Chapter 72: The End of the Ghost Story (5)

Su-myeon froze with the phone in his hand.

There were exactly two things in Su-myeon’s pocket in The Witch’s Forest.

The phone and Cheshire.

Then, it was obvious that the ‘thing’ being referred to here was Cheshire.

“But I think my feet are still a little damp... somehow it feels like my hands got longer....”

Cheshire seemed not to have noticed Su-myeon like that because it was busy checking its own body.

He was already unsettled by Bok-eum’s sudden appearance, so what in the world was this now?

What did Dokkaebi AI know to ask a question like this?

“Still, I like it for now~”

Cheshire had gotten quite grubby from being crumpled around in Su-myeon’s pocket, which lacked any delicacy.

While it was satisfied with its fragrant and fluffy body.

Finding it strange that Su-myeon gave no response at all, Cheshire stared straight at him.

“.......”

Meeting the eyes made of buttons that were staring at him, Su-myeon recalled the chill he had forgotten.

No matter how much humans were creatures of adaptation, perhaps he had become too accustomed to it.

Thinking about it, it wasn’t only him. The other team members were the same.

When he considered how they had accepted something like a moving doll so naturally, it was far too strange.

Cheshire’s existence had possessed puzzling and unusual qualities from the very beginning.

A silent observer, and one that unexpectedly threw out a word or two at certain moments to help.

“.......”

The awkward silence continued.

Cheshire also stared silently at Su-myeon like that.

The fact that he was feeling a gaze from a doll that had nothing but two buttons for eyes suddenly felt grotesque.

His body stiffened as though something had grabbed his ankle, and goosebumps rose along his forearms.

It was difficult to recognize where the abnormal ended and the normal began.

The strangest thing was that he himself could not judge since when he had been feeling this way.

“Why?”

The one that finally broke the silence was Cheshire’s short question.

By now, the silence had lasted too long to say that it was nothing.

Besides, Su-myeon was timid, so he had no talent for calmly telling lies either.

After reading the words on the phone once again, Su-myeon barely raised his hand and rubbed between his brows.

“......I just suddenly thought. That you’re really a strange being.”

The best he could do was an excuse mixed with lies and truth.

At Su-myeon’s words, Cheshire tilted its head.

The large head characteristic of a stuffed doll tilted to one side.

“Scared?”

Cheshire’s question consisted of an intuitive word.

Thanks to that, it was easy to answer.

“I don’t think it’s that. I’m already too used to you for you to be scary now.”

At Su-myeon’s honest answer, Cheshire tilted its head to the opposite side again.

“Uncomfortable?”

“It’s not that, but, ......I think it might be something similar.”

At Su-myeon’s honest answer this time as well, Cheshire kept tilting its head.

Tilting its head for quite a while, Cheshire fell into thought.

In front of the stuffed doll bobbing its head at an irregular speed, Su-myeon swallowed dryly.

This place was reality. The place where that doll could exercise its special influence was on top of his small computer tower.

The fact that it was only there gave him a slight sense of relief.

“Strangeee....”

After a long silence, Cheshire continued in its characteristic drawn-out voice.

“Why would those words.... ......Strange.”

It was difficult to understand the meaning of Cheshire’s muttering voice.

Just what part of Su-myeon’s answer was so strange?

Cheshire continued speaking.

“This. ...This kind of thing. What do you call it? I feel strange.”

Mm, I think it might feel bad too....

At Cheshire’s voice, which kept muttering like that, Su-myeon thought for a moment.

Before he even had time to wonder whether he should apologize, Cheshire unusually muttered quickly.

“It’s like something is caught, ...strange. Because you said you’re uncomfortable. I do think I want to make it so you won’t be uncomfortable.”

As though feeling emotions for the first time, Cheshire muttered about its own psychological state and thought for a long time.

As he listened to what followed, Su-myeon began to feel increasingly certain discomfort.

The emotions Cheshire was feeling sounded as though it felt sorry toward Su-myeon and was upset.

The fact that some unknown being was feeling emotions toward him gave him chills in another sense.

He could not even distinguish whether this was a good sign or not.

“Why does Cheshire keep following me?”

Su-myeon recalled having asked a similar question once before.

When he first asked that question, Cheshire had given a vague answer.

‘I was trying to help...?’

‘Why don’t you leave right away? I was curious, so I followed you.’

Cheshire had been curious about Su-myeon.

Curiosity was easier to understand than goodwill whose meaning he could not grasp.

That was how Su-myeon had accepted Cheshire’s intentions.

But now, he once again felt that he did not understand Cheshire’s intentions.

He could not distinguish whether he should suspect it or rely on it.

“.......”

This time, Cheshire fell silent.

Then it soon continued speaking.

“Remember...? When you said that people, aren’t supposed to run away alone.”

Cheshire was recalling the same moment as Su-myeon.

The reason Su-myeon had not escaped alone even though he knew how to leave the ghost story.

The reason Cheshire had been curious about was simply ordinary morality, nothing particularly special.

A meager shred of conscience that made him unwilling to deliberately turn away from people he could save.

“I remember. Of course. I’m still doing that now.”

Su-myeon frowned as he answered Cheshire.

Himself, who had tried to uphold social morality and conscience because he was human.

Cheshire, who had followed because it was curious about that version of him.

Normally, Cheshire would have ended its answer around there again, but today, it thought for a long time.

“It’s just, those words....”

Would he finally get to hear the real answer today about where that curiosity had come from?

Su-myeon waited for Cheshire’s answer, but Cheshire’s contemplation ended weakly.

“I don’t know....”

After saying that, Cheshire got up and approached the edge of the computer tower.

Then it leaned its body over the edge of the tower and fell.

Cheshire, which dropped from the tower as though throwing itself off, became an ordinary cat doll.

Seeing it cut off the means of communication by itself first made Su-myeon’s thoughts even more complicated.

A thrill seeker. A willful cat doll.

It was because, rather than being such a mysterious existence, it felt as though it had somehow acquired humanity.

After thinking, Su-myeon picked up the phone and asked Dokkaebi AI.

‘What exactly is this doll?’

Connection error: Causality irregularity is insufficient.

After entering a ghost story, reconnect.

No answer came back.

He tried asking again with the phone placed on top of the computer tower, but the warning message was the same.

To hear the answer, he would have to enter another ghost story again.

Thanks to the straightforward message, Su-myeon no longer had any reason to think about it further and vigorously scratched the back of his head.

Leaving the phone and Cheshire side by side in one corner of the desk, Su-myeon began checking the necessary materials.

His head was complicated in many ways, but it was not something he could put off because of that.

***

Hwi-yeon had come up alone to the roof of the Governance building.

With the familiar electronic cigarette between her lips, she blankly looked beyond the rooftop railing and exhaled smoke.

It was a small building with only five floors, but even so, the people walking below looked endlessly small.

“.......”

At last, she could go look for her younger sibling.

That fact filled Hwi-yeon’s mind.

'At last.'

Literally, at last. That day had come.

And yet Hwi-yeon felt endlessly unsettled.

She herself could not understand at all why she felt so much like running away.

“Haah....”

Running away. How pathetic an emotion was that?

But if she calmly traced her feelings back, it was not difficult to find their source.

The biggest problem was that nearly ten years had already passed since she had left her younger sibling inside a ghost story.

Compared to the survivors they had found so far, the amount of time her sibling had spent inside a ghost story was unimaginably long.

“Even someone who was there for only two days ended up half-disabled....”

The person they had rescued from The Witch’s Forest this time had swollen to three times his size in only two days.

Young-cheol was still struggling to return his body to within a normal range, but he remained in a dangerous condition.

And yet her younger sibling had been in such a place for a full ten years.

In a situation where her sibling might have undergone an even greater mutation, Hwi-yeon could not help but have all sorts of emotions mixed together.

'Even if we find them, will they be in a condition where we can bring them back?'

The dozens of skeletons they had dragged out of The Witch’s Forest.

Could that be her younger sibling’s future?

Hwi-yeon could not help but remain trapped in such thoughts.

Because she was afraid of that, deep down Hwi-yeon had wanted to run away while putting forward the excuse that it was for Su-myeon’s sake.

Perhaps searching desperately for her younger sibling had been nothing more than her own hypocritical obsession.

Rather than truly wanting to find them, perhaps it had been such hypocrisy meant to ease her own guilt over leaving her younger sibling behind that day.

“.......”

She wanted to cry.

She felt disgusted with herself for having hidden such pathetic thoughts while pretending to be a devoted older sister.

As Hwi-yeon clenched her teeth with emotion surging inside her, she saw a luxury sedan leaving the building.

A familiar vehicle and license plate.

The person who had exerted strong influence in establishing this place.

The person recorded in the documents as Director of the Governance. It was Jang Bok-eum.

“....”

Had he seen Hwi-yeon as well?

The vehicle that had been leaving slowed down, and the rear-seat window lowered.

A height of around five floors was still low enough for them to make out each other’s faces.

Just as their gazes seemed to meet, the vehicle turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

“...Why?”

Back when she had just entered the National Intelligence Service and was asking around about her younger sibling.

There had been a time when she had felt grateful that he had taken an interest in her story.

But after Su-myeon appeared and gave her certainty about the existence of things called ghost stories, she began to think Bok-eum was suspicious.

'Could Director Jang have entered a ghost story before as well?'

Otherwise, there would have been no reason for him to lend weight to her absurd stories and reports.

On top of that, the fact that he had immediately elevated Su-myeon to Special Operations Chief was strange in many ways.

Considering he had come without even contacting her, he seemed to have come to see Su-myeon, but what in the world had they talked about?

Concern overlapped with her doubts.

She could only hope that things would not move in a bad direction for Su-myeon.

“You were up here?”

Mi-ae came to find Hwi-yeon while she was lost in thought.

“Chief Han says everyone should gather their materials and meet in thirty minutes~”

Chief Han.

When she recalled the awkward expression Su-myeon made every time he heard himself addressed that way, even Hwi-yeon gave a small smile.

Even though Bok-eum had just visited, Su-myeon had not forgotten what he himself needed to do.

Saving people. So that there would not be even the slightest delay in that, he was pushing himself quite harshly.

'Can we save them?'

Would they even still be alive?

Her feelings were still complicated.

But that was merely her personal situation.

With Su-myeon’s ability to act, they would surely enter that ghost story within a few days.

If so, regardless of what result awaited her, she only needed to fulfill her share as a member of the Governance.

Even if she could not save her younger sibling, nothing would change.

At the very least, so that no more people like her would be created.

And until they could find Su-myeon’s parents.

“Let’s go.”

She only had to do what she could.

Hwi-yeon exhaled the nicotine mixed with an artificial fruit scent for the last time and came down from the rooftop.