Chapter 043
“So there was even a basement here….”
Standing in front of the basement stairs, Go Youngeun’s face was half fear, half expectation.
Baek Saheon sneered.
“Exactly. And the person standing next to me kept saying we absolutely had to go to Basement Floor 1 without even explaining how he knew there was a basement or why we were going down there.”
“If you don’t want to go, then let’s split up here.”
“……”
Baek Saheon fell silent.
Now that he had confirmed there really was a basement, it looked like he had no intention of missing a situation where “Kim Soleum seemed to have something he was relying on.”
I briefly explained to Go Youngeun that, with the help of special equipment, I had found a potentially useful space from the notice posted in front of the elevator.
And then, at last, we started down the basement stairs.
“……”
“……”
The more steps we took, the more obvious it became.
‘The style has changed.’
The mansion, which had been brass-colored, darkened to something closer to bronze, and more avant-garde decorations began to appear.
Somehow, it felt like we were descending much deeper than when we had gone from the second floor to the first floor….
“……”
“……”
Before long, an antique double door appeared beside the staircase.
-It says Basement Floor 1.
We had arrived.
Carefully, I took hold of one of the doorknobs, and only after making sure there were no machine sounds coming from beyond the door did I open it.
And what appeared was… not an exhibition hall or a corridor.
Go Youngeun’s eyes went wide.
“This is……”
“It should be a lounge for visitors.”
It was a kind of resting area.
The enormous hall, furnished quite comfortably, contained luxurious armchairs, vintage tables, and in one corner, even a fireplace burning with bronze-colored flames.
“Y-you read that this place existed from the elevator?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, since places like this are usually in lobbies, there might be an exit nearby around here…?”
“I don’t know about that. But….”
“But?”
“In the manual, there were a few things you couldn’t do in the exhibition halls. I thought that if this was a ‘rest area,’ there might be fewer restrictions.”
That was right.
I had come here aiming for the fact that a few actions forbidden in this exhibition might be allowed here.
“Things you can’t do… Ah, like eating and drinking!”
“Yes.”
- Eating and drinking in the exhibition hall is prohibited.
“…But it doesn’t seem like we really need to eat anything right now.”
That was true.
“More precisely, I came here to do a certain act that is included under eating and drinking, and therefore prohibited.”
“…What would that be?”
I pulled out the item I had prepared from my bag.
[Easy and Fast Candle-Making Kit]
“I mean, no open flames.”
From this point on, I was going to try making an item for escaping.
Go Youngeun swallowed.
Right in front of her, the absurdly competent fellow rookie was doing something utterly absurd.
“Like this, I think.”
Kim Soleum took a bizarre box out of his briefcase and rapidly read through the enclosed instructions.
But that box did not look ordinary. Why would he have brought something like a candle-making kit?
‘I’ve never seen a brand like that before.’
A logo with a smiley mark and the name “Cheerful Laboratory” gleamed tackily on it, but the instruction sheet Kim Soleum was holding was a total mess of handwritten text in dark red ink.
…It gave off an extremely strange feeling.
Like a prop you’d run into inside a Ghost Story….
At that moment, Baek Saheon muttered,
“…An item?”
An item?
When she reflexively turned toward Kim Soleum, he answered rather kindly.
“Yes. An object with supernatural abilities.”
…!
“Th-then isn’t that a Darkness?”
“Depending on the classification… but it seems that things whose irregularity is stable, portable, and without a territory are called items rather than Darkness.”
“……”
How does Mr. Soleum know that…?
‘Aren’t… we the same kind of rookies?’
Why is there such a difference in how much information we have?
And where on earth did he even get that…?
As someone who had done well enough in company life to place within the top three among the rookies, Go Youngeun could not help but be flustered by this situation!
‘No, he even looks incredibly skilled at handling it…?!’
Perhaps sensing her gaze, Kim Soleum looked back at her and said, sounding slightly defensive,
“This is my first time making one too.”
That was the truth!
He had read the instructions several times and thought about how to use it, but this was Kim Soleum’s first time actually crafting one.
However, from the point of view of his fellow rookies, who had no way of knowing that he had already performed about three similar ritual-like procedures before, it was only enough to make their minds go blank….
No, shouldn’t a person like that… be starting a business rather than getting a job, for the good of society?
Should someone like that really be involved with a company that felt like some kind of horror story??
But cold reality soon brought her back to her senses.
‘……It’s because of the Wish Ticket, probably.’
Because of a wish she couldn’t give up on.
Go Youngeun was briefly on the verge of sinking into gloomy sympathy over both their situations, but quickly steadied herself.
Right now, she had to focus all her mind on escaping.
…And she should use even all the insane fury she felt toward Group R’s Team Lead, who had abandoned her and run the moment the monster machine approached, as fuel!
She wanted to take back what she had said in the past—that there was no hazing in the team and that at this rate there wouldn’t be any stress from human relationships.
‘Die, Team Lead!’
But then again, thinking that if things kept going like this, Group R’s superior might actually die miserably with his eyes, nose, and mouth all torn off also felt a little strange….
“It’s done.”
“…!”
Yanked back from the verge of sinking into thought by Kim Soleum’s voice, Go Youngeun quickly raised her gaze again.
At some point, Kim Soleum had spread a sheet of black paper on the floor and drawn a small picture on it with the enclosed crayon.
It was… well.
‘…A candle?’
Yes. It looked like a candle…. More precisely, it was only a flat drawing that outlined the shape of a candle.
But Kim Soleum paid no attention to that and, with one hand, pointed out the cards he had placed beside the drawing to his fellow rookies.
“You can see the cards, right?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Please pick one.”
“……”
“It determines the item’s attribute.”
Could this somehow drag her in or use her?
Go Youngeun hesitated for a moment, but soon reached out.
Because based on everything so far, Kim Soleum had never given her any unpleasantly suspicious feeling in either word or action, and even objectively, he had always treated her with goodwill.
‘Let’s do it.’
She trusted the big data inside her own sharp brain quite a bit.
So she turned over one of the cards scattered on the floor without much hesitation.
On the front of the card was a vigorous blue figure raising one hand.
At the very top, a white star shone like a jewel.
[Honor]
A faint smile spread across Kim Soleum’s face.
“……You picked well.”
Had she?
‘It doesn’t feel like honor is what we need right now….’
Anyway, since the person who had read the instructions said it had gone well, that was a relief.
Soon, Kim Soleum turned his head and called to Baek Saheon in a voice that sounded not especially pleased.
“Pick a card.”
“……”
Baek Saheon seemed to be working through the situation in his head, but soon narrowed his eyes and reached out.
On the front of the card he turned over was a smiling human mouth and red iron bars.
[Interference]
“That suits you.”
“What?”
Kim Soleum ignored him and continued with the crafting!
“I’ll turn over all the remaining cards.”
“Y-yes.”
I don’t know what it is, but let’s do that!
Go Youngeun watched Kim Soleum swiftly turn the cards over with neat, tidy hands.
There were ten cards left in all.
Confusion, Healing, Meditation, Wound, Lie, Dream, Anger, Protection, One Strike, Gaze… ten cards lay revealed on the floor.
‘What on earth is this?’
He had them draw cards like it was some sort of tarot reading, so why reveal all the rest at the end?
She realized why the moment she saw Kim Soleum’s next move.
The last card was one he was choosing for himself.
[Lie]
After taking that card—the one with a black heart and golden gear drawn beside it—Kim Soleum burned all three chosen cards with a lighter.
Flames leapt up in different colors, and the cards turned into glittering ash.
“…!”
Then he carefully gathered the ash from those cards and, as if layering paint, rubbed it inside the crayon candle outline he had drawn, then folded the paper.
“Now it just has to harden for about thirty minutes.”
With a faint smile, Kim Soleum picked up the folded paper from the floor and tucked it into the breast pocket of his suit.
“What you just made is….”
“This candle will help us get out of here.”
“…!”
“If it didn’t work, I was planning to repeat it a few more times, but the keywords came out pretty well on the first try—”
Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiik
“……”
“……”
All three of them turned their heads at once.
From the other side, beneath the bronze-colored light, a massive shadow revealed itself.
Eight straight lines resembling spider legs.
And….
Kiiiiik
The eyes of a machine, lit by leaking gaslight.
“……”
“……”
“Run!”
The three of them immediately started sprinting in the opposite direction at full speed.
I already knew.
Even in a rest area, a machine could appear.
Still, I had guessed it would patrol more loosely than the exhibition hall, so I had decided to accept a certain degree of risk….
‘It’s not like there was anywhere to hide there like a ventilation shaft, so I had no choice, but still—of all times!’
Grinding my teeth, I ran across the corridor.
Since it had already spotted us, even if we hid in another ventilation shaft, it would probably be able to follow.
That machine had that kind of performance!
“Straight ahead?!”
“For now!”
If we kept going straight, there was the main exhibition hall.
All I could do was hope that if we went there, there would be some higher-priority crisis to draw its aggro instead….
‘But we’ve already come down underground, and I don’t even know how much more dangerous the exhibits have become…!’
That was when it happened.
Whip.
“…!”
Baek Saheon tried to grab hold of my suit.
‘What now, you lunatic?!’
He shouted,
“That item! The candle! Let’s offer up the candle you made! It’s valuable, right?!”
I slapped his hand away and shouted,
“No, you idiot!”
“What?!”
“Look at the exhibition theme!”
+++
This exhibition is held free of charge for one hour under the open-minded appreciation of art.
+++
“Art!!”
“…!”
“And among that, living creatures, civilization, history!!”
I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“What does this item have to do with any of that? Why would they accept it as a fee!”
If items had value in the first place, our company employees would have offered their gear before letting their eyes get torn out!
Besides, the candle wasn’t even finished yet!
But Baek Saheon reached for my bag again as if to snatch it away, and Go Youngeun let out an exasperated groan.
“At least let’s try! At this rate we’ll die!”
“Ah! Hey! Cut it out and run—”
I turned my head.
Because right then, our feet had…
crossed the great doors of the main exhibition hall.
“……”
Catching my breath, I raised my head.
S t a r l i g h t s p a r k l e d a l l a r o u n d
N o , w e r e t h e y p e b b l e s ? Countless countless p a i r s o f s a m e – c o l o r e d c i r c l e s s h i n i n g
denselycoveringthefourwallsandstaringatmehuman gazes….
The eyes the attendant machines had plucked out.
“Ghk.”
I stopped in place and lowered my head. Beside me, I heard Baek Saheon slap the one eye he had left.
The agitation in my head slowly, slowly calmed….
-Ah. They’ve arranged them like the stars of the universe. “Shining Gaze,” is it? Quite a typical title, but a popular one! I suppose they had the providers of the material in mind.
“……”
The three walls of the vast black exhibition hall were packed full of eyeballs, without a single gap to be seen.
There was only one entrance—the door we had just come through.
And through that entrance, the attendant machine was approaching without pause….
We were trapped.
-I’m curious what you will choose, Mr. Roe Deer! It’s a dead end now. There is nowhere to run… hmm, that’s how it looks, anyway. Indeed!
-But my friend, you can slip away anytime, anywhere. Because you have me, Brown!
I knew that too….
‘If I were alone.’
That I could safely run away whenever I wanted.
Brown would willingly use the ability he called “Turning Off the Lights” on me, the one that erased my presence.
Then, while the others drew aggro and had their eyes and ears extracted, I could carefully slip out of here.
-Then how about letting Mr. Baek Saheon pay the fee? His life does not have long left in it anyway!
Right. The candle, which had recommended a party size of three, had been successfully crafted, so I no longer needed Baek Saheon.
‘I only kept him with me because I was worried I might start having mental problems.’
Honestly, even if that bastard died, wouldn’t there be much of a problem? No, if anything, wouldn’t it actually be better for society if he died?
And in that gap, if we were lucky, Ms. Sheep might be able to get out too….
…Huh?
Wait.
“Let’s split up! That way, if even one of us gets out—”
“Ms. Sheep!”
“Huh?”
“You’re safe.”
“…?!”
“Didn’t you have the fee collected from you recently? There should still be time left before the next cycle.”
“Ah!!”
Go Youngeun, whose ears had been extracted relatively recently, definitely still had time left in her “usage period”!
Hope flashed in Go Youngeun’s eyes.
“Then I’ll go and get in its way…”
Kiiiiiiiiiiik
“……”
“……”
It had come in.
The attendant machine.
Drrrrrk.
In the bronze-colored candlelight, I saw that machine from the front for the first time.
It was mercilessly sharp and intricate.
As if iron had been layered onto a spider and used as flesh, its head and thorax were bizarrely joined, and beneath that were its abdomen and lower body.
But somehow, its shape resembled a bipedal intelligent being, striking the uncanny valley. Its grotesque, creaking movements sent a chill through a person.
Sharp, needle-like legs whose joints moved any way they pleased.
And from its head, eight gas lamps shone yellow through the pale shadows.
“……”
Go Youngeun, who had been approaching it, froze in place.
It seemed like the trauma of having her ears torn off just before was ripping its way back through her mind.
That made sense.
Kiiiiik.
The machine passed right by Go Youngeun.
‘As expected.’
Then the one it had come after was….
Baek Saheon and me.
Kiiiiiiiiiiiik.
I considered it for only a very brief moment.
When its attention shifted to Baek Saheon, I could quickly erase my presence and run.
It would be hard if the machine were focused only on me, but right now there were still two targets, so perhaps Brown’s ability would work.
-Oh, should I use it now?
And then I decided.
‘No.’
Instead, I shoved Baek Saheon sideways.
“…!”
“Run.”
Baek Saheon had already lost one eye.
Which meant he himself knew that if this continued, it might extract something more than just an eye.
‘I have no idea what kind of impulsive thing he might do.’
Even if he tried to have it “collect” his ears instead, the rejection from someone who had already gone through the experience of having an eye extracted would be far more violent.
I couldn’t even guess what level of extreme madness he might resort to.
It was better to just let him run.
“Run.”
Baek Saheon hesitated for a moment.
But soon he backed away from the machine, and once it came to stand in front of me, he bolted toward the door at full speed and vanished.
At the same time, Go Youngeun caught my eye signal, squeezed her eyes shut, and ran out through the door.
“……”
Then now.
-Have you thought of a question to ask the attendant, Mr. Roe Deer?
I raised my head.
The machine, which looked as if a spider and a woman had been mosaicked together halfway, was facing me with its gaslamps glowing.
Its appearance was grotesque and spine-chilling.
Soon, the attendant machine raised its eight legs and arm-like needles arranged all around it, and began twitching them at me.
I bowed politely.
“Hello. I just arrived.”
I knew that wouldn’t work.
As expected, the machine emitted a noise I couldn’t understand and twitched the joint of one huge needle.
-It says that 1 hour and 54 minutes have passed since you entered, so an additional fee will be charged.
I took a deep breath.
“One moment. Before I pay the fee, may I ask a question first?”
-Of course, you may!
“Are guest room reservations handled at the front desk? …If you agree with my statement, please nod your head once. If you do not agree, please shake it side to side.”
……
Nod.
“Thank you for the guidance. Then….”
Suppressing a sigh, I opened my mouth.
That question had only been asked so I could ask this one.
The crucial question for escape.
‘These machines only remember information about their own section, so they don’t know which floor the exit is on.’
If I asked directly where the front desk was, it probably wouldn’t know that either.
But.
What if I rephrased it in terms of information about the floor it was on?
Wouldn’t I be able to get an answer then?
Like this.
“When the guests who finished viewing and were returning home were on Basement Floor 1, did they go down to a lower floor?”
……
“Or did they go to an upper floor?”
Nod.
“So they went upstairs. Thank you.”
Yes.
If I kept asking appropriate questions like this to each attendant machine I met on each floor, then eventually I would be able to narrow down the location of the exit….
Provided my eyes, nose, mouth, and limbs didn’t all get plucked out before then.
‘If it’s above Basement Floor 1… then it’s on one of the ground floors.’
Just having figured that out was already a huge result. There were only seven ground floors, which meant it had to be somewhere within them.
‘That’s a good condition.’
But the joy vanished like candlelight.
Because the unavoidable moment had arrived.
Kiiiiiiik.
-Now it says it will collect the fee.
Fee collection.
“……”
If I thought about it coldly, there wasn’t really a big problem.
‘Since it plugs a rental item into the eye socket in its place, I’ll still have sight until I escape this Darkness.’
And I knew this setting well. I already knew several ways to restore lost body parts, and I was sure I could make use of them more easily than most people….
That was part of the reason I was standing here now, after all.
‘I already calculated all of this and accepted it.’
The problem was… this maddening resistance!
Who could accept this calmly and obediently?
A monster was about to gouge out both of my eyes with nothing but brute force!
And in this very place, where the eyes torn from other people were displayed all around me!
Cold sweat ran down my jaw.
‘Still, I have to confirm it.’
I gritted my teeth.
Even if my eyes were plucked out, it wouldn’t hurt.
‘If I can’t endure even under these conditions, then I should give up on surviving here.’
There truly wasn’t any better set of conditions than this. Not if I wanted to test whether, with the heart of a coward, I could endure the injuries that came with Ghost Stories.
If the damage could be recovered, then at least once, I needed the experience of enduring it and building up a tolerance.
Even so, my tightly clenched hand was trembling.
‘Fuck….’
Ziiiiing.
A huge, thin, sharp, metal needle like a spider leg approached before my eyes.
I held my breath.
Whoosh.
The needle burrowed toward my eye….
Ziiiiiik.
“……”
Moving only my eyeballs, I looked to the side.
From beyond the darkness, a huge bizarre shape that resembled a spider was approaching….
Ziiiiiik, Kiiiiiiiiik.
It was another attendant machine.
“……”
What was this?
‘There should be a programmed route for each machine.’
Their routes weren’t supposed to overlap… were they?
Sure enough, the machine that had been about to extract my eye seemed to experience a brief malfunction… and then moved away from me.
As if it were revising its route on its own.
Kiiiiiiiiiiiik…
“……”
I couldn’t even let out a sigh of relief.
Because the newly arrived machine would just extract my eye instead.
I simply held my breath and stared at the newly appeared machine.
Right before my face, the attendant machine raised up its spider-leg-like appendages.
And then….
“Phew.”
…?!
“You okay, Roe Deer?”
As the spider shape collapsed and disappeared, a human wearing a badger mask revealed himself there instead.
“…Chief Park!”
Park Minseong, now revealed, grinned with a face drenched in cold sweat.
“Whew… that was a close one!”
