[mutter, murmur]
Park Gwangrim kept biting his thumbnail and whispering something in a low voice.
With Park Gwangrim’s ominous little whispers buzzing at my ear, I climbed the dark, long staircase of Hope Ward.
There was no interference.
We soon reached the third floor, and...
[Warning: Beyond this point is an unimplemented area unrelated to scenario progression. If you proceed further, play stability cannot be guaranteed.]
A message window blocked my view.
“Ah, move. I can’t see.”
[bzzzzap!]
I summoned a small jolt and struck the message window, and it couldn’t hold its shape for long and vanished.
At the end of the third-floor stairs, a large iron door was waiting.
I sent out a light pulse of sensing, but felt nothing from the other side.
That doesn’t mean there’s nothing that could be a problem.
I truly feel nothing.
A completely different sensation from when I scanned the first or second floor.
“Looks like from here on is the real thing.”
[crack—]
[creak—]
I twisted the joints in my neck for a quick stretch, then said to Park Gwangrim,
“Mr. Gwangrim, want to head to Paju?”
“Paju, sir? How?”
If I trigger Gate Creation, I can send Park Gwangrim to Paju right now.
If I send him to the [Starving Mansion], the mansion’s defense systems could get him killed—so sending him to something like Vasiliisa should be fine.
I explained as much, but Park Gwangrim shook his head.
“I’m curious what’s behind this. If I turn back here, I’ll live the rest of my life with those questions stuck in my head.”
As with many NPCs that appear in [Cthulhu World], he could end up a wreck who carries an undying nightmare and gets addicted to drugs or alcohol.
“Can you protect me? I want to know the truth too.”
“That truth is...”
I swallowed what I was about to say.
I don’t know what truth lies here, but as far as I know—Park Gwangrim is a game character.
Will this be okay?
For a moment I considered just flinging him away by force, but in the end I sighed and cast boon magic on his body.
[Protective Ward]
[Lion’s Valor]
[Elation]
[Eagle’s Radiance]
“The truth here is probably something that has absolutely nothing to do with you.”
“Then that’s a relief. I’ll be able to sleep easy.”
[screeeech—]
The unpleasant scream of a rusty hinge.
I had been expecting some grand horror waiting inside, but there was only an empty, filthy space without even much furniture.
“Not much here.”
“Looks like an office that skipped town overnight.”
Exactly right. A wide, open space with no walls or halls, just trash and scraps of paper. A few chairs and desks lie awkwardly strewn about, that’s all.
“Where’s the director supposed to be?”
We kept up maximum vigilance and stepped inside—
Huh?
Wait.
We’re falling?
At some point we were plummeting through a pure-white space.
“Ah, what is this!?”
“Uwaaaaah!”
A pure-white space with nothing. Not even a floor—nothing at all.
“Yikes, this is that thing!”
That thing! That thing!
At the same time, the warning from the message window popped into my head.
“Ah, damn. It said it couldn’t guarantee play stability!”
Wait, this isn’t the time to be thinking about that!
[Flight]
[whooooosh—]
Catching the falling Park Gwangrim, I triggered flight magic.
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa! What is this!?”
“This is—well...”
It’s a bit frustrating to explain this to someone with no knowledge of games—worse, to a character inside the game.
This is exactly that bug you get all the time in badly made games.
A bug where, due to faulty spatial design, you drop into an infinite space where the floor wasn’t implemented!
Thankfully, Park Gwangrim got to a plausible term first.
“Is this illusion magic? Or a two-dimensional barrier?”
Spoken like a detective working out of Paju.
“Yeah, something along those lines.”
“Can you escape it?”
“Give me a second.”
[whooooosh—]
There’s air—good. Wind slaps my face as I climb back toward the place we fell from.
But no matter how high I ascend, I can’t return to the space we dropped out of.
The higher I go—
All I get is infinite repetition of the same white void.
‘Great. The fall point’s gone.’
A nasty bug.
Usually, the ways out when you’re stuck like this are...
One: quit and relaunch.
Two: load a save.
Three: use a spatial movement spell.
“Right, I was rattled for a moment, but there’s a simple way.”
Good thing. If this had happened before I learned [Gate Creation], I’d have starved to death in endless freefall.
I immediately cast the spell—
[Gate Creation]
[Error: An abnormal route was referenced.]
The mana I’d focused scattered.
“Oh, come on, what now?”
Park Gwangrim looked up at me with an uneasy face.
“Mr. Kim Sinhwa, is there a problem?”
“No. No problem.”
It wasn’t a simple failure.
The instant the spell failed, I sensed a snakeskin aura slipping into my formula.
It was already retreating fast, but it can’t fool me.
“Over there!”
[flutter-flutter-flutter—]
Wrapping myself in the [Cloak of Night’s Veil], I flew toward the direction of the thing that interfered with my magic.
And then—
“Wizard. Over here, over here!”
A voice I’d heard before.
The one we met earlier... Hyeonji’s voice.
“Here. Here.”
In a space with nothing—no floor, no anything—Hyeonji was standing.
I adjusted my altitude and moved toward where Hyeonji was.
Before I could say anything, Hyeonji spoke first.
“Wow! Amazing! How did you find me so fast?”
“What are you?”
“Well, exactly what you’re looking at.”
Hyeonji spread both arms and spun once in midair. It wasn’t the motion of someone flying.
There’s nothing to step on, but Hyeonji moved her feet as if she were standing on an invisible floor and bounced up and down.
“A monster in the shape of a girl of about ten, standing on thin air where there’s nothing at all...?”
“Hey, it’s Hyeonji. We just said hello.”
I scrunched my face and drew up mana.
“Cut the games and say what you want. Are you going to tell me to make a wish too? Or ask me to worship you?”
Hyeonji’s face twisted in a grotesque way.
A hideous expression, like a monster that doesn’t understand human facial anatomy straining to imitate a smile.
“I’m not here to ask for wishes or worship. Since you’ve come this far into a place the administrators can’t interfere with, how about we take a little drive without worrying about anything else?”
The next instant, I was sitting in the back seat of a swaying vehicle.
Up front, Jang Hyundeok—his whole body blooming with flowers—was driving.
“Wow, we can even go for a drive like this. This is great.”
“While we’re at it, change the scenery too, will you?”
Beyond the window, a preposterous sight unfolded.
Weirdly warped images, flowers, letters blanketing the air, numbers, hanja, then fluorescent tiles again, crumpled and smeared humans, letters, numbers, light, color, noise.
A dizzying backdrop that makes your stomach lurch just to look at it.
I don’t know where this is, but it’s definitely a space the developers didn’t intend.
“Aww, wizard, I can’t do that. I can make a few characters, assign simple rules to them, or discard characters that have outlived their use, but space isn’t my department.”
“You just changed the space.”
“Because we’re outside the management area, I can alter some states and properties, but I don’t have permission to change the background texture. That background is just changing at random. Does that make sense to you?”
“Roughly.”
“Aha, good.”
“Thanks for using a skin I’m familiar with, but you don’t have to, okay? How about you just go with some sufficiently bland, random NPC?”
“Oh come on, wizard, why are your tastes so picky?”
Saying that, Jang Hyundeok turned his head to look at me.
Jang Hyundeok, his face covered in golden blossoms.
I could more or less guess what this was.
Same situation as when I got dragged into the domain of the King of a Myriad Coins.
The monster borrowing Hyeonji’s and Jang Hyundeok’s looks is probably—
“Hey, [Source of Life]. Where did Park Gwangrim go?”
“Mmm, he’s having his own conversation. He was a lot more receptive than I expected.”
“Park—no.”
If I tell it to hand over Park Gwangrim or Jang Hyundeok, it’ll count as making a wish and demand a price.
“Park Gwangrim and Jang Hyundeok. They’re both your friends, right, wizard?”
“No, not friends. I don’t have things like friends. They’re NPCs I use.”
“Hmmm—”
Jang Hyundeok’s eyes looked at me.
A cold sweat trickled down the back of my neck.
“Really? They looked like friends.”
It was clearly Jang Hyundeok’s face, but the feeling was eerie, like an insect that can’t grasp emotion staring at me.
“Yeah. Whatever you do to them has nothing to do with me.”
In [Cthulhu World], you must not make precious things like friends or lovers. The moment you declare such a thing, this grotesque world will take what’s precious to you, break it, defile it, humiliate it, and then hand it back with a laugh.
I don’t have friends.
That’s the stance I have to keep holding.
I lay sideways along the back seat and said,
“Ah, whatever. Do what you want. Nice chair. I was tired anyway—I’ll just grab a nap here.”
The location shifted to a hospital bed in the [House of Healing].
Only the bed remained the same; the background was a space shot through with eye-aching bright noise.
Gokhwejul looked down at me lying on the bed.
“Amusing. But I hope you won’t misunderstand. I’m not here to demand a wish or submission from you.”
“Then what do you want to do? Make a scene until I go crazy like that elephant before?”
“We’d like to ask you to make a wish.”
What kind of nonsense is that?
I pushed myself up and sat on the bed, facing Gokhwejul.
“What wish?”
“I’ll give Jang Hyundeok and Park Gwangrim back. Come to Busan.”
“I was going to Busan whether you told me to or not. I might’ve made a stop on the way.”
Gokhwejul formed a bizarre smile like the one [Source of Life] had on Hyeonji’s face.
“If that’s your plan, just do exactly that.”
“And then what happens?”
“You’ll help Jang Hyundeok grow further.”
Gokhwejul’s face aged rapidly.
Wrinkles and a beard appeared, and his frame grew a bit larger.
I’d never seen the design before, but it was a look you could call “Jang Hyundeok, older.” Is this what the kids meant when they said “the director”?
“What are you talking about?”
“As I said earlier, I—and we—do the work of keeping this game running smoothly. We make characters and assign roles.”
“So?”
“How was Jang Hyundeok? He’s a child I made. A very special child, wasn’t he?”
“No. He was a fool who lacked tact and only said things that turned people’s stomachs. If you mean special in that he was exceptionally stupid, I can agree.”
“Correct. Jang Hyundeok was originally assigned about that level of capability and set to perform a role fitting that level.”
He tapped his own forehead with a fingertip, then continued.
“To tell the truth, I had no interest in you. Because of you, the plan to bring down my true body in Sokcho failed. So I decided to proceed with my second plan.”
“Second plan?”
“Yes. Because of you, I spent far too many resources. I needed to rally my precious children just to secure supply.”
So that’s why Jang Hyundeok moved to Ansan for that damned sleep therapy?
“But when I opened the lid, I was shocked. Jang Hyundeok—that child gained power beyond what I allocated.”
“That wasn’t power I gave him. The [King in Yellow] did.”
“Correct—but the reason he stepped outside his role, had a special experience, and gained special power was entirely because he met you.”
“...”
“So I decided to convert Jang Hyundeok from mass-produced to special. Good, yes?”
“I told you I don’t care what happens to Jang Hyundeok.”
“To preserve his individuality as a named NPC, all NPCs of the same type will be discarded. Please take my Jang Hyundeok and continue your adventure as you have.”
“Hold on—what did you just say?”
“Yes, that is my wish. Please raise Jang Hyundeok further. Make him grow into someone more special and one-of-a-kind in this world.”
“No, idiot. What do you mean, ‘discard NPCs of the same type’!?”
[Source of Life] twisted its smile into something grotesque and asked back,
“Is getting an answer to that question your wish?”
“You piece of trash...”
I snapped my mouth shut.
“Now then, return to the management area. The administrators will be troubled that I spirited the protagonist away without a word. I look forward to your continued efforts to keep this world from ending.”
