Chapter 35

“Team Leader, one Missing Person is signaling toward us.”

-Do not make contact. Leave that position.

It was clearly a rescue request.

Cha Si-eon’s response to it was cold-blooded.

-It is principle not to make contact with Missing Persons who cannot be rescued.

He did not even give me a chance to ask a question.

We had no choice but to get up and move back indoors, where we had first been.

-The plan to rescue Seo Do-un and Kwak Jae-gyeom has just been decided. For stable escape, we plan to deploy one agent and two convicts.

As expected, they were using convicts.

-The combined weight of the two convicts exceeds that of our three agents, so use those two and escape by the same method as before.

What is this, Hansel and Gretel…….

They were going to pick fat convicts and send them in so we could eat them.

“How many people are here right now?”

-6.

“Then how about sending only one convict, escaping one citizen, and cleaning the field?”

---

Route A. Escape through Cleaning the Field

This method can be attempted when there are 5 or fewer survivors inside the Special Zone and 100 or more 「Running Corpses」 on the field.

■ Field Cleaning Procedure

1. Drag the 「Running Corpses」 out of the field. A 「Running Corpse」 that has come outside the line will no longer move.

2. Seal the 「Running Corpses」 in the black plastic bags provided in the cleaning supply storage room.

3. Move the sealed corpses to the access gate blocked by a steel shutter, located to the left of the cleaning supply storage room.

4. The black plastic bags moved to the access gate will disappear on their own when no one is watching.

5. Repeat the above process until all 「Running Corpses」 have been cleaned from the field.

※ Precautions

-「Running Corpses」 will extremely resist being dragged outside the field line. At this time, beware of injury or death.

-We do not know where the black plastic bags discharged through the access gate disappear to. Please be careful not to let valuables, children, and the like get mixed in.

-If you place a silver ring in a black plastic bag and discharge it, a phenomenon in which snow falls over the field has been observed. This snow has no effect on the human body, so please do not panic if snow falls occasionally.

---

It was by no means an easy process.

But it was the most economical.

They had said convicts were important resources for the Bureau too, so we could use one instead of two.

And while we were at it, someone else could escape too.

-No.

But Cha Si-eon cut down my opinion in a single stroke.

-As I said earlier, the time required to clean 147 「Running Corpses」 under the current circumstances is approximately 3 days. Meanwhile, the citizen inflow rate for this Special Zone is roughly 0.8 people per day.

……Then at least 2 more people would enter over three days.

If the number of people increased, the field-cleaning route would be blocked again too.

“Has there ever been a case of escaping through field cleaning?”

-Bureau agents attempted it for verification purposes. 5 agents with equipment cleaned and escaped from 100 set corpses over 8 hours and 41 minutes.

Nearly 9 hours, even with agents and equipment.

On top of that, this was probably 9 hours with the resolve to escape quickly and collapse afterward.

If the work time was longer than that, and if the people were ordinary people like me, rest and sleep would have to be included too.

No good. It seemed there was nothing to be done.

“Are there perhaps any other escape routes?”

……Still, giving up like this felt entirely uncomfortable.

No, to be honest, I wanted to reduce the aftermath as much as possible.

If I went out like this, I would remember the outerwear being waved while asking for help.

I did not want to carry a burden like that.

So let me at least make an excuse for myself.

A truly convenient excuse that I had still tried.

“The Bureau knows these two routes, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only ways out, does it?”

-Are you saying you will look for a new route now?

“Yes.”

Would he criticize me for being needlessly stubborn?

-In that case, I can give you about 1 hour.

“What’s gotten into you?”

-59 minutes and 54 seconds remain. Move.

This bastard’s personality is truly strange.

Just be cold-blooded or warm-hearted, pick one. Why does his personality have gradations like burnt rice?

In any case, we were able to look for another method.

Jae-gyeom and I decided to search for clues in this indoor space first.

The first place we examined was the first-floor conference hall, the location for “Route B. Escape through the 「White Shadow with a Hole in Its Chest」.”

But that conference hall was empty.

“I guess it doesn’t even appear because we don’t qualify.”

The 「White Shadow with a Hole in Its Chest」 helped people who had shown devotion to the nation, social contribution, the practice of sharing, and so on.

But I had something to say about that.

“I saved someone in the 「Railway Station」.”

“You got a lot of money too.”

“That cancels it out……?”

Compensation is compensation, and rescue is rescue!

But what was the point of arguing that with Kwak Jae-gyeom?

More importantly, a new question had just occurred to me.

“You said before that Special Zones are spaces hostile to humans.”

“The main characteristic of Special Zones is hostile reaction toward humans, and they operate for the purpose of pulling unspecified citizens inside through unknown methods and either killing or assimilating them.”

That was what Cha Si-eon had said before.

“But for something that is merely hostile, don’t they seem too cumbersome?”

-By cumbersome, you mean?

“There are even elements that are subtly favorable to people, and more than anything, there are too many rules.”

-It is a fact we have already proven that Special Zones are hostile to humans. The Special Zones Mr. Seo Do-un has experienced are only at that level because the Bureau is suppressing them. A fully grown Special Zone is by no means mild.

Cha Si-eon refuted me firmly.

The Bureau’s suppression. A fully grown Special Zone.

These were concepts I was hearing for the first time today.

It seemed there was some complicated history there, but I continued making my argument.

“But if they were truly only hostile, there’d be no need for rules, hints, help, or escape routes like this.”

-So what is your point?

“That the structure is surprisingly common-sense and kind. As if it were a game made to be cleared.”

At my words, Kwak Jae-gyeom cut in as if dumbfounded.

“It makes you play soccer with corpses.”

“Either way, it follows the rule of going into the goal.”

A sports game separates winners and losers, and the winner receives a reward.

When the field gets messy, it makes people clean it, and when the work is finished, they leave work.

Either way, it was common-sense.

Though the details were devilish.

And this quiet common sense applied to other Special Zones too.

To escape the railway station, one had to board a train.

To get out of the mart, one had to shop.

All of them were common-sense and clumsy imitations of those spaces.

Then what about this sports complex?

“There are more spectators in a stadium than players or cleaners. Then wouldn’t there also be a route to escape with spectator status?”

At my hypothesis, Kwak Jae-gyeom sighed as if confused.

“How do you get spectator status?”

“There must be some condition, like a mart membership. Possessing a ticket, or being disqualified as a player.”

-Ha Yu-ju was recognized as a player even with her wrist cut off.

“There are Paralympics too.”

“Even dead people are treated as players.”

“Here, you can run even when you’re dead.”

-…….

“…….”

“No, think about it seriously. Whether players or cleaners, there are at most 20 or 30 of them, but spectators number in the thousands, tens of thousands. Then there should be a spectator-only escape route too.”

I knew it too, that I was making an enormous leap.

But this space itself was the final boss of leaps in logic, so what could I do?

So let us think in time with its rhythm.

The conditions this space would accept for disqualification as a player.

What came to mind right away was.

“Doping?”

“We don’t have any medicine left. Ha-ma used it all earlier.”

“School violence.”

“I only studied when I was little…….”

“Drunk driving?”

“I barely drink.”

This guy, only his hair was delinquent. Everything else about him was extremely sincere, wasn’t it?

At that moment, Cha Si-eon recited,

-Sexual crimes.

A thick silence settled over us.

I was a little flustered, but I refuted him without showing it.

“Sexual crimes occur in situations where one party’s consent is absent. So no matter what we try among ourselves, it probably wouldn’t constitute one. It would be consensual between adults.”

Good, that was a proper defense.

Satisfied with my own statement, I turned to look at Jae-gyeom.

But Kwak Jae-gyeom, why is your hand on your gun?

-Fortunately, it seems there will be no agreement.

“Why is that fortunate? He’s holding a gun right now. Even setting the gun aside, leaving me out of it, Kwak Jae-gyeom is your own subordinate, so is it right to treat him like this? It’s not like you’ll never see his face again, you work together, so there’s such a thing as human courtesy or a bare minimum of respect. No, before that, the man earlier also committed sexual crimes and whatever else, but his player status was valid until the end, wasn’t it? This has already been confirmed.”

-I see.

“…….”

-I understand, so please calm down. Your heart rate rose significantly.

This was 100 percent intentional.

-It seems the hypothesis that Special Zones are common-sense does not fit after all. Injury, death, and social controversy all have nothing to do with player eligibility, do they?

Look at this. He did it on purpose!

Apparently, Cha Si-eon could not tolerate the idea that Special Zones were common-sense.

Kwak Jae-gyeom also seemed rather skeptical.

Did I guess wrong?

Or was the idea too extreme?

Well, being disqualified as a player was something that only occasionally made the society pages.

……Wait.

Right, that was by no means common.

What was actually common and happened as a matter of course was…….

At the thought that crossed my mind, I turned to Kwak Jae-gyeom.

“Jae-gyeom.”

“Yes?”

“You still have live rounds, right?”

---

“Team Leader, if something goes wrong with me, please make sure I’m interred in the National Cemetery. Don’t just scatter me in the sea because it’s classified. Understood?”

-If you come back alive, I’ll sew your mouth shut first.

At Cha Si-eon’s blade-cold words, Kwak Jae-gyeom stopped whining and raised his gun.

BANG—!

Along with a single gunshot, the broadcasting room’s door handle fell off.

Jae-gyeom kicked the door, then hid himself behind the wall.

After waiting a moment for a reaction, he shone the searchlight inside the broadcasting room.

This bastard, he was talking about the National Cemetery, but it was all just whining.

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone inside.”

-Enter.

We entered the broadcasting room.

According to previous exploration reports, this broadcasting equipment operated normally.

However, what kind of interaction was possible with it had not been discovered.

I turned on the broadcasting room microphone and brought my smartwatch close to it.

“Please turn on the sound.”

At my request, a sharp noise rang out from the smartwatch.

FWEEEEET—!

This was the whistle sound announcing the end of the game.

And what followed was music encouraging the players who had given their all.

Right. Being disqualified as a player was an incident that only occasionally made the society pages.

By contrast, the end of the game was an essential routine included in every match.

And when a game ended, spectators went home.

So if we staged the end of the game, what would happen to the people hiding in the spectator seats?

We held our breath and waited for the Special Zone’s response.

After some time passed like that.

“I think we just became people who blew a whistle.”

“……Ha.”

Just as I covered my face in defeat.

Suddenly, the ground dropped out from beneath my feet.

“……!”

A fall? No, this was…….

Zero gravity.

The dismay of the ground vanishing beneath my feet and the bewilderment of my body floating came at once.

Shocked by the sensation of my body being lifted, I hurriedly looked around.

“Do-un hyung!”

Not too far away, Kwak Jae-gyeom was there with the black background behind him.

“Kyaaak!”

“Aaagh!”

At the screams, I turned and saw people floating in the distance, just like us.

4 in all. They were the Missing Persons who had been hiding in this space.

“Hyung, grab this!”

Jae-gyeom threw the cord toward me.

As I flailed to grab it, something blocked my way.

It was something black, impossible to identify and impossible to push away.

Flustered, I looked back.

But the people visible behind me were gradually being hidden by some kind of darkness too.

They had not disappeared.

Like the moon covering the sun, something was limiting my field of vision.

When that darkness made narrow gaps like the spaces between fingers, I realized.

The hand that had taken Ha Yu-ju earlier.

It was trying to seize me.

The closing darkness strangled my breath.

Then my consciousness plummeted into the abyss.

---

The surroundings suddenly grew bright.

A woman was facing me.

A fine face.

But a worried expression.

It was someone I knew.

“Ms. Baek Sa-ra……?”

I muttered blankly after seeing Baek Sa-ra, who had suddenly appeared.

Baek Sa-ra opened her eyes wide.

Then she shouted in a direction that was not toward me.

“Seo Do-un has regained consciousness!”