#87: As Green Is Safely Forgotten. — Humanity has left, and I am the only one left_0.15% of what remains

The morning in Office 402 of Bureau District 3 began not with an alarm sound, but with the sensation of something damp and massive tickling Lee Han-gyeol's nostrils.

"Pffft!... Ptooey, ptooey! What is this!"

Lee Han-gyeol spat out an unidentified leaf that had gotten into his mouth and sat upright. But he had no choice but to immediately fall back again. Vines as thick as an adult's thigh were tightly wrapped around his bed—which used to be the sofa.

Han-gyeol rubbed his eyes and looked around. It was no longer the grey administrative office he used to know.

Overnight, Office 402 had transformed into a complete jungle.

The fluorescent ceiling lights were covered by giant fern leaves, turning into gentle green lighting, and a moss carpet thick enough to sink up to one's ankles was laid over the marble floor tiles. Unnamed glowing purple flowers bloomed between the server racks, emitting a clear resonance instead of the whirring noise of machines.

"...Noah? Is this for real?"

When Han-gyeol asked blankly, Noah's voice came from beyond a desk covered in vines.

"It is real, Boss. Current oxygen concentration in the office is 28%, humidity is 85%. Figures that match the Amazon rainforest precisely."

Noah was barely pulling out a mix coffee pot hanging from a vine and pouring it into a cup. A tiny sprout had grown over her pink ribbon as well.

"What's the cause?"

"According to data backtracking, it was determined to be rapid growth caused by excessive positive energy."

Noah pulled up a hologram chart. The chart plotted graphs of the events from the past few days—the Trot bus trip, the club opening, the healing ASMR recording, and the joy felt when Hana became family.

"The green organic-mechanical mutant plant that Paul raises takes emotion data as nutrient. Recently, however, the happiness index of the Office 402 crew exceeded the threshold. The plants couldn't handle that energy and exploded overnight."

Just then, with a rustling sound from the depths of the jungle—the corner, to be precise—Paul popped out. He was buried in leaves, but his expression—his optic glow—looked extremely ecstatic.

"Commander! Look! At this overwhelming vitality! My children... are finally swallowing up the cold metal of the Bureau!"

Paul was holding shears, but he seemed to have no intention of cutting anything. Rather, he was connecting his battery pack to the plant stem to inject nutrients, encouraging growth.

"Hey! Paul! I told you to keep it in moderation! At this rate, the office will burst and we'll all be crushed to death!"

Han-gyeol tried to chew gum, but threw a tantrum when the gum container wouldn't open because it was tied in vines.

"Don't worry! These plants won't attack us. They're just... hugging us tight because they like us so much!"

Before Paul's romantic nonsense could end, a batch of vines was sliced cleanly away with a sharp mechanical sound.

"This is a clear obstruction of work."

The one who appeared pushing through the bushes was the new employee, Hana. Her silver-grey short bob was neat as ever, but her state-of-the-art 2851 suit was a mess with pollen and sap. In one hand, she held a laser cutter.

"Vegetation density has exceeded 400%. My personal terminal won't boot because it's doing photosynthesis. Boss, this is not an 'error', it's a 'disaster'."

Hana's deep blue eyes shook. To a perfectionist like her, waking up to find the office turned into a jungle was no different from a total system collapse.

Just then, a red warning light flashed on the main screen in the center of the office—which was half covered in vines.

System_start

[Emergency Warning: Orbital Surveillance Satellite 'Argos' Approaching]

[Estimated Entry Time: In 30 minutes]

Instantly, the peaceful—or chaotic—air of the office froze. Noah set down the coffee cup she was drinking.

“We’re in big trouble. Argos is the ‘Eye of God’ that the Jupiter Fleet launched to monitor the surface. It’s equipped with thermal imaging detection and ultra-high-resolution optical lenses.”

“So? What happens if it sees this?”

When Han-gyeol asked, Hana answered coldly.

“Incineration. According to fleet regulations, if green space inside the Bureau exceeds 5%, it is considered ‘uncontrollable ecological contamination’. Argos will immediately fire a purification laser from satellite orbit. Not just this office, but the entire District 3 will vaporize.”

A heavy silence fell over the office. Even Butterfly the cat lowered its tail and hid behind Han-gyeol’s leg. Sensing a deathly aura, the plants also trembled and clung to one another.

“Let’s cut it down.”

Hana raised the laser cutter output as if making up her mind.

“It’s the most efficient way. 30 minutes until the satellite arrives. Mobilizing my laser cutter, Paul’s shears, and Lucas’s flamethrower, 98% can be removed. We must reset the data to survive.”

Hana approached the thickest stem without hesitation. In her systematic circuits, ‘survival’ was a value that trumped everything else. And for survival, the ‘error’—the plant—had to be deleted.

“NO!!!!”

Paul screamed and blocked Hana. He wrapped his body around the plant.

“These children… are our family! Don’t you remember them scattering pollen to welcome you yesterday, Ms. Hana? They’re also the ones who became the background in the photo! If you’re going to cut them down, dismantle me instead!”

At Paul’s shout, Hana paused. Her gaze lingered on a tiny white flower blossom hanging at the tip of a vine. Looking closely, that flower bore the exact same color as the ‘yellow name label’—the name tag—that Han-gyeol had stuck on her shoulder yesterday.

These plants had really grown… feeding on Hana’s ‘joy’.

“…However, there is no other way. If we get caught, everyone dies.”

Hana’s voice trembled slightly. She was a dispatcher from the fleet. She knew better than anyone what results breaking regulations brought.

Han-gyeol unwrapped a piece of gum and put it in his mouth. The pop sound of the gum cracking broke the silence.

“Hey, Hana. Stop.”

“Boss. This is no time to be lost in sentimentality.”

“Who’s lost in sentimentality? What I mean is… let’s hide it.”

“Hide it? This massive forest? The satellite even has X-ray vision features.”

“That’s why.”

Han-gyeol grinned. It was the gaze of a survivor who had lived through the ashes of 2198.

“If we can’t remove it physically, we just have to make it invisible. Machines are best at tricking machine eyes, aren’t they?”

Han-gyeol looked straight at Hana.

“You have fleet codes, don’t you? Can you hack that satellite?”

Hana’s eyes widened. Hack a satellite. That was not a thought a Bureau administrator would have. It was a clear act of treason. Yet the ‘Probationary Employee’ label stuck to her chest vibrated faintly. Office 402’s way—a scam play to protect ‘romance’ rather than efficiency. And above all, her own unsystematic self that didn’t want to cut down those flowers was squirming.

Hana slowly lowered the cutter. Then she sat at her desk—wrapped in vines—and began tapping the keyboard.

“…Success probability 12%. Immediate execution upon discovery. However…”

She raised her head and looked at Han-gyeol, Noah, and Paul in turn.

“It is worth a shot. Operation name will be Digital Camouflage.”

20 minutes remaining. Instead of cutting down the plants, the Office 402 crew entered major construction to make the plants look like part of the Bureau. This was the boldest scam play in Bureau history, combining physical camouflage with digital hacking.

Paul & Lucas: Physical Texture Mapping

“Lucas! Bring waste oil! We have to apply it to the children’s faces!”

“Understood! Let’s mix in metallic polish!”

Paul and Lucas mixed dark waste oil and silver paint in a bucket. Holding brushes, they ran around the office like crazy, painting every single leaf of the plants.

When dark oil was coated over the shiny green leaves, looking from afar, it resembled rusty iron plates or severed wire bundles. Gorgeous flower blossoms were covered with black plastic bags to disguise them as ‘piles of trash’.

“I’m sorry, guys… Bear with it just a bit. This is puttin’ on makeup. In a very… hip style.”

Paul brushed with tears in his eyes.

Just then, Hana, who was helping paint beside them, hesitated. A single drop of black oil had splattered onto her perfect silver-grey suit sleeve.

“……!”

Hana paused. Back when she was a fleet dispatcher, exterior contamination meant poor maintenance, which meant incompetence. Her system reflexively tried to activate a ‘cleaning protocol’.

Right then, Han-gyeol stepped up and rubbed the oil on her sleeve with his finger, spreading it even larger.

“Ah, Boss! What are you doing!”

“Hey, being clean is a crime here. If you’re the only one shiny when the satellite sees, it’ll look and say ‘Huh? Why is there a gem over there?’ It’s only safe if everyone gets dirty together here.”

Han-gyeol put black oil on his own face as well, grinning.

“This isn’t dirt, it’s camo cream. The basics for a soldier.”

Hana’s deep blue eyes looked back and forth between Han-gyeol’s soot-covered face and her own dirtied sleeve. Then she looked around. Paul, Lucas, and even elegant big sister Noah were snickering and painting plants with charcoal soot smeared on their faces.

‘It’s safe… only if everyone gets dirty.’

It was a sentence not found in the fleet’s manual. Yet it was strangely reassuring. Hana canceled the cleaning protocol. Instead, she got plenty of oil on her hands and roughly smeared it across her cheek.

“…Understood. For perfect camouflage, I too shall be ‘contaminated’.”

Holding a brush, she charged toward the plants. Her movements were no longer those of a disciplined soldier, but light, fast motions resembling a child playing in the dirt.

Caleb: Rhythm Synchronization

“If they sway in the wind, it’ll get exposed that they’re living organisms! We must match the vibration frequency with the machines!”

Caleb in the processing room calculated the swaying of the plants and adjusted the operating speed of the office’s large ventilation fan. It was a task to make the plants’ natural swaying look like mechanical vibration.

“Now the leaves swaying won’t look like natural wind, but a resonance phenomenon caused by HVAC vibration. Alright, everyone match the beat! Thump, thump, thump!”

Hana & Noah: Data Filtering

The core of this operation lay in the sky. Hana and Noah accessed the main server and began planting a fine noise filter into Argos satellite’s receiving channel.

“Sister Noah, please hack the saturation values of District 3 coordinates. Lower the ‘Green’ channel to -100, and raise the ‘Grey’ channel to +50.”

“Understood, Hana. Bypassing data transmission path. Splitting packets into 0.05 second units so Origin doesn’t notice.”

The sisters’ fingers moved so fast they were invisible. The sweat—condensation—beading on their foreheads proved that they were breaking rules for ‘family’ for the first time.

“3 minutes left! Everyone to positions!”

At Han-gyeol’s shout, everyone ran to their respective positions. All power in the office was cut off. Blackout.

[Warning. Orbital Satellite Argos, entering District 3 sky. Initiating scan.]

Beyond the reinforced ceiling glass, the cold light of an artificial satellite crossing the night sky passed over Office 402. Vrrr- vrrr- vrrr. Invisible high-frequency scan waves swept the office.

Paul hugged oil-drenched vines and lay face down, repeating ‘I am scrap metal’. Butterfly hid under Hana’s desk, holding its breath without even making static electricity with its tail. Han-gyeol lay on the sofa pretending to be a dead corpse, not moving a muscle.

Hana kept her finger over the enter key on the monitor, waiting for the 0.01 second moment when the satellite’s signal matched Office 402’s coordinates. Her breathing stopped.

“Now…… Transmit!”

Tap! Hana pressed the key. Simultaneously, fake data packets from Noah’s server were shot up toward the satellite.

[Data Jamming Successful]

[Reconstructing Image Rendering...]

Far across space, the scene of Office 402 was transmitted to satellite Argos’s monitor. Yet there was no fresh forest nor gorgeous flowers there.

Only a bleak, dry, drab grey landscape of abandoned waste storage tangled with rusty pipes and wire bundles was captured. Green was perfectly camouflaged as ‘rusty copper’, flowers as ‘oil stains’, and life as ‘industrial waste’.

[Scan Complete. No Anomalies. Contamination Rate 0%. Passed.]

A mechanical voice echoed out, and the satellite’s light moved away.

“…Is it gone?”

Han-gyeol carefully raised his head and asked. Hana leaned powerlessly against her chair back, letting out a long sigh—a fan sound.

“Yes. It passed. This place has been permanently recorded as a ‘Safe Grey Zone’ in Argos’s database.”

“WAAAAAH!”

Cheers erupted in the dark. Paul and Lucas hugged each other—and the plants. The oil-drenched plants regained vitality, shaking their leaves.

Power turned back on, and sunlight came through the window. The office was a mess. The floor was covered in oil, and the plants looked drab. Yet they rolled out a picnic mat right in the middle of that ‘junk yard’ and sat down.

The scent of mix coffee Lucas had brewed blended oddly with the oil smell.

“This… smell is a bit unique, isn’t it? Seems like ‘Hazelnut Gasoline’ scent.”

When Caleb sniffed and threw a joke, everyone burst into laughter. Hana sat with her knees up, staring blankly at her dirty hands. In the past, it would have been terrible, but now those hands felt like a medal.

“Sister, do you… think I did well today?”

When Hana asked, Noah raised her cup to offer a toast.

“Far beyond just doing well, you were a magnificent ‘accomplice’. Welcome. To this messy and safe forest.”

Clink— sound echoed as paper cups bumped together.

Chewing gum, Han-gyeol enjoyed the sunlight filtering through the grey—actually green—vines covering the ceiling.

“This is better, actually. Even if it looks like a junk yard to others, it’s a forest in our eyes.”

“Indeed. Being safely forgotten. That is the most powerful way to survive.”

The green of Bureau Office 402 did not disappear. It was simply safely forgotten inside the system’s memory. Under the shadow of that oblivion, they gained their very own garden, safer and more lush than ever.

With this, the operation of Episode 86, As Green is Safely Forgotten, ended successfully. However, that huge amount of oil slathered on for camouflage and the trash heap cosplay… no one knew yet that it would end up stimulating Origin’s ‘Recycling Protocol’.