I Activated Cheat Mode in a Bizarre Game

A few days later, I headed to that suspicious café in front of Dongto headquarters early in the morning.
According to the information Park Sunja gave me, the woman in the photo worked part-time at this café.
To appear as much like a normal customer as possible, I ordered an iced chocolate and sat down at the window seat where the photo had been taken.

I pulled up the saved image on my phone and compared it to the view in front of me. It was definitely the same place.
The counter in the photo, the arrangement of the tables—they all matched almost perfectly.
But crucially, the barista working at the counter right now was not the person in the photo.

…Did she quit?
My heart sank.
That couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let the one link I had to the hacker—or the admin—get cut so easily.

Trying to keep the anxiety off my face, I glanced around the café, hoping for another clue.
“Huh…?”
Just then.

A woman passing by my table glanced at me and muttered something under her breath.
I looked at her on instinct—and our eyes met directly.
She quickly looked away, hastily slipping into the staff area behind the counter, where she exchanged greetings with the other workers.

I didn’t take my eyes off her, just in case.
And a moment later, she reappeared at the counter wearing a café uniform.
She’d tied her hair back—and now, in uniform, she matched the barista from the photo exactly.

Earlier, in plain clothes, I hadn’t recognized her.
But now it was unmistakable.
Found her.
Just as I felt a surge of victory, the woman—having taken over the shift—glanced at the receipts by the register and called out to me.

Or rather, she called out the order I had placed.
"Iced chocolate—your drink is ready!"
I swallowed dryly.

At her call, I stood and slowly walked toward the counter.
She handed me the drink with a smile without looking directly at me—but when she did glance up and finally saw my face, her expression briefly froze.
That subtle shift in her face caught my attention.

But I took the drink and decided to go straight to the point.
I was about to ask if she knew about Monster Gallery—
When she bowed her head and apologized first.

“Um, excuse me, sir. I’m really sorry. I was just startled earlier and reacted without thinking…”
“…Ah, it’s fine.”
At first I didn’t understand what she was apologizing for, but it became clear she was referring to her reaction earlier—how she made a noise when she saw me, then hurried away.

I said it was no big deal, but she still seemed ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ bothered by it and even explained why.
“Usually around this time, a man in a suit always sits exactly where you’re sitting now. But he… kind of stares at me. It’s really uncomfortable. And then today, someone else was sitting there, so I got a little flustered…”
A man in a suit?

The moment she said that, I recalled what Dongto’s exploration team uniform looked like.
That identical black suit they all wore, supposedly for “protection.”
And just then—

Ding—the door opened.
A man walked into the café.
The barista woman’s face instantly went pale.

When I turned to look, I understood the situation immediately.
Judging by her reaction, that man was the one she’d just been talking about.
And as expected—he was wearing a Dongto exploration team suit.

“…Thanks.”
I took my iced chocolate and calmly returned to my seat.
The man didn’t even glance at any of the other empty tables. He walked straight toward me and stopped at my table.

I guess this was “his seat.”
He looked me up and down, then spoke with a smug tone.
“Hey. This is business. Mind letting me have the seat?”

I stirred my straw once, then replied calmly.
“Excuse me? There are so many empty tables—why this one?”
“That’s none of your concern. Just know it’s part of a high-priority mission from Dongto.”

A mission from Dongto? In a regular café?
What kind of mission required this specific seat?
So I probed him—quietly, under my breath.

“Is it related to Monster Gallery by any chance?”
His eyes widened in shock.
He visibly panicked.

“You—how do you know about that?!”
He fumbled for something in his pocket.
He was trying to pull something out.

But I was faster.
I grabbed his wrist and clenched it hard.
“Gaaah!”

That alone was enough.
He let out a cry of pain and grimaced.
People around us began to stare.

All I’d done was mention Monster Gallery—and he tried to pull something on me?
Clearly not just some normal mission.
I leaned in and spoke low and threateningly in his ear.

“Come with me. Refuse, and I can’t guarantee what’ll happen to this wrist.”
“A-alright! Okay—just stop!”
I stood, still holding his arm.

Behind the counter, the barista woman and another employee exchanged surprised comments.
“Whoa… Finally, someone put that jerk in his place…”
“Whew… You think he’ll be okay?”

It wasn’t exactly what it looked like, but close enough.
Time to wring everything out of this guy.
Apparently, he’d made a lot of enemies.

Even as I dragged him outside by the wrist, nobody—neither staff nor customers—interfered.
Some even gave me a thumbs-up, like they were cheering me on.
I dragged the man into a quiet alley nearby and got straight to the interrogation.

“Who’s the hacker managing Monster Gallery?”
The man, still not fully grasping the situation, sneered through the pain.
“You really think I’d tell you that?”

In place of an answer, I tightened my grip on his wrist.
Crack—a sharp twisting noise.
“Aaaagh! Okay! I’ll talk! Please, just stop—what kind of monster are you?!”

“Monster?”
“Urgh… The one running the Dongto websites… the admins and hackers… they’re monsters!”
Monsters?

The hacker I’m looking for… isn’t human?
I frowned.
Sensing an opening, the man began spilling everything in a rush.

“Yeah, monsters! I’m with Exploration Team 3 at Dongto! Right underneath this café, there are three monsters being held—ones with abilities to hack sites like Monster Gallery and manipulate public opinion! I was assigned to make sure they don’t escape… or that people like you don’t fall for their tricks and release them!”
He kept talking fast, like he was trying to convince me I’d been deceived.
“You’ve been completely fooled by them!”

But his words didn’t sway me.
I wasn’t here because of a monster—I was here because of a system-issued quest.
A quest that explicitly said I could recruit the hacker.

That meant recruitment was possible—even if there were monsters down there.
And frankly, I’d negotiated with monsters before.
Honestly—

It’d probably be easier to convince the monster.
That thought crossed my mind.
Sometimes, your hands are closer than your words.

And what if—just what if—they weren’t monsters at all?
What if they were just people? People with unique abilities, skilled in manipulating computers?
Given all the horrors Dongto had committed, it wasn’t impossible.

I twisted his wrist again and asked:
“How do I get to the basement?”
“I-I’ll tell you! Why do you keep twisting?!”

He confessed.
Behind the counter—where the barista had been—there was a door marked [STAFF ONLY].
Behind it were stairs leading down.

Now that he mentioned it… I remembered that door from the photo too.
He hadn’t been staring at the barista—he’d been watching the door behind her.
“…Why are they being held under a normal café and not in a Dongto facility?”

“What? Oh, uh…”
His eyes suddenly went vacant.
The same unfocused expression I’d seen on Hanbit and Shun when they were affected by the cathedral choir.

He murmured in a daze:
“Because… those were the team leader’s orders…?”
Was this guy being mentally controlled by Dongto?

There was nothing more to ask.
I struck him hard in the stomach.
Thud!

“Guh!”
He groaned in pain, but didn’t pass out.
So I chopped the back of his neck, knocking him unconscious.

Maybe I should’ve just done that from the start.
Sorry about your stomach, I guess.
I dragged his unconscious body into the corner of the alley, hiding him as best I could.

Then I turned back toward the café.
It was time to check what lay beneath it.