"Was this really something that actually happened?"
In Busan, a [Laughing One] wearing Cheongho’s face was destroyed only three weeks ago. Of course, the time since we last saw Jeong Hyuna is even longer than that...
The Jeong Hyuna who appears in Ga Pureum’s memory keeps raging, bursting into a metallic cackle.
An iron crowbar comes flying without hesitation.
[whooom—]
That’s not the handwork of an ordinary schoolgirl. A hit like that would one-shot a non-combat NPC like Ga Pureum.
[bang!]
"Miss! Stop! Please, stop!"
Chae Taewon’s voice. Did Chae Taewon block it?
This is Ga Pureum’s memory. Her eyes are looking off in a random direction, so nothing can be confirmed properly.
[clatter—]
The iron crowbar in Jeong Hyuna’s hand wriggles in her grip like a “snake” and coils around Ga Pureum’s neck. Did Jeong Hyuna awaken an ability in that brief moment? Nirvana’s side effects can include the blossoming of an ability, but—
[crackle!]
Severe noise tears through Ga Pureum’s memory.
Confusion. It looks like Ga Pureum suffered a mild delirium.
Dizziness. A spinning view.
Damn it, I’m getting motion-sick.
A completely different place.
"Uwaah! I don’t know! I got lost again!"
I don’t know what order these memories are arranged in, but this happened recently.
Because this is Jangmyeongsan.
After stomping her feet for a moment, Ga Pureum pulls an aroma pipe from her bag and inhales that ghastly tuberose scent.
"Phew. That calms me."
Ga Pureum’s view jitters for a moment in a weird way. She’s rolling her eyeballs in an odd pattern.
"That way?"
Ga Pureum abruptly picks a direction with no basis or context at all.
At the edges of her vision, the spidery legs of some nasty, ominously nodding thing. Suspicious shadows. Viscous drips of slime.
It isn’t that a bug is clinging to her eyelid.
No—one is. Servants of the Abyss, spider-like things, are crawling across Ga Pureum’s mind.
Randomly walking, Ga Pureum is guided by strands of web and grotesque insects.
‘Amazingly,’ ‘by chance,’ she slips neatly through the weak point of the ward and reaches the Hungry House.
Damn it. So that’s what this was.
The ward guarding the Hungry House isn’t perfect.
To seal everything off completely would cost too many resources, and we’d have to abandon our linkage to public infrastructure.
All the ward cuts off is hostile entities, nothing more.
Like now—when something with “goodwill” latches on and seeps in indirectly—you can’t stop that.
In the end, Ga Pureum reaches the Hungry House.
By coincidence, at an hour when both I and Jang Hyundeok were away.
"Who... are you?"
Heo Sanghyun’s voice, steeped in the rancor of the dead.
His body’s outline is so strangely faint it’s hard to gauge his build.
Jet-black hair, dark clothing, the gloomy pallor veiling his eyes... all of it blends with the yin energy of the Hungry House so naturally it’s ominous.
It’s an utterly grotesque sight, as if only a corpse-white face and the two eyeballs clinging to it are floating through the dark.
A big cold hand shoots out without a sound and takes hold of the Hungry House’s door.
"Uh... uh..."
Physiological revulsion and instinctive fear slowly rake the back of Ga Pureum’s neck and her ankles.
Ga Pureum, unable to bear it, slowly backs away. Death tangled with darkness—stealing a human shape—is insulting life!
Heo Sanghyun rolls his already big eyes wider and wider.
"KyAAAAAA!"
Ga Pureum’s horrible scream. A desperate scream to summon help.
"Uwaaaaaaah!!"
Heo Sanghyun screams back, in sync with her.
‘Poor thing...’
Mr. Sanghyun panicked. Looks like Ga Pureum’s sudden scream startled him.
Heo Sanghyun (36, pension caretaker)
Are you truly all right?
I’m relieved. I do manage this pension, but my master—no, the owner—is someone else. Only the title is in my name.
What kind of person is my master?
They are my very life. More precious and important than anything I possess...
But as with all living things, they are precarious—someone who could vanish at any time.
Ga Pureum sticks her head out toward the death-like, nihilistic Heo Sanghyun and asks a question.
"Your most precious person? Do you truly think so?"
"...Pardon?"
Those bizarre shadows keep circling the edges of Ga Pureum’s view. Thin, repulsive somethings like spider legs wriggle and squirm as they manipulate her.
"So—this ‘master’ you mentioned. Is that person really, Mr. Heo Sanghyun—truly your precious person? Really? From the start? Why? Since when? Before that, wasn’t there anyone else who ever made you feel that way? How is it? Why did that person become the most precious to you?"
"Hmm..."
"Thirty-six, you say? That’s odd. I’ve got paperwork I obtained, you see. Oh my? It lists you as forty."
The age listed on the document means nothing. Heo Sanghyun died at thirty-six, and since then he’s been a being unrelated to aging or growth.
"Well, that’s not the important part. I’m more curious about this. Where are the other people written here? A wife. And a daughter in her early teens, it says. Aren’t they precious to you?"
"Daughter...? My... wife?"
"Yes, look. It’s written right here."
Heo Sanghyun peers at the ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) papers Ga Pureum holds out, looking bewildered.
"A wife? A daughter?"
Ga Pureum brings both hands to her mouth with theatrical fuss.
"Right? Strange, isn’t it?"
She doesn’t stop talking.
"When was the last time you saw your family?"
Her words are too sharp, prodding at Heo Sanghyun’s mind.
"Don’t you want to see your family?"
Cut it out, you maniac.
The one speaking right now isn’t Ga Pureum.
A huge, pitch-black spider hiding deep in Ga Pureum’s memory tugs the strand.
Pulled by that strand, Ga Pureum giggles theatrically—and reaches out a hand.
"Oh? You’ve got something odd hanging under your shirt. What is this?"
[tap]
Ga Pureum strokes the [Ancient God’s Bright Mirror] dangling on Heo Sanghyun’s chest.
It functions as a magical fetter, fixing Heo Sanghyun’s soul to his body.
"A magical shackle? A binding? You’re Mr. Heo Sanghyun, right? Since when have you been in this house? And why? For what reason is your master keeping you here?"
"M-my master... is not like that. They are kind and righteous..."
No, I am neither kind nor righteous.
"But then why are they keeping you here? If they’re so kind and righteous, shouldn’t they be letting you meet your family?"
Heo Sanghyun can’t even push away this small woman who’s half his size; he just shrinks his body.
"I... that is, I..."
Ga Pureum leans to his ear and whispers. On her breath, an alluring tuberose scent spreads.
"Could it be you’re being deceived?"
Damn it, stop it now.
I don’t want to know any more. The Abyssal thing behind Ga Pureum wanted this from the start.
Its goal isn’t to steal or break something.
A shabby trap.
It only wanted to show me this sight, and to torment the people around me.
First, I have to break synchronization with Ga Pureum.
I extend my mana...
[System: The effect of ‘Feast’s Offering’ activates.]
[shlrrrp—]
Damn it, out of my way!
Ga Pureum’s memories wrap my mind like sticky spider silk.
Ga Pureum’s voice comes through.
"Kim Sinhwa?" "What’s wrong." "Watch a little more!" "More." "There’s an amusing—"
"Interview." "To conduct!"
A collage of words from different moments. A message cobbled together like an edited audio file.
I can’t get out.
[chirrrik—]
I’m dragged deeper inside the memories. Damn it! Let go! Stop!
"That hand. Are you all right?"
Ga Pureum points at Park Gwangrim’s hand.
"My hand?"
Park Gwangrim flusters and hides his hand.
"You’ve been trembling the whole time. Is there something you’re afraid of?"
"N-no. Nothing like that."
"Ahh—lots of people are like that. I know. You went through something shocking, didn’t you? Nirvana?"
That’s a side effect of overusing Nirvana.
Ga Pureum looks at the poor addict with a pitying gaze.
"Mm."
"And you mentioned your family earlier, right? But that’s strange. You came into money—so why not call your family to a safe place instead of... doing something else?"
"Sorry?"
"You said you’re working for Kim Sinhwa these days, right? Maybe your priorities have changed?"
"Priori... ties?"
"I’m not saying it’s definitely that. But you know those scary urban legends? Demons. Old beings. Uh... they call them something of the Abyss, too? Since the Great Upheaval twenty-three years ago, those terrifying monsters started showing up in our world."
"What are you talking about?"
"If you become a cultist who serves them, they say you forget what’s most precious to you. Those monsters seduce people—and make them use their whole lives for the demon. Perhaps—just perhaps. I’ve heard many frightening stories about this Kim Sinhwa, so I wonder... could it be that this ‘Kim Sinhwa’..."
"Mr. Kim Sinhwa is..."
"Could be an Abyssal entity? Disguised in human form to trick you, to bewitch you?"
"No, that’s not true. It can’t be..."
"Still, ten billion is a massive sum, isn’t it? Enough to consider retirement—so why—Mr. Gwangrim, why are you turning your back on the family waiting for you, leaving them in danger, and working for Kim Sinhwa? Perhaps..."
Ga Pureum leans closer to Park Gwangrim and whispers.
"Have you started to find Kim Sinhwa more precious than those bothersome—useless, lazy family members who clawed at your money—because he gives you money and recognizes your ability?"
[crackle!]
I move my mana to break out of this—
[System: The effect of ‘Feast’s Offering’ activates.]
The more Ga Pureum’s sticky, tangled memories thrash, the tighter they bind my mind like a web.
"Wow!" "So cute!" "Kim Sinhwa?"
"It’s still a long way to go." "Huh, deeper from here?" "To the depths!" "...we." "Shall we go?"
"Don’t you." "Want to know." "What Ga Pureum!" "...asked." "Your friends?"
"That Shin Woojin—could it be he died because of Kim Sinhwa? If he hadn’t gotten involved—if he hadn’t caused that trouble in Busan—wouldn’t none of this have happened? Innocent Koreans died, were hurt, turned into monsters, went mad. From a national security angle—couldn’t he be a very dangerous existence? Mm, that’s what I think."
"Maybe that was the scheme from the start? It’s a bit strange, isn’t it? If that Kim Sinhwa hadn’t made that demand of Hyuna’s father, maybe Hyuna’s father would never have gone through that."
"Ahh—I see. Chae Taewon—mm~ you’re a branch chief? You wished for Ms. Hyuna to become strong enough to lead this organization? Somehow that wish came true in a very odd way, didn’t it? How did it come to this?"
"Is it true? That accident—was it really just an accident? Or is he using that accident to control Director Mun Seunghee? If he has such an amazing ability, why couldn’t he prevent it in advance? What else did he ask of you? Eh? Yeonam Construction? Uh...? Did you want that too? What will he ask for next?"
"Hyunji, you say? What happened to those younger siblings? Why did that happen? Ordinarily your car wouldn’t have broken down, and you could have kept earning money steadily, right? But now, when you’re alone, you see ghosts, and when you go home, weird cult people come by, and huh? Those beloved siblings are gone. From what point did this start? Ah—the mage? That older brother? After you met him, did all of this begin?"
"By any chance—do you know the story called [Monkey’s Paw]?"
That’s what Ga Pureum says, and then she waits for her conversation partner’s reply.
But the man sitting across from her just stares off in the wrong direction without answering.
"It grants any wish, but always in the most horrific way—that demonlike object."
With Ga Pureum’s voice, the dangerous scent of tuberose fills the [Round Room] once more.
Beyond the wall of the cornerless, strange room—silently gazing toward where Kim Sinhwa is—Gong Isu answers in a very dry voice.
"How interesting."
