WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Alyo
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving Among the Anomalies ◈
Chapter 62: It Can’t Be Helped
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“Since you’re here, have something to eat first. How about cola and fries?”
“No.”
Asmodeus, who had been sitting on the sofa and looking around the office, spoke.
“I’m not Baal.”
“Hmm, then how about tea, Ms. Asmodeus?”
“I don’t like tea either. And you may call me Asmo.”
“Yes, Ms. Asmo. Is there anything else you’d prefer?”
She seemed quite fascinated by my office. Her eyes never stopped moving.
“Do you have chocolate and cocoa? Dark chocolate, please, and cocoa with sugar and marshmallows.”
“Fortunately, I do.”
Thanks to Satoshi’s recent efforts, foreign customers stopped by from time to time, so I kept internationally suitable snacks on hand for them.
“Here you go.”
“Thank you. I’ll enjoy it.”
As she reverently ate dark chocolate and drank cocoa, I asked, “I thought demons would share the same tastes, but I suppose not.”
“Humans have different tastes despite all being human. Demons are the same.”
“Oh, I was narrow-minded. My apologies.”
“I accept.”
She maintained a stiffer, more businesslike attitude than Baal.
“By the way, you said you had a message from Mr. Baal?”
“Yes. He is currently recuperating after suffering injuries requiring ten weeks of treatment in an intense battle.”
“Oh, he must have been badly hurt.”
“It was the worst injury he has suffered since the one from 2,024 years ago. That is why I came, and his message is as follows.”
Asmo cleared her throat and imitated Baal’s manner of speaking.
“‘Well now, Mr. Lee Seung-hoon, you owe me a favor, don’t you? Recently, my Devil’s Sense activated in the land where you live. I’ve been keeping watch because leaving it alone seemed likely to bring about humanity’s destruction, but I am now recuperating, so I leave the matter to you.’ That is his message.”
“Hmm.”
I understood everything except one thing.
“What is Devil’s Sense?”
“It is an intuition that activates when a demon is at risk of having its objective stolen. It emerged after the tragedy of 2,024 years ago and activates from time to time.”
“What do you mean by having its objective stolen?”
“It refers to losing an objective to angels, pioneers, saints, or other transcendent beings. According to Baal, Devil’s Sense activated for all humanity, and it was especially strong at the location written here. Therefore, there is a high possibility that an incident occurring there will either bring about humanity’s destruction or transform humanity into something we cannot interfere with.”
She placed a note on the table. It contained a simple map to a specific location.
“Did you sense anything as well, Ms. Asmo?”
“I did not. Devil’s Sense is as demonic as its name suggests and usually activates as it pleases. Even among demons, the chance of activation varies greatly, as do the things we react to.”
“The possibility of humanity’s destruction... Is a demon worried about humanity?”
She picked up a marshmallow floating in her cocoa with her fingers and put it into her mouth.
“If insects infest a vegetable patch and a thief comes to steal the harvest, it is only right for the owner to catch them. One cannot let crops painstakingly grown be taken by someone else. Of course, we abandoned humanity in this dimension long ago, but we planted the seed called original sin. In that sense, they are our property.”
I roughly understood what she meant.
“I should investigate the map you gave me.”
“Then I will be going.”
Before she left, I asked one more thing I had been curious about.
“By the way, don’t you resent entrusting such an important matter to a human?”
“It does not matter. There are many dimensions. Unlike Baal, I have no attachment to this dimension. Also, according to Baal, you are a human with a high chance of joining our company, so I consider this an opportunity to assess an intern’s ability to handle work.”
“You think highly of me.”
“How could I not? From my perspective, you have already fallen splendidly.”
Fallen. The Karma Call Center had said my good karma was overflowing and that I was guaranteed to go to paradise after death, yet this side said I had fallen. It seemed the standards of good and evil upheld by the two hells were different after all.
“Have I fallen?”
“I have one question. What do you think of furries?”
“They are one of the finest fetishes. Since ancient times, humans have felt great excitement and a sense of transgression from violating taboos, and bestiality was one such taboo. Furries create humanoid beasts, reducing that sense of transgression while retaining the taboo element. It is quite a mainstream preference.”
Her questions did not end there.
“What about tomboys?”
“They are good as well. When a woman who has displayed masculinity and concealed her femininity suddenly reveals it, an unexpected charm erupts like an active volcano. That is the highlight, when one begins recognizing her as the opposite sex. At the same time, her masculinity and the femininity she can never fully hide intertwine like the harmony of yin and yang, multiplying her charm. Is that not another mainstream preference?”
As far as I knew, Asmodeus was the demon in charge of sexual desire.
“I can see the sexual preferences of others. Your preferences are extremely broad, and that falls within the category of corruption. To me, you look like an excellent prospective demon.”
“It isn’t that my sexual preferences are broad. I simply believe that if two people communicate enough and build affection, they can make love regardless of appearance or the form of sexual intimacy.”
“Even so, there must be preferences that are impossible for you.”
“You can see those too?”
It was the sort of standard one would expect from a demon who governed corruption in sexual matters.
“Yes. Regrettably, there are fifty-four such preferences, including homosexuality, pedophilia, and necrophilia. If you had embraced even those, I would have begged you to join the company immediately.”
“My body is thoroughly heterosexual, and I am not attracted to anyone who is not an adult. My apologies.”
“No, it is fine. Even so, your range of preferences puts you among the top three humans I have seen, so I am satisfied.”
Asmo left the office.
“I hope you maintain such promiscuous preferences in the future.”
I had learned something new.
“The East applies adolescent safety measures and reduces the penalty for sin, but the West gives no quarter.”
I checked the small note on the table. It was the map Baal had asked her to deliver, showing where Devil’s Sense had activated.
‘It isn’t far. Should I investigate from home first?’
I performed a quick internet search. The building there was a four-story office building exclusively occupied by a small-to-medium-sized company.
[Sarang Trading Company]
“So humanity’s destruction, or its transformation, will happen there.”
It was thirty minutes away from my home by car, so early the next morning, I took a taxi and visited it myself.
‘It’s a company with an attached factory.’
At 7:30 in the morning, employees who had arrived for work were gathered in front of the building. Cheerful music flowed from speakers beneath a platform.
『Korean National Calisthenics~! Sta~rt!』
Oh, how interesting. I hadn’t expected them to do Korean National Calisthenics.
‘This isn’t the military. They do Korean National Calisthenics in the morning?’
Was this what companies were normally like?
I had never found employment or looked into it deeply, so I didn’t know.
“Torso exercise! One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Let’s work hard today too! Have an energetic day!”
The chairman and president of Sarang Trading Company, whom I had seen in the company history section of its website, was exercising at the very front while energetically leading everyone.
‘Even my shoulders are bouncing.’
It looked rather exciting.
“Let’s work hard today too! Fighting!”
“Fighting!”
I observed from afar afterward, but there was nothing particularly unusual.
“Assistant Manager Kim, did you finish that?”
“Excuse me? Which one do you mean?”
“No, that! You know, that thing! That! You don’t know what I mean? That!!! How many years have you worked here that you don’t know that? You should understand immediately when I say it!”
“Ah, um, I’m sorry.”
An extremely professional and thorough department manager.
“Hey, newbie! Could you give me a ride to work?”
“Isn’t your house pretty far from mine, Manager Lee?”
“Come on, what do you mean far? Once you get on the highway, it isn’t far. Yeah? I’m asking you.”
“Ah, yes...”
A warm-hearted manager asking a new employee to give him a ride to work.
“Thank you for the meal today as well!”
“Anyone who leaves food behind will be punished by heaven! Don’t leave anything. Eat it all!”
A company cafeteria made entirely of vegetarian food, without a single piece of meat or fried food, perhaps out of concern for the employees’ health.
“Here is the report.”
“Only one? Do it again. If you were doing it anyway, you should have drafted about three. Can a good project come from just one?”
“But you told me to submit it today...”
“Submit it by next Monday. The weekend starts tomorrow, so you have plenty of time. Don’t play around over the weekend. Use time like this to develop yourself.”
Even a superior who cared about developing the abilities of subordinates.
‘This won’t do.’
I couldn’t make an objective assessment at all. Once my desire to experience company life had exploded on the Hell Train, I began thinking positively about anything related to companies.
‘Hoo, everything looks so enjoyable that I’m jealous.’
It had been a long time since I had felt this jealous, not since the military. It was unfortunate, but no matter how much I looked from outside, I couldn’t tell what was wrong.
‘Once everyone leaves work, I’ll sneak in.’
I could use Sarang-i to disable the company’s security system.
‘Why aren’t they leaving?’
It was past 8:00 p.m. The executives, including the chairman and president, had all gone home, but the department manager and everyone below them remained in the office.
“Whew, I should head home soon.”
Only after the department manager left did the other employees begin leaving one by one. In the end, everyone had left only just after 9:00 p.m.
“Good. Sarang-i, I’m counting on you.”
『I will disable it immediately.』
Sarang-i disabled the security system, and I searched the company headquarters. I checked for over an hour, but couldn’t find anything unusual anywhere.
‘Hmm, what exactly is the problem?’
After returning home, I seriously considered the issue.
‘If Baal’s intuition is correct, I need to find out what form the problem occurring there takes.’
There was no visible physical abnormality.
‘Then is it something mental?’
For example, was there a mentally infectious Anomaly spreading among the office workers, or an incident causing Cognition Alteration?
‘If it isn’t physical, then there’s a high chance it’s an Anomaly that activates mentally or through a particular ritual or event. Unless I build familiarity with the people who generate such Anomalies, it’ll be difficult to identify.’
For example, perhaps someone had personally learned a suspicious ritual by chance.
Or perhaps someone used at the company a spell they had learned after meeting someone in a dream.
Or perhaps a formless Anomaly spread throughout the company as a rumor like an urban legend, then gained substance.
“In the end, I can’t know unless I become an office worker and build rapport as part of the community.”
I had thought experiencing office life would be impossible because no company would hire me as a full-time employee for a short period, and I couldn’t lie about the length of my employment only to quit shortly afterward and inconvenience them.
“I’m getting a job at Sarang Trading Company.”
It couldn’t be helped. I had no choice but to get a job.
Footnotes:
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