༺ The Steel Tower (5) ༻
Pop-! Pop-! Pop-!
The sound of bursting air echoed from the spotlights illuminating the abandoned buildings.
The spotlights acted as a defense mechanism, as if they were guarding against some unseen threat.
Hoooot-!
The owl, its eerie cries fading, let out a sad whimper and dashed away to avoid the light.
“An unidentified vehicle has been found near the building! Stay alert, everyone!”
Men dressed in blue uniforms swiftly mobilized, skillfully managing the scene.
Meanwhile, a man clad in a black suit stood before the unidentified vehicle, listening to the reports from his subordinates.
“This vehicle… seems to be one of ours.”
The agent in the black suit sighed at the report.
“I don’t remember getting a call from another team saying they were coming here.”
It was said in a tone that seemed as if guessing at the inside story.
“The bonnet is still warm, so it seems they haven’t been gone long” the Agent Black observed, touching the car’s bonnet before pulling his hand away. “Let’s proceed with caution.”
“We can’t simply ignore it just because it’s one of our vehicles. Compile a report on the vehicle’s owner and any related information. I will inform the higher-ups.”
With a stern demeanor, Agent Black meticulously organized the situation and made his way towards the flashily lit abandoned building.
Suddenly, a blonde young girl blocked his path.
“Ahjussi!”
“Ah, you’re here, young miss.”
The girl, holding the same notebook and pen as Agent Black, spoke with a slightly sullen expression.
“Ahjussi, why did you leave me behind again?”
Agent Black had tried to leave the girl behind to avoid exposing her to danger. But it seemed he couldn’t escape from her.
The reason was probably her personal escort and the entourage of secretaries surrounding her like a folding screen.
The girl, who looked like an elementary school student, was the granddaughter of the president of the National Object Management Association.
Despite currently being under investigation for corruption, his influence remained strong.
Deciding to give up, Agent Black decided to just bring her along.
***
Agent Black examined the marks on the wall, then opened his notebook and jotted down a few simple characters.
Seeing that, the girl also opened her notebook and scribbled something, before rushing over to the scene. She picked up a piece of concrete, and held it high.
“Ahjussi! Could there be a mistake in the investigation? This place seems too old to have been a research institute where people lived until just a week ago,” the blonde girl expressed her concern.
As he pointed to various spots in the lobby, the black-suited agent responded.
“Young miss, I can see traces of a desk from here to there. It appears to have been cleared out recently. It will likely be more visible in daylight.”
Moving forward, Agent Black made simple notes and sketches while issuing instructions to the agents around him.
Seeing that, the girl began mimicking their actions. She opened her notebook and scribbled down notes like the other agents.
All of a sudden, the duo of Agent Black and the girl found a man lying on the floor in front of the area they were investigating.
“Ah! This must be the owner of the vehicle outside!”
The blonde girl exclaimed, placing her hands on her waist and puffed out her chest with a confident expression.
“That is highly likely. Although he doesn’t have any identifying items, I remember seeing his face. I passed by him once at the temporary headquarters in Korea.”
Agent Black confirmed, earning a smile from the girl who clearly liked it.
He then instructed the blue-uniformed men, “Tie him up and keep a close watch. We’ll have plenty of questions for him.”
Without hesitation, Agent Black strode forward.
***
The abandoned building exuded a fairly gloomy atmosphere, but the presence of numerous people with flashlights diminished its eerie ambience.
The men diligently searched every room, leaving no corner unchecked. It didn’t take long for them to reach a suspicious looking area.
It was filled with burnt lumps of something.
As soon as the blonde girl laid eyes on it, her expression hardened, and she spoke up.
“Ahjussi… is that possibly a human corpse?”
The girl’s face turned pale.
“Given the eerie atmosphere and all, it must be a human corpse, right? Who could have done something so horrific?”
Despite her usual pretense of maturity, it seemed that scenes like this were still too much for her to stomach.
Seeing her distress, Agent Black approached her and gently stroked the girl’s head.
Thanks to that, the girl smiled brightly and her complexion noticeably improved.
“It’s clearly the work of an Object,” he concluded.
Perplexed, the girl tilted her head.
“Huh? An Object? But there’s nothing here?”
“The body seemed to have died instantly due to extreme heat. There are no signs of it being moved or any surrounding traces. The only thing capable of doing something like this is an Object.”
“Well… when you put it that way… it does seem like the work of an Object.”
“Let’s withdraw for now. We’ll prepare ourselves thoroughly for the Object and then return during the day. It’s too dangerous to enter like this.”
In the face of a potentially life-threatening Object, Agent Black ordered a retreat.
After all, he saw no need to take unnecessary risks.
Turning around, Agent Black led the way out of the building.
***
I looked at the blonde girl, hanging upside down from the chandelier inside the abandoned building.
She was an interesting little girl.
Everything about her carried a sense of elegance.
Although she appeared to be a child, she was quite bold and her vocabulary was also quite adult-like.
It almost made me think of her as a modern-day aristocrat, raised with a privileged education.
At first, I had planned to leave after confirming whether the people coming to this building were affiliated with the creator of the zombies. However, the little girl caught my attention, making me want to keep watching.
From what I saw while following her, it seemed like there was no need for me to worry about tracking down the culprit.
I didn’t know who these people were, but they were much more capable than I thought.
To think there were such talented people in Korea!
Clap-! Clap-! Clap-!
I applauded them to express my appreciation. Oh, of course I did it in my phantom form, can’t have anyone hearing me after all!
Let’s just leave the rest to them and go sleep at the Sehee Research Institute!!
***
On a bright, sunny day, heavily armed agents rushed to the basement.
Agent Black crossed his arms and waited for their report.
“All clear!”
Upon hearing those words, Agent Black unfolded his arms and descended the dark stairs slowly, accompanied by the blonde girl.
The basement of the abandoned building appeared to have served as an experiment room, as scattered records of the experiments lay haphazardly.
“Ahjussi, it seems like they deliberately did not destroy the experiment records and left them on the floor.”
Wandering around out of curiosity, the girl picked up a fallen piece of paper, before continuing.
“They won’t be able to escape severe punishment with the information contained in these records. So why didn’t they destroy them and instead just threw them on the floor…”
Agent Black picked up another piece of paper and checked it.
“It doesn’t seem like they were trying to hide the information at all. Then, there are two possibilities. Either they were confident they would never be caught, or they had committed acts far worse than what they were doing here.”
Hearing his words, the blonde girl’s expression turned cold.
“Something worse than this? Kidnapping, illegal confinement, mutilating and removing the eyes of living people, replacing their internal organs with half-baked artificial Objects. Just reading about it makes me sick.”
The girl shook her head, trying to erase the unwanted information from her mind.
Passing through a hallway strewn with papers, the duo of Agent Black and the blonde young lady arrived at yet another large room.
No, to be precise, it was a massive room.
Hooks lined the sides, resembling those used to hang meat, while the center of the room was drenched in blood.
And in the center of that pool of blood, lay the decapitated head of a man, his tongue severed.
Upon witnessing the gruesome sight, Agent Black moved behind the girl and covered her eyes.
“Ah! Is there something there?”
Though she pouted, she didn’t try to break free.
It seemed like they had witnessed something unsightly in a similar situation before.
“This man is a fugitive in Korea.”
Agent Black glanced at the severed head and easily deduced the man’s identity.
“You might have seen him in my office too, young miss. He was a middle-aged man who set up a fake research institute and kidnapped a lot of people.”
The girl nodded.
“That man wanted for the Golden Horn case? I remember him!”
Closing his notebook, Agent Black declared the investigation closed.
“We’ve successfully recovered most of the missing Golden Horns, which was our primary objective.”
He glanced at the golden hearts scattered throughout the room.
“From this point onward, we must uncover who is responsible for all of this.”
***
The witness to this incident ended up being of no help.
“Didn’t I already tell you? There was a ghost!”
When asked about what happened inside the building, he kept rambling about ghost this and ghost that.
His words were confusing. Moreover, he hadn’t even seen anything clearly, so it remained unclear what type of Objects were present in the building.
When the investigation team arrived, they found no traces of the Objects.
Even when asked why he was there, he provided little help.
It seemed likely that the man was just a day laborer, coerced into coming here because of his debts.
In other words, he knew nothing.
It was pointless to continue the interrogation any further.
Agent Black rose from his seat, gently cradling the dozing girl in his arms.
Exiting the interrogation room, he opened his notebook.
Inside, there was a simple picture.
The only trace that seemed to be a valuable piece of evidence.
It depicted a trace found on the man’s clothing.
It was two tiny, baby-like footprints, placed neatly.
