It reads like he pressed on past the kids who were singing and dancing with happy smiles and approached the Hope Wing.
[Ah]
[Flower] [Sleep]
[An enormous number of flowers]
[Beautiful] [Well]
[Machine] [Sleep]
What did he find in the Hope Wing?
But before he could elaborate on those fragments, something happened to him.
Adults’ voices stopping him.
"Now, now—we told you you must not approach this area, didn’t we?"
Only then did Park Gwangrim realize something even more shocking.
[The children’s faces.]
[Alike.]
[With the volunteers]
[The people who run this place]
[The children and the staff look alike.]
People with name tags reading [Volunteer] blocked his way.
Wearing cozy smiles, they spoke to him slowly.
"Sir, it looks like you could use sleep therapy as well."
He swore and bolted backward.
Looks like he kept writing even as he ran.
In the notebook, a flipped scrawl legible as something like [lunatic] (a slur for the mentally ill), and a jumble of words.
He was probably writing in faith that I would find this notebook.
[Hope Wing]
[Trust Kim Sinhwa]
[Save m-] [Jang Hyundeok]
[Flower]
[Hope]
[Cloning]
[Cure Medi-]
That’s where the notebook ends.
"Cure?"
Cure Medical Care?
That name shows up here?
Something connects in my head.
"Aha—Sokcho and Buyeo. And Busan, right?"
The dialogue box had forced the choices.
Go to Sokcho, where [Yeonam Construction] appears?
Go to Buyeo, where the [Foreigners’ Management Bureau] appears?
Or—
Go to Busan, where [Cure Medical Care] appears?
The quests in Sokcho and Buyeo I thought were separate were actually a linked story prepared for a single event.
"I did wonder why Busan popped up."
Busan.
So why was Busan—tied to Cure Medical Care—offered alongside Buyeo and Sokcho?
Jang Hyundeok’s disappearance in Ansan, right on cue.
A trace of Cure Medical Care found in Ansan.
And a Busan quest tied to Cure.
"Looks like I should’ve investigated this place even if it weren’t for Jang Hyundeok."
It hasn’t even been three hours since Park Gwangrim called me.
I can still save him.
[keeeeeee—]
I gathered mana and fixated on the far side of the fence.
A tremendous light poured from all four eyes in my face.
"A place I’ve never been, an event I’ve never done..."
Thanks to Park Gwangrim, I know the theme and what kind of enemies to expect.
[Shadow Allure]
[bzzzzzzzz...]
The collar of the [Night-Veil Robe] spread wide.
It draped over my entire body, and I became a pitch-black shadow, nearly indistinguishable from the night.
[Flight]
[flutter]
I shot straight up and over the fence.
Beyond the wire, thorny vines and those grotesque blossoms in masses—and buildings in the far distance.
That’s either the Healing Wing or the Hope Wing.
I hope it’s the Hope Wing—
[System : Penalty Trait, 'Feast’s Offering' activates.]
[whee—]
"Urk, what the—?"
A queasy flip as sky and ground invert. Light nausea. Dizziness.
I definitely cleared the fence—I’m still flying—but what I see is wrong.
[thunk]
I cut flight and caught a thick tree right in front of me.
"Damn..."
Sensing what had happened, I turned to look back.
There’s the fence.
Beyond it, thorny vines.
Flowers blooming on the vines in that uncanny way.
A lawn.
Flowers blooming in the lawn as well.
And buildings in the distance.
"..."
[score]
I pushed mana and carved a mark into the tree I hung from.
[Flight]
[flutter]
I flew for the fence again.
[System : Penalty Trait, 'Feast’s Offering' activates.]
[whee—]
A sudden twist of space.
[thunk]
I grabbed a tree that popped into view.
"A marker. Good."
The mark I just cut is on the branch I’m holding.
Crossing the fence spins space.
There was a dialog just now.
One of the beings of the Abyss is interfering with my approach.
‘Telling me to come in by the intended route? Or...’
I cocked my head and spoke into empty air.
"You think that’s going to stop me?"
[viiiiiiiiiiiiii—]
I spread mana in all directions to map the structure of this boring little trick.
"(in Chinese) You lunatic! Are you sick?"
A shouted curse, echoing down a windowless corridor.
[rrr-rrr-rrr]
Park Gwangrim being rolled along, strapped to a wheeled bed.
"Sir, when you speak like that, we can’t understand you. You do speak Korean well, don’t you?"
"I was cursing. You don’t need to understand; you just need to feel insulted. Got it, brain-dead?"
"Haha, that must be a curse too."
Now racial slurs spilled from his mouth, but the people transporting him still wore those genial smiles.
[screee]
A door opened.
He tried to turn his head to take stock, but got nothing for his trouble.
The restraint suit fixed not only his limbs but his head.
"You’ll regret this. My boss will retaliate."
"Your boss?"
A voice like the ones he’d been hearing.
But it didn’t come from the people pushing him.
"Who is that? Who just spoke?"
He twisted his head again, but his range of motion was minuscule.
All he could barely glimpse was a set of blinds in the distance.
‘Blinds? Is there a window there? It’d be great if Kim Sinhwa burst through that right on cue.’
He smiled wryly at the thought.
Thankfully, the new voice was as friendly as the other managers.
"Me? My name is Gwak Hwejul. I’m the person in charge here."
"Gwak?"
He wasn’t born and raised in Korea, but even he could tell the name Gwak Hwejul was unusual.
"Did you naturalize, too?"
"No. I was born in Korea. And Korea has a Gwak clan to begin with."
The same friendly patter as before.
"And Hwejul doesn’t strike you as odd?"
"Names were assigned at random, so that’s what I ended up with. Nothing to be done."
A twist of nausea. That kindly, gentle tone only made it more revolting.
Like dealing with a malfunctioning AI.
Whatever they were saying, they’d still beaten him so badly he couldn’t move, left him for hours, and now had him trussed up and were carting him into some bizarre room.
"What are you going to do to me? Where is this? What are you people doing here? What’s your connection to Cure Medical Care?"
"Mm, those are questions that are hard to answer for security reasons."
A rustle.
"What are those flowers, anyway? Are you going to plant them in m—"
[vrrrrm]
"—e?"
What was that? A vibration rumbled from far away.
He wanted to turn toward it, but couldn’t.
All he could see were the similar faces of the managers holding him left and right.
But they must have felt it too, because their expressions turned grave as they looked one way.
‘That’s north, so...’
His [Dowsing] requires a few small preconditions. One is [keen sense of direction].
So he realized where the vibration originated.
‘South-southwest.’
The direction he’d thrown the notebook.
"We don’t plant flowers."
"Then—"
"We give seeds. And then, as if by a miracle, within days the talent and capabilities a person has bloom in the form of flowers. It’s a special gift our God gave to us."
Images of problem-solvers, smiling from within flowers that had sprouted all over their bodies.
"Then the warning not to eat the flowers was..."
"Correct. If you eat the flowers, you can obtain the talent that person possessed. But not just anyone can. If your constitution doesn’t match, nothing happens."
"The children..."
"Yes. In accordance with the will of the [Source of Life], we are carrying out the work of maintaining this world. We recover ability users whose role in this world has ended and distribute their talents to the new children who will act."
Proud.
[rrrrrr—k]
Managers with similar faces nodding in satisfaction.
"It’s rewarding work. And you’ll soon be joining in. We checked—you really do have a unique and special talent!"
Another tremor came, but if Gwak Hwejul felt it, he didn’t show it; he spoke in a voice brimming with rapture.
"How much you must have suffered, burdened by excessive talents that didn’t suit your temperament! Constantly beset by terrible dangers and threats! Now you can cast it all off!"
At last Park Gwangrim could see Gwak Hwejul’s face.
Wild hair. Big round glasses.
Otherwise the same face as the other managers.
But in his features there was a mania and ecstasy the others could never imitate.
"We will protect and care for you for the rest of your life. From now on, in this safe and peaceful House of Healing, you can live out a happy life. The dangerous, horrible role you were meant to perform will soon be taken up by another child. All you have to do is smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile, and smile—smiling the whole time—happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, happily, living out your days. Isn’t that wonderful!"
[clink]
A bottle opening.
"Here we are. Normally we mix it into meals, but we’ll let you take it straight."
"Do you not get motion-sick?"
A non sequitur from Park Gwangrim.
"Motion-sick?"
"I’m dizzy out of my mind. I think I’m going to throw up."
He closed his eyes against the vertigo.
Not only because of the mania Gwak Hwejul was radiating. Because of [keen sense of direction].
『Then why did you take Jang Hyundeok?』
That question didn’t come from his mouth.
Realizing that, he flinched—yet at the same time he was flooded by an urge to answer it.
A compulsion so strong it brought tears to his eyes, and yet he couldn’t answer because he didn’t know. Ah, why don’t I know the answer to that! I want to answer! If I knew, I’d tell you for sure!
The others must have felt it too.
They’re friendly by nature anyway. They all opened their mouths at once to answer that bewitching question.
"Ah, that? Because Cure Medical Care said they needed a lot of talent."
"Right. We urgently summoned our alumni. As fast as possible. There’s a limit to how much talent we can extract at once!"
"One kid had an enormous amount of talent, so we could hit the quota."
"The flowers on that kid’s body will soon be har—"
"Stop! That’s enough!"
Gwak Hwejul cut the others off before they could say more.
"Who? Who are you? Sir? Where are you speaking from?"
Only then did the managers grasp the situation; they dropped Park Gwangrim and looked around, on guard.
"Bring him this way too!"
At Gwak Hwejul’s order, wheels rattled and Park Gwangrim’s view shifted.
They were pushing the entire bed inward.
"Hey, you—lunatic."
He addressed the manager moving him.
"Do you remember what I said?"
"What?"
"I said my boss is coming. My boss is an absolute maniac. You’re all going to die. All of you—from falling."
He laughed as he said it.
"Falling?"
"Problem! There’s a problem! This building— the building—!"
Another manager running up the corridor.
The same, similar face.
"What are you talking about? What about the building?"
[rumble]
Suddenly the floor tilted.
[crash! rattle!]
Shelves and odds and ends cascading in the direction of the tilt.
"What’s happening!?"
Confusion so thick you can’t tell who shouted.
"The window! Open the window!"
[clatter]
Blinds flung up in a panic.
[whooooooosh]
A hard wind blasting from outside.
"The building—!"
The building is flying through the sky.
"Hey—move!"
[thwack]
A pitch-black silhouette burst in from outside the window.
"Who are you? What on earth do you think you’re doing?"
"Wow. Polite Jang Hyundeok. No—more than polite, I can feel the sentience. It’s off-putting."
"What did you say?"
"I did want to see Jang Hyundeok, but not this many of him, and not like this."
Looking at the managers who all had Jang Hyundeok’s exact face, Kim Sinhwa said that.
