Geocaching #3: The Unearthed Corpse
Of course, the shock only lasted a moment. As a cool-headed agent, I immediately suspected this was the corpse of a Sejeong-ge user. They must have come here for geocaching, gotten caught up in an anomaly, and all died—only to be buried at the original target coordinates.
"This... could this be a Sejeong-ge user?"
"We'll need to confirm the identity. Dig deeper for now."
"Yes."
At this point, seeing a corpse or two wasn't enough to faze me. I dug through the ground with practiced ease and unearthed the body. But there was only one. No matter how much more I dug, there were no others.
"Phew. One body recovered. Doesn't look like there are any more."
This was strange. An entire group from the meetup had gone missing, yet only a single corpse had turned up? If bodies were going to appear, shouldn't they all show up?
"Besides, the condition of the body is... odd."
"It certainly is. No matter how you look at it, this corpse hasn't been dead for long."
There were no signs of decay. The damage was minimal. Even to my untrained eye, it looked like the person had died recently.
"That doesn't make sense. This clearly happened some time ago. It should have been reduced to bones by now. So this must be someone else entirely... but that doesn't add up either. Buried at the exact geocaching coordinates? And only recently?"
It was highly suspicious.
"Right. The only people who know this location are Sejeong-ge users. Having someone completely unrelated here would be strange."
"Or maybe the Sejeong-ge users killed someone and buried the body themselves? Then they panicked, cut off contact, and everyone assumed they were missing?"
Let's think about it logically. The users who went geocaching ran into trouble and ended up killing someone. That's murder—prison time. Then someone took charge, suggested hiding the body, and after some discussion, they buried it at the geocaching coordinates. After that, they all went silent and said goodbye forever. The Sejeong-ge lurkers who weren't involved saw them go dark and assumed it wasn't just a simple disappearance, but an actual missing persons case. They decided the coordinates were extremely dangerous and stopped searching.
"They hid it with roughly that calculation. What do you think? As for the body's condition, we could chalk it up to some lucky environmental factor that prevented decay for a long time."
"Not bad. A reasonable deduction."
"Thank you."
"But we should be thinking from an anomalous perspective rather than an ordinary one."
She had a point.
"What if the geocaching target itself was this corpse?"
"Pardon?"
"Maybe no matter when you dig it up, you always find a body that looks like it died recently. After all, it's a treasure hunt where you never know what you'll get."
"Interesting... Understood. We'll know more once we examine the body."
So was the entity's name "Unrotting Corpse"? But then why hadn't I gotten a notification? Come to think of it, the cube hadn't triggered one either. I wasn't sure what the difference was.
"Oh, Chief. What happens if I throw a cube at this corpse?"
"It'll try to catch it. Don't waste one."
"I meant, will it try to catch it?!"
The thought of the corpse suddenly sitting up and lunging for the cube made me shudder.
"More importantly, Grong—be careful."
"Yes?"
"I can't reach the Bureau."
"What?!"
I checked my phone too. This was special Bureau-issued equipment—it shouldn't lose signal unless something was seriously wrong.
"Don't tell me... we've been pulled into an anomaly? Just from finding this body?"
"It's possible."
"Then what about the anomaly detector?"
"...It's not going off."
Was that thing even useful anymore?!
"Since we can't make contact, we won't be able to call for backup. Let's head down. We'll try again once we reach the car."
"Should I go alone?"
"We don't know what's going to happen. No solo actions."
"Understood."
Fair enough. We still weren't sure if we'd entered an anomaly or not. The lack of notifications wasn't new, so I could overlook that. I was about to put the body back in the hole and start descending when—
—Rustle.
Suddenly, I felt a presence.
"Chief, I sense something."
"Over there... someone's coming up."
People? All the way out here?
"Grong, cover it with dirt. Use your foot. Carefully."
"Yes."
I kicked dirt over the body. If anyone saw this, they'd think we were actual criminals disposing of a body. Then the people who appeared came into view.
"Huh?! Those are police uniforms!"
They were wearing police uniforms and vests as they climbed up!
"Chief?"
"Stay calm. It doesn't matter much."
"Even so..."
This was my first time encountering police while in my agent capacity. Anyway, the officers spotted us and greeted us.
"Hello, folks. What are you doing up here?"
"Ah, officers, you must be working hard. We were just hiking."
"Hiking, you say."
—Thud. Two officers stood in front of us.
"If you're just hikers, why were you digging?"
"..."
Jaaldi said nothing. Was she testing my abilities?
"We were doing a sort of treasure hunt."
"Treasure hunting? Grown adults playing treasure hunt?"
"Step aside. Let us check."
The officers approached.
"Hey! What's the meaning of this?! Is this how police are supposed to act?! Do you even know who I am?!"
"Wait... Huh?! What the—?!"
One of the approaching officers shouted.
"Hey! Look at that hand! What's with that hand?!"
The body wasn't fully covered—its hand was sticking out!
"Grab them! Arrest them!"
The officers tried to seize us, but—
"Time to subdue them."
Jaaldi stepped forward.
—Whoosh!
In the blink of an eye, she used jujutsu to effortlessly restrain one officer, then applied a chokehold and knocked him out cold.
"Hey!"
Before the other officer could react, he too was caught and put in a chokehold, passing out instantly.
Chief Jaaldi's chokehold attack...! I didn't know why, but I kind of wanted to experience it myself. Being held that tightly from behind...
"Wait, is it okay to do that to the police?"
"We'll run into them occasionally. If the situation calls for it, subdue them first and use the hypnosis device."
"That would probably solve everything, but..."
"More importantly, don't you notice anything strange?"
Something strange?
"These officers—where did they suddenly come from? The timing is rather suspicious."
"It certainly is."
We hadn't exactly advertised that we were here looking for a body, so how had they found us so precisely? This wasn't a normal location. We'd used GPS to get here. We were geocaching, after all. No one had been tailing us, yet these random officers had shown up out of nowhere. It was very odd.
"It seems we've gotten caught up in something strange after all."
Jaaldi reached inside her suit jacket, rummaged around her chest area, and pulled out the hypnosis pen. She woke one of the unconscious officers and pressed the button.
"Rank and name."
"Sir... why are you asking me that..."
The officer answered in a daze. Even in his hypnotized state, he seemed to have a strong aversion to giving his rank and name.
"Why did you come up here?"
"We received a report about a body being found..."
"Who reported it?"
"I don't know..."
A report, huh.
"Someone reported it. Could this be a trap set by the lurkers? Did they deliberately leave the body here to lure us?"
"That would be too stupid. Besides, it's too much trouble and doesn't make sense. Hmm... Maybe it's a ghost story about being investigated by the police."
"Ah. That could be it."
It did seem plausible.
"Maybe it's one of those stories where you suddenly get framed and thrown in jail."
"Right."
But even so, there still hadn't been any notification.
"You never found the body. After searching, you came up empty-handed and are heading back. How does that sound?"
"Ah... Looks like we're doing overtime again..."
After skillfully altering the officers' perceptions, Jaaldi spoke.
"Cover it back up. We'll leave the body hidden for now."
"Yes."
I really felt like a body-dumping criminal now. Hiding a corpse and all. Anyway, after covering the body, we left the hypnotized officers behind and began our descent. Even as we went down, we couldn't reach the Bureau. And that remained true even after we reached the car at the bottom.
"Completely dead. Grong, I can't say for certain, but something's gone wrong. Stay alert."
"Understood."
I quickly summarized the situation. We'd come here at the request of the lurkers to find the missing Sejeong-ge users who'd vanished during geocaching. But then we'd dug up a body, and suddenly the police had appeared. On top of that, contact with the Bureau had been cut off?
"Have we really entered an anomalous space?"
"Hard to say. But this car does seem to be ours. Get in. We'll head back to the Bureau."
"Yes."
Jaaldi took the driver's seat. I climbed into the passenger seat and tried my phone. I attempted to contact not just the Bureau, but Spandal and Jamtree as well, but the calls wouldn't connect—only the signal tone played.
"This is starting to get my heart racing for a completely different reason."
"I don't understand why these strange incidents keep happening lately."
Let's just head to the Bureau for now.
* * *
We didn't encounter anything unusual on the way. The world was perfectly ordinary, even when we stopped at a rest area. It was so normal that Jaaldi and I even bought and ate grilled potatoes with butter and Korean corn dogs.
"Not bad."
A faint smile appeared on Jaaldi's lips.
"These are really good. Oh, should I get some coffee too?"
"Buy it when we're done eating."
"Yes. Oh, Chief, how about some ice cream?"
"Hmm... I am a bit tempted. Get me a Merona."
"Hehe, then I'll have the marble ice cream."
"What? Since when do you indulge like this..."
"You have to enjoy yourself at rest stops."
"Cancel the Merona. Get two marble ice creams."
"Yes."
Marble ice cream really did taste special at a rest stop.
"Four thousand won for one? Seriously?"
"Rest stops are always overpriced."
"Still... it's so good you'd never notice if someone else took a bite."
After finishing, we bought two cans of coffee and got back in the car.
"For now, everything seems fine. I thought we'd fallen into an anomalous space, but it really does look like we're still in reality."
"I'm betting on it being an illusion. Those potatoes and corn dogs were truly fantastic."
"Enough with the strange jokes."
With that lighthearted exchange, we finally arrived near the Bureau building—our beloved home base.
"Huh."
Something... something felt off.
"Um... Chief?"
"..."
Jaaldi's expression hardened.
—Screech.
We stopped the car and cautiously approached the Bureau building on foot.
"...What is going on here."
Even Jaaldi sounded shocked. I stared in disbelief and muttered,
"Where... where did it go? Our Bureau building?"
The Bureau building was gone. In its place stood a completely unfamiliar large building—as if it had been replaced entirely.