Surviving as an Office Worker at the Anomaly Management Bureau - Chapter 67

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

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

Chapter 67: Response Team

──────

“What do you think? Isn't my idea great?”

“No, it sucks.”

Song A-rin cut me off without hesitation.

“Hey, why do I have to go on some filial-piety trip?”

“Shh...!”

I covered Song A-rin's mouth as she spoke without restraint. She glared at me while making muffled noises.

According to our team leader, it had been disappointing enough that our workshop was such a spectacular failure. Then the Gangseo Branch Head gave us a fairly large budget.

It was too much to waste on something like a company dinner.

Anything left over was supposedly going to be paid out as bonuses.

As we shared the good news, there was one thing I wanted to test.

“Pwah...! No, why are you making us do an experiment you could do yourself?”

“I can't do it, so who else am I supposed to ask?”

“Look at you saying that so shamelessly.”

The idea was simple.

We had been caught up in too many strange phenomena in a short period of time.

Then a thought struck me like lightning.

That was right. Maybe I was the problem.

So I suggested sending the other four on a trip without me.

“...Well... if Mr. Jae-heon wants us to, I don't mind...”

Yoo Da-on smiled awkwardly.

“...Do we have to...?”

Jang Chae-yeon blinked as she spoke.

And Song A-rin gave the same answer as before.

To solve this, we just needed to try sending people other than me.

“No, then why not just send us out for dinner? Why an amusement park...?”

Song A-rin protested as though she could not believe it.

“You don't get caught up in strange phenomena at bars.”

I never had, either.

“You say such complete nonsense with such a straight face that it's almost convincing.”

Song A-rin stared at me, let out a low sigh, then turned to Yoo Da-on and Jang Chae-yeon.

“...”

The three of them exchanged uneasy glances. In the end, Song A-rin let out a deep sigh and looked at me.

“...Just once. We won't stay long. We'll only be there for a little while.”

“...Should I go speak to our team leader...?”

“Do that.”

After glancing between the two of us cautiously, Yoo Da-on hurried over to speak to our team leader when Song A-rin nodded.

“...”

Jang Chae-yeon stood beside me with an unhappy expression before speaking.

“Want to come pick us up?”

“That won't work either.”

What if something happened when I went to get them?

“...”

Jang Chae-yeon rested her chin on her hand in dissatisfaction. Yoo Da-on, who had finished speaking with our team leader, came hurrying back toward us.

“Our team leader... says it sounds good...?”

“Then we have to go...”

Song A-rin sighed in response, then glared at me.

“Seriously, I'm only doing this because you're worried. Otherwise, I never would have agreed.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Ugh. Then we're going tomorrow.”

That ended our day. The next day, the four of them, including our team leader, reported to work at the amusement park.

Messages from Song A-rin, Yoo Da-on, and Jang Chae-yeon kept making my phone buzz. Since I did not have anything to do either, I spent my time chatting with the three of them.

They said they were going to get lunch, then their messages stopped.

No one contacted me again until the sun began to set.

“...”

I looked at my phone worriedly.

Outside the window, the sun was already sinking.

“This won't do.”

I got to my feet.

First, I needed to report it.

I picked up my phone and called the Sunglasses Guy.

<...What is it?>

“You're at the Management Bureau, right?”

I explained the situation to him. He fell silent for a moment.

“...What?”

What was that supposed to mean?

<I'll connect you.>

The call ended without him so much as asking what I wanted.

* * *

Response Team.

They entered zoned areas, or areas that had undergone otherworldization, risking their lives to create manuals or maps for the people drawn inside.

They were overshadowed by the Containment Team and Management Team, and it was not a place where exceptionally gifted people went.

But whenever someone was asked to name the toughest bastards in the Management Bureau, the Response Team was always mentioned first.

Naturally, the Management Bureau paid close attention to a person's talent when recruiting them.

The Containment Team recruited outstanding people. The Management Team recruited people with good observational skills or calm personalities. People were assigned to where they could make the best use of their abilities.

But the Response Team was different.

It was where people who had lost family or relatives in the otherworld, or had their loved ones murdered, threw themselves in with grief and hatred that had nowhere else to go.

It was a place people entered through pure will, completely unrelated to their individual talents. When they left, they either left with their loved one or as a corpse.

Unfortunately, most left as corpses.

For the past few days, one team's name had repeatedly been mentioned there.

“No, what I'm saying is, what the Human Resources Team did there...”

“Does that make any sense? According to the person who made it out of the Intensive Care Unit alive, that's impossible.”

“But they made it out alive.”

“That's what's strange. Are you sure they really made it out alive? What if even their brains were altered, and they're already spies who infiltrated the Management Bureau without us knowing?”

“Would the Management Bureau just leave them alone if that were true?”

“But it doesn't make sense. Unless they had some special equipment in their eyes or telepathy or something, how could they possibly do that?”

“No, that's...”

“I'm saying...”

“That's enough.”

A young voice stopped the two of them.

A man and a woman who had been arguing intensely turned to look at another woman.

She had faded platinum-blond hair.

She looked young and was short, but her blue eyes, strangely glinting in the light, were as murky as those of someone who had fought through countless battlefields.

Her hands constantly touched the grip of her pistol as though she had obsessive-compulsive disorder. The fact that she wore a bulletproof vest even in the office made her look either completely insane or like someone prepared to deploy at any moment.

“...Team Leader.”

“No matter how that Human Resources Team solved the situation, the important thing is that they shut down that goddamn Gangseo University Hospital for several years.”

Fluent Korean came from the mouth of a woman who looked unmistakably foreign.

“That alone is enough to call it the greatest achievement the Response Team could ever hope for. Isn't it?”

“...Yes.”

The woman who had raised doubts about the Human Resources Team answered in a dejected voice.

“I'll be honest. Whether their brains were altered or they came out fine or came out a complete wreck, I don't care.”

That was the Management Bureau's problem, she said. Then, while irritably rubbing the grip of her pistol, she threw down several photographs.

“What matters is the result. They killed that doctor, tore up half the Hospital, then escaped at their leisure.”

She began examining the photographs spread before her.

“The skill to identify the countless obstacles, threats, and monsters hidden in the streets all the way to Gangseo University Hospital, then drive a single van straight inside.”

Her gaze went to a photograph of a balding man.

“And the combat ability to fight monsters on equal footing when necessary.”

Her gaze moved to a photograph of an expressionless woman with white hair.

“Years of experience, and the ingenuity to fight monsters using abilities that only work on humans, like Hypnosis.”

Her eyes reached a photograph of an irritated-looking woman with purple hair.

“The courage not to fear death.”

She looked at the photograph of a smiling woman with black hair, then finally turned to the last photograph.

“And finally, both the intelligence and combat ability to personally direct all of that, place people where they are needed, and step in to resolve the situation when necessary.”

Her gaze fixed on a photograph of a tired-looking man with black hair.

“For a team that hands out paychecks, it really does have nothing but exceptionally talented people.”

“Might be worth paying them a visit,” she muttered.

Then someone abruptly threw open the door.

“Team Leader! We received a report of a location suspected to be undergoing otherworldization!”

“Tell me.”

She stood up and tightened the straps of her bulletproof vest.

“They say it's an amusement park. The entrance has not been found yet, but people have been disappearing frequently! The Gangbuk Response Team has already deployed!”

Disappearances.

Her eyebrows twitched.

“Lead the way.”

“Yes!”

She left the room with a grim expression.

When she was young, she had lost her entire family at a church they visited during a family trip.

The Management Bureau had taken her in. She grew up in an orphanage for children of missing persons, and from the moment she came to understand how the world worked, she devoted herself to the Management Bureau.

How long had she fought and recorded events as though coughing up blood? After every senior above her died, she naturally became team leader under the Response Team's rule that the person who survived the longest became the leader.

For the next three years, the team leader never changed.

“Get your equipment.”

“Yes!”

The team members behind her rushed out after her.

“...”

Her gaze fell on the photograph of the tired-looking man before she looked ahead again.

If only I had that kind of ability.

Let's not think such things.

After shaking her head a few times, she began walking.

Soon, the door to the Response Team closed, leaving only bright lights shining in the empty office.

* * *

“...Hello?”

“What is going on here?”

Then she came face to face with the man they had just been discussing.

The Response Team employees murmured as they pointed at him.

“That...”

“Right, the Human Resources Team...”

“Wow...”

She looked at him as well.

Ordinary office clothes. A tired expression.

He briefly looked above her head, raised one eyebrow, then turned his gaze back to her face.

What an unusual habit.

He had only looked above her head for a brief moment, but she did not miss it. Her observational skills were the only reason she had survived this long.

“...Are you the team leader?”

“People don't usually find it easy to assume I'm the team leader.”

“It's the atmosphere, I suppose. You have that sort of presence.”

“Let's say that's true. What do you need?”

“I heard that strange phenomenon may have occurred at the place you're going.”

“...That is true.”

“May I accompany you?”

He met her eyes.

“There's something I'm worried about.”

“...Do you know where we're going?”

“Yes. I do.”

As she considered refusing, her phone rang.