Chapter 104

“Your life is not precious to you, but you are afraid of becoming a monster?”

At Cha Si-eon’s counterquestion, I thought for a moment.

Then I decided that good was good and offered a small kindness.

“Where should I begin explaining? First, you do know the concept of fear, right?”

“……Do you seriously think I do not?”

How fascinating.

Seeing as he understood mockery right away, it was not that he had no social tact at all.

Then why exactly was Team Leader Cha like this?

I simply stared in confusion at Cha Si-eon as he bristled and argued back.

Then Cha Si-eon turned the arrow toward me as if he found this absurd.

“And are you not the one who does not know what fear is?”

“Me?”

“Who was the one poking around everywhere like a dopamine addict even when told it was dangerous? When a person like that suddenly pretends to be scared, is it not strange?”

“Team Leader, what kind of human being have you seen me as until now……?”

Cha Si-eon looked at me with eyes asking whether I really did not know.

At that moment, I realized it for the first time.

Just as I had treated Cha Si-eon as a psycho, Cha Si-eon had treated me as a lunatic.

“No…… putting that aside. Is it not obvious? Usually, becoming a monster is scarier than dying.”

“Why is that usual? Usually, it is the opposite.”

Huh?

“Ordinary people choose to survive by any means necessary.”

“……?”

“Ordinary people do not set death itself as the default, the way Mr. Seo Do-un does.”

It was not a particularly shocking statement, but for some reason, I was left speechless.

So I remained blank for a moment, then came to my senses and argued back.

“No, it is not as if dying is particularly natural to me either. Besides, Team Leader, you are more extreme than me, if anything. Who was the one disregarding fire and water in the 「Island」?”

Cha Si-eon was precisely the “person so desperate to die he had gone mad” certified by the doctor.

So I protested, meaning, were you in any position to talk about others? But I was immediately refuted.

“Is it right to place Mr. Seo Do-un and me on the same line and compare us?”

“Pardon?”

“I am someone who received long-term training to be prepared for death, and Mr. Seo Do-un was a civilian only 4 months ago. Nor were you someone working in emergency rescue or emergency medicine. You were an ordinary person who would have had few occasions to encounter death, under normal circumstances.”

Uh…….

“Does it seem natural for such a person to readily choose death at the crossroads of life and death?”

At Cha Si-eon’s words, I felt a strange bewilderment.

It was the bewilderment of suddenly realizing that my common sense was nonsense to others.

So after hesitating for a moment, I awkwardly protested.

“That is because I am a rational person……?”

“Rationality overwhelming instinct is not an ordinary person’s quality either.”

“If not an ordinary person, then what?”

“One of two things, I suppose. A saintly sage, or a patient.”

Team Leader Cha, your sharp remarks are particularly severe today……?

At Cha Si-eon’s assertion, I lost my words again.

Am I really strange?

First of all, I was certain I was not a person who could stand among saints or sages.

But if asked whether I was a patient, was that not also untrue?

I think of myself as a fairly decent person……?

And is it not better to die than to become a monster?

Is it really the opposite?

Though, contaminated people were living courageously in their own way too.

Under a strange shock, I looked back at myself.

Then, in the spirit of reflection, I murmured humbly,

“Then should I just proudly become a monster……?”

“……That is not what I meant. No, why does your logic leap that way again?”

Why did it leap that way?

I accepted what you said and chose a somewhat more universal reaction.

Because I am a rational person.

And according to my extremely rational judgment, Cha Si-eon’s grievance handling seemed to have failed.

No, in some sense, it was an enormous success.

Suppressing a grievance and erasing it. What a truly astonishing counseling technique.

Perhaps Cha Si-eon also sensed that something had gone wrong, because he sighed and asked back.

“Is this perhaps because of Team Leader Kang Seung-cheol’s matter?”

“That was decisive, yes. But I had felt a sense of wrongness since before.”

In my situation, would it not be abnormal not to feel any sense of wrongness?

The suspicion that the entity called 「Crow」 was watching my every move.

The guess that I kept being used in some hidden scheme of that entity’s.

The unclear end of Agent Lee Seop, who could be called my precedent.

And even the far too intact body of Team Leader Kang Seung-cheol found this time.

Was there any guarantee that I would not follow in those footsteps?

No, there was not.

Besides, I was already strange.

The fact that I kept getting sucked into Special Zones.

The fact that I could touch the cores of Special Zones.

If these were characteristics unique only to me, then this was clearly strange.

So the words Ryu Dan-a had skillfully tossed out were by no means light to me.

The delusion that I might be “something” made by “someone” had a heavy sense of reality, at least to me.

“Yesterday, you asked whether one becomes a dangerous entity if contamination becomes severe.”

Cha Si-eon suddenly began.

Yes, I had asked.

And I had heard the answer too.

The not particularly surprising answer of, “At present, we do not know.”

“We still do not even know what dangerous entities are.”

But Cha Si-eon deliberately added to what he had already answered.

“We merely named particularly aggressive entities that act inside Special Zones dangerous entities. We have not even identified whether those entities are a species or created things.”

“So you mean you do not know?”

“If a contaminated person whose appearance has become severely deformed attacks people inside a Special Zone, we will classify that person as a dangerous entity as well. If we fail to realize until the end that the contaminated person was originally human, that is.”

“…….”

How should I understand this?

Did it mean it did not matter whether the identity of a dangerous entity was human or not?

No, more than that, it probably meant they truly did not know.

Not only did they not know whether the final form of a contaminated person was a dangerous entity, they did not yet know what exactly they were fighting.

This mountains upon mountains and fog-without-a-clue situation was the current state of the Special Management Bureau, and of me.

As I quietly swallowed a sigh, Cha Si-eon asked me back.

“What exactly is the monster Mr. Seo Do-un speaks of?”

“Usually, something outside the bounds of common sense is called a monster.”

“Is No. 71, Ryu Dan-a, whom we met today, a monster?”

Ryu Dan-a?

She was a unique person, but I did not think she was a monster.

I shook my head.

“Then is the citizen who was isolated in 「Ant Hill」 a monster?”

“No, that person is human…….”

Now, of course, and even when she had been contaminated and her body had come undone, that woman had clearly been human.

“Then where does the monster begin?”

It was a question that gave me déjà vu for some reason.

At the same time, I realized that my fear had remained at a vague level.

I was pessimistic that I might become a monster, but I had never concretely thought about what exactly that monster was.

So I belatedly considered it and corrected myself.

“My earlier answer was wrong. The monster I am thinking of is not something outside the bounds of common sense. It seems closer to losing rationality.”

“A slight deformation of the body would be fine, then.”

“It would not be fine. Do not subtly lower the hurdle.”

For some reason, Cha Si-eon looked disappointed at my quick refutation.

Hey, do not casually handle anyone’s grievances anywhere else.

Saying you are handling grievances, you keep trying to really handle people’s grievances whenever you get the chance.

Team Leader Cha, whose counseling technique was the worst but who had persistence, asked me again.

“What exactly does losing rationality mean?”

“Exactly as it sounds. One’s thoughts are distorted and reason grows clouded, so one commits wrong actions. Without even realizing that one is doing wrong.”

“Is that the monster Mr. Seo Do-un defines?”

“Yes. By my standard, that is a monster.”

Of course, I disliked physical deformation too.

But even without arms or legs, a person was a person.

Of course, if that happened, one would fall outside the category of the majority.

One would grow more distant from the power called normality, and because of that, the difficulty of life would increase considerably.

But that did not mean one would cease to be a person.

What I truly feared was becoming something completely different.

Losing rationality and reason, and wandering endlessly through the dark.

If the thing the Bureau could not even guess carelessly, that is, if the snake-shaped 「False God」 truly had been Team Leader Kang Seung-cheol.

If the person who had offered his life to solve that space had instead been transformed into a danger factor of that space and remained there until now.

That would be the form of monster I wanted most to avoid.

“Then I will help you come to your senses from beside you.”

“Pardon?”

“If you are worried about entering a state where your mind slips away, we just have to keep that from happening, do we not?”

“That is true, but how exactly do you plan to do that?”

“There will be various methods.”

“It sounds like you are saying you will beat me down as much as you like if the time comes…….”

“If it is effective, I will try anything.”

“…….”

“Is that enough now?”

At this point, I felt I had to acknowledge it.

Team Leader Cha’s unique counseling technique, and its effectiveness.

He tried to dispose of other people’s problems as if he were making a deal or cleaning.

He did not even roughly shove them away or cover them up; he clung to them with all his might, so I was the one who ended up wanting to compromise instead.

Wondering whether this was truly right, I let out an incredulous laugh.

Above our heads, it was now completely dark.

Looking at the fake sky that had become pitch-black night, I thought for a moment.

Then I laughed again and opened my mouth, feeling a little lighter.

“Yes, for now, I will be in your care.”

---

The next day, I went out for the first time in a while.

“Wow, there are seriously a lot of people.”

Jae-gyeom, who had come with me, admired the sight as he looked around.

The National Museum of Korea located on Seobinggo-ro in Yongsan.

Not 「National Museum of Korea」, the Quarantine-grade Special Zone, but the real National Museum of Korea, where precious artifacts were displayed and high-quality merch was sold.

Just as Jae-gyeom said, there truly were many people.

So it felt completely different from 「National Museum of Korea」.

Unlike that place, where people had held their breath and lain face-down under the pressure of the 「False God」, this space now overflowed with vitality.

I passed through that bright space and went to the Room of Silence where the Half-Lotus-Seated Buddha Statues were.

Then I faced the two Buddhist statues I had not dared look at inside the Special Zone.

The beautifully shaped Buddhist statues were smiling quietly with their eyes closed.

I wanted to offer thanks.

I survived thanks to you. Thank you for being here.

I also considered pressing my palms together like Buddhists to show proper courtesy, but it felt like too clumsy an imitation, so I simply closed my eyes.

But perhaps it was because I stood before merciful Buddhist statues.

Suddenly, my insincere conduct came to mind.

Yesterday, in the end, I had not told Cha Si-eon.

That I had swallowed saliva while looking at 「Big Cat」.

Why had I not said it when it was a fairly important problem? Well.

I felt I needed to be a little cautious.

So I still asked only myself.

If my mouth watered after seeing the horrific monster called 「Big Cat」, can that truly be called human?

I still could not know.

But I would come to know before long.

One way or another.