Chapter 40: The Inventor’s Castle (2)

[2. You must answer any question without exception. I really, really hate having to ask twice.]

So she demanded answers to every question she asked, yet answering his questions came with a price?

It was absurd, but this was a ghost story world—a place where rules governed everything.

Su-myeon sighed and pulled out his Heartphone, opening the Rose Coin window.

"Take them. And give me my answer, please."

Belle flashed him a pretty smile that, by now, only served to irritate him, and promptly took the coins.

"Here."

Then she pulled a book from the shelf and handed it to him.

[Heartphone Script]

"......."

A script?

A book containing all of them?

Startled, Su-myeon immediately opened it.

The first few pages contained the rules that had appeared on his Heartphone in Ellis Hotel—the ones he already knew well.

"Ghost stories. That's what you people call places like these, right?"

Belle spoke slowly as she continued her explanation.

Cheshire yawned as though bored, but Belle, having been paid, seemed determined to give him his money's worth.

Ghost stories.

Strange tales.

Literally, worlds contained within stories that had gone wrong.

"I'm also an existence born from a story that people knew so well that it became distorted, twisted, and eventually rotted away."

Belle continued, but Su-myeon's brow furrowed slightly.

That wasn't what he had asked.

He hadn't asked what this world was.

He had asked about himself.

Perhaps sensing his frustration, Belle continued at the same unhurried pace.

"Those rotted stories eventually began interfering with reality. They imitated it, and in order to sustain that imitation, they devoured beings from the real world."

What Belle was explaining was the origin of the ghost stories—and the reason people who went missing appeared inside them.

It was information Su-myeon had never heard before, and something he had certainly wondered about.

But it still wasn't the answer to his question.

"But I never wanted to become something like that. Nor did I want things to remain that way."

Belle's gaze changed.

Her eyes sharpened with resolve as they fixed on Su-myeon.

"So I made this and waited for an opportunity. A chance to hand it over to someone."

Now that the conversation finally seemed to be moving toward the answer he wanted, Su-myeon focused once more.

But what came next was not at all what he had expected.

"To be honest—I don't know why I was able to give it to you, specifically."

It simply became possible.

As for how it happened—I really don't know.

At Belle's answer, Su-myeon felt a hollow pang of disappointment.

In the end, Belle had merely been waiting for an opportunity, and by sheer coincidence, that opportunity had come in the form of him.

"At this point, why it was you specifically, and how it happened—that isn't really what's important anymore, is it?"

Noticing the disappointment on Su-myeon's face, Belle spoke firmly once again.

"The ones who ought to be annihilated are us. If every real person entangled in a ghost story returns to their original world, then the ghost story, stripped of its causality, can be erased."

Ghost stories.

Absurd tales that dragged living people inside, stole their life force and causality, and survived in grotesque forms.

Belle had no desire to continue existing like that.

She held up the Rose Coins she had taken from the Heartphone.

"By the way, these coins are the causality you've earned."

Whenever Su-myeon—a being from the real world—acted within this world, he stripped away part of its causality and claimed it for himself.

The more causality he accumulated, the more the world recognized him as someone qualified to exert greater influence over it.

"In that sense, I introduce you to inventions appropriate for your current level."

This much causality granted access to this degree of performance.

Belle was helping Su-myeon according to a cold and precise calculation.

"The only reason I chose you was because you happened to be someone I could choose. But I think that should be explanation enough."

At Belle's words, Su-myeon fell silent in thought.

If she truly didn't know what made Su-myeon special—if she was telling the truth—then everything fit together surprisingly well.

Belle had an ending she wanted for herself, and that was why she had done all of this.

Her explanation—that she was helping him simply because he happened to be the person who fit the circumstances—was reasonable enough.

Except for one lingering question.

"If you can create things like these yourself, why don't you do it directly? You could destroy the other stories on your own."

At Su-myeon's question, Belle smiled faintly, a hint of bitterness touching her expression.

Then she quietly swept her gaze across the shelves and ran her fingers along the spine of one particular book.

It was ancient, nearly disintegrated with age—a book so worn that it looked as though the slightest touch might reduce it to dust.

"Because when all of this is over, I want to disappear too."

"......."

"Someone else has to do it. Otherwise, how would I ever be eliminated as well?"

Su-myeon recognized something in those words.

It was the same point he had made to Cheshire.

"And I'm bound by rules just as much as anyone else. I need someone free—someone capable of acting outside them."

There were probably some stories Belle could destroy on her own.

After all, she had managed to extract Cheshire from Ellis Hotel, so it wasn't as though she was completely incapable of interfering with other stories.

But the reason she chose not to was exactly what she had just explained.

She needed someone strong enough to continue interfering with the stories and accumulating causality.

That was why she had deliberately left all those stories intact.

Like bait.

Because she wanted someone like Han Su-myeon—someone like him—to steadily grow stronger and erase every last one of them.

"......I understand."

Only then did Su-myeon fully understand Cheshire and Belle's interest in him, as well as the goodwill they had shown him.

It wasn't one-sided charity.

It was an investment.

And what Belle wanted from Su-myeon was perfectly clear.

"So that's why you keep pushing yourself?"

At Belle's question, Su-myeon nodded.

In the end, they wanted the same thing.

This was simply cooperation.

"I have things I want too. So it can't be helped."

"If you find your parents~? Are you going to quit?"

At the question Cheshire casually tossed his way, Su-myeon paused.

Truthfully, that had been his only goal.

But......

"......At the very least, I think I'd have to find everyone the people working with me have lost."

Su-myeon answered honestly.

Belle looked puzzled for a moment before nodding.

"You're the sentimental type."

Su-myeon wanted to deny it, but after what he had just said, he couldn't quite bring himself to.

He had never thought of himself as sentimental.

But now that he considered it, perhaps he was.

At least a little.

"If I build up enough goodwill with you that you'd find it difficult to refuse me, then you're hoping I'll eventually work toward your wish too, right?"

"Isn't that the sort of plan you're supposed to keep to yourself?"

"Oh my. Did I say that out loud?"

Belle giggled, and some of the tension drained from Su-myeon's shoulders.

Watching her behave in such a thoroughly human way, he found himself silently agreeing with her wish.

The ruined version of Belle he had seen in the game.

A zombie-like creature covered in inflamed blisters, yellow pus seeping from its body.

If that was what awaited her, then wishing for annihilation seemed perfectly rational.

It wasn't a desire he found difficult to understand.

"I can't promise I'll keep doing this forever."

"Of course, of course. I'll just have to work hard enough to charm you into seeing it through to the very end."

At Belle's shameless declaration, Su-myeon couldn't help but let out a small smile.

"I can't promise I'll help you unconditionally every single time either, you know."

He nodded at her words, which were every bit as candid as his own.

"The ghost stories will want to cast you out."

But Belle didn't want that to happen.

And Su-myeon, for his part, had no intention of allowing himself to be permanently expelled from the ghost stories while the people he was searching for remained trapped inside them.

"So the very first thing you need to do is organize the rules that have already been established."

Belle pointed toward the book she had given him.

The Heartphone Script.

It contained countless worlds Su-myeon had only encountered through the game and had never personally entered.

"There are limits to what I can organize myself. So I'll leave the rest to you."

Belle stared at the book with a complicated expression before adding,

"Even if you stop halfway through, make sure someone else can continue from where you left off."

Find the rules hidden within all those countless stories.

And compile them.

"That way, many people can be saved."

At her words, Su-myeon bit his lip.

If he organized all the rules beforehand, then even if he died somewhere along the way, there would still be a contingency.

Even if he failed to see it through to the end, someone else might rescue his parents in his place.

What she was saying was that he didn't have to carry everything alone forever.

Yet somehow, the thought did little to lighten the weight on his shoulders.

If anything, it felt more like she was emphasizing the fact that he really could die.

"Well, even aside from that—couldn't you send people you trust in your place for some of the simpler ones?"

Belle spoke again, apparently having read his mood.

Whatever the burden involved, the reason for systematically compiling the rules was clear.

Writing them all down would help Su-myeon avoid forgetting anything, and it would make sharing the information with others much easier.

"Then the game installed on my computer—the one that showed me all these stories—was that your doing too, Belle?"

When Su-myeon asked for confirmation, Belle frowned slightly and shook her head.

"That's... something I don't know either. The Secret Shop is the only thing I created directly."

"Then......"

"Right. I don't know. The only thing I've managed to figure out is that reality and this side are connected through the electronic device you use most often."

It felt as though she had told him a great deal, yet the actual information he had gained remained frustratingly fragmentary.

Feeling as though all he had really acquired was even more responsibility and obligation, Su-myeon looked down at the Heartphone Script in his hands.

In the end, no one knew why he, of all people, had ended up in this situation.

That still left him with a lingering sense of unease.

But it wasn't as though he had gained nothing.

One thing, at least, had become clear.

Belle's help, which until now had felt somewhat ambiguous, was something he needed to make active use of from here on.

"......Is it supposed to snow in your world today, by any chance?"

Just as Su-myeon was trying to content himself with that conclusion, Belle suddenly spoke while staring into the air.

Su-myeon also had a general understanding of the rules governing The Inventor's Castle from what he remembered of the game.

The platform beneath their feet suddenly accelerated, carrying them toward a window set between the bookshelves.

Belle hurriedly pulled aside the thick blackout curtain that had been blocking the light.

The weather forecast definitely hadn't mentioned anything about snow today......

"......."

Snow was falling outside.

Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Su-myeon hurriedly tried to put the Script into his Inventory.

"If you put it in your Inventory, you won't be able to take it back out once you're outside!"

Belle shouted urgently.

He knew that.

But if the book was damaged or lost before then, that would be an even greater problem.

Su-myeon had no other choice.

Belle seemed to reach the same conclusion.

She quickly reached out, grabbed the inner lining of the Nemean Lion Hide Su-myeon was wearing, and tore it open.

Golden dust scattered through the air, and where the fabric had been ripped apart, a sizable pocket appeared.

It was easily large enough to hold a book.

Su-myeon immediately shoved the Heartphone Script inside.

"Ah—!"

At Belle's startled cry, the platform beneath the two of them suddenly snapped clean in half.

Before either of them could react, the half beneath Su-myeon's feet flipped backward.

"......!"

He expected to slam into the floor below.

Instead, the castle moved as though it were a living machine.

One floor after another opened beneath him, swallowing Su-myeon whole and sending him plunging all the way down into the depths of the basement.