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Illustrations: None.

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Time passed.

Word spread of another incident at the Aerial Weapons Research Institute, but for the investigators, life went on as usual.

After finishing car repairs, buying a new phone to replace the broken one, and as construction on the investigation team\'s office neared completion.

Before returning to work at the office, the team leader, Yoo Ji-yoo, and Choi Jae-min came to visit Lee Yeonwoo\'s shelter for a housewarming.

"Is this really the place? It doesn\'t look like anywhere a person would live," they chuckled wryly in front of the "No Unauthorized Entry" sign attached to the wire fence gate, on a plot of land devoid of even convenience stores, let alone houses.

The team leader lifted a bag full of alcohol and stroked his chin.

"Damn. Where do you have to go just to buy a pack of smokes?"

"Now he see why you told us to bring food. No way deliveries come out here," Ji-yoo said, shaking the bags of pizza and hamburgers with a dubious expression before firmly pressing the bell next to the gate.

Beep—!

As the bell rang, a camera on top of the fence swiveled to view the visitors. Soon the gate clicked open. Yeonwoo\'s voice came through a small speaker.

"There\'s a house inside. Just head that way. I\'ll come up now."

"He\'s coming up?"

"Must be coming up from the shelter."

They chatted as they passed through the gate.

Walking through the overgrown lot while shivering in the cold wind, they soon spotted an isolated, dilapidated house. Not exactly what you\'d call a livable home.

Jae-min\'s eyes shone with curiosity as he scrutinized every detail of the house, but his expression turned strange when he noticed the blast shutters lowered over the windows.

"This isn\'t quarantined, is it?"

"Looks like it might be..."

The team leader also glanced around uneasily.

A house isolated from the general public. It seemed Yeonwoo, who had a knack for getting involved in strange incidents, had been moved away from the city center.

Suddenly recalling Yeonwoo\'s proud face as he boasted about his shelter, the team leader swallowed whatever else he was about to say.

\'As long as he\'s satisfied. He probably lowered those blast shutters himself anyway.\'

Just then, the door rattled slightly before opening with a heavy sound. Yeonwoo scratched his disheveled hair and gestured inside.

"Come on in."

Beyond the door lay a truly abandoned house. No furniture, dust everywhere, and stale air.

"Oh. Yeonwoo, nice... nice place," the team leader stumbled over his words.

"Don\'t you clean?" Ji-yoo asked, looking disgusted.

Despite their reactions, Yeonwoo calmly led them to a hatch in the floor.

"The shelter\'s down here. I didn\'t bother maintaining the upper level."

"...You live down there?"

A deep vertical shaft with a ladder leading down. It clearly required considerable strength just to climb up and down.

Yeonwoo smiled sheepishly. "It\'s a pain, but it\'s good exercise. Not as bad as you\'d think."

"But... every time you leave for work-"

"I\'ll go down first!" Jae-min excitedly clambered down the ladder.

Yeonwoo glanced at the food the team leader and Ji-yoo were carrying, then held out a bag. "It\'ll be hard to carry down. Put it in here."

"Oh, right. Huh. First time in a company shelter," the team leader mused. "...Come to think of it, what\'s that bag?"

"Somehow it became an anomaly by chance."

They made their way to the shelter\'s control room.

"Wow."

In the spacious control room filled with computers, they set down the pizza, hamburgers, and alcohol while glancing around.

Several large screens displayed search results Yeonwoo must have looked up: EMP shielding, EMP-shielded cars and phones, blast shutter reinforcement, shutters that resist cutting tools, and so on.

Above all, the control room\'s sleek atmosphere, decked out with futuristic machinery, impressed them.

"The inside\'s not bad."

"Is there internet here? Man, playing games here would be awesome. Actually, even just watching movies would be great."

It was impressive enough to make them forget about the eerie grounds outside and the rundown house above.

As the investigators, with their keen safety awareness, cracked open beer cans while envying the shelter, Yeonwoo took a bite of his hamburger and spoke.

"There are a few anomalies too. They\'re really great."

"...What do you have?"

The beer cans froze halfway to their mouths. They looked around warily before slowly relaxing. If there were dangerous entities, Yeonwoo wouldn\'t be so casual.

"You mean like anomalous equipment?"

"Things like an apple tree or cogwheels. They\'re supposed to be core components of the shelter, but they shouldn\'t be dangerous."

The conversation flowed continuously.

They chatted about the shelter, cursed the grammar Nazi robot, and lamented having to return to the office once renovations were complete.

As the drinking session reached its peak, the team leader suddenly rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a few documents. His face flushed like a jujube, he haphazardly placed the papers on the alcohol-stained table.

"Right. We got an investigation job. We all need to go out tomorrow."

"Ugh. Can\'t we do it after the renovations? It\'d be nice to bring our anomalous equipment," Ji-yoo grumbled as she took a sip of beer.

The team leader tapped the damp documents. "From the looks of this, the investigation will take some time. By the time we finish, renovations should be done. We can grab the equipment then."

"What\'s the job?"

Yeonwoo glanced down at the documents to see a photo of two strange people standing on a quiet road.

Someone wearing what looked like a worm head.

Similar photos on other documents. People wearing mascot heads shaped like worm heads, carrying picket signs around their necks.

\'What\'s written on those?\'

The image quality was poor, as if the camera had shaken. As Yeonwoo squinted at the blurry text on the picket signs, Jae-min, who had been quietly drinking cola, suddenly shouted.

"Oh! I saw these guys! They were preaching in front of a school and got chased off!"

"Preaching? Some kind of cult?"

Yeonwoo took another look at the photo, but it didn\'t seem particularly religious. If anything, it looked like a bizarre publicity stunt. But Jae-min nodded vigorously.

"They were saying stuff like \'Believe in the Great Whatever and gain eternal life\', \'Salvation is here\', that kind of thing."

"Eternal life?"

"Yeah. I don\'t know much else. Oh, I think I might\'ve seen them on the street too."

Yeonwoo examined the photo closely through drunken eyes. Eternal life. A life without natural death. His fuzzy mind kept churning.

\'No matter how hard I try to survive, I\'ll eventually die of old age. Though that seems so far off.\'

The alcohol fueled his wandering thoughts. Do humans really have to die of old age? Couldn\'t even natural death be avoided in this world?

As Yeonwoo stared at the photo with a meaningful look, the team leader grumbled.

"It\'s definitely a cult. What\'s the world coming to? Anyway, we suspect these guys are connected to an anomaly."

He struggled to peel apart the alcohol-soaked papers, revealing a list of suspicious points.

Strangely fanatical people, people whose lives changed completely, people who lost contact after joining, people who snapped when others tried to find those who\'d lost contact. Vivid accounts of it all.

It seemed like an ordinary cult, but those mascot heads didn\'t fit at all.

"We\'ll make contact with the preachers. Infiltrate, find some traces of anomalies, then get out. Simple enough."

"Do we all need to be deployed for this?"

"Yeah. They\'re picky about who they recruit, so we don\'t know who they\'ll take."

At that moment, Yeonwoo raised his hand.

Eternal life was one thing, but danger was another.

"If it\'s a real anomaly, it\'s probably mind control. How do we deal with that?"

"Drink a memory eraser and you\'ll be cured. Or we can request medical support from the company."

Yeonwoo nodded obediently. The company had many ways to treat simple mind control. You could even resist with mental strength or dice rolls. Plus, the word "eternal life" intrigued him.

With that, they drained their last drinks and stumbled off to random bedrooms to sleep.

---

---

After drinking the rainwater, sleep became less necessary. With each day of consuming more rainwater, sleep time gradually decreased until now just 4 hours was enough to wake up naturally.

Yeonwoo rose in the early dawn and went to the sink to look at himself in the mirror. Messy, tangled hair and patchy stubble. Though he wanted to freshen up, Yeonwoo left it as is.

Time to return to being Yeonwoo the civil service exam student.

\'The kind of person a cult would approach. A civil service exam student, of course. I\'ll just brush my teeth.\'

While such a group was unlikely to possess true power of eternal life, it was still a job.

\'If things look dangerous, I can always run away.\'

After brushing his teeth, he adjusted his posture in the mirror. Head down, shoulders hunched, back stooped.

By the time he finished, everyone else was up and ready to leave. With groggy expressions, they grumbled as they climbed the ladder and piled into the team leader\'s car to head into the city.

"Alright, approach them on your own. Report anything unusual through the company messenger."

"Got it."

The team leader dropped them off one by one along the way. Yeonwoo got out first, shuffling through the crowd in his slippers.

Rush hour downtown. Streets bustling with all sorts of people hurrying to their destinations.

Keeping his head down but his vision wide, he searched for a while.

\'Found them.\'

Two people wearing monstrous worm head mascots like something out of a game, waving picket signs and gesturing to passersby.

Yeonwoo naturally changed course, heading towards them. As he trudged past, someone grabbed his sleeve.

His upper body twisted as he was forcefully pulled.

"Excuse me, are you interested in the Great Old One? If you just believe in Him, you can gain eternal life and all your worries will disappear."

"...What?"

When Yeonwoo responded gruffly, the person in the worm costume spoke in a kind voice while shaking their head side to side.

"Your face is full of worry. We really want to help you. If you come with us for just a moment, all your problems will be solved."

"Don\'t I have to pay for that?"

As Yeonwoo feigned hesitation, the mascot head shook like a spinning top.

"We really don\'t collect any money. What meaning would human money have to the Great One? Asking for money is just human greed."

"If that\'s true..."

Pretending to be convinced by their surprisingly persuasive words, Yeonwoo fully turned to face them.

The mascot duo politely bowed their heads and led Yeonwoo somewhere. Based on the information he\'d seen, they were heading towards their main building.

They chatted as they walked.

"What do you do for work? The ritual varies depending on your job."

"I\'m studying for the civil service exam. I\'ve failed four times now."

"Oh my. That must have been so hard for you. But..."

The mascot heads showed no hint of suspicion as they continued questioning.

"If you\'ve been a student for 5 years, your family must be well-off. They\'ve been supporting you all this time, right?"

"No... They\'ve even gone into debt to support me... Ah. I absolutely must pass this year. Can the Great One really help?"

Mixing in some lies and speaking desperately, the mascot duo stopped in their tracks. They exchanged glances, then awkwardly started acting busy.

Frantically searching their pockets, slapping their foreheads.

"Oh no! We forgot something important! We\'re so sorry, but we have to go now! We\'ll pray for your success this time!"

"What? Wait, just a moment!"

Yeonwoo hurriedly reached out, but it was too late. Despite their heavy mascot heads, they darted away and vanished around a corner.

Left alone, Yeonwoo wore a baffled expression.

\'What was that about? Is it just a simple money-grabbing cult after all?\'

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