At 5:20 p.m.
The office area gradually began to quiet down.
Winter in Northveil.
Darkness always came quickly.
The gray-white sky outside the windows was slowly being swallowed by dusk.
Inside the office area, employees began saving the files on their computers one after another.
The printers stopped working.
The sound of shredders gradually disappeared as well.
Some people stood up and stretched their shoulders.
Others began organizing the documents on their desks.
A few had already picked up their coats.
They were preparing to end another day of work.
Everything.
Was no different from any ordinary company at the end of the workday.
...
5:35 p.m.
The first employee left his seat.
He casually shut down his computer and briefly organized his desk.
Then he smiled and waved at the coworker beside him.
"I'm heading out."
"See you tomorrow."
The young employee beside him smiled in response.
"Take care on the way home."
A few minutes later, several more people left together.
While waiting for the elevator, they discussed which restaurant they were going to that evening.
Some complained about the sheer number of files they had been forced to organize that day.
Others mentioned that they still had clients scheduled for tomorrow.
Someone even joked that they hoped the manager would not suddenly assign them more work today.
The atmosphere was relaxed and natural.
There was absolutely nothing unusual.
Lucian quietly watched everything.
He did not miss a single detail.
...
5:50 p.m.
Fewer and fewer people remained in the office area.
More than half of the dozen or so desks were already empty.
The lights began going out row by row.
Only the area near the offices remained lit.
The manager still had not come out.
The office door remained half-open.
Occasionally, through the gaps in the blinds, a figure could be seen moving slowly inside.
The technician spoke quietly.
"Same as yesterday."
"She still isn't getting ready to leave."
Lucian did not answer.
He simply recorded the time.
...
6:05 p.m.
The last group of employees began leaving as well.
A young woman knocked on the manager's office door.
After receiving a response, she pushed the door open and walked inside.
Less than a minute later, she came back out.
Her coat was already in her hands.
She gently closed the office door behind her.
Then she turned off the last few lights in the office area.
The entire sixth floor instantly fell silent.
At that moment.
Except for the innermost office.
There were no lights left on anywhere else on the floor.
Lucian slowly adjusted the telescope.
The lens locked onto the office.
The soft work light inside was still on.
The manager sat behind her desk, looking down as she went through some documents.
Her movements were not hurried.
But she never stopped.
From any angle.
She looked exactly like an ordinary company manager working overtime.
...
Time continued to pass.
6:30 p.m.
The lights throughout the office building began going out one after another.
7:00 p.m.
The convenience store downstairs entered its evening rush.
7:20 p.m.
The last delivery van drove away from the street.
And on the sixth floor.
That office remained lit.
The technician opened yesterday's records and brought up today's footage.
The two recordings were placed side by side on the screen.
They were almost identical.
The same time.
The same lighting.
The same single office.
Remaining lit the entire time.
He could not help saying,
"If the recording dates weren't different…"
"It would almost be impossible to tell them apart."
Lucian did not answer.
His gaze remained fixed on the office door.
...
7:50 p.m.
The manager finally stood up.
She walked to one side of the office and seemed to organize the bookshelf.
Then she returned to her desk.
8:10 p.m.
She stood again.
She turned off one of the desk lamps, leaving only a work light beside the desk.
The entire room immediately became much darker.
From outside the window.
It looked even more like someone was simply working overtime.
Other than that.
There was no further movement.
...
The technician continued observing the outside of the building.
The main entrance.
No one came out.
The underground parking lot.
No new vehicles appeared.
The side entrance.
Still closed.
The emergency stairwell.
It had not been opened even once in three hours.
He slowly said,
"If she left…"
"She should have passed through at least one of those exits."
"But until now…"
"There's no record of it."
Lucian looked toward the sixth floor.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
On the first day.
He had thought she was working overtime.
On the second day.
He had guessed that she might simply be living in the office.
On the third day.
It was still the same.
And today.
He had personally watched the manager enter the company that morning like an ordinary employee.
He had also personally watched every employee leave work.
Yet he had never seen her leave.
Once.
Could be explained.
Twice.
Could be a coincidence.
Four consecutive days.
Could no longer be explained as an accident.
...
8:45 p.m.
Lucian still had not left.
The other tenants in the shared office space had already packed up and gone home.
The entire floor.
Only he remained.
Outside the window.
The night in Northveil grew deeper.
The number of pedestrians on the streets had clearly decreased.
Traffic was no longer as dense as it had been during the day.
In the target office building.
Aside from the lobby's nighttime lighting.
Almost every floor had gone dark.
Only the sixth floor.
That office.
Was still lit.
As if the person inside.
Would never leave work.
...
The technician suddenly spoke.
"Wait."
Lucian immediately looked toward the screen.
"What is it?"
"There's no abnormal signal."
"It's just…"
The technician brought up all four days of recordings.
He fast-forwarded through them repeatedly.
Comparing them again and again.
After a moment.
He stopped the footage.
"Four days."
"She enters the building at 9:02 every morning."
"She has the same cup of coffee every day."
"Even…"
"After entering the office each morning…"
"The time when she first leaves the office…"
"Never differs by more than three minutes."
He slowly took a breath.
"It's too regular."
"So regular that it doesn't look like life."
Lucian remained silent for a moment.
Then he slowly lowered the telescope.
What truly concerned him.
Was not what time the manager worked every day.
Nor whether she actually left work.
It was—
Every day.
She acted as though she were following a schedule that had already been written.
Every step.
Had almost no deviation.
That kind of regularity.
Resembled a habit formed over a very long period of time.
Or perhaps…
A process that would never easily change.
He looked toward the office that was still lit.
His gaze gradually darkened.
The manager was not simply remaining in the office.
Rather…
The route she used to leave.
Had never been within the range he could observe from the beginning.
The real answer.
Might not be on the sixth floor.
It might be somewhere inside this office building.
Somewhere that had never entered his field of view.
The next morning.
Lucian did not immediately go to the observation point.
Instead, he returned to the temporary base.
All the recordings taken over the past four days had already been exported onto the desk.
The technician had worked throughout the entire night.
Several screens were lit simultaneously.
Different dates.
Different times.
Every recording was being played in synchronization.
...
9:02 a.m.
The manager entered the office building.
Noon.
She handled business as usual.
Afternoon.
She assigned tasks to the employees.
Evening.
The employees gradually left.
Night.
She remained alone in the office.
For four consecutive days.
Every day was the same.
There was almost no difference.
...
The technician constantly adjusted the timeline.
He completely overlaid the four days of footage.
The errors were corrected second by second.
Eventually.
Almost every time point lined up.
He slowly exhaled.
"Confirmed."
"We've established her daily routine."
"It's almost completely identical."
"The time she enters the company."
"The time she first leaves the office."
"The time her lunch arrives."
"Even the time she gets up to organize documents after the employees leave…"
"The deviations are extremely small."
Lucian quietly stared at the screen.
An ordinary person's life.
Would not be precise to this degree.
Even habits formed over a long period of time.
Could not remain completely unchanged for four consecutive days.
...
That afternoon.
The two returned to the observation point.
The telescope was set up again.
The lens remained locked onto the sixth floor.
Today.
Lucian did not continue recording the manager.
Instead, he focused all his attention on the building's exterior.
The main entrance.
The side entrance.
The underground parking lot.
The emergency stairwell.
The rooftop.
Every possible route of departure.
All of them were included within the observation range.
At the same time, the technician connected to surveillance cameras along the surrounding roads.
Every exit was confirmed through the footage.
Not a single route would be missed.
...
Evening.
The employees once again gradually left work.
The manager remained in the office.
Until the entire sixth floor fell silent.
Once again.
Only that single light remained.
Time slowly passed.
7:00.
7:30.
8:00.
8:30.
The technician continuously checked the footage from every location.
Finally.
He slowly shook his head.
"Nothing."
"None of the exits…"
"show any record of her leaving."
Lucian did not answer.
He simply continued looking toward the sixth floor.
That light.
Was still on.
...
9:00 p.m.
The observation ended.
The two checked the recordings one more time.
The result remained the same.
The manager had not passed through any known exit.
Yet the following morning.
She would once again appear at the company like an ordinary office worker.
...
Silence continued for a long time.
Finally, Lucian slowly spoke.
"The problem."
"Isn't her."
The technician raised his head.
"What do you mean?"
Lucian looked toward the distant office building.
His voice remained calm.
"If there's nothing wrong with any of the exits…"
"Then that means…"
"The exits we know about…"
"Aren't all of them."
The room fell silent again.
This was the first time in four days.
That Lucian had shifted his suspicion.
Away from the manager.
And toward the building itself.