35. The Bureau of Anomaly Control (Please vote for me!)

Marn gently gripped the door handle of Room 213 with his thumb and forefinger.

A hazy sensation flowed through his body, and several blurred, indistinct images flickered across his retinas. Then, a simple, ordinary word surfaced from the depths of his subconscious:

Exit.

Just as he had surmised, this was not an entrance at all. He must have possessed other ways to reach the Bureau of Control, but he had completely and utterly "forgotten" them.

"Close your eyes," Marn said, looking at the door. "Do nothing without my permission."

"All right," the young girl replied obediently. "I will stand right here until you speak again."

Marn nodded and pushed the door open.

A hermetically sealed chamber constructed of silver-white metal appeared before them. The area was roughly three hundred square meters, with walls and floors made entirely of metal, devoid of any decoration or furniture.

He realized something:

"Come in."

The girl followed him inside, her eyes still closed.

"Non-employee detected. Commencing data collection. Non-employee entity is a Tier I unknown biological specimen, not found in the database. Danger level: extremely low," a mechanical voice echoed in Marn's mind. "Do you wish to initiate quarantine protocols?"

"No," he replied internally, then pulled the door shut behind him.

His consciousness churned like boiling seawater as fragments of common knowledge regarding this place resurfaced in his mind—drawn from the deepest, darkest corners, nearly on the verge of being purged from his memory entirely.

Only now did Marn understand the true reason he had been unable to return to the Bureau of Control.

The damage caused by the Unrememberable was far greater than he had realized. Or rather, the information he could feel he had "forgotten" consisted only of the less severely damaged parts.

True oblivion is such that one cannot even be aware of the fact that one has forgotten.

The Unrememberable had erased the method of returning to the Bureau from his mind. No matter what ideas Marn tried to pursue, he could never find the correct path—because the moment he was about to remember, the memory would be dragged back into the depths of his consciousness.

This was the scar left by the Unrememberable, and its purpose was clear: making Marn forget how to return to the Bureau helped shatter his resistance.

This also meant that the existence of the Bureau of Anomalous Control could significantly increase his chances of victory.

Only by successfully returning to the Bureau could he potentially recover those memories. Moreover, Marn suspected that this was only possible because he was currently located on an underground floor where the influence of the Unrememberable had not yet reached.

Fortunately, there was more than one way to return to the Bureau, and his past self had recorded the second path in writing.

Before he was attacked, he could project his consciousness into the Bureau at any time, activate the teleportation device here, and spend thirty seconds bringing his physical body over; he could also teleport back to his original location using the same method.

Beyond that, the Bureau could construct Bureau Channels that connected to reality. The path he had just entered was one such stable channel.

Furthermore, Bureau Channels could be configured to allow or disallow the passage of non-employee life forms. Under normal circumstances, employees without teleportation clearance relied on these to bring back anomalous items. Thus, those who entered would not appear directly in the Bureau, but in the quarantine space they were currently occupying.

This area served to scan and analyze entrants and could be jettisoned at any time to prevent certain special anomalous entities from invading the Bureau.

For example, a Mimic Fungus that had not yet fully replaced a Bureau employee's consciousness might be accidentally brought in here.

"Wait here," Marn said to Ning Changkong.

He walked to within half a meter of the wall, and a door appeared before him. As Marn stepped inside, it immediately reverted to a metal wall.

After passing through two more doors, a corridor constructed of the same unknown alloy appeared before him, and information about this place slowly flooded into his mind.

Director’s Office, Control Department, Containment Department, Employee Quarters, Conference Room...

As his thoughts shifted, a list of information materialized before him.

[
Director: Marn
Overall Anomaly Rating: III-3 (III-5)
Anomalous Traits:
Mental Power III-3 (III-4)
You possess mental power beyond that of an ordinary person, including basic psychic abilities such as spirit vision, telekinesis, and psychic control resistance, which will naturally improve over time.
However, due to an attack by the "Unrememberable," the strength of this trait has significantly decreased.
Basic resistance to cognitive impairment has been generated through adaptation and is currently self-healing.
Status:
Memory Loss: You have forgotten your past.
Cognitive Impairment: There are things you can no longer perceive.
Mental Trauma: Your mental power is severely weakened.
Utilized Traits:
None.
]

Seeing the number after the III, Marn naturally recalled its meaning. The Bureau of Anomalous Control used a scale of 1 to 5 to represent the strength of an ability within its tier. This was not a fixed value, but relative to the strength of other anomalous entities.

1 indicated a weaker ability within the same tier, often belonging to those who had just acquired it; 2 was the average level for that tier, where most ability users remained; 3 was stronger than average; 4 represented a top-tier level; and 5 represented the theoretical limit of strength.

However, anomaly intensity did not necessarily equate to danger. The Mimic Fungus, for instance, might not possess great individual combat power, but through its stealth, it had already claimed the lives of at least hundreds of thousands.

His own danger level had previously been slightly higher than his ability strength, likely due to the skills he once possessed and his status as the Director of the Bureau.

Looking at the information above, his memory issues seemed to be slowly repairing themselves, which was why he had been recalling these fragments and common knowledge one after another.

And the utilizable traits...

[
Number of Contained Anomalous Entities:
Tier III Anomalous Entities: 2
]

The Bureau could extract traits from contained anomalous entities and bestow them upon employees, including the Director, to help control other anomalous entities.

[
Tier I Anomaly Value: 6.2
Tier II Anomaly Value: 4
Tier III Anomaly Value: 2
]

The Bureau could also extract energy from certain anomalous entities—though this could only be done after they had been subdued. Normally, most anomalous entities could only provide less than one point of energy of their own tier.

This energy could be used for various purposes, including the construction of Bureau Channels.

He looked at the manifest for the Containment Department and noticed one of the two anomalous entities.

[
Anomalous Entity: Severed Finger of the Unrememberable
Anomaly Intensity: III-3
Danger Level: III-1
Description:
A severed finger. No one remembers how it appeared in the Containment Department of the Bureau.
Traits:
Visual Cognitive Impairment III-3:
An observer can see that there is something here and acknowledge its existence, but cannot comprehend what it looks like. Information regarding its appearance cannot be processed by consciousness or memory.
Memory Erasure III-3:
It possesses the ability to erase biological memory through contact.
]