IHTBN 05

Chapter: 05

With my hand resting on my smartphone so that I could call 112 at any moment, I decided to watch the situation for a while.

“Gyeon! So you were here. Didn’t I ask you to let us know whenever you were going outside, regardless of who it was?”

The man around my age who was leading the researchers as they came running toward us spoke with a troubled expression.

Gyeon frowned as if she did not want to hear it.

“You’re the ones who made a contract with me to protect people before they were killed. I was only trying to keep my promise.”

“If that were the case, there wouldn’t be a single survivor!”

“Why wouldn’t there be? There’s one right here, isn’t there? Even if your eyes are as useless as knot holes, isn’t it a bit much that you can’t see someone standing right in front of you?”

“That makes no sense. The one that escaped was a ‘Byeong’ specimen. There’s no way an ordinary person could survive.”

The man let out an obvious sigh at Gyeon’s rebuttal, then turned his gaze toward Hwiryeong and continued.

“Hwiryeong. Don’t encourage Gyeon’s antics either. She’s running even more wild because you keep indulging her—”

“Why are you blaming me for losing track of Gyeon because you’re incompetent? Besides, this woman really is a survivor.”

“What? What kind of nonsense—”

“Um… I really am.”

Everyone standing nearby turned their eyes toward me at once.

Having so many eyes fixed on me made me feel awkward, but if I kept my mouth shut like this, I felt like they might classify me as dead rather than hire me. So I had no choice but to intervene.

I gave the people staring at me a friendly smile and continued.

“Hello. My name is Lee Seo-young, and I’m starting today as a cleaning staff member. I look forward to working with you.”

At my greeting, the researcher who had been particularly harsh toward Hwiryeong and Gyeon pushed his slipping glasses back up.

For a brief moment, there was unmistakable agitation in his eyes behind the lenses.

It was the kind of blatant reaction that seemed to say my being alive simply did not make sense.

“Oh my, Ms. Seo-young. I’m truly glad you survived. Are you injured anywhere?”

“I had my seatbelt on properly, so I wasn’t seriously injured.”

“Ah, I see. Indeed, there’s nothing quite as important as a seatbelt when it comes to saving lives.”

He approached me with smiling eyes.

“Cleaning isn’t particularly difficult work, but it’s difficult to hire someone with missing body parts. So I’m glad you’re safe.”

‘…Is he joking or being serious?’

It was too much to be a joke, yet somehow unpleasant if he was being serious.

But that was how social life worked. It always came with irrationality and unpleasantness.

I merely nodded while keeping the mask of a smile on my face, and he continued.

“My introduction is rather late. I’m Heo Won-jin, the director of the Jeokseong Research Institute. May I ask how you survived the monster?”

“Pardon? Ah, yes. I encountered it on the bus, but it just passed by. I survived thanks to that.”

“You were at such close range, and you were unharmed?”

“Yes. I was lucky.”

“Hm…”

At my answer, Won-jin gazed into empty space as if contemplating something before speaking.

“Since there’s no point in staying outside, why don’t we go inside and talk?”

After speaking in a friendly manner, he narrowed his eyes as he looked at Gyeon.

“If Gyeon stays away from the research institute for too long, another contained specimen might escape.”

‘Another contained specimen…’

It seemed that this research institute really was the ‘monster containment facility’ I had seen on the internet.

Apparently, I had ended up in an utterly ridiculous place…

‘What should I do?’

Wasn’t the place I had originally gotten a job at one of the largest corporations in South Korea, a company that everyone would recognize by name?

Why on earth were they containing monsters in a place like this?

More importantly, how could monsters even exist?

‘Should I run away right now?’

The thought of hesitation crossed my mind for a moment, but even if I was going to leave, it didn’t feel right to simply leave like this.

At the very least, I wanted to know what the monster that had threatened me actually was.

By then, people wearing blue protective suits had appeared in the soot-covered field and were collecting the wreckage.

Some piles of charcoal were being transferred into transparent glass bottles, while others were being stuffed into garbage bags…

If I actually got hired, would I be doing work like that?

While I continued to have complicated thoughts, Gyeon, who was walking toward the research institute while holding Won-jin’s hand, turned around and waved at me as if telling me to hurry.

A beat later, I followed the others into the research institute.

“You’ve already seen things you should and shouldn’t have seen, so you probably know this already, but the Jeokseong Research Institute is a facility that contains, protects, and researches [Anomalies].”

A place that contained and protected [Anomalies].

After entering the research institute, Won-jin crossed the spacious lobby and headed toward the elevator. As he pressed the button, he began quietly explaining the research institute.

I appreciated that he got straight to the point without a long-winded introduction.

However, it was so sudden that I had no idea how I was supposed to respond.

“What exactly is an ‘Anomaly’?”

When I asked back with an ambiguous expression, he answered in a matter-of-fact voice.

“An Anomaly refers to anything that surpasses human understanding.”

Won-jin explained.

Anything possessing self-awareness and capable of performing supernatural powers.

That was an ‘Anomaly.’

The monster I had seen, goblins and other strange creatures from traditional fairy tales, ghosts, psychics…

Apparently, even inanimate objects could sometimes become Anomalies.

“What you saw, Ms. Seo-young, was a containment-grade ‘Byeong’ specimen. Its identification number is ‘912.’ Its common designation is the ‘Eyes of the Stars.’”

“…?”

“The containment grades of specimens are based on the Heavenly Stems. Gap, Eul, Byeong, and Jeong are specially managed specimens…”

‘No… Wait a minute…’

How was I supposed to deal with them suddenly throwing specialized terminology at an ordinary person they had just brought in?

I understood that they were smart, but would it really cause them a rash to explain things at a level a complete outsider could understand?

I felt as though I had suddenly returned to my university days, sitting in a major-specific class for the first time, and I was already getting dizzy.

I began pondering the philosophical question of what the world even was…

In other words, I started looking utterly dazed, as if my soul had left my body.

Gyeon giggled at my blank expression, then nudged the researcher around my age standing beside Won-jin and whispered something to him.

The employee then approached me and asked,

“I’m sorry. It’s difficult to understand, isn’t it? You can let the director’s words go in one ear and out the other.”

“Huh? Is that really okay?”

“Yes. Once you’re assigned a mentor, you’ll learn everything step by step, starting from the basic concepts.”

“Do we… have to take some kind of test?”

“No. Even the concepts themselves aren’t anything special. It’s not something you learn simply by studying. You learn it through experience.”

“Wow. That’s…”

What an ominous thing to say.

I barely swallowed the words that almost slipped out reflexively and quietly asked the employee beside me,

“Does this kind of incident, where an Anomaly escapes, happen often?”

“‘Often’ is a very subjective word. For some people, once a day could be often, while for others, once a month could be considered often.”

Indeed, my question had been poorly worded.

“Then how often do Anomalies escape? Once every few months?”

“I’ve been working here for about five years, and there have only been two major escapes like this.”

“Two? That’s surprisingly not very many.”

“Yes. However, when even one specimen escapes, numerous people die. That naturally leads to a shortage of manpower, and other specimens take advantage of that gap to escape, creating a vicious cycle.”

“…Gasp.”

“So we’ll need to be particularly careful for the time being.”

I hadn’t been told that this job came with this much of a threat to my life.

No matter how I thought about it, this was a crazy workplace.

“Even though it’s dangerous, you still work here?”

“I’m being paid far too much to refuse.”

“Ah…”

Come to think of it, even I was standing here, fully aware that this was a crazy workplace and that the situation was completely insane, while still debating whether I should run away or not.

‘But there’s a private room in the dormitory for each person, three meals a day are provided, and every facility on the premises is free.’

And that wasn’t all.

The salary was one and a half times what I had previously earned…

No, if things went well, I could earn more than twice as much, plus there were incentives.

The job posting had even advertised an award for outstanding employees, including an opportunity to travel overseas for two weeks.

With a chance to enter a workplace this amazing, what kind of idiot would pass it up?

‘Even if you enter a tiger’s den, you can survive as long as you keep your wits about you. That’s how Koreans are.’

If it was dangerous, couldn’t I simply take precautions accordingly?

In fact, the researcher beside me had been working here for more than five years and was still perfectly healthy, with all four limbs intact.

So I asked him,

“Then what should you do if an incredibly dangerous Anomaly like this one escapes?”

“If you can run, run. If you’re in a situation where you can’t run, then pray that you survive like you did today.”

“Is there anything else we’re supposed to do?”

“Other than that… Oh, it would be good if you could inform the people around you that an Anomaly had escaped while you’re running away. The fewer bodies we have to clean up, the easier the work is.”

…

Maybe I should be running away from the company rather than the Anomaly.