The new recruit had been infected.
“Agent?”
Ryu Jaekwan had already experienced similar things countless times.
An agent who, with only one final step left, miscounted and stepped onto the wrong stair. An agent who endured for two days without drinking a single drop of water, only to be contaminated by rainwater that fell onto the membrane of his eye….
They simply disappeared.
Just like that.
Without context. Without warning.
Stories whose chillingness people found entertaining were commonly called Ghost Stories….
But to the people involved, it naturally felt like an ordinary tragedy.
Like now.
“Bronze.”
At that moment, his senior clapped him on the shoulder and quickly slung an arm around him.
“…!”
Then he wrote on his back with a finger.
So it would not look obvious to the rookie agent standing in front of them.
Stay calm.
“Grape! But we need to go. Your hand’s about to disappear too, isn’t it?”
“Ah….”
The rookie agent, Kim Soleum, looked down at his right arm, which had been cut off and vanished, then answered with a surprisingly bright smile.
“It’s okay! They said the Mermaid Princess would give it back. I’ll be fine!”
“…Really?”
“Yes! Look. I got these too….”
Kim Soleum lifted several items the children had handed him and showed them off as if he were proud.
In reality, they were all worn-out, shabby objects, and even through the sparkling gaze of the Dragon Palace, they were the sort of toys only children—not fully grown adults—would like.
“…Right. Just a moment.”
After leaving Kim Soleum to mingle with the children, the two stepped away briefly and exchanged hurried words.
“I don’t know what on earth he did, but the infection’s way too deep.”
Half his face was covered by tumors, and the infectious source expressed as a tail had grown far too much as well.
It was unheard of for anyone to end up like this in only three days.
Had he somehow actually gone all the way into the Dragon Palace? Or had something gone wrong while he was in contact with the children? Or maybe Kim Soleum himself had a body that was unusually vulnerable to biological disasters.
Whichever it was, there was some slight possibility a rookie could go through that—but it was hard to confirm anything right away through a rookie who already seemed mentally contaminated.
Or else….
“No way. That cat….”
“…….”
A more dangerous being had interfered in the middle.