TCWGRF 16

Isaac cautiously surveyed the area, then used a wire loop that looked much sturdier than the last one to open the records office door and quickly slipped inside.

In that motion, the previous day’s hesitation and apprehension were gone, and only a thick layer of excitement remained.

Samuel was not the type to welcome variables. He was closer to being irritated by plans going awry or situations he could not perfectly comprehend, so it was correct to say he disliked them.

The decision to watch the black-haired young man, who he knew was a variable and was clearly either a rebel or someone who had entered through illicit means from the outside, was due to some kind of intuition.

Despite their overwhelming advantage, the city had never once managed to eradicate the rebels. The rebels’ pawns were eliminated and expelled countless times, but they would crawl out of the shadows again, hide somewhere in the city, and reveal their identities at unexpected moments.

This was a tiresome game board that had been going on for over a century.

The pieces the rebels possessed were mostly ‘pawns’ that could be easily made and replaced at will, and their ‘king’ or ‘queen’ had yet to be fully revealed.

This was thanks to the fact that, unlike the city’s rulers who inherited their thrones for generations within a limited space, the rebels constantly moved their bases in the vast outside world and kept their personal details strictly confidential.

Perhaps that was why. The aspect of the game could not escape its fixed framework.

When rebels infiltrated the city, the city’s rulers would capture them, and after a certain amount of time, the rebels would plant another spy to apply pressure.

Belatedly realizing the danger had come right up to their chins, the rulers would make a fuss and carry out a loud but insubstantial cleanup operation.

As a result, on the surface, the city always remained intact, and while the rebels were not enough to ruin the city, they were imprinted on the citizens as a genuine threat.

Samuel found this cycle extremely tedious. The way they all put on such solemn faces while playing an eternal role-play that was neither fun nor ending, and the way they nonchalantly burned through numerous lives and resources without any intention of seeing it through.

Even the process of creating truth and information by torturing those who were nothing more than grunts, or setting traps and waiting for the other side to fall into them, was yawn-inducingly boring.

Everyone might be optimistic about the city’s victory, but as long as they did not know each other’s cards until the very, very end, this useless and exhaustive game would continue.

Everyone has a card they want to hide, and it is bound to be revealed in a moment of crisis.

The young man named ‘Joshua’ from District 28 certainly fit Samuel’s long-held idea of a variable and a ‘special card’ that could turn this tedious situation around.

Sending a young man who looked so innocent, who was a rebel yet not like a rebel, into the heart of the city was a new pattern that had never been seen before.

He did not even know if it was the will of the rebel leader on the outside, or the will of the ‘head’ said to be within the city, but Samuel could feel that a worthy opponent who could make this chessboard a little more interesting had finally sat down across from him.

Knock, knock. After two knocks echoed from outside the darkened office, the news Samuel had been waiting for was finally delivered.

“He’s made a move.”

The variable had taken a step to achieve his objective. Finally, today, he would find out what the black-haired young man had come here to find.

At the thrill of having his long-held curiosity resolved, and the thought of being able to look at his opponent’s cards in this game, Samuel slowly stretched his lips in the darkness and smiled silently.

The records office had not changed at all from a few days ago.

The boxes haphazardly placed on the bookshelf shelves, the dust rolling around in clumps, the way utterly useless-looking materials were casually displayed in the front row—was there any reason for that to change overnight?

Isaac quickly scanned the bookshelves he had already seen and went deeper inside. Not here, not here. As expected, there were no labels related to what he was looking for, like population, names, deceased, or citizen lists, within his line of sight.

Soon he reached the dark gray wall where the man and woman had enjoyed their secret meeting. When he remembered again that the man who had exuded sensuality while leaning against the wall was Commissioner Samuel, his body trembled with fear.

It still felt as though he could hear his leisurely footsteps, his warning-laced cold voice, and his low, heated moans in his ears, but he shook his head from side to side and decided to pour all his attention into the small red door to the side.

To open the door and enter, he had to move the desk blocking the front. It was the very same desk he had hidden behind before.

Screeeak, after a small scraping sound, the desk was moved to one side. Now facing the door without any obstacles, Isaac gulped, swallowing the tension that had gathered near his throat, and earnestly prayed that what he desired would be beyond this door.

When his personal ritual was over, he cautiously took a piece of wire from his pocket and picked at the keyhole.

‘Strange.’

He should have felt something at his fingertips. But no matter how much he listened, or how busily he moved his hands, nothing caught. Sweat beaded on his forehead from anxiety, and his legs trembled with tension.

‘No way.’

When he turned the doorknob, which was slippery from the sweat on his palm, with force, the door opened as if it had been waiting. It had not been locked in the first place.

The suspicion that the security was ridiculously lax for a place that stored important documents suddenly flashed through his mind.

But, considering the Public Security Bureau as a whole, the documents stored inside here might not be that important, or the person in charge of this place might have been careless and forgotten to lock the door.

After rationalizing with such words, Isaac took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold, which was about a hand’s span high.

Below his feet and before his eyes lay a pitch-black, unknown territory where not a single ray of light entered, but there was no other choice. The answer had to be here. Even if he suffocated, buried in darkness, it would be enough if he could find even a small trace of Asel.

And so, Isaac melted into the darkness. The bright red door did not cry out as it swallowed the stranger in one gulp, and then closed smoothly, as if it would never open again.

Unlike the previous space, where objects could be discerned without a lamp, the area inside the red door was engulfed in darkness, as if heavy, thick curtains had been drawn over every window, making it impossible to see even an inch ahead.

In this uncertain, unknown space, the small flame of a lamp was desperately needed. The very insignificant and faint light created when a hard wick, fed with low-grade oil, meets a flame and burns up in a flash.

It took time for his eyes to adjust to the dark world, but Isaac had no such luxury. He had to light the lamp he had brought this far, however risky, and check quickly before leaving.

‘I put it in here.’

His fingers moved delicately to take out a match, rummaging through the pocket on his shirt breast.

“…Ah!”

In a moment of carelessness, the thin match slipped through his fingers and fell to the floor. Due to its feather-light weight, he could not even hear the sound of it hitting the ground, so he could not even tell where it had gone.

He quickly searched the inside of his pocket, but there were no spare matches. Unfortunately, the one he had just dropped was the last.

The one and only match had to be around him. Immediately squatting down, Isaac was careful not to step on it and render it useless. He focused all the senses in his fingertips and began to feel the floor, searching for an object with a similar texture to a match.

‘Where did it go. Quickly…’

But no matter how far he expanded his search, crawling on his knees, all he touched were gritty sand particles, dust, and a chill seeping up from below. He could not feel anything even remotely similar to a match.

The room was still pitch black, and he had to rely entirely on his imagination to guess its size and what kind of furniture was placed in it.

He did not know how much time had passed or what was happening outside. The only things filling this space were the silence and the faint sound of breath escaping Isaac’s nose.

“…Ugh!”

Thump, a short while later, his head hit something hard, making a dull sound.

It seemed he had hit his forehead on something sharp and hard, like the corner of a desk. Before he could even feel the pain, a box fell powerlessly, and its contents spilled out, scattering and fluttering in all directions.

Since it had made quite a loud noise, he pricked up his ears while clutching his head, wondering if anyone had heard. But he heard no footsteps of someone running over, having noticed a suspicious presence, nor the sound of someone clearing their throat.

“Hah… Hmph!”

After letting out an involuntary sigh of relief, Isaac covered his mouth again and picked up a piece of paper scattered on the floor.

Whether it was a picture or writing. He could not make out the contents written on it in the darkness, so he gave up on finding the match and lighting the lamp and turned his body to his right, where he thought the window would be.

When he reached the window on his knees with difficulty and slightly drew back the heavy curtain, the light from outside the building, lit for the Public Security Bureau’s security, seeped in a little through the crack.

The light that passed through the stained, dusty window and reached the paper was extremely dim, not enough to read all the small, densely written text. Nevertheless, Isaac strained his eyes and found a spot that was somewhat legible, checking one letter at a time.

“Re-bel… de… ceased… report, …form?”

The box he had accidentally spilled. Inside it was information on deceased individuals of rebel origin. This place, just as he had expected, and as Vincent had said, was undoubtedly a place where materials concerning unsavory deaths were collected.

Unlike the booklets that listed the achievements of the successive Commissioners of Public Security, the individual sheets of documents did not have a single photograph attached that would make it easy to identify faces.

There must have been a gap as wide as the heavens and the earth, the city center and District 28, between those who ascended to the city’s throne and those who died without anyone knowing. As a result, what he held in his hand was an old record that had been carelessly processed according to procedure, but for now, that was enough for Isaac.

Isaac hurriedly returned to the spot where he had just fallen and gathered an armful of papers scattered on the floor to take to the window. It was to see if there was anyone who could be presumed to be Asel.

Estimated to be in his 40s? No.

Red hair? Not this one either.

Height 180cm? No, no…

If even one of the records did not match, he immediately moved on to the next sheet. He flipped the ones he had already checked to the very back so as not to lose them.

They were all people whose date of death was twenty years ago, or even longer, but he did not let go of the thread of hope and examined them one by one, straining his eyes.

‘Not here, not here. Where else did they fall?’

He had picked up about twenty sheets. Among them, there was no one with conditions even remotely similar to Asel, let alone Asel himself. It was too early to be relieved and optimistic that he was alive just based on that; there were still plenty of documents scattered on the floor, and he had not even reached the recent deaths yet.

To gather all the papers that had flown far away, Isaac crawled on his knees in the darkness and swept the floor with his hands, doing his best to search.

“…?”

Then thump, his hand touched something convex and hard. It was not the documents he had dropped, nor a box, nor any furniture in the room.

“…!”

A pair of sleek leather shoes, and above them, two legs rising firmly. Someone was standing there.

He had not felt any presence, nor heard any breathing.

Belatedly, he tried to pull back the hand he had placed on the shoe and run away, but the other person was faster, moving his foot to step on the back of Isaac’s hand.

“…I was waiting to see when you’d notice me.”

A cold voice. Isaac remembered clearly who the owner of this voice was.

“Agh.”

He struggled to pull out the hand stepped on by the shoe, but the more he did, the stronger the pressure became. A tear trickled out, and like an insect with one wing pinned, he could only flail helplessly in place.

“Hahaha. Look at this.”

A clicking sound of a button came from above, and the light overhead flickered before flashing on, brightly illuminating the surroundings.

His eyes, barely accustomed to the darkness, rejected the piercing rays of light and tried to hide behind his eyelids, and his head, which had been trying hard to deny the situation unfolding before him, felt dizzy enough to break.

Even at that moment, Isaac blinked his eyes, instinctively trying to confirm who the person standing on his foot was. It felt as if the present would never feel real until he had captured his existence in the depths of his retina.

He strenuously lifted his head, which was trembling with a slight convulsion, and opened his eyes wide, following the seam line that ran straight from the ankle.

Isaac’s gaze finally broke free from the seemingly endless long legs and reached the jacket with gold buttons. And then, past the black belt and holster, it swept over the white cloth again and finally reached the other person’s face.

Bright red lips, blue eyes, dense eyelashes, neatly combed-back blond hair.

‘…An angel?’

The moment he met him, his own situation was temporarily forgotten. It was because seeing his face reminded him of the beautiful angels from the stories he had often heard in his childhood. Was it because he was wearing white clothes? It further created the illusion that he had come to save him.

But his bitter smile that spread across the tilted corners of his mouth, which had lost their balance, and the annoyance that showed between his eyebrows as if a worthless bug had landed on his clothes, reminded him that he was no guardian angel, saint, or savior.

A white uniform. That alone left no room for doubt about the man’s identity.

“Sa-Samuel…”

“Yes, yes. You even know who I am today, quite commendable.”

The person he should never meet, the most dangerous being in the city, the Party’s guard dog, the new Commissioner of Public Security, Samuel, was looking down at him.

“I’m pretty sure I ordered the patrol members to clean. I wonder how this rat got in here.”

Ah, everything was over before it even began. He had not found any clues about Asel, and no excuse would work on this man. The other person had known everything from the beginning, and had been waiting here with his mouth wide open for him to be noticed.

Haah, haah. Isaac could feel with his whole body that his death was imminent. His breathing naturally became ragged, and his heart pounded loudly and hotly, but his hands and feet were as cold as if the chill from the floor had transferred to them.

“Now. Shall we have an answer?”

“Th-that is…”

A pure curiosity, wondering what kind of excuse he would offer, was evident in the other’s tone. Even knowing that he had not been given a chance to prove his innocence, Isaac stammered as he recalled the excuse he had thought of before opening the records office door and entering.

That he was bored of cleaning, that he wanted to take a breather, or that he had followed a suspicious person and ended up here—would that person really believe such words?

“Aaargh!”

Crunch, when the answer did not come back quickly, pressure was applied to the heel that was pinning his hand to prevent him from escaping. As he felt the pain of his hand being pierced and seared by fire, a pitiful scream erupted from Isaac’s mouth.

“What on earth were you so curious about? Hm?”

Soon, the foot that had been mercilessly crushing the back of his hand was lifted. Samuel picked up one of the many sheets of paper scattered on the floor and fluttered it between his thumb and forefinger.

“Not someone who’s alive, not someone who’s about to die, but looking for someone who died a long time ago.”

The pain in his hand remained vivid, but thanks to a moment of freedom, Isaac’s mind raced.

How could he get out of here? If he attacked with all his might, could he defeat that person? Is there anything he could use as a weapon…

He had only stealthily rolled his eyes around without making a sound. Thump, as if he had heard his thoughts, Samuel’s foot struck Isaac’s abdomen without hesitation.

Flash, sparks flew before his eyes and his insides balled up and burned. He thought he was used to getting hit since he was a child, but not at all. It even made him think that the rebel misters had gone easy on him.

“I asked what you were trying to find in here.”

“Ugh…”

The one who had been struck unexpectedly could not make a sound and was slumped in a corner, barely holding on to his gasping breath. Not only was he in no condition to say what the other person wanted to hear, but his vision was also becoming increasingly distorted.

The kind Commissioner of Public Security grabbed Isaac by the hair and tilted his head back so he could look at him and answer, but his eyelids were slowly closing.

“…You have to answer, don’t you?”

“……”

Oh dear. The last words he heard in his fading consciousness were a dry lament that held no trace of sympathy whatsoever.