Ji Hayeon’s lips moved. They twitched like he was about to speak, then a small sigh slipped out instead. With his long, thin fingers, he turned the tablet PC so it faced him. Then, instead of answering, he changed the subject.“I tried sorting the data around fissures with low wave output.”Sawon adjusted to the shift in topic without effort. He took another sip of milk and tilted his head, signaling him to go on.“I filtered out only the lower ten percent of wave values. They ran from 39 dpion to 2004 dpion.”Sawon nodded half-heartedly.“The variance is big, and more than anything, there was never a time the value was zero. Still, if we really have to look for a common point.”When Ji swept his hand through the air, the documents gathered to one side and merged into one. At another flick of his long fingers, a few images slid out from the cluster and spread open in Sawon’s view.“For black spheres under 100 dpion, even after we sealed and eliminated them, residual waves remained. There were quite a few cases where the output actually peaked two or three days after the black sphere appeared.”“Hm……”The waves emitted by a black sphere were like human fingerprints. When you decoded them, the information they contained differed from sphere to sphere. Sawon leaned back against his chair.“Then that means the mutated fissure from that time could only start showing detectable waves now, two or three days later?”“We can’t completely rule that out.”After a moment of thought, Sawon tossed back the rest of his milk in one go and jumped up from his seat.“Let’s go.”Ji Hayeon closed the hologram files and stood to follow him. Even as he changed clothes and got ready to go out, Sawon was still mulling over what to feed Ji for breakfast.***Only after he dragged Ji out and actually got breakfast into him did they arrive at the burger place. A police line had been set up around the shop. The outside, which had not been all that badly damaged, was somewhat cleaned up, but the inside remained exactly as it had been on the day of the incident. Sawon was just showing his ID to a safety officer when it happened.“Oh? Gu Sawon?”Seo Hansu, standing inside the line, called out to him. Sawon gave a brief nod to the officer stepping aside and ducked under the yellow tape. Ji followed behind.“What brings you here. Why’d you come? Cleanup should be Post-Response Unit’s job, right?”“I came to check. To supervise whether they’re doing it right.”“What are you even saying, you lunatic.”“Then what are you doing here? Rescue Team has that much free time lately?”“It’s not like Rescue Team just became the punching bag yesterday. Mok Geonho’s getting dragged all over the place too.”If Mok Geonho was getting dragged around, it was almost certainly related to the Institute. He had gone in with them on the infiltration. Seo Hansu grumbled.“At this point they should just increase the number of hunters.”At the offhand complaint, Sawon remembered Director Kwon’s words.“Recently, the number of Awakened has been dropping. We’re doing our best to keep the stats from leaking, but at this rate, the hunter population will shrink exponentially. The gaps will multiply accordingly.”Sawon stared into the chaotic interior of the burger place. Fewer Awakened, more hunter deaths, and now a newly emerged mutated fissure. It felt like every anomaly was straining with all its might toward the end of this land. While he brooded, Seo Hansu stepped in close beside him and jerked his chin toward Ji.“I heard from Mok Geonho you got demoted to guard duty. That the guy?”Seo watched Ji Hayeon heading toward the back of the shop.“Demoted, my ass. Say it right. It’s a high-level assignment.”“Right, because giving a tier-1 hunter work fit for tier 3 is so high-level. Did you cause more trouble I haven’t heard about yet? Is this discipline? How do you manage to screw up every other day. You still work the field when you are on guard, right?”The questions poured out. The real reason he had to act as Ji’s guard was known only to Director Kwon and the staff from the forty-third floor of the Institute. Having that unspoken situation be misunderstood however people pleased annoyed him, so Sawon punched Hansu lightly in the chest.“Get lost. Don’t you have work?”Each time he tapped him—thunk, thunk—Seo Hansu hammed it up with exaggerated groans. When he still did not move, Sawon gradually added force until Hansu stumbled back. Then Sawon went straight over to Ji. He was prowling around with a Metena detector in hand.“Don’t wander alone. It’s dangerous.”“The black sphere’s gone. What’s supposed to be dangerous.”“You never know. It could pop up again like last time and hurt our fragile Chief.”At the words “fragile Chief,” Ji shot him a razor-edged look. Sawon made an okay sign with his hand like he’d gotten the message, and Ji turned away again. The prim way his eyes flicked upward struck Sawon as strangely cute. If it had been Nine, he would have reached out and ruffled his hair……'No. What the hell are you thinking.'Sawon caught himself and his face went stiff. First meetings really were important. Apparently his first encounter with Ji had stuck much deeper than he’d realized. He scrubbed his forehead with his rough palm.This was all because Ji reminded him of Nine.Just as Sawon shifted the blame inside his head—“……Kkii.”Nine poked his face out with an icy expression. The monkey head that emerged from one arm guard slowly rose and the body followed. One side of the guard fully transformed into a baby gibbon. With a prim little look that seemed to say, Why are you blaming me when I was just sitting here, Nine hopped up onto the edge of a fallen table. Even that overlapped with the image of Ji.“There are a lot of people around. You can’t just walk all over.”Sawon scolded Nine for no reason and went over to Ji. Ji was focused on the Metena detector. A quick peek at the readout showed a value of 0. Ji looked back at him and spoke.“Still nothing.”“What about leaving it a few more days? It could show up later.”“I already talked to the Director about that. Told him it’d be better to leave this shop and the surrounding area as is. Asked him to look into compensation.”Ji let his arm with the detector drop and turned.“That seat we # Nоvеlight # were sitting at was over there, right?”He approached the broken table and pointed. Sawon bent at the waist to examine the empty air where the black sphere had opened.“They cut it out clean.”“They say elimination went smoothly, probably because response was fast. In our current situation, though, I almost wish there were some traces left……”Just as Ji reached out toward a single point in the air, as if the black sphere were still there, Nine suddenly jumped at him and shoved his upper body aside. Off guard, Ji’s body toppled sideways.“Ugh!”His pale hand reached out to grab something, but there was nothing in that empty space.Crash!Ji went down hard. But he hadn’t hit the floor. He’d landed in Sawon’s arms, who had caught him just in time.“You okay?”Startled, Sawon checked him over quickly. The detector had gone flying somewhere. Ji grabbed his elbow and groaned, like he’d banged it.“Nine!”At Sawon’s shout, Nine let out a loud cry and started bounding in every direction. The one most thrown off by this was Sawon, who had never seen Nine act like that. Jumping off broken tables and walls, the creature radiated sheer panic. Sawon slowly helped Ji to his feet and called out.“Nine.”Shrill monkey cries echoed, loud and angry. Seo Hansu winced and clapped his hands over his ears.“Hey, what the hell is wrong with that thing. Why’s it going crazy like that?”First he had to calm the agitated creature. Lowering his voice, Sawon reached his hand out toward Nine.“What is it. Calm down and come here.”But Nine just kept thrashing around. Sawon pressed a hand over his left chest. Strangely, whenever Nine bounced around in that panicked way, his own heart started racing too. It felt like the creature’s anxiety was transmitting straight into him. He took a deep breath and slowly rubbed his left chest. Like he was soothing Nine himself. Then he spoke quietly.“Nine. Our Nine is a good monkey, right? Come here. Hyung will hold you.”Little by little, Nine’s movements slowed. Panting hard, he finally plopped down on the chair right in front of Sawon. Sawon reached for him.“What was that. What happened. Did you see a scary bug or something? Tell hyung. Hm?”After a moment’s hesitation, Nine took his hand and slowly curled into his chest. Then he began to cry miserably. Like he was comforting a child, Sawon patted him and whispered into his ear.“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m not mad. I’m sorry. What happened. What scared you so much. Hm?”“Kkiing!”Clicking his tongue, Seo Hansu stared at the two of them like he could not believe what he was seeing.“What a mess. It was already a shitshow, but this is next-level.”From Nine’s rampage, all the decorations that had been barely hanging on had fallen, and the tables that had been leaning precariously were now tipped over. As soon as he was sure Nine had calmed down, Sawon went back to Ji.“Looked like you hit your elbow. You okay?”Ji’s arm was trembling slightly. With Nine tucked under one arm, Sawon stepped in close at his side.“Are you hurt?”But Ji just stood there, staring at the empty air.

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