“Oh, you an Mr. Employeee?”
Strangely, the agents fell silent.
As if expecting she was about to say sothing shocking.
“He’s such a great personn. Kind, tries hard to help people!”
“…Ah, really?”
The man’s voice was strained.
“But I guess none of you think twice about stuffing that kind person into a pet carrier, huh?”
“Agent.”
Another agent cut in, warning him. But Lee Seonghae caught only the clean interpretation inside that .
“Hmm. But Mr. Employee probably uses the carrier because it’s comfortable…”
“……”
“And if he just ca out, people might get scared. So it’s probably consideration!”
“Scared, huh.”
“So people get influenced by appearances, right?”
“……”
The agent’s lips parted but then closed again.
When they opened once more, his voice had gone flat and businesslike.
“Understood. Anyway, the request is just one thing. We want access to that carrier.”
Hmm.
“Nothing complicated. Just that. If you can let us know its location when the carrier heads to another site, that’s enough.”
A fairly convincing guess popped into Lee Seonghae’s mind.
‘Scouting, maybe?’
Co to think of it, the bureau said they worked with benevolent souls to eradicate malicious darkness.
Mr. Employee really was a perfect fit.
‘Hmm. Sounds good!’
Way better than being overworked and underpaid under a rotten superior like Director Cheong.
Still, better to confirm first.
“You’re going to help Mr. Employee change jobs?”
“…Let’s say that.”
“Then I’ll help youu.”
“…!”
“It looked like he wasn’t even getting paid right now. He’s still at the annex, but the conditions there seem really poor…”
“Wait.”
The agent stood up.
“He’s at the annex?”
“Yesyes.”
“Daydream Inc.’s annex.”
“Yup. But…”
Are they seriously about to charge in right now?
Lee Seonghae smiled faintly.
“You’ll never get in there as a person, you know?”
The security system of Daydream Inc.
Darkness sneaking in or, conversely, contained Darkness breaking out happened all the ti, but infiltration from outside by intruders trying to ‘steal’ Darknesses was guarded against with extre thoroughness.
Human lives were less important to them than protecting the raw supply chain. So, a typical vicious gacorp, so to speak?
Either way, it ant impulsive break-ins were extrely hard.
Unless you had an inside collaborator.
“Give a bit of tie.”
And Lee Seonghae was confident she could be a very good collaborator.
After all, she’d been planning to visit the annex today anyway!
So, over several days she’d kept bringing snacks (which she’d ant to gift anyway!), listening for intel, and quietly building contact lines with the Security Team who worked alongside ‘Mr. Employee’.
The plan was simple. The mont she naturally learned through this route when the carrier would make an outside trip, she would pass that info to the Disaster Managent Bureau agents.
The only hitch was that she hadn’t imagined that Mr. Employee would take on work that involved diving deep into the company’s inner core.
Nor could she have guessed so chain of events would lead to Mr. Employee to being relocated and then going missing entirely.
Internally, the record now simply said, ‘Transferred for special duty under Director Ho Yoowon’. But that hadn’t been disclosed outside.
Even the Security Team in charge of him had kept their mouths shut. They seed to be doing sothing among themselves, but…
“Hmmmm…”
At least there was one relief. Lee Seonghae had realized that Mr. Employee was no longer inside the carrier.
‘I can feel the absence.’
Sensing the presence—or now the lack thereof—of the mascot.
It was a lingering instinct from her ti working as staff at the Flower Golden Resort. The sa phenonon Agent Haegeum once described.
Either way, she passed on this deflating news to the agents, and the agents…
[K.LEE: Gone you say]
…asked her to bring sothing to their next eting if possible.
Sothing that could serve as a trace of Mr. Employee.
[K.LEE: A piece of the body or a fragnt of clothing he wore regularly would work]
[K.LEE: Simple belongings wont do. Not stuffed toys or things like that]
Hair, nails, or maybe a bit of his horn.
Of course, Lee Seonghae didn’t have anything like hair. She got the sense the other side was just fishing for any possible lead at all.
But then.
[I think I have sothing similar!]
Sothing practically part of him.
“Mascot-nim’s flower decorationn!”
It was a ‘souvenir’ she’d chosen as staff pay at Cheerful The Park.
Lee Seonghae had boldly picked one small flower straight off the mascot’s own horn.
Kim Soleum had been quite antsy about that, but Lee Seonghae herself didn’t know.
I s T h a t
R e a l l y O k a y ?
She just recalled the mascot’s hesitant question and brought the flower happily to show the agents.
The agent’s face darkened as he looked at the tiny golden wildflower.
“This is supposed to be… ‘part of Mr. Employee’?”
“Yep!”
The atmosphere sohow got even stranger, but Lee Seonghae didn’t mind.
Then the agents used so uncanny, spiritual technique akin to dowsing, and from that single keepsake, they extracted one piece of data.
Direction.
“He’s south east from heree?”
The agents seed ready to begin tracking at once, standing up and preparing to thank her for her cooperation.
“Umm… but that flower’s precious to , too.”
Lee Seonghae smiled and declared brightly.
“I’m coming along. I’ll take a day off!”
…And so, after several transfers and stops, Lee Seonghae finally arrived at Jisan Village and succeeded in arranging the eting between Mr. Employee and the agents!
And the very first reaction of the staff upon seeing the bureau agents was…
Request : Do not move
Huh?
* * *
I hadn’t expected it to happen like this.
I just stared blankly at those faces.
Agent Choi.
Agent Bronze.
The Elder’s light flickered in the dokkaebi lantern held by Agent Choi, and a restraining rope was neatly coiled over Agent Bronze’s shoulder.
A sight I’d seen on every deploynt.
Then our eyes t. I widened my field of view and began to ease backward… but at that exact mont.
I looked again at the black box, its two hands extending.
Right beside the exit.
‘…!’
A prickle of crisis ran up the back of my head.
Request : Do not move
Reason : Box three steps to the side (extre danger level)
‘No.’
Too close…!
‘If we make one wrong move, it may lock on and switch targets to follow.’
Trait of the ‘Ascetic in the Box’.
It ‘prefers’ to accept into its quota the side with the richer story material.
aning it could just as easily go after two of those three.
‘They have to be gotten out safely.’
Sohow.
Should I try to scare them? I want to get Assistant Manager Eun Haje out with them if possible, but how?
…If I deliberately draw the box’s attention—
“Grapes.”
……
……!
“Let’s keep calm.”
At the threshold, Agent Choi slowly set down the dokkaebi lantern, then raised both hands.
“See? We’re not going to do anything. That’s alright, isn’t it?”
……
“Shall we communicate just by nodding? If speaking is hard, just move your head.”
I slowly nodded.
A smile touched Agent Choi’s face…
“Goodness… of all ways, you had to put it like that.”
Ho Yoowon.
“It’s not that speaking is hard. It’s just that, structurally, there are no vocal cords. Correct?”
My heart seed to cinch in on itself.
[What an ill-mannered fellow! My friend does have vocal cords sowhere in that body, but is simply favoring a more comfortable ans of communication at the mont!]
And.
Ho Yoowon and Agent Choi knew each other.
Moreover, that director bears a trendous grudge against the Disaster Managent Bureau…
“The binding I placed, well. You went running off to that wheezing, reclusive old man tucked away at that mountaintop and had it undone, didn’t you. Truly a way of handling things that befits your organization.”
“Agent Grapes.”
Agent Bronze spoke.
“If a sapient entity inside a supernatural disaster is continuing to inflict supernatural harm on a governnt agent, we may transfer them to the bureau imdiately.”
He looked darkly at Ho Yoowon.
“With the victim’s testimony alone, it can be done at once.”
Ho Yoowon’s smile deepened.
[Oh, it seems there isn’t a soul here inclined in that man’s favor. Well, who would ever like pestilence anyway? And he is insufferable, after all.]
[So, our candidates present themselves.]
…Candidates?
[Candidates to fill the two-person quota. How about putting those two into the box?]
[Ah, a notice of departure is sad, but it’s an essential part of running a show. Let’s inform the two least valuable.]
[‘Regrettably, you will no longer be able to continue with us’!]
Six were present here.
The fixed number is two.
[So, let’s pick two.]
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