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PROLOGUE

It was the dead of night, and the darkened office was illuminated only by the light spilling from the monitor onto Seo-eun’s anxious face.

She never imagined she would end up tampering with another department’s files.

Seo-eun had spent a long time cultivating a relationship with Team Leader Park of the HR Department.

Using their usual familiarity as an excuse to approach him, she would listen to his complaints and even casually join the HR Department’s company dinners.

Everything had been for today.

There had been a company-wide dinner for the Planning Division today, and once the atmosphere had warmed up, Seo-eun slipped over to the HR Department’s table.

Pleased by Seo-eun’s shameless flattery, Team Leader Park eventually drank beyond his limit.

Seo-eun did not miss the opening created when he was thoroughly drunk and distracted while talking to his wife on the phone.

Pretending to help carry Team Leader Park’s bag, she secretly stole his ID card.

She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she could not stop.

For her only younger sibling.

For her parents, who stayed awake through the night in tears, worried about their child.

“You know why our Ji-yu is like this too, don’t you, Seo-eun? If Ji-yu had lived with us all this time, she wouldn’t have ended up unable to get a job and shut away in her room.”

“What are we supposed to do about this……? Mom can’t bear to see her cooped up in the house like that anymore. Seo-eun, can’t you do something?”

When Seo-eun inserted the stolen ID card into the reader, the lock on the HR Department’s tightly secured office released.

All she had to do now was connect the USB drive she had brought in advance and move Ji-yu’s résumé into the ‘Interview Candidates’ folder.

“Haa…….”

It was such a simple thing to do, so why couldn’t she make her hands move?

After letting out a long breath, Seo-eun hesitated for a moment before connecting the USB drive.

Then she moved the mouse.

Click, click—the only sound in the silent office was the clicking of the mouse.

A short while later, having finished the job, Seo-eun lifted her hands from the keyboard and let go of the mouse.

Only then did she finally breathe again.

Just like that, Ji-yu had effectively passed the document screening for one of the country’s leading conglomerates.

After this, they would have to leave the rest to luck, but the Research Team Ji-yu had applied to had relatively low entry requirements, and Seo-eun had already secured the interview questions as well.

The hopeful part was that her younger sister, Han Ji-yu, was incredibly lucky.

How often did someone disappear only to return alive several years later?

It was nothing short of a miracle.

With hope that everything would work out, Seo-eun turned off the desktop computer and removed the ID card and USB drive.

She was just about to leave the office when—

Rustle.

She heard a presence somewhere.

Startled, she hurriedly looked around.

All she could see were the sleeping desks, yet suddenly they seemed eerie.

There was no way anyone should be here at this hour.

Just as she thought she should hurry out and spun around—

“……!”

For a moment, Seo-eun doubted her own eyes.

Late at night, when there should have been no one around, what she found right in front of her was unmistakably a pair of human eyes.

Not a beast.

Not a ghost.

A real person.

“Gasp.”

Seo-eun was so shocked that she could not even scream.

The man was dressed entirely in black from head to toe, with a mask covering his head and mouth.

Strands of hair poked out between the mask, along with his two eyes.

Two eyes that shone in the darkness, resembling moonlight.

Then it happened.

The faintly gleaming pupils suddenly trembled.

Upon seeing that tiny movement, Seo-eun instinctively thrust both hands forward and shoved the man with all her strength.

“I-I’m sorry!”

Thud!

The man, who had not expected to be attacked, fell backward.

Seo-eun was about to hurriedly run away, but she stopped and turned back.

She had only given him a slight push, yet the man had ended up sprawled flat on the floor.

“Gasp!”

W-What did I just do?

Did I… hurt someone……?

Seo-eun suddenly became frightened.

Why did movies so often have scenes like this?

The kind where someone falls, hits their head on a rock conveniently embedded in the ground, and dies instantly.

“Th-There…….”

Seo-eun approached the man’s head to check whether he was alive.

“Haa, wh-what do I do……?”

The man’s eyes, visible through the opening in his mask, were tightly shut.

She had no doubt that he had deliberately infiltrated the place.

Could he be a thief?

If not, there was no reason he would have entered this place dressed like that.

But Seo-eun had done something wrong herself, almost as bad as what the man had done, so she could not exactly report him to the police.

Yet she could not simply pretend she had seen nothing, either.

What if he was dead?

Just as she reached toward the man’s shoulder to try to wake him—

Snap!

The force with which he suddenly seized her wrist left Seo-eun so shocked that she could barely breathe.

“L-Let go of me!”

Seo-eun struggled to pull her hand free, but she lost her balance and fell hard onto her backside.

The man reached a hand toward the fallen Seo-eun.

“Ugh… th-there…….”

Seo-eun’s eyes widened in fear.

Supporting herself with both hands on the floor, she backed away before suddenly jumping to her feet and running out of the office.

She immediately shoved open the emergency exit and raced madly down the stairs.

Not long afterward, by the time she emerged from the building, her entire body was drenched in sweat.

“Haa, haa.”

Even as she struggled to catch her breath, Seo-eun thought it was a relief.

She had helped her only younger sister, and because of that, her mother would no longer have any reason to shed tears.

If her family could be happy, that was enough.

But the man……

The thought of the man she had left behind weighed heavily on her shoulders.

Seo-eun pressed both hands against her chest.

Her heart was still pounding.

He’s fine, so it’ll be all right.

He’ll escape on his own.

Then she suddenly felt a throbbing pain in her wrist.

The place where the man had grabbed her had turned red.