I stared at the knife in my hand in a daze.
Should I...? Or should I not?
"....."
The silence around me seemed to stretch. The knife in my hand grew in number, appearing in my vision as multiple.
I frowned, feeling my head throb once more.
I wasn’t stupid.
I understood very well that my mind was currently being affected.
From the momentary loss in memory, the calls, and the weird instances with Jamie. It was all a jumbled mess that I couldn’t understand, and it was such a mess that it made me grow extremely apprehensive.
’What’s happening? Why am I acting like this? None of this makes sense at all. Why can’t I sense anything at al—’
Spurt—!
"Huh?"
When I snapped back to reality, the knife in my hand had already moved forward, stabbing the cult follower in the chest.
My mind blanked at the sight.
"....."
That... That...
Thud!
With a thud, the body fell, and I stood on the spot with my mouth open, struggling to understand what had happened.
Drip! Drip...!
It was the faint dripping sound coming from the knife that brought me back to reality, and when it did, my chest started to rise and fall faster.
"Haa... Haa..."
Leave.
I needed to leave.
I needed to leave this place.
The more time I seemed to stay in this place, the more it felt like I was starting to lose sight of myself. I didn’t understand the reason for this, but I knew that I couldn’t linger any longer.
Without a second thought, I activated my second node.
[Trait Transfer]
I planned on using the Realmwalker skill to escape, but...
"....What?"
The node refused to activate.
I blinked hard, my stomach twisting as I shut my eyes and tried to activate the second node again. But the instant I did, a sharp, searing pain shot through my skull, forcing my breath to catch in my throat.
"Shit...!"
It quickly dawned on me a moment later that I couldn’t use my node.
Something... was preventing me from doing so as the pain in my head grew progressively worse.
’No, let’s remain calm.’
Leaning my hand against the wall, I tried to remain calm.
I knew the way back.
I just had to go back to the elevator.
Pressing my hand against the side of the wall, I moved out of the room.
Lights flickered from above as I walked ahead, with the corridor narrowing the more steps that I took.
Flick! Flick!
Ignoring all of it, I continued to move.
’Just keep going forward. I have to keep going forward.’
I repeated the same words in my mind over and over again, trying to force myself to move in the right direction, even if I started to forget.
I thought it would work.
I really thought so.
But not even a moment later...
"..."
I stood in the middle of the corridor, blinking my eyes slowly.
The pain in my head intensified as I looked around.
"Where... Where...?"
Holding my head, I continued to look around.
But the more I looked, the more confused I became.
None of this felt familiar.
Wasn’t I in a room?
Where...
"Ukh!"
I groaned, holding onto my head while taking out the flip phone from my pocket.
I dialed the same number as last time.
The phone rang. It ranged for several seconds.
But soon, the line picked up.
Click!
"...I moved,"
I whispered into the phone, my voice extremely soft.
—I...
I paused.
Something seemed to cling to my chest at this very moment.
I started to feel out of breath.
"I don’t know if that was smart. But I couldn’t stay there. I had to get out. I’m... I’m in a corridor now."
I looked around and began to describe my surroundings.
"The walls... the same. Concrete. Rough... Cold. They press in close, narrower than before. The ground... is wet. I can hear droplets coming from above."
Drip! Drip—!
Looking up, a droplet fell on my face.
For some reason, despite nobody speaking, I found myself describing my surroundings.
"I can’t see far. There are lights here, but they don’t stay steady."
Flick! Flick!
The lights above me started to morph.
They grew dimmer and started to flicker.
Alongside the flickering, my shadow started to flicker.
"I think... they’re fluorescent. But they don’t hum like they should. They flicker like... like they’re gasping."
Flick. Flick!
The lights flickered again, my chest growing heavier.
—....
But that was also the moment I spotted something.
"I see a... marking carved into the wall."
I moved towards the nearby wall, pressing my hand against the rough surface of the corridor as I looked at the symbol.
"They look... haaa... weird. I can’t describe it. The markings appear to be faded."
Moving my hand back, I looked at it.
It was wet.
As my lips quivered, I started to describe the symbols.
"They twist inward, but they’re jagged, uneven... broken in places, as if someone carved them in a... hurry."
The symbols were weird.
I couldn’t quite make out what it was.
It looked more like graffiti than anything else, but I knew...
I knew from just one look they weren’t anything simple.
"They don’t look like patterns. I can’t tell. Something like..."
I paused, noticing the symbols before me shift.
Eyes.
My lips quivered once more.
"They look like eyes. Yes... eyes. Eyes that never close. That never look away."
The air thickened around me all of a sudden. The carved lines seemed to drink in the light, leaving behind a faint shimmer that pulsed every few seconds, almost like a heartbeat.
The longer I looked, the clearer they became. The eyes...
They were staring right at me. Not one, but all of them. Each one followed a rhythm, blinking in and out with the flicker of the lights.
Drip...! drip—!
The water rolled down the wall beside them, tracing over each mark like veins, darkening the carved grooves.
Staring at the liquid, I quickly realized it wasn’t water.
It was too dark to be water.
"I..."
My breathing grew rougher as my feet moved on their own.
Feeling the eyes that appeared all over, alongside the dark liquid that dripped down, my body moved on its own.
"Leave... I need to leave before it’s too late. Haa...!"
Ba... Thump! Ba... Thump!
The walls on either side began to twist inward, the concrete groaning as if it were breathing.
From the corners of my vision, shapes stirred.
Faces half-formed within the grime, their hollow gazes following every step I took. Each step forward felt like walking deeper into something that was no longer just a corridor, but a throat slowly closing around me.
Trying to swallow me whole.
".....!!"
"I think they... move. The... eyes. They’re moving!"
The eyes on the walls started to move.
Everything started to move.
"I need to hurry. I need to leave this place... W-where is the exit? Where is the exit?"
I grew more desperate, running forward with all my might while looking around in panic.
I felt the sense of desperation vividly in my chest.
But that wasn’t all.
"It smells..."
My nose scrunched up as I rushed ahead.
A certain smell started to linger in the surroundings
"It smells like iron. Like rust..."
No, not quite...
"Or maybe not rust. There’s another smell... present. Rotten? H-haa... W-where the hell am... I? I... want to go home."
I clutched onto my shirt, feeling my stomach churn more and more.
The sense of desperation only grew as I ran deeper into the corridor, and as my breathing grew heavier, something suddenly stopped me in my tracks.
—....!?
Step—
It was the singular sound of a step.
In that moment, my entire body froze as a cold chill swept over my body.
—Haa... Haa... Haa...
My breathing grew heavier as my entire body tensed.
Before I knew it, my breathing started to sync with the person on the other end of the phone as I slowly turned my head.
And then—
Du. Du!
The phone call came to an abrupt end.
Images started to resurface in my mind in that moment as I snapped out of the confusion.
Without hesitation, I reached for my bag and took out a small candy.
I popped it in my mouth a moment later.
[Luck Halo]
: A glowing, ring-shaped candy that hums faintly before dissolving on the tongue. For five minutes, probability subtly bends in the user’s favor — dice roll high, doors open more easily, and bullets seem to miss. Once the effect ends, misfortune equal in weight to the gained luck immediately follows.
The candy tasted sweet, and it melted the moment I popped it in my mouth.
Ba... Thump! Ba... Thump!
Staring in the direction of the shadow and watching it creep closer and closer, my heart started to drum loudly inside my chest.
’Did it work? Is it working?’
I felt a wave of anxiety as the shadow drew closer.
Step, Step—
One step.
Two steps.
Just as my heart couldn’t take it, something occurred.
CLANK!
It was a loud metallic sound.
It was muffled, but it reverberated loudly across the surroundings.
The moment it sounded, the shadow stopped, its body turning in the direction of the noise.
I held my breath, trying my best to keep my presence to a minimum.
And then—
Step, Step—
The shadow moved again.
This time, in the opposite direction.
That was the moment when I could finally breathe again as I leaned back against the wall.
"Haa... Haaa..."
Although I could’ve fought whatever the shadow was, given how my nodes weren’t exactly working, I didn’t feel too confident.
Taking several more breaths, I tried to catch my breath.
But as I did so, I heard a loud grinding sound coming from behind me.
"Huh?"
By the time I realized what had happened, the walls swallowed me from behind. The moment I regained my vision, I found myself in another room.
"....."
I blinked my eyes in confusion, looking around me.
’Was this supposed to be luck, or bad luck?’
No, but...
What was happening to me?
What in the world was this cult?
The more I stayed here, the more it felt like my mind was being swallowed.
This mission...
I also came to a conclusion.
’There’s no doubt about it.’
This mission was above Fourth Order.