There Are No Humans in the Monster Company

“Director Moon Ara.”

“Yes?”

The next day, as soon as lunchtime arrived, I went straight to find Director Moon Ara.

The reason I decided to speak with Moon Ara first instead of Manager Myeon was simple.

‘I’d rather leave asking Manager Myeon directly as a last resort.’

Manager Myeon was undoubtedly a competent and kind superior, but to begin with, we belonged to different species.

No matter how much Batori talked about bonds of blood and affection, Manager Myeon wasn’t exactly someone I could calmly demand the truth from.

“There’s something I’d like to ask you.”

“This café has a nice atmosphere, don’t you think?”

She has absolutely no intention of listening to me.

It was nice to have gone out into the outside world for lunch like a normal person, but before I could even bring up the main topic, Director Moon Ara had taken me by the hand and brought me to a café whose location I didn’t even know.

‘It’s almost time to go back to work for the afternoon.’

She wasn’t much of a talker to begin with, but seeing her sitting across from me doing nothing but reading a book made me feel as though the pasta I’d eaten earlier had gotten stuck in my stomach.

I suppressed a sigh and turned my gaze toward the book Director Moon Ara was reading.

It was an old thread-bound volume, something difficult to find these days. Judging by the yellowed paper, it looked more like an object that should be displayed in a museum.

The cover didn’t even have a title and was covered in Chinese characters meticulously written with a brush.

Every time her slender fingers turned a page of the old book, the peculiar stale and cold scent of aged paper brushed against the tip of my nose.

“I didn’t know you liked such old books.”

Director Moon Ara slowly raised her head.

Her hair, which would originally have been white, gleamed golden beneath the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, and finally, my figure was reflected in her cold eyes.

“They say history repeats itself. Especially for those who desperately await something.”

She closed the book with an enigmatic smile.

“So, what do you need? Do you want to talk about Manager Myeon?”

Did she already know?

I nodded cautiously. She closed the book completely and tucked it deep inside her human-skin coat before raising the corner of her lips by barely a millimeter.

“Did you have fun at the Banquet?”

“Yes, it was fine.”

Somehow, I had ended up being swept along by Moon Ara’s pace, but at last it was time to address the main topic.

“I’d like to ask you about Manager Myeon. And also whether you know anything about the reason Manager Myeon brought me here.”

At my question, Director Moon Ara rested her chin on one hand and stared intently at me, as though she found it interesting.

“Why are you asking me instead of asking him directly?”

Because you’re the one I feel most comfortable with.

Naturally, I couldn’t say it that directly, so I added a little courtesy.

“I considered you someone I could trust and rely on without worry.”

“Hmm.”

Moon Ara narrowed her eyes and looked at me with a peculiar expression.

It was an ambiguous look in which satisfaction and a certain degree of disappointment coexisted.

“Really? Are your nonhuman superiors frightening to you? There’s also Director Go Gyeol.”

“I’m not close enough to Director Go Gyeol to ask him personal questions.”

“And Supervisor Hong Na-gyeom?”

“The same.”

“Those are the only two you’ve met so far, right?”

After suddenly murmuring that, Director Moon Ara blinked her completely white eyes several times. She remained silent for a few moments before continuing.

“As I already told you last time, I don’t know why Manager Myeon brought you here.”

While idly playing with her cup of coffee, which had already gone cold, she continued.

“And as for Manager Myeon, even if I knew something, I couldn’t tell you.”

“May I ask why…?”

But Director Moon Ara gave me no opportunity to dig any deeper.

“Going around investigating other people’s secrets is rude, don’t you think? Especially when they’re the secrets of someone like Manager Myeon.”

She shrugged slightly.

It was an impeccable refusal that made it clear there was no point in insisting.

‘Am I going to have to ask Manager Myeon directly after all?’

I suppose even monsters have a right to privacy.

If even Director Moon Ara refused to talk, the only person capable of untangling this matter would be the person involved himself.

I was about to sink into thought, wondering how I should approach Manager Myeon amid that uncomfortable silence, when Director Moon Ara spoke again.

“You’d better not do what you’re thinking of doing right now.”

I flinched and raised my head.

Her transparent white eyes were staring directly at me.

“What… do you mean?”

“You’re thinking of going to find Manager Myeon and interrogating him.”

She took a sip of her already cold coffee and continued indifferently.

“When the time comes, Manager Myeon will tell you himself. It isn’t an answer you can obtain simply by rushing things.”

Director Moon Ara gathered her things again and prepared to stand.

“When a subordinate asks questions of his superior, it’s enough for those questions to be about work matters.”

It seems this damned place has absolutely no intention of letting me take the initiative.

I suppressed a sigh and was about to stand up with her when Director Moon Ara stopped me with a slight gesture of her hand.

I sat back down, and she gazed at her empty cup before murmuring quietly.

“The coffee here isn’t very good. Is it?”

I had been so lost in thought that I hadn’t even had time to taste it, but I also had no reason to contradict her.

“Yes, it seems that way.”

At my response, she smiled.

It was a somewhat playful smile, stripped of some of the usual coldness surrounding her.

“I’ll go back first. Stay seated for a little while longer before you return. I’ll speak with Extraction Team 1 so you won’t have to worry about getting back to work late.”

Before I could object, she rose from her seat.

As she left the café with the tails of her human-skin coat fluttering behind her, her hair returned to that intensely icy white the moment she entered an area untouched by sunlight.

‘But the afternoon shift is about to start, isn’t it?’

As I absentmindedly watched her walking away on the other side of the glass, it happened.

Ring.

The café door opened with the cheerful jingle of a bell that broke the silence.

It was far too peculiar a moment for it to simply be another customer coming in, so I turned my head toward the entrance and saw a face that looked vaguely familiar.

A tall man with bleached light-blond hair and pleasant features, who looked like a young man who had only recently entered the workforce.

‘He definitely looks familiar.’

As I carefully observed the man, trying to remember who he was, he spotted me while heading toward the counter and stopped dead in his tracks.

He turned around and began walking directly toward me.

His face showed a complicated mixture of joy, confusion, and bewilderment.

“Agent Jeong?”

Ah.

Now I remembered.

He was the man I had met at Gangsol Prison, Min Dohyeon.

***

By the time I was beginning to regret having to drink another cup of that bland coffee, Min Dohyeon was the first to break the silence.

“I’m glad you’re alive. I was genuinely worried.”

His voice conveyed completely sincere relief.

Of course. To this man, the last image he had of me was probably that of a noble sacrifice, throwing myself at the prison director to stop him.

He seemed quite shocked that I had managed to survive and that we had now run into each other here purely by chance.

‘Same here.’

I had been wondering why Director Moon Ara had brought me to this particular café. Did she know Min Dohyeon would come here?

She had called the Erosion Alliance a gathering of fools.

If she knew Min Dohyeon would appear here, then she surely also knew that he belonged to the Erosion Alliance.

Then why did she arrange for us to meet?

While I was turning all of that over in my mind, Min Dohyeon suddenly rose from his seat and bowed deeply to me at a ninety-degree angle.

“Thank you for saving me.”

Feeling the gazes of the few customers in the café settle on us, I quickly waved my hands.

“No, no. It’s fine, so please sit down first. People are looking.”

“Ah… I’m sorry. I got too emotional when I saw you.”

His gaze was filled with deep trust and respect.

As Min Dohyeon sat back down somewhat awkwardly, I took a sip of coffee.

“How have you been since then, Mr. Min Dohyeon? Is Bae Hyeon-yu safe?”

At my question, Min Dohyeon’s expression darkened for an instant, almost imperceptibly.

“Hyeon-yu… was injured. It wasn’t anything serious, but I think she’ll have to rest for a while.”

In a way, it was something I had expected, so I accepted it without too much doubt.

It wasn’t as though I were an expert, but there was one thing I had learned with absolute certainty after my experiences in the Residual Layer and Gangsol Prison.

Distortion Zones were not places ordinary civilians should be going in and out of as though they were their own homes.

If these people deliberately sought out places that dangerous, the mere fact that they were still alive could be considered an enormous stroke of luck.

‘Erosion Alliance.’

What kind of people were they exactly?

Director Moon Ara had said they were victims connected to anomalous phenomena. A group of people who had lost something precious because of Dimensional Entities or Distortion Zones.

‘But they’re far too capable to be just that.’

No matter how you looked at it, in the end they were still ordinary civilians.

How had they managed to organize themselves and form a group?

Where had they obtained the information and capabilities necessary to enter and leave Distortion Zones?

‘…Well, it’s none of my business anyway.’

After all, I had no reason to become deeply involved with them.

Just as I finished organizing my thoughts and was about to bring the conversation to an end, Min Dohyeon spoke cautiously.

“Actually, this café belongs to my mother. I come here to help her sometimes. I never imagined I’d run into you here.”

I think I should discreetly take back every criticism I had made so far about how bad the coffee here was.

With the owner’s son sitting right in front of me thanking me, I could no longer keep thinking that way.

However, his next words made my chest tighten again.

“My father and older sister disappeared after becoming involved in an anomalous phenomenon. That’s why I started participating in the Alliance’s activities.”

His eyes reflected the pain of loss and one last hope he still couldn’t bring himself to abandon.

In the end, I missed the right moment to get up, so I fiddled with my coffee cup before speaking slowly.

“You said it was called the Erosion Alliance, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. Actually, when the Leader heard about you, he said he’d like to meet you.”

I involuntarily frowned at Min Dohyeon’s response.

‘The Leader.’

At least I had just obtained one new piece of information that organization had a leader, and that leader had taken an interest in me.

“How large is the organization currently?”

“Between forty and fifty people. And there are six executives, including the Leader.”

More people than I had expected.

A deep sigh escaped me at the realization that, in such a merciless world, there were so many people willing to become part of a suicide squad.

Well, they would probably react similarly if they knew I belonged to Limited Company Where the Dead End Up with Ghosts.

“How did you end up getting involved in all this?”

Min Dohyeon gave a bitter smile and answered in a voice even lower than before.

“One day, everyone around me suddenly started saying that my father and sister had died in an accident.”

The hand he had resting on the table trembled slightly.

“And they said they had died when I was a child. But I clearly remember talking to my father on the phone right up until the day before everyone started saying that. My sister had gone away on an extended business trip, and my father prepared several things to take to her. But when I woke up the next day, everyone said my father and sister had died years ago.”

Was something like that possible?

No.

Batori had already said it.

A Dimensional Entity could only be defined as something that could not be defined. There was no reason to think Distortion Zones would be any different.

“The whole world started treating me like I was crazy, and even my mother cried and asked me why I was acting that way. I nearly ended up being forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital. That was when I first met the Leader.”

“And after that?”

“That was when I first learned about the existence of anomalous phenomena.”

He let out a brief sigh.

With a somber expression, Min Dohyeon slowly continued.

“My mother still believes I’m sick. She thinks I’m her poor son who refuses to accept that his family died and remains convinced that they’re still alive.”

I nodded silently as I drank the lukewarm coffee remaining in my cup.

Min Dohyeon probably wasn’t suffering from any mental illness.

Considering that he actually traveled through Distortion Zones, the most reasonable explanation was that his family had become trapped in a Dimensional Entity or Distortion Zone capable of altering even the memories of reality itself.

The suffering of clinging to the truth alone while everyone else’s memories had been completely rewritten.

‘Who the hell is this Leader who reached out to Min Dohyeon in the middle of that kind of isolation?’

Gathering ordinary civilians, getting ahead of others to obtain information about Distortion Zones, and accurately locating victims like these in order to recruit them was not something just anyone could do.

“Was that Leader the one who founded the Erosion Alliance?”

“Yes. All of the executives, including me, are founding members who have shared the same cause as the Leader from the very beginning.”

The leader of a suicide squad numbering between forty and fifty people.

And six executives at the center of it all.

“Dohyeon! Can you come help me with this for a moment?”

The owner’s voice came from behind the counter.

Min Dohyeon made a face as though he had just remembered something and hurriedly stood up.

“Ah, I think I have to go. Agent Jeong, if it’s not too much trouble, could you give me your number? I’d like to tell the Leader about you.”

I didn’t have any particular reason to refuse either.

Without saying anything, I entered my number into his smartphone. Min Dohyeon bowed his head several times and, after promising that he would contact me, hurried toward the counter.

On the table where I had been left alone, nothing remained but two cups of lukewarm coffee.

***

When I opened the café door and stepped outside, the afternoon sunlight, now less intense than before, fell over me.

“Finished?”

The sudden voice nearly made my heart drop to my feet.

Director Moon Ara was there, leaning against the wall and watching me.

The truth was that she had startled me, but I made sure not to show it and answered briefly.

“Yes.”

She nodded in satisfaction and pushed herself away from the wall.

Why had she gone to the trouble of making me meet Min Dohyeon here?

Just as I glanced sideways at Moon Ara out of curiosity, it happened.

Without stopping, Director Moon Ara looked at me from the corner of her left eye, its sclera black.

“A question? If it isn’t related to work, you learn more slowly than you seem.”

After a few moments of silence, I shook my head.

“…No. It’s nothing.”

“Good. Then let’s go.”

There was no further conversation.

Her almost corpse-white hair once again took on that deceptive golden gleam beneath the afternoon sunlight.

And we began walking side by side.

Back to Limited Company Where the Dead End Up with Ghosts.

T/N:

I’m changing the names of some characters and things in case you notice the changes.

This author has a peculiar fondness for extremely short names, and sometimes they confuse me. Anyway, enjoy the chapters.