Chapter : 01
“Cough, hack…!”
With a violent bout of coughing, a lump of red blood dropped onto the sink.
The vivid red spreading across the white basin was chilling, like a camellia fallen onto a pristine field of snow. The strong, metallic smell of blood filled his mouth.
Ha-rang turned on the faucet with trembling hands. He washed away the blood with the rushing cold water, then raised his head.
The man reflected in the mirror looked less like a living person and more like a perfectly crafted wax figure, his face deathly pale.
Lips devoid of color, gaunt collarbones that looked as though they might snap if touched, and dark shadows sunk deeply beneath his eyes. Anyone who saw him would have thought he belonged in an intensive care unit, but Ha-rang merely shook his head as though he were accustomed to it.
He left the bathroom and opened the medicine bottle sitting on the table. They were spiritual-power stabilizers distributed by Baektaek.
Without any water, Ha-rang chewed and swallowed two pills. As the horrendously bitter taste spread across his tongue and traveled down his throat, the pain squeezing his heart gradually subsided.
The enormous spiritual power rampaging inside his body was too much for his rotting flesh to withstand. It was a treatment of fighting poison with poison—using the medicine’s toxicity to suppress the spiritual power.
“…I’m so sick of this.”
Ha-rang brushed his wet bangs back and sighed.
From the moment he had been chosen by Baektaek, his life had effectively been shackled.
Something from the Otherworld. Because he possessed eyes that could see ghosts and monsters, he had become a tool of Baektaek. He sealed the “Gaps” through which monsters emerged, pushing his body to the breaking point, and in exchange, received medicine that barely kept him alive.
It was the life of a slave that had continued for an age.
Bzzzt-. Bzzzt-. Bzzzt-.
At that moment, the flip phone he had tossed beneath the bed began vibrating violently.
A familiar sense of foreboding caught his breath.
Ha-rang approached it with unsteady steps and swiped the screen. A prickling sensation ran through his fingertip, and the display lit up.
[Baektaek Headquarters: Emergency Assignment Notification]
Recipient: Lee Ha-rang (Team D, No. 24)
Deployment Location: Eton Company (Eton Eo.) Headquarters, Human Resources Department
Mission: Identify the cause of multiple “Gap” occurrences and seal them
Danger Level: Unmeasurable (Black)
Special Instructions: Immediate deployment under the status of a new employee required. Refusal will result in disciplinary action.
“Eton Company…?”
Ha-rang’s brows drew together.
Eton Company was a monstrous corporation that had recently been climbing the ranks of South Korea’s business world at a frightening pace.
On the surface, it was praised as a leader in eco-friendly energy and biocosmetics. But beneath that facade, all sorts of ominous rumors constantly surrounded the company.
There were even urban legends about workers disappearing during construction of its new headquarters, or the sounds of beasts howling from inside the building every night.
“Unmeasurable? Are they insane?”
And this was an “unmeasurable” mission.
Even among the missions given to people like Ha-rang, who stood on the boundary between worlds, this was one of the worst possible classifications.
Baektaek’s missions were normally divided into grades such as A and B. But “unmeasurable” meant that the phenomenon lay in an unknown territory that did not exist in Baektaek’s database.
“So they’re telling me to go there and die gloriously. Might as well collect some information while I’m at it.”
Since he was an agent who was going to die anyway, they were essentially throwing him in as a beta tester and hoping to extract whatever useful data they could.
The fact that he didn’t even have the right to refuse drained what little strength he had left.
What good was a right to refuse, anyway?
If he so much as pretended to exercise it, they would obviously threaten to cut off his medicine immediately.
“Either way, I’m going to die.”
Deciding that he might as well choose a death that would at least be useful, Ha-rang cursed under his breath and opened the closet.
His shoulders sagged heavily as he put on his old suit jacket.
Gwanghwamun, Seoul.
In the heart of Seoul, where the energy of Bugaksan Mountain flowed, a pitch-black tower soared into the sky.
Eton Tower was a skyscraper that rose higher than any other building in the surrounding area. Its entire exterior was covered in specially treated black windows that seemed to greedily swallow the sunlight rather than reflect it, even beneath the midday sun.
It looked like the entire building was a gigantic black obsidian monument—or perhaps a black stake driven straight into the heavens.
Ha-rang stood at the crosswalk across from the building and let out a long sigh.
He didn’t know whether it was because entering that enormous tombstone felt like attending his own funeral, or because he felt like a slave being dragged into an unmeasurable environment.
I don’t like this.
One thing was certain: going inside wasn’t going to be pleasant.
How could anyone possibly feel good about entering a gas chamber filled with people and their lingering thoughts without a gas mask?
And on top of that, this place supposedly contained an unmeasurable “Gap.”
He couldn’t even imagine how foul the stench would be.
Even for Ha-rang, this was his first time encountering an unmeasurable classification.
Ha-rang bit down hard on his lip as he passed through the enormous revolving doors.
Perhaps, he thought vaguely, it might be a little easier if he steeled himself beforehand.
The moment he finally released the breath he had been holding and took a deep breath—
“Ugh!”
Ha-rang gasped and collapsed right where he stood.
A heavy pain struck him as though someone had kicked him directly in the solar plexus. His breath caught, and his vision spun.
The entire building itself was a gigantic poison.
The concentration was so intense that his sense of smell quickly went numb, but that didn’t mean the poison had disappeared. His stomach continued to churn violently.
On top of that, sticky black wisps were rising from the cracks between the marble floor.
They were visible only to people capable of seeing spiritual phenomena.
Crazy. People actually work in a place like this?
Ha-rang clutched his chest with trembling hands.
His heart was beating wildly and irregularly.
He had taken two pills that morning, yet his heart screamed as though it were about to burst, reacting to the black haze.
If he stayed here any longer, he might die on the spot before he could even accomplish the mission.
Did Baektaek know about this situation before sending him here?
Do they really just want me dead?
If they wanted that so blatantly, even he would have a hard time obliging them.
“No… I need to retreat for now… Cough!”
Ha-rang finally forced himself upright, hurriedly stopping the blood flowing from his nostrils.
He had to get out.
Next time, he would either take a handful of medicine before coming or request protective equipment from Baektaek.
At the very least, it couldn’t be like this.
Ha-rang staggered out through the revolving doors and hailed a taxi.
As Eton Tower disappeared into the distance beyond the car window, its black silhouette seemed to bear down on him like a gigantic tombstone, sending chills down his spine.
His memories of the journey home were hazy.
The moment he opened the front door, Ha-rang collapsed onto the floor without even taking off his shoes.
His body was burning like a furnace, so the coolness of the floor felt strangely welcome.
“Damn spiritual vision…”
If he hadn’t been caught seeing things that shouldn’t exist, perhaps his parents wouldn’t have abandoned him.
If that had happened, perhaps he wouldn’t have been taken away from the orphanage by Baektaek.
His consciousness sank into a swamp.
Whether it was a dream or a hallucination, black hands grabbed Ha-rang’s fallen body and dragged him away.
Hundreds of hands crawled over his body and whispered into his ears.
Give us more.
Fill us.
It was a horrifying imprisonment.
How much time had passed?
Ha-rang, gasping with fever as he desperately tried to shake off the black hands, was awakened by a noise from reality.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The violent pounding on the door, loud enough to sound as though someone intended to break it down, brought him back to his senses.
“Mr. Lee Ha-rang. Are you inside?”
A man’s voice echoed from beyond the door.
It was low and polite, yet somehow irritating to the nerves.
Ha-rang opened his eyes with a groan.
His entire body was drenched in cold sweat. Every joint ached, and his head felt as though it were splitting apart.
How much time has passed?
“Who… are you?”
His cracked voice barely squeezed past his vocal cords.
“I’m from Eton Company. Could you please open the door?”
Eton Company?
Why would they come all the way here?
Ha-rang pulled himself together despite his foggy mind and staggered to his feet.
He crawled toward the entrance and laboriously pushed himself upright against the wall.
Creeeak.
The old front door opened with a scream.
In the somewhat dim hallway stood an unfamiliar man.
He looked completely out of place in the shabby, moldy corridor.
A perfectly tailored black suit that seemed not to have a single speck of dust on it.
Hair neatly swept back without a single strand out of place.
And a handsome, sculpted face accompanied by eyes as cold as a snake’s.
“I’m Kim Hyun from Eton Company.”
“……”
The man who introduced himself as Kim Hyun slightly furrowed his brows the moment he saw the exhausted Ha-rang.
Then he glanced through the open doorway, surveying the narrow, filthy room before turning his gaze back to Ha-rang.
“A new employee being absent without permission on his very first day. Is there some special reason?”
“Ah, I’m sorry… Cough!”
Ha-rang tried to make an excuse, but a cough erupted first.
Blood streamed from his nose between the fingers covering his face.
Flustered, Ha-rang hurriedly pulled down the hem of his clothes to hide his face.
Standing before someone who, unlike him, appeared perfectly put together made him feel ashamed of his shabby appearance, and his face flushed bright red.
