Chapter 139

“Do that.”

Go Hong-sang answered expressionlessly.

He did not get angry, did not jump up and down, and merely answered calmly.

It was an obvious judgment.

His pride might be a little hurt, but in a situation where he might die or live right now, there was no reason to insist stubbornly.

Moreover, he could always change his words after we got out.

So even after receiving an immediate answer, I asked again.

“Truly?”

“Yes. Do that.”

“I cannot trust you.”

“……?”

“If you were going to agree this quickly, why did you oppose it in the first place? Are you perhaps planning to change your words after we get out?”

“Who is changing his words? Young man, have you only ever lived being deceived?”

At my suspicion, Director Go flared up and shouted.

Then he looked me up and down with displeased eyes.

As if saying, this madman is nitpicking when I said I would do what he asked.

It was a reasonable treatment of me as a madman.

So I asked back seriously, like an even crazier madman.

“Are you truly granting permission to enter 「Railway Station」?”

“Yes, I grant permission. I said I will permit it.”

“You said excessive preferential treatment was not allowed. You said we should follow the manual.”

At my question, Director Go’s smooth forehead crumpled a little.

Director Go glanced at Kwon Mu-seop beside me, then answered calmly.

“Manuals are made by people too. So if necessary, one should also be able to exercise discretion.”

To think he would repeat exactly what Manager Kwon Mu-seop had said.

It was fairly surprising, but I did not bother pointing that out.

Because I intended to repeat exactly what Director Go had said too.

“You should not exercise that discretion only for someone you know. Then what do ordinary citizens with no connections become?”

“What can be done, when it is directly tied to the employees’ morale? Only when there are employees can there be a Bureau, and only when there is a Bureau can citizens also be rescued.”

“Is it not unfair to have stood by so well until now and do this?”

“Are you saying we should keep standing by in the future because we have stood by until now? If positive change occurs through this matter, is that not a better thing?”

“…….”

“…….”

So this is how one succeeds.

One had to be capable of this degree of switching stance to be entrusted with great work.

Director Go’s enemy was Director Go, and Director Go could refute Director Go.

Should I call this brazen, or experienced?

Earlier, Kwon Mu-seop had told me several things about Director Go.

This middle-aged man with a respectable appearance was exactly 50 this year.

He was an elite public servant with ample conditions and ambition to aim for an even higher position than now.

For such Director Go, his appointment to the Bureau seemed to have been the greatest crisis of his public service career.

Not only had it twisted his path to promotion ambiguously, but the work was bizarre and the responsibility too heavy.

Most of all, Director Go feared Special Zones.

Even so, in order to produce results and get promoted to a better post, he had tried to keep the organization running somehow.

But Director Go’s complacency did not match Kwon Mu-seop’s faction.

So conflicts of opinion were frequent, and what was more, Manager Kwon always won.

It was a very displeasing matter for the Director, but thanks to Kwon Mu-seop’s inscrutable personality, it had passed without much issue until now.

The problem had been the rescue operation on 「Island Where Blood Falls」.

At that time, Kwon Mu-seop had almost threatened Director Go, who had tried to stall as usual, into granting permission, and Director Go developed feelings close to resentment toward Kwon Mu-seop.

In the middle of that, Kwon Mu-seop had even come asking for permission for the 「Railway Station」 special operation, so from Director Go’s perspective, there was no reason to agree.

Of course, this was not opposition based only on personal feelings.

It was an operation with considerable risk, so Director Go’s future was at stake too.

Because of that, the possibility of Director Go readily permitting the 「Railway Station」 operation was close to 0.

In other words, what he was saying now was merely lip service.

Because we knew that fact well, we also had no choice but to become somewhat cowardly.

“Understood. If that is your intention, Director, please leave the promise you just made in writing.”

“In writing?”

“Yes. Then I will believe you for certain.”

“I am saying I will permit it. If I have said this much, you should understand. What written statement?”

Director Go stubbornly insisted that he could make an oral promise, but not a written one.

When Director Go flared up and became irritated, Kwon Mu-seop, who had been watching, cut in as if he had been waiting.

“We do not need it in writing. Thank you, Director. As you have permitted, we will prepare to enter 「Railway Station」.”

“Hmm…….”

At Kwon Mu-seop’s gratitude, Director Go’s expression became even more uncomfortable.

It was plainly visible that both of them were thinking different thoughts.

Go Hong-sang intended to change his words and hold out again as soon as we got out.

Kwon Mu-seop was resolved to use this conversation as leverage and force the operation through.

What Kwon Mu-seop had asked of me was up to this point.

To make Go Hong-sang personally state, with his own mouth, the grounds for carrying out the operation.

I had performed that role fairly well.

Now Manager Kwon Mu-seop would handle what came after, and Kwon Mu-seop would certainly defeat Director Go again this time too.

As always.

So this was a situation where I could step back around here, but…….

“Please make sure to keep your promise.”

“I said I understand, so stop…….”

“And I hope the reason you keep your promise is because of your own experience, Director.”

After deliberating, I deliberately added one more line.

But Go Hong-sang did not immediately understand what I meant.

So I explained slowly.

“I am truly sorry for denouncing you and trying to exclude you earlier.”

“……?”

“If anyone imagined being left alone in a place like this, they would hate it. It would not merely be unpleasant. It would be frightening.”

Go Hong-sang looked at me as if asking what nonsense this was all of a sudden.

This was not nonsense, but an editor’s meddling.

You cannot beat Kwon Mu-seop anyway.

Of course, Director Go’s own future was at stake, so he must be desperate.

But Kwon Mu-seop carried the lives of the agents under him on his back.

The weight class was different from the beginning.

Moreover, Director Go had already fallen into a trap.

If he insisted stubbornly in the middle of this, the result was obvious.

Only his petty and shameless side would be exposed, his dignity would break, and he would look ridiculous.

It was an ending like a small-fry villain.

If this were a novel, such a character and ending would be necessary too.

But there was no need for a person to suffer that kind of disgrace, so I said to Director Go,

“A 15-year-old girl is afraid in the same situation. For no less than 4 months.”

“…….”

“Yes, I am appealing to emotion. I am saying this because I think it would be better if the reason you yield, Director, is not some other external factor, but an emotional wavering like sympathy, compassion, and conscience.”

Then he could avoid becoming a small-fry villain.

Perhaps he could even be elevated into “a slightly kind Director.”

I said this out of my own goodwill.

But Director Go Hong-sang said nothing else.

He merely looked at me as if seeing an extremely strange bastard.

---

“So in this space, memories of the past are stored, and by opening and closing doors, we can cross over to some time in this hotel’s past.”

At my explanation, Deputy Director Kim Seon-ung rubbed his chin and asked back,

“So?”

“If all memories of the past are stored in this space, then the memory of when this place ‘functioned as a Special Management Zone’ should also exist. And that space will not be a nascent-phase Special Zone, but the ‘ordinary 「Hotel」 Special Zone’ that the Bureau explored in the past.”

I wondered whether the modifier “ordinary” suited a Special Zone.

But as of now, this was the only way to explain it.

“If we enter that ‘ordinary 「Hotel」 Special Zone,’ there should be an escape route.”

“You are saying we will use that route to leave this place?”

“Yes.”

“We cross over to the time period when it was an ordinary Special Zone, then break through that Special Zone…….”

The Deputy Director repeated my words several times.

Then he folded his arms again and asked me,

“Is there any guarantee a Special Zone will appear inside this space when this space itself is a Special Zone? What if the memories stored here are limited only to memories of reality?”

It was a fairly reasonable question.

But I answered confidently.

“If this space excluded memories of Special Zones, the Director would not have come back to life.”

“Why is that?”

“The time point from which 「Crow」 brought the living Director out was 13 seconds before the point where we were, and the place we are currently in is not reality, but a Special Zone.”

“Hmm…….”

“Moreover, Manager Kwon Mu-seop confirmed that the memories of Special Zones are included in this space.”

At my words, Kwon Mu-seop nodded and opened his mouth.

“I observed the spatial changes on B1 for 1 hour earlier. In the middle of that, I confirmed the sight of our agents moving to destroy the core. It is certain that memories of Special Zones are also included.”

Since Kwon Mu-seop said he had seen it himself, the Deputy Director did not ask further.

Instead, he pointed out another issue.

“Will that escape route operate properly?”

“That is something we have no choice but to confirm ourselves. However, I think there is a high possibility that it will operate properly.”

“Your basis?”

“The time point of B1 keeps changing. What would it have been like if that place’s time point were also fixed by opening and closing doors?”

“We would go to a time period when the core was docile and break it.”

At the Deputy Director’s answer without addition or subtraction, I nodded.

The Deputy Director also seemed to be convinced in the end, and Director Go merely watched our conversation.

“So we intend to escape through the fitness center. If we reach the fitness center during the period of 「Hotel Where Shadows Grow」, all of us should be able to escape.”

“To find the space of a specific time point, we will have to open and close the door diligently.”

Although the Deputy Director sighed this way, as long as we could get out of here.

Having reached a conclusion, we headed for the fitness center.

We had to pass through the lobby again and climb up to the third floor, but perhaps because it was the direction away from the core, there was no obstruction like before.

Thanks to that, we arrived at the hotel’s fitness center fairly easily.

As befitted a hotel fitness center, that space was luxurious and had few people.

“From now on, we will switch the space until 「Hanged Shadow」 appears. That entity is in front of the mirror inside the fitness center. Since we are in a situation where we must open the door and check inside, we will form groups of 2 and work in shifts.”

At Kwon Mu-seop’s instructions, we nodded without disagreement.

If there were ordinary people inside when we opened the fitness center door, there was no need to check and we could simply close the door.

But if there was no one there and it gave off a suspicious atmosphere, we had to go in directly and check whether 「Hanged Shadow」 was present.

It was simple, but we had to keep trying until the desired result appeared.

We soon set to work.

Kwon Mu-seop and I became one team, and the Director and Deputy Director became the other. We decided that the work would proceed in shifts every 1 hour.

“It feels like the moon exploration days after a long time.”

The Deputy Director put into deliberately pleasant words the fact that this was stubborn and ignorant work.

---

4 hours had passed since we began the work.

It was the Director and Deputy Director’s turn, so Kwon Mu-seop and I were leaning by the door, nodding off.

“It, it appeared……!”

Director Go’s voice came from inside the fitness center.

“Hey, seems like it appeared.”

The Deputy Director, who had been holding the door, woke us by kicking us with his foot.

Kwon Mu-seop and I sprang up in surprise and looked inside the fitness center.

Director Go was bright-faced and gesturing to us.

Really?

It really appeared?

All of us entered the fitness center with delighted faces.

It was then.

BOOM—!

Something fell over Director Go’s head as he was gesturing toward us.

Director Go was slammed into the floor as he was.

Horrified, we checked what had crushed Director Go.

Something like a black, gigantic beast was standing on Director Go, crushing him underfoot.

“……!”

To think that nightmare-like thing appeared.

No, perhaps it was only natural.

Because we had come into the Special Zone ourselves.

And that thing was a monster that moved freely through multiple Special Zones.

It was 「Alpha」.

We froze where we were, unable even to think of saving Director Go.

At that moment, Kwon Mu-seop murmured beside me.

“……What is that beside 「Alpha」?”

There was one more entity that had a human form like 「Alpha」.

It was not the 「Fake Human」 modeled after Kwak Jae-gyeom.

But it was not a face entirely unknown to us either.

“What…….”

Looking at that unfamiliar yet familiar entity, I groaned.

It was none other than me.