Chapter 15
Chapter 15
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: Request
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Eemo was still watching me from the same spot.
Its tentacles were quietly coiled up, and its expression remained as impeccably composed as ever.
That gaze neither pierced into me nor drifted loosely away.
I leaned back against the chair's backrest and let out a breath.
Eemo's eyes shifted ever so slightly to follow me.
I could feel those sensing tendrils tracking even the tiniest movement of my body.
'Hmm...'
Suddenly, I recalled the modern stage from the game.
The place I'd told Eemo and Setang was my hometown.
"Man, I'm suddenly thinking about my hometown."
The moment those words left my mouth, several of Eemo's tentacles twitched faintly.
Not tension, exactly—more like intense focus.
"Han Saetbit's hometown."
"Yeah."
"Still searching continuously."
Eemo's voice tone remained perfectly even.
But the vibration underlying it sharpened just a bit.
The word "hometown" itself seemed to carry more weight for Eemo than just the place I'd come from.
I crossed and uncrossed my legs, idly fiddling with the laurel wreath as I asked,
"How's the hometown search going...?"
Eemo paused for a moment.
A faint ripple of computation brushed through the room.
"No specific dimension identified yet."
"Still?"
"Yes."
Eemo added soon after,
"The conditions you provided are too broad."
"Conditions?"
"A world with cities, where anomalies are active, and groups of humans exist to manage them."
Eemo calmly listed out the descriptions I'd given before.
"Dimensions with that structure are extremely numerous."
'Makes sense.'
What I'd described was basically just the setting's backdrop.
Concrete cities, anomalies prowling at night, a Management Bureau keeping them in check.
Strip it to the bones, and it was a setup so common in games and subculture works that you could count them by the dozens.
So there were probably that many similar dimensions out there.
"Then the number of worlds I've shot down so far... must be quite a few."
"Many."
"How many?"
When I pressed directly, Eemo gave a more candid answer.
"Dimensions you've rejected alone number over ten thousand."
I started doing the math in my head but stopped.
Four digits meant at least ten thousand, and more besides.
That was how many worlds I'd dismissed with a casual "not this one."
"Must've been tough..."
Half sincere, half polite, I said it—and Eemo shook its head.
"I don't feel fatigue. However, the efficiency was poor."
Efficiency.
For Eemo, poor efficiency meant it hadn't been able to help me quickly enough.
"Still, do you think you can find it?"
My question came out lighter than I'd expected.
Not obsession—just a vague hope that maybe someday.
"I cannot rule it out as impossible."
Eemo's response was cautious, as always.
"And recently, wasn't an important piece of information added?"
"Important information?"
"The human who invaded this place and vanished."
I nodded.
"Management Bureau agent."
"Yes. That entity crossed dimensions."
"Yeah, probably."
"I... thought it came to retrieve you, Han Saetbit."
"What?"
"What other reason would it have to come find you?"
The tone was matter-of-fact, but the assumption was strikingly simple.
Management Bureau = group protecting humans from anomalies,
Me = human,
Thus, the Bureau came to rescue and protect me, a human from the same dimension.
But.
"No, Eemo."
I shook my head.
"The Management Bureau isn't that kind of organization."
Eemo immediately fell silent.
No hint of argument in its expression—it hadn't prepared any.
"The Management Bureau doesn't move based on personal feelings."
I pulled my chair a bit closer and leaned back again.
The chair let out a squeal of delight.
'The Management Bureau I saw in the game...'
Suppose humanity's survival meant half getting Thanos-snapped versus a 50/50 coin flip between total extinction or survival—which would you pick?
Drag in philosophy or ethics, and it could drag on forever, but either way, it wasn't an easy call.
Yet the Management Bureau was the type to pick the former without hesitation.
Whether that choice was right or wrong was beside the point—what mattered was how they operated.
They weren't the sort to authorize a dimensional crossing for one single person.
They were zealots of duty, calculating efficiency for humanity's perpetual survival, classifying risks, and cutting away what was necessary.
That was the Management Bureau I knew.
"They wouldn't cross dimensions just for me."
Of course, I was saying this with full confidence they had no real grasp on who I was.
The Bureau's tracking and intel capabilities were unmatched, but our contact had been too minimal.
Still, explaining this to Eemo required some careful omissions and simplification.
"No matter how unique they see me, the Management Bureau as an organization wouldn't make that kind of emotional choice."
Eemo seemed to pick up on the subtext but let it slide without comment.
It closed its eyes briefly, then opened them, gathering its words.
"Then, that means the human's arrival might not be related to you after all."
"Probably...?"
As I said it, another image surfaced in my mind.
The presence that had twisted my hometown's sky.
The scene of humans suddenly losing their hair color, overtaken by another hue.
Setang.
An existence I'd grown quite familiar with—but to the Management Bureau, an inexplicable transcendent anomaly at work.
'No way the Bureau wouldn't know about that.'
The thought flowed naturally.
The Management Bureau wasn't incompetent.
They had their crazy corners, but in observation, recording, and especially detection, they were meticulous to a fault.
If the syllables "Han," "Saet," "Bit" were banned worldwide as names, and all of humanity's hair changed color at once, that would've been an incident they couldn't just ignore.
"Probably... because of Setang."
I muttered, glancing upward.
The very next instant, a massive presence descended from the ceiling.
"Huh? Talking about me?"
Setang's voice was as bright as ever.
Even with the laughter in it, it was all consideration for me—and worry that maybe I'd slipped up somehow.
I looked up at it, thinking,
'If she really put her mind to it and helped, we could find it in no time.'
Figuring out where my hometown was would probably be a trivial whim for a being like Setang.
She'd granted almost everything I'd wanted so far, with that level of power.
Yet the hometown search dragged on at an oddly leisurely pace.
'She hates change, probably.'
I figured that was it.
Me changing.
Me leaving.
The chance I might stop looking at Setang.
She was sensitive to those tiny risks.
So she moved everything slowly on purpose—careful not to let me tire, bore, or vanish.
'If I just straight-up asked her to do it, she'd have no choice but to...'
It was easy to say that to Eemo, but weirdly hard to voice to Setang.
In a way, Eemo felt like a capable subordinate.
Scary, but reliable—give her a task, and she'd handle it somehow.
Setang, on the other hand, was like a pure-hearted rich uncle smitten with his first love.
Might sound a bit off, but that's how it felt.
I tore my gaze from Setang's presence and turned back to Eemo.
"Anyway, the Management Bureau agent showing up means..."
I chose my words carefully, looking at Eemo.
"Uh... so, can't you... track or something with that?"
It was less a hypothesis and more a stray idea that popped up.
Not from some grand plan or knowledge—just grabbing one floating possibility.
Eemo didn't give an immediate yes or no.
"We have already considered that."
It continued calmly,
"However, I cannot provide confirmation yet. Too many variables: time, environmental phenomena, and so on."
I walked to the window and opened it again.
The same fields.
The same light.
Unchanging green and gold.
But inside me, a slightly different landscape was taking shape.
I wanted to check it at least once.
'What kind of space was the stage of the game I was playing?'
"Whatever."
I said lightly.
"If it works, great."
I propped my elbow on the windowsill and looked up at what passed for the sky.
"If not... oh well."
Life here wasn't bad, and I didn't dislike the two beside me.
If anything, it was pretty comfortable.
Eemo watched me quietly.
Setang's presence lingered in place.
"So, I'll ask you as a favor for now?"
I made the request to Setang and Eemo, laced with a bit of hope.
And soon after, the two entities lived up to my expectations.