By Zephyria 
=====
The researcher opened the door and stepped inside shortly after. He was dressed in the same attire as he had been during the day, but perhaps because it was late, his hair and shirt collar were disheveled.
“Have you been behaving today as well?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t have much time, so I’ll leave as soon as I deliver this. Don’t save it; eat it all today. Don’t give too much to your… no, your friend.”
Joo-oh had thought they might exchange a leisurely greeting, but the man seemed quite busy.
He needed to stall for time; it would be troublesome if the man left just like this. Glancing toward the corner, Joo-oh hurriedly grabbed his sleeve.
“I want you to do that too.”
“Pardon?”
“The thing with the towel. Rub-rub.”
The researcher narrowed his eyes, eventually understanding the meaning, and scratched his forehead. After a moment of hesitation, he tentatively reached out.
Pat. Though not as large as Jin Mu-hae’s, a fairly big hand stroked and brushed back the hair on the side of Joo-oh’s head. Unconsciously, Joo-oh closed his eyes slightly and let out a contented moan.
“Hmm.”
Neither Jin Mu-hae nor Teacher Jung had soft hands. Theirs were rough, a bit hard, and scarred in places, so aside from Cheong, this was the first time he had experienced such a gentle touch.
He felt like he had heard that he shouldn’t let others touch his face. But still, this was to help Jin Mu-hae with his work.
So, it should be fine, right? Judging for himself, Joo-oh pressed his cheek firmly against the hand that was beginning to warm up and rubbed against it.
Just as the sensation of the fingertips pressing into his skin began to mix with intermittent twitches.
Smack!
“…….”
“What are you standing around for? Move.”
The researcher’s eyes rolled back in an instant, and his body collapsed limply to the floor.
Mu-hae, who had been waiting hidden behind the furniture, had leaped out at some point and now had his arm raised.
“……Why did you hit him? I already took the card.”
“Plan C. I didn’t think the ID was everything.”
“Gu-reum said the ID would be enough.”
“He said an ID would be necessary. But there are traces of someone touching his sleeve.”
At the indifferent answer, Joo-oh looked over the fallen man, but he didn’t know what Mu-hae was talking about. Apparently, Jin Mu-hae had seen something before he grabbed the sleeve.
Then again, a facility of this scale wouldn’t be run by a mere primitive ID card. It was certain that a researcher would have a chip implanted in their body, but if there were signs of using a Link Watch, that would be the way to breach the security.
As expected, Jin Mu-hae was incredible. He proceeded with a Quest that even a veteran player—one who was more than just experienced, but practically rotten—couldn’t reach, without even blinking.
Even if there was no need to hit him that hard, it must have been difficult to control his strength in an urgent situation.
Joo-oh pressed his pounding chest and licked his lips. Jin Mu-hae reached out and pressed his own Watch against the researcher’s wrist.
Beep—-.
The Tamjeunggwan-exclusive hacking program he must have received from Gu-reum began to run.
A warning message appeared on the researcher’s Watch screen and then vanished, exposing the internal UI.
“I heard the warnings, but the replication is truly crude. I don’t think it’ll work more than a few times. Hurry.”
“What about this person? He’ll know everything when he wakes up.”
“We have to make sure he doesn’t. Just do what you did when we went to the Holy Mother Church.”
At the order to put on a wonderful performance, Joo-oh nodded vigorously. After placing the collapsed researcher in a massage chair, the two of them moved carefully, staying as close to the edges of the surveillance camera’s view as possible.
Beep. The exit door, recognizing Mu-hae’s Link Watch, glowed with a green light different from usual. When he held the ID card up to it, the lock clicked open as if by magic.
“From now on.”
He gestured toward the elevator and operated his Link Watch. There was no noise, no sign, but there must have been a change in the building’s surveillance system.
“I’m confused because Gu-reum didn’t explain it properly.”
“It’s probably interfering with the video records.”
The elevator carrying the two opened its doors in a different direction from where they had entered. A transport device for authorized personnel, which had been hidden from the test subjects, revealed itself.
The floor buttons, marked from the basement to the top floor without exception, caught Joo-oh’s eye.
Ah. This is fun. Jin Mu-hae would hate it if he smiled, but he was so excited he truly wanted to stomp his feet.
“The storage is on the 7th and 8th floors. But I wonder what kind of storage it is?”
“If they use two entire floors of a building this size, it’s safe to say it contains virtually every kind.”
In this game, which was unnecessarily detailed regarding the world-building and the side stories of the characters, there was a research facility map that could only be seen by accepting a bad ending.
He had naturally mastered it to the point where he could guess the location of items with his eyes closed, but he hadn’t expected such a joyful opportunity to come his way.
Change is dangerous. Variables are infinite. Yet, an unpredictable future awakens a sinking spirit and allows one to harbor new expectations.
Some waitings are more eternal and arduous than a satisfying end. As his mind began to whirl with excitement, Joo-oh secretly clenched his teeth.
Ding!
When they stepped off on the 7th floor, what unfolded before them was an endless corridor and white walls.
Starting from where the elevator was located, guide signs labeled A, B, C, and D stretched out in both directions.
‘I can’t determine the exact location; how do I find the item I want?’
‘That’s for the spy to figure out. However, if the search system is the same as the one I know, you should be able to find it quite intuitively.’
“Jin Mu-hae. That.”
In the direction Joo-oh pointed, there was an identity recognition device. As they approached, the panel, which had looked like a blurry wall, glowed with a blue light.
—Access granted for Mid-High 35778M.
As he held the Link Watch and the ID card up in sequence, a giant screen appeared across the entire wall.
A hologram keyboard manifested at a position slightly lower than Mu-hae’s waist. Perhaps reflecting the height of the registered user, it was at a rather uncomfortable height.
‘So cool.’
It was a system whose form he already knew. Having enjoyed the same bad endings repeatedly, he was so familiar with it that he almost accidentally blurted out how to use it.
And yet, everything felt new. The way Jin Mu-hae’s hand touched the keyboard, or his brown eyes reflecting the faint light.
The sight itself brought endless interest and joy. Unable to contain his emotions, Joo-oh rubbed his nose and mouth vigorously with the back of his hand.
I want to take a screenshot… no, a photo. I want to keep it somewhere I can reach it at any time and remember it forever.
Suppressing the swelling desire, his red tongue distractedly licked his lips.
[47]
[Indexing… 4,558 cases… 18,740 cases… 39,054 cases…]
Idiot. He entered a keyword that was too common. Jin Mu-hae also realized the mistake and hurriedly stopped the search.
[47; Solar; Blue]
[Indexing complete. 72 cases.]
Since it was information Olga possessed, he must have guessed it was related to Solar City or Crystal Blue.
Thanks to that, he had narrowed down the candidates brilliantly, but it was still impossible to look through them all within the tight timeframe.
Jin Mu-hae bit his lower lip, lost in thought. His deepening eyes were so hauntingly beautiful that Joo-oh forgot the situation and stared blankly at his profile.
Crack. The man cracked his neck once to relieve tension, and his eyes shone with intelligence.
[47; Solar; Blue; Reaction; Change…]
‘…?’
Jin Mu-hae did not know the identity of T-47. It was only natural, as even Joo-oh, who remembered more information than anyone else in this world, hadn’t been able to figure it out immediately.
Yet now, Jin Mu-hae was entering keywords endlessly, as if he had realized what the target was.
[47; Solar; Blue; Reaction; Change; Reduction; Return flight]
[Indexing complete. 4 cases.]
When he entered the final keyword and executed the search function, the list of stored items was narrowed down as if by magic, and the relevant information appeared.
Jin Mu-hae pointed his index finger at the location of the item listed last.
[Administrative Countermeasures Committee for Goryeo (xx.xx~xx.xx) Meeting Minutes (Access Denied)]
[▒▒Seized▒▒▒: City Council Record Storage Archive 37-88…]
[…]
[Unsolved Research Record Report_Ja~Myo: Integrated Applied Tamjeunggwan 8F Section 558]
“It’s upstairs.”
“Uh-huh. Yeah.”
Following the gesture back to the elevator, Joo-oh’s eyebrows twitched.
His head was filled with things he wanted to ask, but it was obvious he would be ignored if he spoke now.
Walking almost at a run through the 8th-floor corridor, Jin Mu-hae’s head snapped from side to side. Even if he couldn’t see inside, he could roughly guess what kind of items were stored.
[-20℃]
[Close door immediately]
[No external impact]
[Electromagnetic shielding zone]
Rooms with specific temperature and humidity recorded on the indicators on the doors likely contained volatile reagents or biological information, and there were also places with sterile marks or pressure gauges.
The place where they stopped after finding the desired storage room was an area with no particular warning signs.
After authenticating his identity once more, they entered a space that smelled of dust, as if it were an old antique shop.
Lighting that only came on limitedly where one moved. Cabinets lined up in uniform sizes and contents wrapped in black covers.
“Paper.”
Bundles of analog documents filled the narrow space densely.
In a world where text could be recorded by voice alone and transmitted anywhere, using paper was a measure taken for security and to prevent loss.
“Jin Mu-hae. T-47 is…”
Tsk. The man placed his index finger to his lips as a warning and walked in, murmuring the number he had memorized.
The sound of a cabinet sliding open. The sound of paper documents fluttering as they were turned.
Finally finding a thick volume of data, Mu-hae flipped through the pages without even taking a breath.
[Project Dodum: Transformatsiya47 Reaction Characteristics 3rd Analysis Report]
Introduction
Transformatsiya47 (hereinafter T47) exhibits reaction peculiarities that are not included in existing material classification systems. The repeated phenomena of decomposition and recombination in a laboratory environment are difficult to define as simple chemical reactions, and it has been observed that under certain conditions, it causes minute disturbances in Blue Energy prior to purification.
The unexpected energy deviation (up to 21.7%) occurred in the second experimental group, implying both the potential utility and the potential danger of this substance…
T-47. The thing Jin Mu-hae had been searching for so desperately. The information left by the leadership of Solar City for the survival of his lover.
And the identity of the object Cheong had demanded instead of the payment of 80,000 Deals was not a special device, a drug, or a forbidden weapon, but a record of about ten pages.