WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ Surviving as an Office Worker at the Anomaly Management Bureau ◈
Chapter 44: Faith
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“So your eyes are malfunctioning right now, and there’s nothing you can do?”
“That’s right.”
Song A-rin looked up at me with her arms crossed.
“You’re really useless, huh?”
“You’ve got no filter for someone who just saved your life, do you?”
Should I really smack her on the head?
At my words, she continued with a disappointed look.
“No, you were supposed to make a cool entrance like always, figure out its weakness, then ta-da! Save me.”
“No, what do you mean...”
Like always?
“Do you think I’m cool?”
“...Shut up.”
“I am pretty cool.”
“Do you actually want to die?”
Song A-rin punched me in the shoulder.
She really was fun to tease.
“Ahem! Anyway, we just need to find Black Hair and White Hair first, right?”
“That’s right.”
We had found a sheet of paper titled Escape Instructions, after all. Whether the information on that paper was actually correct was another matter.
“Then we cut its hair.”
“That’s right.”
“How?”
“Ms. Chae-yeon will do it.”
“So after all that, White Hair’s the one who has to do all the heavy lifting?”
“I won’t stop you if you want to grab some scissors and cut its hair yourself.”
“White Hair’s an idiot anyway, so she should at least put her strength to good use. I’m in favor.”
Song A-rin nodded as she delivered that remarkably blunt criticism of Jang Chae-yeon.
“Then what was that child?”
“I don’t know.”
I had seen monsters that parasitized humans, a Cube that fired lasers, a monster that ate people inside a play, and a pseudo-god, but I had never encountered a ghost before.
“It’s better to do as it says. It wouldn’t have kept the child there without a reason.”
“What if this is a trap meant to kill us instead?”
“That concerns me too, but I don’t see any particularly good alternatives.”
Song A-rin clicked her tongue and began searching through the lockers.
“What are you doing?”
“Things might be better if I can find at least a box cutter.”
She was seriously rummaging through the lockers with her tiny hands.
I didn’t think it would help much, but there was no reason for me to stop her when she was taking it so seriously.
Until she finally found a box cutter, I remained lost in thought.
The problem was the lack of information.
It felt like someone had taken away the weapon I relied on most.
“What are you thinking so hard about?”
Song A-rin, having found a box cutter, leaned close to look at me.
“Nothing. I’m just thinking about how to deal with this.”
“Deal with it?”
“Yes. In case something unexpected happens...”
“Don’t worry.”
“Pardon?”
I stared at Song A-rin, and she stared back at me.
“My Hypnosis works on that thing a little.”
Hypnosis worked on it? I had never seen Song A-rin properly use Hypnosis on anyone other than an ally.
Whether she noticed my surprise or not, Song A-rin twirled her hair around one finger as she spoke.
“Not completely. But I can do things like make it unable to tell its hands from its feet, so it crosses its legs.”
“Was that why it crashed into the wall earlier? Did you do something?”
“More precisely, I gave us another chance while you put a bullet between its eyes.”
“That should be enough.”
Good. That meant we were more or less prepared.
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah. What do we do first?”
“First... shall we find Ms. Da-on?”
If my experience was right, Yoo Da-on was in the greatest danger right now.
She had become younger, but more importantly, she did not have her Regeneration ability in her current state.
It literally took a long time for her to come back after dying, and if she was injured, it would be difficult for her to move.
We needed to save Yoo Da-on as quickly as possible.
“...I agree. She ran out first to save me and White Hair, after all.”
Song A-rin nodded as though she agreed.
“But how are we going to find her?”
“We’ll follow it.”
I looked at a vase close enough to reach with a jump, then jumped and struck it with my palm.
-Crash!
The sound of the vase breaking tore through the silence. Before Song A-rin could widen her eyes at me, I covered her mouth and pulled her into the classroom.
-Thud thud thud thud thud!
Soon, footsteps came from the direction of the broken vase.
“Is it tasty? Is it tastyistastyistastyistastyistastyistastyistasty?”
With heavy footsteps, it began moving again.
“Let’s go.”
“Do you really have two lives?”
Song A-rin quietly grumbled as she followed behind me.
We stepped outside and began following it from a distance.
Fortunately, its footsteps were loud, so Song A-rin and I had no trouble following it. Unfortunately, it was quite fast, so we had to half-run after it.
Wasn’t this supposed to be a small school? How could it keep going like this?
Just as I began to wonder, it started climbing the stairs.
“...The roof?”
“I think so.”
Song A-rin and I whispered as we climbed the stairs.
Keeping our hands over our mouths, we slowly climbed the steep staircase.
Soon, the rooftop came into view.
The moment we stepped through the door, sticky air and an unpleasant chill brushed through my lungs.
Calling it a rooftop didn’t feel quite right.
There was a gigantic cocoon made of hair, with tiny skulls scattered around it.
Once we confirmed that it had entered the cocoon, the two of us hid behind a wall as if we had planned it.
Soon, a terrible stench stabbed at my nose.
The smell of something rotting mixed with an indescribably strange odor. Calling it torture would not have been an exaggeration.
“Urgh...”
Song A-rin covered her mouth as she retched, and I had no choice but to cover my mouth and nose as nausea rose in my throat.
Keeping my mouth and nose covered, I hurriedly scanned the area. Was Yoo Da-on here?
As I looked around, thinking it would be worrying whether she was here or not, Song A-rin tugged on my collar and pointed in one direction.
It was Yoo Da-on.
More precisely, a younger Yoo Da-on.
Her neck was bent at a grotesque angle as she lay buried inside the cocoon with her eyes closed. She wasn’t breathing, so she was definitely dead.
Unlike Song A-rin and me, who wore ordinary clothes, she was dressed in a hospital gown.
We needed to bring her out, but how?
Wouldn’t it leave for somewhere else?
Contrary to my hopes, it crawled on all fours into the cocoon, sat down, and began muttering in an unknown dialect.
Song A-rin and I looked at each other.
Did one of us need to step out and draw its attention?
-Crack.
With the strange sound of bones setting back into place, Yoo Da-on’s body began returning to normal.
I had seen it during the Adult Form incident too, but unlike an immediate recovery, she returned as if time were flowing backward.
Soon, her chest began rising and falling evenly. She opened her eyes, looked around, and met Song A-rin’s and my gaze.
Before she could do anything, I quickly pressed a finger to my lips to signal for silence. Yoo Da-on understood and closed her mouth.
She quietly tried to move out of the cocoon.
But it was impossible.
She struggled, pushing and pulling the cocoon with her slender arms. Later, she even tried biting through the hair, but she didn’t have enough strength in her current state.
What should we do? Should we leave Yoo Da-on here, find Jang Chae-yeon, and come back to get her out?
But there was no guarantee we could find Jang Chae-yeon. If Yoo Da-on was moved somewhere else in the meantime, or in the worst case, if she was eaten...
As I rubbed my temple and thought it over, Song A-rin let out a deep sigh and tugged on my sleeve.
“...Forget it.”
“What?”
“I’ll draw its attention.”
Had this woman become younger in the brain too?
“Don’t say something crazy. If you get caught, you’ll really die, Ms. Song A-rin.”
“Then what, are you going to draw its attention? What can someone with malfunctioning eyes even do? And you’ll die if you get caught too.”
Song A-rin glared at me defiantly.
Should I really leave it to her?
My thoughts churned.
Wait.
A method lit up in my mind.
“You said you could switch its hands and feet earlier, right? From what I heard, you can affect its senses to some extent. Is that correct?”
“...”
Song A-rin nodded.
“Then let’s make it go wild.”
“What if Black Hair falls?”
“That’s what we’re aiming for.”
“...You’ll scramble its senses and make it wreck the place?”
“That’s right.”
Song A-rin looked at me as though I were insane. Then, as always, she stretched with that same fierce grin.
“I don’t think that side of you is bad. It’s exactly the mindset a Management Bureau employee should have.”
“Don’t say something so horrible.”
“You don’t know it, but that’s a huge compliment.”
Song A-rin looked at me.
“We make it go wild? You’ll handle the escape?”
“I have better stamina than you, Ms. Song A-rin.”
Song A-rin glared at me for a moment.
“Then I’m running away first.”
“Go ahead.”
Song A-rin boldly stepped forward.
Its eyes turned toward Song A-rin, and she stood in front of it with her arms crossed.
It would have looked cooler if she hadn’t been a little kid in a purple dress.
It abruptly rose to its feet, then its legs buckled and it collapsed. It stood again, but this time it drove its head into the cocoon, making it shake.
Without being noticed, I slowly walked toward Yoo Da-on.
“Mr. Jae-heon...!”
Yoo Da-on called out to me in a young voice.
“You could have left me behind...”
“The Human Resources Team does not abandon its colleagues.”
We had been through hell together. How could I leave someone behind?
Yoo Da-on gave a faint smile at my words.
“Actually, I hoped you would come, Mr. Jae-heon.”
For a moment, I could not find anything to say in response to that fleeting smile.
-Boom!
The cocoon shook violently, and Yoo Da-on’s body was shaken loose.
“!”
I quickly ran over and slid beneath her, catching her.
She fell into my arms. Yoo Da-on looked at me with a shy smile.
“...Thank you.”
“Then get up quickly. Can you run?”
“Yes.”
I set her down and looked at the floor.
Hair.
Could I take some, just in case? I didn’t think I should, but...
I stuffed a few strands of hair into my pants pocket, then ran toward Song A-rin with Yoo Da-on. When Song A-rin saw me running, she began running ahead of us.
“What are we doing now?”
“We need to find Ms. Chae-yeon!”
“With all this advertising, we’ll find her quickly enough!”
Inside the narrow hallway, only the footsteps of three children and the running of a four-legged monster echoed.
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