Chapter 75: The Mountain of the Red Cloak (3)

[3. The survivor section has been discarded due to a major revision of its contents following the discovery of an anomaly.]

On the way to the camp.

Su-myeon felt the need to figure out how the situation inside the ghost story had changed.

Until he was certain how many survivors there were and how cooperative they would be, it would be better to hide their identities.

Three confused young people who had suddenly been dragged into an unknown world.

That was the role Su-myeon had decided on for their group.

“What... exactly is going on? Where are we?”

Su-myeon asked the man walking ahead to guide them.

The man pointed toward the monsters they had left hanging from the trees and replied.

“We don’t know that either, but as long as you avoid those packs of wolves, it’s pretty livable here.”

“The survivors live together in groups and hunt those things.”

His explanation was very clear, but that did not make it easy to accept.

Still, as though he was accustomed to seeing people confused like this, he continued explaining skillfully.

“I understand why you’re worried. By the way, how old are you? I’m Lee Seung-min, thirty-eight.”

“Ah, I’m Han Su-myeon, twenty-seven.......”

Su-myeon reflexively took the hand he held out and shook it, but a strange sense of déjà vu came over him.

Han-su and Hwi-yeon also introduced themselves to him.

“I’m Kang Han-su, thirty.”

“I’m thirty as well. My name is Lee Hwi-yeon.”

As they exchanged introductions in a row almost without thinking, Su-myeon remembered where he had heard Seung-min’s name before.

“By any chance, Hye-won....”

The absurd graffiti at Mimi Lodge that had read ‘Hye-won♡Seung-min.’

At Su-myeon’s words, having remembered it, Seung-min gave an awkward smile and nodded.

“You saw it at Mimi Lodge too? Ha, seriously. One foolish thing I did when I was young sure has stayed around for a long time.”

What... why was he talking about this as though he were reminiscing about some fond old memory?

When Su-myeon looked bewildered, Seung-min continued.

“That Hye-won is my wife now. She’s at home with our son.”

Just how many years had he spent here, and how?

A child had been born inside a ghost story?

While Su-myeon struggled to process that in his head.

Seung-min pushed aside the bushes and introduced the unfamiliar sight ahead, saying they had arrived.

“Here we are. Our temporary shelter. The campsite.”

It was, quite literally, a campsite.

Several different tents were gathered around a huge campfire in the center.

Each was worn to a different degree, and none of the brands or colors matched, but the scene looked fairly comfortable.

“This whole area is surrounded by traps like the ones you saw earlier.”

His expression as he finished speaking seemed to say, Pretty impressive, right?

Seung-min approached the campfire.

“Hey! We’ve got some new faces! Everybody come out and say hello!”

His attitude was endlessly cheerful and bright.

The way he acted as though none of this was a big deal only bothered Su-myeon more.

Just what the hell was going on in this place?

Around ten more people emerged from the tents where they had been resting.

“Oh my, they must be completely overwhelmed.”

“Come over here and sit down. Would you like a bowl of warm soup?”

There were middle-aged women among them as well.

They were probably in charge of cooking here.

The people familiarly handed blankets to Su-myeon’s group and smiled warmly.

The blankets were clean, but all of them were quite old.

“But how did the three of you end up hiking together?”

Seung-min, who had heard their ages and names, asked as though puzzled.

Among the three, with both men and a woman mixed together, only Su-myeon was younger.

On top of that, the overall impression each of them gave based on their appearance was quite different.

It was obvious they would look like an odd group to outsiders, so Su-myeon decided to lie.

“Our company department head suggested we go hiking, and we fell behind. Then we got lost.”

Though Su-myeon himself was that company’s department head, only the Governance group knew that.

As the people listening remarked that companies like that still existed these days, some of the older women approached Hwi-yeon.

“Do you happen to have any seasoning or something like that with you?”

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

The women asked Hwi-yeon, but she answered with a stiff expression.

Seeing her face, one of the middle-aged women looked at her sympathetically.

“You still haven’t really grasped what’s going on, have you? It feels like you suddenly fell into some strange world.”

“Ah....”

Hwi-yeon made an awkward expression at the middle-aged woman’s concern.

Knowing that Hwi-yeon had no talent for acting, Su-myeon stepped in.

“We’re just overwhelmed. Right now, I don’t even know whether all this is a dream. Or what....”

He acted like a fool who still had not recovered from the shock.

In response, the middle-aged woman answered so kindly that Su-myeon almost felt guilty for lying.

The truth visible through the Cyclops Contact Lens remained the same.

She was merely covered in something strangely thick and black.

Her form, too, looked like that of a perfectly normal person.

The middle-aged women brought warm soup to the three of them.

The clear meat soup boiled with radish was thin, but it was enough to settle their shaken nerves and stomachs.

“.......”

Su-myeon met Hwi-yeon’s eyes.

Should they reveal who they were?

But Su-myeon simply could not ignore the pitch-black, ominous thing visible to him.

An overwhelming sense of unpleasantness. There was no other way to describe whatever it was that covered their entire bodies.

“...Have all of you... been here for a long time? How do you get back home?”

He did not feel particularly good about taking advantage of their kindness, but there was no helping it.

There was nothing wrong with being overly cautious.

As Su-myeon tried talking to them without revealing their identities, Han-su and Hwi-yeon read the situation and remained silent.

“Ah, well....”

At Su-myeon’s question about how to return home, the people at the campsite exchanged glances.

As though wondering how best to tell them this heavy truth.

The good-natured people began murmuring among themselves.

Su-myeon felt a stab of guilt, but endured it and drank the soup from the wooden bowl in his hands.

The scent of the wood had already seeped into the soup and changed its taste slightly.

He had not noticed while it was hot, but now that it had cooled a little and taken on a strange smell, it felt nauseating.

“We... don’t know how to go back either.”

“Ah, but! We did try. We’re still trying, actually, but we just can’t find an exit.”

The middle-aged woman and another man from the campsite gestured with their hands as they explained to Su-myeon’s group.

“Don’t be too discouraged.... I mean. This place isn’t really that bad to live in.”

“The seasons stay like this, with nice weather all the time... and crops grow well too! I grew the radish in that soup myself.”

Everyone stepped forward, trying to keep the newcomers to the ghost story from falling into despair.

“Those wolf things are a problem, but you saw them. They’re stupid. As long as we diligently set traps, there’s no problem at all.”

At someone’s words, Hwi-yeon let out a heavy sigh.

If only she had known that beforehand, if only she could have known it that day more than ten years ago.

She was probably blaming herself pointlessly again, but to the strangers, her expression seemed to look like faint despair.

“Oh, don’t cry. You never know. We’ve been searching for a path for a long time! Uh, what was it... maybe we’ll find the real exit soon!”

A middle-aged man who said that in an intentionally nonchalant tone winked at the other members of the campsite.

At the signal to play along, everyone immediately began consoling Hwi-yeon in unison.

“Y-yeah! Of course! Maybe we will!”

“That’s right. Don’t be too disappointed. Eat well! If you stay healthy and hang in there, you’ll probably be able to get out soon!”

Clumsy, good-natured, and kind.

It became even harder to understand the source of the ominous aura Su-myeon sensed from them.

As Su-myeon stared at them somewhat blankly, Seung-min patted him on the back.

“For now, eat and get some °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° sleep today. You all did some running for the first time in a while, so I bet you’ll sleep well.”

At Seung-min’s joking remark, delivered as though none of this were a big deal, Su-myeon lightly bowed his head in thanks.

Seung-min gave him a bitter smile in return.

He still looked like a genuinely kind and decent person.

“All right, all right! Let’s leave the troubled folks alone so they can sort out their thoughts and get a good night’s sleep!”

Leaving Su-myeon behind, Seung-min clapped his hands and dispersed the people who had gathered around.

“Hey, Mr. Kim. Share your tent with me tonight. Let the newcomers use mine.”

“Oh, right. You said your name was Hwi-yeon? Pretty young lady, do you want to sleep in the same tent as us women?”

After Seung-min spoke to one of the older men, the middle-aged women approached Hwi-yeon.

After thinking for a moment, Hwi-yeon politely declined.

“It’s all right. For tonight... I think I’d still rather stay in the same tent as people I know....”

It was merely an excuse because she could not think of a suitable way to reject their kindness, but it was reasonable enough.

Saying that she had every reason to feel uneasy, the middle-aged women readily backed off.

“Then the three of you can use that one over there. The yellow tent is mine, so rest there.”

He even told them that if there was anything they wanted to ask or needed, they could come to the green tent over there.

Leaving behind a degree of kindness that made Su-myeon wonder whether this was really all right, Seung-min disappeared.

The unexpected commotion passed in an instant, and silence settled over them.

Crackle- Crackle-

The sound of the campfire burning rang out clearly.

The moisture remaining inside the firewood vaporized in the intense heat and spread through the air along with the smell of burning wood.

A realistic world without even the slightest sense of incongruity.

People so kind and good that they would be difficult to meet even in reality.

Despite the warm air, Su-myeon got goosebumps.

The fact that nothing about this situation seemed strange was precisely what made it feel so strange that he could barely breathe.

With a sigh, Su-myeon took off his glasses and vigorously wiped them on his sleeve.

'Am I the strange one for finding this strange?'

“For now, let’s go inside and rest.”

Han-su said, lightly gripping Su-myeon’s shoulder.

Right. Maybe he simply had not gotten enough sleep.

Su-myeon nodded at his words and headed toward the yellow tent Seung-min had pointed out.

“Maybe Hwi-yeon’s younger sibling survived just like these people did.”

If there was any hopeful possibility to cling to, that was about it.

At Su-myeon’s words, Hwi-yeon nodded with a complicated expression.

“But you think they’re suspicious, don’t you?”

“.......”

The reason Su-myeon had not revealed that he was an agent of the Governance and was instead acting like an ordinary person who had fallen into a ghost story.

Even without saying it aloud, the reason had to be that he did not trust the people here.

“Something is strange.”

Han-su, who had silently listened to the two of them while entering the tent, also spoke.

“What seems strange to you, Han-su?”

It was a sense of incongruity that Hwi-yeon found difficult to detect.

Of course, excessive kindness could be suspicious if one wanted to call it that, but was it enough to hide their identities like this?

Han-su let Hwi-yeon enter the tent first, then pushed Su-myeon inside as well.

Then, as he closed the tent’s zippered entrance, seemingly hoping the noise would conceal his voice.

He added in a very low voice.

“They’re all watching us from the darkness.”