Live a Long Life

I stared at the system window announcing the closure. Then I turned my head, slowly, and took in the space around me.

There was no one left.

Lee Se-on, who had been weeping tears of black blood, and Tak Ju-cheol and Paeng Sang-do, who had howled together like some deranged choir — every last one of them had vanished without a trace.

I didn't even get to say a proper goodbye.

Smiley flickered through my mind, the way he had turned into an item right in front of me. Watching the same thing happen a second time left a hollow little ache behind my ribs. I knew they were only NPCs. I knew that. But while I was actually inside a Trial, that knowledge never quite stuck. They were alive and moving right in front of my eyes, so I kept forgetting they were beings destined to disappear, and some vague, stupid part of me would start thinking I might run into them again someday.

My mood made no difference to the system. It kept throwing up noisy alerts with tireless enthusiasm.

I shook off the loneliness and read the windows.

Whoa. Recognition.

Last time it had only bumped me up by 0.01%. This time it had thrown in a whole 0.03% — a generous jump, all things considered. I still had no idea what I was supposed to actually do with the stuff, but still.

And I still don't know what it means that a bunch of blacked-out blocks are watching me.

I shifted my gaze to the cassette player in my hand. Another system window bloomed into existence.

It was almost the same message I'd gotten when I received the Happy Smile Candy. I had been planning to check the thing anyway. I wanted to know why the contents had changed, and I wanted to hear whatever was on the tape.

I'll ask Samra to listen to it.

It seemed like it might be dangerous, so I figured I'd have Samra take the first listen. Nothing much was going to happen to him.

The maximum contributor alert popped up right on schedule. I had already decided on one of the items I was taking out: the portable cassette player. The second slot was the problem. I wanted to ask the Captains whether there was anything the Era Bureau needed, but they weren't here, which meant I had to choose on my own.

Except I didn't get the chance to worry about it.

"...Ah."

I could no longer pick anything else. Apparently the player and the cassette tape inside it had been registered as two separate items, so both slots were already considered filled.

Can I change it?

I was about to walk out of here with nothing but a cassette player, and I already regretted the choice. There was no cancel button anywhere in sight.

"Cancel. Change. Undo...?"

I swallowed my dignity and tried every word I could think of. The system window did not so much as flicker. Looks like I was going to have to become someone who was extremely into music.

It came out of a Trial. There might be music on there that doesn't even exist in human history.

It might even be some revolutionary new thing that would drag the entire music world forward a century. Hoping dearly that this was the case, I tucked the cassette player away.

Eighty seconds later, the world crumpled in on itself in a riot of color, and I came out of the Trial.

It felt like I had been gone for a very long time. In reality, maybe five or six days had passed.

I hadn't even opened my eyes on the cold laboratory floor before my whole body started to ache.

"Nngh..."

A groan tore out of me on its own. I stayed face-down and swallowed the pain. Every last stitch and bandage that had closed my cuts inside DZD had vanished. I was paying the price of being the maximum contributor, and for a while I couldn't do anything but curl in on myself and wait it out.

It didn't hurt this much inside the Trial.

The painkillers must have gone with everything else. I groaned my way through it until I could finally lift my head and look around.

Gwak Han-muk and Mo Hae-in were the first ones I found. Neither of them seemed to have come around yet. I had been alone at the very end, and some small, ugly worry had been sitting in the back of my mind — so the sight of them was a relief.

Where's Lieutenant Colonel Je?

He was not a person who needed worrying over, but I looked for him anyway while I was checking on the Captains. Je Hyeon-o had wedged himself into the farthest corner. His back was against the wall, which meant he was already conscious. His clothes were exactly what he had been wearing inside the Trial: goggles, gas mask, hooded jacket, combat uniform. The metal hands hung loose at his sides, and for a second he looked like a giant toy robot that someone had powered down. Not that he was anyone you could ever attach a word like "cute" to.

Something about it sat strangely with me. I had watched every second of how Je Hyeon-o tore through that Trial. The image of him slaughtering zombies right in front of me, visibly enjoying himself, was still sharp. And yet the man who had come back to reality looked like he had no will left in him at all. No drive. Nothing.

I called out, quietly, to the figure sitting there without so much as a twitch.

"Lieutenant Colonel Je."

The face that had been pointed at the floor turned toward me, very slowly. My reflection swam across the goggles.

"Ah..."

I had called him over and then discovered I had nothing to say. I reached for the safest topic I could find.

"Nothing unusual happened, I hope? I wasn't with you at the clear, so I—"

I was still lying on my stomach with only my head up when I flinched. Je Hyeon-o had surged to his feet. Light flared across the goggles.

Extra marks had appeared on either side of the smiling emoticon. Je Hyeon-o swapped both metal hands out for the Crow Gloves and started walking toward me. He folded his legs and sat right in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠front of me, then patted me with one hand — short, testing little taps, like he was checking whether I was actually alive.

"I'm alive..." I said, in a voice that did not sound particularly alive.

Corpses cannot talk. He took his hand away.

"Lieutenant Colonel Je."

"Are you satisfied now?"

I still didn't know what he wanted from me. But he had told me not to die, and I had crawled back out of a boss monster's guts alive.

That's enough, isn't it?

From here on out, I wanted a peaceful team atmosphere. I wanted to focus on clearing Trials and nothing else.

Please.

I looked up at him with everything I had.

"Yeah."

The answer came out low and rough. Je Hyeon-o moved his leather-gloved fingers as if he were playing a piano; there was no clicking, because they weren't metal anymore. He looked down at me.

"......"

He was the one who had thrown me at a boss monster, and now he was telling me to live a long time. I reminded myself, again, who I was talking to, and gave up on the contradiction almost immediately.

At least he's not telling me to die.

I had been told to live a long life. Going forward, I probably didn't need to worry about him coming after my neck. It felt like I had just survived a proper initiation.

Je Hyeon-o pressed the earpiece seated in my ear. Samra's voice came through at once.

"Han Goyo."

I reported in.

"Dead Zone Delivery has been closed. The entire Special Mission Team will return to the Era Bureau."

Nothing came back through the earpiece. I had a split second to wonder if the connection had dropped, and then the answer arrived.

"Yes, Goyo. I'll be waiting."

It might have been an odd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thing to feel from an android, but I could have sworn there was joy in his voice. Samra told me we had succeeded, and he said it softly.

"The Special Mission Team's first mission is complete."

The moment we made it back to the Era Bureau, I was rushed into treatment. The wounds that had been stitched shut inside DZD had torn open again and started bleeding, and I had already lost a dangerous amount of blood — it came closer to going badly than I liked to think about.

Mo Hae-in and Gwak Han-muk were out for a while as well, aftereffects of the zombification that had been progressing through them. Mo Hae-in in particular had spent time as a full zombie, so it took her longer to come around. Fortunately, that was the worst of it.

Je Hyeon-o, the instant we returned, was dispatched into a short Trial he could finish before the Special Mission Team's next assignment. A nominal punishment for attacking a teammate. He would have wanted to enter a Trial anyway, and he would be back on schedule so it wouldn't interfere with the team's work. I didn't particularly worry about him.

After treatment, I stayed unconscious even longer than the Captains. And when I finally woke up—

"...?"

—I opened my eyes onto something very strange.

Snip. Snip-snip-snip.

Someone was cutting my fingernails with a tiny pair of scissors.

I was so startled I couldn't even signal that I was awake. I just stared. The person snipping away at my nails with ferocious concentration noticed my gaze a beat too late and lifted their head.

"Hwaaagh!"

And then they were the one who screamed. I had a fleeting, reasonable question about whether I wasn't supposed to be the one screaming here, but I set it aside and tried, calmly, to figure out who I was looking at.

"Who are you?"

The woman had chubby cheeks, a pair of enormous round glasses, and a white lab coat. A researcher, not a doctor — I was sure of that, because the way she was looking at me was the same way Lee Ga-on had looked at me when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she realized I was the cure.

"Ah, h-hello.... I'm, um, with the Second Bureau..."

"The Research & Analysis Bureau, you mean?"

"Y-yes."

She ducked her head in a sudden little bow, all while clutching the sample tube of my fingernails as if it were made of gold. In a voice so small I almost missed it, she offered her name.

"M-my name is Ham Ji-wol, and.... I'm the bureau chief...!"

The instant I heard the name, I closed my hands into fists and hid what was left of my nails. Ham Ji-wol made a stricken little sound, eyes and mouth going perfectly round. She clearly had not collected as much as she wanted.

Thank god. ...Or is it?

Ham Ji-wol. Chief of the Research & Analysis Bureau. She was not someone you ran into often while playing the Archive's games, and there was a reason for that. Encountering Ham Ji-wol meant, with a one-hundred-percent probability—

A Bad Ending.

The only endings she appeared in were the ones where the player got dragged into a laboratory as a test subject and put through something horrific. I knew exactly how cruel her human experiments were. I could not help being terrified.

I was still shaking on the inside when, by some extraordinary mercy, salvation walked through the door.

"Han Goyo. You're awake?"

Samra stepped into the hospital room, and I had never been happier to see him in my life.

"Yes! I'm perfectly fine. I can be discharged right now."

"Ah— aah...!"

Ham Ji-wol fidgeted desperately in front of me. I ignored her with everything I had and shot Samra a look of pure, pleading agony. He took his time collecting data on my physical responses, and only then did he bother to save me.

"Bureau Chief Ham Ji-wol. Would you give us the room? I need to discuss the next mission with Han Goyo."

"Ah.... Samra, I, um.... I only have 0.06 grams of nail so far.... and there's other things too..."

"Sample data collection is already sufficient. Anything beyond that is personal greed, Bureau Chief."

"That's..."

Ham Ji-wol had nothing left to say. She shut her mouth, and Samra herded her out of the room with the ease of long practice.

"Thank you."

"So you know about Bureau Chief Ham Ji-wol as well."

"I don't know all that much."

Samra stood beside the hospital bed and looked down at me. He was a very tall android, and trying to meet his eyes from a mattress was not going well. I craned my head back as far as it would go, and he took the hint and sat down in the chair on his own.

"Are the Captains all right?"

"Captain Gwak Han-muk and Captain Mo Hae-in are currently handling work for their original assigned teams."

They were fine, then. Relief must have shown on my face, because Samra moved on to the next mission.

"It's still under discussion, but the Special Mission Team's second assignment is likely to be Clean! Clean! Clean!"

We were scheduled to enter in a week, he added, and if I wanted the timing adjusted I should say so. But I was the one running out of time.

Severed limbs...

I told him that wouldn't be necessary. Honestly, for something like Clean! Clean! Clean!, entering in a week was fine. It was a Trial that would be considerably more manageable than DZD. I asked for something else instead.

"There's an item I'd like to acquire before the mission."

"I'll put in a request with the Asset Management Bureau."

"The thing is, the Era Bureau doesn't have it.... There's only one in the country, as far as I know, and the owner is the chairman of the Cheongang Group."

Samra knew which item I meant before I had finished the sentence.

"Neat Appearance, I take it?"

"Yes. That item would be a tremendous help in the clear. Would it be possible to ask the chairman for his cooperation?"

"It is possible."

"...!"

Samra sounded that certain, which meant it really was possible. I didn't even have time to be glad about it before he added something that made no sense at all.

"However, you will have to meet the Cheongang chairman yourself and persuade him."

"I'm sorry?"

"The Cheongang chairman will never hand that item over to anyone but you, Han Goyo."

I didn't understand. If this was about persuasion, it would have been far more effective to send someone high up in the Era Bureau. I had never even seen the Cheongang chairman's face from a distance—

No. Wait.

Had I... seen him?