"I want to go home."
"Me too."
Half a day buried in a sea of paperwork.
They'd found what the victims had in common, but there'd been no progress beyond that.
"One's a delinquent, the other's a rising star... They're polar opposites, aren't they?"
"Never fought with anyone, friendly with everyone... They're totally ordinary, no problems at all, right?"
"Is there nothing else in common besides the track team?"
Jae-hwan spoke in an excited voice, as if he'd suddenly found something.
"Huh...? Team Leader! They're all girls?"
"Well, obviously, it's a girls' high school..."
Chang-ho looked at Jae-hwan and sighed as if he were hopeless.
"Then I think we're done with everything on paper... What's left to look at?"
"The CCTV."
"What could be on it? Let's knock it out quick and rest."
Chang-ho stared at the screen with a listless expression, as if he were bored to death.
But a little later.
"Everyone, come here! You see that?"
He pointed at a student looking out the window in the 2nd-floor hallway.
"Yeah, that's..."
"Looks like that's definitely it."
At a glance, she looked no different from an ordinary student.
Except for one thing.
She was floating in midair with no legs.
***
That night.
The group gathered in front of the school's darkened annex.
They'd decided to go to the spot themselves at night, when the aberration ran rampant.
That was when Jae-hwan noticed something was off with Ji-yeon.
She was just staring blankly into space, as if entranced.
"Um... Senior?"
Jae-hwan carefully called out to Ji-yeon, but there was no response.
'Has the aberration already gotten to her?'
At that thought, Jae-hwan started in alarm, grabbed Ji-yeon's shoulders, and shook her hard.
"Senior! Snap out of it!"
"Huh...? Huh? Huh...!"
Looking closer, he saw Ji-yeon breaking out in a cold sweat, her eyes darting anxiously this way and that.
"If you're scared, the Team Leader and I can go."
"I... it's not like that!"
Ji-yeon desperately denied it, trembling all over.
Seeing this, Chang-ho knit his brows in disbelief.
"Hey, how many years have you been at this...?"
"Ugh, what? I said I'm not scared!"
"Sheesh. Forget it. Hey, Jae-hwan."
"Yes."
"Look after Ji-yeon for me."
Apparently, even Chang-ho hadn't expected this.
In the end, Jae-hwan wrapped an arm around the shoulders of Ji-yeon, whose eyes were squeezed shut, and entered the building.
A pitch-black school hallway without a single light.
Relying on a single flashlight, the group reached the spot where the aberration had been spotted.
"This is it."
"Yeah. Something's bound to come out once we go in. But are you okay?"
Chang-ho looked at Ji-yeon and spoke in a worried tone.
No wonder: Ji-yeon's face had gone as white as a sheet of paper.
"I... I'm fine."
"Doesn't seem like it, though?"
Under the continued questioning, Ji-yeon gave in and told the truth.
"I'm not fine."
"You don't even flinch in front of an aberration. What's gotten into you?"
"With aberrations, you can just beat them to death... But ghosts..."
Hearing Ji-yeon's answer, Jae-hwan muttered without thinking.
"With your personality, I'd think you'd beat ghosts to death too..."
At that, Ji-yeon glared at Jae-hwan as if she'd kill him.
Chang-ho shook his head and explained the plan.
"Stay sharp now, all of you. The aberration could show up anytime."
At that moment.
Thud.
"...Huh?"
Chang-ho collapsed to the floor.
"Team Leader!!"
"Wait!"
Ji-yeon hurriedly stopped Jae-hwan as he rushed toward Chang-ho.
Chang-ho, too, quickly gathered himself and gave orders.
"It's the aberration! The thing took my legs! Watch your surroundings!!"
For an instant, silence engulfed the hallway.
Then, far off at the end of the hallway, a familiar silhouette appeared.
"That's... the one we saw..."
The form of the legless aberration.
Spotting the group, the aberration tilted her head for a moment.
As if she found it curious that they didn't run at the sight of her.
But only for a moment.
The aberration began crawling toward the group at a furious speed.
"It's coming...!"
Jae-hwan and Ji-yeon slowly backed away, keeping their eyes on the aberration.
At the same time, Ji-yeon put Jae-hwan behind her back.
"Senior...?"
"Stay hidden. We can't have both of us getting taken out at once."
Before they knew it, the aberration was right in front of them.
Ji-yeon calmly leveled her baton at the aberration.
The moment the two were finally about to clash.
Ji-yeon brought her baton down on the aberration's torso.
The aberration, on the other hand, smiled as if it were nothing and reached for Ji-yeon's leg.
"Senior!!"
As soon as the aberration's hand touched Ji-yeon's leg, it vanished in an instant, and she fell to the floor.
Jae-hwan hastily formed a long spear of blood and plunged it into the monster's torso.
Squelch—
But the aberration showed no sign of pain.
Instead, she dragged her impaled body straight toward Jae-hwan.
The spear sank in deeper with a spine-chilling sound.
Jae-hwan pulled the fallen Ji-yeon up and put distance between them and the aberration.
The aberration's lips twisted slightly, and then she vanished.
"Senior, your leg...?"
"It doesn't hurt! More importantly, get out of here and call for backup!"
"No, I can't leave you two behind..."
"At this rate, we'll all die! Getting backup fast is the better move!"
Right now, everyone in the group but him had fallen to the aberration.
To save them, he had to get outside the aberration's range and make contact.
'I just have to keep my legs from getting grabbed... Should I just jump?'
He quickly flung open the hallway window.
A height he figured wouldn't kill him even if he fell.
The instant he was about to throw himself out the window without the slightest hesitation.
"Got you."
The aberration's voice burrowed into Jae-hwan's ear.
"Damn...!"
Jae-hwan's left leg, gripped by the aberration, simply vanished.
"Gahk!!!"
The aberration lunged ferociously to take even the remaining leg of Jae-hwan, who had fallen to the floor.
"That idiot... can't even run away properly!"
Ji-yeon hurriedly began crawling toward Jae-hwan.
A moment of mortal peril.
Jae-hwan tried to spray blood, but the aberration snatched his wrist at once, blocking his last-ditch struggle.
A nasty smile spread across the aberration's face.
"It's okay... it doesn't hurt."
The aberration reached for Jae-hwan's last remaining leg.
Tap.
The simple sound of fingertips touching a leg.
Jae-hwan's last remaining leg vanished just as pointlessly.
"Heh..."
She had no further business with Jae-hwan.
The aberration turned her head toward Ji-yeon.
The thing seemed to be after Ji-yeon's one remaining leg.
"Ngh..."
Ji-yeon ground her teeth in frustration, but with only one leg, she couldn't escape the thing.
Jae-hwan watched helplessly.
Regretting how stupidly he'd let himself get caught.
If only he could somehow move again... if only he could make new legs...
'Wait, make them?'
Once his thoughts got that far, Jae-hwan told himself it couldn't be, and began gathering his blood.
Meanwhile, the aberration was already right up against Ji-yeon.
Laughing maniacally, the thing kept swiping her arms at Ji-yeon's leg.
All Ji-yeon could do was crawl desperately to avoid them.
Just as the aberration's hand was about to touch Ji-yeon.
Whack—
A sudden impact echoed through the dark hallway.
For an instant, the aberration looked as if she couldn't understand.
And no wonder, since she'd disabled everyone in this building with her own hands.
But that blow just now was definitely...
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
"Gyaaaaah!"
Feeling the now unmistakable pain, the aberration looked behind her.
There stood Jae-hwan, who should have lost his legs.
Jae-hwan, wearing prosthetic legs dripping with blood.
Not stopping there, Jae-hwan sprayed blood and made legs for Ji-yeon and Chang-ho too.
Back on their feet, the others looked just as flustered for a moment.
But soon after, they nodded to Jae-hwan and slowly began closing in on the aberration.
The group looked down at the aberration sprawled on the floor.
Ji-yeon stomped down on the aberration's head.
"Uh... huh?"
Ji-yeon sneered at the dazed, babbling aberration.
And then.
The sound of blows kept echoing through the dark hallway.
"Aagh! It hurts!!! It hurts!!!!"
With her ability no longer working, the aberration screamed as if begging them to stop.
Paying no heed, they kept stomping on the aberration as one.
Apparently not immune to pain, the aberration went limp and twitched.
Finally, Ji-yeon slammed down on the aberration's head with all her strength.
Crunch!
As the aberration's body began to fade away, the group's legs returned to normal.
Just as they were thinking the aberration would disappear as usual.
"Huh?"
Instead of vanishing, the defeated aberration turned back into a human.
"Senior? What's going on now?"
Ji-yeon couldn't understand the situation either.
"I don't know either. This is the first time I've seen one turn back into a human instead of vanishing right away."
Coming to, the woman looked around and made a dazed sound.
"Um... who...?"
"That's what we'd like to ask, isn't it? Do you even know what you've done?"
She quietly shook her head at Jae-hwan's question.
Chang-ho stared blankly for a moment at the aberration that had turned back into a human.
"What are you?"
After a brief silence.
The woman spoke as if something had suddenly come to her.
"Now that I think about it, you people... I saw you in my dream..."
Chang-ho asked back, dumbfounded.
"A dream?"
"Yes... you're the ones who lent me your legs..."
"What? Lent?"
Holding back Chang-ho, who was so furious he was about to explode, Jae-hwan pointed at the woman's legs.
There was nothing where her legs should have been.
"Is that why she turned into that kind of aberration?"
Chang-ho shook his head and asked a question.
"Are you a graduate of this school?"
"Yes."
"Any connection to the track team?"
"I was on the track team."
"Then did you see these students in your dream too?"
As he spoke, Chang-ho pulled the victims' photos from his coat and showed them to her.
"Yes, I did."
"What did you feel?"
"Jealousy..."
"I think I get it."
Chang-ho clicked his tongue and spoke to the group.
"I think it's all sorted out. She became an aberration because she wanted to walk on her own two feet again. She killed the students out of jealousy. That's probably why she went for our legs when she fought us."
"That's vicious. So what now?"
"What do you mean, what now? There's nothing we can do. We can't dispose of a human, can we? We'll just have to leave."
Chang-ho's reaction was so cold it was deflating.
Just as the group turned to leave the school.
"Team Leader, where are you going? What about her?"
"I don't know either. I'll report to HQ for now. Keep an eye on her for a bit."
Chang-ho soon took out his phone and stepped away.
Hearing this, Jae-hwan and Ji-yeon resignedly looked at the woman.
"Well then... huh?"
But in the moment they took their eyes off her.
The woman had vanished.
***
Somewhere in the school, where not a speck of light reached.
A man who had appeared out of nowhere was quietly watching the woman.
"You came."
Seeing him, the woman wore an unreadable expression.
"Um... what happened? I was definitely dreaming..."
"Yes, you were."
"Then what happened? People died because of me, and when I woke from the dream, surely..."
"I told you you'd be able to walk."
The man looked at her without any expression at all.
"That's right! So by now I should definitely be..."
"Shouldn't you be able to walk, you mean?"
The man went on quietly.
"Too bad, miss, but the dream is over. If you wanted to walk again, you shouldn't have woken from that dream."
"No..."
At the man's words, despair filled the woman's eyes for a moment.
"Th-then give me one more chance! I can just do the same thing again! So please, let me walk again...!"
"You want to dream once more?"
After a brief silence.
"Sorry. Twice is too much even for me."
The man said it to the woman in a regretful tone.
"Living in a dream would've made you happier than this reality, I'm sure. But there's nothing more I can do for you."
At his words, the woman despaired for a moment.
"I see..."
The woman looked at the man with tear-filled eyes and spoke.
"Thank you for everything. Can I ask you for one last thing?"
In the heavy silence, the man slowly nodded.
"Will you... take me to the rooftop?"
***
The next day.
The group caught some familiar news.
[Woman in her 20s jumps to her death from rooftop of XX Girls' High School.]
"Is that the aberration from before?"
"Yes."
"Too bad."
Chang-ho left only that brief, soulless remark before stepping away.
"What's too bad about it? She nearly killed us in the first place."
Ji-yeon felt no sympathy at all for the dead woman.
But Jae-hwan's heart was still heavy.
'So even if you survive, it ends like this in the end?'
As he let out a sigh.
A question flashed through Jae-hwan's mind.
"Hey, but that woman didn't have legs, right?"
"She didn't. Why?"
"How could she have gotten all the way to the rooftop by herself?"
Ji-yeon faltered for a moment at Jae-hwan's reasoning.
"So what? It doesn't matter anymore anyway."
What came back was a cold response.
"I suppose not."
Having said her piece, Ji-yeon yawned and left.
While Jae-hwan sat there in a daze.
The sound of the news began playing from Chang-ho's phone at the next desk.
"Um... Team Leader, please turn down the news..."
"Why? Don't tell me you still haven't written your report?"
"Like I could write that quickly? If I just wrote that a ghost appeared at a girls' high school and stole our legs, they'd sure love it."
"Write down how Ji-yeon got scared too."
"Ugh, shit, seriously..."
Leaving Ji-yeon's irritation behind, Jae-hwan looked at Chang-ho's phone screen.
[Mysterious deaths of soldier and NCO at frontline XX Unit.]
"Something happened in the military again?"
"That's the military for you."
"When are they ever going to get better?"
As he clicked his tongue and was about to return to his seat.
Chang-ho's expression suddenly turned serious, and he looked at the news again.
"...Wait. An NCO, though?"
"What?"
"It's sad when an enlisted soldier dies, but it happens a lot. An NCO dying, though, that's rare, isn't it?"
"It's rare."
Ji-yeon, who had joined the conversation at some point, nodded as she answered.
The group exchanged ominous looks.
And a little later.
An email arrived for Chang-ho.
Chang-ho's face twisted sharply as he read it.
"Don't tell me."
"Guys."
Chang-ho paused for a moment before speaking.
"We're going to Gangwon Province."