Chapter 174

“I am not even asking you to write like Do-un. Still, you should have at least the minimum amount of humanity, you bastards. Hm? Do not dump all your time and effort only into muscles!”

Yoon U-jeong’s scolding continued.

But those words did not remain in my head. They went in one ear and out the other.

It felt as if I had fallen into a trap the whole world had conspired to make.

The world was harsher than I had believed, and I was the only one caught in this cruel snare.

First, I had to settle this situation.

But how do I go against this flow?

This atmosphere, far too solid for me to oppose alone, how on earth…….

That was when it happened.

Someone suddenly raised a hand high.

“There is something we must confirm first regarding Agent Seo Do-un’s will.”

The person who said that was none other than Baek Sa-ra.

But confirm? What now…….

“At first, Agent Jeong Jin-u said there would be some clue in Agent Seo Do-un’s will. However, after a close examination, Agent Seo Do-un’s will was confirmed to be nothing more than an ordinary will.”

Baek Sa-ra spoke in a calm voice.

Since this was a fact everyone already knew well, they all listened silently.

“Then why did Agent Seo Do-un ask for his own will to be checked? If he died, the will would be revealed anyway.”

But the moment Baek Sa-ra raised that doubt, the current shifted.

The agents began growing tense at some sense of incongruity.

Having caused such ripples, Baek Sa-ra asked me,

“Agent Seo, did you truly ask Team Leader Cha to check your will?”

Baek Sa-ra……

At Baek Sa-ra’s question, I felt strangely overwhelmed.

It felt as if the dark clouds over the world had cleared and a single ray of light was descending.

The chance to reveal the truth had arrived abruptly, and after overcoming all despair, I gladly testified.

“I asked him to dispose of my will.”

“……!”

“……!”

“……!”

In order, that was Yoon U-jeong’s shock.

Jeong Jin-u’s shock.

And the shock of the other agents watching us.

I thought their reactions were needlessly solemn, but I continued resolutely.

“I said to dispose of the will, but it seems that was conveyed incorrectly.”

At my confession, the room stirred.

“This was not given to us to read?”

“I did think something was strange…… especially the beginning.”

“How do you have to mishear someone for dispose to become check? Did your earholes burst?”

The agents whispered among themselves for a while, then seemed to finally grasp the atmosphere and began watching my mood.

Deputy Manager Yoon U-jeong, in particular, looked extremely flustered.

“Dispose……?”

Yoon U-jeong’s gaze drifted aimlessly as they chewed over my words.

Then, with a troubled expression, they apologized to me.

“Uh, mm. Sorry.”

“It is all right, Deputy Manager. There was a misunderstanding…….”

I tried to accept that apology maturely.

There had been a misunderstanding, so it was all r-right…….

No, honestly, it was not…… all right…….

“Please return my will even now…….”

In the end, I covered my face and groaned.

“Jeong Jin-u, you bastard……!”

Just as Yoon U-jeong, flustered even more by my reaction, was about to shout.

Baek Sa-ra raised her hand again and said,

“And there is one more thing we need to address.”

Even more solemn gazes focused on Baek Sa-ra.

At that, Baek Sa-ra fully displayed the sharpness of an Exploration Team member.

“In the body of Agent Seo Do-un’s will, there is content stating that he was urged to ‘write the will as shamefully as possible.’”

“……!”

“……!”

“……!”

“Is that not a method seniors used in the past to tease new recruits?”

Yes. Life often deceived me, but that did not mean all of my life was deception.

There was dazzling truth in this world too, and that truth always waited for the time to come out.

“Who was the bastard who told Seo Do-un to write a shameful will?!”

Yoon U-jeong immediately set about identifying the culprit.

Then the agents, including Jeong Jin-u, looked around with innocent faces.

As if claiming, It was not me.

So their gazes naturally gathered in one place.

What the agents’ field of vision caught was Cha Si-eon, who had his interlaced hands placed on the desk and was quietly lowering his head.

“……Do not tell me it was you?”

Yoon U-jeong asked Cha Si-eon.

The voice asking that was close to a groan.

As if an axe they trusted had struck their own foot.

As if they had never imagined he would do that.

At that, Cha Si-eon raised his head.

Then, in a low and calm voice, he confessed the truth.

“I did not know he would listen that well.”

A heavy silence flowed.

After some time passed with only my blood pressure silently surging in that stillness.

Yoon U-jeong said,

“……Cha Si-eon, Jeong Jin-u. You two stay behind for a moment.”

Justice existed in this world.

And Baek Sa-ra, who had shown one-shot, one-kill in order to establish that justice, looked back at me and smiled brightly.

As if telling me I could be relieved now.

I was glad for that beautiful smile, but at the same time, I felt sorrowful.

Because my current situation was like that of an elementary school student who had been bullied and then rescued by the class president and homeroom teacher.

So despite this realization of justice, I had to endure a considerable amount of tackiness and misery again.

---

A little later.

Cha Si-eon and Jeong Jin-u, after getting chewed out by Yoon U-jeong, came to me and apologized.

Thirty minutes later.

We all left the Bureau together.

Another hour later.

We arrived at a quiet suburban safe house with a garden, and there began the wrap-up dinner.

And four hours later.

The agents succeeded in building a pyramid out of liquor bottles.

“Hey, that is dangerous…… clean up the pyramid before you leave…….”

“We are taking it to the lodging.”

“It is our achievement.”

“Hey, wake up. We have to build one more layer…….”

Jeong Jin-u woke Han Seung-yo, who was sleeping beneath the pyramid.

As befitted a gathering celebrating success, the agents went all-out without restraint.

I watched their otherworldly energy, then quietly got up and went outside.

“Phew…….”

There are plenty of heavy drinkers in publishing too, but this side is no joke either…….

I had also drunk one or two glasses out of courtesy, but that was nowhere near enough to match those people with their reins cut loose.

So I went outside to catch my breath, and just then, the wind blew.

The zelkova tree stretching over the wooden veranda rustled, and the scent of a summer night rose.

It was peaceful.

As if everything that had happened in the past was a lie.

But it should not be a lie.

Because the things we had barely managed to accomplish were too precious.

Rustle—

As I was enjoying the summer night, a sound came from my clothes.

Ah.

I searched my pocket and took out a crumpled piece of paper.

It was my will, which Deputy Manager Yoon U-jeong had returned to me.

“…….”

The product of my shame.

I considered tearing it up as it was and throwing it into the trash can, but stopped my hand.

I was going to throw it away.

I would throw it away, but I thought it was a bit of a waste, since I had pressed down hard by hand to write it.

So after hesitating for a moment, I unfolded my will.

---

To everyone at the Bureau.

Hello. This is Seo Do-un.

If you are reading this, it probably means I am no longer a person of this world.

First, I hope my death is not a great sorrow to all of you.

If others besides me have also met misfortune, I offer my condolences and comfort to them and their bereaved families.

I received advice to write my will as shamefully as possible.

So I thought about ways for me to become shameful, and I did find a method, but the problem is not merely that I would become shameful. I wondered what sin the living had committed that they should have to know a dead man’s fetishes, so I have decided to refrain from mentioning them.

After thinking again about shame that would not make all of you uncomfortable, I confess this.

In truth, I am in an illicit relationship with Team Leader Cha Si-eon.

You ask if it is true?

How could it possibly be true?

The sentence born solely for the sake of shame has admirably fulfilled its role.

If only to hide this sentence, I will desperately survive.

---

I am going insane…….

What on earth were you thinking when you wrote this and entrusted it to someone else, past Seo Do-un…….

At the fact that this nonsense had been revealed, I squeezed my eyes shut.

I endured the pain for a while, then after taking a deep breath, I faced the will again.

My nonsense continued all the way through the second page.

I had truly written it thinking no one else would ever see it, so the mindless words I had written with my brain removed had not only filled it, but overflowed.

So I speed-read it with blurred eyes, then stopped my gaze for a moment on the final page.

---

I am trying this desperately to live.

But on the other hand, I also think, after all, that it is futile.

Because people’s efforts and wishes are betrayed far too easily.

Even so, people foolishly cannot let go of expectation, and they suffer even more greatly as the price for not abandoning hope.

If so, would it not be better to resign oneself and give up in advance, so one can sneer at any catastrophe?

Since I have already had my life stolen, and avoiding the deaths that continue coming has become more than I can handle, would it not be better to choose peaceful death rather than struggle this futilely?

With these thoughts buried in one corner of my heart, in truth, I was weighing it.

Whether not only I, but all of you here, are frogs being slowly boiled in a pot.

Whether we are merely enduring meaningless time, like Sisyphus under eternal punishment.

If so, I dared to think that perhaps it would be all right if we simply died together.

But when I actually imagined death, laughably, I still wanted to live, so I came to think differently.

I thought my life had been stolen, but even this was life.

The time I thought I was only enduring here was also my life, and enduring one day in anxiety because I do not know tomorrow is also one day’s worth of life. Even if there is no perfect salvation, because there is one day of life, I can exist for another day.

This was neither meaningless nor futile.

So, it was an honor to be able to share this life with all of you.

Thanks to all of you, I lived a few more months of life, and that life was…….

---

Riiip— riiip—!

Unable to endure any more, I tore the will into long strips.

I tore it vertically and horizontally, breaking even the letters contained within it into pieces.

Farewell, paper stained with my shame.

It would be perfect if I scattered this splendidly.

But I could not dirty the garden with tiny scraps of paper.

So I was looking around for somewhere to throw them away when it happened.

“What are you doing?”

“Uwaaah!”

At the voice suddenly heard behind me, I was startled and shouted.

Damn it, I almost spat out my heart.

When I turned around, Cha Si-eon was standing there.

As if he had come out to get some air like me, Cha Si-eon sat roughly on the wooden veranda.

“I heard roughly what was in the will.”

“…….”

“I confirmed very well your mindset of not dying alone.”

“Are you in any position to criticize me for that, Team Leader?”

“…….”

After the pointed exchange went back and forth, silence flowed.

The wind blew and filled that gap.

And Cha Si-eon opened his mouth again.

“Thank you.”

“……?”

“Thanks to you, I was able to do what had to be done.”

Why is he acting so unlike himself?

I thought for a moment about what to answer.

Since we were in a situation where we were indebted to each other, I wondered if I should say thank you too, but thinking about it, it still seemed too early.

So after briefly considering it, I thought of a suitable answer and replied.

“I look forward to working with you from now on as well.”