Chapter 148

At the unexpected question, I looked at Kim Ji-an.

A young woman with long, narrow eyes and glamorous features.

That was my first impression of Kim Ji-an, and there was no familiarity or déjà vu in it.

“I do not remember anything. Could you perhaps tell me around when you mean……?”

Feeling some kind of debt, I asked back.

Then Kim Ji-an answered, seeming a little embarrassed.

“I do not know that either.”

“Yes?”

“But somehow, I feel as if I have seen you somewhere.”

Surely she was not talking about something like a connection from a previous life.

At that moment, Oh Tae-o muttered from beside us.

“She is asking because of 「Crow」…….”

“「Crow」?”

“Yes. Ji-an and the Director’s contamination patterns are almost identical.”

“……?”

“Depending on where one was contaminated, the pattern of contamination values rising or clearing differs. So if we look at the pattern, we can guess the contamination source…….”

“Are you saying Ms. Kim Ji-an and the Director have the same contamination source, and that source is 「Crow」?”

“That is our estimate…….”

After Oh Tae-o mumbled, Kim Ji-an continued speaking again.

“But Teacher Seo Do-un, you somehow feel familiar to me. Especially the tone of your voice. So I wondered if I had met you somewhere before, and that was why this happened…….”

So she was saying she thought she might have been seized by 「Crow」 because of me?

It was not as if I were some host of 「Crow」…….

Of course, it was true that Director Go had been caught up in it through me.

But Kim Ji-an’s case was a little different.

“Ms. Kim Ji-an, did you not say you had similar blackouts before?”

“Yes, that is right.”

“Then rather than through me, should we not see it as you being affected before I was……?”

“That is true too. But you felt strangely familiar, so I asked just in case.”

However, the familiarity Kim Ji-an spoke of seemed to have only a feeling and no substance.

Judging by the fact that she could not identify or even guess when or how we had met.

Moreover, Kim Ji-an was truly a complete stranger to me.

I shook my head with a face that said I did not know at all, and Kim Ji-an had no choice but to accept it.

Even then, however, her eyes still looked uncertain.

“Then let us move past that and ask about the performance at 「National Theater」. Senior Oh asked me to interpret this, so I am going to look at it. Is that all right with you?”

Perhaps thinking it was abrupt for her, an outsider, to be involved, Kim Ji-an asked for my consent first.

There was nothing bad about it for me.

An expert from a field that no longer existed in the Bureau was offering to help interpret it.

If anything, perhaps the problem was that something with room for interpretation had been left covered until now because of the Bureau’s long-standing manpower shortage…….

“Yes, I would appreciate it.”

I readily nodded.

Then I remembered what Kim Ji-an had said earlier and stopped again.

“But did you also see the messages I wrote down from 「Hotel」?”

“Yes…….”

“That should have restricted access…….”

I looked at Kim Ji-an, who for some reason answered dejectedly, with half-doubt.

It was one thing if it was Cha Si-eon, who was in charge of me, or Oh Tae-o, but ordinary agents and researchers still could not see that material.

Because that too was content related to Lee Seop.

Then how had Kim Ji-an, who was an outsider, seen it?

Even if access had been possible through Oh Tae-o, Kim Ji-an did not seem like the type to open it on her own.

In the first place, Kim Ji-an was someone who had left the Bureau because she was afraid of being dragged into a Special Zone.

On top of that, she had even lost her job because of being contaminated this time.

Thinking, surely not, I looked at Kim Ji-an’s eyes.

In case they had become pitch-black again.

But Kim Ji-an’s eyes were a natural dark brown.

Moreover, at my question, she somehow became even sadder.

“It is not that I saw it because I wanted to. Senior Oh told me about it beside me.”

“……?”

“He saw that I was looking at the 「National Theater」 report, so he said there was this too…… I only learned it was blinded information after hearing it.”

“…….”

Rendered speechless, I turned to look at Oh Tae-o.

“I thought she would be curious…….”

Oh Tae-o made an excuse after doing something close to terrorism.

Still, judging by how his voice was quieter than usual, it seemed he was reflecting a little.

So Oh Tae-o had gone out of his way to open a restricted report using his authority as one of my handlers, and casually told Kim Ji-an about it.

I think Ms. Kim Ji-an really is a kind person.

Judging by the fact that she continued calling Oh Tae-o sunbae.

“Still, fortunately, nothing happened.”

“Yes…… It really is fortunate.”

At my words, Kim Ji-an, who had been dispirited, forced a smile.

“In any case, the contents you saw at 「National Theater」 and the messages you brought back this time do seem like similar symbols. So I think what you saw back then was not an ordinary illusion. Do you perhaps usually see things like that?”

“No…… Not at all.”

“Then Teacher Seo Do-un, what do you think the contents of the performance you saw then were?”

“Human history?”

“What about the objects that appeared there? The wagon wheel, human, lion, bull, and bird.”

“Are those not symbols from the Bible?”

“Do you have a religion?”

“No. When I was very young, I did attend church with my mother.”

“Then you must have some knowledge of Abrahamic religions.”

I naturally nodded.

However, I thought this was less because I had attended church as a child and more because I was a reader and an editor.

I had attended church before I was even 10 years old.

What I remembered from religious activities back then was about the extent of singing hymn-like children’s songs, clasping my hands and closing my eyes, then gathering in small groups to eat snacks.

I came to know that worldview concretely through books instead.

The Bible is used as a reference in many literary works.

Not only the Bible, but many myths are like that.

Religion, mythology, and literature are siblings with the same root, and every text humans seek out is a narrative of humans and the greater and lesser gods they have met.

“What you saw seems to be the ‘wagon wheel and four living creatures’ from the Book of Ezekiel.”

At Kim Ji-an’s words, I nodded.

I too had roughly searched after leaving 「National Theater」.

To find out where the symbols I had seen came from.

The “wagon wheel and four living creatures” were the “throne of God and angels” from the Book of Ezekiel.

The Book of Ezekiel was one part of the Bible.

Its background was the era when the Israelites had become captives of Babylon.

It was about Ezekiel, a prophet of Israel, speaking of the visions he had seen and urging the people to repent of their wrongdoings and endure a dark period.

“But the ‘four living creatures’ did not have 4 faces on one body. They were each different creatures, correct?”

“Yes.”

“On top of that, the body colors were all different too.”

“Yes.”

“They were white, red, black, and bluish. What do you think those colors are?”

“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation, are they not?”

“That fits quite well. I think that is what you saw.”

“……Then are you saying this situation is the apocalypse prophesied in the Bible?”

I felt a chill in one corner of my chest.

But for some reason, Oh Tae-o flinched too.

Kim Ji-an glanced at Oh Tae-o and whispered,

“Senior Oh went around saying things like that and got scolded a lot.”

“Do not…… talk about that…….”

Oh Tae-o pushed both hands under his glasses and suffered.

I had heard this story once before.

That Acting Team Leader Oh had gone around prophesying doomsday and had nearly been hit by the Head of the Research Division.

Then what is it?

Was what I saw simply a rumor too?

Perhaps sensing my confusion, Kim Ji-an spoke again.

“First, the ‘four living creatures’ in the Book of Ezekiel have the heads of a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle on one body. But these ‘four living creatures’ also appear in the Book of Revelation, and there, the four have independent bodies.”

“Then was what I saw the one from the Book of Revelation?”

Would that not be an even bigger problem?

“Armageddon,” which refers to the final battle and great catastrophe, also appears in the Book of Revelation.

“But the ‘four living creatures’ in the Book of Revelation do not have wheels.”

“……?”

“And the ‘four living creatures’ and the ‘four horsemen’ are different beings. So what you saw was a mixture of three or four symbols from the Bible, and this is your subjective interpretation.”

“My subjectivity?”

“Yes. If you had known Buddhist culture or Eastern mythology better, then the Four Heavenly Kings or the Four Symbols may have appeared on that stage instead.”

“I do not quite understand what you mean.”

When I appealed honestly, Kim Ji-an thought for a moment.

Then she asked back like this.

“Teacher, you think I am a woman, correct?”

“Yes.”

“I am actually a man.”

“Yes?”

Wondering what kind of joke this was, I looked at Kim Ji-an.

Kim Ji-an before me was definitely a woman with straight black hair falling to her shoulders.

Her slender jaw and narrow shoulders looked feminine no matter how I looked, and so did her voice.

“The person concerned says so, yet why do you not believe me?”

When I awkwardly shifted my eyes, Kim Ji-an smiled and said that.

“You have never personally confirmed my sex, have you?”

“Usually…… one does not personally verify another person’s sex.”

At my awkward answer, Kim Ji-an finally burst into laughter.

Then she nodded and continued speaking.

“That is right. Even without confirming directly, we usually recognize it roughly. But that is not because we see through the essence. It is because we have established standards through the data accumulated so far. When a new person appears, we compare them against those standards and reach a rough conclusion. Even if we do not directly confirm whether that person’s chromosomes are XX or XY, we think, if they are a woman, their voice will be like this; if they are a man, their bone structure will be like this.”

At Kim Ji-an’s explanation, I nodded this time.

I understood what she meant.

No matter how objective a person pretends to be, they cannot be perfectly objective.

As long as one exists as an individual, subjectivity will mix in no matter what one sees.

So is Kim Ji-an indeed a woman……? She is, right?

Leaving me in confusion, Kim Ji-an continued speaking.

“And when something we do not know appears, we mobilize everything we know in order to place it into a category of understanding. That is also how the saying ‘people think everyone else is like them’ came to be. This is similar. You saw something, but you did not know its essence, so you drew together everything you knew and interpreted it.”

“You are saying I mixed in my subjectivity and distorted it in order to understand something I could not comprehend with my own mind, correct?”

“Yes.”

“So what did I…….”

I was about to say, see? but trailed off.

What I had seen.

But could not remember.

And something that could be symbolized as “four creatures.”

At the thought that flashed through my mind, I looked at Kim Ji-an.

As if she already knew my actions, Kim Ji-an nodded.

“This illusion may have been a reinterpretation of what you saw back then.”

Yes, this was a story about the “three creatures” and “the thing that made me.”