Chapter 041
A dark ventilation shaft inside a Ghost Story.
A situation where you hold your breath to avoid horror.
And on top of that, the fact that the one who had effectively kept me alive was Baek Saheon made it even more maddening.
‘Why did it have to be you?’
Besides, now he was desperately avoiding my gaze.
“……?”
He’s not usually the type to act like this……
‘Ah, no way.’
Something suddenly came to mind.
-Be careful of the serial killer.
Was it because I’d been kindly sending him serial-killer warnings every day?
He seemed a little intimidated. Well, yeah, that would be unsettling.
‘Even better.’
Honestly, that had been partly intentional. I hadn’t bothered sending them anonymously because I was aiming for exactly this effect.
Sounds psychotic, right? So let’s not get involved with each other.
Judging by the way that bastard’s personality so clearly preyed on the weak and bowed to the strong, instead of trying to seize the opportunity to get rid of me, he would probably just protect himself and do his best not to get tangled up with me.
‘That would be very welcome.’
…The problem was that, for now, we were stuck together in this ventilation shaft.
I held my breath. Fortunately, Baek Saheon was as quiet as a dead mouse too.
Outside, the shadows of the people who had failed to escape could be seen faintly in the darkness, lit by candlelight.
Kiiiiiiik, thud.
The machine stopped.
Something long and thin slid out in front of the shadows of the people cornered at the dead end.
A shadow with the silhouette of spider legs.
And then, silence.
“……”
“……”
Only the noise of some unknown machine echoed.
Then—
Whoosh.
The spider-leg-like silhouette spread wide right in front of a person’s face.
Hiiiiiik!!
In the wavering shadows, eight sharp, delicate things could be seen grabbing hold of the person’s torso.
P-Please, save me, save me— aaaargh!!!
Thud.
One strand of the spider leg burrowed into the gap in the human’s head.
And then, with a light tug, it pulled something out of the head.
“……”
And I already knew what it had pulled out……
‘…An eyeball.’
That was it.
The reason this exhibition was called Mansion of the Blind.
———————=
Multiple visitors have testified to the attendant that they lost parts of their human bodies, and among those, the part most commonly lost first is said to be the “eyeball.”
———————=
‘The attendant.’
If you meet that machine here, it plucks out your eye.
If you meet it again after that, it usually takes one of your limbs, your tongue, or sometimes your ears.
And in the end, the people who became blind, mute, and reduced to something like grubs ended up crawling through the dark exhibition hall and wandering around—this was that kind of insane story….
The fact that it didn’t all happen at once made it even crueler.
Amazingly enough, it was because this exhibition was considerate.
So considerate that it would provide you with “convenience” even if you didn’t ask for it.
———————=
For the convenience of our visitors, sensory correction devices are always available for free rental.
(Currently supported devices: vision, smell, hearing, touch, taste, electroreception, pyrosense)
———————=
Ghk, ghhkkk.
Toward the eye socket of the person whose eye had been plucked out, another spider-leg-like silhouette approached again—graceful and delicate.
For a moment, the shape attached to the end of that leg cast a clear shadow under the candlelight.
A thin thread and needle.
‘Fuck.’
I held my breath and waited until all the commotion died down.
Cold sweat was running all over my body.
A little while later.
Tok, tok, tok….
The machine’s sound moved farther away.
……Soon, the person whose eye had been plucked out began to stagger forward.
Of all places, they came toward the ventilation shaft, and their blood-soaked face came into clear view before disappearing again.
Instead of an eye, a telephoto lens had been attached there.
“…!”
Beside me, I could see Baek Saheon mouthing a curse under his breath.
I guess it didn’t feel like someone else’s problem.
‘With that thing attached, they can still see for a few hours at best, or a day or two at most.’
But because it was only a rental device, it would gradually lose its function, making them even more terrified.
And the next time they met it, that would get “collected” too.
Because it was a rental.
‘This is insane.’
It felt like the opening act to even more horrific things I was going to see, and my eyes almost squeezed shut on their own….
‘But I can’t let him find out I’m a coward, so I have to endure it.’
Conscious of Baek Saheon beside me, I came out as soon as I confirmed that everything around us had gone quiet.
‘We can’t stay here forever.’
We had to move quickly and escape. I’d sort out the exploration records and the manual after I separated from Baek Saheon first….
“Excuse me.”
Hm?
“Thank you.”
Baek Saheon suddenly spoke to me politely.
As if that had been his original manner all along, he gave a fairly courteous nod. Just like when we had first met on the subway.
Then he started trying to slip away.
“Well then, I’ll be on my—”
“Wait.”
Baek Saheon stopped walking.
I asked,
“How many hours has it been since you entered?”
“……”
“Don’t want to answer?”
“…It’s been about two hours.”
So he’d come in quite a while before me.
Since this wasn’t the kind of Ghost Story where your sense of time got warped, that meant even a rookie like Baek Saheon had been called in since morning….
‘So the Group D superiors kept me out of it!’
For a moment, I almost got emotional.
Enough that it motivated me to hurry up, find my team members, and get out.
‘Lizard Team Lead would’ve probably made the final seven survivors anyway.’
But the other people in Group D needed to be found quickly.
…Though honestly, once I actually came out of the ventilation shaft and saw the hallway, the first thing that came out was a sigh…….
‘Wow, I have to search this place all by myself?’
I had to comb through this place corner to corner looking for clues? While playing tag with that attendant monster?
They’d even made a horror game based on this darkness. I’d never played it, but I had seen videos of it on WeTube.
…With half the screen covered by my hand.
“……”
Yeah. Even if he had problems with his personality… wouldn’t it be… better for anyone to have someone with them?
I turned toward Baek Saheon.
In the darkness.
Standing beside Kim Soleum, Baek Saheon swallowed.
‘Fuck.’
Of all people, I had to get caught by this lunatic.
Nothing had gone right since this crazy bastard got assigned as my housing roommate.
Just listening to him say insane things in the middle of the night, with that cynical face that looked like he’d never pick a fight with a drunk person, was enough to make my mind go hazy.
‘Do I really have to stick with this guy?’
The employees who had entered together seemed to have all regained consciousness scattered throughout this bizarre mansion, and the only other civilian he’d run into had just gotten wrecked by what happened a moment ago.
Still, maybe it would be better to wander around alone than go with this insane bastard….
He had been frantically weighing the options.
Then suddenly Kim Soleum opened his mouth.
“You’re using polite speech? All of a sudden.”
Fuck.
Cold sweat ran down his back.
“…Before, it was such an urgent situation that I ended up dropping the honorifics somehow… but now I think it’s right for us to be polite to each other again.”
Kim Soleum stared at him for a moment, then answered as if it were nothing.
“I see. Understood.”
“…Yes.”
Should I… run?
Baek Saheon looked Kim Soleum up and down.
He had already heard all the absurdly grand company rumors about him.
“That impossible rookie from the Field Operations Team.”
-I heard he cleared an A-rank Darkness all by himself.
-I heard he was almost recruited into the elite division. But apparently he turned it down himself?
-Wow, they say he even found a missing manager. Is he really a rookie?
-Two revisions to manual reviews? What is this, some propaganda rookie meant to fleece the employees….
Later on, the stories got so exaggerated that there were even a few people murmuring that he was just company propaganda.
But Baek Saheon never doubted the rumors.
‘Isn’t it just because he’s crazy?’
The reason that bastard’s performance came out monstrously high… wasn’t it because the way he thought resembled a monster’s?
Because the way he thought was different from ordinary people, he probably came up with ideas inside Ghost Stories that normal people never would!
Baek Saheon knew that he himself was the type of selfish person obsessed with practical gain.
But the sense of pressure given off by someone you couldn’t predict was different.
The fear of the unknown.
‘If someone told me that bastard was a Ghost Story himself, I’d believe it.’
Baek Saheon broke into a cold sweat.
Still, he wanted information, so he finally spoke.
After being told that much, the least he could do was listen.
“Where are you planning to go? Judging by that monster attacking people, this seems like the kind of Darkness where we’re treated as intruders….”
“No.”
“Huh?”
“This exhibition is clearly treating us as visitors.”
What kind of bullshit was that now?
Baek Saheon looked at Kim Soleum.
The other man spoke with calm certainty.
“That’s why it comes to collect the fee. It only plucks out eyes, doesn’t it? It’s just collecting the usage fee.”
“……”
“Didn’t you read the manual?”
He had.
That bizarre document contaminated through the exhibition invitation.
“It’s an invitation, isn’t it? People who were invited can’t be intruders.”
“……But there was no mention of a fee.”
“Read it again. Near the end of page three.”
Baek Saheon unfolded the paper.
+++
This exhibition is held free of charge for one hour under the open-minded appreciation of art.
+++
“A one-hour free viewing implies that after that, it either collects a fee or throws you out.”
“…!”
“But since it plucks out eyes instead of throwing us out, that means it’s collecting a fee. That thing from earlier… must be a kind of ‘employee’ in this exhibition.”
Surprisingly, it was convincing.
Baek Saheon asked without thinking,
“Why do you think human eyes are the fee?”
“Who knows. Maybe because out of everything humans possess, body parts are the most valuable?”
“……!”
“It seems the things we carry have no value from their side.”
“…What do you mean by ‘their side’?”
Kim Soleum shook his head expressionlessly.
“Who knows.”
And no one else who had gotten dragged in here would know either….
A chill ran down Baek Saheon’s spine.
“In any case, whoever is operating this exhibition seems to think the human body is the most valuable thing people possess.”
“……”
“And at first, eyes seem to be the most appropriate value.”
Eyes.
He only had one.
Without thinking, Baek Saheon almost pressed the eye under his eyepatch.
He still remembered it.
On the subway, Kim Soleum had stared straight at him as he was leaving, then held up the other eyeball like it was the answer key.
That strange calmness and observation, waiting until Baek Saheon realized that his eye had been plucked out for no reason at all.
That mocking gaze.
This Darkness at least used them as a fee, so what the hell had that bastard grown up feeding on to act so chillingly?
“But….”
“…!”
Kim Soleum stared directly at Baek Saheon.
“You dropped the honorifics again.”
A shiver ran all over his skin.
Baek Saheon forced out a calm voice.
“Yeah. Maybe it’d be easier if we just talked normally. We’re peers, so if we escape together—”
“I don’t want to.”
“……”
For a moment, irritation surged in him, but he forced a smile.
“Come on. If you hid me in the ventilation shaft, didn’t that mean you wanted to save a fellow rookie?”
“Yeah. I was going to use you as bait if things went wrong.”
“……”
Baek Saheon gave up on gaslighting him completely and switched to persuasion.
Because Kim Soleum seemed to understand this horrible exhibition Ghost Story better than expected.
“If there’s one more person, the exploration will be easier too. In a place this dark.”
“I don’t really need that.”
“……”
“But let’s move together for the dopamine. More people means more variables.”
He’s insane.
Baek Saheon became certain.
Even in his turbulent life, this was the first time he had met someone this openly insane.
But……
‘Do you have to be that kind of person to adapt to this company?’
For some reason, a sense of defeat washed over him, and beneath the black goat mask he clenched his teeth.
“We’re moving.”
Ignoring the stiffened Baek Saheon, Kim Soleum immediately started walking.
Then he suddenly said,
“Thanks. That’s a relief, then.”
“What?”
What did he mean, thanks?
Just as Baek Saheon, confused, was about to say more,
Kim Soleum raised a hand to his mouth.
“Quiet. I’m talking with Brown.”
“……”
Baek Saheon barely managed to speak.
“Brown?”
“Yeah.”
Kim Soleum slipped a hand into the pocket of his suit and pulled something out.
It was a keyring with a cute, fluffy rabbit doll attached to it.
“Brown is saying hello to you right now.”
“……”
Baek Saheon was beginning to want to run away.
Of course, he had no idea in his wildest dreams that Brown was actually saying something like, “Oh, hello there, you soon-to-die sacrificial lamb from the room next door!”
And he also had no idea that Kim Soleum was thinking this.
‘Whew. Still, having one more person here makes it at least a little less scary.’
Thinking about going through this place with only Brown, who was a doll, made it feel as chilling as when I dealt with the Changgwi.
‘This feels like it was a good choice!’
“So are we going to search this place and secure more spots like that ventilation shaft from earlier?”
“No.”
Kim Soleum deliberately looked at Baek Saheon like he were looking at someone truly absurd.
“We need to find the exit door. Why would we look for ventilation shafts?”
“……”
“If you like ventilation shafts so much, you can keep crawling into them. Then if you get caught, you can pay the fee.”
Kim Soleum knew.
‘That kind of person—yeah, you absolutely can’t let him loose.’
Baek Saheon was exactly the type of person who would start acting rotten the moment he got the slightest opening!
Baek Saheon was the same guy who, upon first meeting someone, had attacked so viciously he nearly burst their eye without even blinking.
Let’s not forget that in <Darkness Exploration Record>, that bastard’s nickname was Viper.
Letting your guard down was forbidden!
‘Then I’ll act like a lunatic too.’
And so began the uncomfortable dark exploration of two lunatics.
