Chapter 11: Happy Playroom (1)

[11. Please keep the playroom bright at all times.]

Thanks to that, Su-myeon was able to use the vouchers he had received to buy useful items for his companions without any disagreement.

No matter how many useful things he carried himself, he still had only two hands and one body. If his companions were properly equipped as well, that would give him more ways to keep himself alive.

Taking comfort in that thought, Su-myeon let out a weary sigh after the long weapon-shopping session.

“Everyone, if you forget all the damn suffering I went through for this, then seriously.......”

“Never! I’ll never forget! I’ll definitely repay this debt. I promise!”

When Ju-hee stepped forward and loudly expressed her gratitude, the others nodded along as well.

“......You all really promised, right?”

Su-myeon did not miss the opportunity to drive the point home.

In Ellis Hotel, a promise was not something to be taken lightly, so having four or five people each owe him a debt was hardly a bad outcome.

“With what’s left, let’s buy some medicine and food.”

Since they had come this far, they might as well rest for a while and continue tomorrow.

The group, each of whom had obtained what they needed with his help, readily agreed with Su-myeon.

If they wanted to spend another day here, however, they would have to make it through midnight again.

“Those rules are all still in effect today too, right?”

No one answered Ju-hee’s question in particular, but none of them dared doubt the rules.

[4. At midnight, the lights will be turned off for approximately one minute for an inspection of the lighting system. During the blackout, please stop moving and remain quiet to prevent unexpected accidents.]

Remembering what had happened to Cheol-su, everyone spent that one minute at midnight visibly tense, clutching tightly to one another.

“.......”

They made it past midnight without incident.

The only problem was that all four of them were clinging to Su-myeon’s hands and arms.

Su-myeon felt deeply uncomfortable and uneasy, but for now, he consoled himself with the fact that they had survived that one minute safely.

Later, as he tried to sleep on the uncomfortable floor, Su-myeon found himself desperately missing the ordinary luxury of stretching out both legs on a comfortable bed.

[Balance: 60,073,100 won]

And the next day.

After checking his remaining voucher balance, Su-myeon quietly put away his phone.

The others had already spent all of their newly recharged vouchers early that morning, buying medicine and food for themselves.

Su-myeon, however, deliberately kept quiet about the considerable amount he still had left.

“Then, should we head up to the next floor now?”

At Ha-min’s question, everyone turned to look at Su-myeon.

Ah! This is so much pressure!

Su-myeon despaired when he realized that even Han-su was looking to him for an answer.

“......I guess we should. Everyone saw the stairs going up, right?”

The Shopping Mall had a simple layout, so finding the stairs had not been difficult.

Still, unlike before, Su-myeon paused in front of them and took several deep breaths.

“We’re going up.”

With Han-su solemnly taking the lead, the group climbed to the sixth basement floor.

The sixth basement floor.

In truth, this was the floor Su-myeon hated most in the entire hotel.

Not because of its difficulty.

It was simply the floor he found most psychologically unbearable.

“The atmosphere is different again.”

After climbing the stairs, Ju-hee looked around at the excessively colorful surroundings.

As always, a sign had been posted at the entrance.

[KIDS CLUB]

Ha ha ha ha.

Tee-hee-hee.

At the same time, children’s laughter and cheerful background music began echoing from every direction.

Right.

Damn it.

This is exactly why I hate this floor!

More than anything else, Su-myeon found monsters in the form of children to be the creepiest and most unpleasant.

Primary-colored structures surrounded them on all sides, almost dizzying to look at.

Harsh fluorescent lights shone down over endless pieces of playground equipment.

Ha ha ha ha.

Laughter came from nowhere, as though it were being played through hidden speakers.

The dazzling colors and cheerful brightness only made the complete absence of people feel even more grotesque.

“This gives me chills.......”

Everyone silently agreed with Ju-hee’s mutter as they slowly moved forward.

Horizontal bars, jungle gyms, seesaws, swings, and all manner of children’s play equipment lined both sides of the path.

The aging fluorescent lights cast a faint greenish hue over everything, while the strange humidity made them instinctively hunch their shoulders.

Should we just get through this as quickly as possible?

Su-myeon lowered his gaze as though checking the rules on his Heartphone and fell into thought.

Just then, a ball pit filled with brightly colored balls came into view, and groans escaped the group.

“Ugh.”

“This is the worst.......”

Su-myeon raised his head in surprise when he felt Ha-min grab hold of his clothes.

“Su-myeon, then...... this place is dangerous too, right?”

A single arm protruded from the middle of the ball pit.

It was a small, pale child’s arm, slightly dried out, stretched straight upward with its fingers twitching every so often.

It looked almost as though a child had fallen inside by accident.

And all the while, children’s laughter continued ringing noisily around them.

“Obviously. Don’t touch anything.”

Only then did Su-myeon realize that the others had all shrunk in on themselves with fear and were following closely behind him.

At least Han-su was still walking at the very front.

“Should we just find the stairs to the next floor like this?”

“......I suppose so.”

After giving Han-su an uncertain answer, Su-myeon briefly looked up.

At that exact moment, the lights flickered.

“Please, just don’t go out.......”

“Don’t say things like that!”

The instant Du-pal, who was walking in the middle of the group, muttered those words, Ha-min snapped at him.

Strangely enough, the group’s ordinary bickering helped ease the tension.

Trying not to lose his sense of reality, Su-myeon carefully scanned his surroundings.

(^-^)

Cheshire’s playful emoticon was still following them.

This place remained deeply unpleasant, but Su-myeon already knew how to get through it.

The only potential exception right now was—

That cat....

Even if Cheshire did not seem openly hostile toward him, Su-myeon still found it impossible to relax around him.

Just then, they arrived at a small ice cream shop decorated like a lounge.

The chairs and tables were all child-sized and looked painfully uncomfortable, while the shop itself stood completely empty.

Combined with surroundings so unnaturally spotless that there was not even a speck of dust anywhere, the place carried an unmistakable sense of wrongness.

“Let’s stop here for a moment and sort things out.”

When Su-myeon paused and looked around, Han-su brought the group to a halt.

Everyone had obtained basic supplies on the floor below, and each of them now carried a bag.

They all had Heartphones as well, but Su-myeon had deliberately refrained from teaching them how to use the Inventory.

They had not built up enough trust yet.

There was no telling what someone might hide inside it.

“I’m going to look around for a bit.”

At Su-myeon’s words, Han-su naturally moved to follow him.

“I’ll come with you.”

“No.”

Su-myeon rejected the offer immediately and lowered his voice.

“We need someone to watch the others so nobody does anything stupid.”

Everything that had happened so far had been caused by someone making an unexpected, reckless move.

No matter how many times Su-myeon warned them, he could not control everyone.

He had only said it as an excuse to separate Han-su from himself, but the reasoning was perfectly valid.

“......That makes sense. Understood.”

Han-su accepted Su-myeon’s explanation and stepped back.

Seeing Han-su remain there almost like a guard watching over the others, Su-myeon slowly moved away from the group.

Now that he had established this precedent, Han-su probably would not interfere whenever Su-myeon chose to act alone in the future either.

“.......”

After giving a vague wave to Ju-hee, who was watching him with concern, Su-myeon continued onward.

The children’s laughter, which he had gradually begun to get used to, grew louder the farther inside he went.

As he ventured deeper, light footsteps joined the sound, as though children were running around and playing nearby.

Yet not a single child was visible.

“Phew.......”

A full-fledged kids’ café.

Huge slides were scattered throughout the wide space beneath a high ceiling.

Despite the bright scenery and cheerful sounds, not a single living creature could be seen moving anywhere.

Amid that oppressive sense of dissonance, Su-myeon spoke to the emoticon trailing after him.

“Um. Cheshire......? Are you following me?”

Talking to a wall felt extremely strange.

Thankfully, however, it apparently was not an act of madness, because Cheshire slowly poked his head out from the wall.

“You can see me?”

“.......”

That was practically the standard line every ghost in a horror story used.

But hearing it from a cute-looking black cat doll left Su-myeon momentarily speechless.

“Of course...... No, more importantly.”

At times like this, if he politely answered every question, he would find himself swept along by some unidentified being before he even realized what was happening.

Su-myeon took control of the conversation instead.

“Why do you keep following me? I already received the item, and I don’t have any Rose Coins left.”

“Why can’t I follow you?”

Su-myeon fell silent again.

Where was he even supposed to begin explaining that?

Would Cheshire understand if he tried?

Was trying to have this conversation in the first place a mistake?

Just as Su-myeon noticed the pupils of the black cat doll’s wide-open eyes suddenly growing larger, Cheshire broke the brief silence first.

“I was trying to help......?”

Cheshire still spoke slowly.

His awkward, halting words came out at a sluggish pace, as though conversation itself were unfamiliar to him.

“But you already know the way. How to get out of here.”

Cheshire stared at Su-myeon with an expression that genuinely seemed unable to understand.

He even revealed his purpose without resistance, almost as though trying to prove that he was cooperating with Su-myeon.

“Why aren’t you leaving right away? I was curious, so I followed you.”

Cheshire had watched, however briefly, as Su-myeon dealt with everything so far.

If Su-myeon wanted to escape alone as quickly as possible, it did not seem impossible.

And that was true.

If he chose to abandon the entire group right now, Su-myeon could leave this place immediately.

But....

“I can’t run away by myself.”

“Why? Do you have to go together with the others?”

At Cheshire’s immediate question, Su-myeon rubbed the space between his brows.

“I mean, I can’t just abandon them, can I?”

If he left them behind like this, would they all die?

And if Han-su, the protagonist of this game, died in particular, what would happen to Su-myeon?

If the game had become reality, which came first?

The logic of reality, or the rules of the game?

But before any of those complicated questions—

“A person shouldn’t do that.”

A strange life-form.

No.

Was it even a life-form?

Either way, Su-myeon had no idea whether teaching basic ethics to a monster had any meaning.

He simply gave the most basic, fundamental answer he could think of.

At those words, Cheshire tilted his head.

The movement did not stop at a simple tilt. His head continued bending until it was nearly folded all the way over, making the sight deeply unnatural.

“A person shouldn’t do that?”

“Yes.”

As he answered, Su-myeon looked past Cheshire.

A familiar blue staircase came into view.

It was one he recognized well.

However, these were not stairs leading to the next floor.

They were the stairs leading up to one of the slides inside the kids’ café.

“But that one earlier did it.”

By “that one,” Cheshire was probably referring to Ki San-hyeok.

That bastard who treated other people like disposable tools.

After briefly looking around, Su-myeon shrugged.

“That’s why we say bastards like that are worse than beasts. At least I’m a better person than him.”

Cheshire seemed to think over Su-myeon’s words for a moment.

Then he simply slipped back into the wall.

This time, not even an emoticon appeared.

Is he gone......?

To be honest, Su-myeon had been hoping Cheshire might offer some meaningful help or perhaps another item.

Still, Cheshire losing interest in him entirely and disappearing was not a bad outcome either.

The fewer unexpected variables there were, the better.

He had driven off the monstrous entity that had been following him, so his primary objective had been achieved.

On top of that, he had confirmed the route.

His reconnaissance was complete as well.

SQUELCH, SCRAPE.

Just as Su-myeon turned around to head back toward the group, a much more tangible sound reached his ears.

It was not the laughter, the music, or the light footsteps that had been echoing constantly around him.

It was a wet, sticky sound of friction.

As though something enormous were being dragged across the floor....

“Su-myeon!”

An ominously urgent voice followed.

Fortunately, the one calling out to him was Ju-hee.

But even her voice could not hold Su-myeon’s attention.

The source of that slow, wet dragging sound had already seized his gaze.

Something began to emerge from behind the enormous slide.