But now, that luxury was once again laid bare before the Guide.
Arthur waited.
He wanted to see whether the Guide—this "almost omniscient" Abnormality—could give him a satisfactory answer.
Seconds passed.
Then minutes.
Finally, the Guide shook his head slightly.
"I don't know."
Bang!
The gunshot tore through the containment room.
The 9mm round scraped past the Guide's cheek, tearing a shallow groove through flesh—but failing to do any real damage.
The danger had never been the Guide himself.
It was the Anomaly effect induced by the containment room.
Arthur exhaled slowly.
He understood it clearly now:
he had almost been dragged in.
"How would I know?" the Guide said calmly, glancing at Arthur's still-smoking pistol. His smile never changed.
"I don't even know why I'm here."
"…What?" He tilted his head. "Not going to kill me?"
If only killing him wouldn't reduce the Qliphoth Counter.
Arthur clenched his jaw.
I should leave. The containment room can't stay open independently for long.
Suppressing the violent urge surging within him, Arthur rubbed his brow and turned toward the entrance.
He retrieved a special body bag.
It wasn't humanoid.
Instead, it resembled an oversized industrial vacuum fused with a shredder—
Lobotomy Corporation's solution for efficient corpse collection.
With practiced movements, Arthur activated the device.
Within moments, all traces of Byrd's remains vanished from the containment room.
Only the head remained.
Arthur stared at it for a long time.
In the end, he chose not to feed it into the shredder.
He carried it by hand.
"Leaving already?" the Guide said cheerfully.
"Come play more often."
Arthur didn't respond.
As he crossed the threshold into the entrance corridor, the security doors behind him began to close.
Just before they sealed shut, the Guide's voice lingered in the air.
"Arthur," he said softly,
"do you want to see the ancient souls of light and darkness scattered across this world?"
Information Department
Officially, the Information Department was responsible for classifying Abnormalities, analyzing their danger levels, and researching countermeasures.
In reality—
They also erased anything Lobotomy Corporation could never allow to exist outside.
Including abnormal employee deaths.
"Oh… Senior Arthur. You've worked hard."
The department was in chaos.
Only a few hours earlier, the Scorched Girl incident had forced them to process another mountain of "colleague data."
"It's nothing," Arthur replied, handing over everything related to Byrd.
"If there's nothing else, I'll be leaving."
He desperately wanted to return to his dormitory—to clear his head.
"Understood, Senior Arthur."
The bespectacled clerk accepted the items without ceremony.
Byrd's head was casually tossed into a metal pipe leading directly to the incinerator.
Fingers flew across the keyboard.
Seeing no further reason to stay, Arthur turned to leave.
Just as he reached the door—
"Oh, right," the clerk said suddenly.
"Senior Arthur, don't forget—the Ministers are coming to inspect today."
Arthur stopped.
After a moment, he remembered.
This Branch, newly opened in W Nest, had no assigned Minister. Everything was directly overseen by Headquarters.
From time to time, Ministers would conduct random inspections.
Arthur didn't want to admit that after looping two days in a row, he had completely forgotten.
"I know," he replied curtly.
"You don't need to remind me."
"Haha…" The clerk scratched his head.
"Senior Yulia specifically asked me to tell you. She said you missed it last time and left Minister Hod completely lost…"
"Tch." Arthur clicked his tongue. "That woman…"
He didn't want his juniors thinking poorly of him.
With that, Arthur exited the department.
The Guide's words refused to leave his mind.
Whether delivering Byrd's remains or walking back through the corridors, Arthur found himself repeatedly thinking about one thing.
Leaving.
Not leaving this world—
But leaving Lobotomy Corporation.
According to the game's plot, as long as one remained within Lobotomy Corporation, Branch personnel had only one fate:
Death.
From the very beginning, Lobotomy Corporation's founder—Ayin—had pursued only one goal:
To fulfill Carmen's final wish.
They believed the City was sick.
That all humanity suffered from City Sickness—
a condition that would eventually drive everyone toward collective self-destruction.
To save humanity, they needed to show them Light.
Hope.
Thus, Cogito was born—a substance capable of materializing the human psyche.
And once Cogito existed, only one project remained.
The Light Seed Project.
By harvesting vast amounts of energy from Abnormalities, Lobotomy Corporation would use Cogito to open the doors of human hearts.
A single individual—one who possessed what humanity lacked—would deliver hope to all, repairing broken minds and curing City Sickness.
And when the Light Tree bloomed—
Lobotomy Corporation collapsed.
A Wing of the World, fallen.
In the City, what does the fall of a Wing mean?
It means the Nest it protected is reclassified as Backstreets.
And every Branch—
Is erased by the Head, to preserve the Singularity.
Yes.
Whether Ayin's plan succeeded or failed—
Lobotomy Corporation would cease to exist.
Including everyone who remained inside.
Perhaps in Ayin's eyes, Arthur thought bitterly,
the millions living in the Nest—and diligent Branch employees like me—are merely one sin among a hundred virtues.
To sacrifice so many lives so sanctimoniously for a "greater good"—
Ayin… you really are something.
For the first time, Arthur felt the same hatred toward Ayin that Angela once did.
Because here—
Being buried didn't mean metaphor.
It meant death.