It Rains Blood (7)

The stars were glittering thick and fast in the black sky.

I shook Cha Si-eon awake from his deep sleep in a spot with no roof over it.

“Team Leader, it's time to get up. Team Leader.”

When I shook his shoulder, Cha Si-eon, who had been sleeping like the dead, snapped his eyes open. He glanced between me and the night sky in alarm, then hurriedly tried to sit up.

“Ugh…!”

No—correction. He tried to sit up and failed. The way he clutched his lower back and twisted told me his wounds had torn open again.

Maybe he'd be better off not pushing himself.

But Cha Si-eon gritted through the pain and managed to rise into a sitting position anyway. Then he fixed me with a murderous look and demanded, “What time is it right now?”

“Almost midnight.”

At my answer, his face contorted violently. “Have you lost your mind? What on earth possessed you to do something like this—!”

He slept beautifully, and now he's throwing another tantrum.

“I did it because I intend to come up with a countermeasure starting now. That is, we still have two hours and forty minutes before the Blood Rain falls.”

At my calm reply, the look in Cha Si-eon's eyes grew even more savage. So I decided to prod Team Leader Cha one more time.

“If you want to assign blame, start with your own shortcomings. Mistaking the medication was your doing. Stumbling around and passing out was your doing. Failing to earn my trust and cooperation—isn't that also on you? This is all the fault of your deficient leadership.”

"…."

“And we have no time to waste right now. Stop being emotional and focus on the situation.”

Cha Si-eon clenched his jaw. Apparently when you handed a man back his own words, verbatim, it sealed his mouth shut. But he looked ready to detonate again at any moment, so I held out my notebook to Team Leader Cha. He glowered at it suspiciously, as if to say what is this.

Without a word, I opened the notebook and extended it again. Cha Si-eon reluctantly snatched it from my hand, then started flipping through it with irritation—and came face to face with all the nonsense he'd babbled while half-asleep.

His expression hardened bit by bit, and then he raised his voice at me again. “Why on earth did you write this down? Have you seriously gone insane?”

“I wrote it out for you in case you couldn't remember what you'd said. And this is the thanks I get for being considerate.”

“That's exactly why I'm asking why you'd think to do it this way!”

“Why are you yelling at me for something you said yourself? You think I actually wanted to learn your ex-girlfriend's name?”

"…!"

Cha Si-eon's face went pale. He began frantically rifling through the notebook, and I savored the sight for a good while before adding, “That was a joke.”

"…."

Cha Si-eon froze stiff as if he'd just stepped on a landmine. Then, slowly, he raised his head and looked at me. Both of Team Leader Cha's eyes burned with a fierce will to strangle me.

Strangely enough, looking into those blazing eyes, I felt everything I'd been holding in drain clean away. Ah, maybe this is what I endured it all for.

When I broke into a grin, the muscles in Cha Si-eon's jaw tightened. He apparently wanted to beat me senseless, but it seemed he had a reputation to maintain, so no actual punches were thrown. Thank goodness. The man's well-socialized.

Satisfied with Cha Si-eon's moral restraint, I opened my mouth again. “Team Leader Cha Si-eon.”

“What is it now?”

“Honestly—were you in your right mind?”

"…."

No answer came. So I tossed back a paraphrase of something Team Leader Cha had once said to me. “I'm asking whether, while retaining your rationality, you were considering reasonable alternatives or other countermeasures.”

He seemed to recognize the familiar phrasing, because Cha Si-eon's gaze dropped to the ground. Bad-tempered as he was, he wasn't a man without sense—and he was certainly no coward. True to that faith of mine, Team Leader Cha ran a hand down his face and admitted, grudgingly, “It's true that my judgment was clouded.”

Of course it was. Three days without a proper meal or proper rest. And just as he was catching his breath, of all things, I had to show up. Worse, what Cha Si-eon had felt upon seeing me apparently wasn't relief but mortification. Having heard the news of Ant Hill, his first thought must have been that he had to get me out of here alive at all costs. Backed into a corner, the option he'd settled on was that patriotic spirit of sacrificing his one and only body for the nation.

I'd grant that he was desperate. At the same time, that he was an idiot.

“How is your body, sir?”

When I asked after his condition, Cha Si-eon just glowered at me darkly. Since he seemed disinclined to answer, I used the streetlight to examine Team Leader Cha myself. First, the bloodshot in his eyes had almost entirely faded. What remained was drowsiness—the lingering, heavy kind.

He must have slept extremely well, because some of that settled calm was carrying over to me. For his part, though, he seemed unsettled by how refreshed he felt. Whatever. Thick-skinned as ever.

Having confirmed Team Leader Cha was in one piece, I sat down across from him. “Food first. Let's eat.”

Then I emptied out the plastic bag of snacks. They were what Yu-ju had sent along for Jae-gyeom, and now it looked like the two of us were going to polish off every last one. But hey—process aside, all that mattered was hitting the objective. If this got Cha Si-eon out of here alive, Gwak Jae-gyeom came back to life too. So I'd partake gratefully, one day's provision at a time.

“It seems the island was downgraded after the Second Restructuring.”

Cha Si-eon said this while holding his hand out to me. So I passed him a cola and asked, “Downgraded?”

“I believe it's the effect of the Intensive Suppression Week. Back then, the space was destroyed every time we broke through a sector, and the engagements were brutal. Which is why the restructuring proceeding anyway was a mystery—but it seems the damage from that period actually shrank the Special Zone and lowered its grade compared to before.”

Lowered its grade? I'd heard of resetting a Special Zone or halting its restructuring, but this was a first. Then again, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Cha Si-eon's theory held up.

The Island Where Blood Rains I'd read about in the manual had ten sectors, A through J, and each sector carried seven patterns. In other words, this place was a colossal maze stitched together from no fewer than seventy slaughter spaces.

But now? The sectors we kept slipping in and out of were eight of them, B through I—and each of those sectors was locked to a single pattern. Sector D, Flood. Sector E, Black-and-White Photograph. Sector H, Soap Bubbles. All of them new patterns, admittedly, but the difficulty had dropped considerably compared to before. Since each was a single fixed pattern, you only had to clear it once and then simply copy your own solution forever after.

“Well, I didn't know zones could be downgraded.”

“Neither have I, until now. There are barely any Special Zones that ever reached a Second Awakening, and we've never had to retreat midway through a reset, so this may be why.”

In other words, this place was the product of an in-between state—neither one thing nor the other.

“Works for me. Thanks to it, movement's been relatively easy.”

“This is no situation to relax.”

Cha Si-eon handed me half of a freshly torn strip of jerky. “That's also why the Big Cat appears to be in a heightened, irritable state.”

A Hazard Entity, on edge. Well, the Moving Gun had been in agony, and the barcode-headed Employee had been terrified. So I supposed irritability was possible.

“Is it certain ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that it's after you, sir?”

“Certain. Besides, the Big Cat and I have a bad history to begin with.”

“Bad history?”

“In the past, when I was on a team with Section Chief Kwon Mu-seop, I took part in a campaign to hunt the Big Cat.”

From back when Section Chief ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Kwon Mu-seop was a team leader?

“That would make it quite a while ago, then.”

“Correct. Three years ago.”

So that would have been after Agent Lee Seop's disappearance, at the height of the all-out war.

“At the time, Kwon Mu-seop's team tracked the Big Cat persistently and engaged it dozens of times.”

“And you never caught it in the end?”

“No. Every time it was cornered, it summoned a Mercenary Entity and fled, so we lost it again and again.”

“So the Big Cat isn't actually that strong an entity?”

“It is strong.”

At my words, Cha Si-eon shook his head firmly. “By raw specs alone, it ranks at the very top of every entity in the Special Zone. If the Big Cat set its mind to fighting properly, even our side would struggle to handle it.”

“It fights awfully poorly for something with specs like that…”

I thought back to Team 1's after-action report. Team 1 had engaged the Big Cat thirteen times in total—and the Big Cat had fled from nine of them.

“That's due to poor strategy relative to its capabilities. Even in situations where it could hold out indefinitely, the moment things turned even slightly unfavorable, the Big Cat ran.”

“Is its judgment impaired, then?”

“It's more that it seems emotionally driven.”

“Just like you, sir.”

"…."

Whoops. That slipped out.

I dodged Cha Si-eon's icy stare and popped a potato chip in my mouth. “Regardless—the Big Cat is on bad terms with us, and it can identify individual humans. Which means it also attempts retaliation.”

Retaliation?

“After the Bureau restructuring, an agent who had served under Kwon Mu-seop's team and been reassigned to the Exploration Division carried out a mission here. At ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that time, the Big Cat recognized that agent, followed her, and attacked her repeatedly.”

Served under Kwon Mu-seop, then transferred to Exploration?

“Is that Baek Sa-ra, by any chance?”

“It is. Several expeditions were mounted, but the Big Cat singled out Agent Baek alone, which compromised the operations.”

“Oh—could it have been because of the ring, though?”

Baek Sa-ra had torn off a fragment of the Big Cat during the all-out war two years ago. If she'd had it made into a ring and worn it around, wouldn't that have provoked the creature?

“It was not. Agent Baek only began wearing that ring after the Big Cat started hunting her.”

“After?”

“Once she learned the Big Cat had marked her, she took the fragment she'd secured in the past and had it set into a ring. It was a kind of provocation.”

“I see…”

So the Big Cat remembered Baek Sa-ra from her days on Kwon Mu-seop's team, recognized her during a later expedition, and came after her for revenge? It really is a cat.

They say clever animals—cats, magpies, that sort of thing—remember the people who tormented them and hold grudges, and this was exactly that. What on earth were these things, really? And what on earth was Baek Sa-ra, going around wearing a piece of one as a ring just to win a staring contest with it?

In any case, if that was the Big Cat's nature, now that it had discovered a lone, isolated Cha Si-eon, there was no reason it wouldn't come after him. Which meant our best move was to get off this island before the Big Cat started roaming. But its active period—the Blood Rain—was less than two hours away now. Could we reach Sector A in time?

Realistically, it looked impossible. It hadn't appeared once this whole time; it wasn't about to conveniently show up now.

“Team Leader, is that door definitely connected to Sector A?”

“The island's spatial structure hasn't changed. So it will appear—eventually.”

“Then shouldn't it have shown up long ago?”

At my question, Cha Si-eon took out his own notebook and held it out. On the page he'd opened, the letters A through J were listed in a vertical column, each one marked with tally strokes beside it.

“The number of sectors I broke through while I was alone.”

He's showing me this only now? I shot Cha Si-eon a look of pure incredulity, then began counting the record in the notebook.

He really had covered a staggering amount of ground, all by himself. Enduring it without collapsing was impressive in its own right.

And sure enough—even roaming alone, Cha Si-eon had never once rolled Sector A. Nor, for that matter, Sector J.

“With a record like that, are you still certain A will appear?”

“The spaces of a Special Zone can never become perfectly independent of their original form. They may warp, but they cannot be excluded or deleted—so the space called A itself still exists, in the original configuration.”

The moment I drew breath to rebut him, Cha Si-eon pressed a yakgwa sweet into my hand. If the intent was eat this and listen, then it was an excellent judgment call. I put the dry, crumbly sweet in my mouth and chewed, and the sweetness nearly choked me. Having successfully gagged me into silence, Cha Si-eon continued his explanation.

“The reason Sector A still hasn't appeared, despite all that, is that every sector we've broken through has been a separate space each time.”