At least moonlight filtered into this floor. Far down the corridor, everything was washed in blue. Parts of this level had clearly collapsed too, but it seemed the way wasn't completely blocked as it was elsewhere.

We might be able to escape through a window. We needed to get out quickly and find out whether Bobby and Achille were alive.

Keeping a firm grip on the death mask, I turned to my senior.

"Please stay in the elevator."

Riccardo ignored me. He slowly stepped out of the elevator. I rolled my eyes and followed him.

I wanted nothing more than to grab him and shove him back inside. But he was far, far senior to me. A senior having the worst day imaginable, at that. If I acted on that impulse, who knew what would happen once we returned to headquarters...

Swallowing my misery, I followed him.

Once in the corridor, Riccardo began inspecting the wall with the elevator button.

"What are you looking for?"

I watched him feel along an intact section of wall as though searching for something. Naturally, I wasn't really expecting an answer. None came, so I kept watch ahead while monitoring him in my peripheral vision.

I carefully went over the warnings we'd heard. Five cages were open in total. I had probably killed three of their occupants in the arena.

That left two.

Neither was immediately visible. I studied the moonlit expanse of Level A. It was much wider than Level B, and the cages were larger too. The presences emanating from their occupants had a different weight to them as well. Motionless things buried in darkness fixed their gazes on us.

CLUNK!

I whipped my head toward the sound.

"Sir?"

"You know how to shoot?"

Where had that gun come from?

My eyes widened in surprise before I noticed that one of the wall tiles stood open. My senior was pulling a forearm-length gun from behind it.

How had he known that was there?

His experience with these missions was coming in handy in all sorts of ways. Apparently, the Mafia kept spare weapons stashed away in case things went wrong.

Relieved that Riccardo at least had a weapon now, I shook my head.

"No."

Riccardo blinked at my unabashed answer.

"Hmm?"

"I'm training, but I'm still very bad at it."

Who didn't know how to fire a gun? Accuracy was the problem. Besides, my daily training with Yun had gradually brought back a memory: even before the war, I hadn't used guns much.

I explained this as my senior expertly loaded the gun. He arched his eyebrows, slowly approaching me.

"How bad are we talking?"

"To quote Yun, I'm about as good as an ordinary human with two months of training."

"Oh dear..."

I still couldn't sense the creatures. I glanced at my approaching senior's ankle. Knowing his personality, he was undoubtedly gritting his teeth through the pain. The red swelling hurt just to look at.

But he'd refuse if I offered to support him. I'd have to stay close enough to be his meat shield if necessary.

When I insisted on walking three or four paces ahead, Riccardo slowly nodded.

"There's probably an elevator to the first floor at the end of this corridor... They always remodel these buildings with that layout..."

"Understood."

I looked toward the end of the corridor, washed in the bluish light of night. Rubble had piled up roughly where the arena would be, but it hadn't completely blocked the passage. Beyond that debris, there should be an elevator.

There were probably stairs too, weren't there? They would most likely be locked, but perhaps I could force them open.

Of course, there would also be two escaped creatures beyond the rubble. Whether they were here or over there, we'd have to face them eventually.

I was concentrating on my senses, trying to gauge the creatures' distance, when my senior spoke.

"Think you can improve before the exam?"

"Pardon?"

What was he talking about?

Completely lost, I gave him a puzzled look. Riccardo looked much the same.

"You have to take the promotion exam around the middle of next year... Didn't you know?"

"Pardon?"

What did you say?

"What?"

An exam?

What promotion... What exam?

The shocking revelation stopped my thoughts cold. For a moment, I forgot I was somewhere with two unidentified creatures prowling around.

Choi Yun hadn't said a single word about this!

Riccardo let out a long laugh, apparently having read everything from my expression.

"Looks like Yun didn't tell you..."

"Seriously."

That lunatic.

Riccardo kept chuckling at my face.

"Calm down... You've still got some time. Ask your training officer once we get out."

"Badgers get promoted?"

"You can't stay a new recruit forever."

He began walking slowly, keeping watch ahead.

"Pass the exam, and you get your work schedule, your posting, your own weapon, that sort of thing..."

"What happens if you fail?"

"You embarrass the hell out of yourself, what else?"

His answer was far too cheerful.

"Ninety percent of new recruits pass. Fail that, and people will be talking about it for years."

Choi Yun!

He should have told me something this basic! I seethed in silence as I walked, death mask in hand.

The moment I got out, I was going to find him and complain. There had been a lot going on, sure, but that didn't mean he couldn't have told me.

Seriously, why hadn't he told me sooner?

Why hadn't he told me?!

Still fuming, I turned toward a creature that had spotted us and was charging.

BOOM!

An ape's arm slammed into the floor, one side of its body grotesquely oversized like an inflated balloon.

I vaguely remembered this creature too. It lived in forests where the trees grew so thickly you couldn't see ahead. More precisely, these were the cursed specimens of the creatures that lived there.

Its arm had swollen larger than its own body. The fist on the end of it hurtled toward my face.

"Need a hand?"

"No."

I lifted the death mask.

"I've got it."

BANG!

The fist landed squarely inside the mask. An enormous impact traveled through the hand holding it. Had my stance been wrong, my arm would have broken.

But I'd caught it safely. That was what mattered.

"That works?"

"Of course."

I watched the creature begin to wither, starting with the fist touching the mask.

"These things are always..."

Death masks were always hungry. They devoured everything. Anything alive.

The withering accelerated. I watched the moisture drain from the cursed ape's body, though I didn't know what the Badgers had named it, while struggling to keep hold of the ever-stronger death mask.

The death mask ravenously devoured the unfortunate creature.

Riccardo gave a disbelieving laugh.

"You must study the creature field guide pretty hard."

He was looking at the death mask in my hand.

"These are practically extinct. You couldn't have run into one out in the field..."

"Are they?"

True, they weren't hard to catch. With a flamethrower, you had nothing to fear from one. Of course, the moment you touched the back of the mask, as this ape had, disaster began. To survive, you had to cut off the part touching it.

Well, that was all the more reason to exterminate them.

As I thought little of it, Riccardo murmured,

"The war veterans hated them for resembling the level ten."

I went rigid. My eyes widened as I looked at Riccardo. I paid no attention even when the creature dropped to the floor, shriveled like a dried-out apple core.

I...

Why was Ray coming up now?

"How...?"

I had meant to ask properly, but the words caught in my throat, leaving the question unintentionally curt. My senior didn't mind. His green eyes remained fixed on the creature's corpse, withered beyond recognition.

"They said the way it devoured things was the same..."

"... What do you mean?"

"You've only seen that unlucky reporter's final video, haven't you?"

That video.

The thought of it stole my breath. I had to struggle hard to keep my expression under control.

The Ray in that short video had been far removed from the one I remembered. I had tried not to think about it in detail. Ever since Yehyeon had helped me recover that memory, I'd made a futile effort to avoid recalling that video in particular.

It held such vivid evidence of my cowardice and my wrongdoing.

"Yes."

Fortunately, the voice I forced out didn't waver. Riccardo didn't seem to notice anything odd about my reaction.

"Did you hear why the level ten was so deadly?"

"That too, yes."

Ray, who had stopped at the sight of the sword.

I had heard often enough that he had slaughtered countless humans. There was scarcely a Badger who had fought in the First War who hadn't been caught in his power.

Riccardo slowly pulled his gaze from the creature's corpse.

"It came back to life by eating the creatures around it."

Ah.

I didn't want to hear any more.

"At least, that's what Richard and Yehyeon say. No matter how many times they killed it, it drained the life from nearby creatures and came back... Said it was like it had thick black tree roots sucking up nutrients. I've never faced the level ten myself, so I don't know how much of that's true..."

I remembered Jin Silver's arm, turned gray. Nausea surged up. I clamped my free hand over my mouth and bowed my head.

Riccardo whipped his head around from watching the way ahead.

"What's wrong?"

I couldn't answer. Unable to hold it in, I staggered into a corner.

BLEURGH...

I pressed my forehead against the bars and vomited. The creature inside the cage gave me an incredulous look. It resembled a four-legged goat.

Sorry about that...

As I wheezed with my forehead against the bars, my senior caught me by the nape and pulled me back.

"What's wrong with you?"

His voice was tight with tension.

I slowly turned toward Riccardo. Bluish moonlight streaming through a wide window washed over his rigid face.

"I think it's a side effect of the drugs."

I offered that offhand excuse, then smiled faintly.

"I feel a bit better now that I've thrown up."

"Just like that?"

"I know."

I stepped a little farther from him, since I was bound to smell. Riccardo studied me with a furrowed brow. He looked as though he wanted to say more but was holding back.

I was grateful he kept quiet. Just pretending to be all right like this was hard enough.

I wouldn't think about it until we got out.

One more step would bring back a fragment of the past, but I resolved not to take that step. Now wasn't the time.

I had a mountain of things to corner Yun about once we were out!

I sighed, holding the death mask. If it ate any more, I doubted I'd be able to keep hold of it.

"I'm sorry. I'm fine now. Let's keep going."

"... Tell me right away if you start feeling worse..."

Riccardo sounded displeased.

"Hide the fact that you're unwell, and the people around you will pay for it in blood during a fight..."

"Yes. I under—"

DING!

Stand?

Riccardo and I whipped our heads toward the sound of an elevator stopping.

The place we'd been heading for.

The sound had come from the elevator that supposedly connected to the first floor.

[Warning. Cage 1 is open.]

[Warning. Cage 2 is open.]

[Warning. Cage 4 is open.]

[Warning. Cage 10 is open.]

[Warning. Cage 12 is open.]

The AI issued the same warnings we'd heard when we arrived in the elevator behind us. Riccardo tugged me along. Without a word, I ducked with him and crept silently behind the rubble to hide, listening to a crowd of people pour out of the elevator.

"Fuck!"

Jaeyeon?

"It's dark! Turn on the lights!"

No.

The voice belonged to Mick.