TFN C17

Chapter 17

Assistant Manager Kim’s gaze grew cold.

‘Did I go insane from being overworked?’

The members of Team 1 swallowed curses that had crept up to their throats at the words that dug straight into their ears, careful not to let a reaction slip outward.

On the other hand, the face of the Team 3 employee, who had asked the question with a bright smile, was clearly tinged with excitement bordering on ecstasy.

Left with no choice but to answer the question because he had reacted, Assistant Manager Kim bit his cheek.

‘Should’ve just ignored it.’

Of course, if this had happened to another team, even he would’ve been brimming with dopamine and itching to verify the truth, but in any case, this incident was theirs to handle.

“Is it true?”

Hurry up and clarify the truth of this thrilling rumor.

At the unmistakably pressuring look in their eyes, Assistant Manager Kim swallowed a sigh.

That day, he had gone out to the site too, and it wasn’t even a request from them—it was something asked of them by the Mapo precinct. But still, he had witnessed it with his own eyes.

“They didn’t call a shaman. They called an Awakened. It wasn’t a ritual; they consulted someone using their Ability for the investigation.”

“They said they shook bells and a fan, though. Isn’t that true?”

Wrinkles furrowed on Assistant Manager Kim’s brow.

‘You weren’t even at the scene, so how would you know that? Who’s been blabbing?’

He narrowed his eyes sharply and swept his gaze over the seats where Team 1 members were sitting.

He hadn’t explicitly told them to keep their mouths shut, but because that field deployment had been different from their usual ones, they had tacitly, silently agreed to control the spread of that information. Or so he thought. Maybe that had been just his illusion.

Anyone who had been there would know that this was not the kind of thing that should be talked about so lightly, yet someone had wagged their tongue like a gossiping sparrow.

He would find out who it was and make sure they paid for it.

Suppressing his irritation, Assistant Manager Kim forced a smile.

“What difference does it make what kind of tools an Awakened uses to activate their skill? What matters is whether the information they give is usable on-site. Are you discriminating against Awakened right now?”

Perhaps realizing no answer he wanted was going to come from Kim, the Team 3 employee exhaled loudly through his nose as if his anticipation had deflated.

“Oh my, must you talk like that? And discrimination? Please. I was just checking out a rumor, and now you’re trying to paint me as a bad person?”

“Sorry, but I need to finish compiling this report. Please excuse me.”

Assistant Manager Kim swiveled his half-turned chair back toward his monitor.

Across from him, the deputy team leader shot him a look that said, ‘That crazy mutt of our team bit another team. Well done.’ But he didn’t feel grateful.

Ignoring it, he immediately typed into the Team 1 group chat window open in front of him.

• (Video Kim Geungsik) Whoever spread the rumor, confess.

• (Deputy Team Leader) Is confessing the road to salvation, huh?

• (Video Kim Geungsik) We don’t even know if that was an illusion spell or not, so what’s the point of running our mouths?

• (Deputy Team Leader) But you said there was no skill reaction, right?

  Reading this reply from the deputy leader, who had worked a different case on his own that day, the team members groaned and grabbed fistfuls of their hair.

• (Video Kim Geungsik) I’m saying since we know nothing yet, let’s just be careful what we say.

  Once inaccurate or half-baked information tangled into an investigation, the thought process would surely get twisted.

  Who knew where those tangles might lead, how they could end up tripping the entire case. The deputy team leader was far too complacent.

  Geungsik glared at him, his head filled with bitter curses.

  Looking wronged, the deputy slumped his shoulders.

• (Forensics, Choi Ah-cheong) By the way, that salt we got that day.

  One of the team members, who had been silently watching their back-and-forth, cautiously slipped into the chat.

• (Deputy Team Leader) The salt?

  Geungsik’s eyes widened.

• (Video Kim Geungsik) Did something happen?

• (Forensics, Choi Ah-cheong) Not exactly. But after I came back from the autopsy room yesterday, the salt turned black. (Photo) (Photo)

  The number next to the photos quickly dropped. That meant the team was all opening them rapidly.

  Geungsik looked too.

  It was clearly the salt pack, sealed in an evidence bag.

  It was the salt given by the Chief Inspector at Mapo precinct that day. At first glance, it had been just a grocery-store pack of regular salt, so he’d taken it for form’s sake and passed it on to whoever wanted it.

  Now, though, the salt was pitch black, like ash or dye had been mixed in.

• (Video Kim Geungsik) Did you run an analysis?

• (Forensics, Choi Ah-cheong) I did, but nothing came up. Normally, salt darkens if it contains sulfur, like baked bamboo salt, reacting with silver to form silver sulfide. But that wasn’t the case. I thought maybe residual organic material from pesticides could’ve caused it when heated, but composition-wise, it’s just normal salt. Isn’t there really something about this?

• (Video Kim Geungsik) Something about what?

  “Uh…”

  The youngest staff member, Assistant Manager Nam, who sat beside him, stifled a small groan and shuddered. He then turned his head toward Assistant Manager Kim.

  “What?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  Even Kim himself couldn’t help but feel unsettled after seeing the blackened salt in the photo. But he refused to believe it truly indicated anything sinister.

  In this world, there were dungeons crawling with zombies, ghouls, skeletons, and tower zones teeming with yokai.

  It wasn’t strange that ghosts like wraiths or specters could show up too. But when it was brought into the domain of shamanism, it just… felt wrong.

  It wasn’t divine power endorsed by the System. And the so-called shaman hadn’t shown any proven Ability either—it left a sour taste in his mouth.

• (Video Kim Geungsik) If you try spraying it with a divine-power potion once—

  “Would that even work?”

  “Exactly.”

  Startled by the face reflected in the monitor, Assistant Manager Kim shot up in his chair—but a strong hand bore down on his shoulder. When he turned his head, he saw a face he wasn’t happy to see.

  If only his own superior had returned—it would have been preferable. A meddling from the Team 2 leader was the worst.

  “Looks like Team 1’s got plenty of free time these days, huh?”

  Grinning wide, showing his teeth, the Team 2 leader asked.

  Everyone in the office, spread out by team, knew it wasn’t a joke tossed out to lighten the mood.

  ‘If we’re sharing one office, shouldn’t they at least divide it up by team? I pay taxes too. Where the hell does the tax money go?’

  Assistant Manager Kim tried to shake off the hand that had latched onto his shoulder, but why would the Team 2 leader, who had seized a chance to pick a fight, let go so easily?

  Frowning, Kim opened his mouth.

  “This is our team’s conference chat.”

  Peeking over someone else’s monitor, which was secured with information-protective blockers, was already terrible enough. Using it as a pretext to pick a fight was worse. The Team 2 leader chuckled.

  “I know, brat. But what can I expect, with cocky little punks under that arrogant leader of yours? You guys sure act all stuck up.”

  The Team 2 leader openly scanned the monitor with his eyes.

  “So it’s true, huh? You called in a fake shaman and put on a show? Trying to keep it under wraps, too?”

  Kim wanted nothing more than to just squeeze his eyes shut.

  Pretending otherwise, everyone sitting across the room had their ears perked up.

  “God, what a waste of taxpayer funding. You guys sure know how to do proper work. If you needed help that desperately, you could’ve borrowed my team’s power instead. A shaman? What bullshit.”

  The jab was directed at their team, which had a psychometry user. Assistant Manager Kim let out a sigh.

  Truth be told, whatever psychometry could pick up, even modern mana-sensitive scanners could measure and extrapolate.

  That’s why that person had been reassigned—not placed in Team 1, which worked crime scenes, but in Team 2, which oversaw dungeons and tower management. Out there, scanner readings were prone to contamination, so it was better to have a human in the loop.

  Every single person in this office knew that. What nonsense was this guy spewing? Kim almost wanted to ask it out loud.

  “What’s with your eyes? Why you looking at me like that?”

  Now even opening his eyes was grounds for a quarrel.

  “Think you can ignore your superior after dragging in a fraud? That’s how you act?”

  Suppressing his fury and swallowing his rage-filled breath, Assistant Manager Kim was about to snap back when a gloved hand suddenly clamped on the Team 2 leader’s wrist and wrenched it in an instant.

  “It isn’t Assistant Manager Kim ignoring you. It’s you, Team Leader Shin Heung-gyun, who’s ignoring his authority.”

  “You’re here, sir?”

  The Deputy Manager of Team 1 was the first to greet the new arrival—Cheongmun.

  “Hey! What the hell—”

  Cheongmun casually let go of the Team 2 leader’s wrist.

  “Why don’t you get back to your own seat, Team Leader Shin? If you’re going to keep wasting time on nonsense instead of working—”

  Black currents flared faintly from Cheongmun’s palm.

  “—why don’t you have the remaining conversation with me instead.”

  His calm, level tone sucked the sound out of the office.

  The Team 2 leader flinched.

  “Fuck…”

  Better than anyone, he knew what Cheongmun could do with his skills.

  Reluctantly, the Team 2 leader headed back toward his seat. Cheongmun twirled the tablet in his hand once and sat down at his own desk.

  The moment he did, Team 1 members scrambled to their keyboards, spilling words into the chat.

• (Deputy Team Leader) What did the Director call you in for?

• (Team Leader) To review the stats report for presentation at the Cabinet Meeting. Seems a lot happened while I was gone?

  Cheongmun scrolled through the chat, reading the exchanges in sequence, until he froze.

  He hadn’t heard anything about salt turning pitch black.

  Clicking the picture open, he tapped the desk rhythmically with his finger.

  So, while he had been off suffering through an empty, useless meeting, new information had surfaced.

  He activated the skill he had been holding back from using.

『Tracking the marked target’s location.

▽ Yoon Wonhyo (Current Location – Ahyeon-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul)

Condition of the target is deteriorating. Use caution for safety.』

He re-read Wonhyo’s location, but it wasn’t Cheongunhyoja-dong, where the shrine had been.

“Here…?”

“Is there an issue, sir?”

“No.”

He waved off the deputy’s concern and sifted quickly through the papers on his desk to pinpoint exactly where Wonhyo had gone.

It was the crime scene.

Why had he gone there?

They had all agreed the miasma lingering at the site would take at least a week to settle. Had something happened?

And that status window note about his condition worsening weighed heavily on his mind.