Right now.
What just happened?
“……”
In the silence, I was staring at the “someone” who had appeared behind me.
A black suit with an animal mask.
The moment I saw that distinctive outfit, I understood the affiliation. After all, I was wearing the same style myself.
‘A Baekilmong Co., Ltd. Field Operations Team employee.’
But the moment I glanced down at my own appearance—
I felt a subtle difference.
The way his hair was styled.
The way the suit was tailored.
The vague but unmistakable impression that he was somehow different from “now.”
That older style.
[Oh my, it’s a different era.]
That was right.
The employee standing before me was clearly not a person from the 2020s.
He was someone from decades earlier.
That… distinctive wolf mask.
“……”
From the Darkness Exploration Record, I knew exactly which famous figure from the past matched that appearance.
‘…The leader of Elite Team B.’
J3.
The security captain’s past.
A moment from the past that I had only glimpsed for an instant while under the effect of Nostalgia Candy now stood before me as an entity with vivid continuity.
Frozen stiff, I faced it.
And then….
“So you won’t answer. Shall I just call you Employee Dragon?”
“…!”
At those words, reality struck me in the head again.
Wait.
‘What about the others?’
Reflexively, I looked toward the opposite passage in the library where the others had been, but there was no one there.
Only the quiet corridor of bookshelves stretched on in unsettling fashion.
‘…!’
I lost them.
A chilling premonition rose in me.
And now, in this space, the only sign of another human presence was the man in the wolf mask right in front of me.
“……”
There was only one conclusion to draw.
‘A paranormal phenomenon.’
That the man in the wolf mask too was a strange…