The Theater That Roots Out the Fake (3)

Baek Sa-ra ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been recruited into the Bureau through a special appointment four years ago.

She was only twenty-one at the time.

The youngest agent ever, and the sole woman among the entire field operations staff.

It was perhaps only natural that all sorts of attention gathered around her.

"Honestly, Sara-noona's just gorgeous the moment you lay eyes on her. Apparently a lot of people tried hitting on her back when she was a rookie."

There was no denying that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Baek Sa-ra was an uncommon beauty.

And she'd been freshly of legal age back then, so the people around her apparently hadn't left her alone for a second.

"But when she didn't respond to any of it, some of them got their feelings hurt for no good reason. And the problem is, one of those people was her own team leader at the time……"

"Oh……"

Even hearing just this much, the story was already unbearably sordid.

A superior who hit on the rookie on his own team, then had his feelings wounded over it. Give someone an inch and you could read the whole yard; I had a pretty good idea of what came next.

"At first he showered her with excessive favors, then somewhere along the line — maybe she rejected him, who knows — he started tormenting her like crazy. Public dressing-downs were standard, he made her run pointless errands, and he'd nitpick her work mid-task just for the hell of it."

"Baek Sa-ra put up with that?"

"For about three months."

That sounded a lot like something flipped over after three months.

And sure enough — it was right after Baek Sa-ra finished her three-month probationary period and became a full-fledged agent.

That day too, the team leader attacked her out of habit.

-Why's your face got that look? If you've got a complaint, just say it. Don't go sulking just because you're a woman.

He'd said it mid-meal in the staff cafeteria.

In a place where other teams were eating too, loud enough that it was clearly meant to be overheard.

It was a kind of exhibitionism, really.

A base little display: *look how I can grind down a woman everyone envies.*

That was the kind of man Baek Sa-ra's old team leader was, and Baek Sa-ra knew his game all too well, which is why she'd quietly endured the first three months.

-That's not true.

-Not true, my ass. You're pointlessly sensitive, you know that. What, are you on your period or something?

Snide remarks of this caliber were a daily occurrence.

So there was nothing particularly special about the situation that day.

-Damn princess you are. Must be nice, with all those excuses to hide behind.

Nothing special at all — harassment ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the level of routine background noise.

But that day was the day after Baek Sa-ra's official appointment, and the team leader should have understood what that difference meant.

Had he done so, he might have made a slightly smarter choice upon seeing her radiant smile.

-Hey, are you laughing?

-Are you jealous?

-What did you say?

At her unfamiliar response, the team leader scoffed as though the whole thing were beneath him. And just as he moved to pile it on again, Baek Sa-ra acted first.

-If you're jealous, come join me.

The next instant, Baek Sa-ra's cafeteria tray buried itself in the team leader's face.

The seated team leader toppled over backward, chair and all, and Baek Sa-ra vaulted clean over the table after him.

What followed was a one-sided beating.

She climbed astride the fallen team leader and rained blows down on him without mercy. Then, before anyone could pull her off, she seized him by the hair and hauled him upright.

The blood pooled in his nose and mouth slid down under gravity in a long, dark trickle.

Should I call it coincidence — or something thoroughly, deliberately malicious?

Of all places, the spilled blood soaked right into his crotch.

"So visually speaking, he was really… you know. Like that."

"……Then what happened?"

"Sara-noona got disciplined and transferred teams. But hey, she'd already finished her official appointment, so she wasn't fired. They factored in how he'd been tormenting her the whole time, too — and back then Kwon Mu-seop, the section chief, was the team leader of the neighboring team, and he vouched for her, said he'd take her under his own management."

"Did she hold out on purpose until her probation ended?"

"Going by the dates, I'd say so."

That sent a chill down my spine.

She'd held it in because causing an incident during probation would've gotten her kicked out — then thrown the punch the very next day after her official appointment.

"But that's not where it ends."

"Did the team leader get revenge?"

"No, nothing like that. So, uh… a period is something you get once a month, right?"

"Don't tell me……"

As I clapped a hand over my mouth, Jaegyeom nodded gravely.

"At first the team leader was furious, said he wouldn't let it slide, raised all kinds of hell. But she'd already moved to another team, so he couldn't touch her — and then exactly one month later, Sara-noona went to find him herself."

"Went to find him and…?"

"According to witnesses, she said, 'You have to do it this month too' — and then suddenly kicked his face in. So the guy got hauled off bleeding again, and the nose he'd barely had mended broke all over again."

"……And that was the end of it?"

"Nope…… She kept it up for a whole five months. Every month, on that exact day, she'd go find him and beat him down. And again. And again."

Baek Sa-ra, that's going too far……!

Why? Why on earth would she go that far?

Shaking with shock and awe, I forced my hope circuits to spin.

"W-well, at least she stopped before half a year."

"Sara-noona didn't stop. The team leader resigned."

So she drove him out in the end……

"Getting beaten on a schedule is one thing, but on top of that, this nickname — 'the Field Ops cross-dresser' — spread all over the Bureau. It gave him depression and social anxiety, and in the end…"

Oh. That's what this meant.

When Baek Sa-ra marks you, even a man gets his period.

"Anyway, after that, nobody's gone near Baek Sa-ra. It's a survival rule of Field Ops that senior agents always pass down to the rookies — purely by word of mouth."

Gwak Jaegyeom looked at me as if to check whether I understood.

Baek Sa-ra's brutality — yes, I understood that.

But everything else went right over my head.

"Is it really okay for employees to just beat each other up like that? She got disciplined at first, didn't she?"

"Obviously not."

"Then why did the team leader give up?"

The team leader was in the wrong, sure — but Baek Sa-ra's subsequent behavior was also excessive. Special organization or not, how could conduct like that be tolerated?

Insubordination of the ranks gets punished even more harshly in the military, after all. And the Bureau, armed and operational, was barely different from a military unit.

"I heard this from the seniors too, but apparently Sara-noona got her hands on that team leader's weakness."

"What weakness?"

"No idea past that. But hey — a guy who hits on his own subordinates probably racked up plenty of things he could've been nailed for, right?"

Fair. Nobody commits just one sin.

So what it came down to was this: the team leader had done something terrible enough that he couldn't utter a peep even while getting beaten on schedule, and Baek Sa-ra used that leverage to torment him month after month?

……That genuinely gave me shivers.

"The hyungs say Sara-noona actually seems to enjoy it."

I could believe that just from hearing it.

How else would a person go beat someone up on a fixed date, every single month?

This wasn't a crime of passion, something done on a sudden flare of emotion.

She calmly picked her dates and dismantled a human being according to plan.

With a weakness in her grip that he couldn't fight back against, no less.

"Sara-noona never attacks anyone without a reason. But once a reason exists — how should I put it? She's kind of demonic. You've seen it, right? How she handles the inmates in the Special Zone."

I had. And I'd heard it too.

-They only wear the shape of people. Every last one of them is a vicious murderer. If you pity them, how do you think the innocent victims who died — or their families — would feel?

-So never sympathize with them. The ones who come to me, to begin with, are humans who could fall straight into hell and it still wouldn't be enough.

"A good chunk of Exploration Team ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠missions involve working alongside the inmates. And normally, everyone hates that work. At the end of the day it's essentially a death sentence being carried out — even the worst bastard becomes someone you've shared words with, exchanged faces with, and once that happens, some kind of rapport takes root. But Sara-noona? Not a trace of it."

"I see……"

"Look, I'm not saying this to trash her — it's just something you should know. The fact that she's unusually warm toward you is the anomaly. She's not actually a nice person."

I nodded in acknowledgment.

Certainly, she did seem uniquely lenient toward me.

Why, though? Had she liked the roleplay of being my "savior of my life"?

I mulled it over for a moment, then turned the question back to Jaegyeom.

"Aren't you pretty close with Baek Sa-ra too?"

"We go to the same hair salon."

Gwak Jaegyeom flashed a proud face and showed off his bleached hair.

Oh, right.

I'd heard that salon costs for the Exploration Team agents who went on infiltration missions, and for Jaegyeom, were covered by the Bureau's budget.

So this guy's blonde hair was being maintained by taxpayer money……

That said, I suspected he was close with her not because of the shared salon, but simply because he was Gwak Jaegyeom.

The guy's friendliness was already a matter of record at our company. Jaegyeom had something of a country-dog quality about him — welcoming anyone, playing well with everyone.

And a country dog that gives its heart freely and shows kindness to the person who saved its life — isn't that just an ordinarily decent person?

Just as I was thinking that, Jaegyeom added:

"Well, Sara-noona's also a bit softer on the Page juniors."

"Page?"

When I echoed the unfamiliar term, Jaegyeom slapped a hand over his mouth with a whoops expression.

What's with that reaction?

"Ah — you're better off hearing this one from Sara-noona directly. It's not just about me."

Jaegyeom, the man with the built-in auto-commentary feature, actually holding his tongue — what a day.

Baek Sa-ra's rampage was fair game as Bureau survival lore, but this was personal business, was that it?

When I gave him a puzzled look, Jaegyeom added, offhandedly:

"If you're curious, ask her about it later, real casual-like. If it's you asking, she'll probably tell you."

Whether it was training done with the body or study done with the head, the principle was the same.

Learn through repetition.

Then apply it naturally.

I squeezed Jaegyeom's knee and shoulder at the same time. The moment I did, Jaegyeom — who had been perched atop my head — promptly wobbled.

Having finally toppled him, I climbed on top and drove a strike straight into his face.

THWACK—!

My palm cracked against the helmet he'd been made to wear, producing a magnificent impact sound.

If that had been bare skin, his nose would've been bleeding for sure.

"Well done. You're getting much more comfortable with it now."

Baek Sa-ra said it in a satisfied voice as she watched.

Heh heh heh.

A rare compliment — inwardly, I preened.

But learning knows no end, and a person must remain humble at all times.

"Jaegyeom, escape."

At Baek Sa-ra's command, I went flying into empty air.

Jaegyeom had thrust his hips upward and flung me off to the side.

He claimed the top position just like that, and in an instant our places were reversed.

"But you have to stay focused right to the very end. Otherwise you get counterattacked just like this. Mr. Otter, your weight class isn't exactly in your favor either, so you should always assume the fight ends on the first strike. Kill rather than die. Understood?"

Baek Sa-ra was gentle and terrifying in equal measure today as well — and so today's training came to an end.

Somehow three weeks had already passed since I started basic training.

My stamina must have improved a little, because these days I no longer ended up half-dead after a session like I used to.

So this was what getting stronger felt like.

Keep training like this, and couldn't I even strangle Cha Si-eon?

Fantasizing about a glorious future, I shut my locker door.

Then, as I turned to leave the changing room, the lights suddenly went out.

A power outage?

The instant I lifted my head in alarm, I realized I was sitting somewhere unfamiliar.

"……!"

It was starting again.

I swept my gaze around in a hurry.

First: I was sitting in one of a long, orderly row of seats. Comfortable but cramped seating. And beyond a murky darkness, a stage loomed into view.

I recognized what this place was almost immediately.

At nearly the same moment, a message appeared on my smartwatch screen.

What was this supposed to mean?

Throw away my belongings?

Just as I was reeling from the strange instruction, a new message arrived.