If You're Hired, You Gotta Work
For Arin, the best thing about the training room was the clock that showed the date and day of the week.
In the dim church-cum-store anomaly where she could only rely on flickering embers for light, she had no way to track time and had to guess from the cultists' movements and chatter.
Here, though, there was no need for that hassle.
And the current time was 9:37 p.m.
She had arrived in this place about three hours ago.
No—about ten days and three hours had passed.
The rubber-floored room was caked in hardening brown-red bloodstains, hiding its true color.
The air, once thick with acrid smoke and fishy reek, now carried only the heavy tang of blood, making her feel like she was swimming through it with every breath.
"Fuuuuck..."
Under the guise of training, she had died hundreds of times now—efficient, straightforward deaths unlike the brutal, savage ones in anomalies, only to revive and repeat.
At first, she'd tried to run, screaming she didn't want to die anymore.
But every time, the Entry Team chased her down, dragged her back, and killed her again.
Now, she had given up.
"Your movements are better than before. You're unconsciously incorporating some of the techniques I taught you."
"I wanna stop..."
"Each death leaves experience behind, but your body and fatigue recover fully. Enviable ability."
"Mentally exhausting..."
"Theoretically—or rather, definitively—we can train you all day without rest or recovery time, and your memory retention is solid. If we play it right, we could cram ten years of team member training into two."
Alpha, Team Leader of Entry Team 4 and in charge of Arin's training, now had Team Leaders from Teams 1 through 3 dropping by to join in.
They didn't show it, but they were under massive stress watching their carefully trained members—civilian or military backgrounds be damned—die one after another.
And as the department with the highest risk of death during operations, the vicious rumor that they treated personnel as disposable supplies only made it worse.
But with Arin—this anomaly—they couldn't contain their excitement and joy.
United in purpose, they volunteered their time to train just one person.
"Request Class 3+ mental stabilizers for the psychological fatigue. Entry Team requests like that usually get denied as meaningless..."
"They won't deny it for raising an entity that can solo dozens—no, thousands."
"CQC and anomaly response protocols are fine here. But other stuff... We'll request military handover training from upstairs."
Arin glared at the stone-faced leaders discussing how to wring even more out of her, crawling across the floor before letting out a limp sigh.
While Arin was half-forced into the basement of the Anomaly Response and Management Agency, ordinary citizens—far removed from anomalies—went about their daily lives.
And amid that routine, a girl who had finished hospital checkups and treatment, then taken a week off, now stood at her front door in her school uniform.
"I'm off, Mom."
Gaeun tugged on the heel of her sneaker and turned as she reached the door.
Seoyeong, watching from behind with worried eyes, called out.
"Gaeun-ah... Can't you rest a few more days?"
"I goofed off for a whole week already. I'm fine."
Gaeun shrugged, stepped out, and glanced back.
"You rest at home, Mom. No more church now... And who knows? Arin might come looking."
The door clicked shut.
Gaeun bit her lip, thinking of the girl who had stayed behind alone to buy time for others to escape after she saved one person.
They had only been together three days, but to Gaeun, that mysterious girl was a friend she owed gratitude to—and an idol who left a huge impression.
Rumors said a single girl emerged hours after Gaeun, Seoyeong, and the other survivors, but there had been no news since.
It left her frustrated and anxious.
The high school wasn't far, so instead of the bus, Gaeun walked, her eyes narrowing at the dark, murky building in the distance.
The Church, still cordoned off despite purification efforts—it wasn't fully resolved.
Every night for the past ten days, when she closed her eyes wishing it had all been a dream, memories flooded back: the black shadow inside, the pastor alive despite his body being burned to char.
Forcing her to face reality.
"Hoo..."
Gaeun tore her gaze from the church, shook her head to clear her thoughts, and kept walking.
Soon, her school came into view.
Even early, students filled the gates heading in.
Gaeun watched them briefly, then looked down at her uniform.
Navy blouse, black skirt, purple tie—the familiar setup.
It reminded her of Arin's brown uniform.
'So... which school was that from?'
Arin had said, upon returning from the anomaly, that her existence had been erased—everyone knew everything about her except her name.
Gaeun figured she could at least find out the school from the uniform.
She crossed the gate slowly.
"...Target has entered the school premises."
With the nearby airport blocking drone permits, the agent used a classic telescope and parabolic mic, reporting into his radio.
He looked like any ordinary citizen without his gear and ID.
He set down the radio, peered through the scope, sighed, and grabbed it again.
"J-sunbae, no matter how I look, she's just a normal schoolgirl. What exactly are we supposed to confirm here?"
'What about the mother?'
"Nothing there either~ But seriously, tell me the surveillance objective."
'Did I not say?'
The agent released the button, muttering about J-sunbae pulling this again, then pressed it.
"Noooope."
'...We're planning to utilize one unstable anomaly. For some reason, it's shown affinity toward those two.'
"Toward those two? They look normal...? For immediate response if it goes out of control?"
'Conversely, harm to them could trigger an uncontrollable incident. Your team's goal: surveillance and protection.'
Inside the Anomaly Response and Management Agency, J received the Fox Team's report while reading a basement update.
He continued explaining.
"No need to get too close or plant bugs on the two targets. Class 3 protection—secure their safety."
SUBJECT:Kim Arin — Training Progress
STATUS:Ongoing
NOTES:Team Leader Opinions Attached
Consent-based and covert measurements visualized and inserted.
"Unverifiable..."
'What'd you say, sunbae?'
"Nothing. Report periodically."
Despite every available method—X-rays, CT, ultrasound—the report stated no principle or medium for the phenomenon could be confirmed.
A clipped photo showed her internals completely blacked out, impossible to discern.
At least, since she was exposing her body in various ways under training pretext, they confirmed her structure matched a normal human's.
But that could just mean similar form only.
"Hmm..."
J flipped past pages full of "unverifiable," checked her possessions list and measurements, read the appendix of handler opinions, and clicked his tongue.
ITEMS:Uniform, Bag — Materials/Origin Unidentifiable
BAG NOTE:Suspected Expansion Under Specific Conditions (Photo Attached; Unnoticed Even By Owner)
J sighed in exasperation at the paragraph noting even Arin hadn't noticed the bag subtly expanding when shoving in a steel pipe.
He rubbed his throbbing nape.
"Thought we had an easy-to-use ace... "
An anomaly even its bearer couldn't grasp fully was a headache, whatever it was.
He leaned back, took a slow deep breath, and radioed the Fox Team again.
"...Upgrade protection to Class 2."
J prayed silently that Arin was just hard to scan—not linked to those indescribable things that popped up sometimes.
"Feels like someone's talking about me..."
"Survived? Grab the tomahawk again."
"Fuckin' psycho bastard..."
Arin snatched the tomahawk half-submerged in blood, shook it off, and assumed position.
Alpha matched her, drawing his dagger.
During a brief sweet respite, she'd asked nicely where she respawned.
His casual "Seems like a relaxing spot" had backfired into agony.
Enraged, Arin charged with a yell; Alpha dodged easily, thrusting his dagger forward to bait her.
"Saves time going up and down from isolation, right?"
"Like hell it does!"
Who could've predicted a casual remark would get her injected with overdose sedatives?
Stabbed in the heart while dazed, revived on-site—Alpha called it "sound theory."
Arin unleashed all her pent-up curses at him now, no holds barred.
Several exchanges flew.
Alpha, in thick gear yet moving blindingly fast, closed in and stabbed repeatedly.
As she spat blood, she grabbed his hand; he let out a short grunt of admiration.
Arin shifted grip near the tomahawk blade, countering with the rear spike.
But Alpha released his caught right hand, pulled the chest knife free, and jammed it into her shoulder with his left—sealing her move.
"This level, you could take down a civilian quick."
Shoulder blade or chest holes—either way, her strength failed.
Tomahawk slipped; she slumped.
Just one civilian? For this? her glare screamed.
Ignoring it, Alpha raised the tomahawk and brought it down wordlessly.
Arin's vision split in half, plunging into darkness.
She awoke in the same spot and screamed.
A short while later, in the agency cafeteria, a girl piled food in the corner and shoveled it in.
"This record keeper wishes to note the urge to ask if you've starved for a week."
"...This student Kim Arin wishes to reply that she has starved."
"...This record keeper proposes that abandoning the male self-claim makes recording far easier."
"Ack! Cough—wait, that was a joke. I'm a guy, for real!"
Having bonded a bit with the Record Keeper—who visited whenever free, as a rare conversational anomaly and new record subject—Arin grumbled about why it wouldn't believe her on this.
It always countered that it accepted only verifiable facts, personal claims irrelevant.
Mouthless, it somehow drank its cider, set it down, and spoke.
"Upon reflection, this record keeper notes J summoning this entity."
"Huh? When?"
"Per this record keeper's check: in... three minutes. Recommend hurrying."
"Say so earlier!"
Arin crammed spaghetti in, bolted up, and reached J's office.
He handed over papers without looking up.
"First. Mission."
"Whoa! No training!!"
"...Then let's begin the briefing."