Bodies of the Living
When I came to, it was already evening. People often joke that in a mind-numbing situation, you might as well go out for lunch—but I was in something even worse.
“Heh…”
The girl whose body had been restored, Rainy, was awake and smiling at me. The child's skin had lost its undead pallor and surgical scars, returning to that of a living human. I'd expected her to revert to her undead form, so this miracle beyond my wildest hopes left me speechless.
“It wouldn't have been possible without you, Brother Kim Jian. Neither her body being restored nor me breaking free from my rampage.”
I turned to see Irool Hinea sitting silently beside me. The quiet around us suggested he'd snapped out of it right on time.
“We all nearly died because of you.”
“My apologies. Could you forgive me, considering my weakened state of mind and body?”
“……”
Fine, whatever. No one got seriously hurt because of him, so it wasn't a big deal.
“…What about the terrorist?”
What really concerned me was the whereabouts of whoever had unleashed the Angel's Ash.
“They've been arrested and taken away.”
“I see…”
Good, as long as they were caught. No deaths meant we were lucky.
“…Ah.”
Come to think of it, I wondered how the guC bankers were doing.
A few days later. In the Dimensional Credit Vault HQ boardroom, nestled in the capital city of Linden in Great Huuriten.
This room, usually filled with the icy tension of directors glaring at rivals from other factions, was now hosting a bizarre scene.
“…Who are you?”
The one who couldn't hold back her question was President Okerus Dis Pater. Her gaze was fixed on the guC directors seated along the left side of the long table.
“……”
For some reason, the table was occupied by several little girls, all with identical faces.
“President, actually…”
Her secretary leaned in and quietly briefed her on what had happened in Dimension 16.
“…Haha. Ahahaha!!”
It was a first. The president laughing in a board meeting.
“I see. So that's how it happened.”
Wiping away a stray tear, President Okerus Dis Pater composed herself and looked up.
“It's a first for me to see former Interdimensional Neptune Bank employees alive and in the flesh.”
At her words, the identically transformed directors all scowled in unison.
They'd been caught in the Angel's Ash terror attack in Dimension 16, losing their bodies once. Then, when Rainy was restored to a living body via monatomic gold, they got swept up in it too.
To be precise, they'd survived without losing their souls—by taking on bodies identical to Rainy's.
“……”
The expressions of these directors, now bearing living flesh instead of undeath, were far more varied than in their undead days.
With guC's heavyweights all transformed into the same little girl's face, operations were immediately disrupted—not to mention the directors themselves couldn't hide their gloom.
They'd once housed their souls in inorganic metal shells, far removed from their living forms. And back when they were alive, they had all been men.
I couldn't know their sense of loss, but these undead veterans, accustomed to their prior state, might struggle to adapt to these new bodies. Above all, guC was a faction that had pioneered multidimensional operations before safe dimensional travel tech existed. To them, an undead body was like a badge of honor.
Now stripped of that badge, it was questionable if these guC directors could wield the same influence over their subordinates.
“This doesn't seem like the atmosphere for further discussion today. Let's postpone.”
“President…!”
“Don't make me say it twice.”
President Okerus Dis Pater showed them minimal mercy. With guC directors in that state, pushing the agenda tied to guE's vulnerabilities would be impossible.
The balance of power within the bank had to be maintained. That was her creed.
“Kim Jian, you've done it again.”
Dr. Bernard's loan had certainly paid off. Regardless of internal politics, the girl had been saved—and that would be remembered as a heartwarming tale about the Dimensional Credit Vault.
Objectively, the guC directors had gained living bodies too, so they hadn't really lost anything.
Still, this incident was sure to shift the dynamics between guE and guC.
The mere fact that a retired soldier possessed Angel's Ash already raised suspicions of guE involvement.
For better or worse, Kim Jian and the multidimensional outpost were stirring waves in a stagnant situation.
And even President Okerus Dis Pater, a goddess living in the present age, couldn't predict where those waves would steer the massive ship that was the Dimensional Credit Vault.
Great Huuriten's northern region. Razma's Ectopl homeland, the orphanage.
The director, spotting Razma, muttered with a face like she'd seen a ghost.
“Rainy… times two?”
“……”
“Rainy… times two? Huh, why'd I say that twice?”
“That's enough.”
Razma's cold, clipped rebuke didn't faze the director, who stared at her with wide-eyed bewilderment.
“It's Razma.”
“…Don't mess with Teacher Rainy! Where'd you get that suit?”
“For the last time, it's Razma.”
“What the…”
It was no wonder the director didn't recognize her. Razma's form was now identical to Rainy's restored living body, without a single discrepancy.
“…What in the world happened?”
Only after Razma spun a convoluted tale no one else could explain did the director start to believe it, bit by bit.
“It's a long story. A minor accident during Rainy's revival process, I suppose?”
She hadn't expected the outsider director to grasp it immediately. Even Razma herself struggled to comprehend it.
Even after hearing Kim Jian and Dr. Bernard's explanations, she'd been too stunned to respond for a while.
'So, Deputy Manager Razma was hit by the light from the Angel's Ash and lost your body once.'
'…During Rainy's revival, the monatomic gold's output was far beyond expectations, sweeping you up and granting you a human body.'
That day, all the undead on the fifth floor lost their bodies to the Angel's Ash. Without vessels, their souls faced oblivion.
It was inevitable. Undead souls couldn't return to the afterlife. Losing the body meant nothingness.
But Kim Jian and Dr. Bernard used massive amounts of monatomic gold to fully restore Rainy's vanished body. Their vivid image and will were so intense that the monatomic gold worked an absurd miracle, granting Razma an identical body too.
Gender and age flipped, but with a living vessel for her soul, Razma could remain in this world.
Should she rejoice or grieve? Even Razma wasn't sure.
One thing was clear: unlike her undead days, irritation and other negative emotions now hit sharply.
Mostly aimed at Kim Jian, the cause of this mess.
“Still, in that form, you could blend right in playing with the kids. Maybe visit during the day next time…”
“I'll pass.”
“…You know that's a joke, right?”
The director poured steaming, fragrant tea into the cup on the outdoor table. Razma lifted it with a sour face, only to scald her lips.
“……”
Having neither eaten nor drunk as an undead, she'd forgotten tea could be hot.
Under the moonlight, peering at her unfamiliar reflection in the tea, Razma's eyes held complex emotions.
“How… inconvenient. A living body is…”
“Funny you say that now. You lived in one just like it before.”
“So long ago it's beyond memory.”
The director smiled and dropped a sugar cube into Razma's cup.
“You'll get used to it in time.”
Razma nodded silently.
Only after gaining a human body did she realize why she'd kept visiting this orphanage as an undead.
Beyond her promise to a friend, each visit—each glimpse of the lit building from afar—let her feel life up close.
Unlike her soul adrift after death, the children were near life, far from death.
Watching them live the childhood time she'd lost ages ago, she'd envied them without realizing it.
Sipping the now-cooled tea, she thought that.
“…Sweet.”
“Oops. Too much sugar?”
“No.”
Taste buds unused for eons awoke to the sugar's shock.
Not recalling forgotten memories, but relearning sensation from scratch—like a child tossed into the world.
Helpless, inconvenient, bothersome.
“It's… not bad, actually.”
If this was life, it was worth living.
A few days later. After exhaustive hospital checks and rest, I burst out laughing the moment I sat at my teller window upon returning to work.
“Pfft.”
“……”
I'd heard in advance, but seeing Deputy Manager Razma's changed form in person was too much.
The Ectopl Razma, now a white-haired girl of five or six, was handling business exactly as before, despite the drastic appearance shift.
Her face still betrayed no emotion. Though identical to the revived Rainy, she showed no discomfort.
“Since when did this outpost become a place where agents can tease deputy managers?”
Smack!
That was when Slick Ellama's palm cracked against the back of my head.
“Workplace violence! Stop!”
“Who gave you permission for casual speech? You little—!”
I got he was being considerate after the ordeal, but I'd contributed to resolving it too. A little credit would be nice.
“Sigh… If this is the thanks I get, not sure why I bothered.”
Honestly, hadn't I saved the guC directors and execs on the fifth floor?
I wanted to brag a bit, maybe get a commendation.
“You saved the kid—that's what matters, right?”
“Agents like you are too greedy for your own good.”
Isaac and Pluto, watching from the side, snickered.
True, I was just doing my job in this organization. I hadn't expected rewards from above anyway…
Hoping for better treatment from this was kinda silly.
I'd fulfilled my duty as a banker. That was enough. Ellama would handle my performance review.
“Oh, right. Kim Jian. HQ called for you.”
As I thought that, Ellama turned back from heading to his office and approached.
“Me? What for…?”
“The board has some task for you over the next three days. Something IT-related.”
“…IT?”
“Ticket's booked. Take the afternoon flight over and report to HQ by morning.”
“Wait, just tell me what exactly—”
“Ask them yourself.”
“……”
What the heck? Shouldn't that be Oatanocha's job? I'm not even STEM.