By Zephyria 
He had to be a good child who listened to his parents. Only then would he not be abandoned again; the child braced his heart with such an obsession.
On the other hand, it felt strange and enviable that all the people gathered in the spacious detached house in the countryside were family and relatives. If he became a good child who listened well, would he one day be accepted as part of their family?
…There was a time when he harbored such naive expectations.
It was a winter day when the wind was exceptionally fierce. In the countryside, where they had come to celebrate the Lunar New Year, his father and eldest aunt were whispering.
〈Noona. Mother looks pale; is something wrong?〉
〈She lost her cherished jade ring.〉
It was an old ring she treasured dearly, the only keepsake from her mother—his great-grandmother.
No one had lamented to the child, nor had anyone asked or ordered him to do anything, but the child decided he had to find it. He harbored a simple, childlike wish: that if he did, his grandmother might welcome him with a bit more warmth.
Secretly, the child left the house to search for the grandmother’s ring. He crawled along, rummaging through the bushes around the house and the snow piled in the shaded areas. When it didn’t appear even after searching for a long time, the child’s gaze gradually turned outward. He searched the roadsides leading to the shops and the village hall.
Before he knew it, the sun had completely set in the west. When he came to his senses, it was pitch black everywhere, and not a single person was in sight. He felt like bursting into tears from fear, but he hated the idea of giving up even more. He felt that if he went back now without doing anything, his grandmother would scold him again. Fidgeting with his frozen hands and sobbing, the child walked along the narrow country road.
Relying on the light of the sparse streetlamps, the child stumbled along until he finally found the jade ring beneath the wall of a shrine dedicated to the grandmother’s ancestors, typically situated on one side of the old village.
Meanwhile, the village had been turned upside down.
Police cars arrived, and the adults searched for the child, calling his name. The child, who had lost his way back and was crouching and crying in front of the shrine, was discovered by his uncle. To the grandmother, who scolded him for what he had been doing alone and claimed that this was why children without a proper pedigree were no good, the child held out the jade ring he had been clutching preciously with his frozen hands.
〈G-Grandmother, I found this for you…〉
The air around them changed.
The surrounding adults, who had been clicking their tongues, showed expressions of surprise and pity, but only the grandmother—only her complexion—turned stark white. Looking down at the child’s cold, cracked hands with a rigid gaze, the grandmother flung the jade ring to the ground. Then, a fierce slap flew across his cheek.
The jade ring, which had carried his desperate longing for his grandmother, shattered into pieces in the hands of none other than the grandmother herself. More than the pain of the first slap he had ever received, the remnants of the broken ring pierced the child’s eyes painfully.
〈Who told you to go look for it? Who told you to do it! Why did you go and ruin things by doing something you weren’t asked to do! Why! Why!〉
The grandmother had been the daughter of a noble family, revered and respected in the neighborhood before their downfall. The grandmother, who had never shown a lapse in composure even when raising her voice at the father over the child’s matters, now screamed and wailed with an expression as if she were collapsing.
The father, who had returned after hearing the news while searching the village, left the house with the child that very day and severed ties with the grandmother.
Yoo Jiha still regretted it now.
If he hadn’t done something so clumsy as trying to find the grandmother’s ring, perhaps his father wouldn’t have reached the extreme of severing ties with her. They weren’t relatives he saw often anyway, so he could have just endured it. Just him.
If one has been severely scolded for volunteering to do something stupid once, they shouldn’t repeat it a second time. The grandmother’s voice, reprimanding him for making a scene on his own, echoed in his mind. That voice soon became the voices of his team members, and then Jeil Heon’s voice.
Just a rookie who knows nothing. What do you think you can do?
His fingertips, curled into a huddle, tightened until they turned white. He desperately gripped the nightgown, but even the faint warmth of Jeil Heon that had remained on the fabric had long since vanished.
Amidst a cold like despair, a gap split open without the sound of a creaking hinge, and light entered diagonally. The door opened.
The moment Yoo Jiha vanished, the Performance stopped. Shortly after, the curtain fell along with an apology from a staff entity, stating that an unexpected intermission was necessary due to an accident requiring a stage inspection, and apologizing for the confusion. Kim Min-seop barely suppressed a scream, and the accompanying Enforcement Division Agents quietly drew their rifles.
Song Hilda also suppressed her anxiety and attempted to contact Jeil Heon in the next room via in-ear. Jeil Heon had said that if Yoo Jiha were dragged onto the stage, he would immediately intrude and close the Aberrant Realm to rescue him. Since there was no other way, she had agreed, but it was true that she wasn’t entirely keen on it.
They were not the Enforcement Division, which destroys and isolates anomalies, but the Exploration Division. Their priority should be the safe exploration of the Aberrant Realm and the rescue of victims. However, for whatever reason, Jeil Heon had previously closed the Eight Phases Mental Hospital immediately. Even though it was an Aberrant Realm that should have been maintained until natural extinction due to its high Exploration Rate and survival rate.
The Enforcement Division had cheered at the return of the legendary former Head of department, and high-ranking officials of the Management Bureau who remembered him from 22 years ago were stirred, but for Song Hilda, who fell into neither category, it was a question. Being decisive and bold is an advantage as an Enforcement Division Agent.
But she wondered if such a disposition was truly necessary for the Exploration Division. His aggressiveness was not a virtue suited for the Exploration Division. The Exploration Division must maintain a broad perspective, remaining cool and calm in any situation.
Worried that he might abruptly close the Aberrant Realm just to save Yoo Jiha, whose location was unknown, Song Hilda spoke.
“Team leader, did Jiha-ssi have a special talisman?”
Yes, I had him wear clothes that received a blessing.
However, Jeil Heon’s voice was eerily flat. Since it didn’t seem like he would launch a reckless operation immediately, Song Hilda breathed a sigh of relief. Because relief came first, she didn’t realize that the tone being transmitted was so low it lacked any inflection, and she continued.
“Then it seems he was bounced to a relatively safe place while being dragged to the stage. If it’s not the stage, there’s a place I can guess…”
The Hanseong Opera House also imitated the internal layout. Excluding the stage and the audience seating, there were the backstage area, auxiliary facilities, and the lobby. Which of these would it be? She looked back at Kim Min-seop, but he too frowned, seemingly unable to think of a suitable place.
A calm answer came through the in-ear.
Jiha will be in the kitchen.
“Since he was bounced while being dragged to the stage, wouldn’t the probability be higher for the backstage area?”
On the contrary, the backstage area would have the lowest probability. There have been cases where people dragged to the stage became props in the backstage, so the backstage should be viewed as connected to the stage.
“Ah, right…”
And if he had been bounced into the lobby, the commotion of the Aberrations would have reached the audience, and other auxiliary facilities have no direct connection to the performance hall. If it’s to the extent that the performance had to be stopped, I suspect an anomaly occurred in the kitchen, which is linked to the audience seating.
It certainly made sense. In contrast, Song Hilda felt a slight embarrassment at the analysis that she, despite having experience exploring the Opera House, had failed to consider. It seemed she was the one who had been unable to remain calm over a team member’s disappearance.
They had to go to the kitchen to rescue him, but the problem was that they didn’t know when the performance would resume. What should they do to avoid being caught leaving their seats during the performance? Before Song Hilda could finish her worrying.
There’s no need to attract the Aberrations’ attention, so I’ll go alone.
Jeil Heon ended the conversation, saying he would rescue Yoo Jiha before the intermission ended. Then, there was the sound of the door to the next room opening.
Kim Min-seop, who had been listening with bated breath, tilted his head.
“How is the Team leader going to get to the kitchen without the guidance of a staff entity? You can’t even find the way down there without a guide.”
A small, unidentified disturbance occurred in the kitchen. It wasn’t enough to affect the performance, but it might cause inconvenience to the VIPs in the box seats who had to dine. That is, it was so within the ritual of mimicking humans.
An Aberration, scurrying to specially inform the VIPs that nothing serious was happening, encountered a guest in the middle of the hallway.
「Guest. I have something to tell you…」
At that moment, it learned an unknown sensation called terror.