Chapter 145

I repeated Oh Tae-o’s words to myself, then asked back in an even tone.

“Am I really normal?”

The gazes gathered on me.

Their expressions were deliberately startled, but I paid no mind and continued speaking.

“It is only that the Bureau’s method of measuring contamination level has not discovered anything strange. I have never been normal from the beginning.”

The dictionary meaning of normal is “a proper state without changes or defects.”

Here, the standard for “proper” is usually oneself in the past, or the majority of other people.

Compared to either, the current me is strange.

I am overflowing with both changes and defects.

In the first place, that was why the Bureau scouted me.

“There was a contradiction in what I said…….”

As if accepting my argument, Oh Tae-o corrected what he had said earlier.

“Agent Seo seems to have been contaminated somehow, so why are his contamination values normal? Has a transformation already occurred in a form we cannot identify?”

At Oh Tae-o’s unhesitating statement, the researchers’ gazes grew even more cautious.

Everyone there knew how frightening contamination was.

The same was true of me.

Talking about contamination in front of the person concerned like that was remarkably insensitive.

Perhaps everyone had similar thoughts, because they began watching my reaction, and Cha Si-eon also looked at me from beside me.

So I smiled weakly.

“If the Analysis Team does not know, then naturally, I would not know either. In any case, I do think something has happened to me.”

When I calmly acknowledged my own state, silence flowed through the conference room for a moment.

So I spoke again.

“And earlier, you said 「Crow」 seemed omnipotent.”

Nod—

Oh Tae-o answered with a nod.

“That is probably an illusion.”

“An illusion?”

“Yes. The fact that Kim Ji-an was controlled, and the fact that the Director kept coming back to life, seem omnipotent from our point of view, but if you think about it differently, they are closer to points where 「Crow」 revealed its limits.”

Oh Tae-o showed interest in my words.

“「Crow」’s current objective is to make us enter 「Railway Station」. If 「Crow」 were an omnipotent being, it would have controlled the Director from the beginning. If it had, we would already be inside 「Railway Station」.”

“……If we think it caused this troublesome affair because it could not do that, it does seem to have many restrictions rather than being omnipotent.”

Oh Tae-o immediately understood what I meant.

“Then we should consider 「Crow」’s restrictions and rules. Why can it dominate some people, and not others? If 「Crow」 can exert influence only on certain people through some kind of rule…….”

“Then there must be something entangled with me too.”

I lightly helped along the words Oh Tae-o poured out busily.

Then, with a certain amount of reflection, I added,

“Even if I cannot remember it right now.”

---

We could not mention Lee Seop in the conference room.

There were too many people listening, so even speaking around it moderately felt burdensome.

So Kwon Mu-seop and I could not say even half of what we had seen in 「Hotel」, and in the end, the meeting concluded after only sharing information about 「Crow」 and the nascent-phase Special Zone.

After the meeting ended, I left the conference room and was walking down the corridor.

Thud—!

For a moment, something caught on my foot, and I nearly fell.

Urgh.

Fortunately, I immediately caught my balance and planted my foot on the floor.

Standing there, I looked to the side and saw Cha Si-eon.

Thinking I might have accidentally tripped over his foot, I apologized first.

“I am sorry.”

“No.”

Cha Si-eon answered casually while looking into his smartphone.

Walking while looking at a smartphone is dangerous.

I left that dangerous pedestrian alone and began walking again.

But Cha Si-eon called me from behind.

“Mr. Seo Do-un.”

The moment I turned back, wondering what it was.

BANG—!

Cha Si-eon struck the wall beside my face.

“……!”

His large hand slammed into the wall with a tremendous sound, and I, suddenly threatened, flinched and looked at Cha Si-eon.

What is it, why? A bug?

Who catches a bug like this?

Feeling my heart pound, I tried to read Cha Si-eon’s intent.

But Cha Si-eon himself looked calm.

Ding—!

At that moment, an alarm sounded from Cha Si-eon’s smartphone.

Cha Si-eon checked the alarm, then slowly took his hand off the wall.

“……What was that?”

“I suspected a device malfunction and checked.”

“A device malfunction?”

“I thought Mr. Seo Do-un’s heart rate was not being measured.”

“……?”

“It is functioning normally.”

Is this person seriously insane……?

“We are speaking the same language, Team Leader Cha Si-eon.”

“I know.”

You know that, and yet you suddenly trip someone and hit the wall……?

All for the sake of checking heart rate fluctuation?

I was about to say something more, but someone called us.

“Team Leader Cha, Do-un.”

It was Kwon Mu-seop, who had been walking ahead.

Perhaps he had received some kind of contact, because Kwon Mu-seop was holding his phone as he spoke.

“Let us go to my room for a moment.”

Why the sudden summons?

Without knowing why, we followed him.

Surely he was about to warn him about workplace bullying…… Of course not.

Once we arrived at the manager’s office, Kwon Mu-seop got straight to the point.

“The 「Railway Station」 operation has been approved.”

Finally.

We had finally crossed the great mountain, but far from looking relieved, Kwon Mu-seop looked steeped in fatigue as he pressed hard at the corners of his eyes.

Mm, yes. Director Go, I wonder if you are doing well in the quarantine room.

Feeling inexplicably guilty, I glanced toward Cha Si-eon.

Cha Si-eon had his head tilted slightly and was looking somewhere else entirely.

Do your filial duty to the Manager, Team Leader Cha.

As if a great many things had happened, Kwon Mu-seop dry-washed his face and only lifted his head after quite some time.

Then he spoke in a deliberately serious voice.

“It goes without saying, but you must carry out the operation without a hitch.”

His voice was closer to a warning than advice.

This was an operation we had forced through with all kinds of stubborn insistence.

If it failed, the Bureau would quite literally be devastated.

Now, there was no choice but to prove it with results.

“Understood. I will make certain it succeeds.”

“…….”

But Cha Si-eon did not yield in the slightest to Kwon Mu-seop’s pressure.

And Kwon Mu-seop let out a deep sigh toward that Team Leader Cha.

……Really, do your filial duty, Team Leader Cha.

“And there was something I could not share in the conference room earlier.”

Kwon Mu-seop opened the file of documents he had been holding all this time.

From inside, he took out a drawing and extended it toward us.

It was a human cross-section diagram used in hospitals, and there was a check mark near the collarbone area below the neck.

Cha Si-eon looked down at that drawing carefully.

But I immediately recognized what it was and looked toward Kwon Mu-seop.

This was the location of the siren head’s heart that we had encountered in 「Hotel」.

The weak point the siren head itself had lifted open and shown us.

“You likely understand roughly from what you have heard. We met Lee Sol’s father inside 「Hotel」.”

“Yes, I know.”

“He transformed into a siren head midway.”

“…….”

“The marked part is where the siren head’s heart was. If that was not a meaningless illusion, then 「Giant Siren」’s weak point is likely that part too.”

Far too many clues had already appeared to dismiss it as a meaningless illusion.

The foreshadowing and symbols had already piled up enough.

Denying it now would be escapism instead.

Perhaps Kwon Mu-seop also thought he could no longer blindly cover it up and look away, because he spoke clearly.

“If we stop 「Giant Siren」, a situation like the one with 「False God」 may happen.”

A situation like the one with 「False God」.

A situation where we faced a comrade’s corpse inside the remains of a dangerous entity.

A situation where we could not know whether we had recovered our comrade’s corpse, or whether we had killed him with our own hands while he was still alive.

He meant that might repeat itself, only with Kang Seung-cheol’s name changed to Lee Seop.

That assumption alone was suffocating enough, but Kwon Mu-seop shook his head again.

Then he erased the clumsy assumption and spoke more clearly.

“No, I think that is probably what will happen. There was that kind of mention in the conversation Teacher Kim Ji-an does not remember, was there not?”

Kwon Mu-seop looked back at me, and I nodded.

-No way, are the true identities of dangerous entities contaminated people?

-Not every entity in a Special Zone is like that. But among some entities, there are those that were originally people.

-Then is Lee Sol’s father in 「Railway Station」 right now too?

-Nothing has been confirmed yet. But everyone is assuming it. That he probably is.

The conversation I had at the café with Kim Ji-an, no, with something controlling Kim Ji-an.

If that was something 「Crow」 had said, then it was no longer the humans’ moderate guess.

At least to us, it was a hint openly leaked by something that seemed omnipotent.

“This is no longer a situation where we can only suspect and cover it up.”

So Kwon Mu-seop asked with a warning in his voice.

“Can you do it?”

Many things were implied in those words.

If it were me, that question alone would require half a day just to chew over its meaning and imagine the results.

But Cha Si-eon did not draw out time before answering.

“I will let him rest.”

For some reason, that answer made me recall it.

The sight of Kwon Mu-seop cutting the siren head’s heart.

---

This neighborhood makes it hard to stay sane.

Thinking that, I trudged down the corridor.

Then Cha Si-eon, who had been walking silently beside me, suddenly called me.

“Mr. Seo Do-un.”

First, I put some distance between us.

I stayed on guard like that for a moment, but fortunately, no surprise attack came.

“Why are you calling me?”

“Are you certain you are in your right mind right now?”

Surprisingly, those words were neither provocative nor accusatory.

It was a genuine question composed only of doubt.

You were walking silently with all that weight, and now you suddenly suspect my mental state……?

Dumbfounded, I asked back.

“Do you think that is a reasonable question……?”

“I am asking because your reactions have changed.”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Until recently, Mr. Seo Do-un became shaken whenever changes in your state were mentioned. And today, there were several similar mentions.”

I was replying roughly, then stopped short.

Cha Si-eon’s atmosphere was much more serious than I had expected.

No, beyond serious, it was grave, and even a certain wariness was mixed into it.

“But Mr. Seo Do-un showed no agitation.”

Cha Si-eon asked me again.

“Mr. Seo Do-un, are you certain you are in your right mind right now?”

His words contained a solemn suspicion.