Chapter 263.2 |
“Then allow me to usher you into the dealer room firstt!”
She had definitely been more than 10 centimeters shorter than Assistant Manager Eun Haje, but now, even at a glance, she was taller.
And she wasn’t even wearing cushioned sneakers like she usually did, just plain dress shoes.
How was that possible?
“Would you like to play a gamee?”
Back in the second area, the dealer room, the dealer moved to the opposite side of a shabby table and explained in a lively voice.
“It’s a simple card game. You just have to guess the identity of the card I’m holding! You can bet a minimum of 3 coins, and you can earn up to 36 times your bet!”
Assistant Manager Lee Seonghae’s hands, as she pulled out a deck of playing cards, moved deftly.
And I realized something else.
The dealer with one eye met the gaze of me, who also had one eye.
“If you bet all 35 coins you’re holding, then in theory, you could obtain VIP room access in a single game.”
……
“That’s alright.”
I smiled and took a small step back from the table.
“It’s our first time here. We’ll try the slot machines first, and if possible, enjoy ourselves a bit before coming back to bet. Thank you.”
“…Yesyes. Thank you!”
The dealer’s persistent gaze finally lifted, and I left the dealer room with the others.
Only after we returned to the entrance area and confirmed that the dealer wasn’t following us near the pawnshop did I speak.
“Grapes-ie, did you notice?”
“Yes.”
I had seen the dealer’s hands while she shuffled the cards.
“Only the ring finger and middle finger had different shapes.”
“Right. And the wrist and the hand too, the bone connections looked unnatural.”
And even the dealer’s height, which was strangely tall compared to Assistant Manager Lee Seonghae.
All of it pointed to a single fact.
……
“Only the head is Assistant Manager Dolphin.”
The dealer was a crude assembly of different body parts.
With Assistant Manager Lee Seonghae’s head attached.
“She kept gambling here, repeatedly selling most of her body parts and then buying them back.”
Or.
“She might have gone into debt and lost her entire body to the casino, then got reassembled as a dealer.”
Either way, one question remained.
So.
“…Can we consider her to be in a state that can still be rescued?”
……
“We have to shoot her,” Agent Bronze spoke up.
“Wait—”
But he insisted again.
“Then she’ll wake up in reality. Just shoot her in the head and that’s it.”
“Wait!”
Assistant Manager Eun Haje cut him off.
“Sir Highborn Civil Servant. Calm down for a second. Let’s think about it. …Can someone with only a head really be considered themselves?”
“Hmm~ The side with the brain should count as the self, shouldn’t it? After all, the one dreaming would be the head.”
“No.”
Agent Choi and Section Chief Lee Jaheon disagreed.
The two looked at each other.
“Mr. Civilian, could you explain why you think that?”
“Yes. In Darknesses, there are cases where symbolic or ritual classifications are used instead of medical diagnoses.”
“…So you’re saying the basis might not be the head but the heart? Since there are cultures that see the heart as a more fundamental element of a person?”
“Yes.”
“Huu.”
Agent Choi fell into a low hum.
If it’s not recognized that ‘Assistant Manager Lee Seonghae with only a head left’ was the real person, and she didn’t wake up in reality…
‘Her consciousness might just die as it is.’
And on top of that.
“Even here, there’s no guarantee like at the previous station that ‘if you die, you’ll immediately wake up in reality,’ Sir Highborn Geezer.”
“…Even so, that option is more humane than leaving her behind in a state of complete contamination inside an unperceived annihilation-sanctioned supernatural disaster.”
“Bronze-ah.”
Agent Choi’s low voice was heard.
“I told you not to quote the bureau manual like it’s your personal opinion. Right?”
“……”
“My hoobae here is a bit rigid, that’s all. He didn’t mean any harm by it, dear civilians.”
“I know. Well, what’s been said does have a bit of a hasty generalization problem, but it’s not entirely wrong either.”
Assistant Manager Eun Haje softened her words, as if calming things down.
“We brought euthanasia drugs with us because we figured that if there was no other way out, death was the only option anyway.”
That was true.
‘I did assume the gimmick probably hadn’t changed drastically.’
And besides.
“I think so too. …Given that I’m in human form, it’s even clearer that we entered a dream, that this isn’t reality.”
“…Roe.”
“So if there really is no other method, we may have to do what Agent Bronze suggested. But for now, I’d like to look into other options first.”
“……”
Agent Bronze nodded heavily. The others seemed to have reached a point of agreement as well.
Gather as much information as possible inside the Midnight Station Casino of Corporeity.
That was our first objective.
That said, there was someone who clearly didn’t agree.
Baek Saheon, with a face that looked like it had ‘not interested’ written all over it.
He didn’t have much personal connection to Assistant Manager Lee Seonghae to begin with, and since the one paying the reward was Ho Yoowon, rescue wasn’t his goal.
‘He’s probably more interested in the payoff.’
And Ho Yoowon had made an unusually generous request this time.
– For now, I’d like you to gather information about Sekwang City outside the subway.
So rather than leaving blindly, other related information could be obtained by thoroughly exploring the stations.
And even if that wasn’t the case, a casino is the perfect place to obtain items.
‘He has his mind on other things.’
Perhaps noticing that uncooperative air, Agent Bronze shot Baek Saheon a resentful look from behind his mask.
But that’s not how you handle this.
I grabbed Baek Saheon by the shoulder.
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