Welcome to the Special Management Bureau (5)
"If you hadn't taken off that mask, Otter, you would have died."
Baek Sa-ra's words were matter-of-fact, which made them all the more absurd.
So I thought back.
To the thanks Baek Sa-ra had given me earlier.
I'm truly grateful for what you did in the Hospital zone. Thanks to you, Otter, we completed the mission without a single sacrifice.
Now that I replayed it, that was a strange sentence too.
No — from the very start, Baek Sa-ra had said it outright.
Why she was grateful to me, and exactly what it meant.
I wasn't a savior who had rescued Baek Sa-ra in a moment of crisis.
I was merely an enabler who let her finish the mission without any sacrifices.
Then whose sacrifice had Baek Sa-ra been talking about?
Mine.
I was the substitute they'd picked when the Black One dropped dead out of nowhere.
That was what I was.
The moment that truth landed, a scene I'd glossed over came flooding back.
Baek Sa-ra, standing there in front of the Moving Gun, refusing to pick her weapons back up.
I'd taken it for someone accepting death.
I'd been almost exactly right.
It was just that the death in question hadn't been Baek Sa-ra's. It had been mine.
A quiet shock rolled over me at the danger I'd only now recognized. And then Baek Sa-ra, as if there were nothing left to hide, said it plainly.
"Yes. At the time I was running calculations to send a grenade your way. I judged that continuing the fight would be too dangerous, so I decided to end it."
Baek Sa-ra's voice no longer wavered.
She had recovered her usual honeyed tone and was perfectly composed.
"I don't think my judgment was wrong. The Bureau calls an agent an idiot if he dies trying to save one or two civilians. When an agent we've invested so much in dies over a handful of people in front of him, that's a national loss."
By now, the logic was familiar.
Civilians are advised to escape on their own.
But if you're an agent, we can mount a rescue.
Four thousand five hundred a year barely registers on the ledger.
Because this is a place where we do what's necessary, not what's right.
I chewed over those eminently rational sentences, then opened my mouth.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"It felt like you deserved to know. That there's no such thing as common sense here. You're Bureau staff now too, Otter."
Baek Sa-ra answered with a smile on her face.
So I asked again.
"Do you, by any chance, feel sorry for me?"
"No."
Baek Sa-ra's answer to my question was emphatic.
No — it was too quick.
Startled?
Either way, she'd denied it hard.
The smile she'd worn as a mask of composure was gone without a trace.
Baek Sa-ra faced me with a serious expression, but I didn't let it rattle me.
And for good reason — it would be a mistake to think editors do nothing but proofreading and copyediting.
We are the people who deal with writers, after all.
As I patiently held Baek Sa-ra's gaze, it was ultimately Baek Sa-ra who looked away first.
And then, as if to walk back her earlier behavior, she looked at me again.
But before long she turned her head once more.
Baek Sa-ra repeated that little dance about twice more, and in the end she bit down hard on her lip.
"...You're not sorry, are you?"
"……A little. Maybe."
I'd asked back at exactly the right moment, and got a full confession.
Having admitted it, Baek Sa-ra bit her lip even harder.
She looked troubled.
Frankly, so was I.
I'd welcomed her as a comrade, only to learn she was a schemer who'd planned to use me as a bullet catcher.
How was I supposed to react now?
Should I blow up in righteous betrayal?
I took off my mask and rolled around on the ground so YOU wouldn't die, and you were planning to kill ME? And after all that, you're telling me to value my own life? Do you have a conscience?
Even if I berated her like that, Baek Sa-ra would just listen in silence.
For all I knew, that was the reaction she was waiting for.
Then would it be better to coldly lay into her instead?
So what exactly do you want from me? You won't even apologize properly — is dumping it all out there so YOU feel better supposed to count? You thought only of yourself from start to finish, and now what am I supposed to do with that?
I suspected that would hit harder.
Or, alternatively, I could demand compensation like this:
If you're sorry, show some sincerity.
I spent a while deliberating amid that steady drumbeat of shock.
Then my eyes fell on the eyepatch covering one of Baek Sa-ra's eyes.
The bandage stuck to her cheek, and the scattered little scratches too.
As I took in the sight of her, I found my footing at last.
"How about we just say I saved you?"
"...I'm sorry, what?"
Baek Sa-ra stared at me in open disbelief.
Too far?
No. I could pull this off.
I am an editor who prunes even the most rambling author tangents without blinking.
"First of all, you have no intention of apologizing to me, right, Baek Sa-ra? After all, by your own standards it was the correct call."
At my observation, Baek Sa-ra nodded, a little reluctantly.
"But my legs are falling asleep, and I can't just sit here quietly."
"My legs aren't asleep."
"If your legs aren't asleep, then you shouldn't be making confessions like this either."
"Ugh……"
"So now Baek Sa-ra's trapped in a dilemma with no way out, and I — already cowed by an unfamiliar environment — take this on top of it, spiral into shock, lose all faith in humanity, come to hate the world, and despair of life itself."
"What on earth are you……"
Baek Sa-ra muttered in horror at my tragic forecast.
But I pressed on, undeterred.
"On the other hand, I can understand your position too, so I'm sure it's confusing for you. You came here injured and went out of your way to tell me all this — some days you'd resent me, some days you'd pity me, and the emotional toll must be enormous."
"……"
Reading between the lines is also part of an editor's toolkit.
If Baek Sa-ra's words were a dense block of text that spelled out I tried to make you my sacrifice, then showing up to see me in that battered state was what lived between the lines.
The subtext I read in Baek Sa-ra's actions was a little fragile, and surprisingly tender.
Almost too much to waste on letting things turn hostile.
"As it stands, we both lose — and I lose especially badly. What do you say?"
I asked the way I would of an author who'd lost the plot.
Author, can you actually live with the fallout if we write it this way?
Let's think this through together. Do we really have to walk down a road that's nothing but hard work and zero fun? Do we, really?
Smiling like an open door that was, in truth, bolted shut, I waited for Baek Sa-ra's answer.
After a long while, Baek Sa-ra muttered with a bewildered face.
"That would be a lie."
"A lie that no one falls for is perfectly fine."
"Since when does that kind of lie exist……?"
"I mean it. At the very least, nobody gets deceived or hurt by this particular lie. Or do you have a better option?"
She wouldn't.
Certainly not right now — Baek Sa-ra had no alternative to offer.
I asked again knowing full well, and quietly watched her squirm.
"……Fine. Do as you like."
"Then shall we go with that?"
Under my sly pressure, Baek Sa-ra finally surrendered.
I agreed with alacrity, and Baek Sa-ra stared at me like someone who'd just been pickpocketed.
So, partly to drive the nail home, I said with a straight face:
"I'm glad you're safe."
Baek Sa-ra looked even more dumbfounded.
Then, still wearing that awkward expression, she hesitated before speaking.
"……Thank you for saving me."
I nodded, and Baek Sa-ra finally smiled.
It sat somewhere between a sigh and genuine laughter.
A little theatrical, perhaps, but a revision I was quite satisfied with.
Baek Sa-ra spoke, her voice threaded with laughter.
"Would you give me your hand?"
My hand?
Not sure which hand she meant, I held out both palms.
In the meantime, Baek Sa-ra slid the ring off her finger.
A ring of black metal.
She turned over my outstretched, practically hand-delivered palm, and slipped her ring onto my finger.
A ring? Out of nowhere?
Recoiling at the strangeness of it, I asked.
"What is this?"
"A piece of the body of a named Hazard Entity from a Special Zone."
GYAAAH!
I recoiled, hand splayed wide in horror.
Baek Sa-ra pressed the ring down firmly onto my finger anyway.
"I went through hell tearing it off. Wear it at all times — it'll be useful."
"U-Useful how……?"
"Some Hazard Entities will mistake you for a higher-tier threat. Used well, it can open the occasional backdoor when you need a way out. It's saved my life a few times, so you can trust it."
I was considerably taken aback by that.
If it had saved her life that many times, shouldn't she be the one keeping it?
"Are you sure you can give this away?"
"Why wouldn't I be? You're the one who saved my life, Otter."
Baek Sa-ra answered with a sweet smile.
Which made me feel suddenly, crushingly indebted.
No, wait — that was a relationship we'd just conveniently rewritten for our own comfort, we weren't supposed to be exchanging actual goods……
Seeing my hesitation, Baek Sa-ra laughed and kept pushing.
"You let a person mess with you plenty. Take it."
"Yes, ma'am."
I gave up resisting.
There was something in Baek Sa-ra's voice that brushed against outright menace.
And I had a feeling that otherwise I'd end up flattened and pummeled like one of Juhwangcheoreom's readers.
Once I meekly put the ring on, Baek Sa-ra's face lightened noticeably.
"Live as long as you can, Otter."
It was a wonderfully ambiguous blessing — perfectly suited to this grim place.
"Don't tell me — that's from Sa-ra noona?"
Once Baek Sa-ra had left, Gwak Jae-gyeom spotted my ring and asked.
"Wow. When I asked to see it, she'd never take it off. Hyung, did you at least get an explanation of what it is?"
"Yes. Roughly."
"No way. She gave it to you?"
Gwak Jae-gyeom turned my hand this way and that, marveling.
Then, abruptly turning grave, he asked me:
"Hyung, do you know what Sa-ra noona's nickname is?"
Something like "the Mad Blade Dancer," maybe?
"Anti-Teresa. ……Why?"
"Nothing. Never mind."
The nickname I'd just thought up was one I absolutely could not let leave my mouth.
Setting aside how insulting it was, it might put my own character in question.
I hurriedly wiped away a cold sweat and asked back.
"Wh-what does it mean?"
"You know Mother Teresa, right? She's the exact opposite, so — Anti-Teresa."
"Ah, I see."
Well-chosen nickname.
Elegant on the ear, and it still meant "mad blade dancer" at the end of the day.
"Careful around her, hyung. Anti-Teresa is dangerous."
"R-right……"
"And that ring is the real deal, so keep it on."
Gwak Jae-gyeom snickered to himself and headed for the living room, where he pointed at a large box sitting on the floor.
"Since we're on the subject — I picked out the actually useful survival gear from the Otter Rescue HQ gifts."
I drifted over to Gwak Jae-gyeom's side without thinking, and froze at the mountain of stuff stacked inside the box.
"This is all of it?"
"I told you, didn't I? Everyone's dead serious about keeping you alive right now."
"Still, this much…… Don't they need this stuff themselves?"
"Well, yeah. Obviously it'd be nice to have."
"And they're all just giving it up to me?"
At my question, Gwak Jae-gyeom studied me for a moment.
Then, as if re-explaining the basics, he said:
"It's less a matter of giving stuff up and more like — you know. It's a guy who eats three square meals a day handing his lunch to someone dying of malnutrition."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm saying that everyone else packs their gear and goes out as a team on expeditions."
Oh.
Damn it.
Right.
Bastards.
I was the only one being dragged out there alone.
The reality of it hit me where it hurt.
"So take it without guilt. This is just the stagnant-water veterans clearing out their low-tier junk because they think it's cute that the toddler learning to walk is about to start running. Everyone wants to see you live a long time, hyung. That's all this is."
Reality was brutal, but this part was almost funny.
Total strangers wishing me a long life.
And here I'd been told there was no common sense in this place?
For people with none, they seemed remarkably generous of spirit — so I made up my mind too.
I would somehow, against all odds, survive — as my thanks for the support.
It was thirteen days from that day.
That I got dragged off to yet another living hell.