By Zephyria 
As an entity bound to the Aberrant Realm, he stood there as prey, feeling a terror that came not from a programmed pattern of behavior, but from facing a presence overflowing with overwhelming murderous intent.
The man’s hand seized its head in an instant. Crunch. Before the creature could even express its terror, its head was crushed like a watermelon under the man’s grip.
A hand drenched in the Aberration’s fluids slammed it against the wall. The corpse of the Aberration, which had been bringing a meal directly from the kitchen, melted away like a viscous liquid, and the wall opened like a door.
「What’s thisss. A rookieee. It was because of youuu that things were weird¿ You idiot¡ You have to open the door properly to clock in¡」
An Aberration poked its face through the gap in the door and shouted. Yoo Jiha, who had been grabbed and dragged out by the Aberration, looked around in bewilderment. With its array of cooking utensils, it was unmistakably a kitchen. And the place he had been in until a moment ago was a giant refrigerator.
And there was a human lying on the workbench.
Information about the kitchen surfaced in his rigid mind. It was a past entry that had been repeatedly deleted by terrified victims who had made mistakes while recording the facts.
If you are dragged away and treated as a laborer, you will be assigned to the kitchen to debone human flesh from corpses. Cases have been found where humans who are not completely dead are supplied as ingredients to the kitchen. If you have the confidence and mental fortitude to endure this work, you may work as a laborer.
Depending on your sincerity in your duties, if you gain the trust of the Aberration, you will be able to move alone inside the Opera House. In that case, wash yourself clean in the restroom so that you do not smell of blood, and hide in an empty seat in the general section. If there are no empty seats, aim for the next performance. We hope you become the first case to successfully escape with your sanity intact while working as a laborer. We believe in your will to live as a human.
The ingredients used in this kitchen are humans.
The Chef entity dusted off its apron and picked up a rusted knife encrusted with bits of flesh and hair with its third arm.
「I was just needing a slave anyway, so this is great. I should first teach the rookie how to prep the ingredients. Watch closely. You have to drain the blood first like this.」
“W-Wait a minute!”
The words flew out reflexively. The knife, which had been raised high as if to chop a human neck at any moment, paused. There were no pupils in its eyeballs. Facing those cloudy eyes staring intently at him, Yoo Jiha felt like biting his tongue. How long had it been since he’d caused trouble by acting on his own? But he couldn’t just pretend not to notice.
The victim was still alive.
「Quite arrogant for a rookie……¿」
Discomfort clouded the Chef’s face. Yoo Jiha desperately shifted his eyes.
[Delicious■■■■■■■■■you■■■■■good■■■■■…….]
Though he couldn’t grasp it precisely, he could tell that this entity’s essence was cooking. And this entity was mistaking him for a fellow Chef rather than a laborer.
Yoo Jiha tried his best not to tremble as he desperately moved his lips.
“I-I mean, before draining the blood, I’ll, cl-clothes, ah, no, I’ll peel the skin first! If you don’t peel the skin, it’ll g-get messy…….”
「Now that you mention it, you’re right. Such a diligent rookie attitudeee.」
He had just blurted out nonsense, yet the Chef Aberration readily stepped back. With trembling hands, Yoo Jiha slowly removed the victim’s clothes. The man, who looked to be around his own age, kept rolling his eyes, but they held no focus, and his lips were constantly muttering words in reverse. How far had the Contamination progressed?
The Aberration was mistaking him for a Chef for now, but if he slipped up even slightly, he would end up in the same position as this man. His fingers trembled violently as he undid the buttons, repeatedly missing their mark, and he couldn’t breathe properly, as if his airway were clamped shut. If the Aberration hadn’t left the kitchen to boil water, he might have lost his reason.
“……Ugh.”
His knees buckled and he collapsed. I can’t make a sound. I can’t scream. A suppressed groan was crushed between the fingers he used to cover his mouth so hard his knuckles turned white.
He had to escape while the Chef entity was away. He couldn’t just leave the victim and flee alone. He had to carry an adult male, who was practically unconscious, and find a way out of the kitchen—a place he didn’t even know the exit to—while avoiding the Aberrations…….
To where?
The kitchen was a space that could not be reached without being contaminated to a certain degree by the Aberrant Realm or without the guidance of an Aberration; even the Management Bureau had found no way in.
“Huu…….”
The hand covering his mouth convulsed. He couldn’t think of anything, as if black ink had been spilled across his mind. At the Eight Phases Mental Hospital, there had been the hope of a Procedure Manual. But now, there was nothing. Because he, not knowing his place, had done something he wasn’t asked to do.
The terror that had left a child alone and huddled under a wall on a winter night when fluffy snowflakes fluttered down rushed back like a sticky swamp. That night, which had led to the worst possible outcome—his father’s severance—and that cold had finally come back to devour him.
Was this the price for his sins? The sin of making his father abandon his parents, despite being discarded himself for being useless. That was why he couldn’t escape. That was why he couldn’t stand up. Like that night, he deserved to be left alone.
And then, the wall in front of him split open like a door.
Something entered with a deathly silence, without a single footstep. The air stiffened. Rather than a living creature, it was a crystallization of terror, a concentration of murderous intent that made the skin crawl. A darkness deeper and colder than when he had been thrown alone before the Chef entity enveloped Yoo Jiha. Its emotionless, sunken gaze slowly scanned the surroundings, and then landed on the huddled Yoo Jiha.
The murderous intent melted away quickly like snow under the sun, and the coldly frozen crystal formed into a human face, finally becoming someone Yoo Jiha knew. Ah. Yoo Jiha gasped for breath, finally able to look at him properly.
“……Jiha.”
The man breathed his name like a moan and pulled him into an embrace all at once. Holding him tight as if to lock him within his chest, the man breathed heavily. The slight trembling felt from the arms wrapping around him made even Yoo Jiha’s breath stop. Thump, thump, thump. The rapidly beating heart pleaded. Yoo Jiha slowly realized that the sound was not his own, but the man’s.
The man, who had never once lost his composure even in front of Aberrations rushing to kill, was this shaken. ……Why? Why? For what reason? Unfathomable questions mixed with the sound of the heartbeat, and Yoo Jiha could only blink blankly.
“Were you very scared? Are you hurt anywhere? Are you okay?”
Urgent questions poured from the lips of the man who was always so composed. The way the man quickly scanned him for injuries felt surreal.
“How did you…… get here…….”
“Was I too late? I’m sorry. I guessed right away that you’d been bounced to the kitchen, but the kitchen was larger than I expected.”
“W-Why did you come looking for me? I just stepped out of line and made things…….”
“Hmm?”
Jeil Heon looked as if he didn’t understand Yoo Jiha’s words at all. Only then did Jiha read the vivid anxiety and impatience etched on his face. It was the clearest answer of all.
Only then did the tension and terror that had been choking him release, and his vision blurred. He had never imagined there would be someone who worried about him after he had acted on his own and messed up the mission. He hadn’t known there would be someone who would risk danger to save him.
Belated relief flowed out in a mess along with a sob.
“I’m sorry. I really wanted to do a good job…….”
“I know. I know, you did well. You don’t need to be sorry. It wasn’t your fault.”
The man whispered in his ear while wiping away the flowing tears, telling him that searching for information to save people, even by throwing oneself into danger, was something not everyone could do.
He had wanted to do well. He really had. But the jade ring had broken in the end, his Grandmother had instead been angry, and his parents had only let out heavy sighs. The small child who had been isolated within him for so long, unable to even cry under the oppressive atmosphere, finally sobbed out the long-held sorrow in the man’s arms.
Holding his back as if to gather him up, the man embraced him warmly for a long time, as if intending to drink up every drop of the poison of solitude.