Chapter 10
“Huh? What does that...”
Kang Ye-ra frowned and was about to demand an answer, but the tall man cut her off and threw out a question.
“Are there any more people inside the building?”
“I don't know about other floors, but there probably aren't any on the 18th. If you're asking about normal people,” Manager Kim replied.
He seemed to have relaxed a bit, judging that the two weren't crazy enough to start shooting randomly.
The slender man let out a short exclamation as if impressed.
“You came all the way down here from the 18th floor? No wonder you didn't look like hair salon customers. How did you think of coming down in that situation?”
“On the upper floors...”
Manager Kim trailed off with a dark expression.
The man who had asked the question nodded as if he understood and said,
“There's ‘that’ up there, right?”
There was no sign of panic even in this nonsensical situation.
Suspicious of that calm attitude, I approached and pressed him with a question.
“By ‘that,’ do you mean those strange people trying to bite others all of a sudden? You know what’s going on, don’t you?”
The slender man looked away, munching on the candy in his mouth.
Frustrated by the opponent who had suddenly shut his mouth, I tried to take a few more steps toward him, but the tall man blocked my path.
I jerked my head up and stared at him with a stiff face. The tall man spoke in the same blunt tone as before.
“I’m sure you have many questions, but we are not in a position to tell you anything either.”
“Then can you at least tell us why you two were going around shooting guns in the street?”
Ha Yun-seo asked, raising her hand. Her attitude was polite, perhaps because she felt intimidated by the man.
“I cannot tell you that either.”
At the man's short answer, everyone exchanged perplexed glances.
Ha Yun-seo asked with an impatient look.
“B-But you can at least save us from here, right?”
“That, we can do,” the tall man nodded.
The slender man, still with the candy in his mouth, added with a thin smile.
“That’s why we’re here, after all.”
Ha Yun-seo was overjoyed, but Kang Ye-ra still looked sour, not yet casting aside her suspicion.
Manager Kim, Deputy Head Jeong, and Lee Jeong-suk looked somewhat confused, but nonetheless seemed relieved that they could leave this place.
The tall man still looked indifferent, as if he didn't care much about their reactions. Taking a small tablet from his pocket, the man stared at the screen and asked,
“Before that, I’ll ask one thing. Does anyone here remember the time you first encountered ‘it’?”
“...It must have been around 9:30.”
Kang Ye-ra answered in a low voice, staring into the air as if retracing her memory. Her face was stiff, as if the memories of that time were resurfacing.
“Same for me. I remember it being around 9:10.”
At mine and Kang Ye-ra's words, Lee Jeong-suk also nodded. Since we were on the same floor, the time the incident occurred seemed similar.
“Here on the 2nd floor, it was almost past 10:00. I remember clearly because I was checking the clock while waiting for a reservation.”
Having finished, Ha Yun-seo spoke with wide eyes in a slightly surprised tone.
“Wait, then that means the trouble started on the 18th floor before it did here?”
The tall man didn't answer her and gestured for those of us from the 18th floor to come closer. He turned the tablet screen toward us and asked,
“Was it perhaps this person?”
A photo of a middle-aged man was displayed on the screen. Seeing that face, a short exclamation escaped my lips instinctively.
The man in the photo was the very person I had encountered in the restroom the day before.
Unlike back then, when he was only letting out groans with unfocused eyes, his face looked normal now, but since the memory was so intense, I could recognize him instantly.
When I alone nodded among the four people shaking their heads, the tall man called me closer and had me check the tablet screen once more.
The more I looked closely, the more certain I became. It was indeed the man who had attacked me in the restroom.
When I nodded again, the tall man turned off the tablet screen and asked,
“Where is this person now?”
“Since the last time I saw him was in the 18th-floor hallway, he'll still be on the 18th floor unless he went to another floor.”
I answered readily, as there was no reason to hide it.
The tall man, nodding at my words, looked at his companion and raised a finger to point upstairs.
The slender man leaning against the counter made an “OK” sign with his fingers and spoke to us with a beaming smile.
“Sorry, but I think we need to head upstairs for a bit. You'll have to wait here a little longer.”
“Excuse me?”
Ha Yun-seo let out a dissatisfied sound with a tearful face.
Regardless, the two men didn't even bat an eyelid.
While they were pulling out their guns near the door and preparing to head out again, the tall man threw out a question as if something had occurred to him.
“By any chance, is an access card or something similar required to enter the office?”
Manager Kim replied with a troubled expression.
“Our company doesn't have access cards; it's fingerprint recognition...”
Deputy Head Jeong cut into the conversation as if she suddenly remembered something.
“Ah, doesn't Yeosa-nim carry a card?”
At those words, everyone turned their heads to look at Lee Jeong-suk.
Lee Jeong-suk shook her head with a troubled expression.
“It's true that I carry a card... but I don't see it; I must have dropped it somewhere while running away yesterday.”
The two men were silent for a moment as if lost in thought.
After a while, the slender man spoke first.
“Is there anyone who wants to go upstairs with us? Someone needs to open the door, after all.”
At those words, I, Kang Ye-ra, Deputy Head Jeong, and Manager Kim looked at one another.
Naturally, everyone had a reluctant expression.
In a situation where we knew exactly what was up there, there was no way anyone would want to leave the safe hair salon and go back up to the 18th floor.
“Well, how about Intern Do goes? Actually, Intern Do is the only one who saw that person, right? You can just go to where you first saw him.”
The place where I first met him was just the restroom on the same floor. Besides, I had already explained in detail to Manager Kim and the others back in the conference room where I had met that man.
Kang Ye-ra and Deputy Head Jeong also looked at Manager Kim with perplexed expressions, seemingly thinking the same thing.
However, Manager Kim had a face that showed he didn't feel guilty at all.
“…….”
When I stared at him without answering, he acted shamelessly with a tearful face this time.
“I'm asking you a favor. Do I have to walk up to the 18th floor at my age?”
The two men standing in the doorway were only scanning the outside, as if they didn't care who went with them.
After scanning the outside for a few minutes while pressed against the glass door with bated breath, the slender man turned back to us. He asked in an urgent, prodding voice.
“The hallway is clear now; have you decided who's going?”
As expected, no one raised their hand. After merely exchanging glances as before, I finally let out a sigh and stepped forward.
I was firmly clutching my backpack, which contained the handgun, in one hand.
“...I'll go.”
The tall man gave a light nod and then swung the door open before I even had time to prepare myself mentally.
With me in the middle, the tall man took the lead and the slender man stood behind me.
The tall man headed straight for the emergency stairwell without hesitation.
A click sound of the door locking echoed from behind.
The slender man following me looked puzzled as he caught sight of the backpack in my hand. Without stopping his pace, he whispered in a low voice.
“Why are you bringing the bag? We’ll be heading back down soon. Is something precious in there?”
“…Something important is in it.”
I replied, also in a low voice, while glancing at the handgun in his hand.
I hadn't looked closely at the handgun the dead man had yesterday, but at a glance, it appeared to be the same model as the ones they were carrying.
As expected, these two clearly knew something about this situation.
Thinking that I must watch exactly what they do when they find that man on the 18th floor, I followed the tall man back into the emergency stairwell.
A sickening, bloody stench still lingered in the musty, stagnant air of the stairwell.
The slender man closed the fire door as he followed me in. The sound of the door closing behind me felt ominous for some reason.
The air inside the windowless stairwell was cool enough to make one forget that the sun was out.
Pale fluorescent light, just like the night before, spilled over the bloodstains scattered across the walls and stairs.
Taking in the eerie scene, the slender man looked up and down the stairs and gave a short whistle.
“Whoa, looks like something out of a horror movie.”
I looked at him with a look of disbelief at his nonchalance.
When our eyes met, the man feigned ignorance with an awkward expression. Then, he suddenly moved his hand in a swift motion, pointing toward the upper part of the stairs.
Following his hand, I looked up to see the tall man, who had already reached the landing, looking down at us. Still at the bottom of the stairs, the slender man and I hurried up after him.
I thought he might be quiet for a while after receiving a look from his colleague, but the slender man chattered away with questions even while busily climbing the stairs.
Not even a few seconds had passed; he seemed to find the silence awkward.
“I might need to call you urgently if something happens up there, so what’s your name? I can’t exactly just keep calling you ‘Excuse me’ (Jeogiyo[1]).”
I didn't care if he called me ‘Jeogiyo’ or ‘Yeogiyo’.
I wondered if that was really a necessary question to ask in this situation, but it wasn't a difficult one to answer.
Matching the man’s whispering, I replied briefly in a low voice.
“It’s Do Jihyeok.”
I tried my best to hide my sour expression. After all, the person across from me was holding a gun right now.
He was even someone who had smiled broadly after shooting a person dead in the middle of the street.
He certainly didn't seem to be in a sane state of mind.
Footnotes
In Korea, it is considered awkward or slightly impolite to keep addressing someone without using their name or a specific title. Jeogiyo (저기요): Literally "Over there," the standard way to say "Excuse me" to a stranger. Yeogiyo (여기요): Literally "Over here," another way to say "Excuse me," often used to call a server in a restaurant.
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