What is fear?
When I was young, the unknown terrified me. People often say it, don't they? Fear is the driving force that allowed humans to survive. By fearing the unknown, we could stay one step away from death.
But then we become socialized, our knowledge grows, and people forget about fear. At least, that's what happened to me. If given the choice between watching ten horror movies in a row or having all my prepared work data vanish while I'm in the middle of something, I'd pick the former without hesitation.
But after seeing that thing just now, it felt like I'd regressed to being a scared child again.
"Get up!"
I snapped my eyes open at the hand shaking my shoulder.
Yoo Daon was looking down at me with a worried expression.
"Your face is pale. Are you okay?"
"...Yeah, sure. I'm fine."
Honestly, I wasn't.
I recalled whatever it was that had loomed over me. It was something I could never call human, and it was far too repulsive to be a god.
If something like that was a god, I could confidently declare that all religions up to now had been massive scams.
Ah, just thinking about it made goosebumps rise all over my body again.
"You collapsed out of nowhere and scared me."
"...You didn't see it, right?"
"See what?"
"If you didn't see it, that's a relief."
Yoo Daon probably hadn't seen it. Good for her, if that's what you could call it. Seeing something like that wouldn't do wonders for your mental health.
"Is the containment complete?"
"For now, it seems that way."
Yoo Daon pulled out her manual.
"It says external intervention is impossible now, but anything goes inside."
"Anything?"
"That's all it says: 'anything.'"
At her words, I pulled out my own manual and flipped it open.
[Manual for Office Workers]
[AA - Post-Containment]
1. After containment, no external interference will occur, so all actions carried out within the Management Bureau gain legitimacy and plausibility.
2. The most important thing is stabilizing the situation. Employees, please protect the Management Bureau with a sense of ownership.
*Excessively unethical acts may result in the HR Team convening a disciplinary committee.
Sense of ownership, my ass. What era does this think we live in, spouting crap like that?
I snorted and turned to the next page.
3. Containment objects and items in the containment rooms can be used. Containment room locations are listed below.
*The Management Bureau is not responsible for results including death, disability, soul erasure, or permanent binding due to misuse.
What the hell was that last line supposed to mean?
And yet, they so kindly provided the containment room locations. Clearly, they wanted us to use them.
Containment rooms.
I'd never tested if my eyes worked on containment objects. Come to think of it, I'd never encountered anything besides humans in my life... or at least, that's how I remembered it.
My brow furrowed involuntarily at the hazy memory.
I probably hadn't seen anything. Yeah, that must be it.
So that's why it was in HR.
"Then we should head to the containment rooms."
"Isn't that where the root of the problem is?"
"Probably. Unless it's an external invasion, that is."
An external attack, or an internal issue?
"But from what Jaeheon employee said earlier, it might get resolved surprisingly quickly."
What the hell was this woman saying?
I stared at Yoo Daon, and she looked back at me with an expression full of expectation.
"That magic eye trick from before? Can't you do it again?"
"Oh."
I recalled the message I'd seen earlier.
[Critical: 1->0]
"It'll be... tough."
"Huh?"
It wasn't just the message. I knew it instinctively. I couldn't pull off the same trick again right now.
"I need time."
"How much?"
"That's the thing."
"...No helping it, then."
She sighed regretfully and straightened the jacket I'd given her.
"We'll have to push through with brute force."
"You mean fight?"
"There's no way to win without fighting."
Fight that monster hand-to-hand?
I had zero confidence. I wasn't the physical type to begin with. If I were good with my body, I'd have joined the Security Team or something.
"I'll handle it?"
Yoo Daon spoke with total confidence.
The words "How about showing a bit more skin?" rose to the tip of my tongue but sank back down.
"What if you die?"
"Me?"
"No, if you go down, I'm dead."
"We can overcome that with effort!"
Was this woman actually this reckless?
As I looked at her with jaded eyes, she stared straight back at me.
"Got any better ideas?"
"..."
We couldn't run, either. We'd blocked off our own escape routes to begin with.
But was this really the right call?
"...Let's go for now."
I didn't even know the full story here. We couldn't gather more clues just sitting around. In the end, we had no choice but to go.
Yoo Daon nodded in satisfaction and stood up.
"I'll take point."
"Go ahead."
*
The containment rooms weren't as far as I'd expected. Another stroke of luck: we didn't run into a single enemy on the way.
"We're lucky."
"..."
It felt strange.
The Management Bureau wasn't a place that slept. Excluding office workers, everyone operated in three shifts to constantly manage containment objects and stay vigilant against potential external intruders. Was this level of silence even possible?
"It's weird."
"What is?"
"There's hardly anyone around. You'd expect enemies at least, or even corpses, but there's not a single trace."
If there were no bodies, there should at least be bloodstains.
With nothing at all, it was almost like someone had cleared the path just for Yoo Daon and me.
Only then did Yoo Daon put on a serious expression and scan the surroundings.
"...You're right."
She pretended to draw her pistol and started walking cautiously, but we reached the containment room door without encountering a thing.
"..."
"..."
Fucking huge.
That was my first thought upon seeing the containment room door.
Ever seen a bank vault? The kind with a big steering-wheel lever in the center that you spin around to open.
This door was exactly three times the size of one of those.
We didn't even need to wonder how to get in. The door was already open.
That meant someone had either exited the containment room through this door... or entered it.
A bad premonition surged up.
Yoo Daon must have felt the same; she just swallowed dryly and stared at the door.
"...We have to go in, right?"
"Yeah."
Ah, I don't want to.
I punched my trembling knee once and crossed the threshold.
The containment room itself wasn't anything special.
Rows of sturdy-looking iron doors aside, it was no different from a regular office.
The difference was the fierce battle traces visible the moment we stepped inside.
The acrid smell of gunpowder, and the fishy stench of blood.
A migraine hit me.
I rubbed my temples and looked around.
Dead bodies were piled up like a mountain. If you wanted a physical representation of a "mountain of corpses," this was it.
All of them in suits, some with agonized expressions, others looking utterly bewildered as they lay fallen.
Why hadn't it taken over their bodies?
I scanned the surroundings in case any were still alive, but no status windows appeared.
They were all dead.
The migraine intensified.
Yoo Daon, who had followed behind me, gasped.
"This is..."
"All dead."
"We won?"
What the hell was she talking about?
Yoo Daon let out a sigh of relief.
"That's why there were no traces outside. We somehow stopped it!"
Stopped it?
I checked above the beaming Yoo Daon's head.
[Name: Yoo Daon]
[Age: 23]
[Trait: Immortality]
[Talent: -]
[Background: The girl who can't die gets caught up in a major incident from her first day on the job.]
[Weakness: Her body has fully overcome death. No physical interference can confine her forever. However, her mind has yet to overcome death.]
"Why so serious? No need to worry—"
Yoo Daon smiled at me, then froze.
-Crack...
Something split with a sound, followed by a thud as she collapsed backward, showing her back.
The jacket I'd given her was sliced clean in half and fluttered into the air.
"Ah, th, uh, urk,"
Yoo Daon shuddered violently, making strange noises.
A red line ran from the crown of her head down her spine, and she convulsed all over, emitting bizarre sounds.
I recalled the man Yoo Daon had shot in the hallway.
The wound from his crown down his spine.
"No way—"
I quickly scanned Yoo Daon with my eyes.
[Name: Yoo ? On]
[Age: 2?]
[Trait: Mimicry? Immortality?]
[Talent: -]
[Background: Something horrific has entered the body of this immortal human.]
[Weakness: Wait.]
In that short time?
I was stunned by the unfolding situation for a moment,
-Slither...
Something slid with a slippery sound.
My head throbbed so badly it felt like it would split open.
I forced my blurred vision to focus and looked ahead.
It was a person.
No, a maggot.
The images of person and maggot overlapped and switched repeatedly in my sight.
In my pounding head, Yoo Daon's recent words replayed.
'We somehow stopped it!'
Why had Yoo Daon been seeing a different situation from me?
Why?
Slowly, it approached.
The closer it got, the more I understood.
This wasn't human. Why had I ever thought it was earlier?
I glared at "it" with wide eyes.
A maggot the size of me.
It wriggled disgustingly toward me, then glanced at Yoo Daon and changed direction toward her.
Soon, a translucent window appeared above what I assumed was its head.
[Name: ? ? ?]
[Age: ? ? ?]
[Trait: Parasitism]
[Talent: Perception Distortion]
[Background: After a long time suppressed by humans, it has been released from the containment room for some reason.]
[Weakness: Empty carts make the most noise.]
Now even my eyes were messing with me.
But I got the message.
Ignoring my pounding head, I forced myself up, grabbed the twitching Yoo Daon's arm, and dragged her in the opposite direction as I fled.
If my guess was right, this was the correct move.