Mobius Headquarters—High-Rise
Todd the Barber had made a rare personal visit.
He carried a general-manager-level employee card and hurried up the stairwell until he was stopped by the door at the very top of the stairs.
After obtaining permission to travel in the flesh to the physical residence,
he arrived at the mysterious Basement, Ruben's favorite place for conducting research... Yet when Todd the Barber descended into the Basement, he didn't see anyone at all. He couldn't even sense the slightest trace of life.
The unnatural silence made him uneasy. It even left him, the Fifth Calamity, deeply uncomfortable, and he instinctively clenched his razor in his hand.
When he reached the blackboard covered completely in writing, he suddenly sensed something and whipped around.
Five meters away,
behind a half-drawn surgical curtain, it seemed a special operation had just been completed.
The metal barrel beneath the operating table seemed to be filled with something writhing incessantly. He could even feel eyeballs inside staring at him.
Ruben stood behind the curtain, half his body concealed while the other half—his normal body—was exposed.
His face wasn't covered by a mosaic. Instead, countless grids formed an eerily cold young man's face as he stared at the barber before him.
"What's the matter? Why are you in such a hurry?"
"The branch of my barber shop in the Lesion has been exposed. I withdrew ahead of schedule as requested. Because of the major upheavals that have recently occurred in the Lesion, I need to report them to you in person."
"Could someone have found out that I was going there?"
"I'm not sure. The entire Lesion was suddenly mobilized a day ago and began some massive project. It seems they want to establish a defensive fortification covering the world."
"A defensive fortification? To prepare