Surviving as an Office Worker at the Anomaly Management Bureau - Chapter 14

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ Surviving as an Office Worker at the Anomaly Management Bureau ◈

Chapter 14: Memo

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When I was young, I often looked up videos of people exploring abandoned cities online.

It looked really fun back then.

"Aah... Ah...!"

"No, I said, follow properly!"

Yoo Da-on struggled as she pulled Jang Chae-yeon along by the hand from the front, while I pushed Jang Chae-yeon from behind.

Actually being the one exploring was a special kind of hell. And now we had to drag around someone who had gone from half-witted to genuinely witless.

"Huff, huff... At this rate, we'll never get anywhere!"

"You're right."

How were we supposed to carry her around again?

We stopped for a moment, and Yoo Da-on and Jang Chae-yeon stared at me.

"This won't work anyway. We won't even cover one kilometer in an hour."

"That's true, but... what are you going to do?"

"We need to talk to her."

I bent my knees slightly and met the eyes of Jang Chae-yeon, who was murmuring to herself.

"Let's talk. What's over there that's making you act like this?"

"...There's nothing."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm scared because there's nothing."

What was that supposed to mean?

Still, whatever it was, we had to keep moving forward to find out.

"Nothing will change if we stay here like this. If you want to get out, help us a little."

"...I left them there."

Jang Chae-yeon's answers grew more and more unrelated, making my head throb. Then her next words made me listen closely.

"I left them there."

"What did you leave behind?"

"Important things. I need to find them."

"What are they?"

"I don't know."

Jang Chae-yeon answered with a vacant expression. Ah, couldn't someone just find her intelligence and stick it back in? And leave her aggression over there while they were at it.

"But I'll know what they are when I see them."

"..."

"Help me find them. ...Then I'll walk quietly."

Was she actually a genius? She wasn't pretending to be witless just to make Yoo Da-on and me work for her, was she?

Still, I couldn't exactly refuse.

In the end, I nodded to show my agreement.

"Okay. But you need to follow quietly. And if we ask for help, you help us."

"Okay."

Jang Chae-yeon nodded calmly and began walking on her own two feet as though she had never complained before.

Watching her, Yoo Da-on came over and whispered quietly to me.

"Is it normal that I'm starting to get angry?"

"It's normal. But we'd lose if we fought her, so let's forgive her."

What was the point? Even if Yoo Da-on and I teamed up, we couldn't beat her.

Yoo Da-on looked dissatisfied for a moment, but soon fell silent and followed after Jang Chae-yeon.

* * *

"...This is hard."

Walking through the ruined city was harder than I had expected.

Bits of stone caught against our feet, and the ground was uneven.

"It is tiring."

Yoo Da-on wiped her face with her sleeve, speaking as though she was still fine.

And then...

"Huff... Huff..."

Jang Chae-yeon only kept gasping for breath, as if she lacked the energy to speak.

"...Are you okay?"

Why was her stamina so terrible?

"Huff... Hngh..."

She didn't even seem to have the energy to answer.

Jang Chae-yeon kept breathing in and out for several minutes before her breathing finally settled.

"...Weren't you on the Containment Team?"

"I'm tired."

"No, I asked if you weren't on the Containment Team."

"...Being tired is still being tired."

She avoided my gaze slightly as she spoke.

"On the other hand, Da-on, you look fine."

"I'm with the Security Team, you know."

Yoo Da-on flexed her right arm and grinned.

"I'm probably on the fitter side among women my age."

"Come to think of it..."

I remembered when I first met Yoo Da-on.

"What does the Security Team do?"

"The Security Team?"

Yoo Da-on hummed as she fell into thought.

"Well... security things, probably?"

What's with "probably"?

As though she understood the meaning of my look, Yoo Da-on shook her head.

"Don't look at me like that. I've only worked there for one day, you know? Honestly, I've worked with you in HR more than I've worked there."

"You were good with a gun, though."

"We get training before we start. The first thing I learned when I joined the Security Team was how to shoot."

"Then what did you do before coming here?"

"Well... I just went to school... That's about it."

Yoo Da-on's voice trailed off at the last question. Did she not want to talk about it?

I couldn't interrogate her about every little thing either. Everyone had their privacy.

"...We're here."

At Jang Chae-yeon's quiet voice, I looked ahead.

"...Huh."

Up close, it was overwhelming. A truly enormous abandoned city stretched out before us.

"Do you know how to find the exit?"

Gloom spread through Jang Chae-yeon's eyes at my question.

"There is no exit."

"What do you mean?"

"We can't leave unless we're given permission."

"By whom?"

"...This."

Jang Chae-yeon pointed to the city with a gloomy expression.

"...You mean the Cube?"

Jang Chae-yeon nodded.

She spoke as though the Cube possessed a will of its own.

"Then how did you get out? No, why did you enter in the first place?"

"...I don't know. I can't remember."

"...I understand."

She said she couldn't remember, so there seemed to be nothing to gain by questioning her further. For now, I just needed to keep checking on her condition.

"Da-on, you don't feel strange yet, right? Like your brain is itchy or something..."

"...That's what I said when I was being parasitized."

Yoo Da-on grumbled, but she closed and opened her eyes as though checking herself.

"...I don't know yet. But the worrying part is that even if I was being mind-controlled, I don't think I'd realize it..."

"If it gets too severe, I'll probably be able to tell."

I could only hope my eyes worked properly when the time came.

As we got to know each other a little and had the conversations we hadn't been able to have, we managed to enter the city.

"Oh, you have a younger sister?"

"Yes. We don't meet often, though."

"How old is she?"

"There's quite an age gap. She just started college this year."

I told them a little about my family.

"Are you an only child?"

"Yes. There are various reasons..."

I heard about Yoo Da-on's family too.

"I'm an only child too."

"...Ah, okay."

And I heard about Jang Chae-yeon's family.

Even as we shared such trivial stories, I kept looking around without realizing it.

[Name: Cube]

[Age: Manufactured in the XXs]

[Trait: Reality Alteration]

[Talent: X]

[Background: This Cube is an object whose method of manufacture in the 00s is unknown. Was it really made in that era to begin with? Or perhaps you think it was made in the 1900s? Is what you are seeing now truly reality? Or could you be inside the Cube? Only the Cube knows the answer.]

[Weakness: An unknown force has cracked the Cube, and it has entered self-repair mode. Even so, do not forget. You are yourself exactly as you are.]

Honestly, it was extremely distracting to see those words everywhere I looked.

What if I missed something important or failed to respond to a threat in time?

Even my eyes had begun to hurt.

As I blinked repeatedly, Yoo Da-on looked at me with concern.

"Are you hurt somewhere?"

"..."

Should I tell Yoo Da-on about this?

It wasn't that I didn't trust her. But there was no need to make the mood gloomy by saying something like this...

"It's okay."

Yoo Da-on placed a hand on my shoulder and met my eyes.

"I'll believe whatever you say, so don't carry it alone. Don't worry! I'm confident I wouldn't talk even if I were tortured."

"...You don't need to go that far."

In the end, I had no choice but to explain the situation to Yoo Da-on.

She listened to me with small hums of understanding.

"So it seems like this place is entirely inside the Cube, and because of that, Jae-heon's eyes aren't quite normal."

"You could say that."

"Then I'll keep a better lookout!"

Yoo Da-on spoke confidently. Honestly, I didn't think it would help much, but it was still comforting to hear her say it.

"...Found it."

Jang Chae-yeon, who had been walking quietly until then, muttered and began heading somewhere.

"Where are you going?"

"I found it."

Despite the puzzled questions from Yoo Da-on and me, Jang Chae-yeon continued onward with steady steps.

"...Should we follow her?"

"We should."

In the end, Yoo Da-on and I could only follow behind Jang Chae-yeon as though in a trance.

Soon, Jang Chae-yeon entered a building.

Among the shabby buildings, it was one that looked relatively intact.

She crossed a place piled high with rubble as though she knew it well, then stopped somewhere.

Amid the ruins was a white sheet of paper with something neatly written on it.

Jang Chae-yeon picked up the paper and handed it to me.

"Read it."

"Me?"

Jang Chae-yeon nodded.

"I can't read it."

"...Okay. I understand."

I took the paper from her and began reading it aloud.

"..."

Jang Chae-yeon, who had been listening to me read the memo with her eyes closed, opened them.

"I remember."

"What do you remember?"

Jang Chae-yeon looked at me.

"A long time ago... Actually, I'm not sure exactly. But I've been here once before. And... I made a deal with something. It said it would let me leave if I completed the Cube. ...That's how I got out."

She paused briefly before continuing.

"And as part of that deal, I wagered my memories and... something else. The reason I ended up here now... is because I failed."

"Failed? A wager? With whom, the Cube?"

Wasn't the Cube an inanimate object? At least, that was what my eyes told me.

Jang Chae-yeon nodded at my question.

Rumble...

Thunder sounded from somewhere.

The rain began to pour.

It was black rain, like tar.

"We need to find more of the memos I left behind. If we know the details of the deal and this phenomenon, we'll be one step ahead."

Standing in the rain, Jang Chae-yeon looked the two of us in the eye.

Crash!