Kkang- Kkang- Kkang- Kkang-
Gong Isu suddenly strikes his own head.
Kkang- Kkang- Kkang- Kkang-
“Ugh, what are you doing?”
“No... it felt like I suddenly heard a hallucination.”
“You know that the Wedge Stone relieves delirium but doesn’t remove the madness itself, right?”
“...I know. But something is approaching. I feel like something is coming.”
And again Gong Isu strikes his head.
Kkang- Kkang-
We haven’t even had a proper conversation, and he’s already unsteady.
‘How much time is left?’
Delirium is only the result. As long as the madness remains, delirium will recur.
To gauge how much madness occupies his mind, I once more scanned his appearance from feet to head.
Bare feet.
His body clad in a tattered green patient gown.
Given long confinement in a closed ward, that attire isn’t unusual.
But normality ends just below his shoulders.
“Why are you wearing that helmet?”
“Why are you wearing that mask?”
“...”
He has no answer.
Just as I hide my face behind a mask, Gong Isu hides his.
‘A steel mask. No—calling it a helmet is more accurate.’
Perched atop Gong Isu’s shoulders.
Where his head should be sits a cylindrical metal helm, like an upturned bucket.
Is that what they call a Great Helm?
‘They call it a Bubble Head...’
Why that nickname? If you’re going to nickname it, Iron Head seems more fitting.
‘It’s similar to me in that it hides the face...’
Gong Isu and I share more in common than that.
Both sacrifices for the Banquet, both beings from a different spacetime, both wield powers unreplicable by this world, both privy to truths unknown here.
Yet in this brief encounter I’ve noted more differences than similarities.
‘For example, height.’
His file lists Gong Isu’s height as 1.6 m. But the point 1.6 m above the floor is his shoulders, not his head.
Calculating from his actual head position...
‘About 1.9 m, then?’
Even accounting for the helm’s height, he likely stands in the mid-180 cm range.
Our builds differ markedly too.
Despite long imprisonment, Gong Isu’s physique is extremely well developed—completely unlike my own, beset by health issues.
Our abilities differ, our circumstances differ.
“Hey. Kim Sinhwa.”
“Yes?”
“I think I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not you.”
“I know. I was just testing a possibility—”
Before I could finish, Gong Isu stepped forward and cut me off.
“I am absolutely not you.”
“I told you I know.”
“I am absolutely, absolutely, absolutely no relation to you. I’ve never seen your kind, never met them.”
That’s harsh.
“Why are you so obsessively insisting that?”
“Because I don’t want to be associated with you. No—I don’t want to be associated with the Banquet’s sacrifice.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t know how different your information is from mine, but humans tied to the Banquet’s sacrifice...”
“They become unhappy, is that it?”
“Ha! Unhappy? Easy to say. If it ended at unhappiness, that’d be fortunate.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“How many people have you met up to now? And how did those people change?”
“...”
Jang Hyundeok, the security taxi driver, gained unwanted medium talents and became a target of cultists and spirits.
Cheongho died and had his form taken by an otherworldly being. And Jeong Hyunna lost her father because of me.
Others driven mad or killed because of me come to mind.
“Because of me, is it?”
“You’ve suspected it all along. The Banquet’s sacrifice is like that. The Abyssal beings take interest not only in you but in the places you go and the people you meet.”
“Is that the observation and description you mentioned earlier?”
“Yes. Those creatures will destroy, twist, and torment those around you—just to keep you comfortable.”
“I think I understand.”
“No, you don’t! You have no idea the sensation of everything that touched me collapsing and shattering! Eventually you’ll give up everything too!”
Gong Isu begins to scream—has his delirium returned as I feared?
“This is the game. The Banquet’s sacrifice must either bow and submit to those hateful Abyssal beings or imbue obsession and madness to become one with those mighty Abyssal beings to win the game.”
“Win—from the Abyssal beings’ point of view.”
“Of course. They’re the players. We’re mere pawns on their game board. Struggle all you like—it’s useless.”
Not untrue.
I’ve prevented their plots and refused their offers before, but only because they happened to follow their game rules that time—a miracle.
‘If they’d overturned the board or crushed a pawn, I wouldn’t have had a chance to resist.’
As if reading my thoughts, Gong Isu continues.
“I don’t know what rules they follow, or maybe it’s defiance of their twisted aesthetics, but they rarely demonstrate power directly. Instead they tame prey with offerings or project influence until the prey becomes their avatar. In that sense, you must know you’re in a dangerous state too.”
That’s why beings like [Yellow-Clad King] or [Living Flame] treat me generously.
The more of their magic I bear, the stronger I become—but I draw closer to them.
“You say struggle is useless—so how did you escape?”
“Me? Kheheh—yes, as your senior I can share a good escape method.”
Kkang- kkang- kkang- kkang-
Gong Isu strikes his head in a fit; the metallic helm atop him wobbles.
“You see? You just fail.”
“Fail?”
“Yes—fail. Kheheh—kheh—khihi!”
Clutching himself, Gong Isu erupts into manic laughter, then speaks.
“Give up struggling. Cut all ties. Abandon changing, achieving, doing—everything. Become uninteresting, unentertaining to them. Then they’ll lift the Banquet’s sacrifice curse from you.”
“That is...”
I understand. That’s what Gong Isu calls failure.
“So you chose the game-over with the least damage.”
“Exactly. I escaped from my own timeline, changed my name, my identity, my face. Abandoned friends I tried to protect, discarded loved ones, ignored mistakes I sought to undo. Then the observance targeting me ceased, and I gained peace and rest.”
A cosmic-scale foe. A conspiracy across cosmic-timespan.
Driven weary by its enormity, one who stops thinking, challenging, and moving reaches that ending.
“I recommend you choose the same instead of struggling for pointless goals.”
I paused, rubbing my forehead, weighing his words and some probability calculations.
“...No. I have no intention of giving up yet. And even in the worst case, I won’t end up hospitalized here.”
“You don’t like what I’ve become, huh? That’s all useless hope. Anyway, my research focused on time—and that won’t help you.”
“Seems so.”
I may share many traits with him, but in the end Gong Isu and I are strangers in different straits.
“Kahaha—my next room’s empty, so if you ever want to give up, move in anytime. Including Lee Haseo, a kind, smart pervert will take care of you.”
“...”
An indescribable discomfort rose in me.
‘I’ve seen this before.’
Not just among Cthulhu World characters, but in reality: despair, pessimism, self-deprecating humor, forced cheer.
Yet seeing such utter collapse unsettles me.
“Sorry I can’t help. But I can give one tip.”
“A tip?”
“The Tabula Rasa device is garbage. It can’t fix madness.”
“...”
“How do I know? Isn’t it obvious? I tried drilling through my skull with it. It was useless.”
“I see.”
“But I still remember how to use it. If you want, I can drill through your skull. Want me to do it now?”
“No. That’s fine.”
“Alright. I’m already doomed, but I hope you can go further. Now—”
[System: Banquet’s Sacrifice effect activates.]
Gururururur—
Suddenly the whole building shakes as if by an earthquake.
Not a normal tremor. So strong it’s hard to stay upright.
And accompanied by zzhjeojeojeok— Is something rupturing or twisting within the structure?
[Invisible Hand]
I reflexively cast a spell and avoided falling, but Gong Isu...
“Ah, no!”
Despite his superior physique, he screams and stumbles, then crashes with a loud crash.
Kkang- karrrrr—
His helm rolls across the floor.
“Ah—damn it, my head!”
He hurriedly reaches out, snatches the rolling helm, and holds it frozen.
Then he slowly turns toward me.
“You saw it...”
Now I know why he’s called Bubble Head.
‘The file said 1.6 m...’
Gong Isu hid his face for an entirely different reason. Actually, “hiding” his face isn’t accurate.
He had no head.
In place of his neck was a cleanly severed stump. One of the holes in his neck wriggled, producing all his spoken words so far.
“Kahahahaha! You saw it! You saw it now! You get it, right? This is one of the ends the Banquet’s sacrifice reaches! The toys swayed by the Abyssal beings end up like this! Understand? Do you understand!”
[System: Banquet’s Sacrifice effect activates.]
Again the message window obscures vision.
Kuuuuuuung!!
It’s no longer vibration. Something is tearing apart with a loud rupture.
“That vibration! That shock! That noise! Feel it? You dragged this disaster all the way here!”
As Gong Isu’s hysterical shriek ends, a new change occurs.
Wiiiiiiiiing- wiiiiiiiiing- wiiiiiiiiing-
An alarm—different from the one before—sounds.
“This is a level 1 alert. Something seems to have infiltrated, as you said, senior.”
A ward alarm for inmate escapes or external intrusion.
Damn, even risking calling Yang Seohu, they’ve broken through?
“Yes! The ones observing you have crawled in! To interrupt our conversation! To kill me! To drag me—the one living a peaceful life—into the center of an incident!”
The headless madman shrieks in terror.
Words from a loser who chose self-elimination.
‘Was it a waste of time listening to this?’
Continuing to hear him fills me with an uncomfortable disgust in my chest.
“I understand. I won’t interfere further, so please stop now.”
“I don’t want to move anymore. I don’t want further observation. I just want to exist quietly outside everyone’s attention, like a plant that never belonged in this world from the start.”
“Very well. You keep living like a plant. I still have the strength to move, so I will.”
“Go ahead. Keep moving, Kim Sinhwa. But don’t forget that unhappiness and ruin will spread like a plague along your path.”
I gave no reply and left the room.
