“Was there anyone who broke a rule?”
“There was.”
Feeling a flicker of impatience, Park Jumi leaned toward Im Huiyeong and pressed him.
“Who broke which rule? What happened?”
“Amina stepped forward with her left foot. A television appeared.”
At that, Park Jumi gave a briefly embarrassed smile. How much of the story did we skip? I don’t understand a thing.
“I must have rushed you. Sorry— could you explain step by step? First, who is Amina?”
“One of the guests who was there. A woman, a fixer from Canada, and she said she is a shaman who serves the General Bodhisattva.”
“Hold on. The General Bodhisattva part is unrelated to the pension— meaning that’s just Amina’s personal background, right?”
“Yes. Amina Felton. She entered on a work visa, so there should be records.”
When Park Jumi searched for the name Amina Felton, she found the entry in the Administration’s database.
There were a few photos too.
Short brown hair slicked straight back. Oversized Boeing sunglasses and a pipe. Clothing like a customized military uniform.
“Is this her?”
“Yes. That’s right. She was dressed exactly like that then.”
Fixers’ outfits are generally like this, differing only in degree.
For ritual, tactical, or psychological reasons, they roam the city in looks estranged from everyday life.
Shaking her head briefly, Park Jumi steered him back to the pension.
“What do you mean Amina stepped with her left foot? So there was movement?”
“Correct. We had to move to make straw dolls.”
Park Jumi couldn’t help knitting her brow.
It gets worse and worse.
“From now on you’ll do a simple craft. Call it the thirteenth rule. While waiting for pasta, you must make straw dolls.”
When the Manager said that, the Employee stepped forward and led people into an empty room beside the living room.
To me it all felt improvised and abrupt—
but the other guests were somehow... well, practiced.
Can you imagine the uncanny mood?
As if brainwashed, they accepted an unending string of absurd demands without resistance.
“Everyone, now— this way! Ah, right foot first! Right foot, right foot!”
Cheerfully guiding us, the Employee suddenly cried out in alarm.
Ah— the right foot?
I didn’t get to explain because I broke off mid-sentence, but it was another rule the Manager had just listed.
The eleventh rule:
When moving, you must step with the right foot first.
“Damn it! That’s too much! Obviously left foot first is common sense!”
That was Amina, the one I mentioned. She punched the air and shouted.
Someone had indeed broken a rule, but the consequences were not as catastrophic as I had feared.
Honestly, at the time—
I suspected a risk on the level of your head exploding the moment you broke a rule.
But that didn’t mean there was no problem.
A strange sound began.
Um...
A thin hiss— then a chchchzzzt kind of sound.
Yes.
Static like what you hear while tuning a radio.
“Ugh, it’s a television!”
That line came from the short woman beside me.
At the time I only thought she looked familiar; later I realized she was the reporter who’d fainted when she saw our team leader at Headquarters.
You can find the exact entry if you check the access log; her name was Gafu... something.
When I looked where she pointed, eight old analog televisions were stacked up.
There had been nothing there before.
It was a confused situation, but it wasn’t a mistake. Televisions that hadn’t been there had suddenly appeared.
“Senior, do not look!”
Jinwoo shouted that, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the screens.
Because what those televisions showed— was me.
On screen, I slowly raised my hand... and began gouging out my own eyes.
Just watching it made a surge of revulsion boil up.
But a bigger problem was that, before I knew it, my own hand was slowly... moving toward my eyes.
Left as it was— my eyes would probably have...
But with a thunderous shout came a clear jingle of bells.
“Attention!”
I snapped back to myself.
It was Amina. She shook a ritual bell used by shamans and jolted me awake.
Then Jinwoo’s voice followed.
“That’s an electronic device too, I say!”
“Electronic device?”
Soon I realized I had broken a rule.
There was a rule not to look at electronic devices, wasn’t there?
Yes, the sixth rule.
I had thought it a trick to block smartphone use and cut off contact with the outside, but it wasn’t that.
The warning that they could not guarantee safety if you broke a rule— was true.
The Manager spoke.
“A fourteenth rule has just been created. Do not touch the faucet! And do not touch or drink any liquid coming from a faucet.”
No sooner had he said it... than a roaring sound came.
Pipes and faucets suddenly formed in the living room.
About this high? Yes, maybe fifty centimeters.
Like the televisions, they were things that hadn’t existed a moment before.
Not one but eight or so? It was chaotic, so I can’t say for sure, but about that many.
“Get away from the faucet!”
The Manager stretched his left hand— which had turned into tendrils— and shoved a man in a suit.
As the man tumbled grotesquely across the floor, the faucet switched on.
With a gurgling rush, bright red blood and chunks of flesh poured from the faucet.
“You there! Help me!”
That was the cry of the man who had rolled.
The blood poured out entangled with flesh into a mucous-like slurry, but it piled up in the living room at frightening speed.
There was a rule not to touch the liquid from the faucets— so we had to help him.
But...
“Right foot!”
Someone must have stepped with the left.
With a rumble a door swung open— (it had definitely been a blank wall before; a door appeared out of nowhere) and a swarm of ugly antique dolls came bursting out.
“Fifteenth rule. Do not hug the dolls! And do not stare at them for an ext—”
“Hug me! Hug me!”
“Hug me! Hug me!”
That was the cry the hideous dolls let out. Arms spread wide, they clamored at us to hold them.
“I think I’m starting to grasp how this proceeds.”
If you break a rule, an anomaly occurs.
Then a rule is established to block interaction between that anomaly and people.
Kneading her lower lip with a fingertip, Park Jumi murmured.
“I think there was a ritual with a similar pattern in a previous report... hmm. Pasta... hmm... Ah, sorry. Talking to myself.”
“It’s fine.”
Im Huiyeong nodded with a warm, comfortable smile.
She returned the smile, but Park Jumi felt a strange awkwardness.
“After going through all that, how is he this intact?”
Park Jumi’s work requires a very broad set of expertise.
The more precious the agent’s information— the more likely they witnessed a horrific scene, and such agents rarely have intact minds.
So why is Im Huiyeong speaking this clearly and coherently?
With that thought, Park Jumi decided to probe him carefully.
“It could be risky, but...”
Im Huiyeong looks like a soft, pillowy woman, but in the latest strength test she recorded a one-hand grip of 350 kg.
There’s no comparing her to Yang Seoho, of course, but even with those thick fingers she could probably rip Park Jumi’s head off.
Fully braced, Park Jumi spoke slowly.
“If the rules can be observed somehow— then you could have gotten out, right? In a sense, I’m thinking it might have been relatively easy to solve.”
But Im Huiyeong only gave a bitter smile.
“I thought so too.”
“Was there some other problem?”
“No. I mean I took it lightly— just as you said.”
The liquid flooding the living room at incredible speed— it was probably blood—
someone else stepped with the left foot to avoid it.
And some people didn’t avoid the liquid at all.
Even though we had a group trained to handle situations like this, we fell into panic fast.
Someone screamed, someone ran around in confusion, someone triggered an ability in a completely wrong direction.
“Junior! Give up! Not with these numbers! Abandon a few! Let those who will die, die! The plan assumed that from the start!”
“Ignore that crazy clock man!”
“You son of a— listen to me! It’s impossible to keep every single thing!”
In an instant the anomalies multiplied, and rules sprang up to match their number.
The pension’s layout shifted without end like a grotesque puzzle box, and ridiculous phenomena kept happening.
Outside the window, huge eyeballs poured down like rain, and a clown with a chainsaw started strutting around the living room. Of course the clock-headed man caught the clown and dragged it up to the second floor— up to that point we could just barely hold on.
But when gravity’s direction swung ninety degrees, I had no idea how to respond.
The new rules, too, rose to a level that made no sense.
“The thirty-sixth rule. From now on you may not say words that contain the consonant mieum— the Hangul letter for m. I am an exception, so don’t mind it when I say it.”
“What did you say?”
Whoever said that broke the thirty-sixth rule and the fifth at the same time.
A question. The fifth rule: do not ask questions.
The Manager, with the Employee, tried somehow to make us finish the straw dolls—
Straw dolls?
I still don’t know why we had to make them. I couldn’t tell what they had to do with pasta.
“We can protect you in the worst case only if you make them! I’ll block that! Make the straw dolls now! Ah, right foot!”
It seemed the Manager couldn’t move from where he first stood, let alone cast.
Yes, Jinwoo speculated it was because he was deploying a high-density ritual formula that affected the entire space.
“The thirty-seventh rule. Ah, I really think we can’t make it this time. Chef! Status?”
“Not yet!”
“Damn it. Blown again.”
In the end, the Manager raised the pocket watch from his belt.
Im Huiyeong paused.
“What is it?”
“What happened after that... I don’t really understand.”
“Pardon?”
In an uncertain tone, Im Huiyeong said:
“Either a day passed, or we went back a day.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everything reset.”
A quiet living room.
Gone wounds.
Gone bloodstains.
It wasn’t exactly identical.
This time I was sitting on a sofa too.
And though no one told me, I had a strange certainty that a day had passed.
“Damn it. Back to the start again! When do we finally get to eat that damned pasta!”
That was the old man in a cowboy outfit.
Kid the Gunman.
His real name was Hwang Incheol, right?
A bounty hunter who appeared at “that disaster” site in Gijang County, Busan.
Not understanding the situation, I tried to ask people a question, but the short woman next to me— the reporter whose name is Gafu-something— whispered to me.
“Um... it’s the fifth day.”
I answered, “What?”
“The fifth. I don’t know what happened to time, but a day just passed.”
At that, Bae Jinwoo agreed.
“Senior. Soon a new guest will arrive, and it will be six thirty-three.”
“Six thirty-three?”
“Yes. It’s your first time just now, but for me it’s the third. I think I arrived here three days earlier than you, I say.”
Knock, knock.
It was a knock at the front door.
The ninth guest had arrived.
