IHTBN 08

Chapter: 08

A week had passed since I was assigned to the Jeokseong Research Institute.

Just as the researcher had said on my first day, the research institute was, surprisingly enough, an extremely comfortable workplace where hardly anything happened.

‘At this point, isn’t this basically an insanely good workplace?’

Of course, it wasn’t as though absolutely nothing happened.

It was possible that incidents were occurring elsewhere and simply weren’t reaching my ears because my main workplace was the residential building.

However, judging by the conversations I overheard from employees gathering at the cafeteria after work, it seemed that even the research building had not experienced any major escape incidents that posed a serious threat to people’s lives during the past week.

If anything, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there were more incidents and accidents in the residential building, where humans gathered, than in the research building, which was crawling with monsters.

‘Isn’t this proof that humans are actually worse than monsters?’

That was how my days continued.

Today was no different.

As usual, I had come to the cafeteria before starting work and was enjoying a luxurious dinner when I heard the researchers sitting nearby talking.

“The new recruits from a month ago were really unlucky.”

“Of course. It’s not common for a ‘Jeong’ containment specimen to escape. The higher the grade, the harder it is to manage, so I suppose it was inevitable.”

Normally, this would have been the kind of conversation I wouldn’t have paid any attention to.

Perhaps it caught my attention because they were talking about what happened when I first arrived.

‘A Jeong-grade specimen… Come to think of it, how did a specimen of that grade manage to escape?’

Over the past week, I had learned several things about Anomalies through Eunwoo’s training.

Anomaly grades were divided according to the order of the Heavenly Stems.

[Gap–Eul–Byeong–Jeong] represented dangerous specimens.

[Mu–Gi–Gyeong–Sin] represented safe specimens.

[Im–Gye] represented special specimens.

It was easy enough to memorize, but perhaps because I still hadn’t entered the research building, I had absolutely no idea how dangerous each grade actually was.

‘If Byeong was powerful enough to melt the security guards… just how dangerous is Gap?’

Were Gyeon and Hwiryeong, whom I met on my first day, also Anomalies?

If they were Anomalies, what grade were they?

As I continued thinking about the grades, I noticed a young-looking researcher lowering his head with a mournful expression.

The researcher sitting beside him stirred his spoon around and said,

“Those guys weren’t unlucky. They were lucky, ya hear? A year ago, a ‘Gap’-grade specimen escaped and turned the entire surrounding area into a wasteland. Do you know how hard it was cleaning up that mess?”

“Ugh. I don’t even know what kind of glory I thought I was going to achieve by getting a job at a place like this.”

“You say that, but you’re eating way too much. Even if the food is unlimited, quit stuffing your face so much.”

One of the researchers who had been filling his tray with food seemed to contemplate his colleague’s complaint for a moment.

Then he piled even more rice and side dishes onto his tray before answering.

“The best benefit this company offers is unlimited hotel-quality meals. If I don’t eat as much as I can, I’m only losing out.”

That was something I could truly sympathize with.

Everything about this company’s benefits was excellent, but the food was the best of all.

It was available twenty-four hours a day, and even though there were no chefs, all you had to do was order whatever food you wanted, and it would immediately appear.

And that wasn’t all.

The food that came out was perfectly suited to the ordering employee’s medical history and physical condition, and the taste was top-notch as well.

However, according to Eunwoo, the cafeteria itself was an Anomaly, so we shouldn’t become too dependent on it.

The [Residential Building Cafeteria] was classified as ‘Mu (戊).’

Although it was one of the highest grades among the safe classifications, apparently there were no completely harmless Anomalies within the research institute.

In fact, exactly three times…

Employees had disappeared inside this cafeteria.

And there had been cases where the missing employees came back as ‘food.’

Why those employees disappeared, or what kind of food they had been turned into, was classified information and therefore unknown.

However, even the security team members who had become veterans at dealing with Anomalies, as well as the hunters who captured Anomalies, were said to have been horrified when they saw the cooked employees.

The most horrifying part was this.

The employees who had been turned into food were still alive at the time.

What happened to those cooked employees afterward was unknown.

No one even knew what happened to the food itself.

The only thing the company did was issue an official notice telling employees not to remain in the cafeteria for too long.

Hearing stories like that left me feeling extremely uneasy.

But giving up this benefit was really difficult.

Anyway, all that mattered was that I wasn’t the one involved.

I was sympathizing with the conversation in my head when—

“Come to think of it, seniors. I heard that one of the ‘Jeong’-grade specimens that arrived recently escaped. Which floor was it again?”

‘Huh? What?’

Startled by the researchers’ continued conversation, I resisted the urge to turn around and listened carefully to what they were saying.

“The twenty-third floor. I heard that even when they catch it, it keeps escaping.”

However, perhaps they had already finished their meals during that brief exchange, because the researchers simply picked up their trays and leisurely walked toward the tray return area.

I had heard something like this less than ten minutes after thinking that nothing was happening.

‘Seriously, isn’t it too much that bad things happen just because I think about them?’

Fortunately, at least my workplace as a new employee was the residential building.

The specimen had escaped from the research building, and even on my first day, the damage had not reached outside the research building.

So I should be able to relax.

‘Besides, what I need to think about right now isn’t the escaped specimen. It’s my workplace for today.’

Perhaps because I had recently become accustomed to my work, I had started making small mistakes rather often.

I absolutely couldn’t get scolded today.

Erasing thoughts about the escaped specimen from my mind, I steeled myself and stood up from my seat.

Evening.

The work I had to do today was nighttime management of the residential building’s lounge.

The first-floor lounge, like the cafeteria, operated twenty-four hours a day.

There were many stores, including a plaza and bars, and there were occasionally employees who got drunk and caused disturbances, making it a troublesome place to manage.

‘This week is going to be a little rough.’

After checking the shift schedule and sighing, I returned to my room, changed into my work uniform, and headed toward the cleaning team’s waiting room in a corner of the first floor.

When I opened the door, I saw several employees had already arrived and were talking.

Three were new employees who had joined four days ago, while four were veterans, including Minjun, the vice-head of the cleaning team.

They were sitting in a circle and talking with serious expressions, which somehow made me uneasy.

The cleaning team employees were all reasonably good-natured, but they weren’t close enough to casually chat before work began.

In particular, because the nature of the work meant there was an enormous difference in age between employees, it was even harder for everyone to become close.

For people like that to gather together and have a conversation…

It seemed like a rare occurrence.

As I entered the waiting room, Minjun noticed me and waved.

“Seo-young, you’re here.”

“Hello. Everyone’s here early.”

“Perfect timing. Come sit down too.”

“Did something happen?”

“I heard a rather troublesome specimen escaped. You guys probably haven’t encountered an escaped specimen before, so I wanted to tell you what precautions to take.”

Oh.

So he was probably talking about the same thing I had heard about in the cafeteria.

“Wait. Seo-young, have you ever seen an escaped specimen?”

“Yes. On my first day.”

“That’s right. You were part of that unlucky new recruit team.”

I nodded in confirmation, and he let out a deep sigh before continuing.

“A ‘Jeong’-grade Anomaly recently escaped from the research institute. That specimen can travel through space and time, and apparently it doesn’t have any particularly noticeable characteristics in appearance, so it’s easy to overlook it without realizing.”

A Jeong-grade.

That was the same one I had vaguely heard about in the cafeteria.

The one that kept escaping no matter how many times they caught it.

Was it because it was so easy to overlook?

“When you say it’s easy to overlook… Does that mean the specimen has the same appearance as a person? Or does it resemble an object?”

In response to the new employee’s question, Minjun gave an ambiguous expression that was neither one thing nor the other.

“They say that specimen is a ‘door.’”

“A door? You mean a door that you can open and close?”

“Yeah. The kind you can push or pull.”

“Senior. A door… can become an Anomaly?”

A door becoming an Anomaly.

It was certainly unusual, but there wasn’t really any reason why it couldn’t happen.

“You haven’t been here long enough to get a feel for it yet.”

One of the seniors nodded with a particularly serious expression at what was an entirely natural question from a new employee.

“At this research institute, you have to be suspicious of everything. Not only people you see every day, but also familiar paths, tools you use every day, and even a single glass of water you’re about to drink.”

At the senior’s answer, one of the new employees, who had just lifted his tumbler to drink some water, flinched and put it back down.

As tension filled the faces of the new employees, Minjun chuckled.

“Lee Cheong-myeong, don’t scare the juniors too much.”

“Come on, hyung. I’m not trying to scare them. It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“You need to worry about things like drinking water in the research building or the experimental building. In the residential building, you don’t need to be that cautious.”

“……”

If there was no need to be cautious…

Was there really any reason to call me and the other new employees here and tell us all this?