It was past midnight,
and only two days remained until the arrival of the Day of Disaster.
Agent Choi and I sat beside the still-sleeping Agent Cheongdong inside the hideout, each organizing our information.
Nothing had changed from when I woke up a few days ago.
Silence hung in the air.
-The lockdown will be lifted that evening, around the Hour of the Dog (戌時)… so if you want to act before then, that morning is the limit.
There really wasn’t much time left.
So this couldn’t continue as it was.
I let out a breath and set down what I had been looking at.
“Agent.”
“……”
“What are you hiding?”
“What?”
“I know there’s something you’re not telling me. …We can’t afford to spend time like this.”
I looked at him.
“This is an extinction-class supernatural disaster. Even if we all share everything we know and enter together after planning an operation, there’s still no certainty the attempt will succeed.”
“……”
“And the method I’m trying to use to end it hasn’t been definitively proven either, so there are definitely gaps in it. So if the people entering the disaster aren’t in sync with each other, that’ll be a problem.”
“…Yeah. I know that well.”
Without taking his eyes off what he was reading, Agent Choi spoke in an even tone.
“Grape.”
“……”
“The method you’re trying is nonsense.”
…….
“Pardon?”
“I said it’s nonsense.”
Thud.
Agent Choi set the researchers’ “Potion-Making Machine Repair Log” down on the floor.
“I memorized all of it. I also heard from the researchers you hid away.”
“That….”
“But no matter how I look at it, I can’t deduce that this machine has any ability to end the Special City’s supernatural disaster.”
“……”
“You knew it too, didn’t you? Your plan isn’t just a little flawed. It’s a pure gamble.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“What…