Chapter 234: Ch 234: Happy ending sect
Serve Ireum-nim.
Serve Ireum-nim.
Serve Ireum-nim.
Serve Ireum-nim.
Serve Ireum-nim...
Even though my ears are buried in flesh, the chant echoes. The words of the
zealot of the Happy Ending Sect, a sect of the Church of the Luminous
Unknown, reverberate through the space and shake the elevator...
...
Suddenly.
The elevator I was riding in was already in another space.
Plink.
A drop of water fell in the dark, dim place.
A basement.
An unknowable, ominous air. The damp chill and dankness, the moldy
smell of timber, and then...
A corpse.
The bisected body of Kim Heowoon.
Somehow, it had already been neatly arranged and displayed in the
basement. Placed in a coffin filled with dozens of withered
chrysanthemums and sunflowers, and children’s paper crafts.
Be happy now
Blood dripped along the chrysanthemums.
Do you want to be happy too?
The corpse in the coffin draws near. Terror, the screams of those fading into
erasure, resignation, the only escape, the final mercy one human can bestow
upon another. Death without pain, the termination of narrative...
Do you want to be at peace too?
But...
How terrifying. The end of a story, the instinctive dread of death. Ah, it
would have been better not to know. If only it were an ignorant death met
without knowing, the heart might have been calm.
But you have learned. Once death is chosen on one’s own, the meaning of
happiness fades.
Thus, for you, there is only one salvation...
Ireum-nim!
Flash.
The basement ceiling door opens. From beyond it, a bright and majestic
light pours down.
Ireum-nim knows every thread of story and life. Only He is the answer to
this world’s truth, and only His will holds meaning in this world. May He
see us. May He watch our ■■, let us understand fully and follow His will,
and let our stories become meaningful to Him. Then perhaps, within that
light, there may be pity for us, perhaps He will hold affection for us. And so,
at last, perhaps what we awaited will arrive. Rest, happiness, the chance
that even after the end we might survive and be granted...
Happy Ending!
As the basement grew darker and more sinister, beneath the shaft of light
streaming from the ceiling, a glimmering fragment of parchment
appeared...
It was a form I had seen before.
A sacred scripture of the Church of the Luminous Unknown.
Happy Ending Scripture, Verse ■
■■■■■■■
That ritual parchment, still blank, is calling to you.
As if telling you to swallow it gladly.
As if telling you to perform the rite.
Make your existence into scripture.
Let your strangeness, mystery, unplaceable unease, cruelty and fear become
authority.
The intense light pulls at you.
It calls to you.
The basement grew darker, more unsettling. The single shining source of
light lured like a lamp to a mayfly. And then...
’Hmm.’
I simply stood still in place.
’So that’s how it is.’
[Hooh, they even know how to gaslight their target like a proper cult. Light,
scent, auditory stimulation. So typical, yet quite impressive!]
Kind of.
Had I still been in the state of feeling emotions richly, maybe I would have
been greatly shaken.
Piercing the primal fear of humans, conjuring compulsive anxiety with
hallucinatory effects bordering on delirium... it was close to brainwashing
through illusion. But.
Above all, I already knew.
’Ireum-nim isn’t like that.’
It was no different from when I had faced the centipede in Jisan Village.
In the end, I just stood absent-mindedly in the clear underground space
someone had drawn me into, looking at a fragment of scripture.
If I wanted, I could have used my ’read-out’ ability to escape... but there
was no need.
Because the one who pulled me here would surely be here too.
"Oh? Not going to write it down?"
Sure enough, something suddenly popped out from behind the coffin where
the corpse lay.
The perpetrator of this scheme, who appeared to be an officer of the Happy
Ending Sect, casually turned around and brushed the basement dust from
her school uniform skirt.
The light of ’Ireum-nim’ caught the dust drifting in the air.
With her back to me, she spoke.
"He’s saying this is really good... Why aren’t you writing it down? If you
won’t write it, then..."
Upright.
The person standing straight.
Only his head turns to look at me.
L
e
t
’
s
G
o
T
o
g
e
t
h
e
r
.
.
.
Thud, drrrr...
The head attached to his back falls off and rolls toward me.
Thuk. The moment it reaches my feet.
I am seeing the Daydream Inc. main building’s underground corridor again.
But this time the basement looks bizarre. A corridor of pulsing red flesh.
Veins attached to the head stretch long and reach to the end of the corridor.
As if those veins have suction of their own, they try to pull me in...
L
e
t
’
s
G
o
T
o
g
e
t
h
e
r
.
.
.
There’s something in the skull.
’Wriggling?’
I realize it instinctively. This is the sort of ghost-story that, the moment you
respond to that phrase, you ’get pulled in’.
...It seems that the Church of the Luminous Unknown ghost story has
properly marked Ho Yoowon and me as new targets for religious
conversion. Or for management...
Huu.
’What to do.’
The grotesque sight no longer stirs me as much, but should I just wait until
the Security Team arrives?
’Better not get entangled with the Church of the Luminous Unknown.’
I think I’ve read a few investigation reports mentioning people in school
uniforms from the Happy Ending Sect.
But the Church of the Luminous Unknown has so many insane, varied
people that I can’t be sure from the uniform alone. It’s still manageable
though.
And.
’...Someone was killed right in front of me.’
...
Decision made.
’Subdue them.’
I’ll bear my mind breaking a bit if it comes to that.
I reached out my hand.
At that moment.
"Fine."
Something grabs my arm.
I turned my head.
Ho Yoowon, who had been riding the elevator with me, answers with a
smile...
To the Church of the Luminous Unknown head.
"Sure, let’s go together."
...!
Wait, you—
Y
o
u
A
n
s
w
e
r
e
d
H
m
?
A tongue slips out of the skull.
The head swells huge and swallows the elevator.
What’s already been answered cannot be undone.
I tried to wrench away the one holding my arm, but I already felt the
swallowed body growing distant as it was moved...
...
[Oh dear, it’s already too late to say you need help!]
[And, oh, it pains me to say this but... My friend said the arbitrary
judgment of this Braun here isn’t trustworthy! Fine. Let’s see what
happens...]
Darkness.
* * *
To begin with.
I didn’t much like the Church of the Luminous Unknown entries on the
<Dark Exploration Records>.
Popularity aside.
The church’s appearance was definitely the turning point that made <Dark
Exploration Records> explode in popularity and turn into an IP industry.
But... I dunno.
’It’s just too... raw, primal, I guess.’
Like a feeling without measure.
They mainly amplify features that produce victims and make people feel
disgusted as a point of entertainment.
And how that primal disgust feels when encountered in reality... would
be...
...
Reality, huh.
"Roe Deer-nim?"
I opened my eyes.
Indoors, darkness, metal.
And Ho Yoowon.
"You’re conscious! Thank goodness. You’re not supposed to be able to
sleep in that body, and if you hadn’t come to your senses—"
I grabbed his jaw.
’You crossed a line.’
As I tightened my grip on Ho Yoowon’s face.
"Roe Deer-nim."
Yet Ho Yoowon kept talking.
"Don’t you want to get out of Daydream?"
...
"Director Cheong doesn’t treat you well, right? But if you stay locked in the
isolation room, you’re unlikely to find a good solution."
I pressed harder on the hand holding his jaw. Bones crunched, but Ho
Yoowon’s smile did not change at all.
And then.
"Sorry I didn’t ask earlier! It seemed the security team would arrive soon,
so my mouth moved first... As an apology—"
He made a proposition.
"What if I gave you a little freedom of movement for a moment, Roe Deer-
nim?"
"...!"
"I have information I need to look into here. So, each of us... I’ll be
searching for information, and Roe Deer-nim, you’ll be looking for a way to
break your contract. If you’re inclined, I’d be grateful to receive your help
as well..."
Information to look into.
’...It must be about Sekwang Special Metropolitan City.’
A convincing motive.
And his words didn’t end there.
"The most important thing is that all of this can be done without violating
the employment contract. You’re accompanying a company director, aren’t
you, Roe Deer-nim."
Ah.
"Then this can be regarded as official company business. It’ll be recorded
as a kind of overtime work."
...
"What do you think?"
I released my hand from Ho Yoowon’s jaw.
Overtime :
Additional pay to be claimed separately
"Of course, I’ll make sure you’re well compensated."
The tension eased, like a temporary truce. I stifled a sigh and straightened
up.
’Feels like walking with a bomb.’
Still, unlike before, at least I could treat him as a troll.
And only then, with the chance to properly take in our surroundings, Ho
Yoowon and I turned our heads to assess the situation.
"This place..."
A corridor dimly lit, the lights sparse.
What stood out was that the structure was arched, as if a cylinder had been
cut in half.
And it was sealed.
Not a single window in sight, the gray space was finished in concrete...
"Doesn’t it look like a basement air-raid shelter to you?"
It’s just as he said.
With its bare, rust-stained walls, the place evoked the image of a disaster
bunker.
’...So they preached to us and just dumped us here?’
I was trying to make sense of the situation, but at that moment.
"Let us share happiness."
...!
From the far end of the corridor, around the corner, came a sound.
A crowd.
The footsteps of perhaps a hundred people moving.
And voices talking.
"Ah, maybe they’ve come to welcome the new believers?"
Soon, the line of people turning the corner came into view. It was...
"Share happiness."
Ordinary people.
Smiling, whispering to each other as they walked, people so ordinary they
could have been seen in a park on the weekend.
Men and women, young and old mixed together, like a group headed out on
an outing.
But in their hands, they carried something.
Every six or so people formed a group, lifting and carrying something fairly
large in volume.
Those things.
"Let us share happiness."
"Share happiness."
Corpses.
Dozens of bodies were being carried in their hands.
Those carrying the corpses passed us by, heading further down the
corridor... as though they hadn’t noticed us, hidden behind the loads they
bore.
And at the very end of the procession was a familiar face.
"Share happiness."
...!
The one who had ’converted’ us.
Still wearing a school uniform, that delicate-looking teenager, along with a
male student dressed in the same school’s uniform and looking like her
twin, was carrying the body of Kim Heowoon.
When our eyes met, she gave us a slight smile before moving on again...
"Shall we follow?"
Ho Yoowon and I slowly followed after them. Following that bizarre
procession all the way to the corridor’s end...
"Let us share happiness."
We emerged into a vast, open cavern.
A space that could be called the plaza of an underground bunker.
It was already filled with coffins.
"Share happiness."
There, the people stopped and placed the corpses into empty coffins.
Once they finished, they gathered in a circle. The eldest-looking man among them stepped forward, raised both hands, and covered his head.
And he cried out,
"Let us share happiness."
Everyone made the same gesture.
"Be happy. Be happy. Be happy..."
In the coffin-filled space, a great many people raise their hands above their
heads and fervently pray.
"May the misfortune of being born into this world find peace in death. May
happiness be with you."
’...’
Then I understood.
Where this place was.
Final Ritual Chamber
A sanctuary used by members of the Church of the
Luminous Unknown. It takes the form of an aged
underground bunker and, being itself a ghost story, has
no fixed location in reality. It moves between various
places for the performance of religious rites and triggers
multiple anomalous phenomena. For reference, see
detailed records here.
There are rumors that the true form of this space is
actually something’s stomach, but its true nature is
unknown.
The chamber’s form varies by sect, and capacity ranges
from a few people to tens of thousands. There even exist
ritual chambers housing a single person.
In other words, this was one of the ’Final Ritual Chambers’ being managed
by the Happy Ending Sect.
’I’ve come right into the heart of Church of the Luminous Unknown, then.’
And I’m certain of one thing.
Those people are already insane.
The Church of the Luminous Unknown is not an organization that strives,
like the Disaster Management Bureau, to preserve reason and emotion or to
remain human.
At first glance, this ritual, which seemed earnest and serene like a place of
mourning, was no different.
’They killed them themselves.’
Likely... relatives.
To be admitted as a lay member of the Happy Ending
Sect, one must commit at least one murder, and the
victim must be someone the applicant genuinely wishes
to be happy.
So this seems to be a recruitment ritual for the Happy Ending Sect.
’This is driving me nuts.’
I don’t want to witness this in person.
Now people step forward, recounting whom they killed and how good those
people were, laughing and crying. If there had been food above, I would
have vomited.
[Heavens, I half-expected a cult, but.]
...??
[Not even the typical fare. Where are the sacrificial animals? The fire,
goats, and pentagrams? So tame, it’s almost bland. Do you think you can
exploit converts with that kind of showmanship?]
...It seems it was far too bland for the taste of the ghost story talk show
host, who has been soaked in provocation.
Truly, that was a Braun-like remark... huu.
Ah, come to think of it.
’Earlier... before I lost consciousness, didn’t he say something?’
[Oh, I asked if help was needed, Friend!]
[But it happened too suddenly to confirm your intent, so I’ve been watching
for the moment.]
Hmm... Well, okay.
In any case, I didn’t have the headspace to dwell on this topic further.
Things were escalating into outright madness.
"Be happy!"
At last, those who had given their impressions shove the corpses into
strange black containers. The ritual seems finished.
’They just keep going in.’
That must be some supernatural mechanism, like a way of recycling bodies.
So...
I stopped it.
As the coffin containing Kim Heowoon was about to be pushed in front of
me.
"Be h—"
At that moment.
Everyone conducting the ritual looked at me.
A strange, horned being exhaling black smoke.
Yet instead of screaming and fleeing, they merely stared in silence.
Then someone murmured.
"Ability?"
The whisper spreads.
"It’s an ability."
"Who is it...?"
And one of them stepped forward. The person who evangelized me. He
blinked, looked at me, and then nodded calmly.
"You’re keeping it for yourself? Okay. That’s fine!"
Haa...
I opened the zipper at my wrist and placed Kim Heowoon’s corpse into the
tattoo of amorphous flesh there.
Just to make it clear, it did not feel good...
’If I was still my usual self, my hands would already be shaking.’
The Happy Ending Sect official, who had watched the grotesquerie with
shining eyes, looked at me and laughed.
"Anyway... did you see? Even the child of Paradise of Love that you had
cast away has found happiness!"
...
"Welcome, now, to the Happy Ending Sect."