The Feared Incident
I wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but the injured suddenly forgot their pain and started rampaging wildly.
The bodyguards threw themselves in the way, struggling to hold them back.
But since their employers were prominent figures in society, they couldn't suppress them aggressively.
Amid the chaos, as more bodyguards got bitten by the injured, lost their minds, and rampaged—only for others to block them and get hurt in turn—Arin rummaged through her bag beyond the gruesome scene.
"Getting ready now?"
"We have to. That doesn't look normal at all, does it? It's not like they're zombies or anything."
"Huh? They are zombies. Didn't you hear the briefing about the possibility?"
"Wha...? I didn't hear that... That damn Alpha Team Leader!"
Muttering about how the Support Team members had been gearing up before even confirming the situation, Arin pulled a syringe from her bag.
Along with the others, she headed out of the banquet hall, wedging a folding chair onto the door handle to lock it shut.
Some protested about leaving people inside, but the Anomaly Response and Management Agency staff ignored them completely.
They pulled out equipment pre-hidden outside the hall and prepared for their duties.
"We said communications are down, right?"
"Phones went dead around the explosion. The ones behind this must have jammed them."
"There was a fire below, but if the emergency elevator is isolated as we checked, we can use it for a bit."
Arin pressed the syringe from her bag against her thigh.
The spring-loaded needle pierced her skin and muscle, squirting the drug into her body like a water gun.
Junwoo, dazed and not grasping the situation, hesitated with a blank expression and asked if she was okay.
Arin waved him off roughly and signaled the Support Team.
"Mm... Looks like the drug's fully kicked in."
A Support Team member checked her pupils with a small lantern.
Without warning, he drew a dagger and slashed her throat.
Blood gushed from below the cut, soaking her navy dress dark.
Onlookers screamed in shock or backed away.
Junwoo, closest, grabbed the man's arm, trying to wrest the knife away.
Meanwhile, Arin collapsed onto the pool of her own blood, twitching, foam bubbling from the severed neck as life faded from her eyes.
Once the light fully vanished from her eyes, the wound on her neck vanished in an instant.
Arin coughed, lifting her head.
"Ugh... That hurts."
"Sh-She's up! Talk some sense into this kid!"
Thanks to the sedative calming her mind, she'd respawned quickly in a safer spot.
Arin rubbed her still-painful throat and stood as the Support Team, tangled with Junwoo and unable to act, called for help.
She approached the struggling pair, rolling her neck to loosen it with a crick.
She patted Junwoo's shoulder.
"Junwoo, stop it."
"Aaaah!!"
"Yeah, yeah, a dead girl suddenly coming back to life is shocking. I'll explain, so calm down."
The Support Team, now geared up over their suits for the event, stepped forward.
They flashed their badges at the terrified attendees.
"Yes, this is a terror attack using an anomaly."
"Senior, isn't that too short?"
"Is it? Damn, how do you explain this to civilians again?"
They weren't team leaders, but they'd been with the Anomaly Response and Management Agency long enough.
Naturally, their mindsets diverged from ordinary people in many ways.
The attendees, drenched from the sprinklers, were so baffled they forgot their fear momentarily.
They reacted like the staff were filming a skit in this mess.
The senior cleared his throat awkwardly, and the junior took over.
"We're agents dispatched from the Anomaly Response and Management Agency. You saw the green water from the sprinklers, right? If it gets in your body, you turn into what people call zombies. Airborne exposure wears off quick, so you're fine now. But they were already injured from the bomb terror."
"Yeah, that's what I meant to say."
"Losing to a junior? Have some shame, senior."
Then one person shoved through the crowd, pointing at the locked banquet hall.
"If you're from the Anomaly Agency, why aren't you fixing that fast?! And that bitch who just came back to life—isn't she a zombie too? Deal with her!"
"Handling inside is Entry Team's job. We're Support Team. Admin and others are here too, but they're not field types, so waiting below."
"That's your excuse? Get your boss!"
"Senior, he's calling for you."
"Damn... Fine, I'll call the team leader... Uh, this ain't right."
The man yelling about doing their jobs properly exploded further at their casual attitude, even after watching someone die right there.
"Then handle that at least! There's a zombie right behind you!"
"Sigh, zombie? She's one of ours too. Seen a zombie that pretty? Wait, come to think of it, Arin, you're Entry Team, right? Looks like you'll handle the ones inside."
The Support Team member, pulling gear, pistol, and tomahawk from his bag and slinging it back on, pointed at Arin.
She responded with a dumbfounded look.
"Evacuating these people is our top priority. Sigh... Why are all the civil servants here normal?"
She glanced at the banquet hall door, where zombies inside rattled it after hearing their voices.
She holstered her loaded pistol on her belt.
"We gotta get out before the fire spreads. Right?"
She turned to Junwoo.
"You go grab your parents. Head down five floors to the evacuation elevator."
"No, just now..."
"Oh, didn't explain? People at the Agency are kinda special."
"But..."
No time to explain her state properly, Arin skimmed over it.
Her dress felt restrictive, so she sliced one side with the tomahawk blade.
She recapped the situation.
Fire alarm, pre-planted cake explosion, firefighting water swapped with unknown liquid.
The immediate task seemed simple: lead civilians below the fifth floor and evacuate safely.
But doubts lingered.
Who planted the explosives in the cake?
How did they access and sabotage the sprinklers without detection?
Would this terror—using fire for bombs and sprinklers—target just one floor?
Combining it all, similar chaos likely raged below.
'A zombie apocalypse in a 150-story building. Impressive... but...'
Arin scanned the Support Team herding people, Junwoo fetching his parents cautiously.
She thought:
'Where's the Mayor?'
Meanwhile, J—who'd processed extension papers for anomaly rental and was heading underground to deliver them to Entry Team—faced a table of blood-soaked Entry Team members playing cards.
Head to toe in gore, they puzzled her.
"Alpha Team Leader, aren't those two on the left pulled for this event?"
"They were."
"Why are they here?"
"Just smashed an anomaly like me. All in."
Alpha shoved all the bottle caps (their chips) to the table center and laid down his cards.
The others groaned, tossing theirs.
"Don't tell me Entry Team only sent Arin?"
Alpha raked the caps, redistributing by headcount, took his dealt cards, and replied.
"I'm making her my successor."
"She needs experience," he added.
J frowned slightly.
"Even with other teams, one Entry member is short. No guarantee she'll stay here forever as a successor..."
Arin had no way back to her original world.
She worked with them because they'd contracted conveniences for normal life here.
Of course, the Agency used her abilities without eliminating or isolating her.
But if she refused cooperation, they'd suffer real losses.
Knowing this, J treated her specially despite classifying her as an anomaly.
Still, her isolation from another world, plus the manifestation conditions and contract requiring repeated deaths, visibly strained her mentally.
J handled her carefully.
'This event had risks, but we assumed precautions would cover it. Sent her out to rest a bit...'
Unaware or ignoring J's thoughts, Alpha Team Leader tossed a few caps forward.
"Guarantee? Why need that? If it's a usable anomaly, just use it."
"Not an anomaly—a civilian caught in one."
"...J."
His black goggles hid his eyes, but J felt the gaze and met it, speechless.
"If you really thought that, shouldn't sending her back come first over using her power?"
Alpha's jab—that J saw her only as a useful anomaly—hit home.
He snatched the papers from J's hand and waved him off dismissively.
Mulling Alpha's words, J rode the elevator back to his office.
Midway, the Record Keeper boarded.
"This Record Keeper notes an inexplicable worry on J's face."
"...Can't fool the Record Keeper's eyes."
His usual stoic face earned him "expressionless" everywhere, but she saw differently through her recording lens.
"From the Record Keeper's view, what vibe does Arin give?"
"This Record Keeper notes the answer varies by whether the question seeks the Record Keeper's gaze or that of a fellow anomaly."
"Different as anomalies?"
"From this Record Keeper's anomalous gaze: Entity Arin appears an outsider unable to blend. An entity venting stress through positive actions."
She supplemented: cursing unfair orders once, insisting she's an adult man, raiding J's office for snacks.
All seemingly adaptive behaviors looked like stress-induced defenses.
She paused, then shared her other view.
"From this Record Keeper's personal gaze: Anomaly Arin is... unknowable."
"Unknowable how?"
"Everything."
She pulled a handkerchief from her breast pocket, lightly wiping her camera-lens eye.
She tilted her head.
"This Record Keeper's eye fails to capture her essence. Perhaps an anomalous trait... or tied to something beyond this Record Keeper's cognition."
The doors opened; she exited with a light nod.
Alone, J pulled his phone at the sudden alert.
The screen confirmed his fears had come true.