Chapter 3: Staff-Only Passage (1)

[3. If you accidentally enter the employees’ area, there is no need to panic. Do not touch the employees’ belongings under any circumstances, and leave as quickly as possible.]

The moment San-hyeok’s voice rang out, Han-su’s brow furrowed sharply, and he spoke in a low voice.

“That man from earlier... did not disappear because of you.”

Han-su had seen what happened with his own eyes, so he must have known the man had not simply disappeared but was most likely dead.

It was a rather tactful choice of words.

Su-myeon looked at Han-su, then quickly realized what was going on.

Because he had been fiddling with his phone the entire time, Han-su seemed to have misunderstood and assumed he was feeling dejected.

“Ah....”

Wouldn’t it sound strange to answer, “That’s true”?

And saying, “I understand....” would be strange too, wouldn’t it?

For a moment, Su-myeon could not think of a response appropriate to the situation, and his expression grew awkward as the silence dragged on.

“There is no need for you to feel guilty, but... of course, I don’t feel comfortable about it either.”

Of course Su-myeon felt uncomfortable.

But that was entirely because of the shock of witnessing such a brutally violent scene in person.

He did not particularly believe that the shaggy-haired man’s death—or, more precisely, his murder—was his fault.

Obviously, the blame lay entirely with the bastard who had killed him.

Still, since he could not think of anything suitable to say, Su-myeon simply nodded.

“...For now, if we tell the others what that man did, there is a good chance the group will fall apart, so I don’t intend to reveal it yet.”

Once again, Su-myeon failed to answer Han-su immediately.

Why are you reporting that to me?

“......I agree.”

But aloud, he simply went along with him.

Just carry me properly on your bus, Mr. Protagonist.

“There are only stairs going up?”

“I guess this really was a basement.”

“No wonder there weren’t any windows.”

Meanwhile, everyone had gathered in small clusters in front of the staircase San-hyeok had found and begun murmuring among themselves again.

None of them seemed eager to be the first to go up.

In the midst of their hesitation, Han-su boldly stepped to the front and placed one foot on the first stair.

“I’ll take the lead. Would you take the rear, Mr. Su-myeon?”

...Why me....

Su-myeon swallowed the urge to object and nodded.

Once everyone began climbing the stairs, Su-myeon, now at the very back, pulled his phone from his pocket again.

Even after going up one floor, their surroundings looked almost no different from before.

The only change was that office furniture—filing cabinets, desks, and the like—had been placed here and there, standing strangely isolated from one another.

After waiting for the right moment, Su-myeon quietly spoke up.

“A new safety rule appeared.”

Once he confirmed that everyone was pulling out their phones, Su-myeon breathed a small sigh of relief.

Please don’t touch anything. Just walk through quietly. Please. Please.

“...Is this the employees’ area?”

Han-su asked as though something about it bothered him.

After sighing inwardly what felt like a hundred times, Su-myeon cautiously raised a hand.

Why is everyone’s field of vision so narrow?

Couldn’t someone else notice things like this first for once?

“It says Staff Only over here.”

In the end, Su-myeon stepped forward yet again and pointed to the [STAFF ONLY] sign mounted on the wall beside the stairs.

[AM 11:36]

After checking the time one last time, Su-myeon slipped his phone back into his pocket.

This floor was a time-attack maze.

They had to escape within one hour.

Fortunately, perhaps because this was still only the second floor, the difficulty was low.

Under normal circumstances, the layout was designed so that they should be able to find the next staircase within the time limit.

As long as nothing unusual happened along the way.

‘...There’s one fixed death on this stage too.’

Su-myeon looked toward the curious woman dressed in office attire.

She had a pretty face, chestnut-brown curls pulled tightly back, and was dressed exactly like a neat, professional office worker.

Go Ju-hee.

She was the fixed victim on this floor.

Of course, depending on the stage, the death toll could rise even higher.

But there were always certain fixed deaths that could not be prevented no matter what.

In Ju-hee’s case, the problem was that very curiosity.

“Huh...?”

The moment she spotted the walkie-talkie lying on the floor, she bent down almost reflexively to pick it up.

The same thing had happened in the game.

The problem began because she grabbed that walkie-talkie almost immediately after entering this stage.

The instant the clown-dressed Security realized that a human had touched one of his belongings, he began hunting them down.

From that point on, they had to escape the maze while being chased.

‘The clown Security’s first appearance is when he tears Ju-hee’s arm off while she’s holding the walkie-talkie....’

The shock of having her entire arm ripped free from the shoulder caused Ju-hee to collapse, either dead or unconscious.

And once the chase began, she naturally never appeared again.

Before it was too late, Su-myeon stepped in front of her, caught Ju-hee’s reaching hand, shook it firmly, then let go.

“Hello. I’m Han Su-myeon. This is pretty confusing, isn’t it?”

At Su-myeon’s words, Ju-hee looked up at him blankly, confusion written all over her face, and tilted her head.

It was far too unnatural to pass for an ordinary handshake.

But thanks to that, she also remembered that she was not supposed to touch random objects.

Realizing she had nearly made a mistake, Ju-hee put on an awkward expression and lightly returned the handshake.

“Ah, yes.... It really is. I’m Go Ju-hee. You were... the person standing in front of that door earlier, right?”

Her curiosity had shifted from the mysterious object to Su-myeon in the space of only a few seconds.

Ju-hee immediately followed up with another question.

“The person who went inside... where do you think he disappeared to?”

Maybe there had been some sort of secret passage inside?

Apparently that was what she had been thinking, but she had been too frightened to say it aloud.

“Whether there was a secret passage or not... either possibility feels terrifying.”

Ju-hee phrased it vaguely, but Su-myeon understood exactly what she meant.

She had opened her eyes in an unknown place, and a man who had been standing with them only moments earlier had vanished with nothing but a door separating them.

Leaving behind only a blood-soaked T-shirt and a scream.

If there had been a secret passage inside, that meant a vicious kidnapper was hiding somewhere within.

If there had not been one, then the disappearance itself became an impossible mystery.

“I thought it would be better to just keep moving.”

If they continued upward, eventually they would find windows—or at the very least, a rooftop.

Then they could call for rescue or try to do something.

As Ju-hee forced herself to speak positively, Su-myeon simply nodded without saying much.

She was not wrong.

If they kept climbing, they would eventually reach the outside and escape.

‘The problem is.......’

This hotel had nine underground floors.

They were currently on Basement Level Eight.

Which meant they still had seven more floors to climb before they could finally reach the exit and escape.

“...Mr. Su-myeon, did you see anything about what happened to that man?”

There was no need to tell her the details of that revolting scene.

Still, he wanted her to become a little more cautious.

Su-myeon hardened his expression and deliberately lowered his voice, trying to make himself sound as serious as possible.

“Someone—no. There was some other entity there. I think it was the entity called the Housekeeper mentioned in the safety rules.”

“Then... the man who broke the rule and went inside.......”

Had it cleaned him up the way a housekeeper cleaned a room, just as the name implied?

Ju-hee’s curiosity carried her imagination that far, and her face went pale.

She quickly shook her head.

“So there really must have been a secret passage inside. I’m glad I didn’t start looking for it for no reason....”

Su-myeon had deliberately used the ambiguous word “entity” when referring to the Housekeeper.

Even so, Ju-hee seemed to have naturally assumed it was a person.

“But how did that person know immediately that he went inside? Were they watching us through CCTV or something?”

Ju-hee’s curiosity continued branching off in new directions.

She unnecessarily glanced up at the ceiling.

Naturally, there was nothing resembling a security camera anywhere.

Just when it had become awkward both to lie and to tell the truth, Han-su approached them again.

“Mr. Su-myeon, even though we have continued moving, I still cannot see the end of the building.”

“Oh my....”

At Han-su’s words, Ju-hee covered her mouth with a worried expression.

Where were they?

And for what purpose had they been brought here?

When gazes filled with anxiety and frustration settled on Su-myeon, he was dumbfounded.

So why do you keep telling me things like that....

“Do you perhaps have an opinion on what would be best to do in the current situation?”

When Han-su openly asked him that, Su-myeon could no longer hold himself back.

“Why are you asking me that....”

Because of his timid personality, he could not say it as forcefully as he wanted.

Still, for the moment, he decided to be satisfied that he had at least said what needed to be said.

Han-su’s sharp gaze softened slightly.

“...Ah, I apologize. I didn’t mean to put pressure on you. I only asked because you seem to be thinking about this more rationally and reasonably than anyone else.”

“That’s true. I didn’t notice it either, but I realized it after hearing what Mr. Su-myeon said earlier.”

Ju-hee agreed with Han-su and added her own experience.

“I fell asleep for a little while in the break room at work, but when I woke up, I wasn’t wearing the slippers I’d had on when I fell asleep. I was wearing the shoes I came to work in.”

It was an outfit that seemed to match her last memory, yet was somehow different at the same time.

She probably would never have noticed that subtle inconsistency if Su-myeon had not pointed it out.

“Only my police ID remained. All of my other belongings were gone.”

The two of them also seemed to feel that this detail made it difficult to treat the situation as an ordinary kidnapping.

Su-myeon, however, had a rough idea why they had appeared dressed that way.

‘Isn’t it because this is the state that best represents each person’s character?’

If this truly was the world of a game, then something like that would be rather important.

After all, it would hardly look right for Ju-hee, whose whole concept was that of an office worker, to shuffle around in slippers.

And Han-su, whose role was that of a detective, would not be much of a detective character if he could not prove his identity because his police ID was missing.

Su-myeon, who was beginning to feel dizzy from seeing the same wallpaper and carpet no matter where he looked, checked the time again.

[AM 11:48]

Before he realized it, quite a bit of time had passed while they walked and talked about trivial things.

If possible, he wanted to reach the upper floor before midnight, but they were moving more slowly than he had expected.

“I’m going to walk a little farther ahead for a while. It feels kind of stuffy back here....”

Making an excuse, Su-myeon moved from his place at the rear into the middle of the group.

In any case, there was an exit on the surface.

They could get outside.

Of course, the game continued into Chapter 2 after that, with the protagonist going on to investigate other ghost stories.

But once Su-myeon escaped from here, all he had to do was cut off contact immediately.

Then he could go back to his ordinary life.

‘Let’s get out of here quickly.’

There was no reason to abandon his peaceful everyday life and deliberately spend any longer suffering in this place.

If they were going to find the stairs, they should appear soon....

“I said I’m not doing it!”

At that moment, someone shouted from among the people walking near the front.

Startled, Han-su and Ju-hee hurried past Su-myeon and ran toward the commotion.

‘She really is the type who has a hard time surviving for long....’

Watching Ju-hee rush toward trouble with a meddlesome streak rivaling even the protagonist’s, Su-myeon quietly looked toward the front.

Sure enough, San-hyeok was standing at the center of the disturbance.