Chapter 40

Kwak Jae-gyeom abandoned me and left.

Leaving only the words, “Hyung, stretch for a bit,” he went off somewhere.

I do not have separation anxiety.

If anything, I am the type who prefers being alone.

The problem was that right now, I was not alone.

This was the Bureau’s indoor training hall.

A place where Field Division agents trained their bodies.

So until I entered, it had been noisy with shouts of spirit and the sounds of blows.

But the moment I entered, the agents who had been full of fighting spirit stopped moving as if by prior agreement.

After that, what filled this place was only silence.

And the thick gazes directed at me.

Thanks to that, I was on the verge of developing separation anxiety I had never had before…….

Everyone, could you please just keep doing what you were doing?

I was trying hard to endure the burdensome attention.

“Agent Seo Do-un.”

An agent whose name I did not know approached stiffly.

“You’re doing barehanded person-to-person training today, right? Use these.”

The one who said that and handed me wrist guards was a male agent with an unbelievable neck thickness.

As a bonus, his shy expression and respectful attitude were extremely impressive.

I forced a smile at the stranger’s kindness and nodded.

“Ah, thank y…….”

But it would have been better if I had not.

Because right after that, the other agents flocked over like pigeons spotting a piece of bread.

“Agent Seo, don’t use that. Use this. This one is more expensive!”

“Ah, tape is better. Do you know how to tape?”

“Protein…….”

“…….”

I was surrounded in an instant.

By sweaty men whose weight was about 1.5 times mine.

My field of vision was completely blocked by their massive builds.

Then, from far away, other agents shouted.

“Hey, get out of there! You’re startling him!”

“Right! Don’t touch him, only look with your eyes!”

No, don’t look with your eyes either.

Introverts can die from gazes alone.

At that moment, beyond the burdensome human wall, I heard a voice that saved me.

“Ah, these people are doing this again. Go away, shoo!”

Kwak Jae-gyeom, who had returned just in time, shouted while swinging a towel.

Then the agents surrounding me scattered like sparrows.

But even after they scattered, their gazes that seemed to be targeting me remained the same.

So Jae-gyeom shouted again.

“Ah, stop staring! If he gets nervous and gets hurt, will you take responsibility?”

“Agent Seo, keep fighting!”

At Kwak Jae-gyeom’s sharp shout, the agents shouted one last time and finally scattered.

Only then could I finally let out a sigh.

Ah, my energy is being drained…….

It had been 1 week since I came out of the 「Sports Complex Where Corpses Run」.

And only now was I finally entering basic training.

Originally, I should have started as soon as I was appointed, but it had been delayed from schedule because of my frequent injuries.

On top of that, the Bureau’s basic training was very different from what I had vaguely imagined.

Naturally, I had thought I would be mercilessly rolled around somewhere like a military training camp.

So I had even prepared myself for the feeling of reenlisting, but unlike my expectations, there was no return to my training-camp days.

There was no murderous instructor, no high-intensity training, and no strict control.

Actually, it was natural.

Because I did not even have fellow recruits.

Because I was the only new recruit here.

So if I were to compare my current lot, it would be this.

An office worker receiving one-on-one personal training at a gym where everyone else is a professional athlete.

An ordinary person who, among already-completed agents, did not even know why he should hit people, let alone how to hit them.

So every training session, I was carrying out a large-scale initiation ceremony as quite the spectacle.

When I let out a deep sigh, Jae-gyeom grinned and said,

“Just hold out a little. After a few days, those people will get used to you too.”

“Are you sure a few days will be enough? For days now, I keep seeing only new faces. Is that just my imagination?”

“Uh, you’re right. There are about 300 people in the Field Division, so it’ll take some time until you meet all of them. As expected, you’re sharp.”

Kwak Jae-gyeom gave me a thumbs-up.

I held back the urge to fold that thumb backward and let out another sigh.

Just as he said, the Field Division had no fewer than 300 people.

So even now, I barely knew anyone outside Response Team 3.

At least each team had its own particular atmosphere, so I could only infer their affiliations by appearance.

For example, the typical soldier with a burly body and closely cropped hair was Response Team.

A person who gave off the feeling of a professional with an athletic hobby was Exploration Team.

A person who looked like they would work at an arts-related company was Fabrication Team.

And people who looked like they worked at a public institution were Control Team.

Like that.

Of course, this classification was not always correct.

Just as Kwak Jae-gyeom, a blond who did not look like Response Team at all despite being on Response Team, was right beside me.

“Just enjoy it, hyung. The people here are usually seriously fierce and keep each other in check a lot.”

“Then why are they acting like this toward me?”

“Because you’re Agent of the Month!”

Kwak Jae-gyeom’s tension was turned all the way up today too.

When I accepted it with a sour face, Jae-gyeom put on an exaggerated tone.

“Ah, hyung. I’m not just saying empty words. Becoming Agent of the Month is an incredibly big deal. There are fixed monsters who win it every time, so up until now, only 11 people have ever had their names listed as outstanding agents.”

What was surprising was that among those 11 outstanding agents, I knew 4 names.

Kwon Mu-seop, Cha Si-eon, Baek Sa-ra.

And Lee Seop, whose every record had now been deleted.

“But last month, hyung’s name appeared as the 12th outstanding agent in history, and wow…… Honestly, I had expected it, but I still got chills. First place in performance as soon as you were appointed. At this point, you basically wrote a new legend.”

At Kwak Jae-gyeom’s fuss, I simply kept my mouth shut.

Whether editor or agent, if one endured for a month, a paycheck came out.

And before I knew it, it was April.

I had completed the full month of March without absence and had received something called a Mission Performance Allowance.

At the same time, I experienced the Bureau’s strange culture of public announcements for the first time.

——-

■ Agent of the Month

Name: Seo Do-un

Affiliation: Analysis Team 5

Activities

: Discovery of a new escape route in the 「Trap-Installed Warehouse Mart」

: Discovery of 8 types of new information in the 「Trap-Installed Warehouse Mart」

: Rescue of Agent Ha Yu-ju and 5 citizens from the 「Sports Complex Where Corpses Run」

: Discovery of a new escape route in the 「Sports Complex Where Corpses Run」

Thoughts on Being Selected as Agent of the Month: Thank you. I look forward to working with you going forward as well.

———

At the end of the month, the above content was sent to every employee through the Bureau’s internal email.

They even stuck my face photo on it.

When I was horrified by this culture I had experienced for the first time in my life, Kwak Jae-gyeom said,

Public servants are originally like this.

Do police stations or government offices not also select “Police Officer of the Month” or “Kind Employee of the Month” and things like that?

Right, when in Rome, do as the Romans do…….

If I thought of it as part of boosting morale, it was not entirely incomprehensible.

The problem was that because of this, the rarity of me being the only new recruit had been combined with the specialness of being Agent of the Month, and I was now being illuminated as a very unusual person.

Kwak Jae-gyeom told me to just enjoy this, but well.

I did not think such excessive expectations were very good.

More than anything, when attention gathered, strange things tended to mix in among it too.

When I finished stretching, Kwak Jae-gyeom looked at the clock and grumbled.

“But why aren’t these people coming?”

“It isn’t time yet.”

We had come out too early. My training instructors were not late.

But perhaps because Kwak Jae-gyeom was bored of waiting, he twisted his body around and said,

“Hyung, should we try what you learned yesterday?”

Right, rather than standing around blankly doing nothing, it would be better to do something like the others.

When I nodded, Jae-gyeom put me in a headlock from the front.

“You remember how to get out, right?”

I remembered.

The opponent was standing and pressing me down, while my body was bent and my head was held.

To escape from this clearly disadvantageous situation, I had to break the opponent’s balance.

First, one hand grabbed the opponent’s shoulder.

The other hand went behind the opponent’s knee.

Then I pulled the shoulder and pushed the knee to knock him down!

……That was my perfect theory, and yet.

Kwak Jae-gyeom, you bastard, are you some kind of stump? He would not fall.

Hanging horizontally from Jae-gyeom, who did not budge at all, I asked,

“This is practice, so can’t you fall for me a bit?”

“Come on, where’s the point in that? Try using more strength.”

“Hup……! I can’t.”

“The method is right. Try again.”

“Urghhh……!”

“Oh, you almost had it. Just a little more!”

What exactly is “just a little more”? You haven’t moved an inch!

I strained with all my might against Kwak Jae-gyeom, whose core was terrifying, then remembered the key point that I had to break his balance.

So, in order to catch Jae-gyeom off guard, with the hand that had been holding his knee, I grabbed him by the collar.

Then I put my weight in the opposite direction from where I had been pushing until now.

“Aaagh……!”

It worked!

It did work, but oh no.

What I had learned yesterday was a technique to make the opponent holding me in a headlock fall backward.

So Kwak Jae-gyeom had also been preparing to fall backward.

But because I changed strategies, Jae-gyeom’s body tilted forward, and Jae-gyeom reflexively stretched his arms forward.

Without properly releasing my headlock.

As a result.

CRASH—!

A terribly dangerous technique that grabbed me by the neck and slammed me into the floor landed on me.

“Urgh! Hyung, are you okay?”

“I am not okay…….”

“Thank goodness. You’re alive.”

You bastard, your standard for okay is way too lenient, isn’t it?

Kwak Jae-gyeom reassured himself as he pleased and raised me up from where I had been embedded in the mat.

Just as I was getting up with Jae-gyeom’s support.

“You should learn to walk at kindergarten before coming here, no?”

At the unfamiliar voice, Jae-gyeom and I turned around at the same time.

Three male agents were snickering at us from a little distance away.

When our eyes met, one of them kicked another one with his foot.

Then the man who had been kicked grinned and waved his hand toward us.

“Ah, you heard that? Sorry!”

He was calling an apology that was not like an apology an apology.

In any case, he said he was sorry, so I decided to let it pass and turned my head.

But that man shouted again.

“If you need an assistant teacher, just say so!”

“Stop it, you bastard!”

“Are you seriously crazy?”

At the man’s shout, that group laughed noisily.

Seeing that, Kwak Jae-gyeom’s face hardened as he muttered,

“Have those gentlemen lost their minds…….”

When Jae-gyeom tried to head straight over, the man’s side began making a loud fuss first.

“Ah, why are you like that? It was just a joke. Agent Seo Do-un, were you offended? You’re fine, right?”

The man who shouted this looked about the same age as me.

He was a somewhat thin guy with a face like a fennec fox.

That face, is he Control Team?

I did not know who he was or where he belonged, but he clearly seemed childish and rude.

I did not particularly want to respond and make myself the same level, but if I vaguely let this pass here, I would give him an excuse to keep poking at me.

So I opened my mouth, intending to answer only, “It wasn’t very funny.”

But at that moment, the fox-faced man flopped backward.

THUD—!

As if he had not fallen because he wanted to, the fox-face snapped in irritation and turned around.

But the next moment, the fox bastard stopped short.

No, I was the same, freezing solid at the person standing behind him.

“Is walking still difficult for you?”

A voice far too gentle for the situation.

“Then I should take you to kindergarten.”

The woman in a tracksuit who had appeared behind the fox-face smiled prettily as she spoke.

That woman was none other than Baek Sa-ra.

The instructor in charge of me, whom Jae-gyeom and I had been waiting for.