The Business (2)
“Mincheol, hyung.”
“Oh, you're here?”
When I arrived back at the Seonggwang Biotech Research Center in Hwaseong, my coworker from the same hiring class—two years my senior, Mincheol—was already on-site, getting things ready for the cleanup. Apparently the department head hadn't said anything to him about my resignation or my awakening, because he treated me exactly the same as always.
“Who else is inside?”
“Section Chief Shin.”
“What, that guy showed up?”
“He says he's going to kill you, by the way.”
I brushed it off with a snort. A scrawny stick of a section chief wasn't scary—especially not now that I'd awakened. Then again, they'd said they were short-handed, and I guess they really were, if even that lazy slacker had dragged himself out to the site.
“So what happened? Yesterday it was the Seonggwang Group chairman coming, fine. What is it today, the vice-chairman?”
“According to the security guard, yesterday was a total circus. From what I heard, the briefing completely fell apart in front of the chairman. He flew into a rage from head to toe and ordered them shut down on the spot.”
“Don't tell me this is that 'shut down' process?”
“When the great King Chairman of Seonggwang himself gives an order, what can you do? They at least have to pretend. I heard the lead researcher got cut right there on the spot. The chairman immediately called in the contractor and told them to clean house.”
“That researcher has terrible luck.”
Of all the moments to fumble—right in front of the chairman during a live demonstration.
“Anyway, shall we head in?”
My plan was to go in, help with the cleanup, and quietly recover the bacteria from outside. You could call it theft, but strictly speaking, I'd revived dead bacteria—if I didn't collect them and instead recalled them, they'd become completely useless. Rather than recall them into garbage, I figured I'd do a little something called recycling.
“So which area are we cleaning?”
“Room 2029.”
“Huh?”
Room 2029... That was, without a doubt, the last lab where I'd obtained my bacteria.
“We're cleaning that one?”
“Yep. All of it. Why, is there a problem?”
“No, no... what problem?”
That's what I said, but...
This might actually be... a problem?
A little over a day later, we arrived at Room 2029. The gaunt section chief spotted us mid-cleanup and hollered in his high-pitched voice.
“Come early, leave early! Come early, leave early!”
“Yes sir, sorry about that~”
Unlike Mincheol, who managed an easy smile, I couldn't laugh at all. A space that had been a perfectly normal lab until yesterday was now complete wreckage.
Was this really what happened over one little mistake? And the bigger problem was...
Somehow, that mistake felt like it was my fault.
Damn it. What do I do?
Half-panicked and dazed, I got snapped out of it by the section chief shouting at me.
“Kim Se-gyun! Are you just going to stand there?! Work!”
Whew. Right... let's just do what's in front of me first and figure out damage control later.
I was sorting through the waste when it happened.
“Ah, this one's for incineration. Careful. It's sealed, but I heard the bacteria inside are still active. They said just burn the whole thing.”
The petri dish Mincheol handed over. I could feel the bacteria inside wiggling at me in friendly greeting. I moved them through a tiny hole I opened in the dish, gathered them into my hand, and dropped the empty dish into the incineration bin.
“Inventory.”
Then I stored the bacteria inside the small inventory window I opened. My legion of 2.8 billion bacteria had been recovered with almost insulting ease—and I didn't feel the least bit happy about it.
Another hour or two passed, and the lab was fully cleared. The section chief headed out first.
“I'm off. You two finish up and follow.”
Mincheol patted my shoulder.
“Good work.”
“You too, hyung.”
“Want to grab some sundae soup on the way?”
“Next time. I'm a bit busy today.”
“Yeah, alright. See you tomorrow.”
Tomorrow would be my first day of unemployment, technically. But I didn't even have the presence of mind for goodbyes. My head was a mess. I'd been worried already, sure—but I never expected the snowball to roll this far. After seeing Mincheol off, I sat in the lab for a long while, lost in thought.
How do I fix this? Is this even fixable? Should I admit it was my fault? How far would I even be responsible?
Right in the middle of that spiral, I sensed movement behind me.
“Mincheol hyung, you haven't left y... oh?”
There stood a woman with big eyes brimming with tears. She couldn't have been more than 160 centimeters tall—small, with the look of some little rabbit or hamster of a creature. When our eyes met, she flustered.
“Oh, um...”
“Who are you?”
“I'm... a researcher here. Well, a former researcher. You've already... cleaned everything up...”
A former researcher...
So this is her.
“I-I'll just grab the things I left behind...”
“Excuse me...”
“Yes?”
“Once you've got your things, could you talk with me for a moment?”
“Yes?”
“I think I made a serious mistake.”
In the end, I'd resolved to tell the truth. I had no idea how it would go... I didn't know either. Best case, it'd be something I could smooth over.
“So, yesterday... I think I knocked over and broke something that was here.”
“...Yes?”
There was no need to reveal my awakening or my abilities, so I kept it simple—just the facts.
“I picked it all up right away and put it in a different petri dish, but... I have a feeling that might be what caused the problem...”
“No, no. That couldn't be it.”
At my apology, she wiped the tears welling in her big eyes with her sleeve and stared at me, wide-eyed.
“That bacterium is an obligate anaerobe. The moment it touches air, it's supposed to die. But that bacteria... it was definitely alive. If it had died, I would have just brought another sample and done the demonstration.”
So that's what happened...
In other words, if it had simply been dead, there'd have been no problem—but because I'd gone and revived it in undead form, everyone assumed it was alive and carried it into the demonstration. Which makes it even more my fault.
What do I do?
As I wrestled with whether to reveal my ability, I heard her voice take on a resigned tone.
“Besides, even if that were true, it wouldn't matter.”
“Sorry?”
“Realistically, no matter how important the demonstration was, one botched demo doesn't get a whole project dropped and someone fired. You bring in a new strain, redo the demo, write a few formal apologies. That's all it should take.”
That had struck me as odd, too. That's why I'd assumed some huge blunder had occurred. Well, it was a huge blunder, but still...
“This project hasn't shown progress in five years. Since I couldn't let it go, they used this as an excuse to cut me loose. So... don't worry about it. It's not your fault, sir.”
Hearing that eased my mind somewhat. But watching her—jobless, looking half-dead—made me uncomfortable at the same time.
“Still, if there's anything I can help with...”
“Yes, yes.”
She answered, but she didn't look like she thought I'd be any help. Honestly, if I put myself in her shoes, a sudden manual-labor waste collector saying “call me if you need help” would get ignored too. But the me of now was different. As an Awakened, there was definitely something I could do.
As I was thinking, I watched her gather an armful of her belongings. The load itself wasn't small, and her petite frame made it look even bigger.
“I'll carry that for you.”
“No, it's not heavy.”
“At the very least, let me do this much.”
“...Alright then.”
When I took her things, the folder sitting right on top caught my eye.
Research on Maximizing Dungeon Waste Utilization Using the Perpetuus Exomodulus Bacterial Strain
Utilizing dungeon waste?
As a current—well, soon-to-be former—employee of a dungeon waste disposal company, the title sparked instant curiosity.
“That bacterium was apparently meant to process dungeon waste, or something like that?”
“Sorry? How did you—”
“I can see it.”
When I nodded at the document on top, she blinked in surprise, then let out an awkward little laugh.
“Yes, that's right. That's what we were developing it for.”
“Fascinating. I'm curious what uses it has, too.”
“You're curious?!”
At my words, her eyes lit up and she scurried over to a corner of the office.
“It should be around here... here it is. Do you know what this is?”
“What could it be?”
The face was familiar. It just looked like a lump of dog droppings. A clump of brown something, shaped exactly like that—and I couldn't bring myself to douse cold water on her, who had gone from gloomy to suddenly fired up, so I kept my mouth shut. But then she said:
“This is the raw material for extracting the famous Elixir.”
I couldn't help but be stunned.
That's Elixir raw material? The byproduct Ahmad Triaine gets from hunting monsters in the 57th-Tier Dungeon of France?
“Yes? Then...”
“Yes, it was imported directly from France.”
“Isn't that insanely expensive? Leaving it lying around like this... is that okay?”
“Oh, the Elixir components inside were of course all extracted already. This is basically the leftover dregs.”
Well, that figures.
“Ah, I see. But then why...”
“There's still a lot of Elixir component left inside this. It's just that modern science can't extract it.”
“Sorry? What does that mean? A lot left, you say?”
That dropping—no wonder it looked familiar. I'm pretty sure our company hauls tons of these away as waste too. If there were Elixir inside, it would never have made it to our company.
“It's hard to explain, but... think of it like this.”
She pulled a notebook from her pocket, drew two circles overlapping in the middle, and continued.
“This side is the Elixir component, and this side is the monster's cell. So what's this middle part?”
“The Elixir and the monster's cell are fused together?”
“Exactly! But current technology has no way to separate the two, so only the pure Elixir is taken out and used, and the rest gets thrown away.”
“Then the research you were doing was... using bacteria to break apart that fusion?”
“Bullseye!”
She'd been explaining with such excitement that she suddenly realized how worked up she'd gotten, flushed red, and ducked her head.
“S-sorry. No one's shown interest in my research lately...”
“No, it was fascinating. Could I ask why it failed?”
“First, the obligate anaerobic nature is a problem—it dies the moment it touches air. And if we try other bacteria... there are a few that break down organic or inorganic matter, but none that sever a bond structure this fine.”
Severing the bond structure at a microscopic level.
Hm, fair enough.
I already knew from experience that this thing would grind up absolutely everything.
“Honestly, the second problem is the bigger one. The anaerobic issue is minor—you just maintain a vacuum. But the second problem is...”
“What's that?”
“It can't be controlled with current technology. We need it to sever only specific bond structures, but it destroys every molecular bond instead, so it's not easy. We've been stuck for five years.”
Control is the problem, huh...?
But I can control it. My undead bacteria can even move freely through open air.
In that case...
This might actually be...
“Um, could I take this?”
“Sorry? This?”
“As a keepsake...”
“Go ahead. It's waste anyway.”
She watched me pocket the droppings—no, the Elixir-bearing waste—like some kind of scavenger. But to my eyes, it no longer looked like waste.
Well, it still looked like dog droppings, honestly.
But it was droppings that might, just maybe, turn into golden droppings.
“Come to think of it, I don't even know your name.”
“Oh, I'm Lim Gyu-seon.”
“I'm Kim Se-gyun.”
Pfft. She burst out laughing on the spot, then went red in the face.
“S-sorry!”
“I'm used to it. Did you call a cab?”
“No, I was going to hail one.”
“I'll drive you. If you don't mind riding in a dung truck, that is.”
“I-it's fine...”
“I'd like to hear more about the droppings—sorry, the Elixir—on the way.”
“Gah! Then let's go!”
I had zero knowledge in this field, so I did need someone to help me. And she might just turn out to be a great business partner.
I'd better treat her well.