Chapter 5

The Key Box

The emergency lights were green. The kind of light that made every face look sick.

"What's the refrigerated zone at right now?"

"Four degrees."

Mansik said it with his flashlight on the wall thermometer. Beside the refrigerated zone door. The number Jeongwoo copied into the log every night.

"If we keep the door shut, how long does it hold?"

"Summer, half a day. It's October, so about a day. But the eggs and milk go before that."

Jeongwoo flipped through the refrigerated inventory in his head. Six trays of eggs. Three hundred cartons of milk. Pork, chicken, chilled boxed meals. All of it trash within two days.

"We need the key."

Behind Jeongwoo, the manager spoke quietly.

"...Should I go get it?"

Everyone looked at the manager. He was in soaked suit pants and one heelless dress shoe.

"No."

Jeongwoo and Mansik said it at the same time.

Boram came down from the window on the second-floor landing.

"Five dogs outside. Two across the lot, three near Exit 4. I think they smelled the one from before. One's lying right next to the sedan."

"The sedan's door?"

"Driver's door is open. Engine's still running."

Out the emergency exit to the sedan: four meters. Reach in, grab the key, get back inside—five seconds minimum. In front of three dogs.

Jeongwoo thought it over. Nobody needed to go get the key.

"Manager, where's the key ring in the car?"

"Well... it's a smart key. I tossed it in the cupholder. When I got out, I was kind of out of it..."

"So it might've fallen on the floor."

"Might have."

"Your office window is right above Exit 4, isn't it?"

The manager blinked.

"...Yeah. That's right. That's my office."

The manager's office was at the end of Building B's second floor. In seven years, Jeongwoo had been in it four times. One written apology. Two overtime consent forms. One permanent-conversion interview. The interview took ten minutes. The result: "Next time."

The office was spacious. A desk, a couch, a framed head-office commendation. And a key box on the wall by the door.

Thirty hooks inside a steel case. A label on every hook. Generator Room, Refrigeration Machine Room, Server Room, Forklifts 1–4, Security Booth, Roof. Every hook was empty.

"Aren't these supposed to all be hanging here?"

Boram asked.

"...They could get lost, so I carried them myself."

The manager said. Nobody responded.

Jeongwoo opened the window. Cold air came in. He leaned out and looked down.

Four meters below, the gray sedan. Through the open driver's door he could see in at an angle. A key ring lay on the driver's floor mat. One smart key with more than twenty metal keys hanging off it. It glinted faintly under the emergency lights.

Next to it lay a Three-Eyed Hound. One meter from the car door. Two of its three eyes were closed. One was open.

"...What if it wakes up?"

Boram whispered behind Jeongwoo.

"The keys can fly. The dog can't."

"Is that supposed to be comforting?"

"The window's four meters up. They can't jump two. They couldn't even clear the meter-and-a-half water wall."

Boram shut her mouth. Nothing to argue with.

Jeongwoo looked at the key ring, then turned and looked at the key box. Thirty hooks. Thirty labels.

Knowing where things are supposed to be. That was this skill's condition. Where keys were supposed to be was the key box. It even had labels. The manager just hadn't followed them for seven years.

"The manager's key ring. Location change, manager's office key box."

【Location change request confirmed.】

The key ring lifted.

From the floor mat, under the steering wheel, out the open door. The metal keys clinked against each other.

The dog's third eye snapped open.

It leapt up and lunged at the keys in midair. Its teeth closed on the space fifty centimeters below them. Empty air. The dog fell back and slammed into the sedan's door. Bang. The car rocked.

The keys kept rising. Four meters. Window frame. Past Jeongwoo's ear, and into the room.

And then they came apart in midair.

The split ring opened. The smart key slipped off first and dropped onto the desk with a tap. The metal keys slid off the ring one by one and lined up. Then they flew to the key box.

One on the Generator Room hook. One on Refrigeration Machine Room. Server Room. Forklift 1, 2, 3, 4. Security Booth. Roof.

Clink, clink, clink.

One key on every labeled hook. Even after they'd caught, they kept swaying for a few seconds.

【Sorted: 23. Stacked: 23.】

"..."

The office went quiet.

The only sound was the dog outside clawing at the sedan.

"Boss."

Boram stood in front of the key box.

"Did they find their way by reading the labels? The keys?"

"There are labels, so."

"How do keys know about labels?"

"No idea."

He really had no idea. All Jeongwoo knew was where the keys were supposed to be. It had been the same for seven years of laying out locations. Get the positions right, and the floor ran itself.

The manager came up to the key box. He looked at the hooks, one key on each, for a long time.

"...These were always supposed to hang like this."

He was talking to himself. Jeongwoo pretended not to hear.

The generator room was built onto the back of Building A. Lucky that you could reach it from inside.

Mansik started the generator. It coughed three times, then the engine caught. A few seconds later, the ceiling fluorescents flickered back on. The refrigerated zone's compressor hummed to life again.

Rajiv clapped. Alone. Nobody joined in, but Rajiv didn't mind.

Mansik checked the fuel gauge.

"Diesel's half a tank. Run everything, eight hours."

"Lights only in the break room, rack zone off. Shut down the server room too. One laptop's enough."

"Do that and just run the fridges, five days."

After five days, they'd need diesel.

Jeongwoo pictured the outbound dock. Two refrigerated box trucks, backed in. A five-ton box truck had a 200-liter tank. Both had been filled up yesterday evening. Right outside the outbound shutters.

That was a problem for the next five days.

The problem right now was the manager.

About an hour after the generator came on, the manager came back having changed out of his wet pants. He kept a spare suit in his office locker. He'd tied a fresh tie, too.

Then he stood in front of the break-room whiteboard.

"All right. Let's go ahead and get the situation organized."

His head-office meeting voice.

"The center is currently operating under emergency protocol. Center assets—that is, inventory—are the property of head office. Unauthorized use may become an issue down the line, so all outbound inventory will require center manager approval—"

"If we don't use the inventory, we starve."

Jeongwoo said.

"I'm not saying don't use it. I'm saying follow procedure. Later, when head office asks—"

"Can you reach head office?"

"...Not yet."

Mansik got up from his chair. One step toward the manager. The manager took half a step back toward the whiteboard.

"Hyung."

Jeongwoo said. Mansik stopped.

Jeongwoo looked at the manager. Come to think of it, the manager had a point. If head office was still alive, someday they'd ask who used this inventory. Right down to the ton of water dropped off a rack. And if the record said the night shift foreman used it on his own authority, Jeongwoo would be the one paying it back. Not even a permanent employee.

"Manager. Approve it."

"...Huh?"

"Emergency outbound. Approve it under your name and sign the log. I'll record what we used, when, and how much. And I'll handle distribution."

The manager's eyes switched to calculating mode. Jeongwoo knew that look. The look he got writing reports for head office. All center personnel survived the emergency. Inventory management maintained. Officer in charge: Oh Byeongcheol.

"...Good. Let's do that. I'm the approving authority, you're the operational lead."

"Yes."

"Sign every day?"

"Every day."

The manager wrote EMERGENCY OPERATIONS SYSTEM on the whiteboard, looking satisfied, and underlined it twice.

When Jeongwoo left the break room, Mansik followed him.

"Why're you bowing to that guy."

"I didn't bow. I got a signature."

"Same thing."

"Hyung. Later, if head office comes back, who pays for the water that burst?"

Mansik stopped.

"If the manager signed, the manager pays. Not the four of us."

Mansik looked at Jeongwoo for a long time, then shook his head. On his way back to the break room, he tossed one remark over his shoulder.

"Sly little fox."

Two days passed.

The center ran quietly. Exactly per the survival locations Jeongwoo had laid out. Water and food on Rack 1. First-aid kits in the break room. Butane at the far end, opposite the outbound dock.

They ate the refrigerated stock before it spoiled. Rajiv made something different every meal out of six trays of eggs. On the second evening it was steamed eggs, and the manager had two bowls. Mansik saw that and had only one.

They covered the dog in Aisle 7 with a tarp and put it in a corner of the freezer warehouse. Moved it pallet and all, by forklift. There was nowhere to dump it. Put it outside and the other dogs would swarm. Mostly, nobody had any idea what to do with it.

Boram kept checking social media. From day two, the Awakened stopped posting skill reveals and started posting kills. Videos of people burning F-rank monsters with [Flame]. Posts about defending an apartment complex with [Swordsmanship].

By day three, the talk about [Tidy Up] hadn't changed.

For cleaning your room. Trash skill. Better to have nothing.

"Boss, these people really have no idea. That you killed a monster with a one-ton pallet."

"They don't need to know."

"Why not?"

"If they know, they'll come. Here."

Boram thought about that for a moment, then put her phone down.

Night three. Jeongwoo was at the break-room window, going over the log. The window in the sky hadn't moved in three days. Only the number changed.

【Time remaining: 118 days】

Jeongwoo tucked the pen behind his ear and closed the log. Then another window popped up. Not in the sky. Just in front of Jeongwoo.

【[Tidy Up] proficiency: 99%】

☾