Chapter 161.2

Ryu Jaekwan’s superior fell silent for a moment, as if at a loss for words.

Then sighed softly.

“I… I don’t know. It’s not like we can assign rankings to human lives…. Wouldn’t it be better to save him just because he’s a comrade?”

“……”

“Was our bureau… always like this? I feel like it used to be different…. But at some point, everyone started staking their lives on that principle.”

“Because they realized it was necessary.”

“……”

Ryu Jaekwan knew full well that Agent Choi’s silence leaned closer to disagreement than agreement.

Still, even Choi let out a small sigh of resignation.

“Anyway, fine. Grapes must be saved.”

“…!”

“Let’s go see those cult-company bastards.”

But before that.

From the remaining eleven Angel’s Sigh conches, they would have to set aside one for the agent.

That left room for only ten others.

“Ten children. We’ll have to choose.”

“……”

Agent Choi’s eyes dimmed, but regardless, he moved toward Grapes.

“You said you sorted the children by era, right? Can you show me how?”

“Yes!”

Agent Grapes had diligently categorized the children.

Somehow, he had managed to gather all twenty-something children scattered across the entire city.

‘…Did they gain the ability to communicate with each other after becoming infected and connecting to the hive?’

Ryu Jaekwan pushed aside the chilling speculation.

“These ones all know the same songs!”

The children were sorted—

From kids of the 2010s, all the way back to those from the 1960s.

And a few were explained a little differently.

“These kids… seem like they came from a slightly different place.”

They had six fingers, or no whites in their eyes, or claimed to be from countries that don’t exist on Earth.

Agent Bronze immediately placed them at the end of the priority list—there was a high chance they weren’t ‘civilians’.

…It didn’t feel good.

Assigning ranks to human lives.

Ryu Jaekwan felt a deep fatigue he had momentarily forgotten.

…Tired, as always.

And so, he implicitly prioritized children who had gone missing more recently.

Because with the intel they had now, those children had the highest probability of successfully escaping.

“…But still, we’ll bring all of them for now.”

“……”

Ryu Jaekwan slowly nodded.

“Alright. Grapes-ie, the kids might get scared now, so how about we walk and play together? We’ll see the Mermaid Princess tomorrow. Today, you can play with me.”

“Okay!”

They decided to hide Agent Grapes among the children to protect him as much as possible from Daydream Inc.

If it were revealed that he was an agent, he’d become a target. A group like Daydream’s elite team would likely know that the Disaster Management Bureau prioritized agents’ lives over civilians’.

‘A contaminated agent… is an easy target.’

At least until they could secure a conch shell and treat him.

With that, they hastened their steps.

And shortly after—

“Ooh! Over here!”

At the agreed-upon location, a staff member wearing a pony mask was waving, and the rest of the employees watched warily.

‘They didn’t run off.’

Ryu Jaekwan confirmed that the tracking signal attached to the conch shell by Agent Choi was still active, and joined up with the members of Daydream Inc.

They flinched at the sight of dozens of ‘merchildren’, but perhaps due to the lingering influence of the cat, they didn’t act rashly.

They simply kept a clear distance.

– This way.

After a brief exchange of written notes, the two factions began moving, each cautiously keeping the other in check.

Downward, into the depths of the city.

“This place… it’s where the kids usually don’t go, right?”

Even seen through the eyes of the ‘Twinkle Twinkle Ocean Palace’, it wasn’t particularly beautiful or remarkable.

A shaded place under a bridge.

In reality, it was beneath a rusted iron bridge that somehow hadn’t collapsed, beside a stream of black, contaminated water.

There, a small door waited.

However…

“We can’t see it.”

The door wasn’t visible to the infected children at all.

Just like the conch shells, they simply didn’t appear to them.

“……”

Then.

Agent Choi, aware of Daydream’s staff watching closely for any slip, calmly closed his eyes and reached out with his hand.

…Okay. He passed through.

“Ah. So it works if we just trick our senses. If you walk in with your eyes closed, you can go in.”

The only problem was that they’d have to get all twenty-eight children to do it.

“Hey, kids! Let’s play a game. Let’s see who can walk with their eyes closed the longest!”

“Um…”

“But it’s scary.”

Usually eager to play together, a few of the children now hesitated, fidgeting strangely.

As if they instinctively felt something was off.

‘Damn it.’

…One ominous thought struck the agents. Would they have to leave behind the kids who couldn’t pass this threshold?

But then.

“Are you a scaredy-cat?”

“…!”

“I-I’m not!”

“Then close your eyes!”

Kim Soleum began encouraging the children.

“You know that shiny thing you see when your eyes are closed? You can see it, right?”

“Yeah, I see it!”

“Look closely. If you can’t see it yet, just walk a little and it’ll show up.”

Amazingly, he succeeded in getting the children to walk forward with their eyes closed.

“……”

“Agent…”

“…Ah, let’s go.”

Agent Choi, who had been watching the scene in a bit of a daze, quickly came to his senses.

He tapped the shoulder of the anxious Agent Bronze and began to walk.

“Let’s go!”

The children, with their eyes closed, safely passed through the ‘wall’ and entered.

And then.

“Huh.”

A place that was not the Twinkle Twinkle Ocean Palace revealed itself to them.

From the perspective of Daydream Inc.—that is, from the viewpoint of the ghost story ‘Mermaid Grave’—it was nothing more than a slightly less rusted, harsh-looking steel corridor compared to the outside.

It resembled a hastily built emergency passage for authorized personnel.

But in the eyes of the children…

‘Nothing’s there.’

Just a white rectangular path.

As if all texture had been stripped away.

It seemed this area couldn’t sustain the illusion of the ‘Twinkle Twinkle Ocean Palace’.

A space, presumably, somewhat isolated from contamination.

‘…This is getting more and more suspicious.’

All the more reason, a veteran would know, that this was likely the correct path. So he hastened his steps.

“Should I keep my eyes closed?”

“If you open them, you’ll see something amazing, right?”

Thankfully, the children didn’t collapse in fear or burst into tears. If anyone started to cry, Agent Grapes distracted or comforted them.

“……”

They reached the end of the corridor.

What was visible through the suncatcher item was the true scene beyond.

“Ha.”

A roughly constructed, ramshackle terminal.

It seemed there had once been a total of seven escape pods.

In the spots where some alien, mechanical-technology escape pods had already launched, only dust, filth, and dried infectious fluid remained.

But there was one left. A massive capsule-type escape pod.

Covered in blood.

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