Ep 5. Shopping! Warehouse-Style Mart! (3)

Kwadang! Kung! Kwang—!

I rolled across the moving walkway to the beat of rhythmic collisions.

— Left! Take cover by the ATM section!

Cha Si-eon was already shouting before I'd even stopped moving. So, too numb to feel the pain, I hurled myself to the left. I was still catching my breath, unable to either sit or stand, glancing around wildly, when—

— Mr. Seo Do-woon.

"Hoo... yes?"

— Are you perhaps having a hard time?

"Heh... heuk... excuse me?"

— Why is your heart rate like this?

Why? Because I was agile. I was genuinely fast, for a civilian, I'll have you know!

"I've been moving for nearly ten minutes—hoo—without stopping once, huk—and you're asking if that's tiring?"

— Mr. Seo Do-woon was in motion for four minutes and eight seconds.

Oh, so I was racing against the clock, was I?

I collapsed where I stood, too drained to argue. The world had literally gone yellow before my eyes. My heart hammered like a lunatic, and sweat dripped steadily off my lashes and the tip of my nose.

— You will faint if you hunch over. Keep your head up, take deep breaths, and get out the water and the saline glucose tablets.

Groaning, I did as I was told and lifted my head. And this vest they'd issued from the Bureau—honestly, I'd thought it was a cumbersome nuisance, but from now on I was going to wear it even more cumbersomely. I'd lost count of how many lives it had saved.

I gulped down the water and pills from my pocket and waited. Little by little, the yellow-and-black shimmer swimming before my eyes faded back to normal.

The moment my breathing steadied, Cha Si-eon picked up on it with uncanny precision.

— Two more minutes of rest, then we move.

"Are you the Grim Reaper or something...?"

— If you genuinely wish to meet the Grim Reaper, feel free to keep resting like this.

His ears are sharp, too...

I groaned and shut my mouth. But it wasn't long before I opened it again.

"Team Leader Cha Si-eon."

— Listening.

"The person who died just now—who were they?"

A brief silence followed.

— The Observation Team will confirm their identity.

The answer that finally came back was quintessentially Cha Si-eon. He could probably have told me the person's age range and sex, but no—he stayed cold and clinical as ever. If I'd died at the railway station, I'd have been processed the same way, I suppose. Hmm. Better not to think about that. Did that person die without pain? Probably. It looked instantaneous. ...I shouldn't have thought about that either.

— Your heart rate is rising. If you're dwelling on useless thoughts, stop.

I let out a sigh at the indignity of having even my heartbeat monitored. Then, needing to change the subject, I asked Cha Si-eon a question.

"When this Special Zone disappears, does a new one take its place?"

— That is correct.

"Then wouldn't it be smarter to smash this one as soon as possible and get a fresh one?"

Special Zones obeyed a law of conservation—destroy one and another would spawn in its place. And like a gacha roll, the internal rules would be completely rerolled. So with a rotten one like Samboilsa, wasn't clearing it out quickly the sensible play, rather than keeping it around?

— There have actually been several discussions along those lines.

"Then why hasn't it been done?"

— An all-out war against a Special Zone risks casualties on our side as well. Furthermore, if this particular Zone were destroyed, the seventeen percent we've mapped so far would vanish with it. That is why the current status quo is being maintained.

I realized what I'd overlooked. Every safety rule is written in blood. That saying held true in society at large—and in the Special Zones. Which meant that this Zone's seventeen percent had been bought with someone's blood, too. So they couldn't just throw it away. There was no guarantee a replacement would be any better. And so, left with no choice, they'd kept the status quo—only for it to be destroyed today? To rescue me?

"How many people have died here so far?"

— Mr. Seo Do-woon.

He'd clearly caught my unease. Cha Si-eon's voice turned firm.

— Focus on escaping. That is all. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deployment of the rescue team was the Bureau's decision, made after weighing every factor.

I had no choice but to shut up. I welcomed them trying hard to save me. But if it came bundled with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠other casualties, that was another matter entirely—conscience aside, why? I understood that the Bureau treated me like some kind of rare drop. But there were limits. What exactly were they expecting from me?

— Your heart rate is rising again. Please moderate yourself.

...Maybe the expectation was my own delusion, seeing as how he kept nudging me through my heart rate. Feeling oddly deflated, I closed my mouth and emptied my mind. And in that silence, the small noises of this space grew newly loud in my ears.

Woom-woom-woom—!

Clank—clank—!

Beeeeep—!

Ugh, if I stayed like this my heart rate was going to spike again. To shake off the bleakness and the wrongness of it all, I put my mouth back to work.

"How long have you been with the Bureau?"

— I do not answer personal questions.

"That's rich, coming from someone who's been reading my heart rate this whole time."

— Six years, as of this year.

"That's quite a while."

I'd heard Cha Si-eon was around my age. So he'd finished college—or training—and worked here ever since? Ah. So that's why he's like that.

"Is the Bureau's work manageable?"

— No.

Surprisingly, the answer came instantly. An outright negative, at that.

"Then why do you do it?"

— Because it must be done.

Cha Si-eon's answer left me a little stunned, and I stared blankly for a moment—which was when the brutal order came down.

— Rest is over. Get up.

What? Already? Wondering if I'd been racing the clock again, I checked my watch. I hadn't.

"There are still thirty seconds left."

— You've rested sufficiently. Start moving.

What kind of tyranny was this? I pretended not to hear.

— Mr. Seo Do-woon. Get up.

...Something about the Grim ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Reaper calling your name three times before dragging you off. Out of options, I hauled myself to my feet.

— B1 is the grocery section. As before, it contains invisible traps and Hazard Entities. This floor's entities are the "Sampling Corner Staff" and the "Cashier Staff," with the "Woman Pulling a Shopping Cart" appearing at rare intervals.

We'd only come down one floor, but the method for getting through was the same as before. I charted the traps with the bloodstained cloth scraps as I advanced bit by bit. Mercifully, the "Sampling Corner Staff," unlike the "Shelf Stocker," didn't patrol a wide area. So crossing the grocery section should have been relatively easy. Should have been.

— Stop for a moment.

Cha Si-eon abruptly halted me. And right then—

Flap! Kaang—!

Something came whirling through the air with a screech of metal. The direction: toward the "Sampling Corner Staff," the one I'd been deliberately keeping my distance from.

Kang! Kang! Karang—!

Metal struck metal again and again from the same direction.

"What's the situation?"

— A bird has gotten in somehow.

"A bird?"

— The bird is flying around the area, and the "Sampling Corner Staff" is attempting to drive it off.

Animals get in here too?

Even Cha Si-eon hadn't predicted this, apparently, because his voice grew noticeably more careful.

— For now, keep your distance—

The sentence cut off dead.

— DOWN!

A roar came instead. And then, unmistakable déjà vu.

I dropped flat, nearly leaping to the floor.

Shwick—!

Something tore through the air directly above me a heartbeat later. I'd dodged it this time! I raised my head belatedly to get a look, but nothing remained in the air. Instead, the stacking rack where the powdered-milk tins had been piled was moving. Slowly. And at a tilt.

— LEFT!

At Cha Si-eon's command, I rolled. The instant after, the upper half of the rack sheared cleanly away from the lower half and toppled sideways.

Kwang! Kwaang—!

Cans burst free and came pouring down toward me. I was battered like a drum by the avalanche of goods. Still—it could have been worse. The powdered-milk tins were light for their size, survivable. The problem was that the lids had flown off, and the milk powder had geysered out everywhere.

But... what was this?

...Sawdust?

I went cold as I stared at the powder spilled across the floor. These tins were only a convincing imitation on the outside. The contents they'd spat out as they crumpled were sawdust—inedible, useless sawdust.

Kang—!

Another shriek of metal made me flinch and flatten myself lower. Past the sheared-off half of the rack, I caught sight of the bird fluttering. Black wings. It looked like a crow. And beneath it, something swinging a long blade.

The "Sampling Corner Staff."

It, too, had a barcode scanner for a head. But the body below it was riddled with errors, like a badly drawn picture. Its clothes and skin were tangled together, to say nothing of the huge tongs and scissors fused to its hands.

"Team Leader Cha."

I called out urgently at the sight of the monster.

"Team Leader?"

No answer.

...The earpiece. It fell out.

Only then did I realize the earpiece had slipped from my ear. I scrambled to check the floor—this damned—! The floor was chaos, buried under heaped sawdust.

Just in case, I checked my watch. Because the earpiece had disconnected, it no longer carried Cha Si-eon's voice at all.

Damn it!

I raked through the sawdust, hunting for the earpiece, sweeping the floor desperately as I prayed the "Sampling Corner Staff" wouldn't turn this way. Soon something snagged on my glove. The earpiece I'd dropped! I frantically brushed it off and wedged it back in—

And in that same instant, Cha Si-eon's voice exploded, loud enough to shake my skull.

— Seo Do-woon, behind you!

I flinched and started to retreat—then stopped. Pulling back was retreat. Then what was I supposed to do about behind?

Bewildered, I turned on instinct all the same. And my eyes met—a barcode scanner looking down at me.

The next moment, my body was yanked backward off the ground. That Hazard Entity—the "Shelf Stocker," which was supposed to be on the first floor—had seized my ankle and hoisted me up. Suspended upside down, I kicked at its head with my free leg.

Kwang—!

It didn't so much as budge. Instead, its light source swept across my face.

BEEP— BEEP— BEEDEEDEEDEEDEEDEE—

The world was upside down and shaking wildly. Cha Si-eon kept shouting. But the sound I was making was louder.

My thrashing toppled a display shelf. Digging my heels in did nothing. The knife I'd pulled from my vest went spinning from my grip in the end. Before I knew it, the "Sampling Corner Staff" had caught up and was keeping pace beside me.

All that suffering to climb down—and being dragged back up to the first floor was this easy.

And now, right in front of the store entrance.

Too late.

I'd dropped the knife earlier, so the "less painful choice" was off the table. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I have to do for it to be painless—

No. I don't want to die!

Right up to the last second, I scraped stupidly at the floor. But the "Staff's" monstrous strength brushed my resistance aside like it was nothing, and the tactical glove on my trapped hand peeled away in a long, grinding strip.

And the moment I saw it, I remembered—belatedly, far too belatedly.

Wait. Maybe—!

Dragged all the way to the entrance, I hastily stripped the glove off my hand. Then I spread my palm open toward the "Staff" that was trying to tear me apart.

Ding—

In that instant, every "Staff" entity stopped moving.

What I was wearing on my finger right now.

It was the ring Baek Sa-ra had given me.