It is common folklore that evil things seek invitations.

Even divinity that seemed omnipotent had things it could only do after asking permission.

It could not enter someone else’s home recklessly, could not come out unless helped, things like that.

"..."

"..."

The guild members exchanged glances.

"... Mr. Seo Jio?"

The voice beyond the door answered the recovery team member’s question.

"Yes, my name is Seo Jio."

The contradictory emptiness of that voice made them doubt for a moment.

The Collector, where all manner of strange works gathered, was a place with many ghost stories by nature.

They were certainly waiting for "Mr. Seo Jio," but they could not help worrying that the wrong choice now might bring disaster.

Then Garasani, the fifth-floor chief and Curator, rose from his seat.

"Floor Chief."

"What are you worried about?"

"Ah, well..."

"..."

"... I’m sorry."

"Tsk."

After looking over his juniors, Garasani soon opened the meeting room door.

"..."

"Welcome, Mr. Seo Jio."

A platinum-blond man stood before him.

Hair that fell in soft waves, and eyes that held the summer sea.

Garasani did not meet that gaze directly, but bowed at the waist to show the courtesy due to a work.

He was a servant of countless works.

"We have been waiting for you."

"Am I late?"

"No, you arrived exactly on time."

The current time was 4 p.m., the exact time of the appointment.

The recovery team member who had entered the meeting room first looked at the large man visible beyond Curator Garasani.

In contrast to those colors that seemed as if warm sunlight would cling to them, it was terrifyingly expressionless.

'They said he resembled a funeral.'

An air spotless and clean, yet heavier than that, and gloomier...

"..."

Ah.

'... Our eyes met.'

Its eyes curved gently.

"Nice to meet you."

Death that resembled a corpse became sunlight in an instant.

And that made it easy to realize this was a monster imitating a human.

Black Cloak’s position within the Collector was that of "a work being left to roam."

The so-called "Mr. Seo Jio" could be encountered inside the Collector building without much difficulty.

Sometimes he was in human form, and sometimes he was in portrait form.

And the employees avoided talking about him as much as possible.

There were reasons such as not wanting to get cursed just in case, but the most representative reason was...

'If we get caught, we’re fucked.'

'Absolutely no extra work...'

'As long as it’s not me.'

That was right.

They did not want to know the complicated circumstances.

"Of course he just had to be friendly to humans."

"If only his social skills had been rock-bottom..."

No matter how much Bi Sabeol treated his guild members like his collectibles, that did not mean he treated them as less than human.

He strictly distinguished between human collectibles and nonhuman works.

Would that Bi Sabeol be crazy enough to let a dangerous ghost story roam freely inside the company building?

By that same logic, this latest ghost story, "Mr. Seo Jio," was unusually kind to humans, which meant that the closer they became to him, the greater the possibility that they would end up doing extra work.

"Look at Mr. Yu Seongun."

There was also a very suitable example.

"Poor man, I bet he can’t even go home."

"But wasn’t Curator Yu Seongun always busy anyway?"

"That doesn’t change the fact that he ended up taking on all sorts of extra work related to Mr. Seo Jio."

"Ah, that’s true. I’d better never get involved."

That was how it had turned out.

Because of that, the Collector’s guild members tried not to acknowledge "Mr. Seo Jio" even when they saw him.

Following their orders, they maintained as much courtesy as possible while truly gritting their teeth and avoiding his presence.

They did not want to become friendly with the eye of the storm and get swept up in a disaster.

There were also many people who tried to be careful because they feared "Mr. Seo Jio."

"Friendly is friendly, but we don’t know how he might suddenly change later."

"As a guild member of the Collector, I respect the existence and words and actions of ‘Mr. Seo Jio,’ but... he is scary."

"More than that, do we really need to acknowledge a ghost story...?"

They did not consider "Mr. Seo Jio" a human who needed interaction.

It was one kind of natural phenomenon, and the ghost story itself that had quietly and eerily seeped into their daily lives.

There were probably few people who would want to acknowledge something like the Red Mask, an urban legend that still existed in Korea.

In other words, who would want to go out of their way to build a personal friendship with a nurse ghost wandering around a hospital late at night, or a woman in a white dress by a deserted roadside?

"No, well, I’ll do it if necessary."

"I’ll do it if I’m told to."

"I’ll do it if it’s required."

The competent and responsible employees of the Collector never did anything they had not been ordered to do, and this was no different.

Even if an order came down, they would take it in the spirit of "Say something nice to the flowerpot every once in a while!"

"But isn’t this workplace ostracism?"

"... Does that apply to works too?"

"Ah, right, I guess not."

To them, "Mr. Seo Jio" was one of Bi Sabeol’s eerie works.

It was merely something in the shape of a human, not an actual human, and so they felt no particular need to interact with him.

If he had truly been a coworker, they would have tried saying a warm word to him every now and then.

The Collector’s guild members were highly individualistic, not incapable of socializing.

But "Mr. Seo Jio" was a work, was he not?

"I ran into Mr. Seo Jio yesterday."

"I’m amazed you managed to come to work today."

"He was more gentlemanly than I expected, so... it was fine."

"You must have lived a virtuous life."

"We exchanged names without trouble, and I received a gift."

"Neat."

The "Mr. Seo Jio response guidelines" that Bi Sabeol had distributed before had also played a part in this atmosphere.

Now, to them, "Mr. Seo Jio" was perceived as something like "an eerie work you may rarely encounter, and if you successfully converse with it, you may receive a gift."

So he was not a coworker, but perhaps an ominous natural phenomenon that coexisted in the workplace.

The Collector’s guild members had adapted to "Mr. Seo Jio" in their own way.

"..."

"..."

And now, returning to the meeting room where the dispatch team had gathered.

'... So this is the Mr. Seo Jio I’ve only heard about. Black Cloak, who gives gifts to good people...'

'He definitely has an extraordinary presence. His appearance is perfectly human, but that makes him feel even more alien.'

'I heard he’s skilled at interacting with intelligent lifeforms, but I wonder how far his human mimicry can go.'

A subtle tension lingered there.

They had become a team with none other than the famous ghost story of the company building.

Since he was a work Bi Sabeol cherished, there was little chance they would be in danger, but they could not personally confirm its existence and feel no tension.

'No matter how I look at him, the impression of perfection is overwhelming.'

'It feels like I’m looking at something ideal that could not truly exist...'

Its appearance was extremely beautiful, and its build was neither too thin nor too thick.

That figure, as if adjusted to the average ideal, instead heightened his inhuman impression.

'Did he take that form because he wants to give other humans a favorable impression?'

It was an especially good strategy in Korea, where people found great appeal in another’s appearance.

In fact, many guild members had fallen for that beauty.

As if they were looking at an extremely valuable jewel or relic.

"..."

A silver-haired woman with bronze skin surveyed the situation.

The fifth-floor chief who had opened the door for "Mr. Seo Jio" had stepped back, so this was silent pressure directed at the other employees.

'He wants us to get along properly, I suppose.'

Since this was a special situation, she did not know whether they would be able to receive gifts, but according to the conduct guidelines, the first thing they had to do was exchange names with Black Cloak.

After organizing her thoughts, the woman rose from her seat and greeted "Mr. Seo Jio."

"Mr. Seo Jio?"

"Yes, my name is Seo Jio."

"I was surprised because you’re more handsome than I’d heard."

"Is this face to your liking?"

"It would be hard not to like it, wouldn’t it?"

She greeted him with that distinctive banter of hers.

"It’s nice to meet you. My name is Yu Jina."

"Ms. Yu Jina, then. What should I call you?"

"You can call me what you just did, or you can casually call me Jina."

As a member of the recovery team, she curved her eyes in a coy smile.

"I look forward to working with you on this raid."

Indeed, he truly was like a human.

'... Does he not know that looking a little imperfect would make him seem more human? But aside from looking excessively ideal and perfect, everything else is just like a human. With mimicry at this level, people who don’t know what he is will be helplessly fooled. He’s so skilled it’s dangerous.'

He had almost none of the dissonance other strange mysteries tended to reveal during mimicry.

Even that dissonance was only that he was "too ideal," and there was nothing they could clearly define.

'They said at first he wasn’t this skilled at imitating humans, so maybe he’s growing...'

The growth of an unidentified mystery was bound to stimulate human fear.

Yu Jina forcibly shook off the fear she felt and continued the introductions with goodwill.

"This is Kang Neuru, and this is Danmi!"

At that, the field employees sent Yu Jina grateful looks and opened their mouths.

"Hello, I am Kang Neuru, a field employee of the Collector."

"I’m in the same department as Neuru. My name is Danmi. I look forward to working with you."

At the ordinary introductions, Yu Jina shrugged.

"One more person from our recovery team is supposed to come, but it seems she’s a little late because she’s handling something on the first floor."

At about that point, the fifth-floor chief stepped forward.

"I apologize, Mr. Seo Jio. If you allow it, I will go drag her here."

Someone else might have thought, "People can be a little late, aren’t they being too submissive?" but the other party was a work of the gallery.

The number of works that committed massacres simply because someone broke an appointed time was not exactly small.

The reason they had not dragged in the remaining member earlier lay in the fact that "Mr. Seo Jio’s" standards were generous.

He only showed slight displeasure toward rude people, and under the condition that they did not repeat the same mistake, he treated them with tolerance.

'But there’s no knowing how far he’ll overlook things.'

That was why the fifth-floor chief stepped forward first and gauged the work’s mood.

"If you are greatly displeased..."

"I think she may be busy."

Fortunately, "Mr. Seo Jio" did not show displeasure.

"You said something suddenly came up, so it cannot be helped."

"Thank you for understanding."

"I truly appreciate such lavish treatment, but on the other hand, I feel apologetic."

He folded his gentle eyes into a smile and mimicked "awkwardness."

"Are you afraid of me?"

"No."

The fifth-floor chief showed a clear smile, like an old man looking at his grown grandson.

"It is simply an honor."

That was the smile Curator Garasani was said to show only to works.

"We are already familiar faces to one another, but to you, Mr. Seo Jio, they must still feel unfamiliar. This is a gathering for everyone to become accustomed to one another before the raid, so I hope you will also comfortably join us."

"Thank you for being so considerate."

"Not at all... Mr. Seo Jio, you mainly work at dawn and show your face then, so you probably do not know these people’s faces well. Let us slowly talk and become accustomed to one another."

Curator Garasani had thus safely seated "Mr. Seo Jio," but he did not relax.

That was because the employees had stiffened from the pressure this Root entity fundamentally possessed and the aura close to death.

They had hidden it in their own way, but Garasani could see it.

'And if I can see it, Mr. Seo Jio can naturally see it even better.'

It was a worrying point.

'They need to match the roleplay Mr. Seo Jio wants.'

As a Curator, Garasani had plenty of experience with this and could respond skillfully, but it would be a little difficult for the recovery team or field team.

Performing a play according to the claims of a strange mystery, that was.

Thinking that, Garasani set teacups down in front of the team members.

"This is the azanka tea I prepared recently."

"Oh, the Floor Chief’s tea-brewing skills are trustworthy."

"I ask for your light impressions."

Hoping they would safely adapt to one another, Garasani smiled.

RATTLE!

A woman opened the meeting room door and entered.

"I’m sorry, the recovery took longer...!"

Then she froze.

"Ah, Mr. Jio is seriously so funny!"

"You really did that? You’re not joking?"

"That’s insane... the smiling tyrant of the sea village... it suits you so well..."

"No, how can a person be like that? Should I call this impressive?"

An unimaginably friendly atmosphere.

"..."

"Ah, welcome."

And at the center of it, the platinum-blond priest looked at the poor recovery team member who had gone stiff without understanding the situation.

In a soft, beautiful voice that seemed capable of melting everyone, he said,

"My name is Seo Jio."

"Huh? Ah, yes."

"What is your name?"

"Kim Nana... sir."

"I see."

Black Cloak asked calmly,

"Would you like to talk with me?"

"..."

Wasn’t this a textbook brainwashing scene?

'... What on earth did he do to my coworkers?'

A chill ran straight down recovery team member Kim Nana’s spine.