Chapter 159: Ch 159: A mer-child
Kim Soleum thought to himself.
If he’d had his ’Good Friend’ with him in this absurd situation, he could
almost guess what he’d say.
– Oh! Deception, yes. An effective tool of governance since ancient times. I
can’t wait to see how the crowd will be guided. This is getting exciting...
Something like that.
’Come to think of it, there’s no room to carry a stuffed bunny when you’re
on all fours.’
Kim Soleum zoned out on that thought, desperately distracting himself.
Because the stares from behind were too intense...
’Gaaah!’
Behind him, the Daydream Inc. employees and Disaster Bureau agents
followed as if entranced.
Even the mer-children—rather, the children—were trailing after him.
’This far?’
It felt like he was about to break out in cold sweat.
He’d deliberately steered the two factions into witnessing each other,
heightening chaos so the fake Necronomicon’s psych effect would hit
harder!
But he never expected it to work this well, with no one breaking away and
everyone actually following him.
’If they find out, I’m massively screwed...’
He could only imagine what those veterans would do if they realized the
truth. His paws felt damp with dread.
Yet astonishingly, Kim Soleum managed not to betray any of it.
His survivor’s instinct from his rookie days at the ghost-story company
kicked in.
As a result, they took him for the avatar of that cosmic-horror entity behind
the horrific phenomenon they’d just experienced.
Even that guy who’d suspected this cat’s true identity!
"Um..."
Baek Saheon.
The goat-masked employee walking next to the cat finally found his voice
after what felt like an eternity of hell.
"What on earth..."
The cat stared.
It halted, and with red-glowing eyes, silently beheld the black-goat mask.
"..."
"..."
"...Ugh."
At last, Baek Saheon covered his mouth, sweat beading on his spinning
eyes, and started walking again...
’He’s not killing me.’
’He’s definitely not going to kill me.’
’He definitely has a purpose.’
Just as rational thought began to resurface in everyone’s heads, the massive
terror in cat form spoke again.
In a different tongue.
[10]
...A countdown.
"...!"
[9]
And the cat’s paws quickened.
[8]
It began shrinking away, toward the far side of town.
If you didn’t follow right away, who knew what would happen...
[7]
With cold sweat dripping down their napes, everyone fell silent and
followed the cat’s resumed stride.
A rare scene even for seasoned ghost-story investigators.
Because they all knew this unwritten rule.
—In a ghost story, if you scream blindly and run, you usually die.
Thus the logic of the tale protected Kim Soleum!
Moreover, with a bizarre entity planted between these two hostile factions,
they now kept each other in check, unable to act rashly.
’Thanks, Baek Saheon...!’
Thanks to him, despite his sweaty paws, Kim Soleum was able to cultivate
real fear and pressure as he guided them.
The ominous black cat pressed on, its paws carrying it at lightning speed
deeper into the city.
The employees dodged patches of ulcerous slime along the way, and the
agents hoisted children whose legs ached onto their backs. They all hurried
along.
Eventually, past the city streets, a strange building appeared...
"Huh?"
"It looks like... a cathedral?"
It was a stained-glass structure at the eastern edge—though its windows
were shattered and its symbols destroyed.
The cat silently entered that ruined building and moved beyond a collapsed
beam into a strangely concealed space.
Amazingly, there lay a small annex.
"...!"
"I’ve never been here before."
Hidden by the collapsed structure, this annex was a place the Daydream
Inc. employees had never noticed. Or rather, didn’t even know existed.
Through the eyes of children bewitched by Twinkle Twinkle Ocean Palace,
it must have looked like a fully intact, beautiful building...
"This is the spot we searched last time, right?"
"Yes. No anomalies were found."
So, one side entered warily, the other with puzzled suspicion—both
following the black cat inside.
[This way]
The cat stopped only once it reached the annex, in front of the left interior
wall.
Directly beneath a small, torn painting.
Baek Saheon hesitated.
"...What am I supposed to do with this?"
[This way]
Shit.
Baek Saheon broke into a cold sweat as he examined the damaged painting,
then spun around and smiled.
"Um, Ms. Pony."
Despite how Kang Yihak pretended not to hear, Baek Saheon pressed on.
"I’m not great at art... Could you take a look? I feel like there’s a safe
hidden behind this painting..."
"A safe?"
"Yes."
In an instant, Kang Yihak stepped forward. She studied the painting
intently, then...
"Aha."
She reached out confidently and pulled it aside.
Behind it was, sure enough, a rusty iron locking mechanism.
"...!"
It was supposed to be a bluff, so why was it actually there?!
Baek Saheon nearly grabbed her by the collar.
’If only I’d done this myself...’
Kang Yihak sprang into action.
"Cat-nim."
She knelt before the cat. Kim Soleum nearly toppled backward, but held his
form with practiced composure.
Kang Yihak’s eyes glittered.
"The safe key! Where could it be?"
Good grief.
"Haha, you said to bow earlier, so I gave it a try. A hint about how valuable
what’s inside might be would be... nice."
[This way]
The cat remained (unwillingly) resolute!
Meanwhile, Baek Saheon quietly reached out, gripped the safe door, and
wrenched it open.
Creeeeak.
"Oh—it just unlocked...!"
Everyone from Daydream Inc. froze. One, two, three... twelve.
Inside the safe were twelve beautiful, white conch shells, each tied with a
golden cord.
These were rare treasures once scattered across the city, now nearly
impossible to find.
"T-The Angel’s Sigh!"
Thirteen ’Angel’s Sigh’ items discovered in the safe of the annex beside the
ruined cathedral at the city’s eastern edge. Due to the building’s
significance, these were likely professional stockpiles.
This was what the cat had wanted to show them.
The cat watched, red eyes gleaming, as the employees beamed with joy.
If this had been a post-exploration find, they could’ve quietly led everyone
on to another site, but this was the place it had to be.
There was a reason.
But the promised side effects were unavoidable.
’Item!’
Greed flickered in the Daydream Inc. employees’ eyes.
’How many points is that worth?’
’I’ve got to take them all.’
Yet they still hesitated, under the lingering fear summoned by the fake
Necronomicon.
They seemed certain the cat’s true, immense malice would trigger some
terrible condition if they acted rashly.
And so...
[This way]
The cat moved on again.
A suffocating silence followed.
Then... it sat before the children—the agents of the Disaster Management
Bureau.
"...!"
"It’s a cat doll! Cute!"
"No! You can’t, Jiji-ya!"
Agent Choi barred the mer-child from pouncing on the cat.
Ryu Jaekwan broke into a cold sweat.
In any case, having glimpsed the otherworld, the cat could detect the
agents’ voices as they were still disguised as ’children’.
And it urged them, again.
[This way]
"...It looks like it wants us to look inside that safe."
"..."
They calmed the mer-children, then approached the safe with caution.
The Daydream Inc. employees’ hands itched in greed, but they stayed silent.
Finally, the agents peered in...
"..."
"...Bronze-ah, can you see it?"
"No."
"I see."
Agent Choi wiped cold sweat from his brow and forced a grin.
"...There’s nothing here."
That’s right.
To the agents in child form, the gleaming ivory interior of the safe appeared
completely empty.
"But actually, there is something here, right?"
Agent Choi raised his suncatcher again and peered at the spot where the
Daydream Inc. employees had been gushing.
He finally confirmed it.
"...!"
There really were twelve conch shells.
Agent Choi hurriedly asked one of the mer-children,
"Hey, kid, can you see that?"
"What? See what? What’s there?"
"I—"
"I see a cat," the children answered with innocent cheer.
The agents realized.
This item is invisible only to children.
More precisely... they simply cannot perceive it.
’Wait...’
Agent Bronze felt a chill run down his spine.
’So... there was a critical item the Bureau never identified until now...’
They had always infiltrated the ghost story in child form. In that guise, they
could not even sense the conch shells. Only by forced searching might they
barely find them.
But at this moment, the Disaster Management Bureau agents had learned of
the shells’ existence...
Agent Choi whipped his head toward the cat, but the cat calmly looked back and once again conveyed its will.
[This way]
"Agent—"
"Ah, no no, it’s fine."
Agent Choi answered the call.
He reached into the safe to touch where the shells lay...
But he couldn’t.
"..."
He wasn’t allowed to.
The hallucination that underpins Twinkle Twinkle Ocean Palace—the root
of this ghost story and its infection—was rejecting any attempt to touch the
shells.
"Then..."
[This way]
"..."
Agent Choi fell silent.
As if its turn concluded, the cat moved on, its steps heading straight for
Baek Saheon.
’Why me again?!’
Baek Saheon yelped inwardly, yet in the next instant he realized.
"Oh... Shall I gather these conch shells, sir?"
Exactly.
’It’s telling me to collect the items!’
Filled with a sudden thrill at obeying the cat’s command for the first time,
Baek Saheon thrust his hand into the safe and grabbed the shells.
[10]
Even in his joy, his mind spun with calculations
’How do I scoop up all twelve in this situation?’
Had the cat spoken only to him, he could’ve grabbed them all at once. But
now, he’d have to hand a few to my nasty boss and money-obsessed
coworker to keep them satisfied.
’Fuck.’
[9]
It must have assembled everyone here to create a more dramatic,
sensational scene. That cat is that psychopathic bastard Kim Soleum...
’Wait a minute...’
Baek Saheon paused.
That insane, strange, grotesque pressure he’d just felt—this presence—was
beyond what any mere human psychopath could muster, right?
The red halo around Kim Soleum felt different, too.
Though Baek Saheon had seen danger halos on humans before, this one
was... something else entirely.
[8]
It felt more like the anomalous phenomena described in ghost stories...
A sense of the uncanny.
’No way.’
No way his old roommate was simply an inhuman psychopath...
[7]
’He was never really human...’
A shiver ran down his spine.
But the boat had sailed. He had to gather the items.
’Doesn’t matter.’
[6]
The countdown neared its end.
Baek Saheon gritted his teeth and swiftly collected the golden-corded conch
shells, ignoring Kang Yihak’s peeks and the intense gazes of his boss and
the agents.
When he’d swept all twelve into his bag...
"Huh?"
He found one more shell hidden at the very bottom.
It lacked a golden cord, but it was indeed an Angel’s Sigh.
’Bonus.’
As he wondered how to pocket it secretly and reached out—
[This way]
Something sprang out from inside.
"...!"
Baek Saheon almost tripped over the cat and fell.
The slimy infection spurting from inside the conch shell flew through the
air but lost its target.
"Argh!"
Baek Saheon quickly threw the shell he’d been holding.
Agent Bronze, watching with the suncatcher in hand, dashed forward and
struck the slime-shooting shell with his glass handgun.
Bang! With a short crack, the shell shattered, and the tick-like chunk of
flesh twitched and crawled out like a bug, only to be hit by another round
and flung against the floor.
Crunch.
Jin Nasol’s shoe crushed it into the ground.
"..."
In the bone-chilling silence, everyone turned to look at the cat.
The ghost-story entity that had forcibly guided them here.
* * *
Phew.
I did my best to avert my gaze from the others, feeling as though I’d break
out in a cold sweat.
It wasn’t hard in a cat’s body.
’I just wanted to verify this.’
That’s why I’d chosen this spot among all the places I could farm Angel’s
Sigh shells.
The moment you grab the shell hidden at the very bottom of the safe,
infective slime will spurt out.
That was the trap, the unique danger of this place.
Like a mimic, the biohazard had parasitized an apparently useful item,
hiding within in a classic, creepy horror twist.
But when you combine that trope with what I learned from the tattooist...
’It becomes an even clearer hint.’
A hint at the conch shells’ true nature.
From the tattooist’s overwhelming sensory insight at Moonlight Tattoo
Shop, the shells—Angel’s Sigh—were tied to dark, catastrophic events.
Likely the insane infection and the city’s ruin.
■■.
Yet at the same time, the shells bore the opposite image of solace and
healing.
Add the tattooist’s words—’Even knowing rationally it’s not a threat, its
very image feels filthy and horrific’—and reassemble the clues...
—Originally a cure, the conch shells triggered a catastrophic event, though
that wasn’t their intended function.
...You arrive at this deduction.
So who contaminated the shells?
’A very obvious suspect.’
—A biohazard ulcer burrowed into the shells, posing as Angel’s Sigh.
The biohazard-merfolk’s tactic of creating the Twinkle Twinkle Ocean
Palace hallucination to ensnare child hosts is identical.
’It first hid in the shells, spreading infection.’
Thus the children became infected, this madness raced unchecked, and the
city’s civilization distrusted the shells so much that they prevented timely
treatment...
’Everything fits.’
Kim Soleum had driven everyone here so he could convey this hint directly,
without suspicion.
And...
"Aha."
Here was someone who’d grasped the hint exactly.
"..."
As Agent Choi picked up a shard of the broken shell, goosebumps ran up
his hand.
Almost a thrill.
The sharp and experienced spot clues quickly, drawing them closer to the
answer.
"A cure?"
He looked back at the cat.
"This is a cure?"
"...!!"
"So you blocked the kids from seeing or touching the shells, mixed in
blanks to mislead them—to keep them from being cured."
The cat offered no reply, but Agent Choi was already certain.
In a voice so calm it hardly seemed directed at the presence that moments
ago had exuded pure terror, he declared,
"Yes. This... is a cure."
"..."
Tension began to thicken the air.
’What...?’
To the Daydream Inc. employees, his words sounded only like mer-child
giggles.
Unintelligible, yet the uncanny atmosphere prickled their instincts.
"But here’s the thing..."
Agent Choi glanced at the bag Baek Saheon clutched.
Baek Saheon’s hand tightened on the strap.
"There are twenty-eight children out there."
And they were all too infected to escape.
"But only twelve shells... and look whose hands they’re in."
Agent Choi raised his hand, then readied his glass handgun...
[10]
"..."
[9]
The cat...
Before anyone knew it, it was now seated somewhere else.
[8]
At Jin Nasol’s shoes.
"What."
[7]
"I don’t know what you want me to do."
[6]
"’Do what you were going to do,’ is that it?"
[5]
"Fine, go ahead then."
[4]
And so Jin Nasol did as planned.
[3]
The Daydream Inc. elite team assistant manager flicked her attack wire
from her nail...
Not at an agent, but at a mer-child.