WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ Surviving as an Office Worker at the Anomaly Management Bureau ◈
Chapter 37: The Hill
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“This might sting.”
Yoo Da-on leaned over and wrapped a handkerchief around my arm.
When the handkerchief touched the wound, a stinging pain made me frown.
“Hiss, it really does hurt.”
“Of course it hurts when someone gets stabbed.”
“Hearing that from someone whose neck was cut with an axe makes it a little less convincing.”
Yoo Da-on glared at me, then tightened the handkerchief.
“Argh!”
“First aid complete!”
Smiling, she lightly tapped the end of the neatly tied ribbon with her finger before looking out the window.
“Still, this is a problem. We have no idea where we’re going.”
“Indeed.”
I looked out at the dark mountain road, where we could not see even an inch ahead.
Not only did we have to rely entirely on the car’s headlights, we did not even know the road itself.
“You can’t get through to anyone, right?”
“Nope. Still nothing.”
Song A-rin nodded with a sigh in her voice.
After escaping safely, the first thing we checked was whether Jang Chae-yeon and Song A-rin were still connected.
I had wondered whether Method might have been cut off if something had happened to Jang Chae-yeon, or if she had gone too far away.
According to Song A-rin, she still felt strange whenever she looked at me, so Jang Chae-yeon appeared to be safe.
We also tried calling headquarters, but as expected, we had no signal.
“Aren’t you worried about the team leader?”
“Oh, the team leader?”
At Song A-rin’s sullen question, I thought of the team leader.
“They’ll be fine.”
“You have a strange amount of faith in them.”
“They’re the kind of person who deserves it.”
The team leader had returned alive from the Dream of a Butterfly incident without a single injury, then resumed work before I did.
If the day ever came when the team leader died, it would probably be because a missile or something equivalent had fallen in the middle of the city.
Still, unlike the four of us, the team leader had no combat ability whatsoever, so we could not exactly take them around with us.
I ran a hand over my throbbing wound, then looked at Song A-rin.
“Ms. A-rin.”
“...Phew. What?”
Song A-rin took a deep breath and faced me.
“How much do you know about the Mountain God incident?”
“The Mountain God incident.”
Song A-rin narrowed her eyes and fell into thought.
“To be honest, not much. I probably know as much as White Hair does.”
“I see.”
So she called Jang Chae-yeon White Hair. Then did that make Yoo Da-on and me Black Hair?
I smacked my lips at Song A-rin’s words and thought.
Where could I find the full details of the Mountain God incident...
There was something.
I took out the manual from inside my jacket.
“...I didn’t think of that.”
Song A-rin looked at the manual, rubbed her forehead, and sighed.
I opened the manual and concentrated.
Let’s see, Mountain God... Mountain God...
Soon, the manual opened to the page I wanted.
[Manual for Office Workers]
[PRV - “Mountain God” - Record of Lee Seong-hun from the Containment Team]
[This object was first discovered thirty years ago in District YY of City XX.]
[As has generally been the case, entities referred to as “gods” are inevitably influenced by the <Censored> religion with the greatest following. As a result, they take forms in which folk beliefs and mainstream religion are mixed.]
[The damage caused by this incident was <Censored>, <Censored>, and <Censored>.]
“...”
“Did you find anything?”
“It wasn’t completely useless.”
I could not learn the details, but there was one thing I understood for certain.
The weakness of the mountain lodge owner I had first seen, as well as the weakness and background of the baby-like statue.
At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me again, like during the Cube incident.
But that was not it.
“You who did not understand what God said, now that His word has proven true, it has come to remain here.”
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain, for the former things have passed away.”
All of those had literally been background and weakness descriptions.
Then... the god who had died thirty years ago returning was the background.
What was the weakness?
Taken literally, did that not mean there was no weakness?
My head began to hurt. I should look elsewhere for a moment.
I recalled what I had read in the manual.
“Entities referred to as gods take forms in which folk beliefs and mainstream religion are mixed.”
“If gods existed, the Management Bureau would not be necessary, would it?”
Thinking about that reminded me of what Song A-rin had said on the train.
As I sat in the passenger seat, absently touching the end of the handkerchief ribbon tied around my arm, Yoo Da-on cleared her throat and called to me.
“Mr. Jae-heon.”
“Yes.”
“If you’re all right, shall we get moving again?”
“Yes. Let’s do that.”
“All right. For now, we’ll try to find either an exit or a village.”
After discussing it among ourselves, we decided that finding an exit and calling for help was one option. If not, we could search for a village, Jang Chae-yeon, or, if possible, the team leader ourselves.
Yoo Da-on skillfully released the handbrake and shifted gears.
She handled it expertly. Anyone could see she could drive with a Class 1 ordinary license.
I only had a Class 2 automatic license.
Maybe she could drive something like an excavator too.
The car rattled as it began traveling over the broken paved road.
“If your connection with Ms. Chae-yeon cuts off, tell us immediately, Ms. A-rin.”
“I got it.”
Song A-rin grumbled and twisted the end of her hair around a finger.
“Nothing will happen to White Hair.”
“You sound confident.”
“If she were someone who could die that easily, she would’ve died already.”
There was a strange certainty in her voice.
Silence settled over us.
No one spoke first, aside from the occasional rattling sound when the wheels bounced along poorly maintained stretches of road.
“This is the third time we’ve come through here.”
Song A-rin spoke with her arms crossed.
As I had repeatedly considered the weaknesses, phrases, and backgrounds, I suddenly lifted my head at her words and looked behind us.
“Pardon?”
“I had a strange feeling, so I kept watching that bent tree as a marker. We’ve been circling the same road.”
Song A-rin continued while looking outside.
“Black Hair kept changing direction, but we always end up back here.”
“...”
Yoo Da-on and I fell silent.
“We’re going in circles. I don’t think we can find an exit.”
It seemed the worst scenario I could imagine had landed on us with perfect accuracy.
“Then escaping is no longer an option for now.”
“I’ll look for somewhere else.”
Yoo Da-on said bravely and pressed the accelerator again.
How long had we been driving around outside?
“Is that something over there?”
“You’re right. There’s something there.”
A faint light came into view.
It was the sort of light that came from a village where people lived.
“It’s a village, right?”
“It appears so.”
Yoo Da-on and I carefully looked toward the lights.
“Should we go there...?”
“We don’t have a choice right now.”
What could we do when we could not even turn back?
Even if it was dangerous, there was no other way if we wanted to get out.
“Driving there feels like suicide no matter how I think about it, so shall we walk from here?”
“Sounds good.”
I quietly opened the door and got out of the car.
If we could see it with the naked eye, it could not be that far away.
“What are we going to do once we get there?”
“We’ll need you to hypnotize as many people as possible.”
Song A-rin hesitated at my words before replying.
“...Fine. If that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”
Should I just keep her connected to Jang Chae-yeon for the rest of her life?
“And then?”
“I suppose we find Ms. Chae-yeon... then find the source of this and overcome or destroy it.”
“Easy to say.”
Song A-rin let out a long sigh.
“We should proceed on the assumption that everyone there is a follower. Don’t trust anyone.”
“Yes!”
“I wouldn’t trust them even if you told me to.”
Leaving Yoo Da-on’s bright reply and Song A-rin’s grumbling response behind me, I slowly began walking toward the lights.
* * *
As expected, the village was not far away.
“The lights are on... but doesn’t it feel strange?”
“It does.”
I could not help agreeing with Yoo Da-on.
It did not feel as if anyone lived in the village.
The lights were on, but there were no animal cries, no human voices, no sign at all that anything lived there...
“...It’s like a village of dolls.”
Yoo Da-on muttered uneasily as she stepped into the entrance of the village.
“I’ll enter first, so you two follow from a little distance away.”
Song A-rin and I nodded, then began following behind her.
The deeper we walked into the village, the more desolate it felt.
Yoo Da-on, who had been leading us, suddenly dropped to the ground and signaled to us with her hand. We quickly lowered ourselves as well.
A person’s shadow was visible through a window.
Were they eating something? Two human silhouettes were reflected in the orange-glowing window.
Just as Yoo Da-on was about to crawl forward while lying flat,
I felt something strange.
I examined the other side of the window.
They were sitting in chairs, but they were making none of the movements that came with eating.
Like dolls.
“...Those aren’t people.”
I whispered, pointing at the silhouettes beyond the window.
Song A-rin and Yoo Da-on looked at them too, then widened their eyes as if they had realized something.
“You’re right.”
“Then is this really a dollhouse?”
Yoo Da-on moved closer and whispered.
“Still, let’s be careful.”
We had been chased by clay dolls at the mountain lodge before.
“If they’re all like this, I’m really useless.”
Song A-rin muttered bitterly as she crawled along the ground.
Sometimes crawling, sometimes walking bent over, we continued examining our surroundings.
Yoo Da-on had been right. This truly was a village of dolls.
There was not a single trace of a living person.
The text floating above their heads was all the same as well.
[Name: Human]
[Age: -]
[Trait: -]
[Talent: -]
[Background: God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.]
[Weakness: All humans eventually die and are buried in the earth.]
It felt as if lightning had struck inside my head.
“...They say God created humans from earth.”
As I slowly crawled forward, Song A-rin and Yoo Da-on turned to look at me.
“Right.”
“What if this place is paradise?”
“Paradise?”
“What if this is the Mountain God’s Eden, just as Adam and Eve were born in the Garden of Eden?”
Song A-rin froze at my words.
“The birth of a god.”
“Pardon?”
“This is urgent.”
Song A-rin looked at Yoo Da-on and me with a grim expression.
“There’s no time. If we don’t resolve this immediately... it could become a disaster that reaches even Level 4.”
“What do you mean by-”
-Thud!
Yoo Da-on’s head vanished as though it had exploded.
Blood spurted out, and Yoo Da-on fell forward, bracing herself on the ground with both hands.
“Cough! Cough!”
Her head returned as though regenerating, and Yoo Da-on coughed while clutching her throat.
“Ah, dirt got in my mouth!”
“Fall back!”
Song A-rin shouted urgently from behind as one clay doll stretched out a hand covered in blood and turned its head toward the cloudless sky.
As though waiting for the day it would become human.
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