Chapter 15: Pool (2)

[15. You must absolutely obey the attendant’s words. Keep this in mind. Obedience.]

They had to go in the opposite direction of the arrow?

Su-myeon briefly explained his reasoning to the puzzled group.

“I saw a permanent marker among the supplies Ki San-hyeok’s group had earlier.”

And sure enough, the arrow was crude and uneven, as though someone had hastily drawn it with a marker.

At Su-myeon’s words, Ju-hee reflexively voiced the obvious question.

“Why on earth....”

Why would anyone deliberately deceive people into taking the wrong path?

But before she could finish, the answer occurred to her, and she fell silent.

Ki San-hyeok was an insane psychopath.

There was no reason to expect someone like him to have a sensible motive.

Other people getting fucked over was probably entertainment enough for him.

“That bastard really does seem like the type to do something like that.”

Su-myeon and Ju-hee had witnessed San-hyeok’s behavior once before at the Shopping Center.

They had not confronted him directly and had only watched while hiding, but even that single scene had been enough to establish what kind of psychopath San-hyeok was.

“Then should we go the opposite way?”

“Yes. Let’s take the path without the arrow.”

That meant they would inevitably have to face the lifeguard one more time.

Still, everyone agreed that they had no other choice.

[Please do not crawl]

After all that tension, the lifeguard they encountered added another warning.

Fortunately, this one was also easy enough to follow.

“I mean, do we look like we’re about to crawl around this place?”

Du-pal muttered in disbelief as he watched the lifeguard disappear into the distance.

Everyone had been startled by its grotesque appearance at first, but they were slowly getting used to watching it leave without causing them any harm.

Su-myeon, however, quietly stared after the retreating lifeguard and furrowed his brow.

“Is something wrong?”

Instead of answering Han-su, Su-myeon raised a finger to his lips, signaling for him to be quiet.

Everyone immediately fell silent, even holding their breath.

Then they heard it.

“Hnngh.... Hnngh....”

It sounded like a man sobbing....

The group exchanged glances.

“Wait, isn’t that a person?”

“Could it be another sound those monsters are making to lure us in?”

Hadn’t they already listened to children’s laughter until they were sick of it on the floor below?

But as far as Su-myeon knew, there was no monster in this pool that imitated the voice of an adult man.

Even the lifeguard communicated through writing, so who could possibly be making that sound...?

“Don’t tell me.”

“Is Ki San-hyeok’s group still on this floor?”

Han-su voiced the question, apparently having reached the same conclusion as Su-myeon.

That group was made up entirely of adult men, making them the most likely possibility.

If they were simply still on the same floor, then Su-myeon’s group, which even had a gun, held the advantage in terms of combat strength.

But the situation had become somewhat more complicated.

“Then they must have been receiving warnings too.”

Everyone understood what Su-myeon meant and fell silent again.

The Flamingo Lifeguard’s warnings.

Every time they encountered it, another restriction was added.

And they had no way of knowing what warnings Ki San-hyeok’s group had received.

Likewise, that group would have no idea what warnings Su-myeon and the others had been given.

The prohibition against crawling would be difficult to break by accident.

“Don’t tell me... someone over there ate something or ran...?”

Those, however, were easy rules to violate if you had never been warned about them.

At Ha-min’s words, Su-myeon frowned.

“Damn it.”

The one fortunate thing about the lifeguard was that it only punished those who disobeyed its instructions.

So even if Ki San-hyeok’s group broke one of its warnings, that in itself had nothing to do with Su-myeon’s group.

But if the resulting mess contaminated the pool water, the hotel would try to “manage” its water quality again.

“Let’s move quickly.”

Su-myeon urged the exhausted group onward.

The obvious arrows began appearing more and more frequently.

Strangely enough, even though they kept moving in the opposite direction from the arrows, more of them continued to appear.

“Th-that son of a bitch... It looks like he found the right path, then came back the opposite way drawing these, doesn’t it?”

Which meant that even if someone reached the stairs, seeing one of those arrows could make them turn away from the exit and head somewhere else instead.

Su-myeon said nothing in response to Ju-hee’s furious voice, but his jaw tightened.

Ki San-hyeok truly was an irredeemable son of a bitch.

“Ugh... ngh....”

Just then, a clearer groan reached them.

Someone moaning in pain.

And it was coming from the direction they were heading.

They cautiously rounded the bend.

There, they found a man covered in blood.

“H-hah... ngh, help... help me.... Please help me.”

He seemed to notice Su-myeon’s group as well and pleaded desperately.

When he stretched out an arm and tried to crawl toward them, Su-myeon shouted at once,

“Stay right there! Don’t move! If you move, you’ll die!”

His voice was firm, but the meaning came across clearly.

Since they were forbidden from running, they approached the man slowly and were finally able to get a proper look at him.

His face had been beaten so badly that he was difficult to recognize at first.

But Su-myeon soon realized who he was.

Young-cheol.

One of the men who had followed San-hyeok.

At the same time, Su-myeon noticed the large amount of blood that had dripped and pooled across the floor.

After a brief hesitation, he tapped Han-su.

“Please take off your jacket.”

“Yes.”

Using Han-su’s jacket, Su-myeon began wiping up the blood around them.

Getting the tiles dirty was one thing.

It would be far worse if the blood flowed into the pool.

While Su-myeon cleaned up just enough to stop it from spreading, Ju-hee asked Young-cheol what had happened.

“I shouldn’t have followed Ki San-hyeok... that bastard.”

His mouth appeared swollen, and his speech came out slurred.

Anyone could see that he had not been attacked by some grotesque monster.

People had beaten him nearly to death.

“That bastard is using people and stirring them up.”

“I mean, maybe that bastard’s some conglomerate heir outside. But in here, we all have to survive together!”

Ju-hee sounded genuinely unable to understand why anyone would let themselves be manipulated like that.

Young-cheol sighed.

“Everyone wants to get out of here anyway, don’t they? He said that if we listened to him, he’d give each person one billion won once we got out.”

“They believed that?”

“What else were they supposed to do?”

They had already separated from Su-myeon’s group because of a single bad decision.

Once San-hyeok had won over the people blinded by money, resisting him would not have been easy.

“Besides, as long as they stayed on that bastard’s good side, they could survive by using someone else as bait. So everyone figured they had nothing to lose.”

After making sure the pool water would not be contaminated, Su-myeon let out a hollow laugh.

In the end, it was an extremely simple method of manipulation.

Tempt people with money first.

Then exploit the situation afterward.

If they refused to obey him, they would be the first ones thrown away as bait in a crisis.

“I should’ve listened to you from the beginning.”

Su-myeon sighed at Young-cheol’s words.

Exactly.

Why couldn’t they have just listened from the beginning?

Why choose another path and suffer like this?

Still, Su-myeon could understand it to some extent.

At first glance, he looked like some unemployed bum—the last person anyone would naturally trust.

If anything, the people currently following him and relying on him seemed almost strangely innocent.

“My name is Kim Young-cheol. In the end, I opposed that bastard and got abandoned like this.”

With Young-cheol joining them, the group regained a little of its energy.

After all, choosing Su-myeon and staying with him had turned out to be the comparatively correct decision.

In circumstances like these, merely knowing they were following the best available path was, absurdly enough, a small comfort.

“I managed some basic emergency treatment, but I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday....”

Young-cheol picked up his bloodstained Heartphone and tried several times to stand.

Each attempt failed.

His claim that he had treated himself was not an empty boast.

Young-cheol did not seem inclined to reveal it, but Su-myeon already knew.

His occupation was surgeon.

“I’m truly sorry to ask, but... could I have even a little water...?”

“We can give you food and water later, but not here. That long-necked monster told us not to eat or drink anything.”

Ju-hee spoke apologetically, and Han-su crouched down.

“For now, would you like to get on my back? It would be best if you stopped moving.”

They had already wasted far too much time here.

Young-cheol accepted Han-su’s offer and, after thanking him several times, climbed onto his back.

They spent quite a bit of effort making sure no blood splattered anywhere, but eventually they managed to settle him securely on Han-su’s back.

“That bastard drew those arrows backward. If you follow them.... Ah, you were already going the opposite way. Right.”

Young-cheol tried to offer what information he could, but after recalling the route the group had been following, he looked at Su-myeon again.

The unfamiliar place where he had first opened his eyes.

The moments when an unknown monster had chased them and they had fled.

Amid all that confusion, this man had produced the correct answer without so much as a moment of hesitation.

And yet he never tried to make himself the center of attention.

Instead, he quietly guided the group while treating everyone equally.

That isn’t easy....

Leading people without flaunting your authority was genuinely difficult.

Su-myeon left the conspicuous actions to the others while quietly taking care of everything around them.

He wiped away spilled blood.

He checked their surroundings.

Every movement he made was precise and purposeful, performed because it needed to be done.

“By any chance, what did Mr. Su-myeon do before all this?”

Young-cheol quietly asked Han-su.

Han-su had already revealed that he was a detective.

But at Young-cheol’s question, Han-su gave only a brief answer.

“I do not know.”

Two days had already passed since they had fallen into this unfamiliar place, and they still had not even discussed something like that?

Young-cheol had only joined the group partway through, so he could not press the matter further.

He merely nodded.

Perhaps Su-myeon had never held an ordinary job.

Some kind of special agent, maybe.

Or perhaps someone from the National Intelligence Service....

“It’s the stairs!”

Han-su was carrying Young-cheol on his back, while Su-myeon followed behind, making sure the blood did not drip where it shouldn’t.

During that time, Ha-min, who had volunteered to take the lead so he could contribute something, suddenly shouted.

“Those are the stairs going up, right?”

The rest of the group, completely unaware of what Young-cheol had been thinking, brightened at the long-awaited news.

Su-myeon himself was still preoccupied with watching the floor and wiping away any blood that dripped.

“Everyone, stay careful until the very end. Let’s get up there as quickly as we can.”

The floor above was not an easy place either.

But at least it was not somewhere that required this constant level of tension.

At Su-myeon’s words, everyone carefully quickened their pace.

Not being allowed to run was proving far more difficult than they had expected.

“There’s... a door?”

Until now, every space they had passed through had been open.

This time was different.

At the top of the stairs stood a large antique door blocking their way.

[Wine Bar]

A sign hung conspicuously in front of it.

“Could minors... not be allowed inside?”

Ha-min asked timidly, already looking uneasy.

Ju-hee checked her Heartphone.

“There’s no rule saying that. Should we go in for now?”

“Normally, merely entering such an establishment is not illegal. It only becomes an issue if a minor actually consumes alcohol....”

Their protagonist looked ready to start reciting the relevant law, so Su-myeon gave him a push from behind.

“Let’s just go in. I want out of this damn pool already.”

At Su-myeon’s touch, Han-su allowed himself to be pushed forward without protest.

The moment every member of the group had passed through the doorway, the door slammed shut behind them.

Everyone reflexively turned around.

Ju-hee, who had entered last, muttered,

“...I didn’t close it.”

Then who had?

Suppressing the ominous feeling rising inside them, the group surveyed their surroundings.

Unexpectedly, the scene before them was far more pleasant than they had anticipated.

Soft jazz music filled the air.

The lighting was dim and atmospheric, and antique velvet chairs were arranged throughout the room.

Compared to the pool, which had felt alien in its relentless brightness and sterile whiteness, this place seemed warm, comfortable, almost peaceful.

“.......”

But no one lowered their guard.

They carefully examined their surroundings as they slowly moved farther inside.

Then they spotted a long bar counter.

And beyond it, another staircase identical to the one they had just climbed.

Stairs leading upward.

But the moment they noticed them, an unfamiliar voice reached their ears.

“Oh my, what brings so many guests today?”