Chapter 105: The Restorer (1)

Seoul just before dawn. An alley near Sadang Station.

It was still too early for office workers to be heading to work.

Dozens of vehicles completely surrounded the Governance.

Shielded from outside view.

Personnel wearing protective suits kept carrying enormous body bags.

Black water dripped from the bags.

Because chemicals that blocked the stench were continuously being sprayed around them, the smell did not spread far.

"Ugh...!"

But Su-myeon, who had been right in the middle of it, could not endure it and kept retching in a corner.

Normally, he would have endured it somehow, but today the disgust truly crossed the line.

And it was not just Su-myeon.

If anything, merely clutching a utility pole and retching counted as a mild reaction.

Ju-hee and Jae-hak, who had been vomiting as though they were about to throw up their intestines, had outright fainted and collapsed.

Hwi-yeon, her face deathly pale, was barely breathing with an oxygen mask on.

Even Han-su could not endure it and abruptly went out to buy a bottle of soju, then drank straight from the bottle in one go.

The surroundings were in such an awful state that even the smell of alcohol was preferable as a way to cover it.

"......."

It had been exactly one hour since a massive number of corpses had appeared in the basement of the Governance.

The exact same time the group escaped from the ghost story.

The various kinds of corpses filling the Governance basement were, in fact, mostly already so rotten that they had nearly collapsed into mush.

Skeletons whose bones had been bent excessively, as though they had undergone human experimentation, and skin and flesh that streamed down at the slightest touch.

The smell of hundreds of corpses rotting at the same time was something no human could endure.

Calling it a stench was not even enough to describe how horrific the scene was.

No matter how much their stomachs had strengthened after seeing and experiencing all kinds of things inside ghost stories, this was on an entirely different level.

Many of the National Intelligence Service employees in protective suits going in and out of the basement also could not endure it and had to leave.

Even so, before ordinary civilians could notice anything.

Only their determination to resolve everything quickly before dawn barely kept them moving.

'Cheshire really got the best deal.'

After even having the wounds on the soles of his feet stitched up and ending up in a wheelchair, Cheshire had been sent straight to the infirmary.

Mu-yeon had casually mixed in with him and was resting there too.

His injuries were serious, but because they had resulted from his own carelessness, it was a little difficult to sympathize with him.

"Han-su. Do you have any of that left?"

Su-myeon, who had been blankly turning things over in his head, gestured toward Han-su.

The soju bottle was nearly empty from Han-su drinking straight from it.

But it looked as though there might still be one mouthful left if he tilted it all the way, so Su-myeon took it and spat it out after swishing it around his mouth like mouthwash.

"Excellent."

In the middle of that chaos, Jang Bok-eum praised Su-myeon.

Yes. He praised him.

'Crazy bastard....'

Was that really the first thing to say in this situation?

No, was a superior who prioritized encouraging his employee even in a situation like this actually a good superior?

With an exhausted face, Su-myeon looked at Jang Bok-eum, who was fully dressed in a suit.

Compared to him, Su-myeon's appearance was an absolute mess.

He had been soaked through in some unknown liquid, splattered with dark substances whose origin he did not want to know, and drenched in sweat on top of that.

In the end, unable to hold back his twisted mood, Su-myeon answered.

"Yes. Thaaank you."

Jang Bok-eum did not seem to care much about the sarcastic tone of someone who had been rolling around at the scene.

It probably was not an appropriate attitude toward a superior.

'So what.'

Because there was nothing Jang Bok-eum could do about Su-myeon.

Su-myeon was certain that he was someone who had entered a ghost story before.

Until now, it had only been a suspicion, but today made it certain.

'Because he remembered and carried out what I asked for even while I was inside a ghost story.'

What if Jang Bok-eum had never entered a ghost story?

There was no way this many people could have been dispatched this quickly today.

Because before entering the ghost story, Su-myeon had already asked him to keep personnel on standby.

Even though it had only been a brief verbal request over the phone.

"Director, you weren't late either."

He had not forgotten that request, had assigned this many agents the moment the incident occurred,

and had even prepared himself so he could come at any time.

Taking all of that into account, this was no longer a suspicion but certainty.

Jang Bok-eum remembered Governance agents even after they entered ghost stories.

"It was something you personally asked me to do. I could hardly allow a problem to arise and embarrass myself, could I?"

The Director answered rather smoothly.

But why did those words sound strangely prickly and uncomfortable?

As though he were saying, You did this to test me, so I gladly played along.

'Am I being overly cautious?'

Of course, his mind kept telling him there was no reason to be wary of the man.

And yet his feelings kept building an inexplicable sense of displeasure and hostility toward him.

They said even a bad feeling could be a red light sent by your ancestors.

With shamans now appearing and making a fuss too, there was no reason not to trust his own instincts.

"You've produced results beyond expectations, so your actual authority within the Governance will increase as well."

Through this incident, White Night Land and The Mountain of the Red Cloak had officially been brought to an end.

What they learned while collecting the corpses was that all the people from the city had turned into wolves as well.

Familiar clothes and belongings had been found on corpses believed to be the originals of the wolf monsters whose limbs had been bent backward.

What had happened to them after the mountain burned that caused all of them to become infected and turn into wolves?

All Su-myeon could do was speculate, so he decided not to think too deeply about it.

Instead, Su-myeon brought up something else.

"By any chance, did you read this report in advance?"

"Yes. I looked through some of it."

"Then you saw that a shaman was involved too."

The hardest part of investigating ghost stories was always finding their entrances.

This incident had confirmed that a shaman could identify the energy around one, so it had been meaningful.

"Can we hire shamans too?"

"......If necessary, we should make use of them. Do you not already possess that much authority?"

After saying that, Jang Bok-eum did not remain at the scene any longer and left first.

Perhaps Sa-rin had waited in front of the hospital all night, because she only arrived at the Governance much later.

Apparently, she had no car, so she was late because she had waited for the first bus....

"You used it well. The hospital is probably all right too."

Waiting blindly instead of calling a taxi at that hour.

Sometimes her behavior made her seem a little lacking in common sense.

But separate from that innocent behavior, the moment Sa-rin saw Su-myeon, she said exactly that.

It seemed she could sense the absence of the talisman without checking.

"...More importantly, are you really all right?"

At a glance, Su-myeon did not appear to have any injuries.

But his appearance was such a mess that Sa-rin examined him again with a serious expression.

Forget all that. He just wanted them to let him sleep.

Seeing the expression on Su-myeon's face, which made everything look bothersome, Sa-rin also seemed a little relieved.

After checking one by one that Ju-hee, Hwi-yeon, and everyone else were safe.

She insisted on confirming that she had permission and then crawled down into the basement.

She probably wanted to personally check what kind of situation had occurred....

"Bleeergh!"

As expected, before even ten seconds had passed, she came back out retching.

Even if she was a shaman, all she did was see and hear things.

She simply looked like a twenty-one-year-old girl who acted before thinking.

Was hiring her... really the right choice...?

"Seriously...."

What an unreliable shaman.

Perhaps because she had gone hungry while waiting for them all night, Sa-rin only made gagging noises without actually bringing anything up.

"For today, just go home, and come back later. It looks like there are more things we need to confirm with each other."

After dry-heaving until tears welled in her eyes, Sa-rin nodded.

Judging by how even her ears had turned red, she seemed to know that she looked pathetic right now.

"Thank you. Really, really, thank you."

Not long after Sa-rin left, Young-cheol also came looking for Su-myeon.

It was because Jae-hak, who had gone straight to the infirmary, had regained consciousness.

Only after seeing Jae-hak return safely did Young-cheol finally relax, repeatedly expressing his gratitude.

Losing consciousness for a short while had only been the result of mental shock, accumulated fatigue, malnutrition, and several other problems overlapping.

For the moment, there was nothing physically wrong with Jae-hak.

"Thank you.... For going through such unbelievable things......."

Jae-hak remained dazed for a long while, as though he could not believe the sight of reality before him again.

But at the very least, he was well enough to walk over on his own feet and express his overwhelming gratitude to Su-myeon.

"It isn't easy to enter a place like that in order to save someone.... And the things you did in there too. Truly, truly, thank you for everything."

The utility poles and power lines stretching along the alley.

The noisy commotion of people and even the dirty scenery of the old, worn-down street.

For Jae-hak, who had been trapped for so long inside a strange ghost story, everything was a beautiful sight he was grateful for.

"Why don't the field teams leave the rest to us, go wash up, and get some rest?"

Du-pal, who had been moving around busily, spoke to the field team members sprawled here and there.

It was not as though they had to write the report immediately.

At least Han-su and Hwi-yeon were relatively fine, with only some dust covering them, but the others were different.

Leaving aside Cheshire, who had been dragged to the infirmary because of the wound on his foot, Ju-hee looked just as much of a mess as Su-myeon.

"That sounds right."

Su-myeon forced his heavy body upright.

All the corpses in the basement had already been cleared away, and only personnel working to remove the smell and disinfect the area were moving around busily.

A few ordinary people who started their days early were also passing by nearby.

But by now, there was nothing strange enough for those people to notice.

The corpses and the masses that were difficult to describe had already been removed first.

It merely looked as though they were carrying out an unusually thorough cleaning.

Su-myeon watched the scene for a moment, then stood up.

***

After returning home, Su-myeon suffered from a lingering feeling of filthiness that would not disappear no matter how hard he scrubbed his body.

It no longer seemed to smell, but somehow, it still felt unpleasant.

Only after showering about three times did Su-myeon collapse onto the living-room sofa and fall asleep almost as though he had fainted.

Giggle-

The dream he entered after falling asleep as though losing consciousness had a peaceful and gentle atmosphere for the first time in a long while.

A vast plain stretched out, covered in fields of flowers with soft petals of many colors.

The sunlight warmed his body so gently that even though he knew it was a dream, he felt sleepy.

Children who looked about kindergarten age ran around and played there, filling the place with cheerful chatter and laughter.

And at the center of those children stood a woman with long black hair, wearing long pure-white clothes.

She was too far away for him to make out her features, but her silhouette made him think she must be quite beautiful.

Even the children's chatter sounded like the chirping of mountain birds, so Su-myeon closed his eyes despite knowing it was a dream.

He's sleeping-!

Shh, he's sleeping...!

At some point, the chatter had come right up beside his ears.

"You've worked hard."

With those words, Su-myeon's consciousness faded away once again as though he had fallen into a deep sleep.

It might have been his imagination.

But the voice sounded similar to the woman who had cried out for help while submerged underwater.

"......."

After sinking into a deep sleep like that for a long while, Su-myeon did not wake again until the middle of the night.

After blankly going over the dream for a moment, Su-myeon felt something strange and looked at his hands again.

He had not suffered any wounds that could truly be called injuries, but after being thrown around so much, he had accumulated more scratches and bruises, large and small, than he could count.

"......."

But now, every single one of them had completely disappeared.

And considering how exhausted he had been, he had been certain he would suffer from muscle pain.

Yet now that he had slept deeply and woken up, his entire body felt refreshed and completely fine.

"......I'm completely healed."

It was something to be grateful for.

No, in truth, he did not even know who he was supposed to be grateful to.

A faint chill ran over Su-myeon's skin.