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Editors: Z0Rel, BlueMangoAde

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Chapter 853: Side Story - Anomalous Phenomena Management Bureau (2)

—Identification Number S-102.

Anomalous phenomenon, commonly called 'Wonmi-dong Psychiatric Hospital'.

What is presumed to be the entity is an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Wonmi-dong that has been closed for over 40 years.

At present, from the outside, it is a building that is not being maintained.

Even if one goes inside, no particular abnormality can be found, but missing persons continue to occur within a 50 km radius in the nearby area.

There is a high possibility that it is an anomalous phenomenon that has come over from another country.

For eyewitness accounts and records from the other country, refer to the link below.

Records regarding Wonmi-dong Psychiatric Hospital.

Among them, the conversation between Missing Person Miss A and Bureau Agent B. For details, refer to the link below.

Below is a summary of the events that occurred between Miss A and Bureau Agent B.

[Miss A recently became a graduate student, and, unable to endure the professor's harassment, was presumed to have walked near the abandoned building while on the phone with a friend, and to have had conversations such as, 'Living as a graduate student, I think I got a mental illness. The professor must be crazy. I will get rid of the professor,' and so on.

[Starting a few days later, Miss A began to not come out to graduate school, and Miss A's friend, her lab seniors and juniors, and the professor, finding this strange, came to Miss A's home and looked for Miss A. When she was not found anywhere, they filed a missing person report through her parents, and afterward the police handed the case over to the Bureau.

[Agent B, who has jurisdiction over that area, tried to contact Miss A through several measures and contacted Miss A through an app received from the Bureau Director.

[Miss A claimed that she was currently captured and brought to some psychiatric hospital. She said that she was dragged away by certain people, and that they were confining her under the name of 'treatment'. Fortunately, Miss A secretly brought her phone inside, so she received Agent B's signal.

[Three days after Miss A received contact. Miss A continued to exchange contact with Agent B while behaving normally. She conveyed the situation inside the psychiatric hospital and said she requested that they let her out. However, she said the 'beings' inside the psychiatric hospital treated her request as part of mental illness and ignored it. Inside the hospital there were quite a few others who seemed to be in the same situation as her, and she said that those who received 'treatment' there for a long time instead seemed to have become very strange in the mind.

[Around six days after Miss A received contact. The psychiatric hospital's 'treatment' of Miss A began. It is not known exactly what they did to Miss A, but after forcibly administering an unidentified drug to Miss A, they were presumed to have used various psychological and physical means to break Miss A's will. After undergoing something like drug treatment, Miss A's condition became very strange.

[Around nine days after Miss A received contact. Miss A pretended to take the drugs they gave her while hiding them away, and thanks to that, her mind returned to some extent. However, perhaps as a side effect, extreme thinking and violence became prominent, and she boldly made a plan to escape the hospital and put it into action. Over several days, Miss A grasped the hospital's structure, set a fire in one place, and, taking advantage of the moment when attention was drawn there, fled through the back door. From then on, she exchanged contact with Agent B by phone. However, no matter how much she ran in the opposite direction after leaving the hospital, an end did not appear, and at some point, Miss A said that even though she ran straight, for some reason she arrived at the hospital's front gate. Afterward, Miss A was presumed to be dragged back by the hospital's 'beings' and to have received even stronger 'treatment'.

[Fifteen days after contact with Miss A passed.

[Contact came first from Miss A's side. This time, Miss A seemed to be together with the beings called the hospital's 'doctors'. As if Miss A's mind and body have completely collapsed, she no longer through this place is reality, and after dismissing everything in this world and Agent B and so on as 'mental illness,' and saying that someday she will receive healing from the psychiatric hospital's 'beings,' contact was cut off.

[Afterward, no further communication with Miss A was reached, and after Agent B researched the hospital's rules, he found out the fact that the hospital unconditionally abducts a person within a 50 km radius of the hospital among people who have said words in the similar vein of, 'I think I have gotten a mental illness.'

[After saying that he will save Miss A and the missing persons, Agent B took sufficient weapons and equipment, satisfied the conditions himself, and entered the psychiatric hospital.

[However, even up to now, contact with Agent B has not been reached, and there also seems to be no change in the anomalous phenomenon.

[The abduction radius of the relevant anomalous phenomenon, S-102, is widening little by little every week, and since not only the conditions for extermination or sealing, but even the method itself to rescue the missing persons is not visible, the management committee requests the Director's decision.]

—Abnormal Phenomenon Management Bureau Management Committee Chairman Park Dang-mu.

"Identification number S? An annoying one came in."

Kang Min-hee clicks her tongue as she flips through the materials about the anomalous phenomenon on a tablet.

The documents received by fax contain specific figures, types, and detailed data about the anomalous phenomenon, and after entering the Bureau-only site through the QR code in the fax documents to check the situation, she sits in a limousine and takes a sip of coffee.

The anomalous phenomena managed by the Anomalous Phenomenon Management Bureau receive an identification number and a letter grade according to the danger they possess and the abilities they have.

If the identification number is simply a classification table that categorizes anomalous phenomena, the letter indicates the danger level of these anomalous phenomena.

The letter ratings classified by the Bureau are five in total:

H, which has the lowest danger level but complicated handling.

G, a danger level that also causes damage to agents.

S, for which agents find it difficult to find a way to respond.

SS, for which requires evacuation and contacting the Director rather than confronting it upon discovery.

There is also J, for which is impossible to deal with even with the current Director's ability.

'A J-rank is something I can suppress only if I draw in the power of the main body, but those guys are crushed on their own under the presence of Sword Spear's main body, so there's no need to worry... These days, anomalous phenomena from G up to S are a pain.'

Even if Sword Spear seems to be loafing around, just by having the main body reside on Earth, she casts her presence over this entire universe and gives a wordless warning to the transcendent existences of otherworlds that flow into this place.

In that respect, Kang Min-hee rates Ji Hwa highly.

Of course, even if Ji Hwa is pressing down truly troublesome things with presence, the bugs that cannot even feel that presence are something Kang Min-hee has to go around and clear out herself.

"It would be nice if some talent that can be used by the Bureau comes in... Is there no talent who can bear [wisdom]...?"

She lets out a deep sigh and finally arrives in front of the problematic Wonmi-dong Psychiatric Hospital.

[Director, we've arrived...]

"I know. Stay on standby."

After leaving behind the anomalous phenomenon she subjugated and works as the limousine driver, Kang Min-hee gets out of the limousine, puts a pipe in her mouth, and lights it.

"Puhu..."

Exhaling smoke that glows with a faint blue light, she approaches the agents waiting in front of the hospital.

Among them, she approaches a woman wearing an out-of-place hanbok rather than a black suit and sunglasses.

"How is the situation? Chairman."

"P-Please lower your speech. This lowly one still cannot get used to receiving honorifics from the Director."

"Don't be like that. Right now, I'm just a human. More importantly, give me the situation report first."

"Yes, yes... Then...up to now, 36 more missing persons have occurred, and the hospital's abduction radius is now a situation where it has increased by another 41 km."

"Are you continuing attempts at sealing or isolation?"

"Yes. We are bringing even various devices that seal anomalous phenomena and trying, but...there is no reaction at all."

"Hm..."

Kang Min-hee holds the pipe in one hand and hands the materials she brought to the 'Chairman'.

"I will go and suppress it. After I enter, please isolate the area around the hospital from the surrounding space. For the time being, treat the inside as 'the same as the Director's Office,' so tell the agents to wait while facing the direction opposite from the hospital, and inform them that no matter what sound comes from behind, they must never turn around. If they turn around, at minimum they will have to be confined for six months."

"Yes, I will make sure they keep it in mind. Is there anything else you need?"

"Mm... When I do damage recovery, if the missing persons' condition is bad, I will use a rather rough method and turn them back. However, in a bad case, it is possible that they will also have to be isolated for at least six months. Please keep this in mind."

"Yes, understood. Please return safely, O Great One..."

"Umm..."

Kang Min-hee's face reddens a little and she waves her hand.

"...I say it again and again, but I am only human. There is no need for excessive courtesy. Then I'll be going for now."

After greeting the Chairman, she slowly goes into the hospital entrance and spits out a line as if muttering.

"I think my mind is going to turn strange."

Immediately after, she notices that at some point she has entered a bizarre world.

***

"Hmm."

At some point,

The clothes she wears have changed into a patient uniform.

Of course, the phone and handbag she brought are still in her hands, and the position of the pipe in her mouth also has not changed.

The only thing that changed is her outfit.

As well as the space, and the strange medicinal smell that stings her nose.

"Patient. I believe you were told that smoking is prohibited inside the hospital."

And then, something wearing a doctor's gown approaches in front of Kang Min-hee and speaks.

Its face is not visible in detail.

However, strangely, she does not feel any sense of incongruity, and if she thinks about it later, it is an existence she thinks she will remember as just 'a human with no distinguishing features'.

"Patient, you need to receive treatment at our hospital right now. We do not know in detail what kind of person you were in your world. But what is certain is that you can receive treatment, and you can neatly forget the false world that stems from your mental illness. Please follow our instructions. If you resist, I will call the 'nurses'..."

"Hmm..."

Kang Min-hee takes the pipe out of her mouth and glances back.

Sturdy nurses are already standing behind her, waiting to subdue her if she makes a sudden move. The nurses also have faces that are blurry and hard to see.

"Huuu..."

Kang Min-hee exhales smoke and asks the 'being wearing a doctor's gown.

"May I ask a question, Doctor?"

"If it is a normal question, I will accept it."

"If you are someone who treats mental illness...while watching the mental illness or hallucinations that patients see...have you ever thought things like 'there are ghosts' or 'there is an afterlife'?"

"Patient. In this world, there are no ghosts, and stories like an afterlife, or experiences of an afterlife, are also nothing but hallucinations the brain sends as it reaches death. Those are all hallucinations or mental illness, and you should..."

"Yes, yes, you believe there aren't any, right? You want me to get treated, right? Fine. I will get treated once, so while I get treated, I will leave this with you for a moment, Doctor."

She draws on the pipe one more time, exhales the smoke for the last time, and hands it to the being wearing the doctor's gown.

"Where is my room? I want to treat my illness while mingling with the other patients. I believe the doctor will treat my mental illness. Now quickly guide me."

At Kang Min-hee's cooperative attitude, the being in the doctor's gown and the beings in nurse uniforms look at each other and mutter something, then lead and guide her to a hospital room.

After a while, once the nurse and doctor confirm that she is staying quietly in the room, they suddenly vanish somewhere, and Kang Min-hee looks around the room with an amused face and smiles.

Then, she rummages around in her sleeve and starts taking something out.

"Ghosts don't exist? Hahaha..."

Although she is a split body, so in practice she stays at a human level, her essence is a great existence.

Therefore, through that rank, she suppresses and keeps isolated countless dangerous anomalous phenomena.

"Come out, [Eight-Chi Ghost]. [Slit-Mouthed Woman]. [Portrait of the Abandoned House]. [Monkey Hand]. [Press Man]."

Splat splat splat splat, splat splat!

From Kang Min-hee's sleeve, powerful anomalous phenomena that Kang Min-hee suppressed fall out with splats.

Kang Min-hee picks up the hand-shaped anomalous phenomenon that cannot move on its own, then slightly opens the hospital room door, pushes the hand into the room next door, and gives an order to the remaining anomalous phenomena.

"I'll let you loose for a while, so make a mess on your own."

[Kyaaagh!]

[Kkiyeeeek!]

"I said if you don't answer as a human, you'll get hit. Answer..."

[We apologize, Teacher. Because it has been so long since we came out, we seem to have briefly lost reason. We ask for your understanding.]

"Good. Then all of you play happily."

As soon as her words fall, the four ghosts that can move on their own rush out of the room like beasts and begin tearing through the hospital in their own ways.

Eight-Chi Ghost goes out through the window and walks while going popopopo, flaunting its long body.

Soon, the popopopo sound rings out from outside the hospital.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman follows behind nurses who wander alone, her face covered by a red mask.

Soon, a scream like something tearing rings out inside the hospital.

The Portrait of the Abandoned House begins heading silently toward the hospital director's office, and soon, from the direction of the director's office, as if the something playing the role of the director seems startled, a slipping sound occurs.

Press Man swings its fist and strikes a passing patient.

Soon after, along with a voice that says, "With a constitution so suited to being a sailor, do you not know that not enlisting in the Royal Navy of the British Empire is the same as desertion!?", the passing patient instantly transforms into the British Navy and is consumed, and before long they gradually increase their numbers and become the splendid navy of the great British Empire, fully attempting a Press Gang inside the hospital.

"Huuu..."

Kang Min-hee takes out the tobacco she hid, puts it in her mouth, and looks out past the iron bars.

"Popopopo..."

"How do I look?"

"Nurse!? What is this portrait?"

"He who has seen this uniform, abandon hope! We are sailors of the Great Empire!"

Listening to the sweet sounds of chaos, she exhales tobacco smoke.

"If you're so good at treating mental illness, I'll keep throwing people who need treatment at you, so try treating them well."

It is an evening in the season when it turns cold as autumn runs toward its very end.

It is late autumn.