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The view of the temporary camp from the management office building, perched high on a hill, certainly had a distinct atmosphere.

The night sky, with even the starlight vanished beyond the clouds, pressed down on the camp, amplifying the darkness and stillness of the night.

Scattered streetlights within the camp cast dim, yellow pools of light, seemingly hovering in the dark and circling the ground.

These light pools illuminated the neglected, peeling paint and the small, shabby buildings, intertwining the camp’s alleyways like veins.

And within the eerie darkness of the camp, the figure of a black-clad person occasionally flashed into view.

“This is bad.”

It wasn’t particularly concerning that the residents wandering around the camp were all getting killed by those ‘ninja-like’ freaks.

“The more I search, the less I know where my juniors are hiding. And my phone’s dead too.”

The biggest problem was the inability to join up with my juniors.

Plus, ever since those ninjas appeared, the phone had gone completely lifeless.

My juniors must be waiting a lot.

The place I found myself was precisely this management office.

Was I supposed to do something here?

Or should I just kill some time?

Looking down from here, I saw countless bodies of camp residents sprawled out.

I had treated the camp residents like zombies, but seeing them now, it was clear they were not zombies at all.

The residents, who had moved blindly like zombies, surprisingly went down easily like regular humans.

Whether it was a severed carotid leading to death from blood loss or a stab to the heart.

The ninjas were clearly demonstrating that the camp residents weren’t zombies.

Outside were still unknown, murderous ninjas galore.

No matter how I looked at it, now was not the time to step out of the management office; I needed to explore further inside.

Carefully, without making a light, I stepped deeper into the management office.

Tap tap.

Holding a flashlight pointed downwards, I walked through the pitch-black corridor.

After walking numerous steps, I arrived at what seemed to be a storage room in the basement of the management office.

Shining the flashlight revealed a desolate place lined with paperwork cabinets.

Perhaps that was why the room reeked of old paper and dust.

I entered the room, opened a random drawer, and pulled out a file that showed the picture of a familiar-faced ahjussi.

The ahjussi who flaunted his acquaintance with the client.

Wasn’t he said to run a butcher shop?

The document had trivial details written down—age, residence, family relations, all that tidbit stuff.

I flipped through the name list one by one.

From the landlady of the building where the client lived to various other people, many names were jammed in the list.

Some had chased after me like zombies, and some were people who had shared chicken skewers with my junior.

But the client wasn’t there.

And something seemed off about the file of the client’s younger brother.

If this document wasn’t wrong, and this wasn’t just a simple paperwork omission…

How on earth should I interpret this situation?

Who on earth is our client, and what’s with the younger brother who was supposedly kidnapped?

*

Weird.

“Okay, let’s try this. Say it slowly, one syllable at a time, Sua!”

“Sua.”

The client was strange.

Even after telling her the name, she didn’t seem to comprehend it well.

At first, the people inside the camp confused the client’s name, but now the client had forgotten her own name?

What on earth could this mean?

I was surprised when the camp people started going wild, but in a way, it felt like the client’s words were indeed true…

But now, I couldn’t tell what was what.

On top of all this, the name had become a trivial problem.

Because the client’s height was shrinking.

I hadn’t noticed it at first, but it was now undeniable.

The client’s height had shrunk!

The oblivious Hammer Sunbae hadn’t caught on to this fact and was flailing around with his ‘preaching hammer’ that he pulled out from his bag.

“Since the situation in the camp is quite dangerous, check this out! It’s a perfect tool for both self-defense and handywork!”

“Hammer?”

He placed the ‘preaching hammer’ in the client’s hands, beaming with pride.

And the client awkwardly swung the hammer while wearing a confused expression.

“Sunbae.”

I approached Sunbae and whispered softly.

“What’s up?”

“Sunbae, doesn’t this seem strange?”

“Hmm? What’s strange?”

I quietly reached out and took hold of the hammer, observing the client swinging it around.

“Client’s height. Height! Doesn’t it seem odd?”

“Uh? Now that you mention it, it does seem a bit strange? Wasn’t the client taller than that?”

“It was around 165 cm, but now it’s fallen below 150 cm, and that’s all you have to say?”

“Wait a minute, let’s keep it down.”

Hammer Sunbae suddenly cut off with a serious expression.

Sunbae was staring at the entrance of a container.

A mysterious-looking man stood at the entrance of the container office.

He was wrapped entirely in black cloth.

*

Feeling uneasy, I found myself arriving at an empty market street.

An isolated streetlight stood alone in the deserted road, casting shadows over the market stalls.

Goods left behind without owners laid scattered across the stalls, unorganized.

I dispelled my ghosting and sat at a nearby stall, biting into an apple.

The chunk of malevolence I could sense from afar had long since vanished.

As I pondered whether to track down the uneasy feeling a bit more or just head back to the cat, black-clad men began appearing all around the market.

Smell of blood.

The men gave off an overwhelming scent of blood.

Not just any blood, but the blood of the ‘fake humans’ that had been abundant in the camp.

These black figures were now surfacing from every corner of the marketplace and were staring directly at me.

Could they possibly be looking for a fight?

“!”

But the actions of the black figures were completely out of my expectations.

They gathered around me in a circle and bowed.

I’d been sitting comfortably, but suddenly it felt awkward.

Why are they suddenly doing this?

Moreover, the firewood was absorbing an intense emotional vibe, but rather than an affinity type of emotion, it was a feeling of worship.

It was a kind of emotion I had never received before.

The kinds of emotions I typically encountered were positive ones like love and admiration.

Or negative ones such as fear and disgust, but suddenly worship?

The thought of running away from this uncomfortable situation crossed my mind, but it was 30%.

Meanwhile, the novel sensation emanating from the firewood lingered, making me think about staying just a tad longer—70%.

The feeling was so delightful that I decided to stick around.

Unlike familiarity or fear, worship felt like it tickled my heart while also giving me a sense of omnipotence.

Somehow, I felt like I was becoming more and more impressive!

Hehe.

*

With the file containing the personal information of the younger brother, for whom the client requested a search, clutched in my arms, I exited the management office.

As I rounded the hill and descended, what lay ahead was a square littered with corpses.

The ominous streetlight, drenched in blood, heightened the atmosphere of dread in the square.

What had been a decently landscaped gravel plaza had now turned into a scene soaked in blood and sprawled with bodies.

Among the numerous fallen camp residents, I occasionally spotted a black figure’s corpse as well.

It was somewhat fascinating to find these unhuman-like versions of ninja corpses.

I couldn’t afford to lose this opportunity.

The camp residents had all died from merely simple wounds, granting insight into how proficient these black figures were with cold weaponry.

Still, the thought of needing cold weapons in modern times was something I couldn’t shake off either.

Although there weren’t many black figures’ corpses, the state of the bodies was horrific.

They were stabbed with various weapons like kitchen knives, cleavers, and hooks until death.

I chose the one whose condition seemed the most decent among the corpses to begin my analysis.

As I removed the mask, a grotesque skin was revealed.

There wasn’t a single hair or eyebrow, only severe burns covering the face.

“This looks oddly like a scar made by an object.”

However, the severity of the burns didn’t seem to correspond to the extent of the injuries.

It was surprisingly natural looking to the extent that one might believe there was naturally a race that looked like this.

With burns that bad, either the skin would be stripped away, or the person would be dead—so it must be a scar crafted by an object.

I felt that these ninjas were far too quiet, and upon inspection, they had no tongues.

What the hell are these guys up to?

They burned their bodies with fire, created scars, and removed their tongues.

Etching countless unidentified tattoos over the burn scars and using unnecessary cold weapons in this day and age.

On top of that, they were a group trained to the utmost without holding back their lives.

Could this possibly be a cult of some sort?

It might make sense if it were a religious group mixed up with objects, but I couldn’t fathom why they had appeared here.

And the most baffling thing was an item that had emerged from the arms of a black figure.

A delicately wrapped, high-quality pudding.

What on earth?