The Management Bureau's Hero, Seol In-yul

"Hah. Hah."

I collapsed onto the floor and tried to remember what I'd eaten for lunch.

"Hek. Hek. Hek."

I felt like I was going to die. If I'd been even a little later, I might actually have been dead.

"Ah, my head..."

I clutched my skull and shook it from side to side. I had ridden out a regression without sleeping at all. If I laid my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠head down right now, I was certain I'd pass out instantly.

"You did well. You're the Management Bureau's hero."

The Director came running over and clapped me on the back. The queasiness in my gut gradually settled.

"Ugh..."

Her gaze drifted down to my lower half. Driven by pure survival instinct, my cock was erect to its absolute limit.

"It's survival instinct."

I could say with a straight face that there was nothing ulterior about it. This time, the erection really was pure survival instinct.

"I don't even have the strength to move. Please take me to the hospital."

I waved a hand from where I lay on the floor. I genuinely had nothing left. They loaded me onto a stretcher and into an ambulance — the second time I'd been hauled off in one. Since we'd resolved the anomaly, my mood wasn't all that bad.

On the ride over, I opened the Ghost Story Gallery.

The entire gallery was nothing but posts about me. An unfortunate side effect of uploading the video in real time for verification — which also meant my cock size had been measured with perfect accuracy.

At least Eun-hwa and In-seo's faces didn't show.

The only thing in the video was me jerking off into empty air. That was what happened when every last scrap of my ability had been poured into breaking my own mind.

"My plan... wasted on a bastard like that..."

The Bureau Director was loaded into the escort vehicle beside us.

"You're not killing him?"

"Not yet. There are still facts we need to extract."

The anomaly was fully resolved, so it didn't really matter whether they killed the Bureau Director or not. They clearly intended to wring every last scrap of information out of him first, then finish him off.

Whatever. Not like they'll let this one slip through their fingers.

I stopped caring about the Bureau Director. Even if the Management Bureau was incompetent, they weren't about to lose a man they'd already caught.

"Aaaah... I'm checking out."

I slept for a full twenty-four hours before opening my eyes. The mental exhaustion had completely burned off, and I felt light enough to float.

"I'm going home."

I'd been mentally wrecked, but my body was fine. I'd been transferred home while I slept, and with a full course of IV fluids in me, I was in peak condition. I completed the discharge paperwork on the spot and ran straight home.

In-seo's still buried in paperwork.

She hadn't returned from the Korean branch. As a team leader, she was one of the lead investigators on this case alongside Director Kim Yul-ryeong. If I hadn't collapsed unconscious, I would have been dragged into the paperwork too.

"I want to, though..."

My erection still wouldn't go down. I had just come back from resolving a humanity-ending anomaly. I deserved a reward.

I paced a full circuit of the living room and made up my mind. Time for some affair sex. As long as you don't get caught, cheating isn't a problem.

"Eun-hwa? Where are you right now?"

I called her, got her location, and headed straight there. I ran the whole way.

I was given a full month of leave. The performance bonus was a billion won, plus the special privilege of being moved into a larger company residence. Modest compensation, really, for what I'd accomplished.

I bought everything I'd ever wanted and lived a life of pure flexing.

"Whew. Still not quite ready to pull the trigger on a foreign car, but..."

If things kept going like this, I'd be cruising around in a supercar living the high life soon enough. Dreaming of a tomorrow better than yesterday, I headed into work.

"Good morning, seniors."

I'd been given a month of leave, but I had no intention of using all of it. Once the appliances were installed and I'd bought everything I wanted, what settled in was emptiness. Whether I was addicted to dopamine or not, sitting still at home and resting felt uncomfortable.

"Hello. Good morning."

I greeted the woman at the front desk. It had only been a week since I'd last seen her, but it felt like a month.

I cheerfully said hello, then clocked in.

I want to do her too.

I wanted the front desk woman as well. Whether it was the aftershock of surviving dozens of near-death experiences, my mental state had gone thoroughly off the rails. Like an old man whose days were numbered, the pussies I'd already tasted kept floating through my mind.

Emily. I never even got to do Emily.

And it wasn't just the ones I'd tasted. Women I'd merely brushed past kept surfacing too.

I clocked in and filled out the register. At the Management Bureau, you had to complete both the handwritten log and the digital system before your attendance counted.

"That's unexpected."

The woman writing in the register looked up at me.

"Sorry?"

"I figured you'd run. You made a billion won, after all. Most Bureau agents retire the moment they hit that kind of money."

You had to stake your life solving riddles. Most people earned just enough and declared retirement before the life-or-death stress drove them insane. Even the fiercest sense of duty looked pathetic in the face of death.

"Well..."

My reason for not quitting the Management Bureau was simple. For one thing, I had multiple lives. Thanks to the anomaly I'd just resolved, my remaining lives had climbed to around seventy. That number would drop if I ever had to use the Causality Regenerator, but the count itself hadn't changed. I could make serious money and contribute to humanity ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the same time. Being a Management Bureau agent was the perfect career for me.

And this is the only place I can fuck anomalies.

There was a secondary reason too. I had no intention of letting go of the opportunities for legal sex.

"Is it a sense of duty?"

I couldn't exactly spill my real thoughts, so I kept the truth buried. Better to say I was risking my life out of a sense of duty.

"I see. I hope that sense of duty doesn't burn out until the very end."

Receiving her bright smile, I stepped into the elevator.

Ding—

The doors closed. I immediately photographed the poster on the wall and uploaded it to the gallery.

Voices of praise, all directed at me. I read the comments one by one as I stepped off the elevator.

"Hey. Morning."

I waved to the exploration team and walked into the Director's office.

"What? Why'd you come in here?"

"Was I not supposed to?"

Hadn't she said I could work under her? I'd been thrown into back-to-back missions so fast I still didn't know where I was supposed to go.

"...Never mind. If it's you, sitting in on the meeting should be fine."

The Director sighed and pointed to a seat. I dropped into the empty chair. Team leaders began filing into the conference room one after another.

"Why are you here?"

"The Director told me to stay."

I whispered back and forth with In-seo as she slid into the seat beside me. I had no business being in a room like this. But the Director had said so, so I decided ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to sit quietly and obey.

Once every empty seat was filled, the meeting began.

"This is the report on the incident at the US branch. With the exception of a small handful of personnel, every Management Bureau employee there is dead. The United States has currently lost all anomaly management capability. We will be drawing resources from around the world to resolve the situation. Anyone willing to volunteer for the mission?"

That was the first item on the agenda — follow-up on the US branch incident. One of the team leaders raised a hand and volunteered.

"As for Bureau Director William Piel's motive: he kept muttering that the extinction of humanity was approaching in the near future."

"Extinction of humanity?"

"He claimed a meteorite that would swallow the Earth was coming. Said he was trying to evacuate humanity to a safe world."

The man was out of his mind. A Bureau Director falling for some cult — he was the last person fit to lead anything.

No. Precisely because he was a Bureau Director. He might have had information the rest of us don't.

You can only know as much as you can see. Maybe the Bureau Director had seen something and it drove him insane.

A meteorite, huh. How many regression counts would that cost?

If it was enough to break a Bureau Director, maybe fifty uses? We'd almost certainly need the Causality Regenerator.

Nobody ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠else believed talk of humanity's extinction, but I had watched the world end more than once. I couldn't understand William's actions, but I believed at least part of what he said.

"Next item. The granddaughter of a major conglomerate has gone missing. We've determined this case is connected to a ghost story. Exploration Team Three was dispatched first and attempted to enter the anomaly, but every attempt failed."

The situation was bleak. An exploration team had already tried to force their way inside.

"This is a personal request from the conglomerate chairman. If anyone has free hands, please raise them and volunteer."

At the Director's words, not a single team leader raised a hand. There were barely any leads. A young child had vanished while sleeping at home. It was clearly the work of an anomaly or ghost story, but even how to enter the ghost story in the first place was unclear. Exploration Team Three had already failed to locate the anomaly. A second search was likely to fail as well. And with the US branch collapsed, manpower was stretched thin. There simply wasn't the time or personnel to spend on a private request.

"Even with the special bonus the chairman put up?"

The reward was a full five hundred million won. Five hundred million for a single job — enough to make any Management Bureau employee's eyes spin. Still, no one raised a hand.

"Then we'll set this item aside for later."

Just as the Director was about to table the agenda—

"I'll do it."

I raised my hand immediately. I planned to squeeze a supercar out of them on top of the five hundred million.