WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ Surviving as an Office Worker at the Anomaly Management Bureau ◈
Chapter 28: The Manual
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“You caused a lot of trouble in a surprisingly short time, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t cause it. I got caught up in it.”
Song A-rin, who had been listening to my story bit by bit, spoke teasingly.
As if anyone wanted to get caught up in things like this. There had once been a time when I happily worked overtime and went home.
A life where I got off work at eleven every night and went in at eight. A life where I often went in to work even on weekends.
Now that I thought about it, I didn’t miss it at all.
In that sense, wasn’t my current situation surprisingly balanced? I got off work on time now, after all.
“But it’s strange. Since some point, I’ve suddenly been running into containment objects this often...”
Was it that the more containment objects I saw, the more often I encountered them?
Song A-rin snickered at my words.
“That’s not it.”
“Pardon?”
“This is normal life.”
What kind of terrifying thing was that supposed to mean?
Song A-rin turned to face me and walked backward.
Her hair shone in the sunlight.
“How many containment objects do you think there are in this world?”
“I have no idea.”
“Exactly. Ordinary people live without knowing that containment objects are containment objects. If you were an ordinary civilian, would you have looked at the Butane Gas and thought, ‘It keeps producing fire endlessly, and if I shake it wrong, it shoots fire backward’?”
“...No.”
“Right. So saying you encounter them often is wrong.”
She looked at me as she answered.
“You simply didn’t know until now.”
“...”
So I had just been living without knowing?
“But even so, I feel like my eyes have been seeing strange things more often than before.”
Otherwise, I would have been seeing them from long ago.
Song A-rin sighed.
“You’re an unusual case.”
“Pardon?”
“According to the report, I heard your eyes improved dramatically during the Dream of a Butterfly incident.”
“...”
I never told her anything like that, though?
As if she noticed my expression suddenly turn serious, Song A-rin fluttered her hand.
“Don’t worry. The people who don’t need to know don’t know. Only the people who need to know do.”
That made me even more worried.
“Anyway.”
Song A-rin clapped once and turned forward again.
Before I knew it, we were standing in a moonlit desert instead of the wasteland.
“Either way, it’s impressive. Eliminating one Grade 3 containment object and subduing and re-containing a Grade 2 containment object isn’t easy.”
“Grade 3? Grade 2?”
That was another thing I had never heard before.
“...They didn’t tell you? Isn’t it in the manual?”
“It wasn’t.”
“It will be now. Look.”
At Song A-rin’s words, I opened the manual and began reading.
[Manual for Office Workers]
[L - Containment Object Grades]
1. Containment objects have a total of five grades, listed below.
[Grade 1] - Passive containment objects, generally limited to items or harmless life forms. Unless something extraordinary happens, they rarely cause trouble.
[Grade 2] - Passive, but can cause severe damage if used incorrectly. Handle with caution.
[Grade 3] - Active, and if containment fails, they can cause damage ranging from a single village to an entire city. Extreme caution is required.
[Grade 4] - If containment fails, they can devastate anything from a city to an entire country. Handle with care, and always bring members of the Containment Team.
[Grade 5] - They can devastate anything from a country to an entire continent. They require the highest-priority response, and communication between Management Bureau branches is essential.
[Grade 6] - Humanity’s survival is at stake. Use everything you have to stop it.
“...This doesn’t say there are five grades.”
“What are you talking about?”
“No, there are six listed here.”
I showed the manual to Song A-rin.
She checked it, then tilted her head.
“What are you talking about? There are five.”
“Pardon? You can’t see this?”
I showed her the section marked [Grade 6], but she only frowned and looked at me.
“Common sense says there’s no such thing as Grade 6. Don’t tease your senior.”
As though it were only natural that Grade 6 did not exist, she turned her head away.
“...”
Just what were you hiding from me?
I stared at the manual for a while, but the book gave me no answer.
Wait, then was the Cube only Grade 2?
“The Cube was only Grade 2?”
“The person who took it out was the problem. Honestly, if it had just been left safely inside, nothing much would’ve happened.”
I remembered Yoo Da-on with her head pierced by a laser.
That didn’t seem likely.
“Anyway, this phenomenon is probably around Grade 3.”
“This is Grade 3? Not Grade 4?”
This musical, where people were dying like this and even the presidential office had mentioned it?
“You might mistake it for Grade 4 if you look at it that way, but you have to consider the actual scope of the damage. The presidential office probably just promoted it the way they would an idol concert.”
“Ah.”
“So its actual range is probably... about a city.”
She said it as though a city were nothing.
“Anyway, we need to resolve it quickly. If it grows any larger, it’ll become Grade 4, and from then on, the damage to the surrounding area will be enormous.”
Something like this was only Grade 3.
I should do everything I could to avoid ever meeting a Grade 4 or Grade 5 containment object.
As I strengthened my resolve, the background began changing again.
This time, it was a dense jungle.
The sounds of insects and animals echoed around us.
Could I hear footsteps?
I listened closely, but I couldn’t hear anything.
Given the timing, it wouldn’t have been strange for it to appear soon.
I asked Song A-rin again.
“Ms. Song A-rin. Do you remember anything about the Red Lady?”
“No.”
Song A-rin shook her head.
“I remember looking at her, but everything after that is gone. I only remember that it hurt.”
I really had no idea.
What could possibly defeat something like that?
I recalled Song A-rin’s words.
“As though it had been designed to be impossible to defeat.”
Why was that bothering me so much?
“A-rin.”
“Huh?”
“What genre do you think this musical is?”
“What kind of random question is that?”
Song A-rin stared at me.
“Let’s say this musical is about civilians being indiscriminately murdered by a killer ghost.”
“I’m listening.”
“Then wouldn’t it be natural that we can’t defeat the ghost?”
“Huh?”
Song A-rin tilted her head.
“So you’re saying this is a ghost musical?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Fine, let’s say it’s a ghost musical. Then what are you going to do?”
“So-”
The surroundings changed.
We were in a shopping mall.
People walked past us, and no one paid Song A-rin or me any attention.
Step. Step.
Song A-rin stiffened.
“Ah, damn it.”
Her legs began to tremble.
“You really must’ve been scared.”
“Let’s go.”
We began walking, then soon started running.
“What are you going to do?”
Song A-rin looked at me as we ran.
“What if the locations keep changing like this and we can’t escape?”
“That’s something to think about when it happens. So keep talking.”
“Seriously...”
I started running with Song A-rin ahead of me, glancing back now and then.
This time, I didn’t look straight at it. It would be a problem if my eyes burst like before.
“So, keep going.”
Song A-rin continued while running.
“I’m saying it was never designed to be defeated in the first place.”
When playing games, there were enemies you could never defeat.
So-called defeat events, enemies designed from the beginning to be impossible to beat.
What if the Red Lady was one of those?
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Something exploded behind us.
It was the exact same sound as people exploding in the theater.
I didn’t look back anymore.
“Then what, are we supposed to just keep running away?”
Song A-rin clenched her lips.
“No.”
I answered as I ran.
There were probably two ways.
“Either find the musical’s answer.”
Find the ending of this musical and perform it.
But that wouldn’t be easy. Performing the ending of a musical without a script? At least, I couldn’t do that.
Which meant we had no choice but to use the other method.
“Or change the genre.”
“What does that even mean?”
The location changed.
Song A-rin and I raced through a dark, empty basement.
What was the fastest way to change a genre?
If this was a horror genre-
“There!”
At Song A-rin’s urgent words, I looked ahead.
A door was floating in midair.
It was so obvious that anyone could tell it was an exit.
Song A-rin, who had been running ahead, grabbed the doorknob.
“Hurry!”
Song A-rin went through the door.
“Hey, why is this only for one-”
The door began to disappear, and Song A-rin looked at me in alarm.
She and the door were vanishing like a mirage.
But it was disappearing much more slowly than I expected.
I quickly grabbed the doorknob, but an invisible force threw me back.
It seemed we couldn’t both enter.
The door must have been meant for one person, but Song A-rin had pulled some trick to get both of us through it, and this was the result.
“Could it be that it was originally only for one person-!”
Song A-rin urgently shouted and reached out her arm.
The Red Lady was approaching from behind, while the door before me was disappearing far too slowly.
What would happen if the Red Lady caught Song A-rin?
I quickly turned around and stood in front of the door as if to protect it.
“Hey! What are you doing?!”
Song A-rin struggled to come back out through the door, but she only flinched as though she couldn’t leave.
Someone had to buy time.
“Hey, you!”
Had she read my mind? Song A-rin’s face turned pale.
My eyes weren’t functioning properly, and I had no Critical.
I couldn’t win.
Not now, anyway.
Step. Step.
The Red Lady appeared.
I pulled the manual from inside my jacket.
Why was I the only one who had the manual?
I still didn’t know, but I understood why it had been given to me.
The manual opened by itself to a blank page.
“From this moment, I will begin recording containment object ‘Red Lady.’”
Words began appearing in the manual.
[Manual for Office Workers]
[PRV - Containment Object ‘Red Lady’ - Record of Kim Jae-heon, Human Resources Team]
Soon, a woman stepped out of the shadows.
She was slightly taller than me and wore a red dress. Nothing above her lips was visible, as though it had been obscured with mosaic.
I could only tell that she was smiling.
Blood flowed from my eyes again, and burning pain spread through me.
“Hang in there. I’m always watching from nearby.”
For some reason, a child’s voice came to mind.
“Run!”
Song A-rin shouted.
“This object is one of the characters in the musical Red Lady and cannot be overcome through ordinary methods.”
[This object is one of the characters in the musical Red Lady and cannot be overcome through ordinary methods.]
“However, because of the musical’s nature, the Red Lady can be neutralized by changing the genre.”
[However, because of the musical’s nature, the Red Lady can be neutralized by changing the genre.]
The Red Lady’s mouth opened to a grotesque size.
If I were swallowed by that, I would die.
[Your understanding of the musical Red Lady increases.]
[Critical: 0 -> 1]
At last, the words I had been waiting for came into view through my fading vision.
“Please-”
Song A-rin’s voice grew distant.
Had she gotten away?
I looked at the translucent panel glowing through my blood-red vision, then raised my head.
Something was looking at me with its mouth grotesquely open.
I couldn’t see it clearly, but one thing was certain.
It was smiling.
I smiled back at it.
Laugh while you can.
“Next time, it’ll really be closing night.”
Crunch!
With the sensation of something severing my neck, I died once again in a brief burst of pain.
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