166 - Headquarters

TL/Editor: raei

Status: 5/week mon-fri

Illustrations: posted in discord

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Right after the Warrior struck the Club Chairman:

The flow of mealworms falling from the hole in the ceiling diminished. Like rain letting up, the stream of mealworms weakened.

Beneath it, the Warrior lowered his head to look at his chest. Red blood flowed from his heart. A bullet had pierced it precisely.

He couldn't block it. He couldn't heal. It was as if an ordinary person had been shot.

"..."

"..."

Yeonwoo, forgetting to call upon the dice, looked around in shock. Someone else was here besides them.

An assassin armed with an ordinary bullet.

'Who... obviously a company employee. Where are they? Are they going to shoot me too?'

The filter of survival instinct overlaid the world of probability and possibility Yeonwoo sensed through the dice.

Senses that had been operating separately came together.

A strange sensation extended like feelers, detecting dangerous probabilities and possibilities approaching Yeonwoo. It was insight bordering on predicting the future, a telescope revealing the future where Yeonwoo would surely survive.

'Danger!'

Yeonwoo's eyes darted around. He felt he could almost grasp the things that could kill him.

The Warrior, and the Ghost of the Intelligence Department.

The Warrior and Yeonwoo's heads turned simultaneously, looking somewhere. Their gazes followed something moving slowly.

A person who seemed to belong here naturally, whose traces in the waves of mealworms seemed ordinary.

The Warrior spoke to that thing which had momentarily deceived even their perception:

"Ghost of the Intelligence Department."

A company elite agent contaminated in a natural fluorescent vest.

In the view of the two men with their senses heightened to the limit, they saw the Ghost smiling awkwardly. They marveled to themselves:

"Wow, so this is Level 6. No one could perceive me when I wore the vest. It's really different from what I read in documents."

Even that voice flowed naturally like white noise. Voice, appearance, behavior, everything blended into the environment.

While Yeonwoo, recognizing a familiar face, watched warily, the Warrior laughed hollowly.

"Is this my end? Dying from a gunshot?"

The Warrior placed his hand over the wound. His frantically beating heart grew weaker bit by bit. Blood and life flowed out through the hole pierced in the center of his heart. R̃�

Death approached slowly. A futile death, different from the Warrior's wish.

The atmosphere around the Warrior, which had been a mess of irritation and anger, settled calmly. Little life remained. A pure flame formed in the Warrior's eyes.

If one cannot kill death, what should one do? Even if dying, one cannot die in vain.

The Warrior looked at the Ghost of the Intelligence Department, at headquarters beyond them, and finally fixed his gaze on Yeonwoo. The enemy he had looked down on.

"I was wrong."

He had dismissed an enemy weaker than himself. Even though that enemy was practicing the Warrior's own realization - to charge at a strong opponent regardless of success or failure.

In the end, hadn't Yeonwoo unleashed chaos to confuse senses, persistently clung on, and even created an opportunity for the Ghost of the Intelligence Department to deliver a fatal blow?

"I shouldn't have ignored you."

Recognizing his enemy with such a clear mind, he saw something new.

Unlike himself who couldn't overcome death, one who avoids death. A human who has drawn out the fundamental survival instinct of living beings to its limit.

The Warrior smiled at this strong person who had walked a different path.

"Alright. I'll kill you."

Killing one who even the world cannot kill. An achievement more impressive than making the world cry.

In a world grown quiet, even his heart stopped.

The Warrior spread both palms wide, then slowly clenched his fists. Gently curling from his pinky to his index finger, he placed his thumb over his index finger.

Carefully, as if learning martial arts for the first time. Recalling only his initial mindset.

The multiplying mealworm heads around him were crushed and pushed away.

Yeonwoo's pupils dilated. Terror that made his hair stand on end washed over him.

Swish-

The threads of possibility rippling around Yeonwoo scattered and vanished on their own. He could no longer spray random possibilities.

"Dice!"

Yeonwoo called out for the dice aloud.

The Warrior, slowly pulling back his fist, left Yeonwoo be. This was his final strike. He didn't want to hit a defenseless enemy. It was right to clash with full force.

Yeonwoo also responded to the Warrior's wish. The situation wasn't one where he could think about moving or anything else.

An instant stretched like eternity.

Lightning flashed in Yeonwoo's mind, his senses transcending limits intertwined. Yeonwoo accurately grasped the information.

'Is the future closed off? No. This is...'

The future was desolate. A few seconds later, the Warrior had definitely killed Yeonwoo. It meant the probability of survival had become zero.

Only then did Yeonwoo realize the limitations of the dice.

'It can't manifest possibilities that don't exist.'

In a world overflowing with anomalies, all sorts of things could happen with extremely low probabilities, but even that wasn't enough in front of a Level 6.

Bloodshot eyes filled Yeonwoo's gaze.

'So, I'm going to die like this? No. There's no unavoidable death.'

As always, he'd survive somehow.

In the stretched-out time, survival instinct convulsed. The survival instinct that usually just slept during safe times was activated to its limit in the face of crisis.

The survival instinct that had grown alongside Yeonwoo through dangers crossed the boundary of Level 6.

It opens a future with only death. If a path to survival doesn't exist, create it directly.

Yeonwoo, his heart racing madly, and the Warrior, his heart stopped, locked eyes.

The stretched time accelerated. Huff, the Warrior who had taken a short breath thrust out his fist. Yeonwoo fell backward, dodging the fist.



------

Darkness like ink was sprayed along the trajectory the fist had passed. It was pure darkness where even light had died, a scar left on the world. A scar that would never be erased.

"..."

"..."

Neither Yeonwoo nor the Warrior spoke.

Yeonwoo, fallen backward, lay on the mealworms gasping for breath as he stared at the black trajectory before him.

'I survived...'

If he had been hit by that, he would have really died. He wouldn't even have been able to roll for resurrection. It was an attack that killed even that possibility.

The Warrior sighed. It was the strongest punch of his life, but in the end, he couldn't kill. He had no choice but to acknowledge it.

"You disgusting bastard. You won."

"I didn't win, I survived."

Yeonwoo said as he staggered to his feet. Victory was never his concern to begin with. It was good to survive even if he lost. Conversely, winning meant nothing if he died.

The Warrior stared at Yeonwoo for a while, then sighed. It was a value system hard for him to accept, but he let it slide.

'There's no sane human at Level 6 anyway.'

Though it seemed Yeonwoo had crossed the boundary while fighting him.

The Warrior looked down at his heart.

He had rampaged like a tiger that keeps moving even after being shot in the head, or a wild animal that keeps running even after being hit by a car, but even his tenacious life had reached its limit.

With all regrets and attachments gone, one curiosity arose.

"...Was this bullet made from the boss's Eraser?"

It was a bullet that erased even his defense and regeneration. No matter how he thought about it, it felt like the Eraser had been broken into pieces to make the bullet.

Yeonwoo avoided his gaze and looked away. He couldn't answer about a secret weapon.

The Warrior came to his own conclusion.

"Wasting the Eraser like this. I don't understand what those company bastards are thinking."

It seemed fitting for a doomsday cultist to die by the boss's Eraser. The Warrior smiled faintly, then slowly fell backward.

A death without regrets came to the Warrior who had struck the world and turned headquarters into chaos.

Yeonwoo looked down at the Warrior with deep eyes. What he had seen and experienced at headquarters. The ordinary room and bullet. The Warrior's attack that left no path to survival.

It was too dangerous a world to be happy about reaching Level 6. There were far too many things threatening his life.

'The company is the most dangerous. There's no answer for that room and bullet.'

Yeonwoo glanced aside. The Ghost, who had been sneaking closer, opened their eyes wide.

"Wow. This is a first for me. How can you see me when I'm wearing the vest? Did the dice give you some kind of sense?"

Yeonwoo watched the Ghost with an uncomfortable expression as they circled around him curiously.

Though he had considered them an awkward acquaintance he'd met by chance and Yoo Ji-yoo's sister, what he'd just seen showed they were the worst assassin.

Who could withstand it if they approached naturally and fired an ordinary bullet? Only the Artist Association President or the world itself might help by making the gun malfunction on its own.

'No, this person might even be able to make the world see firing a gun as natural.'

They were truly dangerous. He must never take his eyes off them.

'I should look into getting a bulletproof vest just in case.'

Yeonwoo, with his vulnerable human body, was lost in thought when he stepped back.

"Um, senior. Do you know any news about headquarters? I made a small mistake..."

"A mistake? Ah, so that's why... I thought there was some kind of containment plan."

"...What kind of plan?"

The Ghost smiled shyly as if embarrassed.

"I just happened to see it while wandering around headquarters since I rarely get to come here."

"No, are you talking about my containment plan? What's the content of it?"

Yeonwoo asked urgently. It wasn't something he could gloss over.

'They even made a containment plan? Should I run away quickly now? No, I need to know the information. So I can deal with it.'

Vitality welled up in his body, exhausted from the fierce battle.

The Ghost handed Yeonwoo a single document.

"I took it out since you're my sister's colleague, and I've seen you at the counseling center before. It's not really that important."

Yeonwoo snatched the document and quickly scanned the text. The writing was very brief and simple.

Summarized, it went something like this:

This guy's a survivalist, so if we provide a shelter, won't he go in on his own? And if we give him some basic survival necessities and internet, he probably won't come out, right?

Yeonwoo nodded in relief.

'This isn't containment, it's protection.'

If this was the containment plan, he welcomed it. They're giving him a house, food, and even money.

Yeonwoo, no longer sensing threat from the Ghost as his survival instinct turned off, made plans to resolve this incident.

"I should ask to be contained."

Wasn't it natural to be disciplined if you caused an accident?

'It would be a problem if they pretended to take me to a shelter but put me in an ordinary room instead.'

That anxiety subsided a bit with the Ghost's next words.

The Ghost made a disgusted face looking at the mealworm heads multiplying everywhere. Mealworms that the Warrior had ground up were still dividing.

"Ugh, it's gross. No matter how tempting perpetual motion is, this is a bit much."

"Perpetual motion?"

When Yeonwoo asked curiously, the Ghost excitedly explained:

"Like an infinitely rotating cogwheel, it's power that can be used without worrying about depletion in places like shelters. The company has been steadily preparing emergency resources for a long time. This seems to be one of those resources."

A light of hope gleamed in Yeonwoo's eyes. His thought process twisted reality.



'Then there's no reason for headquarters to view me negatively, right?'

He hadn't created an anomaly capable of causing a doomsday scenario. He had created a resource to solve the energy crisis.

He hadn't broken out of containment and fled alone. He had quickly mobilized to stop a doomsday cultist threatening headquarters.

Shouldn't he receive some kind of award from headquarters for this? Like a merit award or something.

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