely recovered from vicious aftereffects to the point of managing daily life.
They were still tormented by nightmares and eerie auditory hallucinations, only now piecing together what the hell had happened.
And discussing Seogwang Special City inside the Bureau? Not exactly feasible.
“...Gathering intel on ‘that region’ has been a real pain. Any leads on your end, agents?”
“Peek too deep and your memories really do vanish~ Our current state is about as good as it gets.”
“Current state...”
“The Bureau's classified us as contaminated. ...Officially ruled as tainted by an unverifiable supernatural phenomenon after passing through an uninspected well on our own.”
A vaguely stable condition.
In other words, they figured Agent Choi had pulled some reckless stunt and somehow escaped...
Even Daydream employees like them were getting this lukewarm, lax treatment instead of a glass cell—probably thanks to that.
Dragged into the mess.
“We got a bit of a break from your accident-prone track record.”
“Aw~ Saving citizens comes with these kinds of hiccups. Harsh to overlook the positive spin like ‘challenging.’”
“Yes, yes. Lots of hanwoo for you.”
Deputy Manager Eun Ha-je's gaze flicked sideways.
Not just her—everyone's eyes converged on one spot.
The sole being at the table who couldn't eat beef.
That was me.
Code-named 130666, an existence in the form of a supernatural disaster.
Amorphous flesh inside a gas mask that couldn't swallow a single piece of perfectly grilled hanwoo...
Incidentally, its presence here was possible only because the Hyunmu Team 1 leader—that old-timer—was pulling a goblin prank, warping the vision of the restaurant's other patrons.
The body recovered from Seogwang Special City? Nowhere to be found.
It had been a dream from the start, after all.
‘Ha......’
But how was I thinking like a person?
‘They spun me right round...’
Of course, luck played a part too.
Enough relief to endure missing out on hanwoo without resentment.
‘Right... they said it started about three days after waking up.’
Bronze Agent had learned about my condition from then on.
Me, returned in a state completely stripped of humanity.
-Get along well?
“...Yes.”
Ryu Jaegwan sat in the hospital room, gazing at his superior.
Showing the fastest recovery of anyone, he'd finally gotten permission for visits and was making the rounds.
He'd just come from seeing Rosefinch, fresh off emergency treatment—only now learning her name was Eun Ha-je.
And that she could devour an LA galbi lunchbox with one hand like a champ.
Impressive for someone still breaking cold sweats with constant phantom strangling pains.
His superior before him, Agent Choi, was no different.
“Identical testimonies. What we went through... seems right to treat it as a ‘dream.’”
-OK lol
This superior was in such abnormal contamination—beyond PTSD—that verbal conversation was impossible. Her neck was even shrouded in cloth so no one could look at it.
Yet under absolute bed rest, her eyes gleamed with scheming intensity, practically whirring like gears in her head.
Thanks to that, the moment they realized it was a dream incident, they'd pinpointed a certain horror tale.
-Remember Seogwang Industrial High, Jaegwan?
To think it was linked to an even bigger extinction-grade horror tale.
‘The records matched too.’
Entry possible only through dreams.
Of course, the two agents had gotten chills from Kim Sol-eum and Eun Ha-je's Seogwang testimonies right away—like, ‘this feels too real.’
They'd kept suspecting it might be lies, but the unfolding circumstances made it seem legit...
The cognized-erased Seogwang Special City. That sealed extinction-grade disaster zone's very existence.
...Immense contamination from dying even in a dream-entry.
‘Sigh.’
But the real issue: his superior wasn't even the worst off.
Setting aside the comatose one.
...Right now, uncharacteristically, the superior hesitated before scribbling her question.
“......”
Ryu Jaegwan's expression darkened slightly.
As if the intact human form seen in Seogwang Special City had been a lie, Kim Sol-eum was...
Fully adjudicated as a supernatural disaster.
Communication attempts with Bureau staff failed outright; it just kept repeating requests to return to Daydream.
No aggression shown yet, but prolonged delays on the return request could lead to who-knows-what. That was the Bureau's current assessment.
“...Yes.”
Ryu Jaegwan's voice sank low.
“But they said only some anxiety symptoms improved—no other progress.”
“......”
No contamination removal method at Bureau HQ could strip the supernatural disaster influence from Kim Sol-eum and restore humanity.
...Three full days. Nothing.
As Ryu Jaegwan left Agent Choi's room and walked the corridor, anxiety settled heavily in his mind.
‘In that case...’
...He might really have to say it now.
That the bizarre entity had originally been Grape Agent.
It wasn't mere timing holding him back until now. More like accounting for Kim Sol-eum's tangled circumstances.
Turning a former employee—whom Daydream had infiltrated into the Bureau as an agent—into a supernatural being, yet still treating as staff.
Reporting that would inevitably leak straight up the chain.
‘Then... Grape Agent's treatment could change unpredictably.’
The Bureau was an organization well-practiced in picking the lesser evil.
Like sorting villains.
“......”
But maybe they needed that now...
A higher-intensity, specialized purification.
‘Should've spoken up from the start.’
It might've been right even for the Bureau's principles. As his mind tangled with noose hallucinations and sank into complexity...
“Oh, Ryu Jaegwan. Out visiting?”
“...!”
A tall middle-aged woman approached from down the corridor, waving.
Ryu Jaegwan's eyes widened.
“Agent Ha-geum.”
Hyunmu Team 3's leader.
The agent, bearing the Saingyeom Samsa Sword at her hip, looked weary from a recent dispatch but flashed an energetic grin regardless.
“Heard about it. Tried the well and shattered, huh?”
“......”
“Choi put you through hell. You too.”
This was a different case, but he couldn't quite deny it...
“Heard Daydream staff were tangled up too. That right?”
“...Yes.”
“Hm.”
Casual remark.
“Saw a familiar face among them.”
“Pardon?”
“Well, ‘familiar face’ might be a stretch... since it's got a gas mask.”
“Yeah. The horned one with smoke billowing from the gas mask. That's a Security Team employee, right? Looks like Daydream finally cracked how to wield a supernatural disaster.”
How does she know?
As Ryu Jaegwan's mind plunged back into chaos...
Agent Ha-geum shrugged her shoulders.
“Guess I should drop by.”
“Why...”
“Got something for it.”
And from there, astonishing events unfolded.
Agent Ha-geum's visit.
Entity identity: Individual from the supernatural disaster dubbed ‘Jolly Theme Park,’ alias ‘Flower Golden Mascot.’
Acquaintance from prior dispatch; proposed item potentially improving entity's state.
Import of ‘Jade Bell’ approved.
But the attempt failed miserably.
Jade bell destruction.
A total of 5 jade bells corroded into formlessness at average 182-minute intervals; no observed improvement in subject.
Repeated over two days.
Amid endless failures, Agent Ha-geum's claim that the destruction itself held meaning gained traction, leading to approval for stronger equipment of the same lineage.
Approval to use Spirit Jade Great Bell.
Treatment executed by leaning on the fairy pedestal, listening to the great bell's toll at the Jin hour.
Undoubtedly aimed at curbing reckless bell consumption too.
If even this failed, other measures were all but certain.
But astonishingly...
Change occurred.
Inquired after well-users' conditions.
Rational communication now possible.
Entity's communication method (black smoke lettering) unchanged, but personality exchange flowed smoothly.
Thereafter, bells prescribed to maintain the state.
Ryu Jaegwan ended up seeking out Agent Ha-geum to ask directly.
And said no more.
...Word was, afterward the Bureau reclassified the supernatural disaster as a phenomenon and began exploring its potential as a cooperative spirit.
Thus, Ryu Jaegwan pieced together a fearful deduction from certain facts. Namely...
Jade bells weren't for purifying human contamination.
The Spirit Jade Great Bell was the same.
They had some purifying effect, sure—but their primary function was merely to calm the mind and help reclaim one's sense of self.
So then...
Agent Ha-geum assumed from the start it wasn't human and purified it as such?
And it worked...
“......”
Ryu Jaegwan quietly swallowed the hypothesis.
Just baseless conjecture.
‘Be grateful Grape Agent came to their senses.’
He buried the guess without reporting to Agent Choi.
Days passed further. The well survivors steadily recovered, received safety evaluations from the Bureau...
And thus, a conditional afterparty at the rundown office workers' BBQ spot became possible.
I subtly dodged what felt like Bronze Agent's gaze flicking between the meat and me.
It's not like I couldn't eat—don't get the wrong idea...
“Understood.”
Fortunately, the stares eased after that. Not just from Bronze Agent—from everyone.
They made sure to loop me into the conversation while heartily digging in. Enviable... no, good for them.
Alcohol and rice softening the mood? Human nature.
Same here.
In the now subdued BBQ spot—party vibe faded—a bit-recovered group delved into the real crux.
That being...
The biggest issue at hand.
“Right. Really... why hasn't Rational Deputy woken up?”
“......”
“It's been over half a month already.”
That's right.
Only Deputy Lee Seonghae remained in a coma, slumbering in the Bureau's protection room.
Sure, I'd explained what I'd done...
“That makes it even weirder. Should've woken up after escaping and clearing.”
“......”
My hands clenched.
‘Did something unnecessary.’
Failing to grasp the situation properly, putting Deputy Lee Seonghae in peril—my mouth went dry despite having none.
Even death by dehydration should've had them out of the dream by now. The fact they hadn't... meant the train wasn't the escape route.
“......”
Yeah.
Worry that they'd been fully contaminated, turned into a horror tale resident.
And if rescue lagged in that state... a Daydream-specific catastrophe was possible.
“...!!”
“What's ‘points reset’ mean?”
“We treat missing employees as dead and process resignation after about a month. Honorary discharge or whatever.”
Deputy Manager Eun Ha-je gestured.
“Then all those points we scrapped together for a Wish Grant? Reset.”
“...!!”
“Total wash.”
Sigh.
“Well, heard agents don't buy into Wish Grants... but from our side, it's a nightmare scenario.”
“......”
Agent Choi offered no agreement.
But he stated firmly.
“Either way, rescue needed. That's our wheelhouse.”
However.
“Public servant sirs. Even geared up, no telling what happens—easy on the absolutes.”
“......”
That was fair.
The noose had no known countermeasures; most gear turned useless in that space.
‘Tricky.’
Unless the person themselves was tough enough not to die even hanged...
Hold up.
‘What if physically rip it apart?’
And I knew someone who could smash nooses or trees physically.
The Darkness Exploration Records physical exorcist agent.
“Oh?”
“...?!”