WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving as an Office Worker at the Anomaly Management Bureau ◈
Chapter 68: Amusement Park
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I looked around inside the truck speeding through the night.
There were people of all ages.
Elderly people, and even kids who looked to be high school students. Why had they all come here?
“If you’re curious about something, why don’t you just say so?”
An indifferent voice reached my ears.
Young.
That was my first thought when I saw the Response Team leader.
Not that she looked young.
She was so young it was strange for her to be a team leader.
Only her air was completely out of place.
Her messy platinum-blond hair, and the expression of someone who had been through every hardship imaginable.
Without realizing it, I looked over her head again.
[Name: Aileen]
[Age: 21]
[Trait: X]
[Talent: X]
[Background: After losing her entire family at a cathedral when she was young, she joined the Response Team as its youngest member after more than a decade of grueling effort, then became its youngest team leader. Her only driving forces are her determination to find her family and to end all of this.]
[Weakness: She is an ordinary person. If she is killed, she dies.]
She was not hiding anything.
She had no distinguishing features. Not even an ability. She was simply an ordinary human.
How had someone like that made it this far? No, why had she gone this far?
“It seems you don’t take my words seriously.”
“...My apologies. I was distracted by my concerns for a moment.”
She stared at me before speaking.
“I’ve heard about you. Kim Jae-heon from the Human Resources Team.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Plenty of people in the Response Team are curious. How did you not only survive Gangseo University Hospital, but also come out after cutting off a doctor’s head?”
No wonder the others had been looking at me strangely.
“I’d like to hear your adventure tale, but... unfortunately, we don’t have time.”
Still gripping her pistol, she took out a tablet.
“Listen closely. We’re heading to Sora Land, an amusement park that opened recently. Other teams looked into it, and apparently no organization has intervened so far.”
Everyone listened carefully.
No organization had intervened.
“In other words, it may have occurred naturally, or even involve a containment object. You all know what that means.”
Tension spread through the truck.
“Throw away common sense. We’re going in with a small, handpicked team.”
She looked around as she spoke.
“First, anyone with a wife, children, or parents still alive, step back.”
Several people stepped back.
“Next, anyone who still has not found the person they want, or needs to go somewhere else, step back as well.”
Many people stepped back.
Not many remained now.
“Lastly, anyone who simply doesn’t want to fight, step back.”
No one stepped back this time.
“...Good. Old Man Kim. Come with me.”
“Yep.”
An elderly man raised his hand.
“Manager Lee, Assistant Manager Park. You two come as well.”
“Understood.”
“Yes.”
A neat-looking man and a middle-aged woman stepped forward.
It was strange seeing them treat someone who looked so much younger than them with such respect.
“Finally...”
Her gaze turned toward me.
“Any thoughts about staying behind?”
“None.”
When I rose from my seat, everyone looked at me.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Good. I suppose someone who came back alive has a different kind of composure.”
“More than that, it’s faith.”
The Human Resources Team members I knew would not die that easily.
Her eyebrow twitched once at my words before she looked at the others.
“We’re going in with five people. Everyone else, remain on standby and identify an exit.”
“Yes!”
The people shouted in unison.
Their noisy chatter filled the truck.
Soon, the truck stopped. As the back doors opened, people began pouring out.
Before long, only the Response Team leader, the people she had chosen, and I remained.
“Let’s begin the briefing.”
Inside the truck, which felt like a small room, she began speaking in her youthful voice while gesturing with her pistol.
“First, we only know of one confirmed entrance. Go in through it, wait until closing time, then leave.”
She spun her pistol as she continued.
“Once you do, you arrive at the amusement park’s front gate. The problem begins there.”
Click.
The pistol stopped.
“There is almost no information beyond that. The Management Bureau plans to close and contain the place, but since there may be side effects like those at Gangseo University Hospital, they’re holding back for now.”
“It has only existed for a week, after all,” she added.
“In other words, aside from survivor testimony, this will be our first investigation.”
The atmosphere grew heavy.
I remembered the Manual I had seen at Gangseo University Hospital.
How many people’s final cries, information, and blood had been stained into that Manual?
And this time, the first blood to stain it would be ours.
“I will do everything I can to make sure everyone returns alive. However.”
She looked around, stood up, and bowed at a ninety-degree angle.
“I apologize in advance.”
“...”
Silence settled over us.
“You may die somewhere beyond my reach. Depending on the situation, I may have to abandon you, and even abandon myself.”
She continued speaking with her head lowered.
“If that happens, blame me. Think that your leader was incompetent and failed to save you. Direct all your anger at me.”
After a long silence, she raised her head.
Perhaps because she had kept her head lowered for so long, her face was red.
“I’ll take all of it.”
The other three began to laugh.
“That’s enough, Team Leader. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard that, and I’m sure we’ll keep hearing it.”
The elderly man laughed heartily.
“Well, it’s not like I have anything left to lose. If I die, I die.”
The man answered with a smile.
“You’re still adorable.”
The woman simply smiled gently.
Then all four of them looked at me.
My turn, then.
Let’s see.
“I’ll do my best.”
With that, the briefing ended.
* * *
I watched people leave like the ebbing tide from behind a tree, then stood beside the Response Team leader, who was wearing a hoodie.
Soon, she raised her head and looked up at me.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
With a groan, she put her bulletproof vest back on over her hoodie, holstered her pistol, and picked up the rifle leaning against the tree.
Click.
After checking the rifle, she looked at me.
“...Are you sure you don’t need a rifle?”
“I’m fine.”
She probably knew it herself, but ordinary firepower could not kill monsters like those. If it could, they would have simply shot them all dead already.
“Yet you’re still taking the body armor. That’s funny.”
“In my experience, getting hurt really does feel like death.”
I glanced at the pinky on my left hand, which was still secured in place.
The stab wound had mostly healed, but the bone had not fully mended yet.
“...”
I felt her gaze and met her eyes. She stared at me for a moment before speaking.
“You have the air of a veteran.”
“Hmm. ...Team Leader...”
“Call me Aileen. It’s not good to use titles in an otherworld.”
By her name?
I found that strange, but shrugged and called her name.
“Ms. Aileen.”
“Fine, Kim Jae-heon.”
Should I ask this or not?
After thinking about it briefly, I ultimately gave in to my curiosity.
“How did you become team leader?”
“...”
She stopped cleaning her weapon and stared at me.
“It’s not that I doubt your qualifications, Ms. Aileen... but the Management Bureau only promotes people after they’ve worked there for a long time.”
“That is why I became team leader.”
“...?”
Aileen answered dryly, then returned to cleaning her weapon. The others laughed as they spoke.
“The Team Leader has been in the Response Team longer than anyone else.”
“What...?”
“This is your tenth year, right?”
“...”
Aileen sighed at her team members’ words.
“I am truly sick of hearing that question.”
“We don’t wonder about it, but other people might.”
“I don’t care what other people think, so that’s fine.”
“There she goes again.”
What an odd feeling.
Amid the lively atmosphere, everyone checked their equipment.
Let’s see. I had my pistol and Butane Gas. ...The statuette was there too, along with the black marble.
Just as we finished checking our equipment,
-Clang!
a metal door shut, and Aileen muttered.
“Get ready.”
The extinguished lights came on.
Blood-red lights.
A song with an eerie melody began playing.
-Welcome to Sora Land, full of fantasy and dreams~
Someone stood before us.
As I looked ahead, a clown smiled brightly and handed us balloons.
The badly applied white face paint occasionally revealed his face beneath it. Behind the paint was something with exposed muscle and bone rather than human skin.
It felt as though a half-dead human, or a monster forcibly wearing human skin, was welcoming us.
Five balloons swayed as they welcomed us.
“Welcome! Sora Land is now open for the night!”
The clown looked at us, smiling so broadly his mouth seemed ready to split apart.
“...Take them.”
Aileen muttered as she accepted a balloon. The rest of us followed her lead.
“These balloons are as precious as your lives! Please take good care of them!”
I looked over the clown’s head.
[Name: Clown]
[Age: Created two days ago]
[Trait: Life Link]
[Talent: X]
[Background: Having visited the amusement park, he cannot rest even after death.]
[Weakness: If the amusement park disappears, he will disappear as well.]
“...”
I looked at the balloon.
It was about the size of two fists. Not a particularly large balloon.
I looked at the others.
All four of them stared at their balloons with tense expressions.
“What if it pops and releases poison gas...”
“Or maybe we really can’t let it pop...”
“Or perhaps only a few people should pop theirs...”
Everyone discussed it with grave expressions.
I fell into thought as well.
The thing to consider here was its Trait, Life Link. Then...
Whoosh!
Something sharp flew toward us from afar.
-Pop!
Something embedded itself in the elderly man’s balloon, bursting it at the same time.
“...Ah...”
With a short final gasp, he collapsed.
“Take cover!”
As she shouted, Aileen dove behind a tree. We all reflexively hid as well.
Aileen and I were behind the tree, while the other two hid beneath a bench.
-Thud! Thud!
The sound of something hard embedding itself.
Then...
“Everyone, hold your balloons against your chest.”
The other three looked at me with puzzled expressions.
“Hurry!”
When I shouted, they hurriedly held their balloons close.
Life Link, an amusement park, and balloons.
Right now, we were wandering this place with our hearts exposed.
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