Chapter 39: The Inventor’s Castle (1)

[1. Feel free to take as many flowers from the indoor garden as you like. All except one.]

[Ha-min: Be careful, brother.]

[Ju-hee: If we can't reach you by tomorrow, we're storming in. Just so you know.]

[Young-cheol: You know we'll actually do it if we have to, right?]

Seated on the lift, Su-myeon watched the messages scroll through the group chat.

Before long, however, the text began to glitch and flicker with static before disappearing entirely.

His phone was transforming into a Heartphone.

"......."

He could no longer reply, but knowing they were there was comforting in its own small way.

CREEAK.

The lift gave a low groan.

Cutting through the darkness, it continued onward.

Higher and higher.

Strangely, the cold gradually began to ease.

Unless his body had simply gone numb, there could be no mistaking it.

"Hoo...."

Even the clouds of breath escaping his lips were growing thinner.

So it had to be real......

Just as the seemingly endless ascent began dulling his fear into boredom, Cheshire stirred inside the pocket of his long padded jacket.

"Oh~?"

For once, that vacant voice was almost welcome.

"We're here~?"

Speaking in his usual listless tone, Cheshire wriggled around inside the pocket.

Worried he might fall out, Su-myeon caught hold of him.

At that exact moment, the lift jolted with a metallic clatter and came to a stop.

"......."

The swaying ceased completely.

Yet Su-myeon could not bring himself to move.

It was so dark that he could not see so much as an inch beneath his feet.

Had they stopped in midair?

Fear surged through him, and he hurriedly fumbled for the flashlight on his phone.

Fortunately, the ground was visible only a short distance below.

"Over there~ In front."

Following Cheshire's direction, Su-myeon stepped off the lift.

After walking only a short distance, lights suddenly appeared ahead, as though a layer of fog had been swept aside.

A grand building resembling a medieval castle stood beyond a massive wrought-iron fence.

Warm light spilled from within.

He had never seen the place in person, of course, but there was something not entirely unfamiliar about its exterior.

That familiarity brought Su-myeon a small measure of relief.

He had arrived.

The Inventor's Castle.

"Welcome to Belle's place~"

As if confirming his thoughts, Cheshire announced their destination.

Su-myeon slowly approached the building and stopped before the imposing gate.

CREEEEAK.

The iron gate, along with the castle doors beyond it, opened on its own.

The spine-chilling groan of hinges echoed through the air, but Su-myeon nevertheless stepped carefully inside.

"Hmm...."

Uncharacteristically, Cheshire was the one to speak first.

"Been a while since I've come here~"

"Is this your home too, Cheshire?"

"I don't have a home~"

"Ah...."

It was not exactly a cheerful exchange.

Trailing off awkwardly, Su-myeon crossed the threshold—and found an unexpectedly unfamiliar sight waiting beyond it.

The space just inside the main entrance, what would ordinarily have been the main hall, had been transformed into an indoor garden.

Flowers of every conceivable color filled the room, warming the air with their fragrance.

"......."

After a moment's consideration, Su-myeon took off his padded jacket and placed it neatly beside the entrance.

Despite the abundance of flowers, the walls and ceiling were packed with gears and mechanical devices of every imaginable kind.

None of those details had been depicted in the game's backgrounds.

"There's a lot of machinery even in the garden."

"Obviously~ It's not like I can water them myself, can I?"

Cheshire waved his stuffed arms dismissively.

"Well, I suppose not...."

Their conversation was proving thoroughly unproductive.

Feeling the warmth of the room, Su-myeon tugged open the Nemean Lion Hide he wore beneath his jacket to let in some air.

At the center of the garden stood a golden rose protected beneath a glass dome.

'The one flower you're not allowed to take.'

Su-myeon knew immediately that this was the flower the rule referred to.

When he examined it using only his left eye, the one fitted with the Cyclops Contact Lens, the scene changed.

The golden sheen vanished.

In its place was something made of sinister-looking raw flesh and tangled thorny vines.

Su-myeon stopped beside the flower bed farthest from the deeply unsettling thing masquerading as a golden rose.

He had little confidence in his own sense of aesthetics, but......

"Why the flowers~?"

Cheshire asked as Su-myeon snipped several blossoms from the flower bed.

'A woman who calls herself a beauty probably won't hate flowers.'

Even if they came from her own garden.

There was hardly any woman who would dislike being handed a bouquet by someone else.

"It occurred to me that showing up empty-handed might be a little rude."

At Su-myeon's answer, Cheshire giggled.

After arranging the flowers into a passable bouquet, Su-myeon stood and headed deeper into the castle.

The Inventor's Castle itself was fairly modest in size, with one floor above ground and one below.

'No need to go downstairs.'

Su-myeon promptly erased the basement from his mind and headed upward instead.

At the top of the wide staircase, corridors stretched in both directions.

"...Excuse me."

Murmuring the courtesy under his breath, Su-myeon opened the first door he came to.

The room beyond was so cluttered that it could easily have passed for a storeroom.

Every kind of metal, fabric, and chunks of flesh whose origins he preferred not to imagine had been haphazardly piled and arranged along the shelves.

It was not something he wanted to inspect piece by piece.

"......."

Belle was clearly not here.

Su-myeon shut the door.

Then he opened the next one.

This room was somewhat better organized than the previous one.

It resembled a showroom where Belle displayed her completed creations.

The objects on display varied wildly.

Armor made from unidentifiable metal.

Eyeballs and organs of unknown origin suspended in tanks of fluid.

"Belle's not very good at organizing~"

As Cheshire had said, there was no discernible system to the arrangement.

An eyeball sat beside an ordinary-looking coin purse, with a dagger carelessly tossed next to that.

Most of the objects looked relatively harmless.

Su-myeon still had no intention of touching any of them.

After all, even the Nemean Lion Hide he was currently wearing looked like nothing more than an ordinary sukajan.

'I'd rather it actually be animal hide.'

There was no guarantee that one of the innocent-looking objects scattered around the room had not been made from something like human skin.

With that thought, Su-myeon closed the door as well.

Could Belle not be here?

"She's probably around somewhere~"

As though reading his thoughts, Cheshire spoke.

If that was the case, Su-myeon could hardly turn back now.

He decided to try the next room.

This one was packed with engines.

They radiated such intense heat that the room felt like a sauna.

It would not have surprised him if the heat pouring from this single room was enough to keep the entire castle and its surroundings warm.

The soundproofing of the door was astonishing.

The moment Su-myeon opened it, the deafening roar of machinery assaulted his ears.

He shut it again without the slightest hesitation.

"This thing—the castle itself doesn't actually move, does it?"

The question had been meant for Cheshire.

The answer came from much farther behind him.

"That's a fun idea."

It was not Cheshire's low, languid voice this time.

It was the voice of an unfamiliar woman.

Su-myeon spun around.

"Hi."

A woman stood there, greeting him with complete casualness.

"H-Hello...."

Caught off guard, Su-myeon reflexively returned the greeting.

She wore a rough, utilitarian yellow jumpsuit, so stained with grease and wear that its original color had nearly faded into beige.

Dressed like a mechanic in rugged work clothes, the woman wiped her hands against her pants as she approached.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Belle."

She actually held out her hand for a handshake.

The sheer mismatch between expectation and reality threatened to short-circuit Su-myeon's brain, but he nevertheless took her hand.

"Ah, yes. I'm Han Su-myeon. And, here...."

When he offered her the bouquet, Belle burst into clear, ringing laughter.

To put it simply, Belle was extremely beautiful.

When a beautiful woman accepted his flowers and laughed so openly, Su-myeon felt inexplicably self-conscious and took half a step backward.

"I was thinking of letting you wander around a little longer."

Belle, who had been smelling the bouquet, suddenly reached out.

Su-myeon flinched.

But her hand went straight for Cheshire, who was perched on his shoulder.

Without displaying so much as an ounce of loyalty, Cheshire eagerly grabbed her hand and climbed over to Belle's side.

"I have too many questions. I couldn't help myself."

Su-myeon did not immediately respond to Belle's remark.

"Did anything catch your eye on the way in?"

Catch his eye?

Su-myeon thought for a moment, then answered promptly.

"Nothing in particular. Everything here is so strange that I couldn't even tell what was what."

At his reply, Belle raised the bouquet to cover half her face, her eyes curving in amusement.

The sight was so strikingly beautiful that Su-myeon only became more confused.

The inhabitants of The Inventor's Castle he remembered from the game had looked nothing like this.

The master of this castle, as depicted in the game, had been a grotesque, ruined monstrosity—something that could hardly be described as beautiful in either form or name.

A zombie-like creature covered in yellowish pustules and inflamed blisters.

'If she'd looked like this in the game, I would've connected this place to the "Beautiful Belle's Secret Shop" the instant I saw the name.'

He had only realized the connection after talking to Cheshire.

That was how completely the game's depiction of the castle's owner had failed to suggest that she was the Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

But the Belle standing before him now was a woman who more than deserved to be called beautiful.

"Looks like you've got plenty of questions yourself."

Belle approached with the same faintly amused expression.

The broad steel plate beneath her feet glided forward like a moving walkway, carrying her toward him.

"Hop on."

At her invitation, Su-myeon carefully stepped onto the strange metal platform.

The plate was not particularly wide, leaving him no choice but to stand close to Belle.

Accompanied by the faint fragrance of flowers, the platform glided forward and entered a room on the opposite side of the corridor.

The door opened automatically before them, allowing the platform to pass through without stopping.

The room beyond was packed with books.

It was as dense with shelves as a library.

"This place is......"

"My record room."

The ceiling was impossibly high.

At a glance, it appeared to be at least three times the height of the castle's other rooms.

"Careful."

Belle casually slipped an arm around Su-myeon's waist and pulled him closer.

The platform began to rise.

Faced with tension on several entirely different fronts at once, Su-myeon momentarily forgot how to speak.

His mind was already tangled with all the questions he wanted to ask.

And in the middle of that confusion, he looked down at the woman standing beside him, shorter than he was and still holding the bouquet.

Then he suddenly remembered the lens covering his left eye.

A trace of unease crept over him.

Su-myeon cautiously closed his right eye.

"......."

Thankfully, the truth revealed through his left eye showed Belle exactly as she appeared normally.

Beautiful.

Feeling somewhat relieved, Su-myeon adjusted his glasses and finally asked his first question.

"You've known about me ever since I entered Ellis Hotel. You're the one who put the shop in my Heartphone. Isn't that right?"

Belle lifted her gaze toward him.

Her reddish-brown hair was pulled tightly back, and her eyes were green.

As another thought occurred to him, Su-myeon refined the question.

"How do you know me? Since when? And why did you do all this?"

At his words, Belle released him and took half a step backward.

The platform had already risen halfway up the towering library shelves.

They were considerably high above the floor.

When Belle stepped back, Su-myeon instinctively caught hold of her.

It was probably perfectly safe.

Even so, he had no desire to watch someone fall from that height right in front of him.

Seeing his reaction, Belle smirked.

Then she held out an open palm.

"If you want to know—five coins."