As the light gradually dimmed, X was finally able to see clearly what lay beyond the door.
It was a circular ring, shimmering with an unstable glow—just like those often depicted in various fantasy works.
Overall, it looked exactly like the kind of portal frequently seen in sci-fi or fantasy stories: something whose destination was unknown, but which clearly connected to another space or dimension.
However, just as X stepped into the containment unit, before he could even begin to ponder the origin or destination of this portal—
"Do you… have any sins?"
A female voice suddenly rang out, echoing directly within the depths of X 's mind.
The voice was sacred and ethereal, carrying an indescribable gentleness—as though it came from the distant heavens, yet at the same time was right beside him.
"Who—who's there?! Who said that?"
X 's heart jolted as he instinctively looked around.
The containment unit was cold and empty. Aside from himself and that mysterious portal, there was nothing else inside.
No one answered him. Only the light at the center of the portal rippled faintly in response to his question.
"..."
X 's gaze finally locked onto the portal, quietly floating at the center of the containment unit.
The voice seemed to have come from there.
"And judging by the way it spoke…"
X stared at the portal.
"Redemption? Confession?"
"Could it be that what's inside is One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds?"
"But the problem is… does that old relic sound like this?"
"I've never seen anything in the reports or records that says it can speak this clearly—this… well, this humanly. Much less with a female voice."
A strong sense of dissonance rose in his heart. Everything he knew conflicted sharply with the reality before his eyes.
After hesitating again and again, faced with this portal full of unknowns and latent danger—and that soul-piercing, meaningful question—X ultimately chose not to continue exploring..
In such a bizarre situation, curiosity could very well bring about consequences he couldn't predict.
X took a deep breath, forced himself to step backward, and carefully exited the containment unit, pulling the heavy metal door shut behind him—sealing the ethereal female voice and the mysterious portal away on the other side.
He then returned to the main rest area, but he didn't stop there.
As if to confirm that his sanity was still intact, X walked over to the doors connecting the rest area to other zones and checked them one by one.
The results matched his initial judgment.
The layout, structure, and even the inconspicuous scratches on the walls were almost perfectly identical to what he usually saw through the surveillance screens in the manager's office—that familiar Control Team work area.
"Could it be… that because I learned about the existence of the 'Inner' Lobotomy Corporation from B…"
"That information itself acted like a key, accidentally unlocking some kind of 'lock,' and that's what led me here?"
Leaning against the cold wall, X muttered to himself, trying to sort through his thoughts.
"Or was this B's doing from the start? Did they send me directly here as some kind of demonstration? Or a warning?"
"No… that's not it… their suspicion can basically be ruled out… there's no reason for them to do this…"
X racked his brain, thoughts racing, yet he still couldn't find an explanation that perfectly connected all the clues into a self-consistent whole.
In the end, after repeated futile thinking, all that remained was a deep exhaustion.
He simply gave up on forcing the issue, walked over to the sofa in the center of the Control Team's main rest area—the one that looked reasonably comfortable—and sat down.
Since he couldn't understand it, and couldn't leave, then all he could do was wait.
Wait for this "dream" to end naturally.
Wait to wake up.
Time passed slowly in the silence, every second feeling unusually long.
Just as X was starting to wonder whether he might be trapped here forever, the scene before him finally began to change.
First, the edges of distant objects blurred. Then the colors and lighting of the entire space seemed to lose focus, slowly rotating and fading.
Finally, his body itself began to slip out of his control, a sensation similar to sleep paralysis.
"Finally…"
Sensing the signs that the dream was coming to an end, the tension X had been holding finally released, and he let out a long sigh of relief.
It seemed his guess had been correct—this really was an exceptionally vivid, deeply unsettling lucid dream.
Disturbing as it was, it was ultimately unreal.
Yet X 's thoughts did not stop as the dream faded.
In the final few seconds before his consciousness returned to reality, his mind was clearer than ever, and he quickly seized upon a key point that could be used to verify things:
"Tomorrow… no, it's already today… after work, I'll go find the Control Team employees and ask them carefully—does One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds actually make a sound when it communicates?"
"And if it does… what kind of voice does it have?"
That thought was like a small beam of light, illuminating X 's chaotic mind and giving him a concrete direction to act on.
"As long as I can confirm that, I can basically verify whether the voice I heard in the dream really belongs to One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds…"
"And that'll make it much easier to judge the nature of this dream."
"And if B comes to me on their own tomorrow morning to confirm what happened here, then I can also confirm whether this was their doing after all…"
"Killing multiple birds with one stone."