Kim Soleum, still with his head lowered, gave a small nod.
It felt like a hammer had struck the back of Ryu Jaekwan’s skull.
‘No way…!’
His gaze swept over the other man again.
This was someone who had once been neat, composed, meticulous.
Yet now, he reacted to everything around him with quiet, careful hesitance.
Like someone who had been… irreversibly changed by a long, harrowing period spent inside a nightmare.
“Don’t tell me… you did it on purpose—”
“No, sir.”
Who in their right mind would willingly choose to be trapped in a ghost story for over a month?
Especially someone who had already experienced such incidents firsthand while working there.
“But after I got out, I didn’t report back to the company… on purpose.”
“……!”
Ryu Jaekwan responded instinctively.
“Because that was the only way… to leave quietly—without ‘causing any problems’?”
“……”
Kim Soleum took a deep breath—then, at last, nodded.
“Yes.”
Liar.
Daydream Inc. was the kind of place that would cheerfully wave goodbye and say, ‘Dobby is free!’ if someone wanted to quit.
It wasn’t that they wouldn’t let you leave.
It was just that no one ever did—because it meant throwing away every point they had painstakingly accumulated.
“I don’t regret it, sir.”
But to Ryu Jaekwan, an agent unaware of how the company truly functioned, the situation seemed like a textbook case of a cult escape.
A victim of psychological trauma, PTSD, gaslighting, who had suffered so much that he had to fake his own death just to escape…
“Um… I mean, I know I can’t stop you if you decide to report me, but… Please, just don’t make it public knowledge, sir…”
“……”
He was afraid of being tracked down by Daydream Inc.
Ryu Jaekwan realized it immediately.
But outwardly, he didn’t show it. He only pressed further.
“What about your ‘wish’? That was why you worked for them, wasn’t it?”
Kim Soleum, still looking down with his head hung, let out a small, hollow chuckle.
“That… doesn’t matter anymore.”
“……!”
“Something happened while I was working there. The progress I had built up for my wish was completely reset.”
“……”
“That’s when it finally hit me.”
Daydream Inc.’s Wish Ticket system did grant wishes.
But the company could decide, at any time, to deny an individual their reward.
Completely at their own discretion.
Unreasonably and unfairly.
“That I had been throwing my life away, working indefinitely in that nightmarish place for something that could be erased at a moment’s notice…”
Ryu Jaekwan gritted his teeth.
The words ‘I told you not to believe in that nonsense about wishes’ almost slipped out, but somehow or another, he held them back.
“Ah! Don’t worry. Since I’ve already been officially declared dead… I can’t accumulate performance points or withdraw anymore anyway.”
The bitter smile slowly faded from Kim Soleum’s face.
What remained was emptiness.
“And once that happened… I didn’t have anything left to do.”
“……”
“So… I remembered the business card you gave me and applied to the Disaster Management Bureau.”
Then, he shrank back slightly.
“…If that offended you, I apologize.”
Suddenly, Ryu Jaekwan felt as if he had been pressuring someone for something completely unreasonable.
A guilt that settled deep in his chest.
It was the kind of guilt one might feel if, after rescuing a civilian from a supernatural disaster, that same agent grabbed the civilian by the collar and demanded a detailed explanation of what had happened to them. 𝐫ἁＮ₿Ę𝙎
Here was a victim who had tried, against all odds, to live morally despite the circumstances. The guilt of psychologically cornering someone who had barely escaped from the immoral grip of a corrupt company…!
During the interview, Ryu Jaekwan had singled him out, going as far as putting him under excessive scrutiny? And even now, he had called him in separately and was practically interrogating him?
On top of that, Kim Soleum had already lost everything—his goal, his affiliation, even the one thing that had kept him tied to that company.
Ryu Jaekwan thought,
…And yet, perhaps with some expectations, Kim Soleum still chose to come here.
The kind of work the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau did—protecting citizens from supernatural disasters, ghosts, unidentified lifeforms, and unknown phenomena—was the complete opposite of what Daydream Inc. stood for.
Given their past encounters, if Kim Soleum had entered this agency with even a sliver of hope or a sense of purpose—
‘Then…’
Ryu Jaekwan clenched his fist.
‘He’s not about to punch me, is he?’
I stared, cold sweat forming, as Agent Bronze’s hand clenched into a fist.
I had said everything I needed to.
‘Seems like he’s buying it.’
So why the hell was he making a fist?!
I kept my head down, keeping my face carefully neutral, and waited in silence for a few seconds. And then…
Bbee-bee-bee-bee-beep!
“…!”
The watch on Agent Bronze’s wrist suddenly let out a blaring alarm.
“…Wait here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Phew.
‘So that’s why he clenched his fist.’
Click.
The moment Agent Bronze stepped out the door, I let out a long sigh and sank to the floor.
Haa.
‘The only time I’ve ever lied this hard to a good person was during a game of mafia…’
And now, I was deceiving a civil servant so I could spy on a government agency.
I was sweating bullets. At this rate, I might be able to take a bath in my cold sweat.
But the important thing was…
‘He believes me, right?’
It seemed like he did.
I took note of how Agent Bronze had gradually spoken less and less, how his gaze had shifted into something almost sympathetic.
As long as that sympathy wasn’t the kind reserved for criminals on their way to a high-security cell, then ‘Candidate Kim Soleum’ was no longer under suspicion.