Chapter 18: Spa (1)

[18. There are no mirrors installed in the hotel spa.]

“.......”

“.......”

Everyone read the same sentence and fell silent.

Then what were all those things in front of them, reflecting their images?

“Our... luggage increased a little, didn’t it...?”

Ju-hee murmured cautiously, her voice barely above a whisper.

At her words, everyone became acutely aware that there was something wrong with the “things” before them.

The figures reflected in what they had assumed were mirrors did not match their current appearances.

They looked more like they had when they first entered this place....

Click.

Su-myeon abruptly opened a locker beside him.

The locker door swung out, blocking their view.

“For now, don’t try to meet those things’ eyes. And don’t provoke them.”

Something was imitating their appearances.

The thought that those things stood just beyond the glass was enough to send a chill down his spine.

As it happened, the locker Su-myeon had opened concealed another passage.

“......Should we go this way for now?”

At Su-myeon’s suggestion, the group squeezed inside as though fleeing.

Whatever those things were, by now everyone had learned that sometimes it was better to run than to find out.

Su-myeon took the lead, guiding the group as they hurried after him along the correct route.

No matter how different the interior looked, the fundamentals were no different from the previous floors.

The basics of any horror game were simple.

Find the route.

As long as they found the correct path and kept moving, that was enough.

“Ah!”

“Keep your eyes on your feet.”

The inside of the spa was extraordinarily confusing.

Most of the surroundings consisted of glass panes arranged like full-length mirrors, each displaying something that imitated them.

But at irregular intervals, the path would split into several branches, or rows upon rows of lockers would appear.

Sometimes the passage became [N O V E L I G H T] so narrow that they had to crawl through it, climb over fallen lockers, or shuffle sideways like crabs.

“.......”

Ju-hee, who had been following in silence, finally could not hold back her question.

“What... exactly are those things?”

There was no rule forbidding them from making noise.

Talking itself did not seem to matter.

“Couldn’t they be something like... doppelgängers?”

Ha-min offered his own answer to Ju-hee’s question.

Su-myeon had no intention of getting involved unnecessarily.

“......Th-then... does everyone who encounters them die?”

He would not have stepped in at all if Du-pal had not started stirring up needless anxiety.......

With a short sigh, Su-myeon finally spoke.

“There is one thing that comes to mind....”

At Su-myeon’s words, far more attention than necessary immediately turned toward him.

“Do you remember item 8?”

[8. All mannequins installed in our hotel have no eyes. Therefore, if you discover a mannequin that resembles you, please never meet its eyes.]

Han-su, who immediately recalled the rule, asked,

“Then are those... mannequins?”

Correct.

But Su-myeon chose the safer answer.

“I’m saying they might be.”

It was closer to speculation than certainty, but everyone nodded as though they had already accepted it.

Moving mannequins were still preferable to something completely unknown.

“Then we should avoid interacting with them as much as possible and keep our eyes lowered....”

Ju-hee was in the middle of speaking when she suddenly flinched and stopped.

Because the same yet subtly different passages kept repeating, they had almost failed to notice it.

“......!”

Far in the distance, an unfamiliar figure appeared.

Everyone’s gaze instinctively locked onto the distant silhouette for an instant, and almost simultaneously, they recognized who it was.

Ki San-hyeok.

“Get behind me...!”

Han-su stepped forward, shielding the others.

At the same time, Su-myeon raised the gun he was carrying and aimed it at Ki San-hyeok.

BANG—!

Without asking a single question, Su-myeon fired immediately.

By now, everyone already knew that San-hyeok was human garbage.

There was no reason to give someone capable of sacrificing living people the opportunity to make excuses.

The gunshot exploded through the corridor loudly enough to make their ears ring.

Su-myeon expected the next sound to be the scream of that sinister bastard.

SHATTER.

Instead, what followed was the ominous sound of breaking glass.

Su-myeon hurried forward and examined the shattered fragments.

“Damn it...!”

Just as he suspected, behind the broken glass lay a mannequin struck by the bullet.

Its right shoulder had been blown apart.

A broken mannequin.

Perhaps the damage had rendered it incapable of performing its role, because it no longer resembled anyone.

Now it was nothing more than an ordinary mannequin.

“This isn’t good.”

It was far too soon to feel relieved simply because it had not actually been Ki San-hyeok.

Every mannequin in this hotel lingered near the person whose appearance it had copied.

Which meant Ki San-hyeok himself had to be somewhere nearby.

“Ki San-hyeok should be close. Be careful....”

Su-myeon turned as he spoke—

then froze and immediately lowered his gaze.

“.......”

Everyone around him was simply staring at him.

And—

...Damn it.

For some reason, Ju-hee was wearing dress shoes instead of sneakers.

That was not all.

After everything they had endured, all of them should have looked disheveled.

Instead, they were neat and clean, exactly as they had been when he first met them.

“.......”

When Su-myeon stopped speaking, silence swallowed the corridor.

Not a single one of them seemed to find anything strange about the situation.

Not one of them spoke to him first.

Before he even realized what had happened—

Su-myeon was alone.

***

The group was thrown into complete confusion.

After spotting Ki San-hyeok, Su-myeon had fired his gun.

And then...

“H-how....”

By the time they regained their senses, mannequins had already filled the space around them.

Like mirrors placed opposite one another, dozens of identical figures surrounded the group.

Ha-min, startled by how suddenly they had been encircled, reflexively grabbed Ju-hee’s arm.

“Wh-what is this.... Why are there so many.......”

Ju-hee hurriedly scanned their surroundings, then noticed something strange.

“Mr. Su-myeon....”

Su-myeon had definitely bought himself a new jacket and put it on.

Yet among the countless mannequins surrounding them, every one shaped like Su-myeon was dressed in a plain white short-sleeved T-shirt.

Only Su-myeon himself—

his actual form—

was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey! Mr. Su-myeon! Where are you!”

Du-pal shouted at the top of his lungs.

Perhaps because of his large frame, his voice was so thunderous that Ha-min, standing beside him, covered his ears.

But there was no answer.

“He must not be able to hear us.”

“He’s not in danger, is he?”

“He was definitely, definitely right beside us.......”

While Du-pal and Ju-hee fretted over Su-myeon, Han-su cautiously reached out and examined the surrounding area.

“......We have three options.”

After assessing their surroundings, Han-su laid them out.

“We wait here for Mr. Su-myeon, go back, or keep moving forward.”

Faced with three different choices, everyone fell silent.

At that moment, they found themselves more grateful than ever for Su-myeon, who had always given them one clear direction to follow.

“Um, well... Mr. Su-myeon is probably... going to be fine, isn’t he?”

While everyone remained uncertain, Young-cheol spoke carefully.

Ju-hee immediately snapped at him.

“How can someone who wouldn’t even be alive without Mr. Su-myeon say something like that...!”

“N-no! That’s not what I meant!”

Startled, Young-cheol hurried to explain.

“I mean, he’s someone who can handle this situation far better than we can. The real problem right now... is us, I think. We’re the ones who got separated from him.”

Ju-hee could not argue with that and fell silent again.

There were five of them here.

Su-myeon was alone.

And yet somehow, Young-cheol’s words still made sense.

“That... person. Isn’t he a little unusual?”

With Su-myeon absent, Young-cheol began rambling about thoughts he had apparently been keeping to himself.

“I... am actually a doctor.”

And yet Su-myeon had seemed to know that before Young-cheol ever told him.

Young-cheol had no idea how he could have known, but even while helping treat him at the Wine Bar earlier, Su-myeon had simply provided every medical supply he needed and then stepped aside.

“He notices things incredibly quickly, and when he acts, he never hesitates, does he?”

Young-cheol in particular had only joined the group after Su-myeon had decided to fully involve himself in the situation.

The ease with which he naturally took charge of people.

The way he earned their trust without even seeming to try.

Perhaps because the contrast with Ki San-hyeok was so stark, Su-myeon’s behavior seemed even more extraordinary to Young-cheol.

“Could he be some kind of special agent? Maybe with the National Intelligence Service, or... something like that....”

They were currently surrounded on all sides by unidentified mannequins.

And Su-myeon’s group, having lost Su-myeon, somehow found themselves standing there discussing Su-myeon.

“There’s no way the government knows absolutely nothing about a bizarre phenomenon where large numbers of people suddenly disappear.”

Ordinary people might not know anything about it, but perhaps there were specialized agencies—or agents—who dealt with this kind of thing.

Young-cheol’s increasingly imaginative speculation continued.

Under normal circumstances, everyone would have dismissed it as nonsense.

But they themselves were already trapped in the middle of an inexplicable phenomenon.

If anything, believing that this was some kind of known and systematized phenomenon almost made it easier to accept.

“Th-that’s true.”

“There definitely... could be something like that.”

And just like that, the group began to accept Young-cheol’s theory.

Besides, it was not an entirely absurd rationalization.

Su-myeon’s actions and reactions thus far had always been almost unnervingly precise.

If not for his accurate judgment in every situation, there was no way this many of them would still be alive together.

Would Su-myeon perhaps be safer on his own?

Once that thought occurred to Han-su, he nodded.

“Then the least we can do right now is make sure we don’t become a burden to him.”

“Yes. I think he’ll find his own way out just fine. We only need to make sure we handle our part properly.”

Having steadied themselves with that conclusion, the group looked around once more.

Dozens of mannequins surrounded them, imitating them like reflections in mirrors.

Keeping their gazes lowered so they would not look toward where the mannequins’ eyes should have been, they began moving forward, doing their best not to think about Su-myeon’s absence.

“Then let’s keep moving quietly.”

***

At that same moment, Su-myeon stood with one hand pressed to his head, lost in thought.

He tried not to dwell on it, but the more aware he became of the fact that he was alone, the more his body seemed to curl inward, as though the temperature around him had suddenly dropped.

Being completely alone might actually have been better.

The situation he was in now was far more troublesome.

“.......”

All around him stood mannequins wearing the appearances of his companions.

Moving while grotesque monsters watched his every step demanded far more courage than he had expected.

“This is seriously driving me insane.......”

The others were definitely somewhere nearby.

But even if he shouted, they probably would not hear him.

This damned place was absurdly soundproof.

If he wanted to make enough noise for them to hear him, he would probably have to create a sound violent enough to damage the hotel itself.

“...And I don’t exactly have bullets to waste.”

Of all things, he had already handed the weapons suited for smashing things to the others.

He could not recklessly fire into the air just to tell the group where he was.

Just in case, Su-myeon waited several minutes to see whether they would come looking for him.

But the surroundings remained completely silent.

“For now, I need to get out of here.”

He could not stand around indefinitely like a lost child.

There was only one option.

He had no choice but to hope he would run into them again on the way out.

Of course, that also meant the chances of encountering Ki San-hyeok would increase, but....

The moment I see him, I shoot.

As long as he did not give San-hyeok an opening, it was a problem that could be dealt with immediately.

There was no reason to overthink it.

Su-myeon decided to keep things as simple as possible.