Chapter 60

“Huuu…….”

A pure-white lump, as if struck by a hard frost, groaned in midair.

Until I heard the sound, I did not recognize it at all.

That the thing caught in the lines was a person.

No, could I really call that a person?

“Please…… help me…….”

A woman wrapped round and round in white 「Ant Lines」.

But she was too small.

Only her torso and head retained a human form. Half of the woman’s body had become thread and unraveled.

So she looked like an unfinished knitted scarf, flowing loose and tangled.

Is that contamination from the 「Ant Lines」?

“Please save me…….”

The woman begging to be saved was still young.

And she was already exhausted.

“Mooom…….”

When the woman finally sobbed, Kwon Mu-seop spoke in a calm tone.

“I’m sorry. You are already undergoing contamination, and rescue is impossible.”

“What do you…….”

“Instead, I can help you to your repose. Do you want that?”

Kwon Mu-seop’s voice was grave.

To the woman, that would be even more despairing.

“I want to live…….”

“We are scheduled to remain here for 28 hours. If we leave, you may have to spend a very long time in that state.”

“No, hhic……!”

“I regret that we cannot rescue you. I will come back 3 more times, around every 9 hours. Please make your decision in the meantime.”

“Wait, don’t go! Don’t leave me alone, aaagh……!”

After finishing his words, Kwon Mu-seop passed by the 「Ant Lines」.

The woman struggled and wailed.

She sobbed, begging us not to leave her alone, but Kwon Mu-seop silently moved his feet.

I looked at Kwon Mu-seop’s back as he walked ahead.

For some reason, that back looked like a cliff enduring wind and waves alone.

---

A voice came from beyond the haze of cozy sleep.

“Can you identify the locations of the mercenary entities?”

It was Manager Kwon Mu-seop’s voice from outside the tent.

“If the bird is observed, report immediately.”

The moment I realized that, my eyes flashed open.

What time is it?

6 a.m. Time to wake up.

Forcing off my drowsiness, I rustled around and got up.

When I opened the tent and came out, Kwon Mu-seop greeted me in the morning.

“You’re awake?”

It was a greeting like a benevolent mother speaking to her lazy son.

Manager Kwon Mu-seop, who said that, was sitting with a foil blanket wrapped around him and a gun braced against his shoulder.

Aaaagh…….

At the sight of Kwon Mu-seop having stood night watch alone, I became terribly apologetic.

Kwon Mu-seop himself, as if this was only natural, said,

“It hasn’t been 4 hours yet. You can sleep a little more.”

“No, sir. I slept enough.”

“Well done. Here.”

Kwon Mu-seop poured something from a thermos and handed it to me.

It was warm soup.

I accepted the soup with a feeling difficult to describe.

Manager Kwon Mu-seop no longer looked like a Christmas tree.

All the luggage he had been carrying in that ridiculous way had been used for me to wear and cover myself with.

If I had been dragged here alone, I too would have had to cover myself with a single foil blanket and shiver.

Ah, Manager. Please forgive this faithless one…….

Feeling deeply honored, I asked Kwon Mu-seop,

“Manager, is it all right for you not to sleep?”

I had asked because I intended to take over the night watch, but Kwon Mu-seop smiled and asked back,

“Will you protect me?”

My will is overflowing.

“Or are you trying to get Deputy Manager promoted?”

“Of course not…….”

At my disgust, Kwon Mu-seop burst into laughter again as if it had been a joke.

“I’m fine. While you were sleeping, I caught 11 more 「Ants」.”

The 「Ants」 caught before I fell asleep were Nos. 6, 8, and then 7 and 9.

It seemed the following numbered 「Ants」 had come after that too, and he had diligently caught each one.

The 「Ants」 caught so far totaled 15.

That meant 13 remained.

“I’m going to catch them all except for 8. At this speed, I think it’ll take around 2 hours, and from then on, we’ll have to keep moving around in search of 「Stone Towers」. Until we escape from here, for 22 hours.”

At Kwon Mu-seop’s explanation, I nodded.

Since we had firepower anyway, why not catch all the 「Execution Ants」?

Absolutely not. That was no different from suicide.

---

If all 28 「Execution Ants」 are killed, the 「Ant Nest」 will hatch the next generation of 「Execution Ants」.

The next generation will also maintain a count of 28, and they will recognize you, who exterminated their previous generation, as a serious threat.

The reborn 「Execution Ants」 will not stop attacking until you die or disappear, and this fierce assault will continue as generations repeat.

Therefore, do not recklessly annihilate the 「Execution Ants」.

---

The 「Ants」 not only retaliated, but kept being born.

And they attacked endlessly until their natural enemy disappeared.

Because of this habit, annihilating the 「Ants」 was strictly forbidden.

The next-generation 「Ants」 would not appear one by one like now, but would swarm in all at once.

If we could leave only one 「Ant」 alive and lock it up somewhere, that would be good too.

But there was no way to do that.

Dig a pit and trap it?

Why is an ant an ant? Because it can dig tunnels.

Tie it up somewhere?

It would cut through everything with those mandibles that could snap off human bones.

「Ants」 were extremely strong entities.

Like most living creatures, they simply became helpless before firearms.

So Manager Kwon Mu-seop’s plan was to reduce the number of 「Ants」 suitably, eliminate the risk of being surrounded, and from then on endure by using 「Stone Towers」.

I agreed with this strategy too.

Of course, it would not be an easy task.

Because for 22 hours, we had to keep searching for 「Stone Towers」 and walking the hill paths.

On top of that, a 「Stone Tower」 might be on an easy-to-walk footpath, or it might be halfway up a rugged cliff.

“Still, shouldn’t you sleep a little too, Manager…….”

“Hahaha, I’m sleeping in bits whenever I can, so don’t worry. I also rested well before coming in here.”

At Kwon Mu-seop’s answer, I asked back in surprise.

“Were you perhaps staying on the sofa the whole time to conserve your stamina…….”

“No, that was because Deputy Manager told me not to punish you.”

My expectation was wrong, but for some reason, I was moved.

This is why a mere soldier dies while being loyal to a senior officer.

Because they cannot forget this kind of grace.

Do not be bewitched. Do not be bewitched.

……What do I do? I think I’m already bewitched.

A halo began shining behind Manager Kwon Mu-seop’s head.

I stared blankly at that light, then snapped back to myself.

Then I hurriedly looked around.

“Are you looking for something?”

When I glanced around, Kwon Mu-seop asked.

Manager, you really can’t see, right?

“I was wondering where the surveillance camera is.”

“Do you need to relieve yourself?”

“No, I wondered whether our current appearance was appearing on the control room screen too…….”

Because it would be rather painful to imagine the sight of me being moved by Kwon Mu-seop appearing on the large screen.

“The control room can’t pay attention to us right now. For our side, only Deputy Manager and the off-duty Control Team members are probably watching.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Do you have camera phobia?”

“Wouldn’t anyone feel burdened if they knew they were being filmed in real time…….”

At my honest confession, Kwon Mu-seop laughed heartily.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Unless it’s their own area, people don’t bother looking in. It’s not as if this is some good scene to watch.”

Kwon Mu-seop merely spoke kindly.

If that was true, it was a relief, but it did not feel convincing at all.

“For that, the people at the Bureau know too much about my every move.”

“Well, if there are unusual matters, they do get shared.”

It seemed like a rough excuse, but it was not a very important topic, so I tried to let it pass.

Then a question suddenly occurred to me.

“Was the sight of me wandering through the 「Railway Station」 shared too?”

“Mm?”

“I remembered that Ms. Baek Sa-ra recognized me right away.”

When Baek Sa-ra had been disguised as a convict in the 「Hospital That Hunts Humans」.

Upon seeing me, she had acted as if she knew me, calling me “Seo Do-un of repay it to anyone later.”

This meant she had looked at what I had done in the 「Railway Station」 in great detail.

“Mm, back then, sharing was necessary. For the purpose of boosting employee morale.”

And at Kwon Mu-seop’s answer that followed, I felt it once again.

This person’s strange opacity.

Kwon Mu-seop sometimes muddied explanations like this.

As if he were an old fox slipping over a wall.

If he were someone originally made that way, like Cha Si-eon, I too would let it pass, but it was stranger because he did this after talking well.

He was not simply an unserious person. He was Kwon Mu-seop, of all people. Why?

If I asked directly, he would laugh it off like with the 200 million won matter, right?

I pondered for a moment, then twisted the question.

“Then is this also for boosting morale?”

“Mm?”

“You personally taking charge of me, Manager. I wondered whether you were pushing yourself too far, but if I think of it as that kind of performance…….”

“That’s a good idea, but I didn’t think that far.”

When I deliberately guessed too far, Kwon Mu-seop laughed heartily.

So I continued as if I did not know anything.

“If not that, then why are you going this far? To be honest, I don’t really know whether it is right for even you to leave your post, Manager.”

“Do-un, I said this before, but you really don’t have to worry too much. I am judging things fully before acting.”

“You also said the basis for that was your instincts…….”

“That’s right. My instincts are really good.”

He said it with such a smiling face that I could not tell whether it was a joke or serious.

On top of that, his answer continued to be vague.

I too was slowly growing stubborn, so I asked back until the end.

“So you prepared this tent and thermos simply by instinct too?”

“Mm.”

“Then around what age will I get married?”

“You cannot get married because you have failed to make a girlfriend.”

“…….”

-Manager, Do-un’s expression is not good. He’s looking at you like he’s looking at a fraud.

Perhaps Yoon U-jeong was also frustrated by Kwon Mu-seop’s roundabout speech, because she could not listen anymore and cut in.

“Ah, is it the expression that says I’m talking bullshit again? Fine, fine.”

When Yoon U-jeong took my side, Kwon Mu-seop burst into laughter again.

Then, as if he had compromised on something, he began.

“I told you before, didn’t I? That sometimes I can see Special Zones using their heads.”

This was something I had heard the first time I met Kwon Mu-seop.

-There really are things like patterns or tendencies. Sometimes, I can see these bastards using their heads too.

-If being dragged into Special Zones were truly random, then in broad daylight, in downtown areas with high population density, there should be more people being dragged away.

Right, he had said this while saying that Special Zones seemed to select their prey.

“Actually, Suppression Week wasn’t originally this busy either. But since we kept touching Special Zones in the reorganization phase, from a certain day onward, the reorganization phases of the Special Zones started overlapping.”

“They overlapped?”

“Mm. We should see it as an intention to disperse our forces. That way, even one or two can succeed in reorganizing. These things have heads too. They have intentions, and they have strategies.”

It was a surprising story.

It was also a story from an area completely different from what I had intended to hear.

“So I tried reading their intention. The fact that you keep getting dragged away probably isn’t a random coincidence either.”

“Can you really read their intention? I don’t at all…….”

“I told you. There was one person before you too.”

He meant Agent Lee Seop.

“Back then, we were so busy responding that I didn’t have time to think about it. But looking back after it passed, I came to think that what happened to that friend wasn’t merely coincidence either. Much too late.”

So this time, he had read the intention and prepared?

As if he had accurately predicted that we would be dragged into this cold place, he had brought even a tent and thermos?

If so, Kwon Mu-seop’s words that his instincts were good were neither exaggeration nor bluff.

But I too had fairly good instincts.

After all, reading others’ intentions had originally been my job.

“You must have been close.”

“Mm?”

“The agent whose situation was the same as mine.”

Kwon Mu-seop paused.

“Did that person have a girlfriend?”

At my question mixed with a joke, Kwon Mu-seop hesitated, then smiled.

Then he muttered in a reluctant tone.

“He didn’t have a girlfriend. He had a wife and child. He even got married early, of all things.”

“How many children?”

“One daughter.”

Kwon Mu-seop answered readily, then sighed.

“Let’s stop talking about that friend’s personal details, Do-un. It’s dangerous.”

Agent Lee Seop.

Blinded due to severe contamination.

Do not disclose that name.

Do not mention it except when absolutely necessary.

There was no way he did not know these guidelines, yet Kwon Mu-seop had unexpectedly answered easily and regretted it belatedly.

Seeing that, I opened my mouth with certainty.

“Manager.”

“Mm?”

“Is that person’s daughter Lee Sol?”

At my question, the smile disappeared from Kwon Mu-seop’s face.