Chapter 58

After the Gyeongbu Line restoration plan fully kicked off, the Special Unit spent days busier than ever.

They coordinated opinions with the guilds and the Magic Tower, devised measures to prevent a security vacuum in Seoul, and even transported massive amounts of materials needed to build the railway.

Two things changed the most.

One was that mission quotas increased—and some of those had to be carried out outside Seoul, no exceptions.

The other was the smartwatch notifications that went off at all hours.

Notices that used to ring only when the Bureau was truly in a pinch had been going up constantly lately.

It was a change that came with Seona’s return.

Maybe it was just me, but something about the new UI and copy felt weirdly worn-out and dated.

Before I even finished reading, another alert chimed.

Just like last week, the comment section was empty, but I could feel the agony of every agent reading the notice along with me.

The alerts kept popping up like noise, but we couldn’t mute them in case they interfered with dispatch.

And complaining directly was out of the question—since the Commander-in-Chief seemed to be enjoying this, no one dared step forward.

Someone would eventually snap and say something.

It had already been a while since we all kept passing that bomb to someone else.

Meanwhile, the Special Unit’s area of operations kept spreading wider.

On the front line, they were slowly heading south along the tracks under a somewhat systematic plan, so there hadn’t been any major accidents yet.

Separate from construction demand, it was still difficult to build a complete transportation infrastructure.

Naturally, more people were dispatched out of town for long stretches.

Same with my circle.

“Hayan, I won’t be back for a week, so please take good care of my younger sister.”

“She’s MY younger sister. Have a safe trip, brother.”

“Last night, while Hayan was sleeping, she called me orabeoni.¹ At this point, aren’t we practically blood family?”

“No! That would never happen even if the world collapsed! Mala-nim only has eyes for me!”

“It already collapsed, though.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, I’m counting on you, brother.”

Once even my roommate Alexei left with his packed bags, the dorm got pretty quiet.

In Division 3, which had relatively more fieldwork, there weren’t many agents left who hadn’t gone outside Seoul.

I was one of the few, too—but not because I was slacking off like usual.

I might have skipped training, but I worked harder than anyone on missions. The reason I didn’t follow Alexei was simply because Cheon So-baek asked me to stay.

“Yaaawn, you’re here?”

“Did you pull another all-nighter?”

“Before we go into full mass production, there’s one more function I want to add. How’s your end?”

“If you mean the tentacle summoning array I set up yesterday, it was running stably.”

In a Red Tower lab, Cheon So-baek was attaching something to a turret with a huge tentacle mounted under its chassis.

Using my old lab access, I had refurbished an abandoned Magical Siege Turret into this.

Honestly, I half built it as a joke, so I didn’t expect it to be a big help to the Gyeongbu Line restoration.

The turret’s weakness had always been how its size and weight severely limited mobility.

Outside Seoul, where roads weren’t properly paved, deploying it came with huge headaches.

Maybe it could work at the Sea of Decay where the shoreline of the dead was fixed—but moving positions every time was a real problem.

Once we attached tentacles underneath, the turret could move on its own, pushing into rugged terrain and even dangerous areas with small monsters.

“What function are you adding?”

“Communications outside Seoul still don’t work, right? I’m going to attach a relay module to the turrets we deploy along the Gyeongbu Line. The end goal is to build a comms network all the way to Busan.”

“Hmmm…”

“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”

“Is this okay? To make something like this.”

“I don’t care. Commander Ha Yeri knew you were from the Black Tower and brought you in anyway, didn’t she?”

“That’s true.”

Even Ha Yeri, who followed regulations to the letter, couldn’t punish me this time for entering the lab without senior authorization, not after seeing the results of my research.

After focusing on the work for a while, she suddenly spoke up.

“Must be nice, getting officially recognized for holding dual posts.”

“Endowed professorships don’t even pay a salary.”

“They do give you research funds, though?”

That money was strictly for research purposes—personal use was prohibited, and every year it underwent a formal audit.

You couldn’t even use it to buy a snack without filing a spending request, let alone add it to the Prayer House construction budget.

“To receive payment from the Tower, professors have to open a lecture, no exceptions.”

“Oh, can I try doing that once?”

“You’re joking… right?”

Cheon So-baek finally looked up.

Her half-lidded eyes looked dazed from several nights of no sleep.

She climbed down from the turret and walked toward me, then flopped onto the couch like a butterfly landing by a riverbank, mumbling.

“If you need money, just tell me.”

“I was confident I could do well even without money, though…”

“Do what, exactly? You gonna teach Black Magic here at the Red Tower? Stop talking and just massage my scalp already. I can’t think straight from all this lack of sleep.”

Lately, she had been asking for scalp massages like this—far too naturally.

Maybe it was because my fine tentacle strands did such a good job scratching her head?

Still, Cheon So-baek wasn’t my superior, nor could she boss me around like Ha Yeri could.

Besides, after going through the Sea of Decay and the Tower of Proof, both my body and mind had matured greatly.

This time, she would see firsthand how much the gap between us had closed.

“I’ll deposit an extra hundred million won into our date account.”

“Would you like a shoulder massage too?”

…Guess the gap hadn’t closed at all.

Feeling the near-infinite distance between us, I decided to repay her generosity—with the best massage I could give.

Using the 97th Tentacle, the Tentacle of Massage.

When I gently pulled down her robe, her shoulders—hidden like golden wheat under a red sunset—came into view.

It felt a little too defenseless.

That was exactly why I needed to stay focused.

Unlike Yoo Se-byeol, she didn’t have a Star Scar, so there was no way a fallen Apostle of an Outer God like me would ever be tempted.

And really, a hundred million won was just a number unless it was actually in my hands, wasn’t it?

Besides, that so-called “date account” was more of a setup for bank robbers than a real thing—and if I remembered the news right, the term referred to a savings account meant for couples planning a future together, which sometimes even turned into funds for childcare or a housing deposit for newlyweds…

No, I couldn’t trust everything I heard on TV these days.

Snapping myself out of the stray thoughts, I focused on massaging her properly.

“Ahh—hey, that’s cheating… Why are your hands so good? It doesn’t even feel like you’ve got just ten fingers.”

“Well, that’s because I’m an exceptional mage.”

And since I was such an exceptional mage, surely I was capable of teaching as well.

So why wouldn’t they let me?

I had mountains of knowledge I wanted to pass on to Earth’s mages—like ‘How to Beat an Archduke at Word Chain’ or ‘100 Delicious Tentacle Dishes’.

As I kneaded a tense spot full of frustration, Cheon So-baek’s body trembled.

She suddenly jumped up, fixing her robe and hiding her face behind her bangs.

“Th-that’s enough! I don’t even know who’s seducing who anymore!”

“Huh? But I’m not done yet…”

“You said the summoning array was stable, right? Then go already! Any more of this and things are seriously going to get weird! I’ll call you if there’s a problem!”

And just like that, I was back in the dorm thirty minutes after reporting for work.

Because I was in charge of designing and refining the tentacle turret, I couldn’t join the monster-slaying missions outside Seoul.

Even if I had upper approval, it still felt awkward being what people might call a “legal slacker.”

Whenever I ran into returning agents, I couldn’t help feeling a little self-conscious.

More than anything, though—I was bored.

“Looks like No Yeon-hwa’s signal’s gone too. Guess she went outside Seoul. I never imagined back in the Demon Realm that being apart from everyone could feel this lonely.”

『Fear not.』

“Maybe I should put on the Patel mask and take a walk around Olympic Park? That might make everyone come back to Seoul.”

『Fear not…』

“What did you say!?”

‘Fake Madness—keeps flooding the board with lame jokes about “boosting morale.”’

『Not…』

‘Real Madness—thinking of putting on the mask and causing chaos in real life because he misses the other agents—’

That was what Mala-nim muttered with a click of the tongue after reading the rest of the line meant to “comfort” me.

I was utterly devastated.

Once upon a time, she only ever said lovely things like, “Hayan is the most precious being in the world.”

But somewhere along the line… Mala-nim had changed.

To be exact, it started after she became close with Alexei.

Ever since Alexei started lending her his smartwatch all the time, Mala-nim had clearly been spending way too much time on the Special Unit Bamboo Forest.

“This won’t do. Mala-nim, I’m banning you from using the smartwatch for now.”

『Fear not!』

“I don’t want to hear that from someone who’s been flirting with stray cats using the power you gave me—ow! Don’t bend my fingers!”

『Fear not!』

I realized recently that Mala-nim might not actually distinguish between humans and cats.

The women around me—especially Yoo Se-byeol, No Yeon-hwa, and Cheon So-baek—she always referred to as “stray cats.”

“This won’t do. You need punishment.”

『Not! Not!』

“Oh, now You want to talk things out? Too late for that. Time for you to get a proper taste of Digestion’s mood today…”

—Yeon-hwa wants Hayan oppa to go back to his old self. Until then, she won’t listen to anything he says, hmph!

Just as another WWE match between me and my god was about to begin, a bright ringing—no, the alarm tone of my recently replaced smartwatch—interrupted us.

—Yeon-hwa wants Hayan oppa to go back to his old self. Until then, she won’t…

“Hold on, Mala-nim.”

Maybe Seona had come up with another weird one-liner again?

I raised my wrist to check the screen.

That stiff, concise phrasing—anyone could tell it was written by Ha Yeri herself.

Good thing I didn’t turn off the alerts.

This time, it was the real thing.