“It seems he won’t wake.”
Park Gwangrim spoke like his strength had left him.
Jang Hyundeok twitched a little, but it was no more than the reflex of someone in a deep sleep.
From the other sleepers nearby came sounds like “nnngh—” or faint giggles, but no one opened their eyes.
“Tch. I figured.”
Just as expected.
He’s not simply asleep—his body is sprouting those grotesque flowers. It isn’t normal sleep.
“Usually, the answer’s nearby...”
“You mean an antidote?”
“Right. Normally there would be... but this place doesn’t feel normal.”
In a typical quest, there’d be a way to resolve this state somewhere close.
But this isn’t a normal quest.
Not that I came without any alternative.
“Whew. Twice in one day is a bit rough.”
I can use [Recognition] to parse the structure, then forcibly wake him.
“Gwangrim, step back a little for now.”
“Understood.”
I took a short, deep breath and focused mana.
vvvvvvvvvv—
“Don’t wake him!”
A voice from the ward entrance.
Gwangrim and I looked that way—and had to lower our gaze a little.
Small bodies. Similar faces.
Different sexes and ages, but you could call them “Jang Hyundeok’s little siblings,” roughly speaking.
I let the mana I’d raised for waking him settle and walked toward the kids.
“You are—”
“Kyaa!”
“Eh!?”
I hadn’t even started speaking properly when the kids went white and shrieked, scrambling back.
For a second I thought they were spooked by the room’s grotesque scenery—but that wasn’t it.
“M-m-monster!?”
“Your face!”
“You have four eyes!”
Ah.
They were scared by my face—no, by the [Mask of Carcosa] I was wearing.
The kids were on the verge of fits, screaming like they might faint.
Is this mask really that scary-looking?
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, the mask! The mask!”
If even Gwangrim’s saying it, fine.
“Hey, wait! Just a sec!”
I hurriedly covered my face with both hands and pulled them away—and by then my mask had already shifted to the [Infi Mask] I use for disguise.
“Uwagh—do you look like that originally? If you’ve got a face like that, why are you going around in a mask?”
Gwangrim recoiled at my face.
“Because my mind’s not right.”
The [Infi Mask] renders a plausible human face based on my settings.
I was in a rush, so I didn’t tweak the parameters—no idea what face it chose—but it should reflect my Charm stat.
[Charm 22: Legendary]
Oh, so my Charm is twenty-two. That’s a bit excessive.
At that level, just existing in a place would be enough to seed a legend: “Long ago, there lived a youth named Kim Sinhwa of peerless beauty...”
Without any special magic or glamours, the kids relaxed and started edging toward me.
“Who are you?”
“What did you just do?”
They all looked like they wanted to touch my face.
“Hm...”
Among the kids with similar looks, I spotted a familiar pair of shoes, and I spoke to the girl wearing them.
“You’re Hyunji, right?”
“Wow! That’s right! How did you know?”
Because she was wearing the shoes Jang Hyundeok said he’d given Hyunji before.
“I’m a mage. I know everything.”
“Wooow!”
And just like that, Hyunji became the most amazing person in Hope Block. The kids envied her talking to me and stared, hoping I’d call their names too.
Not hard.
I dropped to one knee to meet their eyes and asked:
“Earlier you said... don’t wake Jang Hyundeok. Can someone tell the mage why we shouldn’t?”
“Me!” “Me!” “Me!”
Hands shot up all at once.
I glanced at Gwangrim with a smile, but he answered with an oddly frightened, stiff smile.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“No, nothing.”
While I looked his way, the kids chimed in earnestly:
“The Director said not to wake him.”
“The Director said if we wake him, he can’t go abroad.”
“The Director said if we wait a little more, Hyundeok will go abroad.”
“The Director said once he finishes sleeping, he’ll go abroad.”
“The Director said abroad is cooler and safer than here.”
“The Director said Hyundeok is special.”
“But I... I want Hyundeok to not go abroad and stay with me.”
“The Director said when we grow up, we can go abroad too.”
Chatter, babble, hubbub.
The rambling was cute, but what came out of their mouths wasn’t.
“What country could possibly be safe?”
Gwangrim muttered, disgruntled, the foreigner among us.
“Shh. Quiet.”
Yeah—there isn’t any “safe abroad” in a world like this.
When Jang Hyundeok talked like that, I kept quiet so I wouldn’t trample his dream—but if it’s the result of brainwashing, that’s different.
“Good. You’re all very good kids.”
I cast a small [Illusion] and popped tiny fireworks from my fingertips.
“Wow!” “Uwaaa!” “How did you do that?”
“You’ll be able to when you’re grown.”
They begged with shining eyes for more.
“Rather than that... is there a clever friend here who knows where the Director is?”
“Me!” “Me!” “Over here!” “He’s on the third floor!”
All together, they pointed to the ward’s stairwell.
Simple enough.
“By the way, the Director’s name isn’t Ggwok Hwejul, is it?”
“No. Hwejul is a teacher.”
“Teachers and the Director are different.”
“The Director has a beard like this, like this.”
“Aha. I see. Alright—then the friend who told me about the beard gets...”
I patted my coat. Anything to give?
My fingers closed on a pure white feather. Red’s feather?
“I’ll give you an owl feather.”
I pulled the Red feather from my pocket and handed it over.
“Waaah!”
They bounced, clutching the feather.
Cute.
I stood, thinking about what to do with these kids after I smashed this whole place.
Paju Central Hospital has something like an attached daycare... would that be...?
“Alright. Then, like my friends said, let’s leave everyone sleeping and head out. It’s bedtime for you too, right?”
I soothed Hyunji and the other little ones and sent them back to their rooms.
“What do you plan to do now?”
Gwangrim asked.
“Change the order. If Ggwok Hwejul was the top authority, I figured there was no need to interrogate anyone. But if there’s a separate Director, we should meet him first.”
This place had more of a quest structure than I thought. In that case, following the quest flow is best.
To be safe, I laid a few spells around Jang Hyundeok, then moved for the third floor.
Nothing notable on the second floor.
It wasn’t empty.
Sometimes I sensed presence behind doors, but they merely held their breath and waited for me to pass.
No reaction.
Judging by his pendulum’s motion, Gwangrim sensed them too and asked:
“Will this be alright?”
“It’s fine.”
“You won’t catch them and interrogate them?”
“Shaking down small fry only makes you tired.”
Maybe their presence was getting on his nerves; eyes uneasy, he scanned around and said:
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, aren’t you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“I’m afraid. This place is truly horrible. People with the same faces speak in the same voices, move the same way, sing the same way, dance the same way. Just seeing it makes me feel bad—disgusted. Aren’t you afraid?”
“I’m fine.”
I felt a little off too, but thanks to [Madness of the Abyss], I wasn’t shocked into losing reason or warping my mind.
“What if I’m one of those?”
“What?”
“In that game you mentioned—the, uh... what did you call it?”
“NPC.”
“Yes. NPC. Looking at those kids makes me think: what if there’s someone exactly like me somewhere? That creepy feeling. What if I’m an artificially made being like those things?”
“Gwangrim, that’s...”
I meant to answer lightly—but the man who’s only a character in a game, Park Gwangrim, was looking at me.
The fear and confusion in his eyes ran too deep and too dark, and I paused.
“You heard what those kids said, right? And even in that ward that makes your knees buckle just to look at it, they laughed and chatted fine. Looks like from childhood they’re fed warped, twisted norms.”
“Seems that way.”
“If the siblings and brother and sister and family and uncle and cousins I remember were all copies of me made like this, and the Public Security—no, someone around me—had injected strange beliefs since I was small to deceive me, if that were true, how could I possibly realize it?”
“Gwangrim, breathe.”
He stared at me with hollow eyes.
In the dark, quiet stairwell, his voice echoed grimly.
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, Mr. Kim Sinhwa.”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, this place is truly horrible.”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, since coming here I’m losing certainty in myself.”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, Mr. Kim Sinhwa.”
“Mr. ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) Kim Sinhwa. Am I a person?”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, I am a person, right?”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, that’s right, yes?”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, I’m not something manufactured like that—I’m a person, right?”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, Mr. Kim Sinhwa?”
This is getting dangerous.
I stopped and grabbed his shoulders.
“Gwangrim, get a grip. A minute ago you were showing off at me, and now you’re going to keep babbling nonsense?”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, are you truly a person? Not something artificially made—you’re really a person?”
“Well—”
“Are you certain?”
“I am. Now sit for a second.”
I raised mana and sat him down on the stairs.
A tangle of words in several languages spilled messily from his mouth.
“You have those pills you showed me earlier? Where are they?”
I searched his coat, found a Nirvana, and pressed it into his hand.
“Swallow. Gwangrim—swallow it.”
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, you’re remarkable. How can you be so assured?”
Once he took the pill, his expression steadied a bit.
“Good. Nicely done.”
[Lion’s Courage]
[Eagle’s Radiance]
[Euphoria]
I cast spells to steady his mind and told him:
“In a place like this, don’t overthink. Go simple and dumb. Don’t think about anything except where you’ll spend the money I gave you, and when this is over, pick a decent hospital and take a good long rest.”
“A hospital—yes, a hospital. I’ll bring my family to this country, find a safe place, buy a house, and settle them.”
“Hey, haven’t you seen movies? Say that in a place like this and you die.”
“Hahaha.”
He let out a dry laugh at my joke.
With a drawn face, he said:
“I’ll be careful not to turn into that textbook character.”
