Chapter 12: Happy Playroom (2)

[12. Please do not make contact with a child without a guardian’s permission.]

Beyond the bright fluorescent lights, a massive body covered in sagging red skin dragged itself forward, crawling like an enormous caterpillar.

“Please help over here!”

Ju-hee rushed over and grabbed Su-myeon’s arm, only to spot the same thing a moment later.

Before she could scream, Su-myeon quickly clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Ha ha ha ha!”

The crawling mass of vivid red flesh began to laugh in a clear, childlike voice.

The red creature wriggled its body like an insect, and the folds of sagging skin covering its face made its features impossible to distinguish.

The only thing clearly visible was a gaping mouth from which a child’s laughter poured.

And inside that mouth was nothing but an empty void.

“Hngh.......”

Startled, Ju-hee seemed to understand what Su-myeon was trying to do and held her breath.

That monster was clearly reacting to sound.

“Ha...... ha ha ha.......”

Yet despite Ju-hee’s efforts to suppress even the sound of her breathing, the baby monster continued creeping closer.

Worse, as though it had already noticed them, its laughter gradually faded, and it tilted its head with apparent curiosity.

Could it even hear their pounding hearts?

Su-myeon and Ju-hee remained completely still, frozen where they stood.

“.......”

As its laughter dwindled to silence, the baby monster slowly turned its body.

Directly toward Su-myeon and Ju-hee.

“Run!”

Certain that it had found them, Su-myeon immediately grabbed Ju-hee and ran.

“What the hell happened?”

At Su-myeon’s shout, Ju-hee grimaced.

He had only been gone for about ten minutes.

What had happened during that brief interval was simple.

***

[FREE! Don’t leave any behind!]

A machine stood in one corner of the shop where the group had stopped to rest.

It looked like an ordinary soft-serve ice cream machine, with a brightly colored notice attached to it.

“Can we eat this?”

Before anyone could stop him, Du-pal, who had discovered the machine, reached out and touched it.

Ju-hee shot to her feet in alarm.

“How can you just touch things like that?!”

“No, I mean, it’s an ice cream machine.......”

Du-pal muttered, flustered.

But he had already pressed the button, and the machine began humming just like an ordinary appliance.

“Do you have any guarantee that ice cream is actually going to come out?”

“Still, most of the shops on the floor below were normal.... Most of them!”

At Du-pal’s complacent reply, Han-su and Ha-min, who had been watching, both sighed.

It was true that most of the shops downstairs had been normal.

But would this machine really fall under “most”?

Now that he had already touched it, all they could do was watch and see.

Tap.

Just then, something resembling an ice cream cone dropped into Du-pal’s hand, which he had been holding beneath the dispenser.

At first glance, it looked relatively ordinary.

Then Du-pal’s face rapidly drained of color.

Realizing something was wrong, everyone hurriedly backed away from the machine.

The cone-shaped object in his hand was made of some yellowish material that looked disturbingly like a strip of tough pigskin peeled from a carcass.

And then something resembling raw intestines began pouring out of the machine in a thick stream, coiling into the shape of soft-serve ice cream.

“Aaaagh!”

“You must not drop it!”

Han-su, who had been watching closely, barely managed to seize Du-pal’s wrist in time.

He held Du-pal’s arm firmly in place to keep him from dropping the thing.

But that was the extent of what he could do.

The reason Ju-hee had hurried off to find Su-myeon after seeing it was simple.

None of them had any idea what to do next.

“Wh-what do we do now? With that?”

While Ju-hee was away looking for Su-myeon, Ha-min, his face pale, pointed at the thing Du-pal was holding.

“If we cooked it, maybe we could eat it? It kind of looks like large intestine.......”

“Uegh.......”

At Du-pal’s pale-faced attempt to ramble his way through the situation, Ha-min retched.

While everyone stood there at a complete loss—

The children’s laughter and cheerful music playing through the speakers suddenly stopped.

In their place came the sound of Su-myeon and Ju-hee’s rapidly approaching footsteps.

“Su-myeon. There’s a problem.......”

The moment Su-myeon returned, Han-su began to explain, only to stop short.

The expressions on Su-myeon and Ju-hee’s faces as they came running toward them were anything but normal.

“We’ve got a problem over here too.”

At Su-myeon’s words, Du-pal shouted,

“No!”

They already had more than enough problems on this side!

At Du-pal’s near-scream, Su-myeon looked at him.

Then, seeing Du-pal’s tearful expression, he unexpectedly nodded.

“Good job. Let’s put that to use first.”

Good job?

Unable to tell whether he was being sarcastic or sincere, everyone exchanged bewildered looks.

Then a sound reached them that left no room for further discussion.

“Waaaaaah!”

Before they knew it, the monster chasing Su-myeon and Ju-hee had begun wailing at the top of its lungs.

It sounded exactly like a baby crying in frustration at the adults who had interrupted its fun.

But there was nothing remotely adorable about the creature making that sound.

“Holy shit......!”

Du-pal recoiled in horror.

The crawling, caterpillar-like monster had only one clearly visible feature beneath the folds of sagging skin covering its face—

Its enormous, gaping mouth.

Ha-min also backed away from the incomprehensible creature.

“Aaagh!”

“Wh-what is that thing?!”

Already looking for an escape route, Ha-min was the first to recognize the real problem.

“Su-myeon! Su-myeon!! This is a dead end!”

Ha-min called out urgently.

At this rate, their only way to avoid the monster was to retreat to the floor below.

Instead, Su-myeon grabbed Du-pal and dragged him closer.

“Throw it!”

“What? This? At that thing?!”

Startled, Du-pal raised the sticky fake ice cream in his hand.

“When a baby cries, why do you think it cries?”

At Su-myeon’s hurried question, Du-pal answered automatically,

“Well, usually because it’s hungry.......”

Du-pal flinched as realization struck him.

Then, without another question, he hurled the fake ice cream with all his strength.

By then, the approaching baby monster had come close enough for them to see its grotesque form in greater detail.

It was not entirely caterpillar-like.

It did, in its own twisted way, have something resembling shoulders.

It crawled by writhing its shoulder blades as though they were arms.

The “ice cream” Du-pal had thrown sailed straight into the monster’s mouth.

“Ugh...... hnngh.......”

The baby monster immediately stopped crying.

It stopped moving as well and snapped its mouth shut.

As it began chewing whatever had landed inside, Su-myeon shouted,

“Run!”

If they had not had that thing to feed it, the monster would have tried to stuff something else into its mouth instead.

Having escaped the worst possible outcome, the group slipped past the immobilized baby monster and ran deeper into the Kids Club.

“Th-the stairs!”

When the blue stairs Su-myeon had spotted earlier came into view, Ha-min shouted in relief.

Su-myeon, however, ran straight past them.

“Turn right!”

Fortunately, everyone here had already survived the floor below by following Su-myeon’s instructions without question.

Though they had no idea why, they immediately changed direction.

WHOOOSH—

The moment they cleared the stairs, an enormous weight came crashing down onto the blue steps.

Several massive weights suspended from thick iron chains began swinging violently through the air.

Had they tried to run up those stairs without knowing what awaited them, the weights would have smashed into them in an instant.

There would not have been enough bones left to gather.

“We have to dodge those and go up?”

Wasn’t their ultimate objective supposed to be reaching the next floor?

At Ju-hee’s question, Han-su replied,

“It seems there is no other way.”

Su-myeon, however, was thinking something else.

He had no particular desire to volunteer himself for more trouble, but his gaze shifted away from the staircase.

To the right.

A corridor stretched into the distance beneath rows of flickering fluorescent lights.

Damn it.

[Guardian Lounge]

A sign clearly marked the entrance.

Go? Don’t go? Go? Don’t go?

“B-but......! But, Su-myeon!”

While Su-myeon agonized over the decision, Du-pal, still trying to catch his breath, called out to him with a troubled expression.

“Don’t tell me feeding it that ice cream counted as contact?”

At Du-pal’s trembling question, Han-su calmly replied,

“You simply need to interpret the rules as rules.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

When everyone stared at Han-su in confusion, Su-myeon explained it more plainly.

“Of course that counted as contact!”

They had acknowledged one another, and an interaction had taken place.

“......Then.”

Du-pal trailed off.

In other words—

Du-pal had broken the rule.

At some point, the laughter and music from the speakers had stopped completely.

The baby monster had gone silent as well.

As the unnatural silence began to terrify everyone, Su-myeon continued arguing with himself.

Go? Don’t go? Go? Don’t go?

His mind was still resisting.

But in the end, there was only one possible answer.

“Su-myeon?!”

Ju-hee called out in surprise when Su-myeon suddenly turned and headed into the corridor.

“Hide for now!”

Su-myeon had made up his mind.

He would quietly handle this on his own and come back.

Unexpectedly, however, it was Du-pal who grabbed hold of him.

“I’m going with you!”

Su-myeon was about to reject the offer immediately, just as he had before, but Du-pal pressed him with surprising determination.

“I.... Anyway, you’re going to deal with what just happened, right? Let me come with you.”

Su-myeon considered it for a moment, then nodded.

Du-pal did not seem particularly remarkable at first glance, but he was actually a surprisingly useful character.

And the item Su-myeon had bought for him would probably come in handy here as well.

“If you insist, then let’s go together.”

“Then I will accompany you as well.”

When Han-su volunteered too, Su-myeon hesitated again.

Ju-hee, apparently assuming that Su-myeon was worried about leaving them behind, stepped forward first.

“Don’t worry. We can manage on our own too.”

“Right! I can protect Miss Ju-hee.... Ugh!”

At Ju-hee’s words, Ha-min made a cocky declaration.

Ju-hee snorted in disbelief and cut him off by planting a hand firmly on top of his head and pushing him down.

“I’ll protect the minor, so please go.”

That was not the only reason Su-myeon had hesitated, but....

It’ll be fine.

Those two would probably stay put if told to.

And it was not as though Su-myeon could keep every single person under his control forever.

“All right, then. We’ll go and come back. Please stay safe.”

With that, Su-myeon turned and headed toward the Guardian Lounge.

The Kids Club, suddenly plunged into silence, felt even more deeply wrong than before.

If it had been quiet from the beginning, the contrast might not have been so unsettling.

Now, in the silence, they found themselves straining to hear any sign of a monster that might appear from anywhere.

Facilities that were excessively clean and perfectly maintained.

Scenery filled with nothing but contradictions.

It left all three of them silent for more reasons than one.

“.......”

Unlike the otherwise spotless surroundings, an old fluorescent light ahead flickered with an especially murky green glow.

Su-myeon, Han-su, and Du-pal stopped as they approached it.

Click.

“I think there was something about keeping this place bright. Right?”

As he spoke, Du-pal switched on the camping flashlight he had purchased on the floor below.

The item he had bought with Su-myeon’s help was a flashlight.

Su-myeon nodded approvingly and continued deeper into the corridor.

Having a light source they could control made him feel slightly more secure.

As expected, in a horror game, nothing beats a flashlight.

While Su-myeon entertained that pointless thought, they soon arrived at the Guardian Lounge.

The three of them stopped again in front of the door.

Everything around them remained utterly silent.

“Should I just open it?”

Han-su asked, one hand already wrapped around the doorknob.

When Su-myeon nodded, Han-su opened the door without hesitation.

“.......”

Pitch-black darkness filled the room beyond.

From that seemingly endless darkness came damp air and the faint smell of decay.

And within that darkness—

Unexpectedly, Du-pal took the first step forward without hesitation.

Su-myeon immediately grabbed his arm.

Then he gently tilted the flashlight in Du-pal’s hand upward.

Not forward.

Up.

“.......”

An enormous face loomed above them.

Han-su instinctively grabbed Du-pal as well when he realized they had nearly walked straight into its mouth.

If Du-pal had taken even a few more steps, that gigantic mouth looked ready to snap shut and swallow him whole.

“......So now, do we ask for permission......?”

At Du-pal’s words, however, Su-myeon reached back and drew the gun slung across his back.

“No. If there’s no guardian, then there won’t be anyone left to ask permission from, will there?”