Chapter 100: Dragon Palace Hospital (6)

6. Master of the Ghost Story

The being called the Dragon King in the old tale.

In order to prolong his own life, he endlessly absorbs the organs and body parts of survivors who fall into this place.

Because his body has grown grotesquely enormous as a result, he cannot properly control it, making him easy to escape from.

However, caution is required because he possesses high intelligence and controls the other monsters.

Cheshire seemed to think running away was not a viable option either.

“Won’t be easy to shake them~”

Agreeing with him, Su-myeon took a baseball bat from his inventory and handed it to Jae-hak.

Jae-hak reflexively grabbed it and looked at Su-myeon with a face soaked in tears.

“Get ahold of yourself! If you want to live, then all you have to do is act in order to survive.”

If they did not resist, no solution would ever present itself.

Su-myeon reloaded his magazine as he spoke.

“If something comes at you, just swing at it first.”

Most of the failed specimens had been made into nurses and therefore had small builds.

Besides, from the beginning, the only frightening thing about them was their grotesque appearance and the way they overwhelmed their victims through sheer numbers.

Individually, they were weak enough for an adult man to beat back with a bat.

If they could create an opening to break through now, then it was better to clean this side up completely.

“Let’s clear them out before we go.”

Even if they took them outside, in their current state they would die as soon as they returned to reality anyway.

If so, granting them eternal rest here so that the ghost story’s causality could at least be reduced beforehand was the right thing to do.

“......Okay.”

Ju-hee had already experienced something similar in The Witch’s Forest, so she steeled herself and tightened her grip on the crowbar.

The failed specimens approached like zombies, slow but moving in perfect unison as they filled the entire corridor.

For Su-myeon, they were excellent targets, like stationary targets stretched out before him.

Bang―!

Bang―!

On top of that, Su-myeon’s shooting seemed to be getting better and better.

Most of them took a single bullet directly in the center of the head and collapsed to the floor.

The sight of dozens of them filling the corridor as they approached was intimidating, but they were slow, and Su-myeon’s rate of fire was enough to roughly match the speed of their advance.

But they could not simply stand there forever.

“Let’s move little by little!”

Jae-hak, who had done nothing but tremble and cry until now, seemed to become somewhat encouraged once things reached this point.

As though finally releasing all the fear and resentment he had suppressed until now, he began swinging the baseball bat.

Most of those farther away were dealt with by Su-myeon, while the few that managed to get close were beaten down by Ju-hee, Cheshire, and Jae-hak with their weapons.

The failed specimens had their skin torn away into horrifying shapes and wires wrapped around their bodies.

They smashed their heads apart and guided them into the rest called death.

“It’s working. It’s working......!”

Just as Jae-hak cried out in exhilaration.

Beyond the cleared failed specimens, the elevator could be seen brightly lit.

The four hurried into the elevator, and from behind them came a strange, thunderous pounding sound, as though the Dragon King were roaring in fury.

They had no idea whether he would create something else or trigger another unexpected event.

As though he had completely forgotten all the times he had mocked this common horror cliché, Su-myeon hammered the elevator’s close button over and over.

If doing so could make the doors close even 0.1 seconds faster, he now understood exactly why people did it.

Clunk―

The elevator doors closed completely, and it slowly began moving.

Then, after enough time had passed for them to travel up exactly one floor.

Ding―

With a cheerful sound, the elevator doors opened once again.

“......?”

But the group did not immediately step out and instead hesitated for a moment.

This was the first floor now. The hospital lobby should have been here.

And the scene before them certainly looked like a hospital lobby, but....

“...What... happened to this place...?”

It was as though the entire lobby had been rotated ninety degrees clockwise.

A wall had become the floor.

And the ceiling and floor had become the two walls.

On top of that, shimmering water completely blocked the area in front of the elevator like a curtain.

Clear, blue water, like an aquarium.

“.......”

Su-myeon suddenly remembered his dream.

Light was pouring down from the lobby entrance far above, making the strange sense of déjà vu even stronger.

“We still have to get through the lobby entrance... to leave the ghost story, right?”

Su-myeon could not answer Ju-hee immediately.

This was something that had never happened in the game.

In the game, the ending had simply consisted of running through an ordinary lobby as fast as possible while avoiding the Dragon King’s tentacle-like blood vessels chasing after him, then escaping outside.

But for some reason, an entirely different landscape was now spread out before them.

“......Probably. That should be right.”

Su-myeon’s mind was still filled with the scene he had seen in his dream.

It felt as though that thing from his dream might be somewhere inside this water.

Something that had wandered beneath the surface with both of its eyes gouged out.

But even so, they could not remain here forever.

“......!”

At that moment, Cheshire recklessly stuck his head straight into the water and began mouthing something from inside.

“Huh?”

“What are you... saying?”

By now, they were almost getting used to Cheshire’s sudden bizarre behavior.

When Su-myeon and Ju-hee failed to understand him and asked again, Cheshire pulled his head back out, shook his wet hair vigorously, and said,

“I can breathe in there? Guess sound doesn’t carry through~”

At Cheshire’s words, Su-myeon could not help recalling his dream yet again.

At the same time, he steeled himself once more, reminding himself that there was simply no other choice.

Then a point he had overlooked while being consumed by those thoughts suddenly occurred to him.

“......Wait. Come to think of it.... This is water too, isn’t it?”

3―1) Fish with Twisted Faces

If ripples form on the surface of the water it inhabits, it detects them and approaches.

Avoid entering flooded areas whenever possible.

If entering becomes unavoidable, distract it elsewhere and lure it away before moving.

If caught, you may end up looking the same way by its hands.

At Su-myeon’s words, Ju-hee also remembered the rules, and her face turned pale.

Thanks to the light pouring in from the exit, something approaching from afar gradually became visible.

It was a school of fish that had detected the ripples caused when Cheshire stuck his head into the water.

And because there was no passage connected to the outside other than the elevator doors.

It was obvious that distracting them by throwing something elsewhere, as they had done the first time, would not be easy.

“Let’s move. Quickly.”

Su-myeon hurriedly gathered Jae-hak and reflexively drew a deep breath before jumping inside.

The peculiar resistance of water pressing against his entire body.

The sensation of moving by sweeping his arms and legs through it.

And yet, in complete contrast, he could breathe freely.

The clash of those unreal sensations, like something out of a dream, was disorienting, but this was no time to dwell on it.

As the four of them swam upward, the fish approaching from every direction began closing in as well.

'Damn it.'

They had never thought to ask one another beforehand, but now that he actually looked, the answer was obvious.

Ju-hee was the only one among them who knew how to swim.

Seeing the others falling behind, Ju-hee hurriedly grabbed Jae-hak and took charge of him.

Fortunately, things like waiting-room chairs were floating here and there, allowing Su-myeon to push and pull off them for momentum as he swam upward as quickly as possible.

But the fish, equipped with fins, approached the group even faster.

As they drew closer, their forms became clearly visible.

They looked like enormous marlins, but unmistakably human faces were attached to them.

Faces twisted in agony, exactly as their name suggested.

“......!”

Unfortunately, voices did not carry underwater.

Startled, Jae-hak said something, but only the bubbling sound of air disturbed the four people’s vision.

Through those bubbles, the first fish to reach them charged forward with its huge mouth stretched wide open.

Instead of teeth, its mouth was packed full of sharp surgical instruments.

Thump―

Fighting against the resistance of the water, Cheshire struck the approaching fish in the head with his knuckles, producing a heavy impact.

Its skull caved inward as though bursting, and the fish lost all strength and floated motionlessly.

But the moment they took down one.

Three more approached.

Jae-hak and Ju-hee tried to swing their respective weapons as well, but because they were underwater, the most they could manage was keeping the creatures from getting any closer.

They could not hold out like this for long.

'Damn it.'

Of all places. Of all places, they had to be underwater, making it difficult to use a gun the way he wanted.

He could not handle it as freely as usual, and there was also a risk of damaging it.

'No choice.'

He could worry about what came afterward when afterward arrived.

Inside a ghost story, surviving the immediate moment always came first.

Having made his decision, Su-myeon raised the muzzle of his gun to fire.

“......?”

Once again, that repeated sense of déjà vu struck him.

A strip of white fabric swept across his vision.

For a moment, he wondered whether it was an illusion or a hallucination, but it looked exactly the same through either eye.

And more than that, the cloth seemed to be protecting the group.

Just as it had in his dream, it curved around them in a circle.

For some reason, the fish could not cross beyond the white fabric and instead began hesitantly backing away.

Suddenly, Su-myeon felt heat from his pocket and flinched.

“......?”

Apparently, he was not the only one who felt it.

Ju-hee and Cheshire both looked startled at the same time and pulled something from their pockets.

The talismans Sa-rin had given them.

They had even forgotten they still had them.

'What the hell... is this?'

As Su-myeon took out his talisman, a pale, slender hand gently reached toward him.

Unlike the grotesque appearance it had possessed in his dream, the person wearing a white-and-red hanbok was an astonishingly elegant beauty.

There was not the slightest hint of life in her, however, and with her eyes closed, she almost looked like a mannequin.

'Does she... want this?'

In their current situation, they had no choice but to place their trust in the strange being that appeared to be helping them.

Su-myeon, Ju-hee.

And Cheshire as well.

When each of them handed over the talisman they carried, a faint flush seemed to return to the woman’s lips.

The hems of her clothing that had been surrounding them protectively began wrapping around the fish encircling them.

The fabric that had looked so light and delicate suddenly became like powerful chains.

It tightened violently around the fishes’ necks until, one after another, their heads dropped away like chopped fish.

The moment every fish around them died.

The woman in white vanished like a mirage.

“.......”

The group looked at one another in bewilderment, as though they had all just seen something unreal.

But they had no idea what might happen if they wasted any more time, so they hurriedly began swimming toward the exit again.

Even as they frantically worked their arms and legs, the confusion in their minds did not disappear.

Had the thing they had just seen really helped them?

As Su-myeon continued following the unbroken chain of thoughts, he finally remembered the end of the dream he had forgotten.

'She definitely asked me to help her.'

Could that have been the “spirit” Sa-rin had said originally inhabited Shinui Hospital?

He would have to ask her directly once they got out.

The exit was right in front of them now.

With that sense of relief, Su-myeon reached toward the lobby entrance where brilliant light was pouring in.

The moment he finally emerged from the water, the pressure in his ears cleared, and he heard the rest of the group gasping for breath.

Everyone wiped at the water obscuring their vision as they flailed awkwardly, trying to reach dry land.

The Governance agents who had been waiting for them should definitely have been here....

“...What is this?”

After finally dragging himself out of the water, Su-myeon let out a confused voice at the completely unexpected sight surrounding them.

The fact that none of the agents who should have been waiting for them were there was hardly the real problem.

The place they had emerged into was some unfamiliar pond he had never seen before.

And beyond the tall trees.

An old, small Ferris wheel glowed brilliantly with colorful lights.

That was the greatest problem of all—one that made absolutely no sense.