[Longshan Psychiatric Hospital]

"Son of a bitch... where the hell did I get dropped..." Su Jin muttered, staring blankly at the massive sign hanging over the psychiatric hospital.

A deafening bang suddenly shattered the air.

Startled like a spooked pigeon, Su Jin whipped around just in time to see a blue-and-white trolleybus, its long poles sparking against overhead wires, rumbling down the asphalt.

A sparse smattering of older model cars trailed lazily in its wake.

Not far down the block sat a row of storefronts, their half-open wooden shutters painted in fading, pastel hues. Through the windows, he could see old-school glass display counters—the whole aesthetic bleeding an eerie, retro nostalgia.

Right on the street corner, an old man was bagging up fresh popcorn.

The gunshot he'd heard? Just the pressure valve on a vintage popcorn cannon blowing open.

The sun beat down, punishing and hot, baking the air with the mixed stench of sweet popcorn, cheap diesel, and melting asphalt.

Su Jin's heart hammered against his ribs, his pupils dilating with residual adrenaline.

The scene playing out in front of him was an unholy mix of the bizarre and the deeply familiar.

The sun hung in the sky with a sickly reddish tint, but the pedestrians still looked like average locals. Aside from their aggressively dated, rustic fashion sense, nothing seemed overtly alien.

Even the vehicles and the architecture just looked... aggressively quaint.

Meanwhile, he was standing in the blistering heat wearing a modern, tactical-chic trench coat, sticking out like a sore thumb.

A few pedestrians were already throwing him sideways glances.

Catching the stares, Su Jin quickly shucked the heavy coat, draping it over his arm to casually conceal the briefcase.

He shot another look at the psychiatric hospital, his pulse thrumming in his ears.

A genuine, bona fide isekai drop!!!

One second he was suffocating in his cramped apartment, and the next, he was standing on a sun-drenched street in an entirely different reality.

A cursory glance screamed 'home,' but a micro-analysis of the details proved this was absolutely not the world he knew.

The visceral shock of dimensional displacement was an absolute nightmare for the nervous system.

That insane company. Everything on their recruitment portal had been true!

But a Dying World? An apocalypse? The street looked like a goddamn postcard of societal harmony. It didn't look like a doomsday, and it certainly didn't look like anyone was bracing for impact.

Su Jin shakily wiped the sweat from his face, dragging in two deep breaths to force his spiraling panic into standby mode.

Forget crossing dimensions; getting teleported across the street with zero latency was enough to induce cardiac arrest.

But there was no rollback feature now. It was either complete the assigned KPI, or figure out how to ping the company servers.

Neither of those problems could be solved right now. Priority one: locate the so-called client.

The phantom mask had provided a waypoint. Right now, a glaring red dot was pulsing on his retinal HUD, pinned directly inside the psychiatric hospital.

A security booth guarded the main entrance, and the rent-a-cop inside was currently giving him a hard, suspicious stare.

Su Jin frowned, briskly walking past the gate and toward a distant corner, ducking under the inconspicuous shade of an old tree.

Crouching down, he began to audit his inventory, digging through his trench coat pockets and the briefcase.

Within seconds, he extracted a thick stack of banknotes and a plastic ID card from the coat's inner lining.

The bills were stamped 'Longshan Huitong Bank'. The ID card sported a bizarre, vertical layout, mimicking the format of an employee badge.

Su Jin pursed his lips, a fraction of his tension bleeding away.

The onboarding manual hadn't lied; HR actually provided local currency and forged credentials. The fact that he could read the street signs was likely thanks to some auto-translate firmware they'd installed in his head.

The Heavenly Dao Infinite Liability Company. He had zero intel on their operational scope. He'd have to squeeze the client for data.

If they were a verified client, they had to have a communication log with the main office.

But routing a client to a psych ward... Please, let them be a doctor or an on-staff nurse.

Su Jin tossed up a silent prayer to whatever management ran this universe, stashed the cash and the pistol into his spatial bag, and shrugged back into his coat.

Flanking him was the hospital's perimeter wall—barely six feet of brick and mortar.

Su Jin grabbed the lip of the brickwork, checked his six to ensure the coast was clear, and vaulted cleanly over the barrier.

Boots hitting the courtyard grass, he broke into a low jog and slipped straight into the main building.

His eyes darted nervously, scanning for hostiles.

The corridors were bustling with nurses and shuffling patients, and thankfully, the local dialect fed seamlessly through his mental translator.

The signage on the walls was perfectly legible too. Just ahead was... the men's room!

Su Jin executed a flawless tactical retreat right through the door.

.....

Longshan Psychiatric Hospital, multi-purpose rec room.

Fu Qingdai, swimming in a faded patient's gown, sat slumped against the windowpanes.

The sunlight outside was golden, filtering beautifully through the canopy of green trees. It was a picture-perfect afternoon.

But between the screeching wobble of the overhead fan, the choir of catatonic groans and sudden shrieks from the other patients, and the crushing weight on her own chest, she couldn't care less about the view.

Fu Qingdai's eyes slowly rimmed with red. Her small hands white-knuckled the hem of her gown.

The clock was bleeding out. She had tried so desperately to warn them, but in the end, her reward was a straightjacket and a diagnosis. Nobody believed her.

Was it truly inescapable?

No. There was one fail-safe left.

The whispers in her nightmare had promised that he would come looking for her.

If she just held the line until he arrived, maybe there was still a chance to fix it all. And if he never showed up... that was a win-condition, too. It meant the prophecies were just hallucinations, and the apocalypse was a lie!

She would gladly spend the rest of her life in an asylum if it meant the end of the world was cancelled!

Clinging to that logic, Fu Qingdai scrubbed at her eyes, a fragile, hollow optimism settling over her.

Even if her sanity had been oscillating wildly like this for days...

Exhausting the scenery outside, Fu Qingdai finally pushed herself up to head back to her cell.

But the moment she turned her head toward the dim corridor, a dark silhouette stepped into view. A man in a trailing trench coat, gripping a leather briefcase!

Her mind flashed to the figure standing beneath a rotting sky, knee-deep in a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, a briefcase in his left hand and a pistol in his right. The phantom from her visions perfectly synced with the man standing before her!

The realization struck her like a physical blow.

Hot tears instantly spilled down Fu Qingdai's cheeks.

Every other thought in her brain flatlined, leaving only one terrifying truth.

Game over. The end of the world is real.

...

Having run his face under the tap, Su Jin exited the restroom, his internal threat levels somewhat stabilized.

The facilities were a carbon copy of Earth's—running water, standard squat toilets. Honestly, the pungent, acidic stench of stale urine was practically a psychological anchor.

Ah, the sweet smell of civilization.

Hitting the midway point of the corridor, his HUD immediately locked onto Fu Qingdai.

His hopes completely flatlined. A kid drowning in a hospital gown. A high schooler, at best.

Sure, her facial aesthetics were top-tier, but unless she could parry a zombie with her cheekbones, beauty was a useless stat!

He had literally just prayed to the RNG gods. Give him a raving lunatic, fine, but at least make it a heavily muscled meat shield he could use for aggro!

But the drop tables were rigged.

Mentally ill! High school student! Pretty girl! He was staring at a trifecta of absolute dead weight!

Striding into the rec room, Su Jin did a quick sweep of the perimeter, snagged a plastic chair, and planted himself directly across from Fu Qingdai.

The moment they established visual contact, the blinking red waypoint hovering over her forehead vanished from his HUD. Objective reached.

Total radio silence. Su Jin analyzed Fu Qingdai. She was staring at her own lap, her fingers practically tying themselves into knots.

After a beat, Su Jin sent out a probe. "The company... gave you a heads up, right?"

Fu Qingdai gave a stiff nod, her heart practically detonating in her chest.

The executioner from her nightmares was sitting right in front of her. The apocalypse was clocking in.

"What's your name?"

"Fu Qingdai."

"Sir..." Fu Qingdai whispered, her chin tucked to her chest. "I still don't know what to call you."

What to call me?

Su Jin paused, his corporate instincts kicking into overdrive.

Thus far, the client wasn't showing signs of critical mental decay. Giving her his real name shouldn't breach protocol, but that dogshit NDA from the company strictly forbade leaking internal data.

As a contractor, his identity was inherently tied to the company. Who the hell knew where the firewall on "confidential information" began and ended?

Logically, you shouldn't need to guard against your own client, but clients were notoriously stupid and possessed zero operational security. Best to spin up a fake persona. It was a victimless crime.

The core objective right now was to farm max affinity with the client and mine her for intel.

After a moment of heavy silence, Su Jin adjusted his posture, radiating bureaucratic authority. "Everything discussed from this point forward is strictly classified. I need absolute assurance you will not burn my identity to any third parties. Do we have an understanding?"

Fu Qingdai nodded solemnly, her eyes wide and deadly serious.

"I am the Director of the Special Operations Division and a Tier-One Senior Agent for the company. My name is Li Haocheng. You will refer to me as Director, or Brother Hao. For operational security, from this day forward, our public cover is that we are cousins. Are we aligned?"

"Understood... Cousin."