ep5. Shopping! The Trap-Laden Warehouse Mart! (1)
I must have blacked out for a moment.
Everything around me was red, and it stung my eyes.
"Seo Do-woon, can you hear me?"
Cha Si-eon's voice crackled through the smartwatch.
I tried to turn my head to answer, and something warm trickled down. It was my own blood.
"Answer me, Seo Do-woon!"
I wanted to, but no sound would come out. The blood covering my face was warm. It felt like lying submerged in a bathtub.
Ten days earlier.
It was my third day as a Bureau agent.
"Special zones are classified into four types."
I was getting a private lesson from Cha Si-eon in the small training hall.
"The classification depends on a zone's form, its character, and how it operates. For reference, both the Railroad Station with a Blaring Siren and the Hospital that Hunts Humans belong to Type 1."
He'd told me to raise questions whenever something came to mind, so I shot my hand up.
"Who's in charge of naming the special zones?"
"The names are decided by committee."
"Ah……"
Honestly, that was incredibly lame. The zone names, sure, but the boss-monster names too — even something like Moving Gun. If you're going to name them at all, wouldn't something a little more refined be better?
"We deliberately use names as intuitive as possible so that citizens can identify a threat at a glance."
I'd only been thinking it, but Cha Si-eon elaborated anyway. It wasn't out of kindness — more like he was pointing out my ignorance. Honestly, that personality of his……
"Type 1 zones number sixteen, the largest share by far. Their hallmarks are real-world-precise structures and unmistakable aggression. The current exploration rate is fifty-two percent."
"What's an exploration rate?"
"It is the sum of what the Bureau has uncovered about a zone's nature and how to counter it. That includes escape routes, the traits and patterns of hazard entities, and methods of interacting with neutral entities."
I see. Fifty-two percent seemed awfully middling, though.
"Type 2 zones appear real at a glance, but they warp like a dream. Their defining trait is a seductive atmosphere — anyone drawn into one feels a compulsion to stay in that space forever. There are twelve Type 2 zones in total; representative examples are the Rainbow Cake Shop and the Alien Slaughterhouse. The current exploration rate is thirty-nine percent."
Hold on. You just said the names were meant to be as intuitive as possible.
And one of them is called the Alien Slaughterhouse? For real?
"Type 3 zones evoke the afterlife, or a religious paradise. As a result, most entrants are overwhelmed by awe or terror the instant they cross the threshold. There are eight in total — the Palace of Dead Kings, the Messiah's Banquet Hall, and so on. They are the most dangerous category of zone, and the exploration rate stalls at a mere eleven percent."
It just kept getting worse.
If we were talking afterlife, did that mean heaven and hell were on the menu?
"And finally, Type 4 special zones."
Gulp.
I swallowed dryly at the ever-steepening difficulty curve — but the explanation that followed was almost anticlimactic.
"Type 4 is currently unknown."
"Unknown, sir?"
"Yes. Almost nothing is known about Type 4 zones. Unlike the others, they don't draw citizens in, so we can only presume they lie dormant."
"Then how do you know they exist well enough to classify them?"
It was the obvious question. Cha Si-eon looked at me and answered, one beat slower than usual.
"The fallen agent mentioned before was once taken into a Type 4 zone."
The fallen agent — the one who'd supposedly been dragged into special zones more than twenty times.
"That was the first and only confirmation of a Type 4's existence. According to the agent's testimony, the zone was 'an ossuary so vast its end could not be seen.'"
Wow. The world went dark all over again. As if the dreams weren't enough — a pseudo-heaven, a pseudo-hell, and a monumentally scaled ossuary confirmed exactly once in all of history. And apparently even the Railroad Station and the Hospital, where I'd died and come back, counted as the tame ones.
I was busy lamenting the cruelty of the universe when something occurred to me. Come to think of it, there was something I'd wanted to verify about the Railroad Station.
"Have you ever been to Yongsan Station, by any chance?"
When I raised my hand and asked, Cha Si-eon just stared at me. And there it was — this guy had a habit, didn't he? Going silent whenever a question got uncomfortable.
"The internal layout of Yongsan Station and the Railroad Station with a Blaring Siren are identical. Were you aware of that, sir?"
"I am aware."
"Then you'd also know there was a bombing in that area?"
"I do."
Only after I pressed him a second time did he finally answer. So the Bureau knew about it too. I hadn't been the only one who found the coincidence strange.
I turned the serendipity over in my mind, then chose my words carefully.
"Could it be that special zones are, in some sense, created by the victims of those places—"
"—is out of the question."
Cha Si-eon's instant reply sheared my sentence in two.
"Special zones are phenomena requiring scientific investigation, not subjects for superstitious embellishment. That kind of connection isn't merely contrived — it's an insult to the victims."
……Ouch. No counterargument available there. His cold, precise takedown landed like a punch, and I shut my mouth in embarrassment. Then he added, flatly:
"The currently confirmed facts are three: Type 1 zones are imitating specific locations; the imitated sites all suffered major damage during the war; and numerous war-symbolic hazard entities exist within Type 1 zones. That is all."
"……That's plenty of connection, isn't it?"
No, seriously — this wasn't even subtle foreshadowing. This was a setup that would riot if it never got paid off! My editor-self was screaming from somewhere deep in my chest. But the Bureau bureaucrat did not listen.
"We will keep the possibility open. We cannot, however, state it as fact."
Wow. So this is the level of rigor it takes to run a country……
When I ran out of words, that airtight public servant added one more thing.
"Separately, it is true that Type 1 zones contain many war-related hazard entities. So if you're ever taken into one again, you may assume you've been dragged onto a battlefield without much distortion of the truth."
"Is that a curse?"
"It's advice."
My throat tightened and I asked again; Cha Si-eon answered with perfect composure. And that was when I decided this man was a psychopath.
In hindsight, though, not a single word he'd said had been wrong.
And then — this morning, my thirteenth day with the Bureau.
Right up until then, I'd been having a perfectly uneventful day.
"You're young — why is your spine already like this? Did the company not buy you a desk? Do you work face-down on the floor?"
The man in the white coat had my spinal scan up on the monitor as he scolded me. He had no idea what he was talking about. Our CEO bought his employees good desks and good computers. That way you could keep them seated and grinding away for hours. But saying that out loud now would only get me chewed out, wouldn't it?
"Watch your posture and exercise. You don't need a beast's physique like the field agents here, but keep this up and you'll pay for it when you're older."
"Haha. Yes, sir……"
The name of the gaunt-faced man berating me was Kim Woo-in. Every time I saw him he had a stick candy clamped in his mouth like a cigarette, so I could never tell whether he was quitting smoking or just had a sweet tooth — one of the Bureau's resident doctors. These days he was checking my physical health, my mental state, and my contamination levels once every three days.
Rolling the candy against his teeth with an audible click of his tongue, he asked, "Last time you said you were worried about getting pulled into a special zone again. How about today?"
"I'm getting by."
I answered easily. The truth was, until a few days ago I'd been wrecked by anxiety — because I'd been taken to the Hospital exactly ten days after coming home. I'd spent this past stretch braced for something to happen on the tenth day again. But the day came and went without incident, and in a good way, the tension leaked right out of me.
"I've just decided to think about it less. It's unpredictable either way, and for all I know it'll keep passing without anything happening."
"That's a healthy attitude for the mental side. Your contamination readings have stayed normal, so I'll monitor you one more week. If nothing turns up, you'll be cleared to go outside starting next week."
Going outside? Now that was news worth hearing. I left the examination room feeling happy for the first time in a while.
But the instant I pushed the door open, the space changed. The air swapped out from under me and every hair on my body stood on end. There was no time to look around.
"Seo Do-woon, get down!"
With Cha Si-eon's roar, something slammed into my head.
CRACK—!
What a magnificent headshot.
And now.
"Seo Do-woon!"
I'd wanted to just drift off to sleep, but the racket scared every last bit of it away. I moved my arm, dragged the watch up beside my face, and managed a whisper into it.
"I can hear you."
"……Can you move?"
"Yes."
My head was still swimming, so I kept the answer short. Could I actually move? No idea. I'd find out by trying.
"Then do not stand. Crawl out of your current position. Roll to your right — two o'clock from where your head is pointing. Keep your head down while you move."
I rolled my body as ordered, and only once I was flat on the ground did I realize I'd been lying on my back. Blood had gotten into my eyes and my vision was a mess, but I crawled anyway. Something whipped past overhead — fast, close.
"Stop there and sit up. Now we deal with the bleeding. Bleeding site: rear of the left temple. Hemostatic agent, bandages, and painkillers are in the lower right pocket of your vest."
I dug through the vest I was wearing and fished out the first-aid supplies as instructed. Sprayed the hemostatic agent over the hole near my left temple, wound the bandage around it tight, crammed the painkillers into my mouth, and chewed them down. Gradually, my head cleared. I'd been drifting in and out like someone drowning in sleep, and only now did I feel properly awake.
"Status report."
"I think I'm all right."
The meds had my body more or less functional — it was my mood that was at rock bottom.
Ha. Where the hell is it this time?
Coated in sticky blood, I looked around. A high ceiling with the pipes all exposed. Steel shelving running from floor to ceiling. And packed onto those shelves, sealed goods crammed in tight. A logistics warehouse? Except there was a slip of paper stuck to the bottom of every item. Fittingly for a special zone, the writing on them was unreadable — but from the shape of them, there was no mistaking price tags. This wasn't a logistics warehouse. It was a warehouse-style supermarket.
A warehouse-style supermarket. Don't tell me it's that place……
I was surveying my surroundings and heaving out sighs when Cha Si-eon's voice came through the watch.
"Seo Do-woon. Do you remember what happened immediately before?"
"I was leaving after my checkup. I opened the examination room door, and the space changed."
"That matches what the medical staff witnessed. March 5th, 11:12 AM — confirmed. This is your third entry into a special zone."
I gritted my teeth at the confirmation shot. Third time. It was officially a fact now. Just as Gwak Jae-gyeom had said, I was one of those people the special zones kept dragging in.
As I let out yet another sigh, Cha Si-eon spoke low and even.
"Suppress the panic. Right now, survival comes first."
He was right. At the coldness in his voice, I forced out a short, sharp breath.
"I'm calm. Where am I?"
"The place you were taken to is the Type 1 special zone known as the Warehouse Mart Riddled with Traps."
"……Now I finally understand why you stressed intuitiveness in the naming."
It was a perfectly transparent name. So transparent I could see my own future laid out ahead of me.
I laughed in sheer disbelief and asked,
"So — how do I get out of here?"
"Before that, Seo Do-woon."
"Yes?"
"Congratulations on your official appointment."
……
Caught off guard by the sudden congratulation, I feigned surprise for a beat, then smiled. There was no way I could say it out loud, so I answered him in my heart instead.
Thanks a lot, you psychopath……