Chapter 28: Missing Person Search Plan (1)

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An existence that seemed to have vanished from the face of the world.

Gone without leaving so much as a single photograph behind, surviving only in her memories.

Ju-hee clutched the employee ID—the sole proof that the person had ever existed—as though it were something precious.

Anyone could tell that what lay between her and her superior had been far more than a simple workplace relationship.

Su-myeon rubbed the bridge of his nose awkwardly and murmured with a sigh.

"He was there. I would've rescued him if I could, but it was too dangerous."

He didn't bother adding an apology.

He had already done everything he could within the limits of what had been possible.

At Su-myeon's words, Ju-hee sank back into her seat, looking lost.

"For now, everyone's exhausted. Let's get some rest and talk again once we've cleared our heads."

Young-cheol steadied Ju-hee and brought the discussion to a close.

By the time anyone noticed, the first pale light of dawn had begun to spread across the horizon.

In the quietest hour of the city, each of them wrestled with a turmoil louder than anyone else's and went their separate ways.

***

In truth, nothing had been resolved at all.

Even so, somehow, everyone returned to their daily lives.

Once Su-myeon made it home, he laid out the 'things he'd brought back' from Exit 4 and finally tried to sort through his thoughts.

"......"

Five Rose Coins he had no memory of picking up, tucked away in his pocket.

And, even more remarkably, the plush doll that had remained perched on his shoulder even after he returned to the real world—Cheshire.

"......Excuse me?"

Su-myeon carefully placed Cheshire on the living room table and tried speaking to him several times.

Yet, strangely enough, Cheshire remained silent.

Su-myeon couldn't tell whether he simply wouldn't speak or whether he couldn't, but either way, there was no response.

At the moment, he looked like nothing more than an ordinary stuffed toy.

"......"

After thinking it over for a while, Su-myeon carefully covered his right eye.

The Cyclops Contact Lens was still in his left.

He had hoped it might reveal something different, the way it had at Exit 4, but nothing unusual appeared.

After another moment of hesitation, he removed the lens and placed it in its case.

The case itself looked no different from an ordinary plastic contact-lens case.

The only mildly unusual thing about it was that, instead of the usual two connected compartments, it consisted of a single container.

Beyond that, nothing stood out.

Which left Su-myeon wondering.

'Do I have to clean it like a normal contact lens......?'

As that idle thought crossed his mind, his gaze fell on the sukajan he had carelessly tossed aside.

The lens. Cheshire.

Unlike in those strange places, neither seemed to have changed at all in the real world.

If so, then what about the jacket supposedly made from the Nemean Lion Hide?

Wanting a definitive answer, Su-myeon picked up the elaborately embroidered sukajan.

Then he went into the kitchen and returned with a large pair of kitchen scissors.

'If it works the same way in reality, the possibilities would be endless, wouldn't they?'

The same went for the Cyclops Contact Lens.

Maybe it wasn't showing him anything right now simply because there was nothing nearby for it to reveal.

If it worked in reality, perhaps it would show him something whenever he approached a place connected to an urban legend.

And Cheshire—if he was simply asleep right now, then Su-myeon would probably have to keep looking after him.

As for the sukajan, that went without saying.

A jacket that could protect its wearer from any physical force.

How reassuring would something like that be?

"Just a little......"

But even with the scissors poised against the Nemean Lion Hide sukajan, Su-myeon hesitated for a long time.

This was the same garment that hadn't suffered so much as a scratch under San-hyeok's monstrous attacks.

Surely a tiny cut wouldn't do any serious damage.

'The power comes from the hide itself, so it shouldn't matter whether it's still in one piece......'

Reassuring himself with that logic, Su-myeon avoided the areas covered in intricate embroidery and gently pressed one blade against the fabric.

He carefully dragged the scissors across the left shoulder.

The hide turned white beneath the blade and split apart without the slightest resistance.

"GAH!"

Su-myeon yelped and hurriedly rubbed the spot with his fingertips.

He had thought he'd barely grazed it.

Yet somehow, a strip nearly as long as the joint of his finger had been sliced clean off.

Forget being indestructible—wasn't it even flimsier than an ordinary T-shirt?

He had damaged the precious jacket, but at least one thing was now certain.

Those bizarre items only functioned as they were supposed to inside the urban legends.

DING-DONG.

Just as he reached that conclusion, the doorbell rang.

Su-myeon got to his feet at the unexpected sound and carefully folded the Nemean Lion Hide sukajan away.

Deciding that he would have to handle it cautiously while in the real world, he checked the intercom.

"......Ju-hee?"

The unexpected visitor was Go Ju-hee.

Scratching his forehead, Su-myeon turned and headed for the front door.

Ju-hee stood on the other side, looking somewhat haggard.

"Weren't you supposed to be at work today?"

Su-myeon opened the door in surprise.

Ju-hee gave him an awkward smile and nodded.

"I was, but...... I called in sick. I don't think I could handle going to work like this."

After the kind of night they'd had, she had more than earned the day off.

Su-myeon nodded.

Then Ju-hee asked hesitantly,

"Can I come in?"

"Oh. Yeah, of course."

At his invitation, Ju-hee stepped inside and quietly looked around Su-myeon's apartment, which she was visiting for only the second time.

A handful of photographs hung on the walls.

They occupied the sort of places where family portraits would normally have been displayed.

Yet every one of them had somehow become a solo photograph, with Su-myeon standing awkwardly alone at the center.

Pictures from his childhood, all the way up to a relatively recent photograph of him in military uniform.

Every one of them had clearly been taken as a family keepsake.

And in every one, Su-myeon was alone.

Ju-hee studied them for a moment before slowly making her way into the living room.

"Isn't it absurd?"

The question came out of nowhere.

Then she continued.

"Losing someone precious from your life, and still having to use a sick day just to get time off work. Isn't that just...... absurd?"

Faced with the sheer irrationality of reality, Ju-hee let out a weak laugh.

Only then did Su-myeon notice that she was dressed in workout clothes.

"Did you run here?"

He remembered that the neighborhood where she'd said she lived was at least twenty minutes away by subway.

On foot, it would take close to two hours.

And from the look of her, she had run the entire way.

"......He and I used to run together whenever we got the chance. It was the only hobby we shared. Running."

That wasn't what he had asked.

But...... he could hardly point that out.

Unable to think of anything appropriate to say, Su-myeon at least went to the kitchen and made her a cup of instant coffee.

After taking a sip of the sweet, hot drink, Ju-hee finally came to the point.

"I need to go back. To that Exit 4."

In truth, even as a character from the main story, Ju-hee was someone who invariably died.

Su-myeon knew only what she herself had told him about her circumstances.

He could tell that the missing person meant a great deal to her.

But he had no way of knowing just how much.

"If it's well-known enough for people to talk about it online, that means plenty of people have gone in and made it back out, doesn't it?"

Su-myeon watched her with a heavy heart, but Ju-hee continued in a firm voice.

"You and Han-su went in and came back safely."

She seemed to have found hope in that fact.

The possibility that someone trapped inside an urban legend—a missing person—could actually be rescued and brought back out.

"I want to go back in."

Su-myeon fell silent at her repeated insistence.

It was her decision.

He had neither the authority to stop her nor the right to grant her permission.

And yet she had come to him and was speaking as though she needed his approval.

"If there's any advice you can give me...... anything at all...... I'd really appreciate it."

"Advice, huh......"

This wasn't a decision born purely of emotion.

Ju-hee had steeled herself to accept a certain degree of danger, but she had no intention of rushing in blindly.

She genuinely meant to listen to Su-myeon—the one who had always come up with rational countermeasures against every urban legend they encountered.

Under the weight of her determined gaze, Su-myeon's eyes drifted toward his computer.

The files were still there, untouched.

"Then...... give me a moment."

Su-myeon made up his mind to gather everything he knew and share it with her.

If Ju-hee succeeded in rescuing Hyeon-seok, it would prove that there might also be a way for Su-myeon to bring his parents back.

Testing that possibility with another case before attempting to find his own parents wasn't a bad idea.

Besides, knowing Ju-hee's personality, if he helped her find the person she had lost, she wouldn't forget the debt.

Su-myeon sat down at his computer.

"He might not be there anymore."

It didn't matter that no one else could see anything related to UTG.

They had all experienced things so profoundly unnatural that a little strange behavior from Su-myeon was hardly worth questioning anymore.

He searched through his computer and opened a file.

Watching him, Ju-hee asked in confusion,

"What...... does that mean?"

Su-myeon replayed the final moments in his mind.

The corridor changing as they chased Shin Hyeon-seok.

The posts that had appeared on the Heartphone and online.

As he pieced everything together, one possibility emerged.

"Remember the online post you saw while you were looking for us?"

--- Today, I'm born again

Freed from a tedious daily life

Skipping even a last goodbye

So long, wretched existence

To a place where the sun never sets

Give me my freedom. ---

Ju-hee remembered the post and nodded.

Su-myeon continued.

"There's that common trick, right? Where you read only the first character of each line and it spells out a different message."

Ju-hee frowned.

How had she failed to notice it?

Read only the first character of each line, and the hidden message was unmistakable.

'Don't come. Save me.'

"If he had to hide the real message like that, it means something was watching him, doesn't it?"

Su-myeon continued laying out his reasoning.

"And one of the lines said, 'To a place where the sun never sets.'"

He searched through the countless UTG main entries, fan games, and parody games stored on his computer until he found the file for Sadang Station Exit 4.

Another version had been saved alongside it.

"Baekya Land."

Su-myeon opened the file.

As they had followed Shin Hyeon-seok, the subway scenery had gradually transformed until it increasingly resembled a dilapidated amusement park.

Pink and mint green, chaotically mixed together.

The background of the main menu that appeared on the screen was identical to what Su-myeon had seen there.

That only strengthened his conviction.

"Following the flute to a promised land is one of the endings for Exit 4."

A promised land.

The destination awaiting everyone who had wandered the endless loop of Exit 4.

Including Shin Hyeon-seok.

And if that destination was Baekya Land—

"Baekya Land—the land where the sun never sets. An amusement park also fits the imagery of freedom and liberation pretty well."

Su-myeon briefly explained the reasoning behind his theory.

"So there's a good chance the people who were swallowed up by Exit 4 ended up there."

Ju-hee looked even more confused after hearing his explanation.

After all, she couldn't see any of the game files Su-myeon was talking about.

"......Alright."

Even so, she nodded.

For no reason other than that she trusted Su-myeon.

With the supernatural spilling into their everyday lives and threatening everything around them, Su-myeon was the only person who had consistently shown them which way to go.

And on top of that, Su-myeon had lost his own parents.

Yet in a situation like this, the person they had found wasn't one of his parents.

It was the person Ju-hee had lost.

Ju-hee understood just how fortunate she had been.

The more desperate the situation became, the more important it was to let go of stubbornness and make rational decisions.

"If he's in Baekya Land, then let's go there."