Cheong Ha-rin's Lucky Day (5)
**Chapter 21: Cheong Ha-rin's Lucky Day (5)**
***This episode contains images that may trigger trypophobia in some viewers. Please use the "Turn off Illustrations" option if you are affected.***
Sephirah: **The Cube**.
Derived from a movie of the same name, this Anomaly—a ghost story about a room that changes infinitely—was the Branch Manager's signature weapon during his days as a Fixer.
*Too many powerful Demonic Beasts?*
*Just trap one in the Cube to start.*
By cutting the enemy forces in half before the battle even began, it became harder to lose than to win. This was the reason the Branch Manager had stood at the top of the A-class Fixers during his active years.
However, whether the Cube—so effective against Demonic Beasts—would also work against an Anomaly remained unconfirmed. He'd trapped humans before, but this was his first time trying it on a humanoid Anomaly.
Still, the Branch Manager forced the Cube upon Baek San-a. It was a gamble for survival.
Sprawled on the floor, the Branch Manager let out a shaky breath.
"Phew... Thank god that worked."
He was currently in the space that looked into the interior of the Cube. He could step back out at any moment, but he chose to stay. After all, he had to keep an eye on the imprisoned Anomaly.
He had to watch it, whether it died or not.
At least until the crucial deal three hours from now.
*As long as the Chairman comes, we'll figure something out,* he thought, slowly pushing himself up to look into the room.
"So it doesn't work on them like it does on Demonic Beasts..."
In the case of Demonic Beasts, nine out of ten would try to escape the moment they were trapped in the Cube. To those mindless creatures, the escape conditions listed on the painting above the exit were nothing more than decoration.
For those who ignored the escape conditions, death would soon follow.
Any attempt to force an escape would trigger a warning. After ten warnings, the condition was absolute: total annihilation.
But the girl who had threatened the Branch Manager was a rational being capable of communication.
For every human ever trapped inside, the escape condition had been: *Reenact the actions from your most painful memory.*
*I wonder if Anomalies face the same conditions...*
If she were like a human, the Cube would draw upon her memories to subject her to her worst experience.
The Branch Manager waited, his expression weary, for the conditions to appear on the painting.
"...?"
【Room where you can only exit by ■■】
Something was wrong.
Normally, the ■■ would be replaced by a clear condition, and the room would be furnished with objects or people related to it.
But even after some time had passed, the room remained in its initial state.
The girl remained alone inside the room.
"What's going on? Why is it doing that?"
An anomaly had occurred, but the Branch Manager was powerless to intervene. Though the Cube was classified as a Sephirah because it could be carried by a human, the power to set its own exit conditions resided solely within the Cube itself.
Just then, the trapped girl moved.
She walked slowly to the door and gave it a light push.
"What the—"
The Branch Manager stared in shock. The Cube, which should have repelled the girl's forced attempt to escape and issued a warning, had instead seemed to yield, allowing the door to open helplessly.
The flustered Branch Manager shouted, "What are you doing?! Close the door! She's trying to get out!"
But the door didn't close. Instead, the already open crack widened until it swung open completely, as if the Cube were practically begging her to leave.
"Dammit! What's wrong with you?! Have you surrendered to that thing? Is it broken?! Close the door and make her reenact her worst memory!"
The girl shrugged and stepped lightly out the door.
"No!"
Sensing the crisis, the Branch Manager scrambled out of the Cube's range. Even if she had already escaped, he could still recapture her if he caught up quickly. The Cube had a limit on how many individuals it could hold at once, but no limit on how many times it could be retrieved.
*Damn... Already?*
As he returned to reality, he was met with the sight of his fallen subordinates. The only person still conscious was an administrative staff member, trembling before the status board without a weapon in hand.
Soon, the girl smiled at the Branch Manager who had followed her out.
"You guys must have a lot of bullets here. Other Fixers rarely fire their guns to save on ammo."
*Clatter, clatter, clatter.*
Countless bullets poured from the girl's body, rolling across the floor.
*Conventional firearms are useless. And the moment they fire... is it a counterattack?*
The Branch Manager, being the only one with his wits still about him, had avoided the landmines.
But that was the limit of his strategic thinking.
Though he knew that haste and arrogance were the primary causes of a Fixer's demise, he still believed his best course of action was to recapture the girl in the Cube.
Three hours remained until the crucial deal. The sense of duty to not fail the Chairman's mission pushed him to his absolute limit.
*She's surprisingly slow. I can do this.*
If she tried to leave, he would get ahead of her and trap her again.
If she tried to leave again, he would trap her once more.
If he repeated this, holding out for three hours wouldn't be impossible.
He still had no idea why the girl had simply walked out of the Cube without doing anything, but he would make do with what he had.
*I can do this.*
"Sorry, but you'll have to go back inside!"
The Branch Manager had undergone physical enhancement surgery.
He snatched the Cube from the floor and thrust it toward the girl with lightning speed.
Once again, the girl was pulled into the Cube.
The Branch Manager returned to the Observation Room.
"?!"
But this time, the door was already open.
The text on the frame above the exit had completely changed.
【Please exit immediately】
The girl tilted her head, clearly bewildered.
"Geez. When I go out, you make me come in. When I come in, you make me go out~. What am I, a ping-pong ball~?"
The text in the frame now scrolled to the left like a digital ticker.
【Please. Please exit immediately. Imme】
The girl, now wearing a relaxed expression, giggled in front of the door.
"Hellooo~ Am I not allowed to experience the Anomaly~ Hey, over here~"
The scrolling text sped up. The frame stretched horizontally, displaying more characters at once.
【Please leave. Please leave immediately. Please, I beg you to leave. Please leave, I'm begging you. Imme】
"This is just too much. Am I not even worthy of enjoying the attraction~?"
【I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was w】
The frame continued to stretch until it hit the walls and stopped.
Then, it began to expand upward.
The girl burst into laughter at the sight.
"Puhahaha! What are you doing~? You're gonna hit the ceiling at this rate~."
Had anyone ever seen an Anomaly submit to another Anomaly?
At least, the Branch Manager couldn't recall seeing it even once in his forty years of life.
This was utter nonsense.
Just what was that girl? Why was the Cube so terrified of her, creating all this chaos?
"Hmm. You saw my memories, didn't you? I had a strange feeling earlier, and now I know why."
Suddenly, the text in the frame vanished. It looked as if it had clamped its mouth shut in sheer terror.
【 】
"So, what do you think? I'm curious about your impression."
【Impossible】
"What's impossible?"
【Frequency of despair among all memories is overwhelmingly high — Total scannable memory volume exceeded — Classification and selection impossible】
The Branch Manager, who had been watching, shouted.
His voice wouldn't reach the girl anyway.
"What kind of bullshit is this...? Then we can just block it off like a Demonic Beast! Don't force the action it's supposed to take, just block the door!"
The Branch Manager's reasoning seemed forced, but it wasn't really. To him, it was common sense: if you block the door, the opponent will try to force their way out, accumulate warnings, and die. That was how he had suppressed every opponent so far.
However, that line of thinking was a problem caused by a lack of Anomaly sensitivity.
It's troublesome to think of Anomalies like humans or other animals, but those with Laws mostly act like programs. In that case, what happens when they encounter a target that ignores the Law itself?
If they're supposed to scan a target's memories and show them the worst ones, what happens if a problem occurs during the scan?
【ImpossibleImpossibleImpossibleImposseble】
The words once again filled the entire frame.
Only then did a chill run down the Branch Manager's spine.
*What... What the hell is that?*
While he was momentarily paralyzed with shock, the girl had already exited the Cube.
"Oops."
The Branch Manager had missed his chance to leave.
But in that moment, he lost the courage to go out.
Because he knew he wouldn't be able to stop her if he went out.
*If she was just playing with me this whole time...*
Would I even survive if I went out?
Was leaving even the right choice?
Could I stop *that thing* until the deal three hours from now?
*Stop it? Stop what...*
The Branch Manager was just a toy right now.
If he didn't want to die a meaningless death, his only option was to stay here quietly—
"Excuse me~"
Stay here... Huh?
"Excuse me? Are you in here? That's strange. Why aren't you coming out like before?"
The Cube's door was now wide open.
The girl freely entered and exited the Cube at will. As if convinced the Branch Manager was hiding somewhere inside, she also tapped and knocked on every surface of the room.
"Where did the Sephirah Master I was playing with go~?"
"..."
"He should be here~"
"......"
"Is he here? Or here? Or maybe over here?"
How many times had she gone in and out of the Cube like that?
The empty frame was once again filled with letters.
【Eliminate Threat】
If the threat to be eliminated had been the girl, it would have been a stroke of luck for the Branch Manager.
But the Sephirah—no, the Anomaly known as 'The Cube'—made a different choice.
"...Kgh?!"
Suddenly, the floor beneath the Branch Manager in the Observation Room gave way.
In the blink of an eye, he was back in the Ganghwado Underground Base.
"How could—"
The moment he looked into the eyes of Baek San-a, who had followed him out of the Cube, the Branch Manager lost consciousness.
He collapsed to the ground.
Baek San-a, holding the Cube that had pressed a deep indentation into the earth, muttered, "I never expected to actually see this in person. Another story to tell."
Unlike Malkuth, Anomalies that become the possessions of specific humans, such as Gebura or Yesod, may associate with humans, but such bonds are never eternal.
When situations that affect the very essence of one's existence arise, as they just did, there are cases where humans are abandoned in an attempt to resolve the problem.
This is known as...
"Awakening Disqualified!"
Giggling, Baek San-a fumbled and pulled out the terminal she had hidden inside her body.
Then, she wrote a post on the Fixer Gallery.
【Awakening Disqualified!】
Author: AnomalyLivingTheBestLife361
Awakening Disqualified!
Awakening Disqualified!
Awakening Disqualified!
Awakening Disqualified!
Awakening Disqualified!
Awakening Disqualified!
- ?
- Did you suddenly go crazy?
- What's with you lol
- I wish you'd get into the habit of explaining yourself before you start acting out.
- AnomalyLivingTheBestLife361*) Disqualified for being bald!
- AnomalyLivingTheBestLife361*) Disqualified for thinning hair!
- AnomalyLivingTheBestLife361*) Just disqualified!
- Don't feed the troll.
- Correct.
***
Meanwhile, Cheong Ha-rin was wandering aimlessly through the Ganghwado Base.
Every time she tried to find her way, she ran into enemies, leaving her practically being hunted like a rabbit.
"Aaaah! Stop chasing me!"
*How long are you going to keep running, Ha-rin?*
"There are way too many of them over there!"
*You should have tried escaping outside instead.*
"That's a heron's nest out there!"
Her stamina had improved since her Awakening, but if simply being able to run for a long time solved everything, anyone could be a Fixer.
"Where's San-a?!"
*She's getting closer. You're heading in the right direction.*
"So she's this way!"
At least the hallway was a single path, which was a relief. Since it was unlikely for anyone to break in anyway, the organization had carved out a wide path underground so its members wouldn't get lost.
Cheong Ha-rin, who had been frantically turning corners to evade bullets, finally reunited with Baek San-a...
"...Huh?"
The heavy steel door she'd been worried might be locked was wide open.
Inside, the room was filled with collapsed people.
They weren't dead, but the way they lay facedown or sprawled on the floor suggested they had all lost consciousness at once.
As Cheong Ha-rin checked the breath of the nearest few members and tried to make sense of the situation, a small figure suddenly appeared from the opposite steel door.
"Whoa. Did you do all this, Butler?"
It was Baek San-a.
She looked a bit different from her usual self, but Cheong Ha-rin recognized her instantly when she came closer and lifted the girl's bangs.
She clapped her hands in amazement, darting between the fallen gang members before coming to a halt beside Cheong Ha-rin.
"That's impressive for a low-ranker! You could handle much tougher assignments from now on."
"...Huh? No, I didn't do this—"
Suddenly, a loud shout echoed down the hallway behind Cheong Ha-rin.
"They've entered the Control Room!"
"They're trapped like rats in a cage, you bastard!"
The thunderous sound of approaching footsteps filled the air.
But when Cheong Ha-rin turned around, all she saw were the gang members collapsing one by one as they ran toward them.
"...Uh, huh?"
It was like a conveyor belt with no one at the end to sort the items, causing them to pile up in a chaotic heap.
Baek San-a burst into a fit of giggles, making a huge fuss.
"What was that just now? Did you take them all down with your spirit pressure?"
"No, I—"
"If we report all of this as your achievement, it's only a matter of time before you reach B-rank, right? And look, this one is an executive! The contribution points and credits for him alone will be huge."
Woo Chun-yeop and Baek San-a's predictions were spot on.
Cheong Ha-rin had always lived a life of scarcity.
She would never refuse a windfall of achievements, even if they fell into her lap by chance.
And if Baek San-a had intended this, she trusted there must be a good reason for it.
Cheong Ha-rin, who had been about to protest that she wasn't the one who did it, felt her lips tremble as she forced a smile.
"Ha, haha! I-I didn't mean to go this far, but... well, I guess I just ended up wiping out all the bad guys! Ahahaha!"
