Su Jin confirmed that the dead rat had entered the space inside the briefcase.
Before he could collect himself, delight surged through him!
A fresh line of text had already projected itself across his vision.
[Recovery successful. An item of equivalent value has been provided.]
Incredible!
The company was blunt in its methods, but it certainly worked fast!
Riding a sudden high, Su Jin hurriedly shoved his hand back into the leather bag.
After a brief fumble in the dark interior, his fingers closed around a black cardboard box.
The small box in his hand made him strangely nervous.
Aside from the things the company had given him at the start, this was his first real exchange with it.
One item was a mask that might let him communicate with the company and translate without language barriers.
Another was a bag with its own storage space.
The third was a firearm that supposedly required no reloads, though he had yet to test it.
Given that track record, whatever was in the box had to be something extraordinary!
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Su Jin opened the black box with a sense of ceremony.
The lid opened, revealing a glint of silver.
It was a smooth, rounded metal object with a perfect curve and an unmistakably suggestive shape.
Its shape was both familiar and bizarre.
The triumphant smirk on Su Jin’s face slowly slid off.
With a shaking hand, he took out the metal object and examined it.
After barely two glances, his face twisted with rage. He violently hurled the box at the floor!
“What! The! Fuck!”
“Is this a fucking butt plug?!!!”
Su Jin stood there, gripping the heavy steel plug, trembling with absolute, icy rage.
Motherfucker!
You don’t play with a man’s dignity like this! This was a sick insult!
He was already living on the ragged edge of a panic attack.
The world was ending and the company had sent him a butt plug. What, was he supposed to stop up that opening so nothing leaked out when he died?
After spitting a venomous string of curses at the ceiling, the adrenaline finally burned off.
Staring down at the “adult toy” in his hand, a profound sense of desolation settled over him. New chapters come out on g.com first.
He was shackled to a psychotic, unreliable company that viewed his life as a complete joke!
He should never have gone drinking with that client. If he had not…
Just as he was drowning in a puddle of his own self-pity, something on the floor caught his eye.
A card had fallen beside the black box. An instruction manual?
Wait, maybe this was a misunderstanding. The company was a supernatural entity. There had to be a logical explanation!
Desperate for a reprieve, Su Jin snatched up the card.
[Emergency Suppository: Contains emergency medicine. Automatically releases it when anal temperature drops. Can be used repeatedly until the medicine runs out. A burning sensation is normal; do not panic.]
[Special Note: If you must take a risk, insert it in the correct place beforehand so you do not miss your chance. Do not force open the casing; the medicine may lose effectiveness. For suppository use only. Taking it by mouth carries a high risk of poisoning.]
“It’s still a fucking butt plug!!!”
Furious, Su Jin threw the instruction card to the floor.
‘Insert into the correct anatomical position in advance’… who could walk around with this thing in place?
He would rather die than survive by using this thing!
After about ten minutes, he calmed down, found a nylon cord, tied it to the emergency suppository, and fastened it at his waist.
He would absolutely never use it himself. But considering Qingdai might be in danger, he’d keep it on hand for her, just in case.
…
The biological trials had to continue. Once he had calmed down, Su Jin took out two more rats for infection experiments.
The rat in the running wheel had changed too. It kept trying to charge at Su Jin.
But trapped in the wheel, it could only run in place.
Crouching by the cage for a long time, Su Jin finally picked up his pen and began logging data.
The gray component in the rain was certainly the cause of mutation, and the speed of zombification directly correlated with the volume of exposure.
For now, all he could tell was that the substance infected very easily.
With his crude, amateur setup and limited supply of test subjects, calculating an exact mathematical probability of infection was impossible.
After infection, the rat moved much more slowly. Its limbs seemed stiff and mechanical, but it never tired and appeared to feel no pain…
After scribbling down the baseline metrics, Su Jin snapped batteries into the gutted 4WD toy car.
The tiny motor shrieked to life, turning the running wheel.
The mutated rat could not keep pace. It tumbled violently inside the wheel, yet every time it flipped, it viciously snapped its jaws, still trying to right itself and attack.
After more than twenty minutes, the batteries died. Su Jin put in another set of batteries and started it again. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
He used up five sets of batteries before finally cutting the power and manually spinning the wheel himself.
Staring at the tireless creature, Su Jin couldn’t mask the grim disappointment in his eyes.
The conclusion was a nightmare… The mutated rat showed almost no loss of stamina. It even seemed a little stronger, as though it was adapting to its body.
Another hour ticked by.
He tried sealing it in, burning it, submerging it, and piercing it. By the end, Su Jin’s heart felt like a lead weight.
It couldn’t be suffocated. It couldn’t be drowned. Even after he torched it until its flesh was completely carbonized, the charred husk still twitched.
The infected creatures were terrifyingly hard to kill. The only reliable method of rapid termination was piercing the torso. Even cutting off its head did not kill it.
He didn’t know enough about rodent anatomy to pinpoint the exact organ, though he suspected it was the heart.
The only metrics left untested were how long the infected rat could survive and whether it could infect other rats.
But Su Jin was physically and psychologically tapped out.
He put the cage in a glass fish tank he had bought earlier, covered it with a wooden board, and returned to the bedroom.
…
In the dark room, the other radio, preset to the AM band, crackled to life.
Su Jin forced his heavy eyelids open and lunged for the dial.
FM was local. It had a short range and was mostly used for civilian entertainment. AM, however, had a longer range and resisted interference better. That made it useful for national or emergency broadcasts.
Even though this wasn’t Earth, the two worlds used electromagnetic waves in much the same way. He had looked into this beforehand.
If the AM band was broadcasting, it meant the authorities must have noticed the problem and issued a national warning.
After a few adjustments, the broadcast became clearer.
Hiss—crackle—
“…This is the latest notice from the National Disaster Emergency Command Center. All citizens, please pay close attention—”
“As of one p.m. today, the majority of the national territory has been subjected to an unidentified meteorological event. This anomalous rainfall possesses severe biological hazard properties. Exposure may trigger irreversible physiological damage via dermal contact, inhalation, or ingestion.”
“Mass incidents of people losing control have been linked to this rain in several places. Affected individuals have shown abnormal behavior…”
“By order of the central government, all citizens are to execute the following directives immediately: One. Under no circumstances are you to make direct contact with any form of rainwater. Two. Consume and utilize only bottled water or water sources kept tightly sealed. Three. Immediately seal all doors, windows, ventilation shafts, and drainage pipes to prevent external moisture intrusion.”
“These orders take effect immediately. Any individual found in violation will be charged with endangering public security… Further updates will be broadcast across all radio and digital networks.”
After the broadcast, Su Jin felt his spirits rise. He let out a long, ragged exhale.
Good… the state’s forces were finally mobilizing!
The authorities clearly understood how dangerous the gray rain was. They had not even gone through the usual process of denying rumors, which showed how urgent it was.