Chapter 13 Part 2: Request – Rescue

Haran still lingered in front of the store as if she couldn’t believe it, but nothing changed despite that.

The store in front of her, no. The junkyard in front of her was still firmly holding its place, full of dust, despite Haran’s movements.

“Wh, what is this….”

“I’m asking just in case, but this wasn’t originally this kind of store, right?”

“Of course not! It was a bit old, but it was clean?! What the heck is this….”

“Ah, okay.”

In the place I used to live, there were sometimes guys who did business even in these kind of dilapidated stores, so I asked, but it seems that’s not the case.

A clean store even though it was old…

Well. Maybe it’s because this is how I saw the store for the first time, but it was an unimaginable statement.

“…I thought something was strange, but I never thought it would turn out like this.”

“What?”

“I haven’t seen Yoo Jin-ssi for the past few days. She usually disappears suddenly for a few days, so I thought it was one of those times…”

So, when I came to find her, the store was like this.

If what she said is true, assuming the worst-case scenario, the store has been like this for several days already.

And the whereabouts of that person who was Haran’s acquaintance are unknown.

“…This is driving me crazy, really.”

It would be a lie if I said I didn’t expect anything after hearing Haran’s story.

If I just talk to her well, I might be able to get bullets easily.

I came here with that thought in mind…

I stared at a certain trace in front of me and opened my mouth.

“Hey, Haran. There’s something I’ve been wondering… Is it okay if I ask?”

“Yes?”

“Even though there are restrictions, when I hear that you’re a replication ability user, it seems quite useful. Why do you work in a place like this? Shouldn’t you be treated better?”

The ability to replicate is an ability with limitless value.

Since it’s an ability to create something that didn’t exist, it would be a perfect ability for the government to try to impose sanctions or embrace it and manipulate the market.

But why was the owner of such an ability working in a place like this?

Just thinking about it right now, there are ways to make money, such as replicating coins or replicating small amounts of gold.

“Ah, that’s… It’s not profitable.”

“Not profitable?”

“It’s a bit much to reveal someone else’s ability… Please hear it directly from her later.”

“…Okay.”

Haran closed her mouth as if she didn’t want to say her acquaintance’s secret without permission, so I decided not to pry any further.

There’s no need to hear more stories than this.

There must be a big flaw in her ability, so she’s been in a place like this even with such an ability.

She probably didn’t make much money.

The small red object in front of me was also showing off its presence as if to support my expectations.

“By the way, I don’t know where she went. Leaving the store like this… Is she okay?”

“It doesn’t seem like she’s okay.”

“Yes?”

“I found something.”

Did she not pick it up because it wasn’t visible because it was covered in dust?

I picked up an object with a red sticker attached and showed it to Haran, and her eyes widened.

Well, I guess it makes sense.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen something like this attached.

“Ah, a seizure tag…?”

“That’s right. Did that person take out a loan?”

It seemed like things were more complicated than I thought.

“…Haa.”

“How was it? Did you find anything?”

“No. Everyone has no interest at all. …Tch. Her house is next to a store that’s in that state, but why are they so uninterested?”

“Everyone’s like that. There’s no need to worry about other people’s business, right?”

“Even so…”

I know what Haran wants to say, but it can’t be helped.

No one likes to stick their head into other people’s business with curiosity and get burned.

Even looking around, people’s expressions weren’t very bright. They must not have any room to spare.

Would those people be curious about a seizure tag attached to a stranger’s store?

Even if they’re curious, they wouldn’t try to get involved because they don’t want to be associated.

I and Haran have a reason to find that person, but they don’t.

“A seizure, I wonder what really happened?”

“Well. I don’t know.”

There were several things I could guess.

The store I was running was on the verge of bankruptcy, so I took out a loan and held out, but I couldn’t hold out any longer.

I fell into gambling and was sitting on a mountain of debt.

Or, I might have poured all my money into entertainment.

But these assumptions were meaningless.

In the end, I would have to hear the exact facts from the person herself.

“Haa….”

“Why are you sighing like that?”

“I can’t even find the person I knew. What should I do now?”

Haran kept sighing and kicking the stones on the ground for no reason.

She looked like she had given up on everything at the fact that she couldn’t find any information even when asking the surrounding pedestrians and neighbors.

“You can just find her, right?”

“Everyone says they don’t know. There’s no way to know where Yoo Jin-ssi is now…”

“There is a way?”

“…Yes?”

Haran’s expression of widening her eyes and looking at me was funny for no reason, so I smiled.

When I smiled slightly, Haran grabbed her face as if she was feeling embarrassed and was busy cooling it down.

‘Cute.’

“H, how?”

“This.”

“…This is?”

I proudly held up the object I had found while Haran was asking around.

Then, the lenses that were cracked in various places started to reflect the sunlight and tickle my vision.

“A camera?”

“The person who’s your acquaintance, I don’t know what she’s thinking, but she hid something like this.”

It was stuck among the miscellaneous items that were left behind because it was judged that there was no need to attach a seizure tag.

A camera hidden in this empty place.

There’s no way the guys who swept everything away wouldn’t have taken something like this.

Then, why did the guys who seized the items leave this behind? There was only one possibility I could think of.

What if the item was broken from the time it was discovered?

Then they would think it was trash and leave it behind.

That was mostly the case with the items left in this building. Items with no commercial value and broken items.

Maybe this camera is the same.

“…That’s meaningless, right?”

“Why?”

“It’s broken, right? If the camera can’t perform the role of a camera, it’s just junk, right? Why are you…”

“Yeah. It can’t perform the role of a camera. However, it can do other things.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know what’s going on… But your acquaintance seems to have thought that this kind of thing might happen.”

I turned the camera with the broken lens around and smiled with satisfaction.

If I hadn’t found this, I would have had to move empty-handed without getting any information.

“This is still working. It’s filming a video.”

“Why is that? It’s broken, so it can’t do anything.”

“Well. Is that really the case?”

A camera is a tool for taking pictures.

That’s a firmly established perception among people, and it’s not exactly a wrong story.

However, cameras can’t only take pictures.

Like this camera is doing now, it could also record videos.

And, the fact that the video is being recorded is…

“I wouldn’t have been able to film a video. Because the lens is broken. But the sound would have been recorded.”

“Ah, aaaaah!”

“Your acquaintance is quite a smart friend. I like her.”

It’s a disguise that you wouldn’t know unless you checked it in detail.

If you record with a normal camera, the internal data may be stolen or someone may recover it.

I don’t know if that’s what she was thinking, but this person used the camera as an entirely different method.

Deliberately breaking the lens to make it a trash that couldn’t fulfill its role as a camera…

She decided to use it as a recorder.

If you hide a recorder in plain sight, no one might find it. To not be caught by the enemy, it has to be small and disguised as a pen.

But if that happens, it’s hard to expect the intervention of someone who might be involved. The probability that a helper will not find it also increases.

Then, she had to inform her situation in a way that people could easily find it, but the guys couldn’t take it.

That’s why she used this method.

To inform her situation with sound.

Of course, there was a possibility that her enemy would find it, but Haran’s acquaintance carried out the maximum amount of work she could do…

Fortunately, the clues she left were literally perfectly recovered by us.

“There’s definitely some information. I’m sure of it.”

“Oh, my god..”

“We have to hope that there’s good information in here. If not….”

I didn’t bother to bring up the rest of the story.

Even if I didn’t say it out loud, me and Haran. It was a fact that everyone knew.

If we can’t find something through the clues contained in this camera, we won’t be able to know the whereabouts of that person named Yoo Jin.

That was something that should never happen.

What the heck happened here? I had to find out.

“Okay, then… I’ll play it.”

“Yes, yes!”

The broken object began to work hard to fulfill its role.