ep7. The Corpse That Runs (2)

With that, back to the present.

Inside the **Member-Only Warehouse Store**.

The gunfire that had been crackling wildly beyond the stacked pallets had fallen quiet at some point.

The explosions, too, had gone silent a while ago.

But my luggage—Gwak Jae-gyeom—was still busy.

"Everyone, give me a mid-progress report."

—A-4, no traps.

"Yes, hold one moment."

—B-7, dead in the water... burned through everything I borrowed and still couldn't finish.

"Then let's stop there. At that trap density, finding a green zone wouldn't mean anything anyway."

—Z-0, Jae-gyeom. These guys won't hand over membership cards? Tried to just take one and they set it on fire.

"Better to leave that to the survey team. Don't fight the 'Staff'—just check how many membership cards are left. I'll go strip them later with Do-woon-hyung."

Jae-gyeom kept up the radio chatter with the agents scattered across the mart while tapping away at a laptop.

Tap, tap-tap-tap—

Like he was writing code, strings of complex English characters poured out under his rapid keystrokes.

A moment later, once something started loading, he keyed the radio again.

"Data compilation complete. Take a breather, everyone, until the analysis comes through."

Oh....

I gaped at him in genuine admiration, and sensing my gaze, he glanced back.

"What?"

"You guys really are special agents, huh...?"

"Hyung, our training is seriously brutal...."

"Didn't know that. Learning it for the first time today."

"You are so unfair."

What Gwak Jae-gyeom and the Response Team agents were doing right now was zone stabilization work.

The Bureau's Special Zone exploration proceeded through phased cooperation between multiple teams.

And the very first phase was stabilization.

Identify and eliminate the hazards inside a zone in advance, laying the groundwork for the other teams to operate.

The Response Team was the one saddled with this grueling job.

And right now, I was fairly astonished by their performance.

I'd written them off as a stifling bureaucracy that hid behind manuals and monitors under the pretext of manpower shortages.

So these people actually did the job, and did it properly?

Even Jae-gyeom, who was mostly a layabout at home, looked thoroughly professional at the moment.

Dressed in black special-forces gear with an SMG slung over his shoulder, he cut an intimidating figure—and seeing him at work, his physical prowess was clearly no joke either.

Right. Cha Si-eon was simply so overwhelming that he overshadowed everything, but this guy was an agent through and through.

"Hippo!"

Then agent Gwak Jae-gyeom barked toward somewhere across the aisle.

Why does he keep calling for the Hippo?

Curious, I followed his gaze.

At the far end of the aisle, someone was approaching us.

A woman with a bob cut.

Unlike the fully armed Response Team agents, she wore a light duty uniform.

Tucked under her arm was a thick roll of what looked like posters.

And above all, she was small—small enough that I couldn't fathom why anyone would call her a hippo.

The bob-haired woman marched briskly up to us.

Then she shoved Jae-gyeom's face flat out of the way with her palm.

"Move it. Stop being in the way."

A voice that blended ferocity and boredom in exquisite proportion.

But Jae-gyeom didn't even blink.

"Excuse me? I was here first."

"Not my problem."

"Why are you wandering around alone? It's dangerous."

"My team's over there. Ugh, seriously, you're gonna kill me!"

She'd been snapping off one-liners when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she suddenly blew up.

Because Jae-gyeom had been running his hand all over the top of her head—barely reaching his chin—mussing her neatly combed hair.

Her hair ruined, she flared up in fury and swung a fist.

Craaack—!

Then came a very wrong sound.

He'd raised his arm to block, and of course his hard arm guard happened to catch her knuckle dead-on.

Oh dear. That must hurt.

"Wasn't on purpose."

Jae-gyeom offered his apology as her expression went stone cold.

Not that it helped....

She tossed her bundle aside and started wailing on him.

Incredible. Beating up a man holding a gun like that.

And Jae-gyeom, dressed up like a special forces operative and just standing there taking the beating... hmm.

Honestly, he could stand to take a few more hits.

He was grinning behind his raised guard, after all.

Are these two friends?

Certainly, the Hippo had a face just as youthful as Jae-gyeom's.

And her seemingly ordinary black bob, on closer look, was dyed blue on the inner layer only.

What do you call that again? Two-tone dye?

Every bit as distinctive as Jae-gyeom's bleached blond.

Putting it all together, the two of them were peers of the same age who seemed to fight and get along in equal measure.

What was happening now was closer to play than an actual fight.

But hey, kids—do you really think this is the place to goof off...?

Unable to read the room, I watched the two young people with awkward reserve.

That was when the Hippo, who'd been fully occupied pummeling Jae-gyeom, noticed me.

"Huh?"

She stopped mid-assault.

Then, wearing a vaguely uncertain look, her eyes suddenly went wide—aaaah.

"You're not Otter Agent-nim, are you?"

A wetland creature recognized a wetland creature...!

As I floundered, Jae-gyeom cut in.

"Hey. Hands off my hyung."

"Get lost. What do you mean, *your* hyung? He's an otter!"

You're both wrong, you two.

I'm neither your hyung nor an otter.

The Hippo landed a few more blows on Jae-gyeom and finally shoved him away.

Then she swapped her ferocious face for a bashful one, bowed politely to me, and said:

"Hello, Agent-nim. I'm a really big fan...."

"I'm... sorry?"

When someone greets you, returning the greeting is only common sense.

But what I'd just heard was so utterly nonsensical that the words died in my throat.

A fan? Why on earth?

That was when she abruptly thrust out her own wrist and declared:

"I'm a member of the Otter Survival Movement Headquarters too!"

Dangling from that wrist was a flat bracelet.

A silicone bracelet printed with a picture of an otter.

"...What's that?"

" Limited-edition merch for founding members of the Otter Survival Movement. I made it myself."

"Oh, really?"

Forgetting all my awkwardness, I asked back in surprise.

I had my own fair share of expertise when it came to merchandise.

The publishing house made some now and then as a marketing side venture.

And even to my eye, the bracelet she held out was seriously high quality.

Sure, it was just a silicone bracelet—but look at it.

That otter illustration alone used four distinct colors, border included.

Rendering an otter that crisp with four-color printing on slippery silicone—this was unmistakably the work of someone with real skill.

"Which vendor did you have this made at?"

"I made it in-house. Design to production, all me."

"You made this yourself?"

How? The equipment alone couldn't have been cheap, surely?

At my reaction, the smiling Hippo lit up even further, then suddenly snapped to attention and introduced herself.

"Oh! My name is Ha Yu-ju. I'm with the Formation Team."

Formation Team? Ah, then that explains it.

The Bureau's Field Operations Command consisted of four teams.

The Response Team, deployed to crisis situations and zone stabilization.

The Survey Team, which investigated a zone's underlying mechanics in depth.

The Control Team, which measured and monitored a zone's internal environment.

And the last of the four was the Formation Team.

"I designed this too—want to take a look?"

Ha Yu-ju picked up the poster bundle she'd tossed aside and unfurled one.

It was the kind of product advertisement you'd see anywhere in a mart.

But where the product description should have been, this was written instead:

It looked exactly like a flyer, but the contents were a rulebook.

And yet it was quite well made, with no sense of incongruity at all.

When I marveled, Ha Yu-ju eagerly showed me more.

"And this is a banner we're going to set up in the trap sections."

This one, too, could pass for a banner you'd genuinely find in a mart.

Even so, a message completely different from the store's design read with zero dissonance.

The map and movement directions were crisply legible as well.

"You really do make beautiful work."

"Wow, you really think so? We worked so hard on this one. Word was these rules came from Otter Agent-nim himself, so we stitched every single thread with care!"

"These flyers and banners were made in-house too, right?"

"Yes. We can't use outside vendors because of security."

"Must have been a lot of work to make all this."

"Oh, work's nothing. Honestly, it was the most fun I've had in ages. We've had so little to do lately that I was bored out of my mind."

"You have no work?"

"Right. If those guys don't give us work, our team has nothing to do."

"Hey, if you say it like that, it makes my team sound like a bunch of slackers...."

Jae-gyeom, singled out by Ha Yu-ju as "those guys," muttered a small complaint.

Well, fair enough, I suppose.

The Response Team has to do their job first before the Formation Team gets anything to do.

Because the Formation Team was the department that created and placed the rulebooks.

Why not just slap the rulebook together, print it roughly, and distribute it? you ask.

Absolutely not.

"It takes at least this level of quality for them to hold up, right?"

"Yes. If there's even the slightest dissonance, the entities notice right away. Then they come over and tear it all down."

At my question, Ha Yu-ju nodded her head vigorously in reply.

Word had it that the entities inside a Special Zone disliked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠objects from the outside.

So when they spotted something suspicious, they frequently damaged it or cleared it away.

On the other hand, even outside objects, if they blended well enough with their surroundings, the entities would fail to recognize them and pass by.

That was why the Bureau had a dedicated department for making rulebooks.

They needed rulebooks precise enough to fool the zone's eyes.

As I nodded along, deeply impressed, Ha Yu-ju's eyes suddenly gleamed and she said:

"Agent-nim, is there any merchandise you'd like to have?"

There would not be.

"For the record, our team leader is the founding president of the Otter Survival Movement."

That is an excessive amount of TMI.

"We're recruiting for the third cohort soon. Any interest in joining our activities?"

Ha Yu-ju's eyes sparkled as she spoke.

She'd startled me earlier by beating Jae-gyeom black and blue, but Ha Yu-ju was, in essence, just an ordinarily energetic person.

Though her energy level was a bit high for me to keep up with....

As my stamina gradually drained, Jae-gyeom cut in.

"Aren't you busy?"

"Tch."

"Wow, look at that expression change. Incredible."

"Agent-nim, I'll send you an Otter Survival Movement merch set later. There's a keyring, magnets, and even a name tag."

Ha Yu-ju promised future delights with a disappointed face.

Apparently Ha Yu-ju was someone who enjoyed the whole act of fangirling itself.

And I, it seemed, was merely being used as its object.

...How reassuring.

Returning to her actual job, Ha Yu-ju unfurled a poster behind us.

Then she looked around, as if searching for a suitable spot.

"Help me out?"

"Hold this up and stand there."

When Jae-gyeom offered to help, she readily handed the job over.

Yep, these two really are close.

The problem was that my wrist was bound to Jae-gyeom's, which meant I had to move along with them.

At this rate, who's even carrying whom...?

Jae-gyeom and I stood side by side, holding up posters while Ha Yu-ju snapped photo after photo with her camera.

A little while later, she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠came over and showed us the shots.

"Does this work?"

"Feels way too corner-ish."

"That's so it's visible right away from over there."

When Yu-ju pointed toward the aisle, Jae-gyeom's gaze followed.

Like a bunch of college kids working on a group project.

I was gazing warmly at the scene when—

Suddenly, everything around us went dark.

At the same time, a strange sensation wrapped around my entire body.

The air changed without any warning whatsoever.

No way.

I looked up.

Sure enough, the space had changed.

But I wasn't alone this time.

"...So it actually does work, huh."

Gwak Jae-gyeom laughed, looking utterly helpless.

Then he scowled at Ha Yu-ju, who was standing beside him.

"Why'd you follow us here?"

He'd said it nastily on purpose, so as not to startle Yu-ju.

But his voice was so thick with panic that it had the opposite effect.

Besides, Ha Yu-ju—dragged here with no warning whatsoever—had already gone white as a sheet.

"Hey, Hippo—"

Jae-gyeom called to her again, and Ha Yu-ju clutched her left arm and let out a scream.

"...!"

In that scream unlike anything I'd ever heard, I saw it, plainly and clearly.

Ha Yu-ju's severed arm—

and the blood fountaining furiously from the cut.