Chapter 337

Bronze Agent...

Why is he wearing Se-gwang Tech’s uniform, looking like a child?

“......”

My mind almost went blank from this insane situation, but I forced myself to steady my head and start reading what was happening.

Bronze Agent looked a little younger even than the high schooler appearance I’d seen in the “In the Black Shade” urban legend.

And it wasn’t just the uniform that had changed.

His expression and overall vibe were unmistakably younger.

“Um....”

And he didn’t recognize me.

...Was he assimilated into Se-gwang Special City’s urban legend?

Like me—assigned appropriately as a “citizen” of Se-gwang Special City’s May 4.

...Wait.

If everyone who fell here is in this state, then how am I supposed to take them and escape?

How do I persuade them?

The relief of finding a companion lasted only a moment before urgent choices came rushing back.

I desperately turned my brain over and over. While I did, the high school student Ryu Jaegwan—who’d run after me—caught his breath and chose his words.

“Earlier, the bicycle... are you all right?”

“I’m all right.”

I looked at that almost-too-young face.

He looked flustered and worried, but for someone his age who’d just seen something you’d only ever see in an urban legend happen in real life, he was calm.

...Bronze Agent said the first time he got dragged into an urban legend and was rescued by the Disaster Management Bureau, he was a student.

Did it reflect him at an even earlier point? No—what matters first is how I keep him with me.

I pretended to examine his uniform, which had no name tag, and asked,

“More importantly... you’re a student?”

“Yes.”

“Is your destination Se-gwang Technical High School? That looks like their uniform.”

“It is, but....”

“Good. I’m headed there, too.”

Then I walked up to the shared bike rack and started smashing the lock mechanism with a rock.

“...!”

“Renting a shared bike with a smartphone is going to be difficult now. Rather than trying pointlessly, this is faster.”

“.......”

“On the way, did you see anyone swelling? Or disaster alerts.”

“...Yes.”

“From now on, only listen for the alarm sound and never check the disaster alerts. If you see people walking in a pack along the street, never get close.”

The lock on one bike broke completely, but I didn’t stop—I went straight to the next lock and broke that, too.

Then I pulled one out and held it out to the high school student.

“Can you ride a bicycle?”

High school student Ryu Jaegwan stared at me with trembling eyes, then gave a firm nod.

***

I was leading the way on my bike, riding hard.

Behind me, high school student Ryu Jaegwan was right on me, riding the shared bike I’d handed over.

Seeing him grit his teeth and keep up, it looked like Bronze Agent’s bicycle-riding talent had been promising from the start....

Skirting the disaster alert sounds and screams coming from all directions, I kept detouring and biking toward Se-gwang Technical High School.

But even those danger signals would vanish soon.

...Once there were no survivors left in the area, the alerts would stop ringing on their own.

Move fast.

My head spun like crazy. I was mapping the route ahead when... I saw something.

A convenience store.

“Wait.”

“Yes?”

Checking that Ryu Jaegwan wasn’t wobbling, I stopped briefly in front of the convenience store.

Then I shoved the door open and rushed inside, sweeping up whatever I could.

Mostly food.

I didn’t take too much. Mobility was mandatory.

Instead, after some thought, I bought two long-handled umbrellas that looked the sturdiest, and a tool set.

And to the cashier, a part-timer who’d been glancing at a book with earbuds in the whole time I paid, I said,

“Get out of here quickly.”

“Yes?”

“A bio-chemical terror incident happened near City Hall and it’s spreading. Run to a subway station as fast as you can.”

“!!”

Only then did the part-timer turn on their phone and check their messages, their face going pale as they started frantically scrolling.

As I left, I glimpsed them grabbing supplies the way I had....

Outside, I looked at high school student Ryu Jaegwan, standing awkwardly with his hands on his bike, watching me.

“Open your bag.”

“Yes?”

I put two small bottles of water and calorie bars into his schoolbag. Then I handed him an umbrella and had him strap it along the bike.

“No one knows how things will go, so you should take what you can. Use the umbrella to shove if you have to.”

“Th-thank you.”

He held onto his bag, but hesitated as he spoke.

“Um, I’ll pay you.”

“I’m not taking money from a student in an emergency like this. Get on. We’re going to Se-gwang Tech, fast.”

“But... yes.”

He looked like he had a lot he wanted to say and ask, but maybe he understood how serious it was—he wiped sweat and grabbed the bike again.

Still, he asked in the end.

“How... do you know so much?”

“......Because I’m used to it.”

“Pardon?”

I changed the subject.

“More importantly, it’s past school time—why are you going to school now?”

“I... I had to go to the bank, so I’m late.”

“Did you contact your family?”

“...It’s fine.”

At that roundabout answer, I realized his assigned background here would probably be close to reality.

—His parents divorced when he was young, and after his mother passed away, he grew up in a group home.

...Let’s not talk about it any further.

“Understood.”

I rode on in silence again.

Maybe because he was built well, but even after that, Ryu Jaegwan kept up without trouble.

Good.

Soon, Se-gwang Technical High School’s wall came into view.

“Hoo.”

The area around the school still wasn’t in an uproar.

But from the opposite wall and the nearby apartment complex, I could hear disaster alert sounds...

Along with crisscrossing screams.

“.......”

“.......”

Ryu Jaegwan and I approached the main gate with extreme caution.

I could feel him watching me.

“Um... why are you coming to this school?”

“Someone I need to find is here.”

I answered without delay, quietly scanning the surroundings as I stepped inside the grounds.

When I parked the bike in an inconspicuous corner, Ryu Jaegwan copied me, leaving his bike and following after.

He was holding an umbrella, like I was.

It felt oddly commendable, but my tension only climbed higher.

...The Security Guard isn’t coming out.

It was strange.

We walked toward the entrance, careful even with the sound of our footsteps.

Soon, high school student Ryu Jaegwan took hold of the front door. He pulled, but...

With a strange resistance, it didn’t open properly.

Like something was jammed.

Huh?

Ryu Jaegwan paused, then grabbed it again and pulled harder—

“Wait.”

“Yes?”

“Come this way.”

Something bothered me.

After stopping him, without opening the entrance door, I cautiously called him over to a window.

A window that looked into the first-floor corridor.

Soft-colored curtains had been drawn, but through a gap, you could still peek inside.

“......Hoo.”

After looking first, I stepped aside for Ryu Jaegwan.

He gave me a puzzled look, then turned his head to the gap—his tense face quickly went rigid and white.

“...Why?”

Exactly.

I saw students lying down in the corridor, asleep.

It was the same scene as the peaceful ending credits I’d seen after clearing the “In the Black Shade” urban legend.

Seeing talismans stuck into the gaps of every classroom door and window, I felt a strange aftertaste.

So the barrier Team Leader Hong set... manifested like this.

Keeping the children asleep even through the repeating disaster day.

Maybe that comatose state was judged as a kind of death—like the Baekseolsan apple I’d eaten—and they were isolated from the catastrophic disaster that spread through disaster alerts.

So we can’t open the school door.

It probably wouldn’t open easily anyway.

But Ryu Jaegwan, as a student of this school, seemed creeped out by the sight of students collapsed in a line along the corridor.

“What is this... what even....”

I quietly turned to Ryu Jaegwan.

“Do you remember anything?”

“...Remember?”

“I mean, does anything come to mind when you see that. Especially—”

I pointed at the talismans.

At the pattern Bronze Agent had drawn himself.

“Those talismans.”

“.......”

For an instant, something strange lit in Ryu Jaegwan’s eyes as he traced the patterns.

But it blurred into worry and confusion, and his gaze became that of a teenager again.

When he looked back at me, there was an odd wariness and tension in his eyes.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“.......”

Well, it took me over six hundred repeats to get out—expecting Bronze Agent to snap out of it from a few words was absurd.

If anything, I’d just look suspicious, pointing at talismans and saying things.

Don’t get impatient.

In that case—

“You don’t need to worry.”

I smiled at high school student Ryu Jaegwan.

“Those are protective talismans. As long as no one tears them off, this school will be safe from what’s happening right now.”

His face flickered with the expression of How do you know that? but instead of wariness, it shifted closer to curiosity.

“So don’t worry about your friends. It’d be better to think about how we get out of this.”

“Um... then what will you do? You said someone you need to meet is at the school.”

Right. Hoyuwon.

But a question rose in my mind.

If the school doors are locked and everyone’s asleep, how can the Counseling Teacher come out?

That was when—

Ryu Jaegwan’s and my disaster alerts rang at the same time.

“...!”

I turned my head on reflex.

...Near the gate.

In the shadow at the corner of the school building, a smiling Security Guard was watching us, phone in one hand.

And they stepped out of the shade and started walking toward us, slowly.

Frozen, I stared.

And I realized the Security Guard wasn’t just one.

There was another upper body connected behind their spine, and another lower body hanging like a tail—one by one.

They’d fused with another Security Guard.

“...!”

And it didn’t end there.

...Beyond the gate, I could see people.

Se-gwang citizens who looked like residents from the nearby apartments, wearing calm expressions.

Part of that wave walking along the main road was visible right outside the gate....

Damn it.

The Security Guards were walking across the field.

The disaster alerts kept ringing, and there was no way out through the gate....

I slapped my own hand as it tried to check the disaster alert, then grabbed Ryu Jaegwan’s phone and lowered it, too.

We can’t leave through the front.

Waiting for the Counseling Teacher... we give that up for now.

“Student.”

“.......”

“The moment you grab your bike, we go to the back gate. Understood? Never come face-to-face with the crowd at the gate.”

Ryu Jaegwan nodded slowly.

Cold sweat slid down my jaw.

For that to work...

...I have to lure them first.

I hated it, but there was no choice.

I focused on the Security Guards, not the crowd.

Don’t let that get into the school building.

If the anomaly of me coming to the high school lured that Security Guard or the crowd here, it would be the worst-case scenario.

Forcing down the creeping revulsion, I swallowed. Then I was about to sprint straight toward the gate—

The instant I moved my foot.

[Oh my, there’s a guest, friend!]

I saw a silhouette heading for the gate ahead of me.

And the back of that person was far too familiar.

The Counseling Teacher.

The one I’d been waiting for looked startled, but quickly collected themself and began to run.

“...!!”

The Counseling Teacher kept heading for the gate even though the crowd was outside, but then stopped short at the sight of the Security Guards.

And the moment the “Security Guards” spotted the Counseling Teacher—

...The teacher started walking straight toward them.

No.

A chill knifed down my spine.

Are you insane!

In the end, I gritted my teeth and ran, grabbing my bike.

“Go now! Back gate!”

“...!”

And I mounted my bike and started charging toward the gate like I’d lost my mind.

The wheels slammed over the ground.

Please!

I’m counting on you—Disaster Management Bureau bicycle skills!

But in that moment—

The Counseling Teacher shoved their hand into the Security Guard.

“...!”

Like rummaging for something, they dug into the Security Guard’s mutated head-flesh. The Security Guard swayed from the motion.

I knew it, but I hadn’t truly felt it until now.

The Counseling Teacher isn’t human.

A cooperative spirit.

Meaning—this was an urban legend, too.

I stopped my bike wheel reflexively.

The being in front of me was examining the Security Guard’s insides with a serious, scholarly air, as if trying to understand what it was.

But—

“......!”

The Counseling Teacher flinched.

As if noticing something wrong, they tried to pull their hand back.

But it wouldn’t come out.

Instead, the Counseling Teacher’s arm was being sucked into the Security Guard’s mutated torso. My disaster alert shrieked noisily. The area around the Counseling Teacher warped strangely, and inside my head a strange stimulation? a tiled-roof house? a strange blue forest high fever malaria surging like—

“Hk!”

I snapped back and lifted my eyes again.

In that instant, the Counseling Teacher had almost pulled their arm out of the Security Guard’s head, but the exposed arm—

Was melting, sloughing down.

“...!!”

And the Security Guard was slowly reaching out, as if to grab the Counseling Teacher.

Damn it...!

I hesitated, but in the end I rode again, gritting my teeth as I surged forward.

Then, with an internal scream, I snatched the Counseling Teacher from right in front of the “Security Guards.”

“...!”

The recoil of the bike yanked the Counseling Teacher’s arm free from the Security Guard—barely.

A strange headache and pressure hit, and blood dripped from my nose.

The bike nearly tipped from the Counseling Teacher’s weight, but I forced it upright, dragging it with sheer strength, and started riding again.

My head swayed.

[You could call it acrobatics—fine skill, Noru!]

Half-dragged along, the Counseling Teacher ended up thrown over my back like luggage.

But it seemed like they were holding themself so their infected arm wouldn’t brush against my back.

...Ha.

I nearly wiped out three times before I finally shook off the “Security Guards.”

My hands were slick with sweat.

Thinking of agents who rode better than me, I couldn’t believe how much I missed Agent Choi and Bronze Agent right now.

Please.

Feeling cold sweat running down my spine, I pedaled like I’d lost my mind.

From behind, a flustered voice:

“You are....”

“Talk later!”

I cut across the field toward the back gate, met up with Ryu Jaegwan coming out there, and barely managed to regain our line and keep riding.

Toward wherever the disaster alert sounds couldn’t be heard.

With both my hands occupied, at least I couldn’t accidentally check the disaster alerts.

All the while, the Counseling Teacher I’d grabbed stayed behind me, lips sealed.

“Huff!”

Only near the back mountain behind the school did I stop the bike at full speed.

Far from City Hall and with few people around, no infected disaster source was visible here yet.

And—

“Are you all right?”

“.......”

I felt a warm hand on my shoulder.

I turned my head.

The Counseling Teacher—still not infected in the other hand—was holding me, looking at me with concern.

A face that wasn’t Hoyuwon’s, and an atmosphere so comfortable and familiar it felt almost strange.

“Agent... right? Thank you for helping. Are you hurt... ah, it doesn’t look like it. Thank goodness.”

Director Ho’s true form.

The target he had desperately been searching for, trapped in Se-gwang Special City, was looking at me.

“Cooperative spirit.”

“You can just call me Counseling Teacher.”

“Teacher.”

I swallowed.

I really didn’t want to say this, but—

“Give me your arm.”

“Pardon?”

“Give me your arm, and bite down on this.”

No matter how I looked at it, it had to be amputated.

But the Counseling Teacher smiled and tried to stop me.

“Contamination only applies to citizens. I’m fine—”

But when the Counseling Teacher looked at their own arm again, their expression dimmed.

Because it was collapsing, softening into sludge.

“...I’m starting.”

“.......”

The teacher stopped objecting.

I pulled something suitable from the tool set and started treatment—

“...Student.”

“.......”

“Turn around and keep watch.”

But Ryu Jaegwan sat down beside me, his face pale.

“I’ll help.”

“No.”

“Go back.”

But this high school student stubbornly stayed beside me and handed me a saw from the tool set.

His hands were shaking.

Even though this must be impossible to understand, there was stubborn resolve in those eyes set in a pale face.

Holding back a sigh, I began the cut.

Splat.

But the Counseling Teacher’s expression was calm.

As if there were no pain at all.

Everything below the collapsing elbow simply fell away.

Like it had never been there.

Like it was being deleted.

“.......”

“Thank you.”

Maybe because he wasn’t human.

Hiding the gooseflesh rising on the hand holding the saw, I nodded silently.

The Counseling Teacher looked down at the missing hand with an evenness too eerie to belong to a person.

But for a different reason, there was a hint of urgency in his voice.

“Could I ask one more thing? There’s somewhere I need to go to end this disaster. There’s something I have to retrieve.”

“.......”

“If you could just bike me to the station, then while you rescue people, I’ll try to end it with the Black Turtle Team agents.”

But I knew.

Every effort by the Counseling Teacher and the agents would fail, miserably.

Trapped in here, repeating disaster day endlessly.

“.......”

My mood sank.

But the Counseling Teacher saw my expression and, as if on purpose, spoke like a joke.

“You’re wearing my jacket, so I’d like you to grant me at least that much.”

“...!”

“You must’ve found it in the branch break room.”

I looked down at my clothes.

...Juror No. 1’s jacket.

Meaning, Hoyuwon’s Disaster Management Bureau jacket was still hanging on my body.

The Counseling Teacher Hoyuwon in front of me was looking at the fox patch on my jacket.

He’d recognized it as his.

...If that’s the case.

I gave an awkward smile in return.

“It must be yours. I was in the middle of taking time off, and I was in a hurry, so I threw it on without thinking. I’m sorry.”

A small smile spread across the Counseling Teacher’s previously tense face.

“It’s fine. Are you a Blue Dragon Team agent?”

That was when—

“...You said agent?”

Both the Counseling Teacher and I turned to him.

Ryu Jaegwan.

In his slightly trembling voice, there was calmness trying to suppress confusion and fear.

But there was faint curiosity, too.

“What kind of... agent are you?”

“.......”

In that moment, I realized.

How to bring Ryu Jaegwan with me.

I opened my mouth slowly.

“You saw it earlier, right? The disaster alerts, the monsters, the strange phenomena. Things like urban legends.”

“.......”

High school student Ryu Jaegwan nodded.

I continued, steady.

“This is a disaster called a supernatural phenomenon. I’m an agent of a government agency that handles these phenomena—the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau.”

“...!”

“I came here because there are people I absolutely have to rescue....”

Looking at Ryu Jaegwan, whose eyes were shining without him realizing it, I said,

“Do you know who one of them is?”

“...The Counseling Teacher?”

“No.”

Smiling, I looked at the high school student.

“It’s you.”

“...!”

“Student Ryu Jaegwan.”

Hearing a stranger call his name—his name I’d never told him—high school student Ryu Jaegwan’s eyes wavered.

“It’s a good thing I found you quickly. So....”

Gripping him, I said,

“Until Student Ryu Jaegwan safely escapes this disaster, I will stay with you.”