Being A Full-Time Employee C52

Chapter 52

It wasn’t coldhearted for Wonu to say what he did—after all, I was thinking the same. You could only hope that the guide and their partner here didn’t have a particularly close, devoted bond. If they were a couple or even rare spouses awakened together, the result could be far worse.

“Let’s get moving.”

No time to sit and sulk on miserable thoughts. We sprang up and hurried to search the train. At the far edge of the platform, a barely visible tail of a carriage stuck out.

We boarded, but found nothing hopeful there.

“…I’ve been through plenty of dungeons, but never one that felt this disgusting. You feel it too, right?”
Our train was nothing but a stub, a few priority seats and black void where more should’ve been. Standing at the extreme edge, we stared into the darkness occupying the vanished rest of the train.

“The worst part is knowing that if you want to survive, you can’t let yourself grieve. You have no choice but to keep moving.”

Wonu pulled me close and kissed my cheek. For a fleeting moment, he felt older than me.

“If you mourn every loss, you’ll dry right out. I want you to stay hydrated—if you ever can’t be found by GPS, I’ll find you by the water in your body.”

It made no sense—was even a little eerie—but it consoled me regardless. I only answered by pulling him in tight and turning toward the darkness.

“Let’s go. Find the living or the dead—either way.”

Walking through the mist, I felt like the protagonist in a silent film. Like a Charlie Chaplin reel—saw one once in middle school. At least those movies were funny. If you watched us from afar, would we look funny too? They say life’s a comedy from a distance, tragedy up close. All I could think was horror fantasy.

“I see Line 1.”
Wonu wiped his goggles as he spoke. I nodded, biting his nape gently. He grinned—like a big cat, maybe, not just a kitten. I watched the trail of monster corpses behind him and thought.

“Feels safe with you next to me. My control’s steadier than ever.”

He whispered it while wrapping his arm around my waist. His tone made it sound like we were soaking in a hot tub, not risking our necks.

I eased away a bit to take a drink. Guiding wears a guide down; my body was already heavy, and the fog made it worse.

“This fog,” I said, lapsing unconsciously into a mix of formal and informal speech—work language, I guessed.

“It seems to drain stamina much faster. Don’t you think?”

Wonu’s face said he didn’t, not at all. I glared, and only then did he hurriedly nod along.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Right.”

“Probably just don’t notice with you here,” he said, hugging tighter—not fake flattery, just blunt honesty.

“I don’t feel the effort with you. I just get… excited.”

“I get it. I can tell from here.”

His body was hot against me. Some of that was just the residual heat from rapidly expending power, but some—judging by his rock-hard muscles pressed against me—was certainly something else.

He’s nearly died a dozen times today, yet Wonu’s mind is still lost in daydreams. Optimism and romance—worlds away from horror. And for some reason, I was starting to catch it from him. Drunk on adrenaline, maybe? I found myself thinking, ah, screw it.

“Yeah. Even if this is hard, I’m not actually afraid anymore.”

“That’s because of me, right?”

“Yeah, it’s because of you.”

I brushed his cheek away, pulling back—a goblin dropped through a vent above, so I pushed his broad shoulder aside, steadied my gun, and nailed it right between the eyes.

“Time to get downstairs before something else shows up.”

“If they were coming en masse, they would have by now. Feels like the population is pretty thin.”

He flicked blood from his soaked gloves into the air.

“Maybe we won’t have to wander too long if we’re lucky.”
A guide-and-hunter pair, most likely.

And I was right. We found a pair collapsed on a bench, breathing hard. The remains of another train nearby, chewed into shreds by some monster, with the monster itself lying dead, piece of the train still gripped in its jaws.

It looked as if things had gotten much worse here. Civilians huddled at the far end of the carriage—saved at the very last moment.

The hunter looked up as we approached, sighed in relief, and sank back down.

“Thought you were another monster for a second…”

“How’d you take it down?”
Wonu jumped straight in, no small talk, clearly needing to get a sense of the other’s powers. It hit me again how rare it was for him to interact with anyone but me—we’d adapted to each other, not really to anyone else. I stepped forward, embarrassed.

“This is Hunter Chae Wonu and Guide Yang Baekgyeom. You’re from the other strike group, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I remember… Hunter Seokho and my partner, Guide Eesoo.”

“Hello.”

With her hair cropped short enough to expose her whole neck and cheeks, Eesoo’s injuries were obvious—bandaged around her throat, pale and out of breath.

A rare female guide. Unless there was a strong objection, teams were usually matched to the same gender, especially since guiding contact so rarely needed to go past hugs and kisses. Several reasons.

Carefully, I broached a personal topic—this time necessary, since I’d seen a monster carrying off a guide.

“I apologize. But are you two a couple?”

“Yes, but why ask?”

She eyed me warily, breathing fast; clearly, she’d lost a lot of blood.

“The reason is, on our way here, we saw a dead guide. Carried off by a monster. I needed to check if any pairs here have a partnership beyond the contract…”

Eesoo and Seokho exchanged a look. Felt like a bad omen. Trouble always came all at once, like a snowball.

Seokho shook his head; Eesoo asked, “Was it a woman, or a man?”

“Couldn’t tell.”

If it’d been our usual team, we would already know, but this run mixed together members from other squads—everyone masked until we split up. The anxiety gnawed at me. Eesoo shook her head:

“There’s one pair left—two men. I heard they’re brothers.”

Siblings awakening together was a case the Bureau found particularly interesting. They could be kept linked for ages, stabilized just by touching, hugging, even talking. Sometimes there was stigma, but in pairs that closely related by blood, heavy contact wasn’t needed. Their mere presence stabilized each other.

Flip side: the absence of one could destabilize the other instantly.

“Fifty-fifty odds, isn’t it?” Eesoo said, pushing herself up without help, steady despite a brief wobble. She looked me straight on—less inclined than I was to imagine the worst.

Right. Better to search directly than wait for calamity.

After a moment’s silence, Wonu piped up, “By the way—didn’t catch your abilities yet. Hunter skill?”

“Duplication,” Seokho replied, clearly drained more in spirit than in body. I imagined—if your lover had come that close to death, you’d be petrified, too.

“I know,” I said. “Anyone with time in the Bureau would know. You’re Chae Wonu, right? Water affinity, super rare. I’ve always wanted to see it in person. Let’s make it out together.”

He heaved himself up, extended a hand. Wonu looked at it—then stared at me, waiting for permission like a well-trained dog.

• Seokho (석호): Veteran hunter, duplication power, partner to Eesoo. 
• Eesoo (의수): Female guide, visibly wounded, confirmed relationship with Seokho.