For a moment, I wondered if I was still trapped in one of Nameless Religion’s Ghost Stories.
But with my head fully awake, I judged the situation accurately.
‘This is different.’
The Assistant Manager Eun Haje in front of me was no longer the neat office-worker superior in a suit from my memories.
If anything, she looked like a detective who’d been on stakeout duty for three days… no, like a reporter.
That snapped my sense of reality sharply back into place.
‘What kind of situation is this?’
I got completely out of bed at once.
“Assistant Manager.”
“Yeah.”
Assistant Manager Eun Haje nodded.
“First, sorry for barging into someone else’s house all of a sudden. I’m not supposed to be seen right now, but there was something I absolutely had to tell you.”
The person who had vanished for two months and then suddenly appeared in my room like a burglar continued speaking while flicking glances out the window as if keeping watch.
As though someone might be tracking her.
“…What do you mean, you’re not supposed to be seen?”
“There’s something going on. For now, just listen to me first.”
Assistant Manager Eun Haje spoke vaguely, as if skirting the issue, then took a breath.
“The day after tomorrow. That is, when you go to work on January 2, a Darkness will be assigned to you. …On the surface, it’ll sound ordinary. It’s C-grade, the manual is complete, other people are going besides you. But….”
But.
“Don’t go in there.”
“……”
“No…