Chapter 136

“Oh dear, Director. You must have had such a hard time.”

“Kh-hup…… sob…….”

“Director, cry with your mouth closed. You will be thirsty later.”

“Huup, hoo.”

“I did not mean anything bad by it. To hold a funeral after we get out, we would need at least an arm…….”

“Kkeuheuk……!”

Director Go Hong-sang sat on the stairs, wailing.

Beside him was Deputy Director Kim Seon-ung, making strange remarks.

Does the Deputy Director…… dislike the Director?

I was listening to the sound of the Director wailing from one floor below with Manager Kwon Mu-seop.

Kwon Mu-seop looked upstairs with a complicated expression, then gave a powerless smile when his eyes met mine.

“It is all right. You did well.”

At Kwon Mu-seop’s words, I belatedly realized it.

That I had been restless without noticing.

That was only natural, because I had not expected him to cry so pitifully…….

It was the first time I had made someone cry since my school days, and the first time in my life I had made a middle-aged man cry.

So I felt ashamed of this situation and took time for reflection.

Director Go.

A person who would not even set foot in the Bureau building because it felt unpleasant.

A person who said he did not know field work well and left it to the Deputy Director.

A person whose operational purpose for the Bureau was “no accidents during my term.”

It certainly did not seem like he had come here because he wanted to do this work.

Perhaps he had been pushed here unwillingly.

Since he had been in the Office for Government Policy Coordination before coming to the Special Management Bureau, it was a situation where he had been pushed from the center to the borderland.

So perhaps Director Go had wanted to pass as uneventful a time as possible and then return to the mainstream.

But the field bastards kept throwing themselves into dangerous operations…….

The bastard called Manager, far from stopping them, defied him…….

And in the end, even he himself had entered a Special Zone…….

“Kkeuheuk, hup…….”

“……He is crying for a long time.”

“He really is…….”

He must be feeling very wronged.

Yes, his expression had not been good from the moment he first saw his own arm.

Still, to think he would excuse himself by saying, “Deputy Director, my arm.”

Rather than a proper explanation, I thought it was a childlike excuse, but, mm, no.

Let us say that is truly what it was.

Let us say that all of this was the fault of the Deputy Director and the Director’s left arm.

While I nodded alone, Director Go’s crying gradually subsided.

Instead, Deputy Director Kim’s voice drifted down intermittently.

His tone was extremely respectful, but the contents were roughly along the lines of, “It is hard, is it not? We are all having a hard time. Let us do well, yes?”

A short while later, the Deputy Director stepped down the stairs toward us.

Then he lowered his voice and said,

“The Director says he is all right. He decided to listen well from now on.”

Perhaps the Deputy Director…… did not particularly think of the Director as his superior.

At that moment, Deputy Director Kim Seon-ung suddenly looked at me.

Then he chuckled and murmured,

“I wondered why Manager Kwon looked so exhausted these days.”

It was a pointed remark, saying, so it was because of you.

Feeling awkward, I answered lowly.

“I will apologize to the Director after we get out.”

“No, do not. If you apologize, he will make an even bigger fuss.”

At my words, the Deputy Director waved his hand.

“Just act insolent like you are now. Even if he holds a grudge, Manager Kwon will cover for you. That is what a manager is there for, so use him properly.”

The Deputy Director grinned as he said this.

“Though we will have to get out of here first.”

The Deputy Director still looked relaxed.

As if this situation of being isolated in an unknown space was nothing special.

As expected of someone from the Field Division.

So I began to feel even more sorry for the Director catching his breath above us.

Because the Director, who had suddenly been dragged here and was suffering the humiliation of his left arm, was an ordinary administrative public servant.

---

After reorganizing ourselves, we came out to the lobby again.

But the lobby that appeared this time was engulfed in flames and spewing black smoke.

“…….”

Crossing that sea of fire was literally an act of suicide.

We returned to the stairwell and came out again.

The next lobby that appeared had its interior design completely changed.

As if the era itself had changed, the modern lobby was far more old-fashioned, and Westerners in military uniforms were walking around.

They seemed to be U.S. soldiers, but that too was burdensome to break through.

“Let us move when a lobby with no people appears.”

At Kwon Mu-seop’s suggestion, we nodded.

The situation in the lobby changed just by opening and closing the door.

So it was better to keep switching until a board favorable to us appeared.

We went back and forth between the lobby and the stairwell, checking the state of each newly appearing lobby.

After doing that more than 10 times.

Finally, a lobby with no one in it appeared.

It was a lobby with only minimal lighting on, as if it were the middle of the night.

“We will move.”

Together, we set foot into the hotel at night.

Step— step—

Since there was no one there, only our footsteps echoed in the stillness.

Step— step—

It was when we had crossed about half of the empty lobby.

I glanced to the side without thinking, flinched, and stopped walking.

“……?”

At the far end of the lobby, there was someone.

A neatly standing woman in a suit was smiling toward me with her mouth stretched wide enough to split.

Startled, I swallowed my breath and tapped Kwon Mu-seop beside me.

But an unexpected answer came back.

“There is one over there too.”

What?

I turned toward Kwon Mu-seop.

At the opposite end of the lobby, a man in a suit was standing as well.

That man too was looking this way with his hands clasped politely, smiling widely enough to show all his teeth.

What are those……?

Bewildered, I turned back toward the woman.

“……!”

But the woman who had been far away had already taken great strides toward me.

In the brief moment I turned my head, she had moved at least 20 meters, yet she stood there straight, still smiling.

The woman, who looked like a hotel employee, had the complete form of a person from head to toe.

But in a strange way, she did not seem human.

Because she was smiling too broadly only with her mouth, as if her eyes were not smiling at all and only her mouth had been forcibly torn open, she seemed more like an unpleasant composite photo than a person.

“The woman I saw has approached about 20 meters toward me. Distance from me is about 20 meters.”

“Is she moving?”

“No, she has stopped.”

“It seems they move when we take our eyes off them.”

“There is one behind us too. The number identified for now is 3.”

Kim Seon-ung cut into the conversation between me and Kwon Mu-seop.

“It seems they came out to guard that.”

If by that, then he meant the core.

“Director, can you see what Manager Kwon Mu-seop is watching right now?”

“You mean the man on the right……?”

“Yes, you found him well. You can keep watching that and walk, can you not?”

“Yes…….”

“Manager Kwon, we will watch, so lead us. Everyone, do not blink, and follow Manager Kwon well. Only a few meters remain.”

As Kim Seon-ung instructed, I fixed my gaze on the woman.

Then I placed one hand on Manager Kwon Mu-seop’s shoulder.

Manager Kwon Mu-seop took a step, and we walked after him, matching his speed.

Step— step—

As I kept watching, the woman did not move any further.

However, she did not seem to like the direction we were advancing.

Her movements remained stopped, but her eyes kept following me.

Creak— creeeak—

On top of that, a faint grinding sound came.

The woman was still smiling widely while grinding her teeth.

So that woman’s face took on a form where one could not tell whether she was smiling or angry.

One thing was clear.

That woman was waiting for me to look away for even a moment.

To think I would risk my life to play “The hibiscus flower has bloomed,” a game I had only played in elementary school.

My eyes gradually began to sting.

I strained my eyes and kept watching the woman.

Because the stairs leading down to the basement were now not far away.

It was then.

Sssssk—!

The sound of something moving as if brushing past.

Then, something pitch-black entered my peripheral vision.

It was rapidly approaching us, and I realized what it was and immediately shouted.

“There is one more!”

“Run!”

Kwon Mu-seop, who had been slowly leading us, suddenly broke into a run.

We lost hold of the shoulder we had been grabbing and had no choice but to look ahead.

Kwon Mu-seop, already far ahead, was opening the door to the stairwell leading down to the basement.

Kwon Mu-seop held the door in place with his foot and waited for us.

“Do-un, come hold the door!”

Hold the door instead of going inside?

Just as I was about to run through the door, I changed direction and slammed my body into the open metal door.

Kwon Mu-seop passed almost simultaneously beside me and shouted,

“Deputy Director, throw the Director!”

With my body against the door, I looked back.

The first thing I saw was Director Go being thrown after the Deputy Director grabbed him by the back of the neck.

Beyond that, I saw the Deputy Director with his arm caught by a hotel employee.

What I saw next was Kwon Mu-seop kicking it off him.

BANG—!

It only had the form of a person, but when that thing went flying, it made a sound like a car colliding.

In the meantime, Director Go slid all the way toward me, and I caught the thrown Director Go and pushed him into the stairwell.

Then I raised my eyes and looked at the hotel employees.

Fortunately, the things gathered together all entered my field of vision.

At that moment, they abruptly stopped moving.

Then they stood neatly again and smiled.

Kwon Mu-seop and Kim Seon-ung also looked at them and slowly walked backward.

Creak— creeeak—!

The hotel employees smiled broadly and ground their teeth.

With their hands neatly placed over their bellies, they glared at us as if they wanted to tear us to death.

Keeping our eyes fixed on them, we entered the stairwell.

Then we closed the door.

---

“Director, are you all right?”

The Deputy Director calmly worried about the Director after rolling him like a bowling ball.

The Director seemed to lack even the energy to get angry anymore, and merely nodded silently.

But perhaps still worried, the Deputy Director looked at me and said,

“Agent Seo, shine some light here.”

I turned the searchlight that had been illuminating the dark stairwell.

Then the worn and exhausted figure of Director Go sitting on the stairs was revealed clearly.

At that moment, the Deputy Director murmured as if having discovered something.

“Director, what is this wound on your neck…….”

The Deputy Director gestured to me, and I focused the light on the back of the Director’s neck as he indicated.

Just as he said, there were wounds on the back of the Director’s neck, as if they had been scratched by something sharp.

All of them were wounds that seemed to have formed just moments ago.

On top of that, several small holes had been pierced through the collar of his dress shirt.

Earlier, the Deputy Director had indeed grabbed the back of the Director’s neck and thrown him.

But it did not seem like human fingernails could leave wounds or traces like this by scratching.

At the Deputy Director’s question, Director Go hesitated for a moment before answering.

“I do not know the cause either. For some reason, every time my memory cuts off, scratch wounds appear on the back of my neck.”

……Director, you should have told us something like that earlier.

It was probably not only me who wanted to say this.

But in our hearts of courtesy toward a superior, we swallowed what we wanted to say and examined the suspicious wounds.

Then the Deputy Director murmured,

“This looks like wounds from something like a bird snatching him, does it not?”

At the word bird, I was rather startled.

Thinking, surely not, I turned back toward Kwon Mu-seop, and sure enough.

Kwon Mu-seop was smiling strangely.

With that smiling face, he murmured,

“They are exactly the size of 「Crow」’s feet.”