Chapter 5: Staff-Only Passage (3)

[5. Security is a very sensitive employee. If you have any inquiries, please greet him politely with “What a clear-smiled day it is today!” after meeting him, then state your business.]

Only half of them followed Su-myeon’s shout.

Running at the very back, Su-myeon watched San-hyeok and most of the others at the front turn right.

This was different from how things had unfolded in the game.

Originally, the protagonist had not yet clashed with San-hyeok at this point, so everyone had simply followed Han-su’s decision without argument.

But perhaps because things had already changed from the very beginning, the group was now splitting in two.

The problem was that the majority had chosen to follow San-hyeok.

‘Then the course of events I know might change drastically....’

But Su-myeon was already so breathless that his lungs felt lodged in his throat. He had no strength left to shout again.

The enormous pounding footsteps thundered right behind him.

He had watched enough death animations in the game to know exactly what happened to anyone who got caught.

Unless he wanted to be “removed” to some unknown place with an arm torn off, he absolutely could not let that happen.

After they passed the fork and kept running for a while, the pounding footsteps quickly began to fade.

“...Whatever was chasing us went after the other group.”

Ju-hee, who had been running at the very front, glanced back to check and stopped.

Only then was Su-myeon finally able to stop as well.

Han-su halted too, gasping for breath as he looked around at what remained of the group.

“Did we get separated? Where did everyone else go?”

“The other... the other way....”

Su-myeon, who had been bringing up the rear, barely managed to force out the words as he gestured toward the right.

Immediately afterward, he dropped onto the floor as though collapsing and panted heavily.

“Aaaah!”

Just then, a scream rang out from somewhere in the direction Su-myeon had pointed.

Han-su stared that way, conflict written across his face.

Ju-hee bit her lip hard as well, but soon shook her head and instead checked on Su-myeon, who was still struggling to catch his breath.

“We should rest for a moment.”

“I would be extremely grateful if we could....”

He had been breathing so hard that his lungs hurt, and it felt as though he might cough up his heart.

Back when Su-myeon was young and his school held sports days, he °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° had always found it most comfortable to finish at an appropriately unremarkable last place.

This might genuinely have been the first time in his life he had ever done something worthy of being called a full sprint.

After wiping the sweat from his chin with the back of his hand and spending a long while gasping for air, Su-myeon’s breathing finally began to settle.

Han-su quietly asked him,

“...Why did you tell us to go left?”

Of course, the right path led somewhere too.

However, the Back Office was also an employee area. They would have to wander around much longer, and there was a high chance they would fail to get out before the time limit.

The Arcade on the left, meanwhile, had stairs leading up to the shopping area of the mall.

So naturally, the left path was the correct choice.

The problem was how to explain that....

“Doesn’t ‘arcade’ sometimes refer to a shopping mall overseas?”

His throat was completely parched from all the heavy breathing. Su-myeon swallowed once before continuing.

He had never even been on an overseas trip, so it wasn’t as though he genuinely knew such things well.

He only knew because he had seen it in the game.

“And Back Office literally means an area used by employees.... We’re guests, so I figured somewhere intended for customers would probably be safer.”

Besides, every monster they had encountered so far had been playing the role of an employee.

Su-myeon tried to keep his explanation as concise as possible.

“Anyway, wouldn’t it make sense for us to avoid staff-only areas?”

Han-su was not the only one listening.

Ju-hee, standing beside them, nodded at Su-myeon’s explanation, and the others who had trusted his shout and followed them to the left nodded as well.

There were exactly six people left, including Su-myeon.

“...From now on, I think it would be best if we avoided splitting up whenever possible.”

Everyone voiced their agreement with Han-su, so Su-myeon brushed himself off and stood.

The group had been cut in half, but after looking around at the remaining faces, he actually felt a little more at ease.

Most of the people left were calm, cooperative, and easygoing.

Those who were rebellious like San-hyeok, or simply poor at functioning in a group, seemed to have rejected Su-myeon’s shout and gone the other way.

“...?”

As Su-myeon stood and habitually dusted off his pants, something caught against his finger.

He picked it up.

It was another silver coin engraved with a rose.

Su-myeon stared at the coin in his hand with an awkward expression.

It definitely hadn’t been there before he sat down.

So when had it appeared?

He had his doubts, but the Rose Coin was an item meant for guests rather than employees, so touching it was probably safe.

‘Anyway, it’s currency that goes into the inventory....’

Though he still had no idea what he was supposed to use it for.

Su-myeon pressed the coin firmly against his phone screen and deposited it.

[Rose Coin : 2]

[Preparing Stock....]

What in the world would he be able to buy with these?

He was curious, but he already felt himself drifting farther and farther away from anything resembling normality, so he decided not to indulge that curiosity any further.

[PM 12:21]

Then, after checking the time on his phone, Su-myeon spent approximately one second considering whether he should simply give up on everything and lie down.

It was honestly miraculous that his lungs hadn’t burst after that sprint.

He had been running for more than ten minutes....

“I am concerned about that as well.”

While Su-myeon was thinking, Han-su approached and spoke.

Su-myeon wondered what Han-su had misunderstood this time to warrant the words “as well,” but Han-su continued before he could ask.

“One of the safety rules tells us to leave quickly. What exactly do you think ‘quickly’ means?”

Apparently, because Su-myeon had been staring at the time, Han-su had assumed he was thinking about that.

Unfortunately, this was yet another question Su-myeon already knew the answer to.

“...Wouldn’t it mean we’re not supposed to wander around here for longer than a certain amount of time?”

Wanting to subtly steer him toward the right answer, Su-myeon phrased it as a guess.

“Probably... it wouldn’t be measured down to individual minutes... so maybe it gives us a broader limit, like an hour or something?”

“If I’d known something like this would happen, I should’ve at least checked the time when we came up....”

That was information Su-myeon had already checked.

At Han-su’s regretful words, Su-myeon answered,

“11:36. Ah, since I was all the way at the back, if we account for when the first person came up, then around 11:35?”

In truth, even in the game, Han-su was not exactly the sort of person who meticulously kept track of every detail.

The gamer controlling him from behind the screen was the one who remembered everything and pieced it together to reach the ending.

He, too, suffered from that passive trait shared by horror-game protagonists—the tendency to occasionally make carelessly incomprehensible decisions and get themselves hopelessly entangled in whatever incident was unfolding.

“And since we already found a sign, I think the stairs should show up soon too.”

From that point onward, the path continued in a single direction, with nowhere else to get lost.

Su-myeon spoke with a hint of relief, then habitually took off his glasses to wipe them.

When he put them back on, he flinched.

“...What is it?”

Han-su was staring intently at him.

When a broad-shouldered detective from the Violent Crimes Unit looked at someone like that, it was enough to send an inexplicable chill down Su-myeon’s spine.

He quickly went back over everything he had said, wondering if anything had sounded suspicious.

Nothing seemed particularly strange.

“I was looking at you because I thought you were impressive.”

Han-su was genuinely impressed by Su-myeon’s deduction.

A deduction that wasn’t really a deduction at all.

At those words, Su-myeon wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.

All he had done was work backward from an answer he already knew and fit the evidence around it.

But obviously, he couldn’t tell anyone that.

When Su-myeon merely nodded with an awkward expression, Han-su continued with a solemn look.

“And I would also like to apologize for failing to act rationally earlier.”

“Um....”

Seriously! Why do you keep telling me things like that?!

Su-myeon’s desire to avoid standing out and quietly blend in with everyone else had long since sailed off into the distance.

The protagonist’s attention was becoming increasingly burdensome.

Still, half resigned by now, Su-myeon eventually nodded.

“Yes. Well... things like that happen. And if there really is a time limit, shouldn’t we pick up the pace a little?”

Wanting to get out of this place as quickly as possible, Su-myeon placed a hand on Han-su’s shoulder and pushed him forward.

Han-su apparently agreed that they needed to hurry, because he immediately turned around and resumed walking.

As though confirming Su-myeon’s expectations, they had not gone much farther when a staircase leading upward came into view in the distance.

The problem was the path leading to it.

A huge hole yawned open in the floor, leaving only a single narrow strip of ground, barely a handspan wide, stretching straight across to the other side like a bridge.

“What kind of building is designed like this.......”

Hearing Ju-hee mutter, Su-myeon quietly assessed the path ahead as well.

Aside from that handspan-wide strip, the entire floor had fallen away into a gaping void.

If someone slipped, getting injured would be bad enough.

The bigger problem was that they would have to make their way all the way back here again.

‘There was something like this in the game too.’

An incredibly irritating gimmick where a single misstep sent you all the way back to the starting point.

But that was not the only thing waiting for them here.

As they moved a little closer, the walls on either side of the narrow bridge finally came fully into view.

“Shit....”

Countless walkie-talkies were displayed across both walls.

And each one had been torn away together with the hand of some unknown person.

Walkie-talkies and severed hands crudely stitched together with wire hung across the walls in endless rows.

From a distance, the fingers and palms resembled enormous red flowers.

The countless hands fastened tightly to the walls were all different in size and shape.

“Um, this is... just a guess....”

After taking in the sight, Ju-hee cautiously spoke.

“If these were... deliberately collected....”

Everyone listening to her trembling voice arrived at the same thought.

Cheol-su’s corpse from earlier.

The walkie-talkie sewn to his hand.

“It may come back carrying him so it can tear the hand off and add it to the wall.”

At Han-su’s calm words, Su-myeon hurriedly stepped onto the narrow strip of floor first.

There was no time to hesitate.

He carefully advanced across the bridge-like path, placing one foot in front of the other.

Su-myeon simply didn’t want to waste time.

He wanted to survive.

But to everyone else, he looked like a brave pioneer willingly testing an uncertain path for their sake.

After a brief hesitation, Ju-hee removed her high heels, held them in one hand, and followed him.

The others formed a line behind her.

“I will bring up the rear.”

Han-su’s words were extremely reassuring, so Su-myeon continued straight ahead without looking back.

Of course, he felt a little guilty that he always seemed to be the first one rushing ahead.

But from the perspective of someone who already knew the correct answer, he simply didn’t want to waste precious time trying to persuade everyone else.

After all, if Su-myeon wanted to survive, then knowing how the game was supposed to unfold and helping the protagonist accordingly was still his best option.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

The sound that had been echoing faintly in the distance was gradually drawing closer.

After barely making it across and reaching the base of the stairs, Su-myeon finally looked back.

Since everyone had to cross slowly and one at a time, Han-su still hadn’t even stepped onto the bridge.

Even so, most of the others were already making their way across.

Only one person remained with him.

“Uwah!”

A male student in a high school uniform trembled violently with fear.

He had looked unsteady from the start.

And sure enough, before he could even take more than a few steps, his foot slipped.

He staggered.

His body tilted sideways.

And just as he began to fall—

Han-su reached out and caught the boy’s flailing hand.

“...I’ve got you.”