"I'm asking you, how the hell did you do it?"
The splendor of the forest of buildings reflected whole in the calm river, painting another world beneath the water. The pure white foam the ship pushed aside covered it over and laid the sky on top of it.
"My position's gotten awkward. The Styx Company alone is going to send dozens of letters of protest. Are you listening?"
Leaning against the deck railing, I let Seo Mok's words flow past me as background noise.
The cold wind of late autumn clung to my face, but this was leisure I had not had in a very long time. And the friendliness the river swelling beneath the ship sent my way felt good.
"You're ignoring me on purpose, and you shouldn't be doing that."
Scenery I had only ever seen in 2D had burst out into reality and was overwhelming me visually, so surely I could ignore Seo Mok's demand for an answer.
I gazed at Seo Mok's huffing, complaint-laden expression for a while, then shrugged.
"It's a trade secret, so I can't just blab about it. That's how supernatural abilities are, isn't it?"
A minor side effect had arisen from my coming out.
The Other Side Administrator sent every missing person who had been eaten on the cruise ship back to reality all at once. The double-booked cabins erupted into chaos, the crew had to run around briskly directing people, and I received Seo Mok's glare.
Yes. With exactly those eyes.
"I've never heard of an ability that gets you out of the Other Side."
"You've heard of one now."
"Are you joking?"
"Aren't you going to line up? At this rate we'll be the last ones off."
I pushed Seo Mok's back and slipped in among the passengers. Seo Mok, apparently at a loss for words, only mouthed at the air, and when it came to shamelessness I was second to none.
"By the way, this isn't your first time, is it?"
At Seo Mok's roundabout question, I raised an eyebrow. Since when was he a master at reading people?
"Does it show?"
"Everybody who comes here for the first time acts like that."
Seo Mok pointed out a few people with the tip of his chin.
A person too terrified to keep still, one foot trembling. A person staring into empty air with a witless laugh. A person covering their ears and shaking their head. A person hugging themselves, thoroughly cowed.
Ah.......
"If you're going to hide it, do it properly. Pull that in front of the Captain and I'll die along with you."
Seo Mok's three-white eyes stared steadily at me. The acceptance of the commission had been decided entirely on the basis of Seo Mok's report.
It was trust built on lies from both sides, so why act as though it were something new now.
〈Passengers, please have your tickets ready for disembarkation. We hope your journey was a comfortable one and that you will enjoy our Styx cruise ship again next time.〉
I am not a criminal, nor an addict soaked in dopamine, nor a native of this place, but.
"My head isn't soft enough to be cowed by a bit of unfamiliar fear. There won't be anything for you to worry about, so how about you finish showing me the way?"
Because I am dying of excitement.
***
This place, the only city in the Black Zone, had no name of its own.
For convenience it was called Black, Styx, that place, over there, and so on, and at most it was divided into the North District and the South District by the river cutting across it.
The Styx cruise ship's dock was located toward the outskirts of the South District, a fair distance from Rushiang Street, where I was headed.
So what we chose was the loop train.
"Is this operated by the Styx Company too?"
"Don't pull anything, just stick close and follow me."
Thanks to the desperate efforts of Seo Mok, who did not want another companion eaten by the Other Side, nothing happened afterward and we arrived at Rushiang Street.
What a shame. The loop train's anomaly was one of the fun ones.
Well......, the glittering river stained with sunset light, the world's longest suspension bridge crossing it, and the riverside buildings dozens of stories high served as sights to see, for what they were worth.
"About five minutes on foot and we're there."
"At last, the period at the end of a long journey."
"It only took three days, what long journey."
"You're lacking in sentiment!"
"How about you stop doing things that don't suit you?"
I had only been imitating the hot-blooded mentality of a lively young man just come of age, but the expression Seo Mok gave back was rotten.
"Hey, why are you walking off alone? Let's go together. Am I embarrassing you, Seo Mok, old man?"
"I'm not an old man!"
I readjusted my grip on the briefcase and followed Seo Mok as he walked ahead.
Rushiang Street was a bustling quarter set deep in the North District. Buildings of around ten stories, with all sorts of shops on the first floor and lodgings or offices from the second floor up, stretched in a long row down both sides of the street.
The round street trees made the mood of the road a notch warmer, and following the road all the way to its end brought you to a park covered in greenery.
'It was a background setting for the author's convenience, but.......'
It felt like waking from a dream and returning to reality, and my mood sank.
"That's it. Number 11."
Seo Mok pointed at the gray-white building in front of us. Fluffy garden trees were planted at the entrance, giving the place a rather languid first impression.
"The delivery's complete, but your objective isn't here after all, is it? It's over there?"
Directly across the road from the gray-white building.
A small building of a mere three stories was tucked in among the tall ones.
Enough that anyone might wonder whether it was a holdout that refused to sell and ended up surrounded by high-rises, and with brick for its exterior in particular, it stood out as though it alone had stopped in a different time.
Real-life rendering is the best.
To see that Ability Office with my own naked eyes.
"Is the Captain in right now?"
"You want to meet him right away? Now? This instant? Why? Well......, your luggage is light, but you've got to unpack, and there's this and that to do, isn't there?"
Seo Mok held me back with an expression that hoped I would drop out as soon as possible.
Why? He had acted as if he would grab me by the collar and drag me there the moment we arrived.
"Give me his contact information. I'll just tell him myself."
"Why, what for. Don't."
Watching Seo Mok put distance between us with a straight face, I narrowed my brow.
So I was a little extreme on the ship, but he is being awfully guarded.
"Is that how you treat the person who saved a whole month of your leave from going up in smoke?"
"You— you! Does the government run surveillance too?!"
Seo Mok stepped back quickly and glared at me with fierce eyes.
Then he glanced over, checking the Ability Office.
Just then the streetlamps came on all at once along the dim street. Through the gaps of the glittering white light, the crack of a window at the Ability Office, just slightly.
"What's the matter, acting like an amateur? When this place is even worse."
"Ugh."
When I pointed at the person sniping at me from the third floor of the Ability Office building, Seo Mok was visibly flustered.
It seemed he had not been keeping his guard up so much as unconsciously trying to protect me, whom he had grown somewhat attached to, from his own teammates.
'Trusting people that easily....... That's how you get struck on the back of the head.'
I went over to Seo Mok, threw an arm around his shoulders, and waved broadly at whoever was sniping at me.
"Smile."
"Have I just become a hostage?"
"Oh, quick on the uptake this time."
"Hey, are you actually a lunatic?"
"Come on, nobody in their right mind comes here."
"Live like that and you won't make it to your natural lifespan."
That is exactly why I am here. Not making it to my natural lifespan.
The bitter thought made my expression sink of its own accord for a moment.
"If a client dies in front of the office, we're the ones who'd be in trouble."
Seo Mok must have seen my face, because his shoulders twitched and he waved along as I had asked.
Ah, he really is a kind fellow.
It was a moment that made me understand why Seo Mok had been the Ability Office's mascot in the original work.
'His reactions are just too much fun.'
***
"Pfahahaha, I should have taken a photograph of our Seo Mok's face!"
The one who had tried to snipe me was a woman named Sophia.
White hair in a ponytail, though her specific age was not known. Officially she was said to be a grandmother, but from her appearance alone she was young-looking enough to seem close to Seo Mok's age.
As the team's spiritual pillar, she was the effective leader whenever the Captain was absent.
She was also a person quite generous toward children. Seo Mok treating me like a kid while still finding me hard to handle owed a great deal to Sophia's influence.
"Tsk, tsk, why does this little one look so mangy? Seo Mok, did you handle him roughly because he was merchandise?"
"No, he was worse at first! Like, uh, he was drenched in rain or blood, I couldn't tell which. I thought a corpse was talking to me!"
"Bringing him back alive is not everything. Look how frightened he is. What would you have done if he had been eaten on the cruise ship?"
"What do you mean, he got here fine."
"Hmm? He was eaten? Little one, did you escape under your own power?"
Sophia, who had merely sat me obediently in an empty office chair while busily teasing Seo Mok, finally turned her attention to me.
I nodded to mean yes.
Sophia's red eyes curved into half-moons. A warmth came off her, as though she were thinking, have you ever seen such an admirable brat.
"No wonder the Captain took an interest. What is your name?"
"Do Hae."
"Are you from the same place as that Seo Mok? It is similar."
"Thaaat's probably not the case."
When I smiled harmlessly, as if troubled, Sophia's expression melted away.
Sophia was generous toward children because she wanted to protect their innocence. In that respect, frail 99's face was a strength in that field, enough to provoke sympathy.
A beauty ploy I could not have dreamed of in my past life.
"Sophia, when is the Captain coming back? And where did everyone else go?"
Seo Mok asked, looking around the idle office.
The first floor of the three-story building was a small eatery, the second floor was the proper workplace, and the third floor was closer to lodging built for team members working late.
We were gathered in the lounge of the utterly empty second-floor office.
"He went off to handle matters at his leisure, since your mission was going to be extended a month. Boarding that cruise ship and coming back in one piece is the strange part. All the more so when the original client was the Styx Company."
"He said he'd sort that out himself."
"Ah! Then did he go to do that sorting out?"
"What, he went to the Styx Company?"
The corners of Seo Mok's eyes creased.
There was only one reason these people had gone all that distance to collect the Laboratory Director.
The client was the Styx Company, which provided conveniences all over the Black Zone, and the Ability Office were mercenaries whose skill the Black Zone acknowledged.
Which means Styx was drooling over that research into artificially creating ability users too.
'If I get caught, it's back to being a lab specimen, alive.'
Only the party in charge would change from the government to the private sector; the situation was the same.
I intended to go to them myself as late as possible, after I had settled in to some degree......, so for now let us play dumb.
"On that note, Do Hae."
"Yes?"
"Have you any thought of writing a résumé?"
"What résumé?"
"How would you like to work with us?"
This fast?
Seo Mok, belatedly catching the meaning, shot to his feet and blocked Sophia's way.
"Sophia, did you misunderstand the Captain? We agreed to squeeze information out of him, so what's this sudden job placement?!"
"It would be a waste to squeeze only information out of him. The Captain entrusted this to me, so Seo Mok will kindly shut his mouth."
Sophia subdued Seo Mok easily with one hand, swept him off into a corner, and came right up close to me.
"Our Do Hae, let us just write one résumé."
I did not know when I had become part of her "our," but with the premonition that refusing would land me in the same position as Seo Mok, I nodded before I knew it.
Growing close in advance with the people who would become friendly with the original work's protagonist was my goal anyway. Working together, we would entrust each other with our lives and grow even tighter.
"Now then, shall we go and fill it out?"
From the corner, Seo Mok emphatically crossed his arms into an X, but the me of that moment did not catch on.
As it turned out, writing a résumé did not mean writing a document.