Chapter 88 |
"......"
Eyes slit like a snake's trembled faintly.
"...Senior, are we dying today?"
"I really want to cry."
"No, don't cry—just answer."
"I want to clock out...."
"Me too, but."
"Phew."
With an utterly exhausted face, Seome answered.
Even if his mouth was whining, the work still had to be done. Even if the odds of survival were plummeting exponentially, giving up on life meant nothing would work out.
"If I collapse and start crying, just take it in stride and run. I don't want to watch a promising artist die like this...."
"Senior, why do you talk like that?"
"Of course I'll do my best. I promised I'd help you."
"That's really touching and it kind of makes me want to cry too."
Rawi hesitated, then raked his fingers through his short hair. The scarred corner of his mouth set into an awkward rigidity.
"...This is definitely not a normal situation, is it?"
"We might've gotten snagged by a Dokkaebi with a nasty temperament."
"Think we can make it out alive?"
"Don't start mentally preparing for the end just yet."
"But, I mean...."
Rawi murmured as though whispering.
"It's scary here."
The shock had begun at the rocky shore.
Wet, squelching footsteps. And in contrast, the bright, innocent faces of children. Monsters, naturally, and when checked again after killing them, they'd been the waterlogged corpses of the drowned.
That wasn't all.
"I'm hearing weird sounds from the seawater."
"Try not to listen. My energy's running low...."
"I'd love not to."
It was both their voices. Sentences neither had yet spoken were drifting in, mingled with the sound of waves. His own voice was tolerable enough, but hearing Seome's was disorienting.
Each time the foam burst, it sounded like a children's choir, or like the gasping breaths of someone just before drowning, layered on top of each other. Rawi felt a chill crawl up his spine.
"I'm seeing strange things too."
The shadows between them numbered three instead of two. Or sometimes one vanished, or disappeared entirely. Wet footprints that weren't theirs ran ahead of them.
A blood-soaked fish flopping on a rock leapt into the sea as though committing suicide. Each time the foam crashed against the rocks, laughing faces, wailing faces appeared within.
"That's...."
"I told you not to dwell on it."
"......"
Among them was Rawi's own face.
"...I'm trying."
Approaching what looked like a person only to find a corpse with his own face. Puddles of standing water even swapped their reflections. Rawi saw Seome's face; Seome saw Rawi's.
'And the fragments in the rock crevice that looked like seashells were actually human fingernails.'
The sound of them clinking as the tide washed them away sounded like knocking on a wooden door. Rawi tried to cover his ears, then gave up. He'd learned by now that blocking them made no difference.
"This place isn't safe either, is it?"
"If you're rested, let's move."
They were inside a shipwreck. Seome stood up.
"The oxygen mask—seal it as tight as possible. I paid good money for it, so it should hold for about a week without issues."
"Ugh, I appreciate it, but... you're sure you're all right, Senior?"
"Honestly, my mind feels like it's going in and out. Something about the water here is off. I'm no alchemist, so I can't say for sure."
Rawi quipped.
"Live long and prosper."
"Dying at sixteen would definitely be bitter."
"Hearing that again, it's an age that'd trigger a report to the human rights commission."
"No human rights in the Gaps."
"I know."
Seome was a veteran mercenary at sixteen; Rawi, a rookie at nineteen. Maybe not as much as Seome, but the thought of dying here was a bit galling for Rawi, too.
He curled his eyes into a whine.
"I did write a will, but that didn't mean I was planning to die right away~...."
"Oh, you did? Good thinking for a rookie."
"The fact that you sound sincere makes it worse."
"You're really a nuisance."
Scanning the area, Seome asked.
"...How much ammo do you have left?"
"Enough for about three days and nights?"
"Then we can share it until the oxygen mask breaks down."
"Senior."
Rawi looked at his temporary senior.
"Are you going to help me?"
"......"
Seome shrugged.
"You've got some nerve yourself."
"Whaaat, me?"
"Don't worry. I'll die before you do."
"I'm oscillating between reassured and heartbroken."
"You can be purely happy about it. Being a mercenary in the Gaps means you've already thrown away that much shame."
"Another lesson learned."
"More importantly...."
An old nautical chart nailed to the wooden wall. Seome swept his hand through the air as though tracing it.
"...It seems to know us, doesn't it?"
Seome's name and Rawi's were written there in writing so bizarrely dense it was unsettling. As neat and archaic as a passage from the Bible, yet packed so tightly it was nearly illegible.
"I don't think I've avoided making enemies doing mercenary work, but at the very least, I've never done anything that would put me on a Dokkaebi's radar. I'm not that capable...."
"Just in case—I don't know anything either. I lived pretty clean until I came to the Gaps. As for my family, well, I've no idea how they lived, but... hmm."
Rawi said, looking at the waterlogged passenger manifest.
"Senior, want to take a look at this?"
"Oh my."
Seome asked in his characteristically weary voice.
"Can I pass out?"
"Can you? No way—who's going to protect me then?"
"What am I going to do with that temper...."
Both their names were on the manifest, with the cause of death listed as 'drowning.' A curse that wasn't quite a curse, aimed at two people still very much alive.
"...Uh...."
Perhaps it could also be read as a prophecy.
"Maybe an R-rated gore party would've been better."
"Not 'would've been'—it is better."
"Ah, figures."
If only there were clear enemies and visible traps. In this ambiguous, purely eerie situation, neither had any idea what to do. That applied to the veteran Seome just as much as the rookie Rawi.
"......"
Seome looked beyond the navigation room where they'd hidden.
Wet figures stood in a line in the corridor, then vanished with the sound of waves. Only damp barefoot prints remained, and only then did he realize that what he'd heard wasn't 'the sound of waves.'
"...Nasty temperament...."
All Dokkaebi were said to be like that, but this was extreme.
'Wide range, too.'
There was no telling how vast this labyrinth was.
Even for Seome—a mage with innate immunity to labyrinths and a water affinity at that—there were limits to how much of this labyrinth he could endure and comprehend.
'What's the objective? Simple mischief? Or is there something specific they want from us?'
If there were a clear objective, he could at least attempt negotiation.
Some Dokkaebi consumed humans to grow stronger; others could only survive under specific conditions. What was worse was the possibility that this 'prank' had absolutely no reason behind it.
Because that was simply what Dokkaebi were.
"Honestly, the bottomlessness of it all."
"Hm? Me?"
"No, the Dokkaebi."
"Ah...."
"Let's go."
The waterlogged corpses had stopped coming. As far as he could tell, it wasn't a trap at least, though unease remained—but moving now seemed the better choice.
"...Senior."
"Can't be helped."
Seome shook his head.
"You want to say it's strange that the monsters suddenly stopped coming. That even if it's not a trap, there might be a natural predator of those monsters nearby."
"...Right."
"But do you know what's most important in a labyrinth?"
"Hmm, not sure?"
"Remaining interesting."
They had to perform.
"We need to be something this labyrinth doesn't find predictable."
"...Does that raise survival odds?"
"At the very least, more than hiding quietly and boring it."
"Can't be helped, then."
Rawi wasn't stupid enough to refuse when it was being spoon-fed.
"After you, Senior."
"Keep your eyes sharp."
Seome tapped the area around his own eyes. Since Rawi's specialty was 'marksmanship,' even a veteran like Seome would be better off letting him cover the rear.
Because 'Artist' referred to those possessing extraordinary, irrational talent that surpassed even a veteran mercenary's experience.
***
"...A village...."
Seome muttered, then corrected himself.
"...Closer to a city than a village."
"That big?"
"Yeah."
Seome looked around. Visibility was still poor from the fog, but he could tell this place was remarkably vast and well-constructed.
As though it had truly once been a real town.
"...Since it's a labyrinth, it's natural in a way, but...."
"Are labyrinths normally this wide?"
"No, this one's special. But labyrinths are usually built from real events or memorable stories."
"So this place could be a real city, to some degree."
"But normally they're made smaller."
Ultimately, a labyrinth was destined to be something like a film or documentary.
"Even if it's based on a real event, it's hard to capture all of it. Documentaries cut what needs cutting and convey only the information that must reach the viewer."
"Well, there'd be various constraints...."
"But if it's this vast, it means the power behind it is great enough to contain that much."
"Are we screwed?"
"That's why I keep telling you not to give up on living."
Seome drew his blade.
"You won't die before I do. Probably."
"Probably?"
"What do you expect from a mere mercenary?"
In a situation like this, Seome wasn't remarkable enough to offer certainty or promises. He was just a reasonably capable mage. He'd protect the kid since things had come to this, but he couldn't say 'I'll get you out alive.'
"Haah, I really hate this kind of thing...."
"Not a fan of horror movies?"
"Jump scares are the absolute worst."
"We haven't had any of those yet."
"That's exactly why I haven't collapsed crying yet...."
In the center of the town, a table set with food. Everyone seated around it was drenched. In truth, after a double-take, it wasn't even 'food.'
There was simply a single drowning corpse, placed there, in a form barely recognizable as human.
'...Why did I think that was food....'
Even his brain was being kneaded.
"...Let's keep moving."
"Did you figure something out?"
"Nothing certain."
"I'd still like to hear it."
"Well, it's...."
Passing the motionless figures—no, the drowning corpses—without so much as a stir, Seome spoke.
"There's a different zone from this one."
Notably low in humidity.
"I don't know if it's a lure or what, but that small area is strangely dry. I can't tell exactly what it is... but at the very least, it should let us escape this fog."
That alone held enormous meaning for them.
In the empty town, lit windows appeared now and then. Someone smiled and beckoned. But no one was smiling, and no one had beckoned—that much the two already knew from multiple experiences.
Going inside would only reveal an empty house with water stains.
"...I'd really like it not to feel like those houses."
"If it's not that kind of place, things will be pretty hard to bear."
Inside the houses were framed photographs. The backgrounds shifted slightly each time. From a cathedral to a rocky shore. From a rocky shore to a shipwreck. From a shipwreck to a cave. From a cave to a cliff. From a cliff to a town.
'And in the photo we just saw, both of us were lying in coffins.'
That the faces of the two in the photographs had blurred and turned grotesque from water damage was also unsettling. Unless it was a warning or prophecy, there was no reason for such a prank.
After walking for a long time, no more monsters attacked. In that peculiar silence, the first to speak was, as always, Rawi.
"It's probably just my imagination, but."
"I'll hear you out."
"Being here feels exactly like being dead."
"It's your imagination."
"Probably...."
It was unnervingly quiet.
"So humid."
Rawi quipped the obvious.
'...The oxygen mask keeps me okay for now, but I can feel my condition deteriorating.'
He thought inwardly, pressing hard on his muffled ears. It felt exactly like being a child who'd fallen into water.
'Is the fog seeping in through my ears, too?'
He felt a bit like he was losing his mind.
The two walked in silence for a while. It would be accurate to say their stamina was dropping. They weren't without rations, but separate from that, something in this place was devouring human vitality.
After walking for a long time.
"...What's that...."
Absurdly, an elevator came into view.
"......"
"...Fuck, what?"
...And the girl standing before it.
A person, soaked through with water.
"......"
"......"
"...Ah, damn...."
Dying together might be faster than me dying first.