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Screech- Crash! Screech! Boom!

A series of loud noises echoed.

Yeonwoo slowly opened his eyes. Cracked windows and a painful body. His groggy eyes suddenly widened as if torn open.

\'Driverless car, accident! Ambush!\'

Memories struck him like lightning.

Bang!

He quickly opened the truck door and tried to jump out, but his body, strapped by the seatbelt, couldn’t leave the seat.

Yeonwoo flailed his limbs as he hung from the seatbelt, then reached behind with his free hand to press the red PRESS button.

As soon as he pressed it, the seatbelt released, and he fell to the ground.

“Ouch!”

He landed awkwardly on a manhole cover. Without time to recover, Yeonwoo quickly looked around.

“What the...?”

Bang! Bang!

The crashing sounds continued unabated. Driverless cars sped towards the truck, surrounding it on all sides.

The road was as blocked as a chain-reaction collision site, or a holiday highway jam.

Then, he heard a click, the sound of footsteps.

“…!”

The sound came from the other side of the truck. Yeonwoo crouched down and pressed himself against the truck. He listened to the conversation, then circled around the truck.

“Yes! We can’t move any further! …You\'re saying the force was wiped out? Then... Oh, support is coming now? How long will it take? …It’ll take forever! At this rate, we’ll lose it! …No! The aftermath isn\'t what matters right now! …Then at least tell me who the attackers are, what? Who?”

The man who had been driving the truck shouted into his phone. Wiping blood from his head, he angrily threw the phone.

The phone bounced on the asphalt a few times before sliding to a stop at Yeonwoo\'s feet.

The man and Yeonwoo made eye contact. Yeonwoo spoke first.

“What’s the situation? Should we run?”

“No… Giving up is the worst option. We have to protect the Trapped Man no matter what. That’s the best option.”

Yeonwoo looked around the congested road with a gloomy expression. It was as blocked as his mind.

“How can we protect it here? You said the Strike Company was wiped out.”

“There’s a backup plan.”

The man hesitated briefly, then pulled a short knife from his suit pocket. Yeonwoo asked with a sinking feeling.

“You’re not suggesting we fight with that, right? You don’t mean the backup plan is to fight the attackers?”

“No. …We’re going to kill the Trapped Man.”

The road, where the accidents had suddenly stopped, was eerily quiet.

There was no time. The man bit his lip and walked to the back of the truck, talking as if convincing himself.

“The Trapped Man is an anomaly. Even if we kill it, it won’t die. It’ll respawn somewhere on Earth. Better to send it far away than let the doomsday cultists get it...”

The doomsday cultists are a decentralized organization. Given the company’s superior information resources, it’s not a bad outcome. They would find and recover it first.

\'Is that it? Then I just need to find a way to save myself. Running or hiding would be better, right?’

Yeonwoo thought about how to stay safe from potential terrorist attacks.

He followed the man, then suddenly stopped and returned to where he had fallen. He saw the round manhole cover.

‘This...’

Yeonwoo asked,

“Hey, how many attackers are there, and what anomalies do they have?”

“The attackers are people. They are wanted criminals who use anomalies as weapons: the Hijacker and the Driver. To put it briefly.”

Hijacker.

A thief who steals company property using a gun that creates blue holes in space.

Driver.

A terrorist who uses a controller to manipulate lifeless vehicles, causing traffic accidents, bringing down planes, derailing trains, and operating tanks and fighter jets.

Yeonwoo thought for a moment, then kicked the manhole cover.

“You mean they can\'t observe or track us?”

“Yes. The driver might be able to do something, but since he\'s on his way here now, probably not—”

It was a tentative answer, but Yeonwoo spoke quickly.

“Then we just need to hide, right?”

“What?”

The man, who had his hand on the tarp of the cargo bed, turned his head towards Yeonwoo.

Yeonwoo pointed at the manhole cover.

“Why don’t we hide the anomaly and ourselves down there? What do you think?”

“…Not a bad idea. I\'ll open the cover.”

---

---

Swoosh!

Yeonwoo and the man pulled aside the tarp covering the cargo bed, revealing its dim interior.

A door stood upright, with the upper half of a man protruding from it. The Trapped Man looked up as sunlight suddenly flooded in.

“Hey, my back really hurts. Can you help me change my position? If you twist me just right, I can come out. I promise I won’t run.”

Yeonwoo and the man exchanged glances and nodded briefly.

“Let’s do it.”

“Thanks. My back is killing me—”

The man climbed into the cargo bed and shook the door back and forth vigorously. The Trapped Man wobbled, then suddenly slipped out of the door like a ghost. He stretched and took a deep breath.

“Ah, that’s better.”

“We don’t have time. Come on out quickly.”

“Ah, right. Let’s go.”

Grabbing the man’s outstretched hand, the Trapped Man climbed out of the cargo bed. Squinting in the sunlight, he asked,

“There’s been a big accident. So where are we going?”

“Down here.”

The man, declaring that opening manhole covers was a basic skill for field agents, retrieved tools from the truck and opened the manhole. Rusty handles embedded in the wall served as a ladder. A faint stench wafted up.

“Down there?”

As the Trapped Man hesitated, Yeonwoo gave him a firm push.

“There’s no time. Hurry.”

“Ah, I don’t want to... Alright. I have to listen to the company.”

Step, step, step. Fortunately, the Trapped Man climbed down without getting stuck. Yeonwoo was next to enter the manhole, gripping the ladder with both feet and one hand.

Step, step, step. Standing in the sewer, Yeonwoo looked up and called out.

“Come down!”

“No.”

“What?”

The manhole opening, glowing like a round sun, suddenly had a head silhouetted against it. The man spoke.

“I’ll be the decoy. I’ll lead them somewhere else, just in case they find us.”

With that, he started closing the cover. As the opening shrank to a crescent, Yeonwoo quickly called out.

“Wait, wait! Give me the knife!”

The closing stopped momentarily. Yeonwoo’s voice echoed through the gap.

“Just in case, for the backup plan!”

“Understood. Be careful.”

The knife dropped down, splashing into the dirty water. Yeonwoo picked it up, ignoring the filthy water, and sighed in relief.

‘Alright. If they find us, I can use this to threaten them.’

It was just a blade, but it was a weapon. He could take the Trapped Man as a hostage.

He could stage a standoff to buy time until reinforcements arrived, or use the hostage to save his own life.

Yeonwoo placed the knife on his cast and pulled out his phone from his pocket, turning on the flashlight. The dark sewer was illuminated by the white light.

Damp moisture, a horrible stench, filth, and moss.

Creepy darkness.

But it was safe.

At that moment, the Trapped Man called out to Yeonwoo.

“Hey…”

“Uh, yes?”

Yeonwoo turned his phone towards the Trapped Man, who extended his hand towards him.

“My foot’s stuck. Can you pull me out? It feels gross down here.”

One of his feet was deeply wedged into a stream of sewage. Yeonwoo approached him, avoiding the sewage, and shook him randomly.

Yeonwoo and the Trapped Man waited beneath the ground for the situation to resolve.

---

---

They had been complacent.

They assumed that the thoughts of terrorists, of madmen who wanted to destroy the world, were those of ordinary people.

They thought if the terrorists couldn\'t take what they wanted, they would simply leave.

“Aren\'t you going to chase him?”

“....”

The Hijacker stood beside the truck, watching the man in a suit running away in the distance.

As if waiting for them to arrive, the man started running as soon as they appeared, exaggeratedly showing he was trying to escape down the sidewalk.

The Hijacker wasn\'t fooled.

“He\'s bait.”

“That guy?”

“There’s no NPC. No need to chase him.”

It was obvious he was bait, running away alone without the Trapped Man.

The real target was either hidden nearby or had escaped.

“So, can I do as I please?”

The Driver held the controller. The outermost car blocking the road accelerated suddenly, hitting the man. A short scream. The car ran back and forth over the man several times.

“Hahaha!”

The Driver’s laughter echoed as the Hijacker closed his eyes, lost in thought.

Two clocks were ticking in his mind.

The time it would take for a specialized unit to arrive. Not much time left.

And the time since they had stopped the transport truck.

He made his decision. The Hijacker opened his eyes.

“If they hid, it’s nearby. If they escaped, they wouldn’t have gone far.”

“Are you going to search? I didn’t see them near the cars.”

“No. There’s no time.”

The significance of the red grade and the specialized unit was clear. Destruction and killing were the top priorities. They were equipped, trained, and staffed solely to deal with anomalies and wanted criminals.

The specialized unit for the Hijacker operated globally, moves faster than planes.

His appearance had been reported, so they would arrive soon.

“So, what then? Are we just leaving?”

“No. There’s a third option.”

The Hijacker raised his toy gun.

When they couldn’t steal or kill.

Experimentation. Another word for terror.

Click-

The Hijacker turned the dial on the side of the toy gun. Twelve pre-designated numbers linked to pre-opened holes.

Click, click, click.

One, two, three.

Three blue holes opened, each ejecting an NPC.

And the anomalies began to erode reality.

The Broken Woman and the Repeating Man made contact.

The surrounding road shattered like a broken graphic.

The Repeating Man fell through the cracked pavement.

Distant objects floated as if thrown into a zero-gravity space.

The uncontrollable anomaly spread, reaching the underground where the Trapped Man and Yeonwoo were hiding.