Chapter 82: Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (3)

[6. Monsters referred to as ‘wolves’]

6-4. When attacked and bitten by one, transformation into the same type of entity has been confirmed.

6-5. However, the ‘wolves’ referred to by the people of the city are the name given to the small infected entities. The true main body has yet to be identified.

***

The hill leading toward the logging site.

Halfway up it, Su-myeon, Han-su, and Hwi-yeon were sitting on the ground.

The sky was turning reddish as the sun prepared to set.

The three of them, sitting side by side on a grassy slope overgrown with vegetation, made for such a peaceful scene that they almost looked as though they were enjoying a leisurely break.

But Hwi-yeon anxiously chewed on her lip.

“Do you trust that man?”

At Hwi-yeon’s question, Su-myeon exaggeratedly rolled his shoulders as though stretching.

Releasing the tension from his body with a sigh, Su-myeon shook his head.

“No. I’m watching how he reacts.”

His reaction?

At Hwi-yeon’s confused expression, Su-myeon continued quietly.

“We’re leaving this place today. Whether that man told us the truth or not.”

By any means necessary.

After emphasizing that, Su-myeon added.

“Everyone brought lamps and lantern oil in their inventories, right? Take them out.”

It was a sudden request, but Hwi-yeon and Han-su followed Su-myeon’s orders without complaint.

At the very least, regardless of whether Seung-min cooperated with them or not, Su-myeon clearly had a plan of his own.

That certainty reassured Hwi-yeon a little.

Su-myeon was not the type to talk nonsense or bluff, after all.

“Then, that too....... You don’t believe it?”

Lee Mu-yeon was dead.

Could those words have been a lie as well?

At Hwi-yeon’s question, Su-myeon fell silent for a moment.

Under normal circumstances, Hwi-yeon probably would have been able to tell for herself.

Seung-min was not particularly skilled at hiding his expressions.

When he was telling the truth and when he was lying. Normally, she should have been able to see through him.

But Hwi-yeon was so overwhelmed by personal emotion that she could no longer distinguish between the two.

Because of that, Su-myeon could not easily tell her what he himself had concluded.

It felt as though he might only unsettle her even more when she was already shaken.

“There he is.”

At Han-su’s words, Hwi-yeon turned her head first.

Before Su-myeon could answer, they saw Seung-min climbing up from below the hill.

And behind him were a woman and a child.

“......Dad, where are we going?”

The child looked bewildered at the unfamiliar people and grabbed Seung-min’s arm.

Through the vision in Su-myeon’s left eye, both the child and the woman were covered in pitch-black energy.

It was even denser than Seung-min’s, but once again, from the front, there were no other signs visible.

“We’re going on a trip. We’re going somewhere far away together with Dad.”

Seung-min tried his best to soothe the child, but he had no talent for hiding his expression.

His anxiety seemed to transfer directly to the child.

“Honey, are you really.......”

“Hye-won. Hye-won. Please.”

They apparently had not had enough time to fully discuss it with each other.

The woman glared fiercely at Su-myeon and the others, openly expressing her displeasure with her husband’s behavior.

But Seung-min cut Hye-won off and muttered almost pleadingly.

“I don’t want to live like this anymore......!”

What exactly did he mean by ‘like this’?

Living in an underdeveloped civilization while offering people from the same village as sacrifices?

Seung-min might even have been one of the people taking the lead in it.

Having gathered that much from their conversation, Su-myeon stood beside Seung-min.

“Then, let’s go. You don’t need to worry about protection, but if possible, please take us by a route where we can leave quietly.”

Su-myeon lit the oil lantern he was holding.

As the sun sank and the surroundings slowly darkened, the area around them grew slightly brighter.

Seung-min calmly swallowed and took the lead.

***

They walked through the forest for a long time.

Before they knew it, the mountain had been swallowed by darkness.

The married couple walked through the forest in silence.

Su-myeon turned his gaze toward Han-su and Hwi-yeon, who were following at the very rear.

“.......”

When their eyes met, Han-su nodded.

It seemed he was properly doing what Su-myeon had instructed.

'It might be better not to use that method if we can avoid it, but.......'

Various possibilities and responses were running through Su-myeon’s mind.

Of course, he had no idea what sort of conversation Seung-min and Hye-won had gone through before making this decision.

But to put it frankly.

'I don’t care.'

Their personal circumstances no longer mattered to Su-myeon.

The surroundings were nothing but a forest thick with grass and trees.

It was fertile land, with a cool breeze blowing through it.

“Dad... my legs hurt.......”

The little child whined that his legs hurt after walking through the mountain for so long.

He did not look even ten years old, so Han-su, who had been following behind, stepped forward and crouched down.

“Get on.”

“......Please. We’re almost there.”

Seung-min hesitated for a moment, but entrusted the child to Han-su.

They still had farther to go, so it was better for the child to ride on the back of the person with the most stamina.

The child hesitated, watching Seung-min’s expression, before climbing onto Han-su’s broad back.

“Let’s hurry a little more.”

Once the child was on Han-su’s back, Seung-min increased the pace.

As they hurried up the mountain almost at a speed walk, a strangely chilling atmosphere gradually began to settle over them.

“We’re here.”

And soon, the sight they had been searching for unfolded before them.

A set of stone stairs unnaturally piled up at the foot of the mountain, with a single door standing alone at the top.

The wind stirred strangely around the area, almost as though circling it.

“That’s it, right?”

Seung-min asked as he turned toward Hwi-yeon with an anxious look.

Hwi-yeon also nodded cautiously.

There was not even time to marvel at how easily they had found it.

Awooo-

A sharp canine howl rang out from somewhere not very far away.

Without hesitation, Su-myeon stepped onto the stairs.

“Let’s get out right away.”

Su-myeon sent Han-su ahead with the child on his back.

Han-su also strode forward without hesitation, but the child suddenly panicked and began to whine.

“Ah! M-Mom! Mom!!”

Was he frightened by the thought of going ahead alone with an unfamiliar man?

The fairly large nine-year-old twisted and struggled with his entire body, causing even Han-su to stagger.

If Han-su accidentally dropped the child on the stairs, he could be badly injured.

At the dangerous-looking sight, everyone instinctively gathered around Han-su.

“Ugh!”

As people crowded around him, the child suddenly grabbed a fistful of Hwi-yeon’s hair.

“Wait, let go of me!”

Seung-min, flustered, grabbed his son as well, but the child still had a firm grip on Hwi-yeon’s hair.

They could not simply yank him away, leaving everyone at a loss.

Even Su-myeon had not expected this situation.

Startled, Su-myeon grabbed the child’s hand, only to be shocked by something else.

“...!”

At that moment. Hye-won pulled a dagger from beneath her skirt.

The dagger flew directly toward Hwi-yeon’s neck.

There was no longer any time to think.

Almost reflexively, Su-myeon kicked Hye-won in the upper body.

“Aaaagh!”

Hye-won, with her slender frame, tumbled down the stairs with a shriek.

Seung-min’s eyes widened in shock, even more so when he saw the dagger in her hand.

It was no ordinary blade.

Something sharp and pointed, gleaming with a pure ivory-white sheen.

A dagger that looked as though it had been made from some creature’s fang.

“Stop! Just how far are you planning to take this?!”

Startled, Seung-min rushed toward Hye-won.

But Hwi-yeon was still trapped with her hair in the child’s grip.

Humiliated in the moment, Hwi-yeon shouted.

“Just cut it off!”

Hwi-yeon was telling them they could cut her hair.

Han-su, unable to simply throw the child aside, had no idea what to do.

The married couple were struggling with each other.

With the exit right in front of them, the entire scene had descended into complete chaos.

“.......”

Amid the pandemonium.

Su-myeon could see it.

The broad smile covering the face of the child gripping Hwi-yeon’s hair.

And a pitch-black hand protruding from behind the child’s back, controlling him like a puppet.

'Damn it.'

He had not realized that whatever came out through those openings possessed physical force.

Taking a deep breath, Su-myeon swung the lantern in a wide circle to build momentum and hurled it far away.

“N-No!”

The child noticed too late and shouted, while the hand parasitizing his back stretched toward the lantern.

But it could not catch a lantern that had already been thrown with full momentum.

Scattering sparks as it flew, the lantern shattered against one side of the forest with a sharp crash.

And naturally, along with the oil inside it, fierce flames erupted in an instant.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

Hye-won, who {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} had been struggling with Seung-min, shouted harshly as well.

The trees that had begun to burn on one side spread the flames rapidly in a single direction, almost unnaturally fast.

“Do you really think they’ll have time to stand around playing with us here?”

Su-myeon pulled an empty oil container from his pocket and threw it in front of Hye-won.

In the early-evening forest, where a cool breeze had been blowing, it was painfully obvious how quickly the flames were racing somewhere along the wind.

“Damn it.”

Having finally freed themselves from the child’s grip, Hwi-yeon and Han-su also pulled out oil containers from inside their clothes.

The group, who had followed at the very rear under the excuse of providing protection, had been spilling oil along their route the entire way.

Even the small amounts they had dripped along the path were enough to ignite the dry leaf litter, dust, and branches that had accumulated on the ground.

There was nothing here but grass and trees to stop the flames.

In an ordinary natural mountain, there would at least have been a stream nearby.

But what about this place?

A fake imitating the real thing would inevitably reveal its shortcomings in places like this.

“Fire!”

“There’s a fire!”

Soon, screams that seemed to be coming from the city could be heard as well.

The flames spread with terrifying speed along the wind.

Desperate screams and cries rang out, but Su-myeon had already made up his mind and did not waver.

The things that had spread through this city like an epidemic were already beyond saving.

Only by forcibly shattering this fragmentary peace could the distinction finally become clear.

Humans who wanted to survive and monsters that had become completely absorbed into this ghost story.

This was the only way to distinguish between the two.

Destroying the city inside this ghost story.

“Hurry!”

Su-myeon gestured toward everyone standing around the stairs.

Now, anyone who wanted to survive would have no choice but to leave this ghost story.

Su-myeon could not save those who wanted to protect the ghost story itself.

His clear and extreme plan for distinguishing friend from foe was now being put into action.

“Aaaagh! Aaaagh!”

Meanwhile, Han-su forced the child to the ground and restrained him as the boy screamed and convulsed violently.

The sight of the large Han-su pinning a child beneath his body looked extremely inappropriate.

As though the child knew that perfectly well, he cried out pitifully.

“Dad! Dad! Save me! It hurts! Aaaagh!”

Faced with his son’s desperate screams, Seung-min stood frozen, clutching his hair.

He had only wanted to protect his family.

But if they were hurting other people...?

Was continuing to protect them still the right thing to do?

“I.......”

“Aaaagh!”

While Seung-min remained frozen, Hye-won, who had been standing there in despair, screamed again and charged forward.

Did Hwi-yeon look like the easiest target because she was a woman?

Hye-won was charging toward Hwi-yeon once again.

“You can’t leave! You can’t go! I’ll offer you to Him right now...!”

But Hye-won never finished speaking.

No, she could not.

A massive wolf appeared from nowhere.

Unlike the grotesque monsters they had merely called wolves before, this enormous creature looked like an actual wolf. It charged forward and sank its teeth directly into the back of Hye-won’s neck.

Larger than an adult man, the wolf effortlessly tore out Hye-won’s throat and killed her.

Then it stepped in front of Hwi-yeon, almost as though protecting her.

For a moment, everyone froze in confusion at the sudden turn of events.

“......Lee Mu-yeon......?”

Seung-min suddenly whispered that name.