Ch.83Cocktail Chocolate 4

“There! All fixed!”

The blonde girl wiped her forehead and smiled brightly.

After her handiwork, the completely shattered bar table was perfectly restored to its original condition.

Judging by appearances alone, her looks didn’t match someone who would work with tools.

However, despite her tall, slender frame, her hand movements were remarkably deft.

“Please don’t stare so much…”

Misha covered her cheeks with both hands, seemingly uncomfortable with my blank stare.

Then she slowly shook her head.

“I guess… are you disappointed that I’m not a ‘manly man’ who needs protection, but just a ‘shorty’?”

Misha, with her shiny forehead, hung her head low.

“What are you talking about, ‘manly man’…?”

My eyebrows shot up at the sudden mention of “manly men.”

In response, Misha pursed her lips and pulled out a newspaper featuring my Academy lecture from her pocket.

Why is that coming out of her pocket?

Did she carry it around specifically to show me?

“Bartender Siho’s interview.”

Misha carefully read the small text printed in the newspaper.

She particularly mumbled the personal questions written in tiny letters.

“What’s your ideal type…?”

Ah, now I remember.

There was that entertainment reporter who suspiciously asked only personal questions, nothing about cocktails.

“Someone dependable and reliable.”

So that’s how I answered that question.

It’s obviously an answer that made me think of my dear Anna.

And… also someone who always saved me in the past.

“That’s what you said! That’s why I made such a sturdy suit…!”

Misha exclaimed loudly with her hands clenched.

Her blue eyes wavered.

I gestured with both hands for her to calm down.

Then I approached her calmly and explained.

“Misha, that was just something I made up for the interview.”

I gently patted the top of the girl’s head.

“I don’t particularly like big people. If anything, they’re just scary.”

“Really…?”

At my honest words, the girl’s blonde hair perked up like antennae.

I leaned down toward her and smiled gently.

“Yes, I actually prefer someone small and cute like you, Misha.”

“So you don’t need to wear something this uncomfortable just to impress me. You’re completely drenched in sweat.”

I carefully wiped the child’s face with a cloth from the bar table.

Misha froze as if she’d been electrocuted in her suit.

“Are you okay…?”

“Yes…”

Perhaps because her face was already pale, the girl’s cheeks rapidly turned bright red.

I wondered if she was overheating from being in that stuffy suit for too long.

For her sake, I poured some ice water into a glass.

She’s still a young girl, so cocktails would be too much.

“Thank you…”

Misha politely accepted the glass with both hands and adorably gulped it down.

However, she drank too quickly and ended up choking.

“Drink slowly-.”

The child held the cold glass tightly and lowered her head.

She mumbled in a small voice.

“Um, Siho…”

“Yes, Misha.”

Remembering that she liked being called by name, I responded accordingly.

Misha then wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me.

“If that interview was fake, then what’s your real ideal type?”

“Hmm. I haven’t really thought about it. Maybe someday.”

I gave a vague answer.

While two people did come to mind, I didn’t think it was necessary to mention them in front of the child.

After my ambiguous response, Misha pressed her cheek against my chest.

As I watched her contentedly, something suddenly occurred to me.

Come to think of it, didn’t that rude customer earlier call Misha “Deputy Director”?

Does that mean Misha has reached the position of research deputy director while still in her teens?

Even for an association, employing a minor as a civil servant…

What kind of place is this research facility to make that possible?

Since we’re already talking, maybe I should ask.

“Um, Misha.”

“Yes~.”

“Could I possibly take a look around the research facility?”

“The research facility…?”

The girl looked up.

She brushed her hair back and put on a serious expression.

She seems to be considering whether it’s okay to show me the inside.

Soon, Misha slowly nodded as if she’d made up her mind.

“Hmm… Labs 1 and 2 should be fine. Today’s a research break day anyway.”

She’s letting me look around more easily than I expected.

That’s actually reassuring.

It means they don’t have experiments strange enough to hide.

The girl stood up from her chair.

She looked back and forth between me and the muscular suit, wondering if she should put it on again.

I shook my head in response.

Misha smiled brightly and headed toward the lab in her regular clothes.

Following her carefully to the door, she placed her palm on the fingerprint scanner.

I heard a voice say “Welcome, 03” along with the sound of a door opening.

Just the sound of opening.

The door had already been broken when Misha rushed out of the lab earlier.

“Oh, right. The door’s broken…”

She covered her mouth with her fist as she looked at the wide-open doorway.

Perhaps it was a habit from always using the fingerprint scanner.

Finding her cute, the corners of my mouth twitched.

“Please follow me~.”

I followed Misha as she skipped ahead with quick steps into a dim corridor.

Everything was black.

Like entering a long tunnel.

It was so dark that I turned on my phone screen.

“Huh… the signal.”

“Yes, all radio waves and communications are blocked once you enter here.”

“Then, no one outside would know what’s happening inside.”

“That’s right.”

Misha smiled brightly, reflected in my phone screen.

Maybe it was because of the flashlight in the darkness, but somehow her smile gave me chills.

At the end of the long tunnel appeared another thick iron door like before.

This time, the door slowly opened after Misha’s fingerprint scan.

Eventually, a wall made of transparent glass came into view.

And inside that glass…

“A person…?”

There was a person.

A single person in what looked like a furnished room.

A man who appeared to be in his twenties sat blankly in a chair.

“My goodness…”

I couldn’t help but feel frightened at the sight of the man.

His face… was covered with some unknown gemstones.

“Subject number 72. His name was Lim Juho when discovered.”

Misha spoke matter-of-factly with her hands behind her back.

She seemed unfazed by the man’s condition, as if it were normal to her.

“His ability is body crystallization. He can turn his entire body into crystal.”

“We occasionally harvest his fingernails or toenails to refine them into crystals.”

I stared at the crystal that shimmered with rainbow colors like a prism.

The man had a dazed expression, as if drugged.

“This one is classified as the safest grade among subjects. That’s why he’s housed here in Lab 1.”

“If he’s safe, why keep him locked up…?”

I asked, covering my mouth with the back of my hand.

Misha smiled gently and looked up at me intently.

“Ah, he may look docile, but he goes berserk immediately when he wakes up. We maintain that state by constantly spraying a small amount of nerve gas.”

“Berserk…?”

The word bothers me.

Surely they’re not inducing a rampage with drugs like they did with Anna.

“Yes. As you can see, the crystals growing on his body have started affecting his brain. So he attacks anyone he sees.”

“Ah…”

I watch subject 72’s twitching fingers.

Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like they’re forcibly injecting him with drugs.

“But how did he end up with such an ability?”

“Who knows~. I’m not sure about that. Maybe he wanted to be like the goose that laid golden eggs, producing jewels from his own body.”

Misha answered indifferently, tilting her head like a metronome.

She seems uninterested in why the person ended up like that.

“Now, behind you, Siho-“

I turned my head following her gesture.

At that moment, I nearly fell backward in shock.

It was because of a boy staring at me with his hands pressed against the glass wall.

Sparks flew from his blue eyes.

“He’s the electricity human. Normally he’s just an ordinary boy, but when he gets angry, he electrocutes everything around him.”

Misha grinned and tapped the glass wall where the boy’s fingerprints were.

Like she was tapping on an aquarium.

“Thanks to this child’s electricity, the research facility’s power costs have been greatly reduced.”

“Misha, that looks dangerous…”

I looked at her with concern.

Misha shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, no matter how strong he is, he doesn’t have enough power to break through the glass wall. That’s why his risk level is only ‘of interest.'”

“I call him the eel boy~. Isn’t that cute?”

“Cute…?”

“Yes~. Actually, he was a gaming addict who developed this ability because he wanted to keep playing games without having to charge his phone.”

Misha mimicked pressing buttons on a game console with her fingers.

Now that I look, the boy’s room is littered with various gaming devices.

None of the machines were plugged in.

Yet they were all powered on, humming by themselves.

There’s something truly bizarre about that sight.

“Haha… that’s a unique reason.”

The boy is staring at me like he wants to kill me.

Perhaps because that gaze frightened me.

I deliberately turned my head to look at the next entrance.

“Ah, over there? That’s Lab 2. Ability users with numbers like me live there.”

“Numbers…?”

“Yes, we were actually test subjects here too, but after successful rehabilitation, we were recognized as staff… haha.”

So Misha was also a test subject.

That makes me feel sorry for her.

“Then, what’s your ability, Misha…?”

I asked cautiously.

Misha smiled gently and gradually looked up at me.

“Me?”

Her expression is meaningful.

Soon the girl narrowed her blue eyes and approached me.

Her somewhat seductive smile automatically made my body tense up.

Misha softly whispered in my ear.

“It’s a secret.”

After saying that, the girl put her hands behind her back again.

Then she walked ahead of me with bouncy steps.

Suddenly she stopped.

Misha turned her head slightly and looked at me with half-closed eyes.

“For a hint- I’m quite a bit older than you think I am.”

What’s this?

Just now, I felt something similar to Minister Park.

“Anyway, we have many amenities here, so we don’t particularly want to leave this place.”

Misha smiled brightly and opened the lab entrance.

Then she pointed to her lips with her finger.

“From here on, we need to be quiet. There are some friends who are sensitive to sound.”

I slowly nodded and carefully followed her footsteps.

But… suddenly my whole body started to tingle as if static electricity was running through it.

“Siho, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, it’s nothing… just static electricity, I guess.”

However, the current flowing through my body still wouldn’t subside.

I tried to wrap my arms around myself as I barely managed to follow Misha.

Soon we passed through a corridor with multiple doors, like a hotel.

But each room had a number written in front of it.

It was around when we passed number 09.

My left arm began to tingle uncontrollably.

“Ugh…”

My breathing became frantic.

I finally stopped walking and bent over.

“Oh my, are you okay?”

The girl looked at me with a worried expression.

I stared intently at the number 09 with bloodshot eyes.

“Misha, who’s in there…?”