The agents of the Disaster Management Bureau turned their heads.
“Wow!”
In an instant, a wire tipped with a jeweled claw shot out and wrapped around the baby mermaid’s hem.
It was the Elite Team A Deputy’s personal weapon.
“Huh? Fireworks!”
The child laughed.
Hearing the laughter of the contaminated baby mermaid, Jin Nasol sliced through the most lethal area first.
The part that secreted paralytic and infectious fluids.
Slick.
“Aaaagh!”
The massive tail attached to the baby mermaid was severed.
Blood and slime sprayed out.
“It hurts! It hurts!”
The agent’s counterattack barely missed.
Without hesitation, Jin Nasol pulled the now-tailless, incapacitated baby mermaid toward her with the wire and restrained it with one hand.
“Ack!”
Then she declared—
“Come any closer and I’ll kill it.”
“…!”
It was a perfectly rational choice.
‘Her leg isn’t okay.’
Jin Nasol ’s calf, still numb from earlier contact with the bell-guillotine, had forced her to use items just to chase that ominous cat this far.
Fighting off two agents while collecting items and escaping in this condition would’ve been idiotic.
Jin Nasol despised doing idiotic things.
So she made a choice.
“I said don’t come any closer.”
“…!”
Even without words, some communication works through gesture alone.
“Bronze, hold on.”
Agent Choi, who valued every life, raised his hands as if to surrender and quickly began searching for a plan.
But….
That wasn’t a standard protocol of the Disaster Management Bureau.
‘A hostage.’
Agent Bronze, a textbook representative of the Bureau, looked at the villain before him with darkened eyes.
Those human trash planned to run away with the items that could save twelve children—out of pure greed.
‘Even though they could escape without taking them.’
If they’re allowed to leave like this, twelve children will die.
And the Bureau’s priorities were crystal clear.
Maximum survival with minimal sacrifice.
“ – If the sacrifice of one citizen can save many others…”
‘Then that’s what we do.’
“…Bronze?”
Agent Bronze made a swift decision.
Then he raised his Glass Handgun and charged.
“Hey…!”
But at that moment, another being moved too.
Jingle.
“Huh? Wait, no…”
Amid Baek Saheon’s flustered voice, the cat silently leapt off his shoulder.
In its mouth was The Sigh of an Angel, tied with a golden string.
It had taken it from Baek Saheon’s bag.
“No!”
The cat dashed straight toward Jin Nasol .
“…!”
Jin Nasol instinctively raised her leg to kick and prepared to launch her wire, but the cat wasn’t aiming for her.
Instead, the cat angled slightly lower and to the side.
“Huh? Kitty plush…”
The baby mermaid Jin Nasol had taken hostage.
The cat, still holding the conch in its teeth, pressed it right up to the baby mermaid’s ear.
“…!”
A faint voice rang from within the shell.
A hum.
It sounded like the song of a beautiful singer, or a lullaby a parent might’ve hummed while holding their child.
Like a line from a proud anthem, or a hymn bursting with joy and life.
But only one phrase was drawn from it.
A single melody flowed gently and warmly from the conch, tickling the child’s ear.
“…Huh?”
The tailless baby mermaid froze.
Hmm, mmmhm, hmm, mmmmmmhm.
The bleeding lessens.
The ulcers on the face and limbs subside, the spasms caused by the infection fade, and the vocal cords return to their original state.
Of course, it wasn’t a perfect reversal—she didn’t return to an untouched, flawless child.
But the rapidly spreading infection lost momentum, and the child's innate human vitality flared up like fire meeting dry wood.
The next moment.
“Hoooo…”
The child, exhaling deeply, had returned to the appearance of a sick child.
“…….”
“…….”
For a brief moment, instinct caused everyone to freeze at the awe-inspiring sight.
“W-What is this? Mom…!”
The child began sobbing uncontrollably.
The infection faded, the hallucination of the Sparkling Dragon Palace vanished, and she began to see the horrifying reality with her own eyes.
“…!”
‘It even breaks through the brainwashing…!’
But while the child, now exiled from the wondrous sparkling palace, continued to cry…
Amazingly, the cat went over and curled up in her arms!
“Hey, kitty…”
Even as the child roughly grabbed and tugged its head, the cat stayed perfectly still.
That made it look even more eerie, but one thing was clear.
It was friendly toward children.
‘Is this a ghost story with age-based rules?’
As a seasoned Field Exploration, Jin Nasol kept analyzing while still holding onto the hostage.
However, she no longer subdued the child as aggressively—she couldn’t predict what that cat-shaped threat might do.
But then…
“These people are seriously out of their minds.”
And there were those who struck at just the right moment.
“…!”
A bullet flew in.
Jin Nasol saw it: one agent on the other side aimed a shot at her leg with the glass bullet, while another who had already gotten close moved to bind her torso.
‘Ha.’
Jin Nasol deliberately threw herself backward.
Her body, moving with deliberate instability, narrowly dodged the agents’ restraints.
And at the same time, she flung the hostage forward with one hand.
Toward Agent Choi.
“…!”
The moment Agent Choi caught the child holding the cat—
‘There are hostages everywhere out there.’
Jin Nasol made a cold judgment and prepared to charge out the door.
‘I’m pulling out.’
Seeing the situation, the other Daydream Inc. employees quickly moved to follow her lead. Baek Saheon, clutching the bag with the remaining eleven The Sigh of an Angel, prepared to run—
[This way]
The cat stared.
“…!”
The ominous cat quietly walked out from the arms of the child held by Agent Choi.
“Why are you….”
The four-legged creature walked among the frozen humans, passing them all and stopping in front of something.
The severed tail of the baby mermaid that Jin Nasol had cut off.
The ulcerous mass of flesh.
[This way]
The cat’s form flickered and turned to look at the people.
“W-What do you want us to do with that…?”
[This way]
Those blood-red eyes stared into me.
As if they already knew everything about me.
“…….”
Shit.
Baek Saheon quickly grabbed the tail with his gloved hand, trying to shove it into the front pocket of his waterproof bag.
But Agent Choi moved faster, snatching the tail before him.
“Ah…!”
Clutching the tail that still squirmed, trying to parasitize his ‘child’ form, Agent Choi asked the cat—
“Did you orchestrate the attack because you needed this?”
Silence.
“What use does this tail have?”
The cat didn’t reply.
But it did answer.
[This way]
By staring at the Daydream Inc. employees.
“…!”
Agent Choi stored the tail into a sealing case, then hurriedly pulled out his chalk and began writing on the floor.
A shared communication channel that linked the Sparkling Dragon Palace and the Mermaid’s Grave.
– You guys use these tails, huh?
“…!”
– If you tell me what it’s used for and how, I swear on my honor as an agent not to fight until we’re out of here~^^
– Is it for your escape? I know you’re planning to board the evac raft. Where and how do you use it?
‘This crazy bastard…’
But Agent Choi had something he was counting on.
–The cat seems to want us to talk too, doesn’t it?
[10]
“Oh, come on!”
Baek Saheon flinched as the cat began another countdown and looked around in frustration.
‘God, I hate being the scapegoat…’
Thankfully, Kang Yihak crouched and started scribbling a reply.
–Uh, how much do we get if we answer? Lol
‘Another lunatic…’
–We’re broke T^T You rich folks can suck it up! You don’t wanna get your head smashed by the cat, right?~
“Ugh.”
‘You bastards…!’
In the end, under the pressure of the countdown, Baek Saheon wrote the answer himself instead of his money-obsessed colleague.
–You already know anyway… The tail is needed during the escape process.
–But we’ve never cut off baby mermaid tails brutally—we only took minimal cuts from fully infected organisms. We need to survive too…
‘He’d totally flip if I said we killed a kid!’
So he tried to phrase it nicely, but Agent Choi didn’t even blink.
–In what way is it used? Fuel? A ticket? A sacrifice?
Is it even okay to say this much?
[6]
Damn it.
–A ticket.
As he wrote, Baek Saheon reflexively glanced toward where the cat had been. Squeezing them with that deadly countdown—happy now, you psychopathic bastard?
But the cat was no longer there.
“…!”
It was now standing in front of the window.
On two legs, that is.
[This way]
The cat’s posture was bizarre.
Like a puppet being forced to move, the cat stood upright on two legs at the window, eerily raising its left front paw to point westward.
That was….
‘…The escape raft!’
Then it dropped straight out the window.
“…!!”
People rushed to the window and looked down—but there was nothing there….
The cat had vanished.
“……Hah.”
The air suddenly felt lighter.
Some people caught their breath, others scrambled to reassess.
“The escape raft… the raft!”
Baek Saheon clutched his head.
“Right! It was telling us to get out on the raft!”
“What?”
“I thought it meant to prepare for death, but now it’s clear—if we don’t all leave on the raft, it’ll kill us!”
“…!”
“We have to get out now…”
But the Daydream Inc. employees didn’t forget the danger so easily.
There were still Disaster Management agents in the area.
And also…
The lingering effect of that cat’s eerie final gesture.
“…….”
At that moment, Agent Choi was lost in thought.
The cat had forced them to sever the tail and used the conch to heal.
Remembering how clearly it sided with the child…
‘Hmph.’
The agent calmly wrote on the floor.
–Considering it showed us the conch locations and even a demo, I think it wants us to use them to save as many kids as possible…
–Anyone here wanna get killed by a monster just because they got greedy?
‘Shit.’
But the agent wasn’t finished.
–If not, how about a temporary truce until everyone gets out safely?
“…!”
–Let’s get as many of the kids out safely as we can. Use the conchs. Use the escape raft you were going to take anyway.
“…….”
Jin Nasol shoved Baek Saheon aside and stepped forward without hesitation.
“…!”
Without blinking, she stared at the agent and wrote on the floor.
–Try anything funny and I’ll kill you.
“Okay~”
And thus, a strange temporary alliance was born.
With both the senses of the Mermaid’s Grave and Sparkling Dragon Palace, and enough people to handle biohazards while protecting multiple children at once.
‘…Was this all orchestrated?’
Ryu Jaegwan’s eyes twitched.
What was that cat-shaped legend, and where did such a supernatural entity even come from…? No—what mattered now was getting out safely and completing the mission.
Yeah, and he wasn’t even alone this time. There was a rookie now too…
Wait!
“Grape!”
Ryu Jaegwan turned to his superior with a grim expression.
The rookie, still searching for rescuable civilians among the children, had been left unattended…!
“We have to find them now. If they get left behind here…”
“Hold on, calm down. We’re supposed to meet tonight anyway. We’ll probably run into them while gathering the kids.”
That was the problem…!
‘We can’t let these scumbags come along…!’
“Let me threaten them a bit first.”
Agent Choi, instead of keeping the conch with Baek Saheon, took tissue samples of infected tails as collateral and verified they weren’t lying about the raft location.
He even pretended to squabble over the conch while secretly attaching a tracker to it—security complete.
“All set.”
They agreed to rendezvous in front of the building near the raft.
“Let’s go gather the kids.”
“…Yes.”
Anyway, the meeting between that insane cult-like pharma company and Agent Grape was inevitable.
Ryu Jaegwan felt a chill in his chest, but decided he needed to spot the rookie first and hide their face with a hat or something.
Saying it was to protect the rookie’s identity from the cult pharma staff would be reason enough for his superior to accept.
“There, by the fountain!”
“Yes.”
But the moment they met Agent Grape at the central fountain…
“Agent!”
Ryu Jaegwan realized his plan had been meaningless.
Through the suncatcher he had been carrying like an extra eye—he saw it clearly.
The rookie, who had turned back after noticing them…
“I was organizing the kids by era!”
Half of their face was covered in ulcers.
“…….”
Ryu Jaegwan stopped in his tracks.
Cold sweat trickled as his trembling gaze scanned the childlike figure of his fellow agent….
Below the torso dangled long, umbilical cord-like masses of cells.
From the waist, thick lumps of flesh spilled out, dangling with ulcerous growths like a tail.
Grotesque and horrifying—but because of the underwater setting and its resemblance to a tail…
This biohazard was known as a mermaid.
“But playing together is just so much fun….”
The baby mermaid—who had once been an agent—smiled and waved.
“Can I stay just one more day?”
Seeing the rookie completely infected by the biohazard, the two agents froze, their faces pale as sheets.
