Chapter 37

“Hello. I’m Oh Tae-o, Acting Team Leader of Analysis Team 5…….”

I inwardly flinched when I saw the person named Oh Tae-o.

Oh Tae-o, who had come to my hospital room, was a person who seemed to say, “I am a researcher,” and “I pulled another all-nighter today.”

A man in his early 30s or so, wearing thick glasses and a white coat.

Of course, it was my first time meeting him, but why was that?

Several of this person’s features were extremely familiar.

For example, unkempt shaggy hair.

Heavy dark circles.

Pale skin.

A hunched back.

A voice half gone.

And even a shambling gait.

This was, was it not, the appearance of a person in our industry right before publication?

After seeing only muscle people in the Bureau with their backs and shoulders stretched straight, meeting someone of my own kind felt a little strange.

Oh Tae-o shuffled across the hospital room while clutching a tablet and a file of documents.

Then he came to the table where I, Cha Si-eon, and Kwak Jae-gyeom were sitting and sat across from us.

As soon as he sat down, he let out a long, long breath.

“I’m glad you’re all right……. I was anxious because I thought something serious had happened…….”

Indeed, it was an attitude befitting Analysis Team 5, whose job was Seo Do-un.

It was my first time meeting Oh Tae-o, but Oh Tae-o did not find me unfamiliar at all.

Rather, he calmly brought up the agenda as if we were coworkers who had worked together yesterday.

“There’s a lot to talk about, but I’ll start with the easy topic first. The ‘range of possessions experiment’ Response Team 3 was conducting unofficially will be temporarily suspended. Meaningful results did come out, but the accident was also too serious…….”

The range of possessions experiment.

He meant when I had walked around with Kwak Jae-gyeom attached to me by a cord.

And the too-serious accident was probably Ha Yu-ju’s injury.

“Have you found the reason Ha Yu-ju was dragged in with us?”

“Only an assumption…….”

At Cha Si-eon’s question, Oh Tae-o answered halfheartedly.

Then he took out his tablet and pushed it in front of us.

On it were me, Jae-gyeom, and Yu-ju, captured on CCTV.

The three of us were huddled together holding the poster.

It was the situation right before we were dragged into the 「Sports Complex Where Corpses Run」.

“Here, you see this hand……?”

Oh Tae-o pointed with a pen near Ha Yu-ju’s shoulder.

Looking closely, a large hand rested on Ha Yu-ju’s shoulder.

……It was Kwak Jae-gyeom’s hand.

My and Cha Si-eon’s gazes turned toward Kwak Jae-gyeom.

Then Jae-gyeom sheepishly avoided our eyes.

“Agent Kwak Jae-gyeom had his hand on Agent Ha Yu-ju’s shoulder……. It seems Agent Ha Yu-ju was caught up in Agent Seo Do-un’s inflow because of that physical contact…….”

“Then what is the reason only Ha Yu-ju’s wrist was severed?”

“That is here. You see this hand……?”

Oh Tae-o said the same thing as before and moved the tip of his pen.

What he pointed to this time was Ha Yu-ju’s arm, stretched straight toward the far side of the corridor.

When Oh Tae-o tapped the tablet screen with his fingertip, the three of us disappeared in an instant.

Instead, only Ha Yu-ju’s raised hand remained on the screen, then dropped from midair to the floor.

After seeing that, Cha Si-eon narrowed his brows and asked back.

“Was it excluded from the inflow range because it was far from Mr. Seo Do-un?”

“Yes. This time, let’s look at the line where Agent Ha Yu-ju’s wrist was severed. This is the silicone bracelet Agent Ha Yu-ju was wearing…….”

The limited merch for first-generation members of S.O.C.H. that Ha Yu-ju had shown off to me.

The silicone bracelet on the screen had been cut very sharply.

On top of that, it had not simply snapped in one place, but had been split cleanly in half into two pieces.

“At first glance, this cut surface looks straight, but when magnified, it is a curve. If we return to the photo from earlier, apply this bracelet’s cut surface, and extend it…… it draws a circle with a radius of 1.3m centered on the line of Agent Seo Do-un’s crown.”

At Oh Tae-o’s touch, the photo of me, Kwak Jae-gyeom, and Ha Yu-ju appeared again.

Then one line extended from Ha Yu-ju’s silicone bracelet and drew a circle around me in the screen.

“Agent Kwak Jae-gyeom’s and Agent Ha Yu-ju’s bodies were inside the line. The only thing outside this line was Agent Ha Yu-ju’s hand…… so it seems it could not come with her and was cut off…….”

“Are you saying that if someone is touching me, they get dragged along according to this range?”

I asked in surprise.

If it worked like this, I could not make contact with other people.

Not only would I never know when they might get dragged in with me, but if they were caught on this cutoff line, their body would be severed.

This time, at least it was her wrist, so they somehow reattached it.

But if a head or torso got caught on this line? That would be instant death.

“It’s easy to think that, but we can’t conclude that yet. This has only been observed once. We don’t know whether the proposition ‘if connected to Agent Seo Do-un by a cord, one gets dragged into a Special Zone with him’ was only valid this time or is always valid. At the moment, we don’t know whether this 1.3m radius always applies or changes each time either…….”

Another “we don’t know.”

I was gradually growing frustrated by the riddles continually being added to my life.

But just then, Oh Tae-o brought up something tempting.

“So I devised a research method for this phenomenon…….”

“A research method?”

Nod, nod!

Oh Tae-o’s eyes, which had been cloudy, suddenly brightened, and he nodded.

Oh Tae-o operated the tablet as if about to show us something, and I also checked it with anticipation.

“……?”

But what is this? A frilled lizard?

The photo Oh Tae-o newly opened was an image of a person.

But that person had some round board fitted around their neck.

There were even markings on that board showing the distance from the neck.

So it looked like a Halloween costume that had reproduced a dartboard or target.

“It’s a neck collar that can measure Agent Seo Do-un’s Special Zone inflow range. If the 1.3m observed this time is truly a meaningful range, then when Agent Seo Do-un is dragged into a Special Zone, this neck collar should also be cut at the 1.3m line. To measure the margin of error, I set it generously at a radius of 1.5m.”

Oh Tae-o, who had been speaking like someone sleepy this whole time, suddenly even had a clear voice.

Don’t tell me he’s serious?

Is he really planning to put that on me?

He wants to hang a board with a radius of 1.5m and a diameter of 3m around my neck?

I would sooner wear an actual cangue. I could not accept this reality.

At that moment, Cha Si-eon spoke beside me.

“That proposal has already been rejected due to the problems of being excessively conspicuous and heavily restricting movement.”

Thank goodness. It was not reality.

“Tch…….”

But when his attempt was foiled, Oh Tae-o openly clicked his tongue.

No, didn’t you say it had already been rejected?

“It’s a shame, but it doesn’t really matter. In any case, with a mechanical interpretation like this, we can’t understand Special Zones, which are flexible and irregular…….”

It didn’t really matter, but he tried to put something like that on me?

For what? When it had already been rejected once?

“Besides, if we start experiments, that side will respond too. So it really doesn’t matter to me…….”

For someone who said it did not matter, this person’s excuses were rather long-winded.

Contrary to his words, he also seemed to hold a grudge.

A considerable one, even.

If not, there would be no reason for him to push up his glasses specifically toward Cha Si-eon, specifically with his middle finger.

……Can this person be trusted?

When Oh Tae-o, Acting Team Leader of Analysis Team 5, had calculated the position of Ha Yu-ju’s wrist and the radius around me earlier, he had seemed fairly reliable.

But the moment he brought out the neck collar, all the trust that had been stacking up neatly collapsed, and even the ground beneath it began to shake.

They said Analysis Team 5 was the team investigating my situation.

But someone like this was the Acting Team Leader?

Come to think of it, what is Acting supposed to mean?

Don’t tell me the Team Leader position is vacant?

Suddenly anxious, I turned toward Cha Si-eon.

Cha Si-eon only silently stared at the thin middle finger raised toward him.

Whether I looked straight ahead or to the side, all I felt was troubled, so I swallowed a sigh and asked Oh Tae-o,

“Um, by ‘that side,’ do you mean the Special Zones?”

“No. Not the Special Zones, but the things behind them…….”

“The things behind them?”

“Does Agent Seo Do-un think his being dragged into Special Zones is a phenomenon that happens by chance……?”

What is he suddenly talking about?

“I think it isn’t a phenomenon, but a will…….”

Oh Tae-o added, but I still could not understand.

Then Oh Tae-o operated his tablet and explained further.

“I’ll show you directly why. These are the dates when Agent Seo Do-un flowed into Special Zones……. 「Railway Station」 on February 3, 「Hospital」 on February 17, 「Warehouse Club」 on March 5, and 「Sports Complex」 on March 27. Counting by days, the gaps are 14 days, 16 days, and 22 days. What do you think……?”

I was dragged in consistently twice a month?

I sure suffered a lot?

After thinking for a moment, I shook my head.

Then Oh Tae-o pushed several copied documents in front of me.

“Then compare them with this. These are Agent Seo Do-un’s medical records written by Director Kim U-in.”

---

■ Medical Record

Registration Number: 0120012

Name: Seo Do-un

Age/Sex: 28/M

February 18.

Trauma due to entity contact in the 「Hospital That Hunts Humans」.

Mild concussion, left ankle sprain, multiple contusions across the body. 2 weeks to recover.

March 5.

Symptoms improved. Determined fully recovered.

March 6.

Trauma sustained while climbing a structure in the 「Trap-Installed Warehouse Mart」.

Lumbar disc herniation, left rotator cuff tear. 3 weeks to recover.

March 26.

Symptoms improved. Determined fully recovered.

March 27.

Trauma due to entity contact in the 「Sports Complex Where Corpses Run」.

Cognitive decline not found in clinical criteria. Diagnosis unknown.

---

My first impression upon seeing this was, “I sure got injured a lot.”

The thought that followed was, “They’re passing around my medical records freely.”

And the last thing that came to mind was a difficult-to-describe sense of wrongness.

“You noticed, didn’t you……?”

When my expression hardened, Oh Tae-o drove the wedge in.

“In other words, every time Mr. Do-un’s injuries healed, he was dragged into a Special Zone again…….”

“What are you saying right now…….”

At that moment, a certain voice flashed through my mind.

“You should’ve put him through the wringer in moderation. What is this?”

“If he gets dragged in again looking like this, he’ll be done in 3 minutes. What will you do then?”

It was what Kim U-in had said before, after seeing me laid up sick.

Words that had actually made me quite anxious.

While I was hospitalized, I had been tormented the whole time by thoughts like, What if I get dragged into a Special Zone when I can barely even walk yet?

But unlike my worries, that sort of difficult situation had never actually happened.

Despite numerous injuries and fairly long treatment periods, I had always been in decent condition when I was dragged into a Special Zone.

I had thought it was simply coincidence.

I had only thought it was fortunate in the middle of misfortune…….

As if stoking my confusion, Oh Tae-o added,

“Look. It’s a pattern as if something waited for your full recovery. I don’t think this can simply be coincidence…….”

“If it isn’t coincidence, then what exactly…….”

“That is our greatest dilemma. Did Special Management Zones occur naturally, or were they created by something?”

Oh Tae-o threw me into an even more meaningful question mark.

He pushed up his glasses again and said,

“I am certain it is the created side. Created by the ‘Designer’ who made the Special Zones…….”