Chapter 140: Revisit (4)

[5. The guards are extremely sensitive employees. If you have an inquiry, when you meet one, be sure to remain polite and kindly greet him by saying, “Another bright day for smiles!” before stating your business.]

For now, Su-myeon took a deep breath as he watched the clown guard charging toward them.

He wasn't sure whether this counted as a reunion or not, but either way, it wasn't exactly a welcome one.

The fact that it had even gone out of its way to retrieve his belongings felt like some incomprehensible obsession.

"......."

Once his thoughts reached that point, Su-myeon looked at Han-su and Chang-sik standing behind him.

Then, as if to shake off the thought, Su-myeon briefly took off his glasses and scrubbed them clean.

For a moment, he'd found himself wondering whether that clown might be one of his parents.

But if he started drawing conclusions over nothing more than a pair of shoes, there would be no end to it.

In the meantime, the clown had drawn close enough that they could hear the sounds it made.

Before it could get any nearer, Su-myeon hurriedly let the greeting slip out.

"Another bright day for smiles."

When he offered the same greeting as before to the terrifying clown bearing down on them, the clown came to an abrupt stop.

Maybe because this was the second time, Su-myeon felt a little more used to it.

Once again, with a springy boing-like sound, the clown transformed into a somewhat cuter-looking form.

Even if he'd gotten somewhat accustomed to it now that this was the second time, this appearance was definitely easier to deal with.

While Su-myeon was still unsure whether he should act like they knew each other, the clown held out his shoes to him.

"...Are you giving those to me?"

When Su-myeon hesitated instead of immediately taking them, the clown began gesturing with its hands and body, clearly trying to convey something.

Had its speech organs completely atrophied?

Just as that question occurred to him, the clown suddenly moved aside and headed toward Gi San-hyeok.

It approached San-hyeok's bizarre form, which was still laboriously squirming across the floor in an effort to reach Su-myeon, and stretched out a hand.

"Aaaaaagh!"

A horrific scream followed.

The clown pulled a finger from one of the hands San-hyeok had barely managed to attach beneath his neck....

'......Damn it.'

Yes, literally tore it out from between the joints and bones.

Then it returned to Su-myeon and began writing in neat, cute little letters on the floor.

The copious blood flowing from the finger that had been ripped out at the joint served as ink.

[Lost property! Kept safe! Repaired too!]

"......Thank you."

Su-myeon had the distinct feeling that if he refused, it might pull out one of his fingers next.

Suppressing how unwilling he felt, he barely managed to answer before accepting the shoes.

At a glance, they had seemed to be the same shoes he'd originally owned.

But once he actually held them, quite a lot had changed.

Soft, reddish flesh that looked disturbingly like the skin from the sole of a real human foot had been layered over the soles of the sneakers, leaving them sturdily repaired.

The clown enthusiastically thrust them toward him as if urging him to try them on, and Su-myeon felt like he might have a fit.

He didn't even want to know whose skin this was.

But he couldn't let that show, so he barely managed to keep calm as he spoke.

"...I'm just so grateful. It feels like a waste to wear them right away, so would it be okay if I saved them for later?"

At Su-myeon's words, the clown twisted its body bashfully and nodded with a shy expression.

Damn it, damn it, damn it, please.

Maybe because he'd just had the thought that the clown could be one of his parents, its behavior now felt even more grotesque.

Perhaps Su-myeon and the clown looked like they were idling around instead of working.

The spade employee behind the desk spoke in a rather stiff tone.

"Security team, please prioritize collecting the escaped spare parts."

At the playing card's words, the clown turned and headed toward Gi San-hyeok again with an obviously cheerful gait.

Watching its back, Su-myeon immediately whispered.

"Should we quietly slip away?"

"......It probably... won't like it if we leave without saying anything......."

At Chang-sik's words, Su-myeon had no choice but to abandon his plan of secretly making a run for it.

In the end, they had to stand there and watch Gi San-hyeok's limbs get separated all over again.

Watching San-hyeok literally get dismantled part by part amid horrific screams made Su-myeon wonder whether they should simply burn the entire place down.

But he wasn't confident they could survive doing something like that right now.

Still, right before leaving, they might be able to attempt arson somehow.

"Aaaaaagh! Aaaagh!"

The screams that made goosebumps rise all over his body continued for quite some time afterward.

***

Jang Bok-eum visited the Unnatural Threat Governance, the UTG, for the first time in a while.

He hadn't announced his visit in advance.

And he already knew that Su-myeon was absent today.

That didn't mean he was visiting in complete secrecy.

If he ran into someone, he intended to greet them naturally as though there were nothing unusual about it.

Perhaps because Su-myeon had only just entered a ghost story.

Everyone seemed to be in the office, and he didn't encounter anyone inside the building.

Especially since he headed straight underground, there was even less chance of running into anyone while everyone else was aboveground.

He hesitated briefly in front of the basement entrance before pushing open a traditional-style door covered in hanji paper and descending below.

Up until the cleanup after White Night Land, there had definitely been an iron-barred gate wrapped in layers of chains and padlocks here.

It seemed they'd changed it to suit the taste of the dokkaebi who had settled here.

"......."

Below was a scene so orderly it was hard to believe this was underground.

Fresh grass and wildflowers.

Thick bushes that had grown lush without even a single ray of sunlight gave off a refreshing scent of earth.

Nestled quietly among them was a thatched-roof cottage.

Ryang, the dokkaebi sitting on the wooden porch, looked at him.

"Thou hast come."

Ryang, who usually spent her time rolling around the infirmary, greeted Bok-eum as though she'd been waiting for him.

In truth, this was the first time the two had formally faced each other.

Bok-eum had deliberately avoided taking much interest in the strange beings that had settled within the Governance.

That included Mu-yeon, whose existence Su-myeon had intentionally concealed.

Bok-eum had known and simply pretended not to, and he hadn't shown much interest in Ryang staying here either.

"......."

And yet the two sat side by side beneath the eaves as though they'd known each other for a long time.

Ryang in her ornate, modernized hanbok and Bok-eum in his sharply tailored suit made for a thoroughly mismatched pair.

A rather long silence passed, but Ryang showed no sign of discomfort. If anything, Bok-eum was the one wearing an uncomfortable expression.

Because he was seated on the low wooden porch, ugly creases were forming in his suit trousers, yet Bok-eum remained silent for quite some time.

In the end, Ryang was the one who broke the silence.

"It hath been a long while, little brat."

At Ryang's words, Bok-eum let out a disbelieving laugh.

There was something Su-myeon had badly misunderstood.

Why had he ever assumed a dokkaebi wouldn't lie?

Bok-eum undid one of the buttons on his suit jacket, which he normally kept neatly fastened, and spoke in a slightly more relaxed state.

"It seems you still live for the pleasure of tormenting children. I thought you would've rotted away and vanished in that basement by now."

"And thou remainest every bit as ill-mannered."

After trading barbs back and forth, the two ended the exchange that resembled comic banter with bitter smiles.

That wasn't why Bok-eum had come here.

"......In my opinion."

Bok-eum continued in a calm voice.

"I think Han Su-myeon can do it."

Ryang fell silent for a moment at Bok-eum's words.

Can do it, can do it....

After turning those words over in her mind, Ryang spoke again.

"...In mine opinion......."

***

Su-myeon and Han-su were still in the spa area of Alice Hotel.

Just moments ago, midnight had passed and the lights-out period had begun, prompting mannequins that had appeared from somewhere to scrub the blood-soaked spa floor until it squeaked clean.

Amid all the commotion, the clown bounced cheerfully around Su-myeon.

It kept spinning its head around a full 360 degrees without ever holding still, or folding and unfolding its body like origami as part of its own version of ‘performing tricks.’

Su-myeon found it difficult to react to any of it.

"It seems the spa will be unavailable for some time due to maintenance. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience!"

At the spade employee's bright announcement, they finally made up their minds.

It was probably best not to change anything about Chang-sik or Mu-yeon at the spa after all.

In the middle of all that, the spade apologized and handed them something.

"This is a perfume specially blended by our spa."

[Dreamlike Caterpillar Aroma]

As Su-myeon accepted the perfume bottle with the peculiar name written on it, the spade continued.

"It's a perfume that puts you into a fantastical mood the instant it's sprayed. Anyone, any being at all, can feel wonderful."

There was something deeply unsettling about that explanation.

If necessary, they might be able to spray it on a rampaging monster to confuse it.

But if Su-myeon himself inhaled it, there was no guarantee he wouldn't fall under its effects as well.

"We'll give it to you as an apology, so we would appreciate your generous understanding."

It was the excessively polite, stereotypical tone of a service worker, but Su-myeon frowned for an entirely different reason.

The perfume item gave him a strange sense of familiarity.

Didn't it feel like the same general sort of thing as Bell's inventions?

Pwooo!

As though celebrating the gift he'd received.

The clown suddenly blew a horn loudly, startling Chang-sik into wrapping himself around Han-su.

In the middle of that scene, only Han-su wore an even more complicated expression.

Back when Han-su had followed him around calling him Captain Yoon.

There had been more than one or two occasions when Chang-sik had protected him.

Apparently even now, when he'd forgotten everything and become nothing more than a mass, those memories remained not in his head, but in his body.

"Doing that... suddenly is startling......."

Pwooo....

At Chang-sik's reproach, the clown made a deflated, disappointed horn sound.

Seeing that, Su-myeon suddenly worried that it might become oversensitive again and snap, so he hurriedly added,

"It's okay. It's okay. I wasn't startled. Anyway.... Doesn't that guard need to go now?"

At Su-myeon's words, the clown made a visibly shocked expression as though going, ‘Doom...!’

Then it hurriedly looked around as though desperate to explain something.

Worried it might rip out somebody else's finger and use it like a pen again, Su-myeon hastily added,

"You can do whatever you want! Yes, it's fine if you just move around however you like!"

The idea that he was suddenly going to have both a giant mass and a clown trailing after him wasn't exactly welcome.

Still, looking down at the perfume in his hand, Su-myeon arrived at one thought.

"If we sprayed this perfume on the Red Queen, don't you think it might be okay?"

The reason he'd been reluctant to descend any farther was because they assumed the Red Queen would be furious.

If it was a perfume that improved someone's mood, perhaps it would have an effect.

Su-myeon turned back to the spade employee.

"Does the effect only work if the scent is inhaled through the nose? What if it simply touches the skin...."

"It takes effect through contact as well."

At least its answers were refreshingly straightforward.

Su-myeon nodded at the spade's reply and looked at Han-su.

Come to think of it, the Red Queen was also an entity who seemed to know quite a lot.

She appeared to possess the greatest influence over this ghost story after Alice herself, and had even given them some strange hints by talking about sandwiches.

He still didn't completely understand what she'd meant.

"She might know how we can get Captain Yoon safely outside."

If they could learn that much, then afterward it would simply become the same kind of waiting as with Mu-yeon.

Once they made a Golden Rose bloom and had him consume it, he could obtain a body again.

At Su-myeon's words, Han-su nodded as well.