Chapter 65: The Witch’s Forest (8)

[4-1. The first thing that must be done in order to escape is to lure the Witch outside.]

Park Ji-hoon woke from sleep with a heavy iron chain fastened around his neck.

He opened his eyes, but for a long while he simply lay there listlessly, staring blankly at the ceiling.

After lying there like that for some time, his back began to ache against the hard floor.

"...."

With no other choice, he forced himself upright, but there was still nothing he could do.

Around him were old, worn-out furnishings—a sofa, a bookcase, and other meaningless objects—none of which were of any particular use.

Dragging the long, heavy chain behind him as he searched the room changed nothing.

The sofa was little more than a crude thing made of logs, and every book was written in some unknown language he could not read.

The only thing left for him to do was count the wood grain carved into the floorboards in front of him.

Eighty-seven irregular curves.

At first glance, the flooring looked like real wood, but every single board bore exactly the same grain.

It was clearly an imitation of reality.

Then what did that make him, after spending hundreds of days here surrounded by things like this?

Was he even truly alive?

THUD

A strange noise suddenly came from the floor above, but he was no longer afraid of it.

He merely lifted his gaze toward the upper floor, following a sound that had repeated so often it had long since become familiar.

It had probably been hundreds of days since he was imprisoned in the Witch's house.

For all that vaguely measured stretch of time, he had remained trapped in the living room of this small log cabin.

'Locked in a one-room apartment with no internet for a billion won—could you do it or not?'

Once, he had had some pointless conversation like that with his friend Tae-hyeon.

Hadn't he?

Probably.

Recalling a memory that felt strangely hazy despite being no more than a few years old, Ji-hoon gave a bitter smile.

It was all meaningless now.

Forget a billion won. He could not even be sure he would still be alive tomorrow.

He was holding on for no reason beyond the simple fact that he did not want to die.

'I'll definitely come back to save you!'

His father had left him with those words.

Whether his father had truly escaped outside, as the monster claimed, Ji-hoon honestly had no way of knowing.

He could not even begin to guess how his father intended to save him, or what sort of bargain the Witch and his father had made.

He no longer knew what kept him going.

There was nothing but things he did not know.

THUD!

Once again, a bizarre reverberation came from the upper floor.

Upstairs was entirely the Witch's territory.

Even the chain she had left long, as though granting him some mercy, only allowed him enough range to move around the first floor.

The Witch never, under any circumstances, allowed him upstairs.

'Not that I want to go up there anyway.'

He had never been there, but Ji-hoon knew exactly what she did upstairs.

The Witch always dragged whatever unnaturally fattened thing she brought back from the forest up to the second floor.

And afterward, horrifying screams would fill the cabin.

Flesh swollen to a grotesque degree, sliced away as though she were shearing wool from a sheep.

No doubt she carved it off and prepared herself a fresh meal every day.

"......Though I don't know what that is."

Right.

Something he did not know.

The flesh of something he did not know.

Ji-hoon repeated the thought to himself as though brainwashing himself.

Because he could not bear to think that the thing with hands and feet was human, he kept telling himself over and over that he did not know what it was.

He was certain he would not be able to endure otherwise.

That something, stripped almost entirely of flesh except around places like the head, hands, and feet, reduced to little more than bone.

The Witch had once said she dragged what remained downstairs and threw the garbage into the lake.

Bones stripped of flesh and organs had no buoyancy and sank helplessly to the bottom.

Though they had been reduced to a state in which death should have been inevitable, they could neither die nor truly live.

They simply settled there on the lakebed.

"......."

Ji-hoon curled himself into a ball and clawed at his own forearm and shoulder.

His forearm, already torn open hundreds of times, was ragged with wounds, yet he dug his nails into it even harder.

He absolutely did not want to become like that.

Whenever hunger made itself known, he forced pain upon himself and endured through sheer will.

He absolutely refused to eat the food the Witch laid out so temptingly before him.

And after resisting that grotesque hunger again and again—

Despite all the time that had passed without his eating or drinking a single thing, he was still alive.

But that thought only circled back on itself and returned him to the same question.

Was he even a real person?

Was he even alive?

As those powerless thoughts drifted through his mind, an unfamiliar sound suddenly reached his ears.

Creaaak.

"...!"

Ji-hoon immediately twisted around toward the source of the noise.

It was the creak of the hinges on the front door.

'The Witch has been upstairs this whole time?'

Hadn't she been thudding around up there until just now?

Then what in the world had just come inside?

Tense, Ji-hoon fixed his gaze on the entryway.

It was a small wooden cabin.

Beyond the bookcase obstructing his view appeared an unfamiliar human figure.

A solidly built man who looked perfectly healthy and clean.

The instant he saw Ji-hoon, the man raised a finger to his lips.

"......Shh."

It was the first time Ji-hoon had seen an intact human being since he had been trapped here.

Ji-hoon covered his mouth and remained silent as instructed, and the man slowly approached.

Behind him waddled another human being, his body half-swollen.

Like that blueberry person from the fantasy movie set in a chocolate factory that Ji-hoon had watched as a child....

"Ugh......."

The moment he registered that the swollen man's entire body was smeared with chocolate and dirt, Ji-hoon's stomach churned.

"I've come to rescue you."

After hiding the blueberry-like man among the shelves behind the bookcase, the clean-cut man approached Ji-hoon and whispered.

"I am Detective Kang Han-su of the Unnatural Threat Governance, a state agency."

State agency.

Detective.

Rescue.

Those utterly realistic words felt so unreal that Ji-hoon's mind went blank for a moment.

So....

So I really am still alive.

I can live.

Rescue.

What an unbearably moving word.

Joy surged through Ji-hoon, only to be followed immediately by fear.

"But the Witch is still upstairs...."

Suppressing his excitement, Ji-hoon whispered carefully.

"There's a monster called the Witch upstairs. As long as it's there, sneaking out won't be easy...!"

How long had it been since he had spoken in complete sentences?

Ji-hoon was grateful even for the simple sound of his own voice carrying on an ordinary conversation.

"I know."

At Ji-hoon's warning, Han-su nodded calmly.

"Right now, the Witch's attention will be focused somewhere else."

"Somewhere else?"

THUD! THUD THUD!

Before Han-su could even answer—

A series of violent reverberations thundered down from above.

"There is someone else drawing her attention for us."

As though trying to reassure Ji-hoon, whose face had gone pale—

Han-su barely managed to get the words out before hiding beneath the strange wooden sofa.

The thudding sounded partly like objects being hurled around in a fit of rage and partly like something enormous stomping across the floor.

The instant the strange noise stopped, rapid footsteps came pounding down from upstairs.

The Witch rushed onto the first floor.

"That father of yours has dragged in something useless!"

The Witch screamed furiously.

She looked like a perfectly ordinary middle-aged woman.

"So he means to abandon his own brat after all, like the vermin he is? Hm? What if I cut off your wrist and send it to him? Hm?!"

Raging at something Ji-hoon did not understand, the Witch seized his chain and yanked it.

The chain around his neck jerked tight, dragging Ji-hoon helplessly to the floor.

With strength no ordinary middle-aged woman could possibly possess, the Witch clamped a hand around Ji-hoon's throat.

"Or should I roast and boil you into a pie to bring you to your senses?!"

The instant the Witch, unable to contain her fury, shrieked at the top of her lungs—

Her perfectly ordinary-looking face split into several sections and burst open in every direction.

Muscle and fragments of bone peeled apart as though her entire head were exploding.

Something inside writhed wetly, like a mass of tangled tentacles.

Nausea surged through Ji-hoon at the sight, so horrifying that he wished he could abandon his vision altogether, but with his throat crushed in her grasp, he could not even vomit.

"Kugh...! Kuk!"

"Useless pig bastard!"

At last, as though having vented enough of her fury, the Witch flung Ji-hoon to the floor and hurried outside.

Had she looked around even once, she would easily have spotted both Han-su and the blueberry-like man hiding so carelessly nearby.

But whatever had enraged her so completely seemed to have robbed her of even the thought of checking.

The Witch's footsteps receded into the distance.

Then disappeared entirely.

"......Are you all right?"

Han-su emerged from hiding and helped Ji-hoon sit up.

"Haah.... Hah.... What, what on earth... what did you do? Who's doing what?"

Ji-hoon clutched Han-su and demanded an answer.

Whatever was happening, this was the first time in the dozens—perhaps hundreds—of days Ji-hoon had been imprisoned here that he had ever seen the Witch this enraged.

Was this really a safe way to escape?

As Ji-hoon questioned him, Han-su examined the chain and answered firmly.

"There is someone else who came here to save you. There is no greater expert when it comes to places like this, so all you need to think about is getting out safely."

An expert?

Ji-hoon watched as Han-su smashed apart the section of wall where the chain was anchored, using a hatchet Ji-hoon had no idea when he had picked up.

Carrying the chain was far easier than dragging it, so Ji-hoon barely managed to gather the entire length into his arms.

All the while, the blueberry-like man sat slumped nearby, muttering endlessly about how hungry he was.

"That person is...."

"A missing person, just like you. And from this moment on, I'm getting both of you out of here safely."

Ji-hoon was still uneasy, but Han-su spoke with such calm certainty that he could only nod.

Han-su looked around briefly, then took the lead as though he already knew the route.

"You may come up this way."

Leading the two of them, Han-su headed upstairs.

The Witch's territory.

A place Ji-hoon had never once dared set foot in.

A slaughterhouse where dozens—perhaps hundreds—of bloated somethings were treated as nothing more than hunks of meat.

The thought filled him with dread, but clinging to Han-su's promise that he could escape, Ji-hoon barely managed to follow behind him.

"......."

But astonishingly, the upper floor was arranged like a perfectly tidy kitchen.

It was nothing like the horrific, revolting scene Ji-hoon had imagined, and some of the tension left his body.

The clean kitchen was furnished in a surprisingly modern style, although an unusually enormous cauldron boiled away in one corner, releasing a powerful aroma.

An impossibly rich, mouthwatering smell.

While Han-su searched through the room, Ji-hoon found himself drifting toward the cauldron without even realizing it.

BANG!

A gunshot.

A sharp report rang out from somewhere in the forest.

The unmistakable crack of gunpowder—the sort of sound he had heard only during his military service—rang out several more times.

The noise jolted Ji-hoon back to his senses.

Only then did he realize there was a ladle in his hand.

Startled, he threw it away, sending its contents splattering across the floor.

Floating in the pale, cloudy broth were chunks of thoroughly cooked flesh.

"Uugh!"

This time, Ji-hoon finally failed to hold it back and retched violently.

The spotless floor quickly became a mess, but Han-su could not afford to waste time.

Ignoring the filth, he seized Ji-hoon's arm and pulled him onward.

There, strangely enough, was another staircase, almost concealed in darkness.

"If you go up, there will be another agent waiting. Tell them you received my assistance and that I will return after finding the rest of my party."

Tell them... that?

"It's the exit."

At those words, the round human Han-su had brought in from outside began frantically waddling up the stairs.

And then....

He vanished.

The realization that the exit he had searched for so desperately all this time had been scarcely more than an arm's reach above his head filled Ji-hoon with a hollow, complicated feeling.

Even if he had known it was there, though, he never could have reached this place alone.

"So then... that gunfire... the person you said is with you...."

"That person will be with the Witch."

Han-su answered Ji-hoon's stammered question without hesitation and pushed him gently from behind.

Thanks to whoever that person was drawing the Witch away, Han-su had been able to reach him.

And because Han-su had broken his chain free, Ji-hoon could finally move like this.

Before climbing the stairs, Ji-hoon turned back and offered one final word of gratitude.

"Thank you so much."

"I am not the one you should be saying that to."

Only after Ji-hoon made it outside did he finally understand the true meaning of those words.