Chapter 117

Sparks were flying through the sky.

The tiny, tiny flames cooled as they fell and became gray ash.

Even those, by the time they fell over me, were black feathers.

I was watching the countless black feathers fall.

And beyond them, there was something.

Beyond a hazy curtain that might have been fog or clouds.

Something very enormous, merely enormous.

Something enormous beyond even reckoning.

Like a mountain already conquered and shaved away piece by piece.

Or like a slave, it existed there.

It spoke to me.

It was what it always said.

Again and again and again.

Again and again.

The words it had said to me.

The words I forgot entirely once I woke from the dream.

But it was still speaking.

As if those were the only words it knew how to say.

---

The Special Management Bureau’s day began with an early-morning run.

At the very front was the Response Team, bare-chested and shouting slogans.

The Exploration Team ran more decorously than them, but kept the exact same pace as the Response Team.

The Control Team steadily followed the Response Team and Exploration Team.

And then there was the Fabrication Team, which courteously let the teams in front go on ahead, determined to take it slowly.

At the beginning of my appointment, I had run with the Fabrication Team.

But now, I had become able to finish the course behind the Response Team’s formation.

Of course, once the run ended, I was busy gasping for breath.

After that, physical training began immediately.

The intensity of training differed by team.

The Response Team hammered out pull-ups and push-ups like mad, as if I were muscle and muscle were me.

The Exploration Team, while still preserving their dignity, devoted themselves to superhuman high-intensity CrossFit.

The Control Team was not as heated as the Response Team or Exploration Team, but faithfully carried out the set routine.

And the Fabrication Team loosened up in small, careful movements, then disappeared early.

Among them, I was following the Control Team’s training routine.

At first, I had collapsed without even managing half of that.

But now, I was filling the numbers somehow.

At the beginning of this year, I had been an office worker whose New Year’s goal was exercising 3 times a week, and who had failed within a month and promised himself next year again.

It was, truly, tremendous progress.

I had finished morning training and was catching my breath in the lodging when it happened.

“Hyung, we really need to make a serious suggestion.”

Kwak Jae-gyeom came beside me and muttered.

“It was supposed to be a 3-night, 4-day schedule, but it was cut off on Day 2. In the morning, at that. This means you should get your vacation back.”

Kwak Jae-gyeom insisted with utmost seriousness.

But who exactly was this suggestion for?

“The sea was fun, was it?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s keep it as a good memory.”

“No, hyung…….”

Calling me pitifully would not work.

My social energy was already depleted, and it was not scheduled to be refilled for a while.

For at least a month, I would not go anywhere.

There would be no private appointments or outings whatsoever.

Unlike me, who had resolved to seclude myself like this, Kwak Jae-gyeom seemed truly disappointed by the situation.

Last week, the summer vacation I had ambitiously departed for was cut off after 2 days because Cha Si-eon and I flowed into a Special Zone.

And while we were gone, it seemed the Bureau had fallen into chaos again.

Even when I had left for vacation, the Bureau had been continuously monitoring my location.

But my GPS signal, which had been at the East Sea, suddenly moved to Yongsan Station.

It even cut off entirely in less than 1 minute.

After transmitting only a blaring siren sound through my smartwatch.

Because of this, an emergency was triggered in the Bureau once again.

Deputy Manager Yoon U-jeong called Cha Si-eon, but contact was lost.

Then Yoon called Baek Sa-ra again and confirmed that Cha Si-eon had also gone missing.

To make matters worse, all the CCTV in 「Railway Station」 had been smashed back in February and was dead.

So the people at the Bureau had been considering even the possibility of our deaths, practically with their blood drying up.

Because of that situation, when I returned to the Bureau, I had to endure an enormous difference in tension.

At the time, my perception was on the level of “I was playing at a resort until just now.”

But the Bureau people’s perception was in the state of “a child they thought was dead has returned alive.”

So Cha Si-eon and I were welcomed almost like people who had opened their own coffin lids and come back.

It seemed everyone had gone back and forth between heaven and hell without my knowing, so I tactfully gave up the rest of my vacation.

Kwak Jae-gyeom must have been quite startled too, because for a day or 2 after Cha Si-eon and I returned, he was quiet.

But as time passed, perhaps he belatedly felt that he had lost out.

“We did not even get to eat sashimi.”

We could eat sashimi here too.

“Almost all the ingredients we bought are left.”

We could eat those here too.

“We did not even get to do the paragliding reservation.”

This brat really must be disappointed.

Judging by how he had been passively insisting since yesterday evening that my vacation should be preserved.

But no matter how much he appealed like that, what could not be done could not be done.

“You said the Bureau was turned upside down because Team Leader Cha and I went missing. How could I go on vacation again in the middle of this?”

“That is true…….”

“And last week, everyone could come out because there was open time. Things will get busy again now. Can you leave your position empty?”

“Probably not…….”

Kwak Jae-gyeom accepted it while looking dejected.

It was good that he understood quickly, but for some reason, it felt like I was scolding a child…….

No, it was not a feeling. That was actually the case.

Kwak Jae-gyeom was younger than the interns at the publishing company I had worked for.

If he had been in society, he would have been at the age to either attend school or just start learning work.

If Kwak Jae-gyeom had been an ordinary university student, I thought he would have gone around having great fun.

Like he had at the sea this time.

So to be honest, I did not know why Jae-gyeom insisted on staying at the Bureau.

He was neatly handsome and had good social skills.

He was not in a position where his body was tied down like mine, and he could do whatever he wanted outside.

“Jae-gyeom.”

“Yes?”

“Why did you enter the Bureau?”

“No, hyung…….”

I had only asked a question, but Kwak Jae-gyeom looked at me as if I were being too much.

At that aggrieved gaze, I became puzzled instead and added,

“I’m asking because I’m truly curious.”

“Ah, I thought…… you were grinding me down like Team Leader.”

Kwak Jae-gyeom examined my expression, then swept a hand over his chest.

So this time, I became dumbfounded.

“When have I ever ground you down like that…….”

“It is because you asked a question you do not normally ask. It is your first time asking me something like this, hyung.”

Kwak Jae-gyeom pretended to be upset, half joking and half serious.

Then, as if that had never happened, he grinned again and said,

“The reason I entered the Bureau is just, well, because I was hit and run, so I am dealing with the aftermath.”

“Hit and run?”

“People who are victims of hit-and-run accidents hang banners and things until the culprit is caught, right? It is exactly the same as that.”

An active attitude toward problems was good.

But was this not a little different?

“But this work is too rough. Sometimes you have to risk your life too.”

“That is true. So our Team Leader kept opposing it too.”

“Team Leader Cha did?”

“Yes. When I said I was going to enter the Bureau, he fucking hated it.”

Mm, that was understandable.

Kwak Jae-gyeom was a teenager Cha Si-eon had managed to bring out from the hellscape called Special Zones.

If that brat then said he would go back into the hellscape, of course he would not like it.

“So I listened to Team Leader and tried to just return to society, but that was not easy either.”

“What was not easy?”

“When I returned home, the absence of my parents and hyung felt even more real. I could not live while pretending all of that had never happened.”

“…….”

“I thought I would only be able to live normally again if I at least knew what it was that I had experienced.”

Even as he talked about losing his family, Jae-gyeom’s expression and tone were calm.

As if he had already refined them for a long time.

After speaking that calmly, Jae-gyeom added with a smiling face again.

“That too, and I also wanted to do work rescuing people, like Team Leader.”

Mm…….

If he entered the Bureau with this thought, would Jae-gyeom’s current job satisfaction not be the worst?

But I did not want to nitpick a child who was saying something admirable.

So I kept my mouth shut, but Kwak Jae-gyeom glanced at me and added,

“Though the Bureau’s policy line changed, so we hardly do rescues anymore…….”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I just got pricked by my own conscience.”

He was honest, as expected.

The honest Kwak Jae-gyeom acknowledged the organization’s weakness and grumbled.

“To be honest, there are times when I feel disillusioned too. Still, the Bureau is better than having no Bureau at all, so I think enduring here is an important thing too. Most of the others are probably keeping their places like that too.”

At Jae-gyeom’s explanation, I nodded.

Yes, I thought it was all right.

Perhaps noticing that I was fairly impressed, Kwak Jae-gyeom grinned and asked me,

“Hyung, do you know why the Bureau’s symbol is a serpent?”

“The Bureau’s symbol was a serpent?”

“Ah, hyung. You see Mumu every day.”

“Ah.”

So that kid was not just a snake, but a serpent.

I had actually been curious about this.

Why, among all the countless beasts, the Bureau’s character had to be a snake.

“That kid is a house guardian serpent.”

“A house guardian serpent?”

“You know how in Korean folk belief, there are guardian deities who protect a house? Household gods.”

“Like Seongju-sin or the tutelary house spirit?”

“Yes, yes. The house guardian serpent is one of those household gods, and its distinguishing feature is that it protects that house from places where people’s eyes do not reach, like under the roof or in the storehouse.”

As I listened to Jae-gyeom’s explanation, I searched for house guardian serpents.

But a fairly terrifying explanation came out.

The house guardian serpent was one form of Eopsin, which brought luck and fortune into the household; when the house guardian serpent settled in a house, fortune came, and when it left the house, that family went to ruin.

Combining Jae-gyeom’s explanation and what I had searched, I answered Jae-gyeom’s earlier question.

“It means something like, let us protect the country from hiding, like a house guardian serpent?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Jae-gyeom nodded with a smile.

Like someone who clearly knew his role, he had quite a spirited expression.

---

My study partner, the clever Agent Mumu.

I came to know Mumu’s secret of birth after no less than 4 months.

To think he was not just a snake, but a guardian deity.

To think he was a house guardian serpent that hid under the roof and protected the house.

It was a symbol that suited the Bureau’s stance of managing and concealing the unknown threats called Special Zones rather well.

But the name of the mercenary company created by former Bureau employees was Apophis.

Apophis was the name of a giant venomous serpent that appeared in Egyptian mythology.

In any case, that side was also a snake.

However, unlike the house guardian serpent, Apophis was classified as an evil god.

This was, mm.

Was it naming that contained Director Mun Ho-san’s declaration of “public interest can fuck off; I will pursue private interest”?

If so, Mun Ho-san’s naming sense might really not match mine…….

And besides the house guardian serpent and Apophis, there was another snake around me.

The 「False God」 that ruled 「National Museum of Korea」.

It too had been in the form of a snake.

It was still a question.

Why had something originally in the form of whale bones changed its appearance into snake bones?

Would connecting this to Team Leader Kang Seung-cheol, who had fallen in the 「National Museum of Korea」, be too excessive a guess?

It was when I was alone imagining the correlations between these snakes.

New information arrived for me.

“They say Team Leader Kang Seung-cheol’s autopsy results came out.”