Chapter 34: A Thrilling Afternoon Tea in the Executive Director’s Office (3)

I couldn’t answer.

More precisely, I could open my mouth, but I didn’t know which words to choose.

The last question they had thrown at me didn’t have a predetermined correct answer, and I didn’t have either the confidence or the courage to give a clumsy one.

A brief silence settled over the room.

“My, my. After talking about such gloomy people, the atmosphere has become a little dark. Very dark, in fact.”

Executive Director Gu let out a strange chuckle from the mouth attached to his abdomen.

Beside him, Manager Moon Ara nodded calmly.

I simply lowered my gaze in silence.

What I saw in front of me was an empty coffee cup.

A napkin stained with faint traces of blood.

And the smooth, excessively immaculate surface of the glass table.

All of it felt like part of a world that had nothing to do with me.

I thought about it.

Manager Moon Ara’s attitude.

The indifferent expression she had shown while talking about the Alliance of Erosion.

And those words.

— That’s simply a phenomenon. Like weather or gravity. By themselves, they are neither good nor bad. Hating them and fighting them only ends up destroying yourself.

— It is a group that devours itself.

— Some even call that willpower. Sadly.

Maybe she was right.

But that couldn’t be the whole truth either.

I didn’t know why they had made those choices.

However, I could imagine what they had lost.

And also what kind of emotions that loss had left them with.

But right now, there was nothing I could do.

Because understanding them wouldn’t change anything.

‘I just hope I don’t end up getting involved with them.’

That was the only thing I could do.

“Good, good. Now let’s return to everyday life. We have to work. Work is important. Very important, in fact.”

Executive Director Gu made a couple of bubbling sounds before lightly adjusting his suit and continuing.

“Employee Jeong Haeil. Before you return, if you have any questions about life in the company, ask whatever you like. Anything at all. Even something trivial is fine. No, in fact, trivial things are the most important. The most important, without a doubt.”

I reflected on the meaning of “anything at all.”

What questions would be acceptable?

And at what point would they become disrespectful?

Then I remembered some words.

— Don’t be surprised or disrespectful. Understood?

Manager Moon Ara’s words.

She was still looking directly at me.

And on that unchanging face, I couldn’t read a single emotion.

I had to ask something that would spark curiosity.

But not too much.

Something normal.

Something that wouldn’t be disrespectful.

I opened my mouth with extreme care.

“Could you tell me how long my contract lasts?”

At that moment.

Manager Moon Ara tilted her head slightly and let out a small laugh.

It was a silent laugh.

Without any sound at all.

But it was clearly a laugh.

And right beside her.

I sensed an overwhelming movement inside Executive Director Gu’s abdomen.

As if jaws that had been chewing something had stopped for an instant before slowly moving again.

At the same time, I heard things that were both comprehensible and incomprehensible.

“Keh. Grrrrrr. Kya-ha-ha. Kya-ha-ha-keh.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

It was laughter.

By any possible standard, it was laughter.

But it didn’t resemble any laughter I had ever heard before.

It was a viscous sound.

As if it were moving through my internal organs.

I looked forward and tried to maintain the most serious expression possible.

That was when Moon Ara looked at me.

Her inverted left eye glowed softly as she seemed to examine the tense muscles around the corners of my lips.

“What is it? Do you want to quit?”

I didn’t answer.

Moon Ara tilted her head again.

And added in a gentle voice.

“Don’t stiffen up. More people than you imagine have quit here.”

Executive Director Gu once again produced something that I couldn’t tell was either laughter or a synthesized sound.

“It’s true. Very true. Some left once. And others came back. They came back, yes. They returned, without a doubt.”

I slowly inhaled.

It even felt as though it would be quieter not to exhale.

So I held my breath for several seconds.

Then, cutting through the silence, Executive Director Gu let out a deep laugh.

Accompanied by a boiling sound coming from somewhere inside his abdomen.

“If you’re from Extraction Team 1, then you had an interview with Director Myeon, right? You must have signed a contract as well. There’s no way you didn’t sign it. Of course you signed it.”

At those words, I lowered my head slightly.

And spoke cautiously.

“To be honest, if I’m being sincere, my memories of that time are somewhat blurry.”

They weren’t exactly memories.

The sensations from that period were as vague as a dream.

In a state that didn’t feel real.

I simply went along with the flow.

Like an observer accepting a procedure that had already been decided beforehand.

My consciousness was clouded.

My judgment as well.

And I felt no desire to resist.

Those strange scenes were like that.

Moon Ara raised an eyebrow slightly.

But she said nothing.

Then.

Executive Director Gu suddenly leaned back and laughed.

“Keh-keh-keh. Ha-ha. Ha. Ha…”

A grotesque sound echoed from his abdomen.

“After returning from a Distorted Region, it’s normal to feel confused. I understand. I understand perfectly.”

Then he did.

Smack. Smack.

As if savoring something.

But it didn’t sound like he was chewing meat.

It sounded more as if he were chewing memories or emotions.

As if a tongue were carefully going over my name and the details of my contract.

“The hiring authority of Extraction Team 1 belongs primarily to Manager Myeon. But something as simple as the duration of a contract, I do know. Of course I know it.”

I listened attentively.

His suit stirred ever so slightly.

And the vibration of something moving inside it traveled beneath the table.

“Employee Jeong Haeil is a permanent employee. A permanent employee named Jeong. Haha! You don’t need to worry. You’ll be able to work here for your entire life. Your entire life, without a doubt.”

At that statement, which was clearly equivalent to a sentence of lifelong slavery, I nodded my head while wearing the mask of the most exemplary and optimistic rookie employee possible.

“Thank you, Executive Director.”

And then I muttered to myself.

‘Fuck…’

The fact that the contract period was for life meant they intended to exploit me until I died.

No.

This was a company that would exploit you even after you died.

Maybe I should have clung to the pants of that human named Yeom Hwi when I had the chance.

When I lifted the coffee cup, the bitter taste of cold coffee spread through my mouth.

Executive Director Gu writhed in satisfaction and made a motion as if pressing something beneath the table.

If I was a permanent employee, there was one more thing I needed to know for my own stability and happiness.

There was a brief moment of hesitation before the words left my mouth.

“…May I ask one more question?”

“Of course, of course. Questions are always welcome. Very welcome, in fact.”

Carefully, I asked my question.

“The products fused by the Fusion Team… where are they distributed, and how are they used?”

The Extraction Team extracts.

The Refinement Team refines.

And the Fusion Team fuses.

That is how products like the Relics of the Smiling Martyr are created.

Then who bought those products?

And how were they used?

The moment I finished speaking, Manager Moon Ara set her cup down on the table.

“I’ll answer this question, Executive Director.”

With her usual gentle tone, she casually turned her head.

For an instant, my eyes met her white irises exactly.

There was no emotion in them.

And yet, I had the feeling they concealed a question loaded with meaning.

“Very well, Manager Moon. Go ahead. Go ahead, by all means.”

Executive Director Gu let out a small chuckle from the mouth attached to his abdomen and yielded the floor to her.

Moon Ara took a sip of water before speaking calmly.

“Most fused products end up with the Sales Team.”

She set her cup down on the table.

As always, the movement possessed an almost ceremonial elegance.

And the explanation that followed was just as orderly and smooth.

“Sales Team 1 distributes products to dimensional entities, while Sales Team 2 distributes them to human society.”

Upon hearing that, I lost my breath for a moment.

Dimensional entities?

They extracted things from dimensional entities only to sell them to dimensional entities?

And they could also sell them to human society?

To twenty-first-century South Korea?

“Objects that cannot be reproduced through the technology or physical laws of reality. We create them. We create them and sell them.”

Moon Ara lowered her gaze slightly before looking back at me.

“At extremely high prices. And we do not always accept money.”

She fell silent for a moment.

As if waiting for me to understand.

I imagined it.

If it wasn’t money, then what kind of payment did they receive?

What could people give?

No.

What could they lose?

Moon Ara continued slowly.

“Time, language, memories, emotions. Or people.”

At that instant, I felt a chill run down the back of my neck.

Those words had not been spoken with emphasis.

And yet they sank directly into my bones.

It was precisely then.

As I nodded along with her explanation, a question suddenly appeared in my mind.

I had no intention of asking it.

But the moment it surfaced, my mouth had already opened.

“Then what exactly are dimensional entities? The dimensional entities in the containment rooms, the buyers, and the employees… how…?”

The question I had wanted to ask more than any other until now.

That question fell into the room.

Like a stone thrown at something important.

Tap.

And at that very instant, I realized something.

The air had grown cold the moment I started speaking.

Cold.

To the point where it became difficult to breathe.

Moon Ara’s expression stiffened ever so slightly.

The corners of her lips dropped by about 0.1 millimeters.

And her inverted left eye contracted almost imperceptibly.

Instinctively, I understood that I had touched something I was not supposed to touch.

Across the table, Executive Director Gu’s body trembled.

His suit swelled.

Something enormous and fleshy stirred inside it, expanding as though it were being inflated with air.

“───────”

The mouth attached to his abdomen.

From it emerged the strangest, longest, and most viscous sound I had heard up to that point.

It was not a voice.

It was more like a combination of a roar emitted just before suffocation and the tremor of a tongue brushing against nerves.

The entire room vibrated.

The table trembled slightly.

And the last remaining ripples in my coffee began to undulate.

As I pressed a hand against my chest, I thought.

‘Something… went wrong.’

My fingers tightened.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

To be precise, the question itself was not wrong.

What was wrong was not knowing in front of whom that question should never be asked.

That was one of the rules of this place.

Part of its system.

And the only indisputable truth in that office was that the employee named Jeong Haeil had just crossed a forbidden line.

The room became cold and heavy.

If air could have weight, the pressure inside that office must have been equivalent to several tons crushing me.

The indescribable sound emerging from Executive Director Gu’s abdomen moved away and drew near again and again.

It crawled beneath the table.

Across my feet.

Through my hair.

And just as that monstrous vibration was about to reach the limits of my vision.

“You can’t group them all together like that. Humans haven’t done that either. Just as there were commoners and nobles, courtesans and artists.”

“It’s fine. I’ll explain it to you later.”

Manager Moon Ara spoke in that tone.

Gently.

As if she had erased the entire room with an eraser.

Those few words completely covered the situation.

Her voice was softer than any explanation she had given until now.

And precisely because of that, it was clearer than any of them.

Executive Director Gu’s movements stopped.

His abdomen, which had been stirring for a long time.

Gradually.

Very slowly.

Returned to calm.

“Later… yes, later. It’s still too early to talk about that. Far too early, without a doubt. Ha… ha, ha… heh, heh.”

He laughed.

It was a different laugh from before.

It wasn’t natural.

But it was still laughter.

The suit settled back down.

The gigantic mass slowly shrank.

And the vibrations within it disappeared like a stone sinking into the depths of the ocean.

Unconsciously, I inhaled.

I turned my head to look at Moon Ara.

She still maintained the same calm expression as she slowly spun a glass of cold water with her fingertips.

As if nothing had happened.

But I knew.

I knew she had silently extinguished the crisis I had caused.

I was sincerely grateful.

I didn’t express it out loud.

In this place, emotions could be signals more dangerous than words.

Instead, I nodded ever so slightly.

As a way of thanking her.

Of telling her that I was truly grateful.

Moon Ara looked at me once.

A smile barely 1 millimeter wide appeared on her lips.

I already owed her two favors.