We. Have. Lost. It.

With the death of the Butcher — who ranked as something close to the master of this abandoned school — communication with the outside world came back online.

"Master Laughter, look this way~ aaand, ka-chick!"

V-sign flashing against the backdrop of the Butcher — now late... no, the late anomaly — I snapped off a selfie and kept it as photographic evidence.

And so, with a brief video and photos attached, along with a written account of the Butcher's exorcism, I transmitted the whole package to the Management Bureau — and before long, Agent Park Jincheol was driving back up to the abandoned school to collect me.

"...The isolation between this school and reality. It really is gone."

He gazed at the school building as though he still couldn't quite believe it, then took a long look at the Butcher's thoroughly flattened corpse, and only then did Agent Park Jincheol finally seem to relax.

"To be honest, I figured I'd be seeing you tomorrow morning, so I stepped off that car with grim resolve. And yet here we are, meeting again in no time."

"My, my... I certainly didn't expect the exorcism to be wrapped up this quickly. To be frank, Mr. Han, I gave it roughly even odds whether you'd be able to take down the presence occupying that school in the first place. I knew you possessed an exceptional talent for surviving anomalies — but I considered actually subduing them to be a different domain entirely."

"Fortunately, the opponent happened to be an easy one."

"Easy... you say? Beings capable of creating an otherworld sealed off from reality are hardly a common breed."

The difficulty I was talking about didn't refer solely to a foe's rank or raw power. Which is more dangerous — a tiny viper or a massive bull? By weight class alone, the bull, obviously. But to a mongoose, the bull is the deadlier of the two; to a matador, it's the snake.

"Ah~ that much tracks, that much tracks. That guy was certainly strong, no argument there. But he was the type whose brain stopped working the moment he got angry. That's what made him so easy to deal with."

"I see. In any case, now that I have confirmed with my own eyes that the school's master has been put down, your compensation should be deposited into your account by tomorrow at the latest."

"Thank you for your prompt administrative processing."

'Jackpot. 500 million won.'

And so, riding in Agent Park Jincheol's car back to the office, I finally got to sink into the plush CEO's chair that was all mine.

"Ugh, I'm beat. I could just fall asleep right here like this."

[Wash first, then sleep! You filthy bastard.]

"Yaaawn~ Yeah, yeah. Still, though. Getting back in the field after a month... that didn't feel half bad. Maybe I should go out and hunt the occasional anomaly, Bureau contract or not?"

Come to think of it, the only way to learn the Organizer's location in the first place was to track down the other Chasers, grab them by the collar, and shake the answer out of them.

'Keep going around knocking heads, and a former Chaser like Cheogwi is bound to turn up sooner or later.'

For the record, Cheogwi had been a washed-up, bottom-of-the-ladder outcast of a Chaser, which meant she had no way whatsoever of contacting the Organizer.

'I still have to go collect the things in my warehouse. And ten years' worth of appearance fees I was owed, too.'

[Hold on. You got 500 million won. Why did I get absolutely nothing?]

Perhaps the adrenaline from the Butcher hunt had finally drained away, because Cheogwi was suddenly sulking.

"Um, because apart from flicking the lights on and off, you didn't actually do anything?"

[Well, yes, but... I also served as a sort of anomaly-detection sensor... And this kind of work comes with hazard pay, you know...]

She'd helped take down a famous, named anomaly and walked away with nothing to show for it, so she was evidently a little wounded.

"Mm-hm, sure, sure. Then tell this boss of yours, nice and easy — what would you like?"

Honestly, this was the most money I'd ever had in my life. Which meant that for once, I could afford to buy just about anything as a bonus.

[Really? Then the ocean! Let's take a trip to the beach!]

"The beach, huh. We can grill some barbecue while we're at it?"

[Exactly! And I want to wear a pretty swimsuit there!]

That much I could grant without breaking a sweat. A few days away from the office wasn't going to cause any problems ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠anyway.

"Mm-hm, yeah, yeah. Go on and drop whatever you like into the online cart — just make sure it's in your size."

[Well, my chest has gotten a bit bigger lately, so I'm not actually sure what my size is? Fufufu... Say, Doyun — would you measure it for me?]

"How about you flicker off."

[Tch...]

And let it be permanently engraved upon everyone's memory that 'measuring a female employee's bust size' sits at number five on the Top 5 list of Things a Boss Must Never Do.

Anyway, I stepped into the simple shower stall we'd rigged up in the office and let the piping-hot water melt the fatigue out of me, down to the marrow.

"Hnnnnngh... now that's the stuff..."

Thoughts I'd buried deep in the back of my skull over a month of relentless chaos began surfacing one by one.

"Today was a genuinely fun day. Sweeping up fees while making the apartment-block rounds with Cheogwi was pretty entertaining too, but it still can't compare to facing an anomaly myself."

Hugging the Butcher tight as we fell, cramming him full of helplessness and screams right up to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠very last instant — in that moment, I wasn't smiling because 500 million won was about to land in my account. What actually made me smile was something closer to a profound sense of fulfillment, the kind that fills a moment to the very brim.

'To think the single best moment of my entire month was free-falling alongside the Butcher.'

Going by that, my brain had probably rotted straight through long ago.

Could someone like me ever meet a genuinely decent person? Could I ever, in the truest sense of the word, find friends and family again? Every single moment I'd experienced in the Death Game had remade me into something infinitely removed from the ordinary humans who make up most of society.

'If anything, a thrill-kill murderer or a retired soldier wrecked by war PTSD is probably closer to my kind of people. Or maybe whoever's over there humming a tune while picking out swimsuits.'

Running an office side by side with Cheogwi — a spectral entity who, until very recently, had been strangling people to death inside the Death Game — trading jokes and roughhousing like it was the most natural thing in the world. And in this moment, right here, I didn't feel even a flicker of wrongness about it.

Why was that?

"Ah... right. The reason's simple."

Because the Death Game had never actually ended.

I had accepted that life itself — that this whole existence — was, in the end, one long Death Game. And a game like that cannot be escaped. Which meant there was no further need to agonize over any of it. If it's a game, then all you have to do is enjoy it.

Heat and steam billowing off the showerhead had fogged the mirror bone-white. A few squeaking swipes of my hand, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠there I was, standing in the glass, gazing back at myself.

Blank stare first. Then a smile. Then grief. Then rage. And back to blank again.

"Isn't that right, Han Doyun?"

And so Han Doyun and Cheogwi became overnight nouveau riche, 500 million won richer. We'd started out as nothing more than a two-hooman scam duo, wandering the neighborhood fleecing people of pocket change... but at this point, you could probably call us an anomaly-hunter's office — the kind that takes down powerful anomalies and rakes in revenue in the hundreds of millions.

"Someday we could found a Hunter Association, mint a few SSS-rank hunters while we're at it, and then film the grand finale — Management Bureau VS Hunter Association!"

[That's a hunter from an entirely different genre...]

What's more, we were no longer stranded pedestrians doomed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to beg rides off Mr. Park Jincheol's car! Flush with cash, we had purchased a company vehicle — paid in full, cold hard cash. And that vehicle was none other than...!

The one, the only: a burly, roomy Kia-nival.

"For long-distance trips, big and sturdy wins every time, I'm telling you. That's why I agonized right up to the final second over whether to buy the Kia-nival or the Palisade."

[You sound like a textbook middle-aged dad... Wait, hold on. Do you even have a license?]

"Heh heh. The day we set up the office a month ago, the very first thing I did was start my driver's license exams."

[No wonder you kept disappearing out of nowhere. So that's what you were doing?]

Chatting away with Cheogwi about this and that as we cruised down the highway, we eventually reached the destination the GPS had been announcing, almost without noticing.

[We're heeeere!!]

The moment we pulled in, Cheogwi slid straight through the car door and bounded out, while I was still easing into a spot in the nearby parking lot.

"??"

And with that, the navigation switched itself off.

'I'm pretty sure the GPS just said something it had absolutely no business saying.'

But somehow, ignoring it felt like the more entertaining option. So I ignored it.

And sure enough — the moment I finished parking and stepped out, the beach's atmosphere was distinctly off. For starters, the seawater was crimson as blood. That alone was proof positive that, without either of us noticing, we had already crossed into an otherworld sealed away from reality.

"...Is this really the right place? Happiness Beach?"

[Yep, that's the one. But this is...]

We turned our attention to the large notice posted along the beach's boundary line.

'Hm. So it's that kind of place.'

"Let me put a question to you first: I'll admit I'm partly to blame for trusting the destination to you, Cheogwi. But seriously — of all the places on Earth you could have picked, why here?"

[W-well... you see, apparently if anomalies visit here, they get 50% off parasol rentals and other services. Saving money is always good, right? Plus, female anomalies get 70% off!]

"The moment a line like that is written into the promotional material, did it never once occur to you that there's no way in hell this beach is run by humans?"

[Keh-heh-heh...!]

"Ugh, for fuck's sake. Seriously."

And so, 'letting your anomaly employee pick the travel destination' was duly added at number four on the list of Things a Boss Should Never Do.