Ji Hayeon steadied his ragged breathing. Now that Sawon was looking properly, Ji Hayeon’s clothes were ripped open and torn all over as if he had been lashed. The skin visible through the shredded fabric was likewise full of scratches. Sawon climbed down from the bed.“Let me see your arm. Did that bastard do this to you?”But before he could check under the clothes, Ji Hayeon seized both of Sawon’s cheeks. Then he scanned every part of Sawon’s face with worried eyes. After a moment, once he confirmed nothing was wrong, he let out a sigh of relief.“Good thing the drug’s still working on you…….”Ji Hayeon clenched his fists as if stung with frustration. Sawon couldn’t make sense of how he had ended up lying on the bed.“Mok Geonho. Explain. Now.”“You almost got seriously fucked up.”Yeah, I can tell that much just by looking at the situation, man…….Seo Hansu nudged the brain-type Deater with his foot.“Damn…… Now we’re getting mutations like this?”“Don’t touch it, you little shit. With a mutation we don’t know what’ll happen next. Don’t get yourself screwed—just call the Director first.”“You’re the team leader. You do it.”“You do it.”“You bastard. You’re scared you’ll get yelled at by the Director, aren’t you.”“Why would I get yelled at. I should get praised. And I didn’t bring my comm.”Then Ji Hayeon pointed at the nightstand.“Bring mine. I’ll speak with him.”Mok Geonho fetched the communicator with a sheepish look. As Sawon checked Ji Hayeon’s arm, he asked:“Chief. Explain. I got hit with this so suddenly I can’t get a grasp of anything.”***Before dawn, quiet footsteps echoed along the hall on the 90th floor of the dormitory. Two floors above where the four of them stayed on the 88th floor, there was a temporary meeting space. The four tall men walked toward the unused room.Sawon’s memory extended only up to feeding Ji Hayeon porridge and scolding Nine before soothing him. But Ji Hayeon’s account was different.“After that, you…… ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ climbed into my bed. We slept together, but you suddenly woke up at dawn saying you were going to wash up. Then you went back to your own bed. A long while later I sensed something strange, and when I looked…… that bastard was attached to your head.”“I got up to wash? I don’t remember that at all.”“You…… don’t remember?”Sawon stared into empty space, thinking hard. No matter how he probed, the only thing that came up was the scenes from the dream. Startled at the vivid flashes, he squeezed his eyes shut.“Right. I only remember making up with Nine. After that I’ve got nothing.”Then suddenly Ji Hayeon grabbed his arm with a face stripped of any playful expression.“How far? How far do you remember? You…… you remember who I am, right?”Sawon jerked his head back, startled by his reaction.Why is he so shaken.Trying to calm him down, Sawon answered in a teasing tone.“Oh…… who were you again?”“Don’t joke.”His face had no trace of a smile. Sawon looked at that expression for a moment and quickly answered in a gentle tone.“I know. The fussiest, most temperamental chief researcher in the world—Ji Hayeon—whom I serve with all my devotion.”Only then did Ji Hayeon show genuine relief.“Don’t joke like that.”“Come on. As if I’d forget you? No way.”But at Sawon’s words, Ji Hayeon’s pale face darkened even more. He bit down hard on his lip.His expression kept getting buried underground and dragged back up again with every word Sawon spoke. Sawon couldn’t keep up with how fast his emotions flipped, so he only blinked and glanced at Mok Geonho.What the hell happened for him to be reacting like this?Mok Geonho lifted his shoulders as if he understood the meaning in Sawon’s gaze.“We just felt Metena flare while we were sleeping, so we came. It was weird—there’s no reason for anyone to use that much Metena in the middle of the night. And it was a Metena signature we’d never felt before. We had our ears to the door when a big noise went off. So we busted the door down.”Sawon recalled the door that had been open. It hadn’t just been open—it had been torn off.The meeting room came into view ahead.“Hey. This thing’s already soaked.”Seo Hansu lifted a large shopping bag with a wet bottom. Inside it was the Deater corpse wrapped in a blanket.“Ugh. Smells kind of like rotten fish or something.”The four of them arrived at the meeting room door. Mok Geonho kicked Seo Hansu lightly.“Let’s go, my Hansu.”“Ah, fuck. Quit kicking me!”Creak.On his stumbling step, the rubber sole screeched against the marble. Beyond the loudly opened door were two people.“What’s so urgent that you called us at this hour?”Inside the meeting room, Director Kwon and Director Kim Inhee sat dressed far more casually than usual. Their half-awake eyes showed clear traces of being dragged out of bed.Sawon pulled out a chair some distance away.“Figured we’d let you two taste what it feels like to be hauled out of bed…….”A pale hand stopped him. Ji Hayeon glared at him. Sawon quickly corrected himself.“That’s not what I meant. It’s an emergency matter.”Sawon winked at Ji Hayeon. Ji pushed the chair back in, then guided Sawon closer to Director Kwon.At the head sat Director Kwon Myeong, and beside him Director Kim Inhee. Next to them sat Mok Geonho, Seo Hansu, Sawon, and Ji Hayeon. Seo Hansu dropped the wet shopping bag on the table with a solid thunk.“What is this?”Ji Hayeon moistened his lower lip with his red tongue.“A Deater presumed to be a mutation.”“A mutated Deater?”The first to stand was Director Kwon. He came closer to the shopping bag.Seo Hansu rose too. He held up the rolled blanket and looked around.“Can I open this? I’m opening it, okay?”The one who answered fastest was Gu Sawon.“Open it. It’s dead anyway.”Sawon could say this without doubt because he was extremely sensitive to the presence or absence of Metena. Nine, clinging in the form of protective gear, stayed silent.“You’re sure, Gu Sawon? I’m opening it?”Under the table, Mok Geonho kicked him again.“He said open it.”He must have stopped himself from adding “you little shit” because they were in front of the Director. Like unwrapping a present, the Deater corpse was revealed.Director Kim Inhee, who had risen slowly, stepped forward with a horrified expression.Though its body had been pierced by Ji Hayeon’s fingers and severed by Mok Geonho’s whip, the thing unmistakably held the shape of a brain. A mimicry of a human brain.Kim Inhee pushed up his glasses and asked:“Where did you capture this?”“In my room.”Sawon waved his hand loosely as he answered.The first one to face the creature had been Ji Hayeon. He explained everything in detail—from how it all began to the moment it was killed. Sawon added that he had been dreaming during the event. After listening quietly, Kim Inhee asked:“Hunter Gu Sawon. Did you happen to dream about anything? The memory loss might be connected to the dream.”Caught off-guard by the abrupt question, Sawon propped his elbow on the chair’s armrest.“You mean the content of the dream?”Kim Inhee nodded, and Director Kwon jerked his chin.“Gu Sawon. Tell us in detail.”How the hell am I supposed to talk about that dream.Sure, the part where he made porridge could be mentioned. But everything after that was impossible to reveal. Sawon would be embarrassed, everyone hearing it would be embarrassed, and Ji Hayeon—the person in the dream—would be even more uncomfortable.“So…… about that dream.”Sawon glanced at Ji Hayeon. Their eyes met, and almost involuntarily his gaze dropped to those slender fingers.Then naturally his eyes drifted lower, toward the center of the body beneath. It wasn’t intentional. Thinking about the dream brought it out as pure reflex.Wow. Even for me, saying that here would be…… no way.In the end, Sawon chose the route that protected everyone. He could always give more detail later, privately.“I made Chief Ji some porridge.”At the very least, Mok Geonho and Seo Hansu didn’t need to know the rest. It would only give them more ammunition to tease him with.“Porridge?”Director Kwon muttered in disbelief.“Yes. White rice porridge with seaweed flakes. I made it.”“Porridge, huh…….”Director Kim Inhee gave an inscrutable expression and pushed his glasses up with his index finger. Then he said:“We’ll figure out the correlation later. More importantly, we need to determine how this thing entered the dormitory in the first place.”Ji Hayeon tapped his nail sharply against the table.“First, we’ll move the corpse to the specimen room.”Silent until now, Sawon pressed his lips together, then popped them apart.He had been weighing the whole time whether he should share a certain piece of information with the people sitting here.I guess saying it would be better…….No matter how he looked at it, the appearance of a mutant seemed connected to the mutated fissure. And the timing and location of the current mess lined up too closely with the fissure that had appeared in front of the Central Bureau.With things unfolding like this, providing whatever information he had might make finding a solution even a little easier. Sawon looked down at the protective gear on his wrist. Nine didn’t react this time either.Nine. I’m going to talk about it.Seeing he still didn’t react, Sawon lifted the hand he had placed on the table.“I actually have something to tell you.”

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