Chapter 99

RIIIP—!

Cha Si-eon tore the woman’s clothes with rough hands.

I was horrified by that action, then abruptly stopped.

What happened?

When the woman’s revealing clothes were torn, thicker clothes appeared instead.

A light gray restraining suit that covered her carefully from neck to ankles.

At the same time, the thick fragrance disappeared, and my vision cleared.

When I looked around again, this was an ordinary room.

“Let go of me……!”

The woman in the restraining suit screamed shrilly.

But what was this?

The woman like plum blossoms was nowhere to be seen, and some wild creature was there instead…….

The woman had the same pretty face I had seen earlier.

But none of the elegance from a moment ago could be felt.

Far from elegant, the sight of her flailing after being grabbed by the scruff of her neck was no different from a stray cat caught by a wild dog.

“L-let go of me this instant……!”

And Oh Tae-o, who came to his senses much too late, entered the battle.

When Oh Tae-o rushed over in a fluster, Cha Si-eon let the woman go.

“A-are you all right……?”

“I am not all right!”

When Oh Tae-o fretted over her, the woman shouted.

“I warned him beforehand…… That was a mistake just now…….”

“Forget it. I’m offended.”

“I’m sorry, please calm down…… We wore the clothes exactly as you asked too…….”

Oh Tae-o soothed the woman almost as if he were begging.

Then the woman glanced at Oh Tae-o with a resentful face.

“Are you really sorry?”

Oh Tae-o nodded fervently at the woman’s sharp question.

“Then apologize properly again.”

When the woman bestowed mercy, Oh Tae-o brightened.

But only for a moment.

“Not Tae-o. You, who tore my clothes.”

The woman abruptly pointed at Cha Si-eon.

Then she smiled wickedly and gently as she spoke.

“Take off all those unpleasant clothes. Then I’ll let it slide once.”

Well now.

“Since you tore my clothes like that, you should have the same thing done to you. Don’t you think?”

The woman spoke haughtily with her arms crossed.

I covered my mouth so as not to show how fascinated I was.

But I was rather a gentleman by comparison.

Oh Tae-o began urgently signaling to Cha Si-eon with his eyes.

As if telling him to hurry up and do as she said.

Right…… compared to that person, I am, yes.

When only Kwak Jae-gyeom was anxiously worrying about his Team Leader’s safety.

Ziiip—

Cha Si-eon lowered the zipper of his service uniform.

But he did not take it off, and instead took out a notebook from an inner pocket and opened it.

“Case Number 71. Ryu Dan-a. Female, 25 years old, born September 21. A C-grade contaminated person who emerged from the Type 2 Special Zone 「Maze House of Red Bars」.”

“What are you doing right now?”

The woman reacted sensitively to the information Cha Si-eon recited.

It seemed to be the woman’s own information.

“Arrested 9 months ago after seducing male missing persons with the ability 「Red Plum Blossom Illusion」 obtained through assimilation into 「Maze House」, making them her servants, and reigning over them.”

The woman, Ryu Dan-a’s, eyes grew even sharper.

But Cha Si-eon paid no mind and turned a page in the notebook.

“A subject of disposition who harmed people, but acknowledged as useful due to her ability to read the letters of Special Zones, and currently under quarantine and protection.”

“I asked what you’re doing right now.”

“Daily necessities requested this month from her research case officer, Oh Tae-o. DiX Lip Glow, PraX Eau de Parfum, YvX Laurent Hair Mist…….”

Ryu Dan-a, who had been murmuring coldly, abruptly shut her mouth.

What had been listed after the words “daily necessities” were famous, likely expensive cosmetics.

Even I, an outsider to the field, had a rough idea of those brand names.

“Acting Team Leader Oh Tae-o.”

“W-why……?”

“Are these daily necessities?”

At Cha Si-eon’s question, Oh Tae-o seemed to have nothing to say either, and chewed his lip.

“From now on, such luxury goods will be excluded from the list of supplied items.”

“Tae-o, who is he? Is he higher up than you?”

When the situation turned unfavorable, Ryu Dan-a pressed Oh Tae-o.

Oh Tae-o only fiddled with his glasses in distress.

Ryu Dan-a turned to Cha Si-eon with a face full of irritation.

Then Cha Si-eon proposed in a monotonous tone,

“If you cooperate quietly, I will retract what I said earlier.”

“……Apologize to me first. Then I’ll think about it.”

The strip show had changed to an apology.

This was enough of an achievement.

But Cha Si-eon opened the notebook again.

“Supplied item requested by research case officer Oh Tae-o on the grounds of stabilizing No. 71’s mind and body. ChaX dress. 13 million won.”

The atmosphere turned cold.

Oh Tae-o and Ryu Dan-a had expressions as if they sensed their doom.

“13 million…….”

Kwak Jae-gyeom muttered as if dumbfounded.

He said it was a supplied item, so it must have been bought with the Bureau’s budget, right?

And the Bureau’s budget was naturally tax money…….

“Jae-gyeom.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Fine! I just have to do it, right?! Do not touch my things!”

At Cha Si-eon’s signal, Kwak Jae-gyeom sprang into action.

Ryu Dan-a resisted with her whole body, defending her wardrobe.

There was a struggle, there was whining, and in the end, she burst into tears.

They said there were times when it was reassuring to have someone with an awful temper on your side, and it was true.

No, before that.

If this was how it would be from the start, we did not have to change clothes either, did we?

……I suddenly realized something.

A person with an awful temper made no exceptions for allies either.

---

Ryu Dan-a sat quietly in her seat.

But when Kwak Jae-gyeom approached holding some device, she immediately scowled again.

“What is that?”

“A lie detector.”

“Hah, it probably will not work. I’m very good at lying.”

Ryu Dan-a snorted with a provocative expression.

Then Oh Tae-o shuffled over.

“Then with this…….”

Oh Tae-o put some kind of headband on Ryu Dan-a.

Then he went back to Jae-gyeom, held out his tablet, and said,

“It is Dan-a’s brainwave analysis program, and this should be much more accurate than a lie detector…… It can distinguish between lying and speaking nonsense, and it can analyze emotions too…….”

We tilted our heads somewhat at Oh Tae-o’s cooperation.

And Ryu Dan-a tilted her head greatly.

“Tae-o, what are you doing right now?”

“Huh? I thought this would be good to use. But, Dan-a, are you angry……?”

Oh Tae-o asked while looking at the tablet.

To be honest, I had thought Oh Tae-o was so deeply infatuated with Ryu Dan-a that he could not tell right from wrong.

It was a misunderstanding.

Oh Tae-o was simply someone who had trouble telling right from wrong.

Still, Oh Tae-o’s program seemed trustworthy.

Ryu Dan-a grinding her teeth matched perfectly with the message displayed on the tablet: ‘somewhat excited, primary emotion anger.’

After finishing the setup, Jae-gyeom nodded, and I sat across from Ryu Dan-a.

Ryu Dan-a had her restraining suit fastened, so she could not budge.

Except for that frightening attire, Ryu Dan-a was a normal person.

I had imagined that a contaminated person would look deformed somewhere.

And more than anything, Ryu Dan-a, who had hugged her ChaX dress and sobbed, was, mm…….

Quite human.

Sitting across from Ryu Dan-a, I greeted her first.

“Hello.”

At my greeting, Ryu Dan-a blinked as if surprised.

Then she suddenly smiled with her eyes and said,

“Hi, you’re Seo Do-un?”

“Yes.”

“You look cute.”

I smiled bitterly.

Was this really something one should say on first meeting someone?

On top of that, strictly speaking, Ryu Dan-a was the cute one.

A woman who had long hair dyed burgundy and tied down in twin tails, and kept smiling with cat-like eyes.

Even the brainwave analysis device suited her well, like a headband she had deliberately worn.

If people were asked to place me and this Ryu Dan-a side by side and choose the cute one, 97 out of 100 would obviously choose Ryu Dan-a.

“Hyung, ask a test question.”

Jae-gyeom spoke from beside me.

A test question? Mm…….

After thinking briefly, I asked Ryu Dan-a,

“What was that thing you showed us when we entered the room earlier?”

“Hm? What did you see?”

But Ryu Dan-a tilted her head and played dumb.

Thanks to that, I was put in a needlessly difficult position.

What did I see?

The sight of your clothes slipping down…… was not something I wanted to say.

“This question itself is a lie…….”

At that moment, Oh Tae-o murmured.

“This brainwave pattern is ‘deliberate pretense.’ You can see it here, right? The frontal lobe area that fabricates speech is activated, but the temporal lobe area in charge of language comprehension is quiet. In other words, Dan-a understood the question just now, but she is deliberately pretending not to…….”

Ryu Dan-a and I turned to look at Oh Tae-o.

“This is a pattern that mainly appears when Dan-a is teasing someone…… Why does Dan-a think this is speech and behavior that teases Agent Seo Do-un? Agent Seo could simply say that Dan-a emitted a scent and undressed…….”

“Tae-o! You’re distracting me, so can you be quiet? And it wasn’t a smell, it was a fragrance. You can’t even tell that much apart?”

Unable to listen any longer, Ryu Dan-a shouted sensitively.

Yes, Oh Tae-o was definitely a genius.

A genius who perfectly analyzed other people’s brainwaves.

Except he did not understand trivial human emotions very well.

A true another-class genius…….

“Acting Team Leader Oh, let’s discuss the chart analysis through messenger. They can hear everything over there.”

“Ahh. That is right. External factors in an experiment are naturally…….”

Unable to bear watching any longer, Jae-gyeom controlled Oh Tae-o’s mouth.

Then he spoke toward me as well.

“Do-un hyung, we will do a few more practice questions until the contaminated person’s excitement settles. And Team Leader says to put in your earpiece.”

At Jae-gyeom’s message, I glanced at the glass window to the side.

Cha Si-eon was sitting in the observation space beyond the glass window.

-Mr. Seo Do-un, do not react and only listen.

When I put in the earpiece, Cha Si-eon spoke.

-When Mr. Seo Do-un asks a question, I will relay the analysis. When conveying No. 71’s emotions, I will use a 10-point scale. The closer the score is to 10, the stronger the emotion.

As I nodded inwardly, Cha Si-eon added,

-And there are a few things I must convey.

Cha Si-eon’s voice continued for a while.

A short while later, I organized my thoughts and faced Ryu Dan-a.

First, he said to do a few more practice questions.

“You said you wanted to meet me directly, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“What is the reason?”

“Because I was curious. They say you keep getting dragged into Special Zones. But somehow, you’re still alive?”

-It is a moderately evasive answer. It is not a lie, but she has another motive.

Cha Si-eon’s voice overlapped with Ryu Dan-a’s smiling face.

So this is how we are going to proceed.

It was a little distracting, but workable.

“I was lucky. Has what you were curious about been resolved now, Ms. Ryu Dan-a?”

“Well…… roughly?”

-Lie. It is merely evasive. Surprise at the level of 1 point.

What is the surprise? There is nothing to be surprised about yet.

“How is living here?”

“Obviously suffocating. Why ask something so obvious? It is suffocating, extremely suffocating!”

-A strong sincerity at the level of 8 points.

I think I could have known that without him telling me.

“How did you end up coming here?”

“You heard it earlier.”

-Wariness at the level of 3 points, irritation at the level of 4 points.

“The story can differ when told by the person involved.”

“Hm……”

-The earlier values have fallen by about half. Wariness 1 point, irritation 2 points.

This is not even a game, but it feels like checking a character’s favorability rising and falling in real time.

At that moment, Ryu Dan-a abruptly pointed at Cha Si-eon and said,

“What that stalker said is right.”

“Stalker?”

“He investigated me behind my back as he pleased. Then he’s a stalker. A di-rty stalker.”

-…….

“In any case, it is true that I was caught while doing bad things. I am a scary person who used men like you as slaves.”

Ryu Dan-a spoke viciously, as if to make a show of it.

Come to think of it, they said she was someone who had caused human casualties.

I almost got fooled by that appearance…….

-It is shameless bravado. No. 71’s harmfulness is at a level similar to a poisonous mushroom. She is safe as long as you do not deliberately pick her up and eat her.

At that moment, Cha Si-eon’s voice came through.

Was it just my imagination? It somehow felt petty.

And a poisonous mushroom, too.

Then did that mean she had not directly attacked people, but had set traps?

I looked at Ryu Dan-a half in doubt.

Ryu Dan-a, not knowing what Team Leader Cha had said, continued emitting a deadly gaze.

……You are quite an amusing person, Ms. Ryu Dan-a.

“Do-un hyung, you may begin now.”

At Jae-gyeom’s signal, I swallowed my smile and began questioning in earnest.

“You heard the sound recorded on my smartwatch, correct?”

“Yeah, Tae-o played it for me.”

“You can understand the meaning of that sound, Ms. Ryu Dan-a.”

“Yeah!”

“What did it mean?”

“I can tell you, but it would be better for you not to know.”

Ryu Dan-a drew out the end of her sentence with a smile.

She had the expression of a mischievous child hiding a prank she was sure would land.

“That is all right. Please tell me.”

“Really? You can promise you won’t regret it? You won’t blame me later, right?”

When I nodded, Ryu Dan-a’s eyes narrowed.

“All right, then I’ll teach you. The very first sound that came out there meant this.”

Ryu Dan-a leaned her upper body toward me.

Then she smiled brightly and moved her red lips.

“I will tear you to death. Seo Do-un.”

I pretended to be flustered.

At that moment, Cha Si-eon said,

-That is true.