The days in the Happy Ending sect’s underground bunker were monotonous and strange.
People taking turns praying.
New corpses coming in every day.
And people passionately explaining how good those corpses had been in life, and therefore how worthy they were of receiving a Happy Ending.
People tearing up at those words, smiling and applauding.
The bodies being stuffed into the black box.
The sight of that tiny society spinning on in madness was repulsive, and yet peaceful among themselves.
‘It really is just like a cult.’
Cruel, insane acts.
Set against that, a closed-off comfort.
The believers were strangely kind, warm and intimate with one another, and called one another family.
Inside a survival bunker isolated underground.
[Ah, that too is a technique of rule. A sense of solidarity, belonging, and the constraints of daily life are what keep a group from leaving.]
Right.
In a way, maybe that was only natural. But….
‘…It feels like something is missing in the details.’
[Hm?]
The details that would make a situation this irrational possible.
For example… usually, when cults carry out rituals like this, there tends to be some specific act they all share together.
‘Drinking a particular beverage, holding some kind of branch, imitating an animal….’
Some little symbol shared only among themselves.
Something a bit ritualistic, distinctive and symbolic, but not difficult, the sort of act that makes people feel religious belonging.
‘The same goes for clothing.’
I thought it was normal for them to at least share one unified color, or one ornament.
But everyone in this underground bunker was dressed only in ordinary clothes.
Meaning there was no visible proof at all that they had entered the sect.
Even the school uniform the executive wore… well, in Ghost Story terms it was symbolic, but at the same time, it would not feel out of place even as ordinary clothes.
‘If they all wore school uniforms instead, it would have hit much harder in a grotesque way.’
But since they’d given it only to the executive, it felt awkwardly halfway.
‘No, how are they even forming group cohesion?’
To think this inhuman group was being maintained by nothing more than the ideas of “Name-nim” and “happiness.”
Was it really just a matter of brainwashing them with Name-nim and then killing people?
[Oh, what a witty analysis! My friend would do splendidly even if he founded a cult of his own. The prophet role you showed on the train was also…