By Zephyria 
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Whether crumpled into a ball or spread wide open, the handkerchief remained a complete mystery.
Even Mu-hae, who recognized the markings of the Return flight, was struggling this much; there was no way Olga could have identified it. At this point, he was more curious about how such an object ended up in her hands than who Olga was actually looking for.
“Jin Mu-hae, it’s nice seeing you sitting in a chair.”
“It’s not like I haven’t sat here a day or two.”
“Still, I like it every time.”
Joo-oh was showering him with praise over something trivial again. Mu-hae felt his lingering irritability ease slightly, and he tried to find a new realization while observing the pad and the wall panels simultaneously.
“If it’s something like coordinates, it must be a location, right?”
“Probably. There should be a specific point it’s marking.”
“If it’s minus 1 and minus 4, isn’t that minus 5?”
“It’s not a math problem. If it were, they would have just written minus 5 from the start.”
When people think of mercenaries, they usually imagine someone ignorant, but in reality, many mercenaries who survived for a long time had no issues with their intelligence.
Even with coordinate calculations, while they might not have been able to express them as formulas or mark them professionally on a map, they could often figure out the approximate location just by using their heads.
Thus, he had already known, even before visiting central, that those annoying numbers had nothing to do with cardinal directions.
Jin Mu-hae tapped his temples, sinking into deep thought. The two numbers were related, but they weren’t the kind of thing you could solve by combining them like a math problem.
Should he focus on the fact that they were negative? If he were to chew over the word ‘negative,’ perhaps it pointed to a ‘minor’ location.
Like the slums, or passages like sewers that were far from the roads people usually traveled.
‘The slums have a west side, too.’
The western slums relative to central, -1, -4. Since anyone from the Return flight should be able to recognize it, it would be a simple and clear mark.
Mu-hae recalled the unauthorized buildings that had stood near Starlight Road for over twenty years and the haphazardly tangled makeshift roads.
Come to think of it, his father’s Giseok had mapped the slums in a similar fashion. It wasn’t an entirely baseless guess.
“Jin Mu-hae. There’s nothing to eat here.”
“Because I didn’t bring any down.”
“There used to be some.”
“I was the one who packed those. It’s not even mealtime yet, and you’re already making a fuss.”
He had just missed a clue that was barely on the tip of his tongue. Debating whether to snap at him or not, he crossed his legs and warned,
“Don’t go wandering off alone just to buy something to eat.”
“I’m good at taking walks.”
“I bet. You took such a ‘walk’ that you ended up being dragged here from way too far away.”
“…….”
As he said, it wasn’t the first or second time Joo-oh had wandered around the Jaegang District alone. The mere thought of him disappearing from sight made him feel an unfamiliar sense of displeasure.
Before he knew it, Jin Mu-hae was glancing at the spot where Joo-oh sat. Even if he would scold him mercilessly for smacking his lips or swinging his legs, it was so that they could leave the hideout together.
While his mind felt itchy with curiosity, the act of going up to the third floor and then coming back down again couldn’t be called convenient, but he couldn’t help but feel more at ease that way.
“Central is on high ground, right?”
“So you do know the term ‘high ground.’”
“How many floors up is the land of central from the houses on Starlight Road?”
Despite his idle chatter, it seemed Joo-oh was also pondering the matter from various angles.
However, even Mu-hae couldn’t possibly know that. There was no way data or maps detailing the exact height of the ground would have fallen into his hands…
“Do you think the numbers on the handkerchief are like that?”
“I don’t know. Seriously.”
Usually, whenever he spat out such words, he had a strange look in his eyes as if he were observing a specimen, but right now, Joo-oh truly had his brow furrowed, thinking hard about something.
He didn’t want to be moved by something so trivial, but it was somewhat commendable. Mu-hae smoothed over his thorny tone and replied.
“Even if there is a difference, it’s a minute level, like the way artificial rain flows outward. It’s not a difference of entire floors.”
Furthermore, if that were the case, the fact that there were two numbers became an even more cryptic clue.
Damn it. He wasn’t even tired, but his head was throbbing. Before Joo-oh could pester him further, Mu-hae stood up abruptly and threw on his coat.
“Where are you going?”
“You said you wanted something to eat.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to eat.”
He ignored him, as the response wasn’t worth it. As he climbed the stairs leading upward, Jin Mu-hae felt that moving his body like this, even a little, made him feel more alive than when he was holed up at home.
One floor, two floors, three floors, and… four floors.
Come to think of it, since the hideout was underground, it meant going up and down four floors. No matter how young and healthy Director Gil was, wouldn’t he have complained at least once?
While cooling his overheated brain with idle thoughts, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Ground level. Height. Underground. Above ground.
…If those numbers were indeed vague coordinates, but they didn’t indicate cardinal directions.
Couldn’t they be counted vertically instead of horizontally? With a sudden flash of realization, Mu-hae quickly turned around and headed back down the stairs he had just climbed.
“Huh?”
Joo-oh, who had been following him with an expectant face, looked blankly as if wondering what was happening.
“Aren’t we going?”
“…Just come down. Quickly.”
As his dreams of drinks topped with plenty of cream and crispy, sweet snacks vanished, the tips of his ears seemed to droop slightly.
‘Basement… 1st floor. Four floors from the 3rd floor.’
And the west. Return flight. All the clues slid together, extracting a place that was all too familiar.
It felt like a bit of a leap, but wasn’t the place they were currently in the hideout of the former core members of the Return flight?
Mu-hae gave the grumbling Joo-oh a hard smack on the back to hurry him along and rushed back down to the basement.
“There really is nothing to eat.”
“…….”
“You watched me pack my bag, so you know there’s nothing.”
“Shut up.”
Was it too much to hope for? Looking at the hideout again with a different perspective… it was just a hideout.
He already knew exactly what was in which room and where every piece of information was stored, having searched it all previously.
However, with the faded piece of cloth resting in his palm, Mu-hae paced back and forth several times.
It shouldn’t be. It would be less complicated if it weren’t. For some reason, he felt that the clue Olga gave didn’t just point to the Return flight, but to the location of a key figure.
The strangely remaining connection made him feel a kind of wretched fate.
“Try folding this again.”
Joo-oh mumbled something as he took the handkerchief and crumpled it this way and that. Mu-hae carefully moved the towel, which was now folded roughly back into a circle, and placed it on the desk where he usually sat.
Still, nothing had changed. However, because of what he had experienced, he instinctively held out his Link Watch.
As he executed the scan function, a faint light seemed to illuminate the handkerchief up and down, and then…
Beep- Bip!
“……!”
The problematic notification sound rang out softly. After confirming that no documents popped up, Mu-hae connected the Link Watch to the hideout’s system.
Then, blink, the panels covering the walls all turned off and rebooted simultaneously.
[Loading… ⧖]
Flash.
The UI on the screen that reappeared was slightly different from what Jin Mu-hae usually saw.
With all sorts of functions missing, it felt as if he had logged in as a guest.
After a long while, the hourglass icon slowly disappeared, and only a simple greeting, ‘WELCOME’, was planted in the center.
Mu-hae stared blankly for a long time before finally walking up to it and tapping the panel.
Ding-dong.
An effect sound as if something had been pressed. Surprisingly, at that moment, a human voice flowed from the speakers installed throughout the room.
— This is the third camp of the Return flight, Damulguru.
— This is the only safe house that can be accessed by a limited number of personnel; visitors recognized as accomplices will be guided.
It wasn’t a mechanical voice. It was clear and concise, but it was definitely a recorded greeting.
An overly young and confident tone, yet familiar enough to stimulate forgotten memories.
— Simultaneously, assuming the failure of the plan or an unexpected accident, special instructions are activated. Visitors, please identify using a device or chip with an embedded individual recognition code.
‘You memorized everything? Then go to sleep, why did you come in?’
‘Damn it.’
It was his father’s voice. Mu-hae clenched his teeth and held his wrist forward.
Beep-.
— Jin Seong-jo.
As expected, the function embedded in his Link Watch belonged to his father. The mechanical voice recited the identity recorded in the Link Watch, and several documents popped up chaotically on the screen.
▒▨▒▒
I knew it. He acted all high and mighty, saying not to activate the emergency system for a prank.
You write something quickly too. There aren’t many chances to mock that guy.
▧▧▒
If the emergency system was activated, it must be a crisis regardless of who activated it.
Still, this is interesting. To have a separate greeting message assuming ▨▒.
▒▨▒▒
Let’s set the mood before telling him I took ▨▒’s hair.
▧▧▒
You already spilled it. Just now.
And it’s for research.
Some of the records seemed useless, but that actually made it harder to look away.
Jin Mu-hae examined all the materials like a man possessed, then moved his stone-stiff body toward the desk.
The handkerchief seemed burned into his vision, never leaving his sight. Nor did the image of Olga handing it to him, or the serious gaze of the blue-haired man providing information.
Where, how, and why had this all connected? What Olga was looking for wasn’t just any accomplice of the Return flight or some scrap of a person who had overheard the facts, but a core member who would know about the Jaegang District.
He recalled the longing lurking in her eyes. As soon as he faintly gauged her objective again, Mu-hae realized that he had once again become entangled in something heavy.
201 – Became a Monstrous Body in a Dead Game