Ch.99Helper (2)

Clank, clank, clank!

After shaking the metal door for quite some time, Dan was certain.

He was trapped in an elevator.

With a patient suffering from excessive bleeding and a psychopathic professor holding a gun.

“Robin. Why are you suddenly acting like this?”

Dan asked, but Robin answered with complete composure.

“Well. Perhaps something in the flow has changed.”

“How can you be so calm about this? You brought me here, Professor!”

“It was the only way for you to survive.”

“Ah, right. Again you talk like you know everything. Even though you don’t even know how to get out of here right now.”

Robin just smiled serenely.

“Hah… Professor. Please.”

“Just call me Robin. And please, I’m begging you too.”

Teasing newcomers is always fun.

It doesn’t get old even after nearly half a century.

Dan gave up and turned back toward the door.

“Keep shaking that door. Maybe a solution will present itself.”

“Robin. Are you making fun of me right now?”

“Hmm. I wonder.”

This happens all the time when working with newcomers.

They make a fuss over nothing, then let their guard down at crucial moments. And then they die.

That’s why experienced staff are valued at the Foundation.

“Dan. Let me give you some advice. The important thing isn’t the elevator door.”

“Then what is it?”

“Paying attention to your surroundings. Sometimes you need to make bold logical leaps.”

“Yes. Must be nice being a genius. Even becoming a professor at your age. Someone like a stupid driver probably doesn’t even register to you.”

Robin clicked her tongue bitterly.

Not because Dan’s barb had hurt her feelings.

She was maintaining a relatively high physical age, just below the threshold where cognitive decline would begin.

Her current body was in its early to mid-thirties.

Perhaps she should go around looking a bit older?

“Ugh.”

Robin bent down.

The driver wasn’t the only one she needed to look after.

Ichinose Riko.

She examined the condition of the severely injured Foundation researcher while organizing her thoughts.

‘There was definitely an anomalous entity here.’

The momentary fear and empty feeling. And the sporadic memory lapses.

She knew from experience.

These were effects deliberately inflicted on the mind by an anomalous entity. A hostile one at that.

But now she couldn’t feel anything.

‘The elevator collision happened in between.’

Could the anomalous entity have been there and then died, crushed by the elevator?

Surely not.

An entity with this level of ability wouldn’t die from merely being hit by an elevator ceiling.

Dying from a tool of civilization. That would only happen to a stupid Cthulhu.

Based on her experience, this was someone coming to help.

But who?

The Professor?

That man wouldn’t do such a thing.

Then another survivor who entered this apartment?

It would be quite interesting if they knew about anomalies and the hidden side of the world.

Robin stood up.

“Dan. Come over here.”

Dan had been concentrating on dismantling the door for quite some time, but was now leaning against it, exhausted.

“I see you’re finally going to use your logical leap.”

“No. Nothing like that anymore.”

Creeeeak-

Robin was the only one in the elevator who heard the very faint noise coming through the door crack.

“I just think it might hurt if you stay there.”

This time with a bright smile, Robin fixed her appearance.

A British lady couldn’t possibly appear disheveled in front of someone she just met.

Dan just turned toward Robin with a dumbfounded look.

“What do you mean by…”

Before he could finish speaking.

“One, two, three!”

“Open it!!!”

Creeeeeak-

Thud!

As the door suddenly opened, Dan, who had been leaning against it, fell outward.

“Ugh. What, what is this!?”

As Dan flailed his arms trying to steady himself, a strange girl hit him hard on the head with a crowbar.

Clang!

“Ugh.”

With a short cry, Dan returned to the elevator.

Robin slightly furrowed her brow.

“Ouch. That must hurt.”

Anyway, it seems the door couldn’t be opened from the inside.

The one who opened it from outside was just a girl with a crowbar.

Beside the girl, two men stood tensely.

“Hello. Nice to meet you.”

Robin extended her hand lightly, facing the new rescue team.

“Shall we shake hands?”

***

In the elevator that now seemed much more spacious.

Heo Yoon looked down at the floor.

The floor that had been soaking wet was now completely dry, as if it had never been wet.

As always, this place was full of incomprehensible things.

Am I doing the right thing?

Seok Hyunmin, Yoon Daju, and Jung Haewon had left for the elevator across the way.

Dabin was still unconscious. Choi Serim and the AI were taking care of Dabin beside her.

But simply listing these facts doesn’t help the situation.

I almost made things worse.

I lost my composure and rambled, wasting time.

What if Daju and Hyunmin had listened to me?

What if they had left this place and moved to another floor?

What if they had wandered around looking for a way to treat Dabin?

They might have abandoned what little chance they had and faced even greater danger.

Maybe they could have completely ruined Dabin’s plan.

Dabin has the authority of a Librarian.

They say she can glimpse some of the future.

That’s why she’s always so far ahead, never telling us anything.

I know it can’t be helped.

Knowledge of the future is poison in itself. A deadly poison that can endanger your life just by hearing or recognizing it.

All I can do is follow Dabin with all my might.

It was her role to lead those who fell behind.

Everyone else just believes in themselves.

Heo Yoon couldn’t trust anyone. Not even herself.

“Serim. How’s Dabin doing?”

“She’s having trouble breathing and shaking really badly. She’s also sweating cold sweat continuously.”

It was at least fortunate that Choi Serim had regained her composure in the midst of all this.

“Keep her warm.”

“Unnie. Will Dabin be okay?”

“I don’t know. From the symptoms, she seems like she’s going into shock, but I don’t know what to do.”

Labored breathing.

Faint heartbeat.

Cold skin. Cold sweat.

These are all symptoms that appear when there’s a lack of blood.

If this continues, shock will occur and her life will be in danger.

“Give me some clothes.”

Heo Yoon rolled up some clothing and placed it under Lim Dabin’s legs.

“She’s lacking blood now, so we’re elevating her legs to push blood toward her head.”

“Yes…”

“What’s next?”

“Watch her carefully in case she vomits so she doesn’t choke.”

Heo Yoon kept shining a light at the elevator door so that those who went outside could return.

After a while.

Human figures emerged from the darkness.

The tension was momentary.

Yoon Daju returned with unfamiliar people.

“Wait,”

There was no time to stop them.

One man and two women entered the elevator.

The man was carrying a woman in a lab coat who seemed injured.

Could these people really be part of Dabin’s plan and able to help us?

Seok Hyunmin, Yoon Daju, and Jung Haewon followed them in.

Heo Yoon lowered her voice unnecessarily.

“Hyunmin. Did you talk to those people?”

“…Yes.”

At least Hyunmin seems to be in his right mind.

That means he hasn’t been enchanted by something strange again, so those people might be somewhat trustworthy.

Probably.

“Excuse me,”

“Hello. I’m Robin.”

“I’m Heo Yoon. But… are you Korean?”

“No. I’m British. It’s amazing we can understand each other, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Heo Yoon nodded blankly.

She was clearly Western, yet she spoke Korean so fluently. And they could have a two-way conversation.

‘How on earth…?’

She put the thought aside.

Though incomprehensible, it wasn’t a crucial factor.

There were more important matters.

“I’ll ask you directly.”

“Let me get straight to the point.”

Robin and Heo Yoon.

Their voices overlapped.

Robin was the one who yielded.

“You go first.”

Heo Yoon gestured toward the back of the elevator.

Where Lim Dabin had collapsed.

“She’s with us and is about to go into shock from blood loss. Before she collapsed, she said you would know how to treat her.”

“Is that so?”

“You know it, don’t you? The treatment.”

Robin shook her head lightly.

“No. Actually, I don’t know the treatment either. We have a patient too, and if there was a treatment, I would have fixed this person first.”

“Then…?”

“But I feel like I might know something. Intuitively.”

“Intuitively?”

“No. Let me put it this way.”

Seeing Heo Yoon’s disbelieving reaction, Robin corrected herself.

“I know a floor where patients in critical condition can be treated. And I know how to get there.”

“How can I believe that?”

“Because we’re both in urgent situations.”

Unlike Heo Yoon who had grown anxious, Robin remained composed.

It was a tug-of-war with the outcome determined from the start.

“…Alright.”

“Then, I’ll press the button.”

Heo Yoon stepped aside to let Robin press the elevator button.

Click. Click. Click.

“The elevator is quite cramped. With… nine people in it.”

“Yes. It is.”

While responding halfheartedly, Heo Yoon focused on the fingertips moving between the buttons.

She had no intention of fully trusting this woman called Robin.

She planned to secretly memorize the floor number, but her intention was too obvious.

“Ah. There’s no need to try to memorize the numbers.”

Heo Yoon quickly looked away, but Robin was still looking at the number pad.

Though she usually lived a rather indifferent, serious, and sometimes irritable life at the Foundation, she changed when facing newcomers.

Teasing newcomers was something she never tired of.

It was quite regrettable for her that she couldn’t see newcomers anymore after rising to a high position.

The survivors she met in the other elevator.

They were definitely not from the Foundation.

But since they had set foot here, it meant they were newcomers among newcomers.

Robin turned around with a bright smile.

“I just pressed random buttons anyway.”

“Hey, you crazy…!”

Heo Yoon rushed forward to stop Robin, but it was already too late.

Before she could adjust her posture, the elevator began to plummet rapidly.

“What are you doing? Are you insane?”

“Ms. Heo? No, I should call you Ms. Yoon, right?”

“Hey. Seok Hyunmin. Quickly restrain her or something! Help me over here!”

With her collar grabbed, Robin continued speaking.

“Ms. Yoon, do you believe in fate?”

Though she couldn’t see the future, she could sense the flow created by others.

From the moment Robin encountered the survivors in the apartment.

Fate had been fixed on one path.