Chapter 5. The New Recruit at the Hunter Management Agency
The female ghost nodded firmly.
[I’m sure. Please believe me.]
Her eyes were unwavering.
Her expression was full of confidence.
[I never lie.]
On top of that, her calm tone was exactly the kind of voice someone used when telling the truth.
“…”
This wasn’t an unfamiliar sight to me.
When I was young, I had once seen a spirit beside my grandmother that could tell the future.
The moment the spirit’s eyes met mine, my mother quickly stepped in front of me.
After that, I never saw a ghost again.
Anyway, the existence of spirits who could see the future was a fact.
If those really were the winning lottery numbers…
Even if I only won 1 billion won every week, after four weeks, in just one month, could I buy a decent apartment along the Han River?
…This wasn’t the time to waste time in Gangwon Province.
“Get in the car. We’re going straight to Seoul.”
[Are you coming with me too?]
[Oh! Looks like you’re coming to our house too!]
It’s my house, not our house.
The female ghost shed tears as she spoke.
[Thank you…! Thank you! I’ll never forget this favor, even in death!]
[Wow~! As expected of state power! You’ve really hit the jackpot!
She’s already dead. How much more is she planning to die?
Ghosts seemed to have a habit of making grand promises.
Anyway, I had already planned to bring her along.
There was no reason to leave behind a spirit I had bound to myself.
[Thank you. I really like cars!
[Homeowner, step on it!]
Leaving behind the rare sight of two ghosts enjoying a drive, I drove along the highway and made it back to Seoul before noon.
[Is this going to be my home from now on? I love it!
[Hey~! Welcome!
[I can do lots of things well. Just tell me what to do!]
[At least you have some common sense!]
“Let’s eat Korean beef first.”
[Let’s go!]
[Thank you!]
“There’s a good restaurant nearby.”
It was a Korean beef restaurant at the intersection.
It was a famous place in the neighborhood.
And while we were there, I planned to buy some lottery tickets too.
Sizzle! Crackle!
The eyes of the two ghosts were fixed on one thing.
Their target was the Korean beef grilling over the charcoal.
“You can eat now.”
I placed a piece of well-grilled skirt steak into each of their rice bowls.
[Ahhh!]
[Meat! Korean beef!]
I deliberately reserved a private room.
It would look strange if there were only one person sitting at the table with bowls of rice placed in all the empty seats.
On top of that, two bowls of rice had metal chopsticks stuck vertically into them.
“Eat as much as you want. You’ve both worked hard.”
[Thanks, homeowner!]
[Thank you. We’ll enjoy the meal!
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
The two ghosts ate the meat as if they were competing with each other.
They were eating so fast that their hands were almost invisible.
I didn’t know how a ghost’s digestive system worked, but I could see the remaining meat rapidly losing its vitality.
It was as if the vivid colors were slowly being covered with black and white, like an old photograph that had faded with age.
I bought three lottery tickets.
I bought them from a famous lottery shop in the neighboring district, a place where people even came from other areas and lined up to buy tickets.
It was a legendary shop that had produced thirty first-prize winners.
With me added to the list, that would make thirty-three.
[Homeowner! Buy 100 tickets!
[Yes! These numbers are definitely correct!
The two ghosts strongly encouraged me, but I resisted.
A hundred tickets would probably be worth around 100 billion won if they all won, and that might even make the news.
If my name became widely known and controversy broke out, my stable life as a civil servant would be over.
I wanted to remain a civil servant for a long, long time with as little trouble as possible.
Preferably, I wanted to keep a low profile and have a long career.
In that case, this kind of controversy would be disastrous.
Besides, I could always buy the lottery every week.
Should I just buy one ticket from next week onward?
That would make me even less noticeable.
I decided that was probably the best choice and continued grilling the meat.
“Eat some more.”
This time, I piled sliced beef brisket into each of their bowls.
[Beef brisket!]
[Thank you!]
After two hours of eating, the ghosts finally raised both hands in surrender.
[My stomach is going to burst.]
[I can’t breathe!]
“…”
I had all the remaining meat packed up.
The restaurant owner initially looked surprised at the mountain of grilled meat piled up on the table.
“Um… Did you perhaps not like the food?”
He probably asked because there was so much grilled meat that hadn’t been eaten.
“No. We enjoyed it very much.”
The ghosts beside me nodded with satisfied expressions.
“Then would you like me to pack up all the remaining meat? Even the grilled meat?”
“Yes, please.”
The meat had already lost its vitality, but I thought it would be fine if I took it home and used it to make soup.
Maybe soybean paste stew with beef brisket… or beef radish soup.
“Thank you! Please come again!”
We had bought the lottery tickets and had our team dinner, so today’s work was done.
When I returned home, the fatigue suddenly hit me, probably because I had been driving all morning.
Even while sitting still, my eyes kept closing.
This won’t do.
I should just shower and go to sleep.
Just as I was about to climb into bed, the female ghost asked beside me:
[Where do I sleep?]
Do ghosts sleep too?
[Sleep anywhere!]
[I want my own room too…]
In the end, the storage room I had planned to give Cha Junhyuk became the female ghost’s room.
[I like it. Thank you!]
The female ghost hung upside down from the clothes rack and thanked me.
Her long, straight brown hair fell toward the floor, spreading wildly like a living black curtain.
“…”
I quietly closed the door, promising myself that I would avoid entering this room whenever possible.
It was Monday morning on my way to work.
There were several unfamiliar people in the first-floor lobby of the Hunter Management Agency.
Judging from the civil servant ID cards hanging around their necks, they seemed to be new employees.
Four of them were drinking beverages from the vending machine and talking.
Everyone working in this building belonged to the Hunter Management Agency anyway.
I was about to approach them to say hello when I heard their conversation.
“Where did they say we’re going on Friday?”
“You know that place. Where the Tower collapsed.”
“The uninhabited island? How are we supposed to get there?”
“They said we’re taking a helicopter.”
“This is so annoying. Why did I volunteer for this?”
“Why should we care about dead people anyway? They should worry about the living properly first. Or at least increase our pay grade.”
“Exactly!”
“…”
I stopped dead in my tracks.
It seemed like there was no need for me to go all the way there.
Then one of them made eye contact with me.
He was the person who had been standing silently without saying anything until then.
He looked at me with an expression of surprise for a moment before bowing his head.
I also gave him a slight nod in greeting.
The other three suddenly became startled and greeted me as well.
I gave them a brief greeting and went straight through the security checkpoint to the fifth floor.
“Officer Lee!”
The director came toward me as soon as I arrived, as if he had been waiting for me.
He was carrying a briefcase that reminded me of a 007 case.
“You’ve worked hard!”
“Thank you.”
“I have high expectations for you from now on too!”
“I’ll work hard.”
“Oh, and this is…”
Someone who had been hiding behind the director stepped forward.
It was a woman wearing huge black-rimmed glasses that covered nearly half her face.
“Hello. I, I’m…”
She stopped speaking for a long time.
When she lowered her head, her long brown hair slid forward and covered half her face again.
“Our new recruit is a bit like this. She’s very shy around strangers.”
The woman nodded vigorously as if agreeing with the director.
“Her name is Sua. Right?”
“Yes, yes…”
“She’s a government-affiliated white hat hacker, and she awakened two days ago. As you can see, she’s not very talkative.”
Nod, nod.
“But she’s definitely skilled. What was her class again?”
“Signal Corps.”
Signal Corps?
“Sua can break into any information or communications network. And she doesn’t leave any trace online.”
Another vigorous nod.
“She’s probably the only person in the world with this class, right?”
“Probably…”
“Her rank… Let’s see. She’s a civil service officer just like Officer Lee. So should we call her Officer Yoo from now on?”
As soon as she heard that, Sua shook her head in surprise.
“Th-that… N-no!”
Unlike before, she expressed her refusal quite firmly.
“Why? You don’t like being called an officer?”
“It’s… st-strange.”
Sua clenched her fists and showed just how strongly she felt about it.
“Officer Yoo…”
I roughly understood what she meant.
Putting her surname together with “Officer” sounded strange.
It could also sound like, You, officer.
But if we didn’t use her surname at all, it would be difficult to distinguish her from me.
Maybe she also felt uncomfortable with the rank itself.
“Then should we just call you Sua from now on?”
“Yes… Yes! Director.”
Anyway, the matter of what to call Sua was peacefully settled by mutual agreement.
“So Sua has a lot of work to do right now.”
She nodded firmly and went to sit at her desk.
Come to think of it, the office had changed quite a lot while I was away on my business trip.
There was a large multifunction printer, a water purifier, and a mobile whiteboard.
There was also a refrigerator, and in the corner…
There was a glass pyramid large enough for a person to fit inside.
What was that?
What was it even used for?
But I felt like I didn’t need to know.
No matter how much I thought about it, it was probably better that way.
The office also now had ten large L-shaped desks, which were basically a requirement for any proper office, along with a conference table.
The largest desk, created by joining two desks together, belonged to Sua.
It was in the back corner, almost completely surrounded by tall partitions.
As soon as she sat down, eight monitors turned on simultaneously.
Then came the sound of rapid typing.
Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
The director, standing beside Sua, asked:
“Where is the Japanese S-Rank Hunter right now?”
Tap.
An answer appeared on one of the monitors.
“Exactly!”
The director looked extremely satisfied.
Then the serious questions began.
“What is the highest floor the United States has cleared?”
<Floor 49.>
The answer came even faster than the question.
“How many times has the United States failed to clear Floor 50?”
Tap-tap-tap.
An eagle appeared on the screen for a moment before disappearing, while the text quickly rearranged itself.
<23 times.>
Is she really just a white hat hacker?
Isn’t this simply hacking?
The questions and answers continued like this.
“How many times has China failed to clear its highest floor?”
<37 times.>
“What is China’s next Tower-conquering plan?”
<The Beijing 798 Dungeon in two days. And the conquest of the Oriental Pearl Tower is scheduled one week from now. >
I already knew about China’s Oriental Pearl Tower.
The actual Shanghai landmark, the Oriental Pearl Tower, had suddenly disappeared completely except for its first floor.
Footage of the Tower disappearing in real time had been recorded, and scenes of shocked citizens standing in front of it had appeared several times in international news.
“Where is China’s Weixin Hunter staying?”
Weixin? Liu Weixin?
Liu Weixin was one of the highest-level Hunter criminals captured through international cooperation.
So he really was being held in a detention center.
The director nodded and asked his next question.
“Has any Tower ever been cleared with an S-Rank rating before?”
Tap.
“See that, Officer Lee? You’re the first person in the entire world!”
This was the first time I had heard that.
“Which countries currently know Officer Lee’s identity?”
<None yet. However, the United States, China, Japan, Thailand, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and several other countries are gathering information. >
“Delete everything!”
Tat-tat-tat-tat!
<…3, 2, 1. Deletion complete. >
“Good work! How long will it take the other countries to recover the information?”
<I’ll delay them as much as possible. I’ll also plant traps to interfere with their future information gathering. >
“Good! We’ll protect Officer Lee!”
Nod, nod, nod.
Sua nodded vigorously again.
“Now that Sua has joined us, if you ever need any information, Officer Lee, just ask her.”
<I’ll do my best to find out for you. >
In that case…
“Could I also ask about information related to Towers?”
“Towers? Of course.”
I needed to confirm what Cha Junhyuk had told me before.
“I heard that if someone climbs all the way to floor 100, the Tower will grant a wish. Apparently, it will grant anything you ask for. I’d like to know whether it can even bring a dead person back to life.”
The director looked somewhat puzzled by my question.
“You heard that? Did you learn this because of your class?”
Since I had heard it from a spirit, technically, yes, it was because of my class.
“Yes. Could we verify whether this information is true and whether it’s actually possible? I was told that information related to this could be obtained after reaching Floor 40.”
“Floor 40. Then we’ll have to check with the United States or China.”
Sua nodded a couple of times before immediately connecting to the CIA network.
“TS level? That won’t be easy in one go.”
<Unlike an ordinary TS-level document, this document has five layers of security. I’ll still give it a try. >
The white eagle appeared on the screen again.
Complex codes rapidly streamed across the monitor.
I thought a new window was about to appear, but…
“Ah!”
An alarm sounded, and red warning signs appeared on every monitor.
Sua immediately began trying to recover the situation.
Her fingers moved rapidly across the keyboard, and the warning windows disappeared one by one.
Just as she was about to access a meaningful page…
Zzt─!
Everything went black.
Every screen shut down at once.
“T-the computer…”
Sua stared blankly at the computer tower as smoke slowly rose from it.
“Tsk. It crashed.”
The director clicked his tongue.
“…W-what do we do?”
“Was a standard workstation not powerful enough?”
Sua’s eyes sparkled at those words.
“Th-then?”
“We’ll have to bring in better equipment.”
“…!!!”
She didn’t say anything, but the bright expression on Sua’s face said everything.
Was this what people meant by turning a bad situation into an opportunity?
“I’ll let Officer Lee know once we obtain the information later. For now… Right. Officer Lee, here.”
The director placed the 007-style briefcase on the conference table.
Then came a cheerful sound.
Click! Click!
The locks opened, and the contents inside were finally revealed.
That was…
A plane ticket?
There was nothing else inside.
The director pulled out the ticket and handed it to me with a serious expression.
“It’s for Jeju Island.”
The departure time was 5 p.m. tomorrow.
The return date was three days later.
“Take the opportunity to get plenty of rest.”
I wondered if this was really okay, but there was no reason to refuse.
A light workload, an enormous amount of rest, and a sufficient salary.
The Hunter Management Agency was becoming more and more like my dream workplace.
“Officer Lee needs to take care of his condition! Enter the Tower whenever you’re in peak condition.”
“F-fighting…!”
“Oh, and Officer Lee, your desk is over here.”
It was a desk right beside the window, with partitions blocking the front and one side.
“Once things are a little more organized, I’ll give both you and Sua your own offices. For now, use this.”
“Thank you.”
“And the desk in front of you is… Ah, here they come. Officer Park!”
“Yes! Director!”
“This is Officer Lee. Introduce yourselves.”
“Hello!”
“…Hello.”
He was one of the people I’d seen in the lobby earlier.
But remembering their earlier conversation, I couldn’t bring myself to smile back at the friendly-looking man.
“I look forward to working with you!”
“This guy is pretty sociable. He stood out from the interview stage.”
“Haha, I guess I am.”
“And behind him are Officer Kim, Officer Lee, and Officer Choi, who is a candidate for an administrative officer position.”
The group bowed to me.
It was the same group of people from the lobby.
Looking at them, I wanted to ask just one thing.
“Were all of them specially recruited?”
“That’s right. They were all specially recruited as Hunters. Today is their first day.”
Ah, so that’s why they don’t know?
That there are currently only two of us working in this building?
“Hello.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“For the time being, you’ll be in a public-service aptitude evaluation period, so Officer Lee, teach them well whenever you have time. And you four, make sure you learn properly.”
“Yes! Understood!”
“We look forward to your guidance.”
“We look forward to working with you.”
“I look forward to working with you too.”
The director looked at them seriously.
“You need to watch carefully and learn properly. Officer Lee’s opinion will also be included in your evaluation. Officer Lee will be in charge of the Hunter Management Agency’s Audit Office in the future.”
As he said that, the director hurriedly winked at me.
Apparently, that would be my official position for outsiders.
In any case, if that was the arrangement, I could relax.
The three of them seemed slightly nervous, but I didn’t really care.
“Officer Lee, sit down. You four, follow me. I’ll assign your duties.”
“Yes!”
Even while all this was happening, I submitted a request for an out-of-area business trip through the Hunter Management Agency’s newly created internal system.
It was approved immediately.
After completing the travel expense settlement request and report for my Gangwon Province Tower trip and handling some overdue work, quitting time quickly approached.
<Have a good business trip!>
With the director and Sua cheering me on, I left work exactly at 6 p.m. from the Hunter Management Agency.
[Dear passengers, we will be taking off shortly. For your safety, please check your seatbelt once again.
Two ghosts had boarded the flight to Jeju Island with me.
Each of them chose the seat they wanted.
Cha Junhyuk went and sat in an empty seat, while the female ghost…
[Look at this!]
She floated in midair, completely absorbed in looking out the airplane window.
“…Why does it feel cold?”
“You too?”
Thanks to that, passengers with particularly sensitive senses sometimes felt a chill.
[Wow! Wow! Clouds! Look! Look at that land down there!
[Is this your first time on an airplane? Why are you so excited?]
[Yes! It’s my first time!]
[First time? Didn’t you lose your memory?]
[I can still understand things like this.]
[You’re such a newbie when it comes to airplanes. You should thank the homeowner.
[Thank you, homeowner!]
They say domestic flights take off and land before you even realize it, and that expression was literally true.
I closed my eyes for a moment because I was tired, but when I opened them, we were already on Jeju Island.
[This is my first time in Jeju Island!]
The female ghost was excited again.
She flew around the ceiling, completely absorbed in looking around the airport.
“Come down, Chae Seonhwa.”
[Yes! Coming!]
I had learned the female ghost’s name from our conversation the previous night.
[How long were you homeless?]
Cha Junhyuk, who had been trying to open a wine bottle with the corkscrew all evening, casually asked the female ghost.
[Well…]
[Why?]
[Actually… I don’t remember.]
[What? So you have amnesia?
[Yes. I think so.]
“What about the Gangwon Province Tower? How did you get there?”
[I was just there. When I came to my senses, I was already there.]
[What? Then what about your memories from when you died?]
[I don’t remember those either. But…]
[But what?]
[I didn’t die in the Gangwon Province Tower.]
[Really? I died in a tower.
Apparently, that was the difference between the two of them.
It explained why Cha Junhyuk became human when he entered a tower.
And why the female ghost remained a ghost.
[But you…]
[Yes? Why?]
[You seem familiar somehow.]
[What? Do you know me?
[No? I’ve never seen you before.]
[…]
“…”
What exactly is he trying to do?
But Cha Junhyuk frowned deeply and became absorbed in his own thoughts.
[You’re familiar. Something about you… Your atmosphere? No, no. Your smell? That’s not it either… Ah! That’s it!]
[Why? Do you remember me?
[Your… your voice!]
[My voice?]
[Yeah! Your voice sounds similar!
[Similar to what?]
[Someone told me to go to the Tower!]
