Surviving as an Office Worker at the Anomaly Management Bureau - Chapter 3

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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

Chapter 3: Basement Level and Containment (2)

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Clunk.

I opened the door and carefully looked around.

"All clear. Let's go."

"..."

Yoo Da-on followed behind me, her expression tense.

As I walked with my guard up in every direction, I recalled the conversation we'd had earlier.

"Good eyesight alone isn't enough. What if you're wrong at the crucial moment?"

"That's what my ability sees."

"...You have a superpower?"

"I don't know what you're imagining, but I can't shoot red lasers from my eyes and burn enemies to ash."

Her expression immediately fell in disappointment.

"But I can tell for certain whether someone is human or not. There's no chance of being wrong."

"...If you put it that way, I think I can trust you."

She answered with a slightly relieved expression, then began to hesitate.

"...Um, well..."

"...?"

"I also have a super...power?"

"Yes, I know."

"...You do? How?"

"I told you, my eyes are good."

When I pointed to my eyes with an innocent look, her eyes went round.

"Then... do you know... what it is?"

Her voice trailed off, and she looked up at me with wide eyes.

I'd met many people while using this ability, and through talking with them, I'd developed enough social awareness to understand one thing.

She didn't want her ability to be known.

Still, I understood.

She might have suffered because she was different from everyone else.

Especially if it was a physical problem.

"...No, I don't know that much."

In the end, I shook my head in a gentle denial.

"Oh, I see."

Only then did her expression relax a little.

"I feel a little bad... I asked you about your eyes, but I didn't tell you about mine."

"Yeah, well. It's fine."

It wasn't that I didn't know. I did.

[Trait: Immortality]

It probably meant she couldn't die.

I answered as though I didn't care, then pulled out my manual to change the mood.

"Did they give you any separate information about the object we need to contain?"

"...No."

She had already taken out her own manual and was reading it.

[Manual for Field Staff]

The title was different. Did that mean the contents were different too?

My thoughts wandered for a moment, but I opened my manual again and started searching. Let's see, containment procedures...

[Manual for Office Workers]

[G Containment Procedure]

1. Containment procedures are duties that may only be carried out by experienced Containment Team employees.

1-1. In an emergency, untrained employees or employees who are not part of the Containment Team may also carry out containment procedures.

1-2. If an untrained employee assumes acting containment authority, they will automatically receive Containment Team pass authorization. An Acting Containment Authority has the authority to decide on the use of secret passages and, when necessary, the complete elimination of personnel.

"...Complete elimination?"

They really were extreme.

I kept reading.

[Manual for Office Workers]

1-3. If all personnel in the branch are disposed of, mass memory-erasure procedures for related parties are mandatory under Article 387 of the Management Bureau's internal regulations. The Management Bureau will bear all associated costs.

※If anyone has not had their memory erased, they are not an ordinary human. Report them immediately to the Management Bureau Risk Management Department.

I snapped the manual shut. These bastards had a talent for slipping disgusting details into completely unnecessary sentences.

"Did you read the procedure?"

Yoo Da-on looked at me.

Watching her large eyes blink at me, I found myself looking over her face again.

Long, straight black hair reaching down her back, large eyes, and delicate features from her nose to her mouth. In contrast, she wasn't particularly tall. Anyone would call her pretty at first glance.

I always looked at a person's information before I looked at the person themselves, so I sometimes noticed their appearance late like this.

"Yeah, but maybe because this is the office staff manual, it only has post-incident procedures and emergency responses. What does yours say, Agent Yoo Da-on?"

"...Employee Da-on is fine. I haven't reached agent rank yet. Mine says to seal off the interior and then eliminate the contained object."

"Eliminate it?"

"Yes. It says to shoot it until it dies. ...Apparently?"

"..."

If it were that easy, I would've joined the Containment Team. The commendation leave I got for marksmanship in the army would've gotten me in already.

"...Let's go. We need to start with the internal lockdown procedure anyway."

Yoo Da-on nodded at my words.

The Management Bureau existed to contain anomalous objects and phenomena without ordinary people finding out. In a situation like this, the most important thing was preventing the object and information from leaking outside.

"It should still be okay. For some reason, it seemed like it wanted to completely take over our branch first. ...Otherwise, there would've been no reason to do anything to so many Security Team personnel..."

"..."

I watched Yoo Da-on's expression darken, then got to my feet with a grunt.

"Let's go. Either way, it's still a race against time."

"...Okay."

We returned to the door.

As I kept watch, Yoo Da-on strode ahead.

"...I'll take the lead."

"What? But you can't tell who is a monster."

"I can't. ...But I'm confident I won't be taken down."

"How?"

"Thaaat is..."

Was she going to trust in her Immortality ability? If she got possessed, that would create the worst possible situation for me: an enemy who couldn't die.

"...Anyway, I can."

She mumbled and began walking one step ahead of me.

"...Ah."

Come to think of it, someone had gotten off the elevator before we entered through that door.

When I told Yoo Da-on, her round eyes sharpened, and she drew her gun.

"...We should be careful. Do you have a weapon?"

"I don't."

What weapon would an office worker have?

She nodded and started walking with her gun pointed forward.

"From now on, we're heading toward the containment rooms. According to the manual, we can carry out the internal containment procedure there."

"Okay, lead the way."

My manual didn't explain the internal containment procedure in detail. It only mentioned the authority involved.

We slowly walked down the empty corridor.

Both of us kept our senses sharpened as we looked around.

Soon, footsteps began drawing closer from ahead.

Step. Step.

Yoo Da-on and I stared ahead tensely. Then someone appeared at the edge of our vision.

"Hold your fire! I'm an ally!"

A large man in sunglasses appeared with both hands raised over his head.

He looked completely harmless. But there was an even easier way to identify him.

I quickly looked over the man's head.

[Name: ? ? ?]

[Age: ? ? ?]

[Trait: Mimicry]

[Talent: Acting]

[Background: This one is wearing human skin.]

"Fake."

Bang!

The instant I finished speaking, Yoo Da-on raised her gun and aimed it at the man. Before he could react, fire burst from the muzzle and pierced his forehead.

The man, no. That thing, collapsed with a heavy thud.

Yoo Da-on drew in a deep breath, then looked back at me as though she was only now worried.

".....It wasn't human, right?"

"Right."

"...I'll trust you."

After asking again as though to confirm it, Yoo Da-on slowly approached it. I followed behind her to inspect it as well.

"...It looks human like this."

The man lay there with a hole through the center of his crown, blood slowly spreading around him in a pool.

"Is there no other way to tell?"

At Yoo Da-on's murmur, I recalled the message I'd read.

[Background: This one is wearing human skin.]

It was wearing human skin.

Human skin.

"Employee Da-on. Have you ever worn a full-body suit?"

"Why would I have?"

Yoo Da-on looked at me as if I were insane.

That was probably normal.

A thought crossed my mind.

This was absolutely not from my own experience.

When you spend enough time online, you see all kinds of... experiences. One of them involved full-body suits.

Usually, you opened the zipper running from the head down to the back before climbing inside. That was the easiest way to get your legs in.

I quickly placed my index finger against the man's crown.

A bumpy texture pressed against my fingertips.

Ah, thank you, wandering internet users, for generously sharing your preferences with me.

I quickly began undressing the man.

"W-What are you doing!?"

Ignoring Yoo Da-on's question, I removed the man's shirt.

After struggling with it for a while, I finally exposed the large man's bare back.

A straight line of marks ran from the crown of his head to the bottom of his spine, as though someone had stitched him up with surgical thread.

"...My God."

Yoo Da-on covered her mouth.

"So that's how they get inside."

It was exactly what it sounded like. Wearing human skin.

Then,

Slash!

His back split open, and something sharp shot out, rushing straight toward me.

"Uh..."

Was this what it felt like when the world moved in slow motion?

I realized that the thing slowly approaching me was a grotesque set of teeth, but unlike my thoughts, my body wouldn't move.

Then something forcefully shoved my shoulder.

Crunch!

Yoo Da-on was cut into pieces.

It happened too quickly for my eyes to follow.

With wet thuds, Yoo Da-on's arms and legs fell in every direction, and the metallic smell of blood filled my nose.

Did she save me? Why?

Then Yoo Da-on collapsed. No, saying she'd been torn apart would be more accurate.

Blood sprayed everywhere, and Yoo / Da / on, the person who had suddenly shoved me away, became a corpse right in front of me.

Even then, the word Immortality crossed my mind. But no matter what, could someone really throw themselves into danger like this for a person they'd only just met?

Then I made eye contact with the thing that had torn her apart.

A bizarre life-form with an egg-shaped face and nothing but teeth.

At that moment, something new appeared before my eyes.

[You have reached a new level.]

[Name: ? ? ?]

[Age: ? ? ?]

[Trait: Mimicry]

[Talent: Mimicry]

[Background: Having lost its skin, this one is looking for a new host in order to survive.]

[Weakness: The moment they leave their host, they become more aggressive than anyone, but they are also that much weaker.]

"Weakness."

As I felt behind me, something cold and heavy touched my fingertips.

The gun Yoo Da-on had dropped.

I reflexively grabbed the gun and aimed it at the monster.

At that moment, the world turned black and white, and the monster's movements began appearing in slow motion.

Only then could I see the monster properly.

It resembled a human, but there was nothing where its eyes and nose should have been. Its limbs and torso were intact, but its arms and nails were abnormally long.

It looked like an alien from an old movie, only more grotesque.

Then new information appeared before my eyes.

The only place glowing brightly in that black-and-white world.

Something at its side was shining so brightly that it seemed unnatural, and my gun naturally aimed at the monster's side.

Bang!

"Kiieeek!"

Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger. The bullet lodged in the monster's side as though it had been sucked in, and the monster let out a shriek before collapsing on the spot.

After twitching a few times, it stopped moving.

"..."

What was that just now?

Before I could think about it for long, another message appeared before my eyes.

[Name: Kim Jae-heon]

[Age: 27]

[Trait: Truth]

[Talent: Insight]

[Background: The time that had stood still for him begins to move.]

[Current Critical uses Available: 1 -> 0]

"...What?"

I'd lived with these eyes for nearly ten years.