Chapter 044
Inside the dark bronze-colored grand mansion,
I was silently following behind Chief Park Minseong.
The chief, who had just achieved the insane feat of “disguising himself as an attendant machine, deceiving the real machine, and rescuing a pitiful rookie employee,” assessed it like this:
“That machine didn’t seem to have particularly amazing AI. More like a robot vacuum? So I figured I might be able to fool it on the outside for a bit!”
The machine’s intelligence had not actually seemed that poor, but either way, I was just tearfully grateful that the timing had worked out and he had saved me.
“Um, but how did you become an attendant machine…?”
“Ah! My personal equipment.”
Chief Park grinned and showed me the cloth hanging around his neck.
Ah!
I recalled what Chief Park had said before when introducing his personal equipment.
-Mine’s a camouflage item, but it can’t turn me into a person, and the duration’s short too. I just use it to gamble a little when things go south.
Until now I had only heard about it, because we had only gone into Ghost Stories where something like that either wouldn’t work or wouldn’t mean anything, but now I was finally seeing it in person.
‘In limited situations, that’s actually pretty good??’
It made me want to borrow it as the base item for making a new personal piece of equipment of my own, even if I had to pay for it.
Of course, that wasn’t the urgent issue right now!
“Good. Whew. Now that we’ve found Roe Deer too, let’s get out of this insane place fast.”
“So you found a way out?”
“……”
Chief Park didn’t answer and just grinned.
‘So he does have something he’s relying on.’
For the moment, I decided to move quickly and follow him.
“This way.”
We went back up the stairs from Basement Floor 1.
Not long after, the surroundings turned yellowish, and a vast corridor drenched in brass rather than bronze appeared.
‘We’re above ground.’
Just that alone might have been enough to make me feel relieved, but….
On the first floor, pandemonium was breaking out.
Aaaaaaagh!
Mmfff!!! Mmmmmmfff!
Myyy eaaaars…… my ears!
Screams echoed from every direction.
‘Two hours have passed.’
It seemed the employees who had been hiding were now gradually getting caught by the attendant robots and having yet another body part torn away….
Like I had been a little earlier.
“……”
Chief Park kept walking without even turning toward the corners where the sounds were coming from.
“Roe Deer, let’s not turn our heads.”
“……”
I was gripping my hand so hard the veins stood out.
“It’ll be hard, but right now it’s urgent enough just to protect our own team’s lives. If you’re going to keep collecting points here… then you also have to learn how to give up.”
“……”
Suddenly, I remembered the moment in the talk show when Chief Park had resigned himself to not surviving.
-…I’ve got family in the hospital, so if someone could check on them once this filming ends, I’d appreciate it! If possible.
For some reason, I felt like I understood how this easygoing-looking chief had been enduring this place….
Anyway, I didn’t resist.
Soon, after scanning the surroundings, the chief seemed to arrive safely at the place he had wanted.
And that place was….
“Here.”
“……”
A window.
The same tightly shut, opaque glass window Go Youngeun had said she had struggled to open earlier.
‘Don’t tell me he’s suggesting we leave through here?’
But instead of straining to rip the window open, the chief raised a finger and knocked timidly.
Knock— knock knock knock
Then the window clicked open.
“…?!”
No, it hadn’t simply opened.
The way it slid open all the way to the floor was….
‘…A terrace door!’
This wasn’t a window at all!
‘Could that be why the exploration record said that?’
———————=
The nineteenth record was supposedly left by a visitor who attempted to go outside through a window, but due to issues of credibility, it has been omitted at our discretion.
Because this exhibition has no windows.
———————=
I had thought it was just a stereotypical manual-style Ghost Story phrasing, but there really had been no windows.
“Come on.”
“Yes.”
But there was no time to stand there in surprise, so I immediately stepped out through the opened terrace door. A small hexagonal terrace space appeared, with a long sofa and a table set on it.
But strangely enough, the view outside the terrace could not be seen. There was only thick black fog….
As if we had not been permitted sight of it.
Thunk.
The moment Chief Park shut the terrace door while keeping watch on our surroundings, the person sitting on the sofa stood and patted me on the shoulder.
“I figured you’d be alright.”
“Assistant Manager.”
It was Assistant Manager Eun Haje.
And then Lizard Team Lead’s vertical pupils calmly met my eyes.
“Our team lead said you weren’t nearby and wanted to widen the search range, and sure enough, you popped right up from below.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you deliberately go all the way down to that weird-feeling place just to look for the exit? Sounds like you.”
Only then did I look at Chief Park again.
Because it hit me all over again that, in a situation where there was no information at all about the floors, it had taken serious resolve to head down into Basement Floor 1, where the atmosphere changed so abruptly.
‘Thank you. Seriously….’
Thanks to you, my eyeballs are still intact.
No, and also….
“How exactly did you open this place? Someone said they kept trying to open the window, but they failed….”
“? I opened it with my hands.”
“……”
I see.
‘They say when the body isn’t up to it, the head has to suffer….’
Now that I looked closely, the terrace door handle did seem a bit loose.
Wouldn’t it be really awful if the attendants noticed that?
But the Group D superiors were apparently so used to situations where Lizard Team Lead forged his own path that they simply started a meeting with perfect calm.
“Well then, now that all our team members are here… shall we try escaping now, Team Lead?”
“Yes.”
“…Do you have a likely means of escape?”
“Yes.”
“……I would like to ask what kind of method it is.”
Lee Jaheon answered simply.
“We’re going to tie a rope to the terrace railing and explore the outer wall of this exhibition space.”
“……”
Excuse me?
“If we look at it from outside, there should be a floor with the main entrance, right? We can just get out through there.”
Well now….
“I see.”
If this damned mansion hadn’t had seven thousand basement floors, it might actually have sounded tempting.
And that was only if I didn’t happen to have an item in my briefcase that could let us escape more easily than that.
‘We can get out with this.’
Thinking of the candle that should be hardening nicely, I raised my hand.
“Please wait a moment.”
I thought I would be able to persuade them if I showed them the real thing while explaining it.
I just needed to stall for a little bit until it was finished.
And do a little rescue work while I was at it.
“I was moving together with two fellow rookies and got separated from them, but they should still be nearby. If you would just give me a little time, I can go out and bring them back—”
“……”
“……”
Ah.
“Roe Deer.”
Assistant Manager Eun said evenly.
“There were exactly three rookies who were sent in here, including you.”
“……”
“They said they picked a few kids whose performance had been good so far and put them in here… but those kids know it too. They were just filling out the numbers.”
“Sunbae—”
“Be quiet.”
Silencing the chief before he could continue, the assistant manager went on.
“You saw them at lunch, right? The higher-ups in the conference room. Those birdbrains are hoping this might actually be A-rank.”
I remembered.
-What do you mean, a civilian survivor came out when this is definitely a high-rank Darkness? This could become an innovative case of opening up a new source for high-quality raw materials.
“Then they got all excited, saying that maybe this would become the A-rank Darkness source with the highest survival rate in history. Because A-rank Dream Essence concentrate is always out of stock.”
“……”
“Rookies? They sent them in having already written it off as an acceptable cost even if they all died.”
Because it would be more profitable to pull out an A-rank manual and open up a source for top-grade raw materials that had run dry.
It was true that the longer someone from the Field Operations Team survived and built up experience, the higher a value was placed on their life—but even so, consumables were still consumables.
Something that got pushed aside for more valuable resources.
“Remember this. The farther a bastard works from field exploration, the more they treat human lives like flies.”
With a sigh, Assistant Manager Eun tucked her cigarette away again.
“So make sure you protect your own life.”
“……”
“We don’t have time, so let’s head down now. If you start feeling sympathy, you’ll just be the one who suffers for it.”
I barely managed to speak.
“That’s not it.”
“You good kid, yeah. If they get lucky, maybe they’ll get out too—”
“One of the fellow rookies was carrying an escape item!”
“…?!”
Of course, that was a lie.
“We don’t even know what’s outside, so there’s no need to risk grabbing a rope and climbing down.”
But this much was definitely true!
“If we have that item, we should be able to escape safely from here.”
I went back down to Basement Floor 1.
My legs were trembling from walking around here alone, but perhaps because my objective was so clear, the fear felt a little duller.
Find the rookies.
-I’m giving you exactly twenty minutes. If you can’t find them by then, you come back.
My lie that my fellow rookie had an escape item that would make the universe gasp and the world marvel at it had worked well enough.
So the time I had been given was short… but manageable.
‘They couldn’t have gone far.’
When people go into shock, their mobility drops. They had probably found someplace nearby to hide their bodies and steady their nerves.
Besides, I had given them a hint.
About where it would be good to hide.
‘The ventilation shafts.’
And at the point where seven minutes had passed in my search,
I finally found a fellow rookie crumpled into a ventilation shaft on the outer corridor of Basement Floor 1.
But it was Baek Saheon.
“……”
“……”
“Hey.”
Baek Saheon avoided my gaze.
“Do you want to get out?”
Baek Saheon looked at me with an expression that said he found this extremely suspicious.
But at the same time, he nodded.
“Then tell me where Ms. Sheep is.”
Uh, the way I said that kind of makes it sound like I’m threatening him to give up his companion’s location….
“She went into the exhibition hall on the left. She’s probably hiding behind a sofa or something!”
“……”
He gave up her location without the slightest hesitation. What a loyaltyless bastard.
Anyway, after that, I successfully found Go Youngeun too.
At that point, fourteen minutes had elapsed.
“M-Mr. Roe Deer…! Thank goodness, really…!”
As I briefly explained to the puffy-eyed Go Youngeun that I had received help from my superiors, I quickly started moving again.
Then I gave her an instruction.
“I told my team members that the key escape item had been entrusted to the two of you, which is why I had to find you. Please match my story.”
“…!”
I handed Go Youngeun the folded paper with the candle mold drawn on it, which I had kept in my briefcase.
Very carefully, Go Youngeun tucked it into the front of her suit and nodded.
“I just have to keep my mouth shut and play along, right?”
Exactly!
Baek Saheon, who was naturally ignored through that entire process, looked at me like he had a lot to say, but he didn’t bother opening his mouth.
He must have felt that escape was getting close.
And when I opened the terrace door and stepped out onto the terrace with the two fellow rookies, exactly nineteen minutes had passed.
I wrapped it up within twenty minutes. Whew.
“I brought them back.”
“Wow.”
“Honestly, because it’s Roe Deer, I figured it’d turn out like this.”
The assistant manager and chief each tossed out one line, and the two rookies began trying to read the room. Anyone could tell this wasn’t exactly a welcoming atmosphere.
The terrace even already had Lee Jaheon laying out a rope.
“Ah, um….”
“We’ll skip introductions.”
Twisting the rope and fastening it to a pillar with a slipknot, Lee Jaheon said in an emotionless voice,
“Explain the item in your possession within 200 seconds.”
The two rookies swallowed together.
I immediately cut in.
“May I explain it in their place?”
“Yes.”
Now it was time to explain it properly.
If the keywords I had combined were right, then this candle….
“This item can deceive the attendant machines.”
Lee Jaheon stopped moving.
