Surviving as an Office Worker at the Anomaly Management Bureau - Chapter 2

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

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

Chapter 2: Basement Level and Containment

──────

There was a certain feeling.

The kind you got when a place was too quiet, and it made you anxious.

I felt it too.

“Ugh, this...”

It was an instinctive fear. It felt as though something unseen were pressing down on me.

If I had to put it into words, it was a sense of pressure.

“What the...”

Before I could finish, an unknown force shoved me away. While I stood there dumbfounded, the elevator doors quickly closed.

“...”

Was this right?

I opened the manual again.

[Manual for Office Workers]

2-1. Proceed. No matter what lies ahead, you must proceed.

“...”

Could this manual actually have a will of its own? If I were an ordinary office worker, I would have laughed it off as nonsense, but unfortunately, my life was far from ordinary.

But I did not dwell on the thought for long. Soon, I began walking forward again.

Before long, the scene before me began to distort. I was clearly walking forward, yet my feet and body were moving to the right on their own. More bizarrely, I still perceived myself as walking straight.

It was an utterly strange situation, but even if I was office staff, I worked for the Management Bureau. There were a few ways in which I differed from other people.

I closed my eyes and kept walking. Opening them would only make my senses feel stranger.

Bang!

“Argh!”

I had no idea how long I had been walking when my forehead struck something hard.

I cracked my eyes open. The winding path had disappeared, and all that stood before me was a heavy-looking iron door.

I quickly opened the manual.

[Manual for Office Workers]

2-2. Only those recognized as members of the Management Bureau through proper procedures may pass beyond this door. Those not recognized as members of the Management Bureau cannot open this door.

※Forcing it open will lead to an irreversible end.

“Just wait until I find the bastard who wrote this shitty manual.”

They could have simply written that only authorized personnel could open it. Why add a needless detail that would only make anyone reading it anxious?

I could not help worrying.

What if I was not actually an office worker who had gone through the proper procedures at the Management Bureau?

What if, unlike field personnel, office workers were disposable item number one? What if we were never registered and ended up worse off than dead?

Wouldn't it be better to wait here until everything was over? Nobody would be coming down to the basement anyway.

Ding.

Then, from far away, I heard the elevator arrive, and a sudden sense of foreboding washed over me.

I glanced behind me, but perhaps because I had walked quite a distance, the elevator was nowhere in sight.

Then why did it sound so loud? The unease only grew.

“...Damn it.”

No, I was a Management Bureau employee who had even received an employee ID. There was no way I was unauthorized personnel.

Of course I was authorized.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed the door open. Bright light bathed me.

“Uh...?”

Was I doomed? Was I about to become a test subject in the Management Bureau's rumored experiment to recreate heaven?

That thought only lasted a moment. What unfolded before me was an ordinary office, completely unlike the hallway.

“Urgh...”

“Are you all ri... Huh, a person...?”

The only difference was a man lying collapsed on the floor, covered in blood from head to toe, and a woman with long, straight black hair looking at me in alarm.

“...!”

Before I could react, the woman pulled a handgun from her waist and aimed it at me.

“I'm human! Human!”

Of course, as office staff, I was not carrying a weapon. I quickly raised both hands to show I was harmless.

“Stop, rookie.”

“Team Leader...!”

“Anyone who can enter here is human. That's how it was designed.”

The man clutching his side took a deep breath as he spoke. Only then did the woman hesitate and lower her gun.

“Um, sorry.”

“No... I didn't know either.”

It was my first time coming underground in the first place.

After accepting her apology with an awkward smile, I examined the man clutching his side.

Blood was seeping through his clothes. It looked as though he had been hit or shot by something.

I focused my eyes on him, and a translucent window appeared.

[Name: Park U-ju]

[Age: 37]

[Trait: Quick Reflexes]

[Talent: Marksmanship]

[Background: This man, who lived as the Management Bureau's Security Team Leader, is dying after a fierce battle.]

“...”

He was dying.

At least, I had never seen anyone escape that fate after those words appeared in their Background.

After observing and experiencing my ability time and time again, I had reached a few conclusions. A Background could reveal the past and the immediate future.

For example, my Human Resources Team Leader's Background was:

[As the head of his household, he works overtime again today to provide a meal for his family.]

The fact that he was working overtime and the fact that he had a family were woven together into that Background.

That was why I could not predict what those... monsters would do to my team leader. I did not know whether he would survive, die, or be replaced by them.

But this man's Background explicitly said that he was dying. He probably did not have much time left.

“Listen carefully.”

Lost in those thoughts, I turned my attention back to the man at the sound of his labored voice.

“We don't know how many people have survived in our branch. We also don't know exactly what happened.”

He took another deep breath.

“If we assume the worst, then we must assume that you two are the only survivors capable of acting inside the Management Bureau.”

“Team Leader, please don't talk...!”

The woman beside him tried to stop him, but he continued regardless.

“Then you two must carry out the containment procedures. If that is impossible, you must at least deliver orders to personnel who are off duty or have gone home, so the situation can be resolved from outside.”

Containment procedures.

Among field personnel, it was the only job where seniority and experience mattered. It was the only team whose standards never eased, even though people died day after day. It was also the highest-paid team.

The Containment Team.

And he was asking me to do their job now?

“Um... I'm only office staff in Human Resources.”

“...I know.”

He met my eyes.

“I know.”

“...”

“Even so, if you do not do it, there is no one else. At least, not right now.”

“Team Leader, if you keep talking...!”

Blood poured from his mouth, but he continued staring at me.

“Please. Please...”

His gaze turned toward one wall, and mine followed.

<Humanity's Last Bastion>

“Please...”

“...All right.”

I nodded in answer, and his body slowly slid to the floor.

“Team Leader! Team Leader!”

He did not open his eyes again.

The woman shook his shoulder repeatedly, but silence was the only response.

In fact, the window above his head no longer appeared.

“He's dead.”

At my words, the woman finally removed her hand from his shoulder and stood.

“...Will you help?”

“With the containment?”

Our eyes met.

Only then did I look at the translucent window above her head.

[Name: Yoo Da-on]

[Age: 23]

[Trait: Immortality]

[Talent: -]

[Background: Unable to die, she was hired by the Management Bureau in recognition of her ability, but a major incident was what awaited her on her first day at work.]

“...”

“Um...?”

“Oh, yes.”

I had been too stunned to respond.

Immortality? That Immortality? She could not die?

“...I'm Yoo Da-on. And you are?”

“Kim Jae-heon...”

She looked at me suspiciously.

“...First, we should go.”

But as though nothing had happened, she brushed off her knees, stood, and placed a hand on the iron door.

“...Right away?”

“...The Team Leader asked us to carry out the containment procedures.”