Chapter 111 |
Even a rural village in The Gaps wasn't all bad.
Being insular meant, put another way, that they were tightly bonded among themselves.
Every morning, fog settled quietly over the land. It was always a generous village, like a mother's embrace. The mountains encircling them on all sides stood like sturdy folding screens, blocking the chill winds.
"Seome, let's go outside!"
"I'm still sleeping...."
"You've got to play with me!"
"Ah, seriously."
The village air always smelled wonderful.
The savory richness of wet earth, and a warm scent like bedding dried under midsummer sun.
"There's minnows over there."
"You can't even make a side dish out of those."
"What if we catch a whole bunch and grill them?"
"At least they'd be fun to chew."
"Right?"
Like the clear water pooled along the paddy ridges. At early dawn, hazy steam rose above the surface, blooming in soft puffs like the breath of the villagers, blanketing the fields.
When the rooster crowed at dawn, people opened their doors and asked after one another.
"Oh my, our little darlings are already out. Such early risers."
"The sun's nice today!"
"You think so? Should be a bit sunnier than yesterday, that's good."
"Can we go to the field with you, mister?"
"Of course, just don't hurt yourselves."
"Okay!"
The diligent ones headed out to the fields, bending at the waist to pull weeds.
"Seosang, look at this."
"Ugh, a worm."
"Better cover it back up."
The texture of life, firm yet soft, felt through fingertips touching soil. That was the very proof of the peace this village held.
After running around the village like that for a while, dusk settled in.
"Ah...."
"Let's go home."
"Yeah."
The village rooftops slowly took on a golden hue. Tiles and earthen walls all became the same color. The whole village looked like a single lump of sunlight.
Children's laughter drifted from beyond the paddy ridges, then stretched long and vanished, swallowed by the distant lowing of a cow. It sounded just like a bell marking the tail end of day.
Lower, and slower, than anything else....
"What do you want for dinner?"
"Grandma gave us greens."
"I'm sick of greens...."
"She said she'll slaughter a chicken for us tomorrow."
On the way back, there were always chickens. A few wandered right up to their feet, pecking at the dirt, gazing at the sunset sky with indifferent eyes.
Children from other houses ran by clutching fistfuls of wildflowers. Fluttering skirt hems and shirts dyed in the glow of sunset. In the warm breeze, the scent of night crept in.
Wind blowing down from the mountains bent the rice stalks all at once.
"......"
"...Seosang?"
"Fireflies."
"Oh."
Faint lights drifted among the wave-like swells.
"How peaceful."
An old man murmured as much.
A dog barking far away. Layered above it, a chorus of insects. Before the moon rose, the sky turned deep violet, and every color in the village was beautiful.
"Peaceful...."
Birds in the trees left their final songs and returned to their nests, while people began lighting their lamps. Smoke from the lamps rising in each house mingled with the sunset glow.
"......"
He swore.
In that memory, Seome was happy.
Together with his younger sibling.
"Me too."
"......"
"......"
Together with ■■¿
"...Who are you."
Who are you to make me dream.
To his question, the figure only smiled lovingly. From the approaching touch, he sensed a faint scent.
Over a peppery sensation that gently stung his nose, the smell of earth flowed, or perhaps it resembled almonds or vanilla. Mixed into that sour, bittersweet scent of grass, something sweet like burnt sugar, like dried fruit, and....
And.
"Seome."
"......"
"It's me, Seosang."
And, also.
He thought he could smell the acrid stench of ash.
***
"......"
"...Sunbae-nim?"
"Yeah."
"Uh...."
Rawi, having just woken, saw Seome sitting on the sofa.
"When did you wake up?"
"I don't know."
"If you don't know, who would?"
"Good question."
"......"
Rawi looked at Seome with an uneasy expression, then at the floor-to-ceiling window Seome was facing.
"...It really does rain endlessly here, doesn't it...."
It was raining. Very quietly, yet with no intention of stopping.
Droplets beaded across the full span of the window and trickled down. Beyond the obsessively clean glass, the scenery was vivid, as if pressed right up against it. The forest was soaked like fog.
The trees trembled faintly. Raindrops slid diagonally, following the wind.
Broken light rippled gently against the walls.
"...Sunbae-nim."
"Hm?"
"Did you have a bad dream?"
"I had a good dream."
"That's not the face of someone who had a good dream."
"Maybe so."
"What's gotten into you all of a sudden."
Still, nothing could be heard from beyond the walls. Yet the sight was strangely peaceful.
"......"
He really didn't want to acknowledge it.
"...They say if you leave this place, it's Gapyeong. Is that where you stayed?"
"Why do you think that?"
"You reacted when you were talking with Yeon-woo sunbae-nim."
"This is why Artists are such a pain."
"I went out of my way to broach the subject, and you're this cold about it."
"The Gaps, you know."
Seome said, staring vacantly beyond the window.
"It feels alive."
"In what way...."
"Quite a few people compare it to a forest or a sea. Spiritual energy fills the space instead of air, and it's an illusion existing between real, tangible spaces."
"Forests and seas aren't illusions, though."
"The Gaps are narrow if you call them narrow, and vast if you call them vast."
He looked exactly like someone still inside a dream.
"It's a concept created for the needs of mages, not actual land and sky that physically exist. That's why the farther out you go, the more insular the villages become."
"......"
"Because they're spaces made solely for, or by, those people... In truly special cases, unless proper technology or a reasonable opportunity comes along, it's difficult for one village to interact with another."
"......"
"Villages that are truly unlucky never encounter another village until their very fate runs out."
Even without it being a special case.
"Someone has to build the road, but no one does."
"......"
"Unable to become a forest or a sea, it can't flow, and just stagnates."
He continued in a near-whisper.
"Like a deserted island."
As if that deserted island were right before his eyes.
"Inside one, it's truly hard to think differently. It feels like everything you see is all there is, like nothing exists beyond it. Because everyone looks like an ordinarily good person."
"...Usually, when someone puts it that way, it means they weren't 'ordinarily good people.'"
"But what if they actually were 'ordinarily good people'? Just. Everyone was ordinary, and because they were so ordinary, that's how they...."
Seome turned to look at Rawi.
"Were just stupid."
"......"
To Rawi, who met his gaze silently, Seome smiled faintly.
"I should sleep now."
"You were sleeping until just a moment ago."
"I was, but then I woke up."
"You say that like it's your first time sleeping today."
"I'm tired, that's all."
Seome mumbled that and retreated into his room.
"I'm tired."
Left alone in the living room like that, Rawi.
"......"
...could feel that something was going wrong.
***
Rawi didn't have good eyes.
'That is, my eyesight isn't the best.'
What he 'saw' was more of an atmosphere.
When he looked at something, there was an intuition that came from it. It'll be like this, it'll be like that. Maybe it'll turn out this way.
What he felt when he looked at the Rooftop Garden was a sense of vastness.
"......"
Or was it dread?
'...What a strange hotel.'
Perhaps because it was a place where Dokkaebi came. Everywhere he looked, it was chilling, bizarre, yet extravagant. With his limited experience, Rawi couldn't pinpoint exactly what was causing which emotion.
But ever since he'd seen those 'flowers,' he'd been sensing something when he looked at Seome.
"...Sunbae-nim, are you really going?"
"We need to know the method so we can find Yeon-woo if something comes up."
"That's not wrong, but...."
That this small 'sunbae-nim' would soon become like those 'flowers.'
"...No, I just worry a lot...."
That the two of them might be quite similar. That kind of feeling.
"I'm rambling."
...Seome was becoming increasingly strange.
'What am I supposed to do in a situation like this.'
He couldn't even tell exactly what was becoming strange. Like many Artists, he relied on intuition. He could sense that something about Seome was changing, but couldn't diagnose it clearly.
'Has his way of speaking or his demeanor shifted? He wasn't like this when we first met. Is it just exhaustion? Or is it that erosion I've only heard about?'
They said the limit of what a person can endure inside a labyrinth varied drastically by individual. But stay too long, and you'd go mad, eventually becoming 'eroded' and merging with the labyrinth itself.
'I've heard it's a matter of mental fortitude....'
Rawi stole a glance at Seome.
"......"
"......"
No response.
'...The man who noticed everything perfectly fine when we were underground?'
That was precisely why Rawi couldn't help but suspect Lee Yeon-woo.
'Ever since that person showed up, his reactions have been off. It got noticeably worse after we came up to the hotel. I want to know the specific cause.'
They said Dokkaebi could bewitch people simply by existing. Could Yeon-woo be that kind of being? Even if the man himself had no malice, well, wasn't a Dokkaebi a natural disaster in and of itself?
'The fact that an experienced mercenary opened his heart to someone named Yeon-woo this quickly is also, a little.'
Meanwhile, Rawi, who actually felt the intuition that it was okay to do so, was restraining himself with reason.
Was this Yeon-woo bewitching Seome, or Rawi being oversensitive because he was an Artist? Or was this entire environment weakening Seome?
"...Sunbae-nim."
"Hm?"
"Don't you think this is far enough?"
Rawi brought Seome to a stop.
"Even if we're looking for Room 4, I don't think there's a need to go much farther."
"I was going to try the 13th floor."
"In any case, this time it's about checking whether the method that person taught us actually works."
"That's true."
Seome stopped in his tracks and met the eyes of a painting hanging in the corridor.
"......"
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Four times total.
"...Then, shall we take a lap around?"
"I have no idea if this'll actually work."
"Nothing to lose."
Seome said, leading Rawi toward the stairwell.
"Can't hurt."
***
There is no Room 4 in this hotel.
"Uh... that sounds like one of those Neapolitan horror stories...."
An amusing joke.
"That wasn't a joke."
If you say so.
"Excuse me?"
The guest room floors of this hotel span from the 7th floor to the 21st floor. If you've gone below the 7th floor or above the 21st and the surroundings still appear to be a guest room floor, that is a clear anomaly. Please evacuate through the Emergency Stairwell.
"And yet you go this far with the horror story?"
"Considering what kind of place this hotel is, it might not be a joke."
"Please tell me it's not."
I hope you never need to use this information.
"Is that real?"
To return to the main topic, there is no Room 4 in this hotel. However, if you follow a set procedure, you should be able to find it without much difficulty on any guest room floor.
Find any guest room floor corridor where no guest is passing through.
"And then...."
Repeat the same action exactly four times.
"The same action, four times?"
"Any action at all?"
The type of action doesn't matter, but as I said, it must be precise.
"You mean without a single margin of error."
The level of precision required is that of a program executing an inputted command. Movement on par with a game character or an industrial machine should satisfy the condition without much trouble.
In that case, something small and simple would be better than something large.
"For example...."
Blinking.
Your eyes, for instance.
***
"......"
'After that, step away briefly into the Emergency Stairwell at either end of the corridor. If another guest passes through that corridor, you must wait until it's completely empty again.'
"......"
'Once you're certain the corridor is fully empty, exit the stairwell and check each room number one by one. It doesn't matter whether you start from Room 1 or from the opposite end.'
"...Oh."
'Then you should soon be able to find Room 4.'
Seome's lips parted.
"Found it."
Room 444.
"That's a pretty random number."
"Suits this hotel, though."
"Creepy, for sure."
"Right?"
It was no different from the doors on either side, except for one thing.
"The number plate's a bit different."
"Definitely... it's gleaming."
"Is that real gold?"
"You're an Artist, shouldn't you be able to tell that on sight?"
"It's not like I've ever actually seen real gold...."
The room number plate was an opulent gold.
"I checked from Room 1, and I was worried about what we'd do if Room 4 didn't show up."
"He said there's no real penalty, so we could just redo the process."
"Still, checking each one builds this peculiar tension, don't you think?"
Yeon-woo had said that checking the room numbers one by one increased the 'probability of manifestation after condition fulfillment.' It wasn't an absolute requirement, but it would help ensure that no unrelated person got caught up in it.
And the door.
"...Oh."
Opened just like that.
"I really don't want to go in there."
"That's rude to the guest staying in this room."
"You're worried about a Dokkaebi over your pitiful junior right now?"
"Keep an open mind, and life gets easier."
Saying that, Seome stepped into the pitch-black space.
"Let's go."
"......"
Rawi sighed and followed him in.
***
Meanwhile, Yeon-woo was in the kitchen.
"...They're quite late."
He'd learned through the Interface that someone had visited Room 4. Since the only people who'd be entering were the two students, he noted it calmly.
He removed his apron.
"First, let's change clothes."
"Yes!"
"I'll arrive first regardless."
"Yes!"
"Why are you so excited?"
Instead of answering, Coco stretched its body wide and wrapped around Yeon-woo.
"Mm...."
What flowed down like ink soon transformed into clothing.
"Black again."
[Yes.]
"You've taken a liking to this, I see."
[Hehe!]
This time it was a jacket. Below the waist cinched by a belt, the dry fabric rustled, visibly creased in deep folds. Yeon-woo made a complicated expression at the outer garment that covered all the way up to his neck and the backs of his hands.
"This isn't really my style...."
[No?]
"Don't force your taste on me."
Where had it even learned this much about clothing in the first place?
'Asking won't get me an answer, though.'
Yeon-woo removed his glasses and handed them to a staff member waiting nearby. With his other hand, he lightly swept his hair back and pulled on black leather gloves in place of the white cotton ones.
The smile he'd been wearing disappeared, and a sense of steadiness came from hands now shielded from external stimuli.
"......"
He was aware that even he found his own personality exhausting.
"...Then let's go."
[Yes!]
"To the Central Control Room first."
[Huh?]
"Yes."