Chapter 117

The woman was the type who did not sleep much at night.

Even when all the rookies who had received their first day of training at Collector had come in and fallen asleep, the woman could not drift off.

For the past few years, anxiety that she might fall behind had often kept her awake at night.

The insomnia that came from it had tormented her terribly.

There was no helping it.

"... At a time like this, I should be studying even one more thing..."

She had no ambition to speak of, but she did have desperation born from circumstances that were far from good.

She did not want to become someone great or receive attention, but she was one of those people who longed for something called "ordinary happiness."

"I've memorized all the handouts Collector gave us."

The woman came from the carnation children, and had grown up working under a Hunter from an illegal guild.

For her, who had always been watching for a chance to step into the light, the hand Collector Bi Sabeol extended this time was the opportunity of a lifetime.

"I'm not the only rookie, and most of all, I'm the lowest among my C-class peers... I don't even know if I'll be hired or not."

"I can't just let this chance to be protected by one of South Korea's top three guilds pass me by."

The place the woman was currently in was Collector's dormitory.

"... The company itself definitely runs twenty-four hours a day..."

The woman gathered up her clothes and headed to Collector.

It was a little past 4 a.m.

At the sight of the woman visiting at an hour when few employees were working, the security guard at the entrance widened his eyes.

As the man in charge of the entrance, he knew the faces of every employee.

That did not change even for rookies.

"You're one of the new people this time, aren't you?"

"Ah, yes, yes. That's right."

"I heard you were assigned to the gallery. Do you already have work?"

"Um... I don't know if this is allowed, but I wanted to try getting used to it..."

"So you don't have any separate work."

"... Is that not allowed?"

"Everything that happens afterward is your own responsibility, so there is no reason it would not be allowed."

When the guard pointed to the access gate, the woman hurriedly scanned her employee ID.

After safely entering, the woman bowed her head to the guard.

"Um, thank you."

"You're an employee coming in to work. What is there to thank me for?"

Perhaps he was quite sociable, because the friendly-looking guard naturally struck up a conversation.

"If you're going to the gallery, it would be best not to go below the first basement floor."

"There should still be about two people working in the first-floor gallery, so if there is anything you don't know, ask them."

"Would that be all right? I'm worried I might be bothering them..."

"They are people who come to hold their posts as a duty at a time when they are sleepy anyway."

"If someone to talk to appears, they will probably like it more."

"They are on a sort of night watch."

"... Thank you for telling me."

"Since you're working this hard, I hope to see you as a regular employee as soon as possible."

"I know you're in a hurry, but take the elevator with a little leeway."

"..."

The woman gave a small bow and went deep into the building.

'Even though it's dawn, the lights are so bright.'

Perhaps it was for the employees working the night shift, but there was nowhere the lights were off.

Even so, the silence with not a single person in sight suddenly sent a chill through her, but the woman stubbornly headed for the gallery elevator.

The sound of her shoes walking down the corridor seemed especially loud.

The elevator Curator Yu Seongun had told them about during the day could only be reached by taking a fairly complicated route.

"..."

After even completing identity verification with her employee ID, the woman pressed the gold button.

Perhaps no one had left work, because the elevator doors opened only after quite some time had passed.

"... Ah, the entry log."

The paper log hanging on the elevator wall caught her eye.

"I think he told us to make it a habit."

Would that apply to her, even though she was not a regular employee?

"Hmm..."

After hesitating for a moment, the woman wrote her name in the log.

As a non-combat-type Hunter, the woman did not have the ability to bring special items out of dungeons, and because she had been born a pauper and grown up in an illegal guild without receiving any education, her administrative ability was poor as well.

'But they said the most important thing in the Collector's gallery is affection for the works.'

'They said they won't assign me a work beyond my abilities, so if all I need is to put my heart and sincerity into it, then I should be able to do well in this gallery too.'

With the wish that, if possible, she wanted to remain in the position she had been assigned, the woman wrote the letters neatly.

"Destination... basement, first floor..."

After briefly stating her purpose, the woman put the gold fountain pen back in its original place.

"... If they don't tie something like this down, won't someone steal it?"

Then again, this was not just anywhere, but one of South Korea's top three guilds.

It seemed difficult to do something that brazen.

The elevator was a harmonious blend of ivory and gold.

Before pressing the button, the woman unconsciously took in its elegance.

The bright elevator, managed so cleanly that there was not a speck of dust, had something antique about it.

'... Now that I think about it, it's strange for an elevator in a big company like this to have metal buttons.'

'The paper log too.'

'Is this a design meant to bring out the gallery's classical image?'

Just then, the woman suddenly felt a chill.

"..."

The atmosphere was far stranger than when she had seen it during the day.

"... Maybe it's because I'm riding alone, but it really is scary..."

When there had been many people, it had been a little cramped, but it had not been frightening.

This was Collector's gallery, said to exhibit the strangest and most dangerous works in the world.

If she finished the training period and was selected as a regular employee, she would have to ride alone from then on, so she had to get used to this eerie feeling in advance.

'Right, if I get assigned my work, I'll have to build a proper relationship with it.'

'If I get scared starting from the elevator like this, what am I going to do later?'

With that resolve, she was about to press the elevator button.

"..."

The woman tilted her head.

"... The buttons...?"

All of them were set to the fourth floor.

"... W-What is this? This shouldn't be happening, should it?"

At that moment, the woman remembered the Collector handout she had thought she had fully memorized back at the dormitory.

More precisely, she remembered the sentence written under precautions to follow when using the gallery.

"Ah."

It had said to avoid using the elevator to the gallery at 4:44 a.m. if possible.

There was a work on the fourth floor of the gallery that played pranks using numbers considered especially ominous in the East.

It had said the work liked the number four so much that even if they moved it to another floor, it kept appearing on the fourth floor.

"Um, exactly what kind of work was it again..."

She remembered what the guard had said earlier, to "take the elevator with some leeway."

She had thought it was simply a well-wishing remark telling her to keep her mind at ease, but now that she knew there had been a reason like this, she felt utterly pathetic for not remembering sooner.

'Then he should have stopped me...!'

For a moment, resentment like that rose in her, but she was none other than a Grade 5 citizen.

In a world where even Grade 1 citizens died for no reason, there would be no one to feel sorry if someone like her died.

'But if I cause some accident and something goes wrong with the works, isn't that an even bigger problem?'

'No, instead of thinking like this, I need to remember the way to deal with it.'

But perhaps because she was too nervous, she could not think properly.

"They said it was... a work shaped like elevator buttons..."

FLICKER...

The light flickered.

"..."

FLICKER, FLICKER.

The speed of the flickering gradually grew faster.

"... Uh..."

What was this?

'What should I do?'

The woman panicked, unable even to lean against the wall as she faltered.

It was true that she had memorized all the handouts the company had distributed, but once she was put in an urgent situation, it became difficult to pull out the right information.

The explanation of this work felt like it belonged to that work, and this seemed like that, and that seemed like this...

"Ugh..."

Why did she always do stupid things at important moments?

"There, there was definitely... a device in the elevator... to request help..."

CREEEAK.

With an ominous sound, the elevator rattled.

It slid downward in a rush, and the elevator doors repeatedly closed and opened.

With the pounding, the inside and outside of her body were noisy at the same time.

The situation was so clamorous that she felt a surge of emotion, so chaotic that there was nothing she could do.

"Please, just..."

The frustration made it hard to breathe.

This elevator had an emergency rescue button in case of unforeseen situations.

Curator Yu Seongun, who had been in charge of training during the day, had said that if they pressed it, the rescue team on standby would come and help.

"..."

A creaking sound.

In the elevator, which sent out strange vibrations as if it might fall at any moment, she had just reached out to press the button, wishing for rescue.

But she stopped just before touching it.

"..."

It was not a monster's trick.

"... I, I..."

It was because of the woman's own selfishness.

"Am I going to get fired?"

It was entirely possible.

She had crawled into a dangerous place when it was not even a scheduled time and bothered the dawn guards.

She had done something that was clearly written not to do, causing an accident that did not need to happen.

Had she created some problem with this expensive-looking elevator?

'Besides, I'm a C-class Hunter.'

A C-class Hunter, said to be common in this day and age.

Most of her peers were higher rank than her, and the peer at the same rank had a sturdy body that clearly seemed to belong to a combat type.

'I have the worst conditions.'

And yet if she caused an accident like this and bothered people again...

"..."

She could not cause an even bigger accident.

The very moment the woman reached toward the button.

"... Huh?"

FLICKER...

The ominously flickering light returned.

"Uh, uh...?"

She had not pressed the button yet.

She did not know why, but in the suddenly lighter air, as if she had returned from a ghost story to reality, the woman unconsciously checked the elevator buttons.

The five buttons that had all been the fourth floor were also back in order, from the first floor to the fifth.

And when she checked the floor where the elevator had stopped.

"... Fifth floor?"

DING.

The elevator doors opened.

"... Ah? Fifth floor? No, w-wait...!!"

Startled by the thought that she had crawled into the worst den of monsters while still unable to pull herself together, the woman fell backward with a crash.

Before she even had time to groan at the sharp pain, the elevator doors opened completely, and a long silhouette was revealed beyond them.

"..."

"..."

A blond man wearing a Black Cloak.

"Hello."

It was "Seo Jio," wearing the form of Giovanni.

"... You're saying it was... like an initiation ceremony?"

"To be precise, I suppose it has the feel of an annual event."

At the woman's hollow question, the blond man nodded.

"It is a work that only scares people without causing any real harm, but I hear rookie Curators who have not properly memorized the rules get caught by it every so often."

"Ah..."

"Because it can teach them, in a fairly safe way, that not ingraining the manual into their bodies can truly be dangerous, it seems no one actively gives advice about it."

At those words, the woman thought of the guard at the entrance.

"Now that you mention it, he only told me to 'take the elevator with some leeway.'"

"I thought he meant I should relax, ugh... So that was what he meant."

In any case, she was glad it had not been truly dangerous.

"When I heard it was a fourth-floor work, I thought I'd caused an accident I couldn't handle."

"Because it is not a very dangerous work, they tried several times to move it to the first floor, but it liked the number four so much that it kept returning to that spot, so in the end it became a fourth-floor work."

"... I was too out of my mind to think that far..."

In a gallery with only five basement floors total, it had been described as a work they had tried to move somewhere other than the fourth floor.

The probability was higher that they had tried to move it to a floor above it rather than the fifth floor.

"I still can't remember. What was the method for dealing with it?"

"If someone outside the elevator calls the elevator from the outside, the anomaly stops."

"... So I only had to press the rescue button or hold out until morning?"

"It really wasn't dangerous at all."

"You do not need to blame yourself."

"Though it may be a prank, it is clearly a phenomenon that causes severe mental exhaustion, so if you had remained there until morning, you might have developed trauma."

"Thank you for comforting me..."

The woman let out a small breath.

"Actually, I... thought you were one of the anomalies too at first, Mr. Seo Jio."

The first thing he had said had been an out-of-the-blue greeting.

Looking at someone who had broken out in a cold sweat and was sprawled disgracefully on the floor, that calm "Hello."

That indifferent consideration, as if he had run into a neighbor and exchanged morning greetings, had felt so bizarre even when she was too flustered to think straight.

It was similar to monsters that did not care what happened to humans.

'... I can't say such a rude impression to his face, though...'

The woman wiped away the traces of cold sweat.

"Right after that, you introduced yourself... and asked for my name too, so I thought I had really been caught by a proper work."

"I wondered if I was being forced into some horrible, wicked contract."

"This is embarrassing."

"You seemed very startled, so I meant to ease your tension through a greeting and introduction, but it seems that instead frightened you."

"It is a little late, but I apologize."

After saying so, Seo Jio bowed his head very politely.

Even though his words and actions lowered himself, he looked refined, like someone from a very high place, and the woman blushed.

It was treatment far beyond what she deserved.

"You, you don't have to say that much."

"If anything, I'm the one who received help."

She had only been a little startled.

The atmosphere had been so heavy, and his way of speaking so strangely stiff, that the woman's mind must have been confused after just experiencing the work's prank.

"You really are polite, Mr. Seo Jio."

"I have always wanted to be a polite person."

The person wearing the Black Cloak smiled.

"Those words make me happy."

"..."

"You are a courteous and good person."

"... Ah, um..."

"Thank you for affirming me."

There was no lie in those words.

"..."

He was a good person.

His warm blond hair, as if it held sunlight, fell softly.

The smile on his neat, porcelain-like face was gentle.

As if they held the sea on a spring day, those mysterious eyes were beautiful.

Everything about him was made of goodwill.

'... He really is a warm and kind person, so why...'

... Why was he so terrifying?