Chapter 58

1-2) Descending past the fourth floor via the emergency stairwell.

1-3) An anomaly must be observed in the resident of unit 404.

Examples: repeatedly being seen in the emergency stairwell, displaying signs of mental instability, repeatedly leaving food such as cookies or cake unattended in common areas.

1-4) Consuming said food while descending the stairs.

Ju-hee hurriedly pulled out the safety rules she had been compiling and spread them across the conference table.

"I don't get it. He was that scared of the whole thing, and he still ate the food on his way down?"

Judging from the current circumstances, that seemed to be exactly what had happened.

Most likely, he had crossed over after fulfilling every condition.

Of course, there was also the possibility that sheer repetition had eventually caused him to cross over by chance, even without satisfying several of the conditions.

Either way, there was no way to know for certain without evidence.

"And in the material you gave us, and in the posts themselves, there's hardly anything about a forest. Why is a forest included as one of the conditions at all?"

"That's been bothering me too."

Su-myeon nodded at Ju-hee's question.

The game's title screen.

A vast apartment complex nestled within a forest.

The only source from which they could obtain information about ghost stories was the UTG games.

Naturally, Su-myeon had no choice but to pay attention to even the smallest detail.

He had documented everything that appeared on-screen, everything that was mentioned, and had naturally assumed that the forest, too, must be one of the conditions.

But now that he thought about it again, there was something slightly odd about that assumption.

Within the game itself, the forest was never explicitly mentioned.

"That's why, even after hearing what the informant Seo Tae-hyeon told us, I couldn't be sure this was the same ghost story."

But what if the forest shown on the game screen was not a literal forest, but a figurative representation?

If so, there was a strong possibility that the Gihyang complex—the very place where Su-myeon lived—was a candidate location for this incident.

At Su-myeon's words, everyone nodded in understanding.

The atmosphere felt somewhat strange to Mi-ae, but to the team members who owed Su-myeon their lives several times over, accepting his reasoning came naturally.

"For now, let's go."

Experience had taught them that the sooner a missing person was found, the easier the rescue would be.

Su-myeon immediately began preparing to leave the office.

***

The familiar sukajan jacket, sneakers, the lens worn over only one eye, and even the cat doll perched on his shoulder.

Su-myeon was armed from head to toe with items that, on anyone else, would have made them look like a delinquent.

Standing beside him in front of the 'Gihyang The Forest' complex were two familiar companions.

"........"

As always, Han-su and Ju-hee, neither of whom had any intention of being left off the field team, had come with him.

Dressed in comfortable clothes to match Su-myeon's casual outfit, the three of them set off together.

As they entered building 404, Su-myeon noticed Ju-hee staring steadily at him and asked,

"What is it?"

"You're doing all right these days, aren't you?"

......All right?

When Su-myeon looked back at her in confusion, Ju-hee frowned slightly.

"You don't look well."

"He really doesn't."

Han-su unexpectedly agreed with her.

The remark seemed to come out of nowhere, but Su-myeon understood what they meant and ran a hand along his jaw.

He was well aware that he had lost a noticeable amount of weight lately.

These days, even sleep—the thing he considered most important in life—was difficult to get in peace.

In truth, Su-myeon was carrying a considerable amount of physical and mental exhaustion.

But there was nothing he could do about it.

The key to finding hundreds, perhaps thousands, of missing people—starting with his own parents—was in his hands.

It was only natural that a sense of responsibility unlike anything he had ever felt before would begin to weigh on him.

That really couldn't be helped.

"......And here I thought it was something serious."

Feeling tired and knowing that he was tired changed nothing.

Only taking action and resolving the situation would make any difference.

"Let's hurry inside."

As with most apartment buildings, the main entrance was naturally locked, but that hardly posed a problem.

The three of them simply waited for someone to leave building 404, then slipped inside through the open door.

Su-myeon glanced toward the communal stairwell before heading for the elevator.

If they wanted to fulfill the condition of descending the stairs, they first had to get to a higher floor.

"Which floor should we start from?"

"Let's try the ninth for now."

Once inside the elevator, Su-myeon pressed the button for the ninth floor.

For the moment, they intended to follow the same route as the person who was believed to have disappeared only moments earlier.

When they reached the ninth floor, the three of them immediately opened the fire door and stepped into the emergency stairwell.

Through the windows on each landing, the bright blue midday sky was clearly visible.

The view stretched unobstructed toward the nearby apartment buildings.

It was quiet, but not isolated enough to feel oppressive, and there was little about the place that could be called gloomy.

"I'll go first."

Han-su readily took the lead and started down.

Their footsteps echoed through the stairwell, breaking the silence, and with it, what little tension they had felt seemed to fade away.

The three descended slowly, one floor at a time.

The steady tap, tap of their sneakers echoed through the communal stairwell.

[5]

But as the fifth floor came into view, the atmosphere somehow began to change.

The temperature seemed to drop unnaturally, sending an involuntary shiver down Su-myeon's spine.

Behind him, he heard Ju-hee falter.

"Do you want to walk in the middle?"

At Su-myeon's suggestion, Ju-hee looked as though she was about to refuse.

Then she said,

"I'd rather go all the way in front."

Apparently preferring to be the first to see whatever might be waiting for them, Ju-hee moved past Su-myeon and Han-su and took the lead.

Whether curiosity had overcome her fear, Su-myeon couldn't tell.

With Ju-hee walking in front as she wanted, they continued a little farther down the stairs.

Rustle—

Suddenly, an unfamiliar sound reached them.

It sounded like leaves brushing against a windowpane.

All three of them turned toward the window at once.

But outside, there wasn't a single leaf to be seen.

Not even a branch.

Only another apartment building stood some distance away across the complex.

"........"

If it had merely been a trick of the ears, all three of them would not have turned toward the window at precisely the same moment.

They had definitely heard something.

Ju-hee swallowed dryly and started walking again.

"By the way, isn't that your building over there, Mr. Su-myeon?"

She pointed toward the building directly opposite the stairwell.

The side bearing the building number happened to be facing away from them, so Su-myeon had not recognized it at first, but Ju-hee was right.

Whether it was coincidence or not, there was no way to know, but the apartment building directly across from them was the one Su-myeon lived in.

Seeing his own home from within that strange atmosphere made it seem unfamiliar, almost foreign.

Su-myeon nodded.

"That's right."

"Is there any chance your parents... might have entered this ghost story too?"

No matter how close the buildings were, it was rare for someone to wander into another apartment building for no reason.

Unless, perhaps, they had been visiting someone and entered the wrong building by mistake.

But what were the odds of entering the wrong building within one's own apartment complex, then going out of one's way to use the stairs?

Extremely low.

"........"

But ghost stories were places one could enter when several unlikely coincidences happened to overlap.

And sometimes, all it took was terrible luck and a single fulfilled condition.

So there was no way to rule anything out completely.

Su-myeon could neither deny nor confirm Ju-hee's suggestion.

Rustle, rustle—

Again came that deeply unsettling sound.

Something was unmistakably brushing against the windowpane.

This time, all three of them stopped dead.

Outside the window, the top of a tall tree was faintly visible.

It would have been easy enough to assume it was one of the trees planted around the apartment complex.

And yet something about it felt wrong.

[4]

Perhaps it was because the marker for the fourth floor was now directly before their eyes.

But despite the ominous atmosphere—and contrary to what they had expected—the fourth-floor fire door was firmly closed.

Had they guessed wrong?

Had all of this been a mistake?

Was this not the right place after all?

Then what... were they supposed to do now?

Where would they even begin investigating again?

Such thoughts churned through all three of their minds.

Just as Su-myeon was about to suggest that they turn back—

CREEEEAK—

With the groan of rusted hinges, the fire door opened.

And through the narrow gap, they saw someone staring out at them.

"........"

None of them spoke.

If someone had simply appeared, there would have been no reason for the silence to become so thick with tension.

But there was something profoundly wrong about the sight before them, and Su-myeon and the others instinctively remained on guard.

'...It's dark in there.'

Normally, the communal hallway where residents waited for the elevator would have motion-activated lights.

If this were an ordinary situation—if someone had simply stepped out of their apartment and opened the fire door—the lights should have come on.

Yet beyond the fire door, which the unfamiliar man had opened no more than a finger's width, the hallway was pitch-dark.

Worse, the man simply stood behind that narrow gap, staring at the three people in the emergency stairwell.

Faced with that unfocused gaze, Su-myeon suddenly arrived at a chilling thought.

That man—

Had he been standing there until the motion-sensor lights went out?

Just how long had he been waiting, pressed up against the other side of that fire door?

"........"

Only his eyes were clearly visible, gleaming from the darkness like those of a beast.

His pupils were unnaturally dilated despite the sunlight flooding the stairwell.

His stare was blank and uncanny, the whites of his eyes so exposed that they looked as though they might bulge from their sockets.

While Su-myeon and Ju-hee remained frozen, Han-su strode toward the fire door without hesitation.

CREEEEAK—

As Han-su approached, the man with the unsettling stare slowly began to pull the fire door shut.

But Han-su was faster.

He caught the door before it could close and spoke.

"Would you spare a moment to talk with us?"

His tone was utterly ordinary.

So ordinary, in fact, that it felt almost more out of place than anything else in the situation.

Despite himself, Su-myeon swallowed dryly.