Chapter 84: What Makes Up a Human (1)

“Why are you...? Why are you here...? How did you......!”

Hwi-yeon’s voice trembled violently as she fought back tears.

But there was no time for this.

“Then everyone, get out first! Let’s leave together. Mr. Lee Mu-yeon.”

Su-myeon led the two stunned siblings onward.

Han-su was still at the foot of the stairs, restraining Seung-min’s son.

He tried to seize both of the boy’s hands so they could drag him out somehow, but the child was struggling with all his strength.

It was far beyond what could be called the strength of a mere child.

Through Su-myeon’s left eye, he could see something pitch-black extending hands from behind the child’s back like a spider.

As though controlling a puppet, it violently jerked the child’s arms and legs around.

“Aaaaaagh! Aaaaaah!”

The high, piercing scream unique to a child painfully rang in their ears.

“Just leave him!”

Hwi-yeon spoke coldly as she grabbed Han-su by the shoulder.

But Han-su was sweating profusely as he desperately tried to hold onto the child.

If the child had simply grown up wrong because he had been raised in the wrong environment, shouldn’t he at least have a chance to be rehabilitated?

That seemed to be what Han-su was thinking.

But screams could be heard from the city in the distance as well.

By now, it sounded as though the flames had begun consuming the city’s wooden houses.

The desperate cries were becoming more and more urgent.

“Just leave him.”

Su-myeon firmly told Han-su once again.

The shocked look in Han-su’s eyes was painful to see, but if they wasted any more time here, there was no telling how far things would spiral out of control.

“At this rate, all we’re doing is holding everyone up!”

At the sound of Su-myeon’s voice, the child suddenly froze.

Had he finally become willing to listen?

The moment Han-su looked down at the child with a flash of hope.

CRUNCH-

The child bit into the forearm restraining him.

He did not merely bite.

His jaw worked violently, as though he intended to chew through the flesh and swallow it.

“Han-su!”

“What are you doing?!”

“Ugh...!”

The pain was excruciating, but Han-su still tried not to handle the child roughly.

How could he get him off without hurting him....

THUD-!

“......!”

But a moment later, there was a dull impact, and the child biting Han-su went limp.

The one who had picked up a large stone lying nearby and brought it down on the child was....

“Huff... huff.......”

Seung-min, breathing heavily.

“I should’ve... I should’ve done this from the beginning.... I should’ve. I should’ve.......”

Seung-min muttered in front of everyone frozen in shock.

Han-su stared at the limp child whose back of the head had been struck by the stone, then hurriedly checked his pulse at the wrist.

A moment later, as though unable to believe it, he put a hand beneath the child’s nose, then pressed his ear to his chest.

“.......”

Han-su rose, his hands trembling.

He said nothing, but it was obvious something had happened to the child.

“Huff... huff....”

Seung-min was still breathing harshly, unable to come to his senses.

The mind that had been worn down over the course of years had finally reached its limit and snapped.

The family he had tried to protect by turning away from reality and refusing to see it.

When he saw them directly harming someone else, he could no longer endure it.

Everything had gone wrong so completely that it was impossible to even say where it had started.

“...Let’s go.”

Despite the chaos, Su-myeon clearly separated what needed to be done from everything else.

Either way, we’re getting out.

They had to take everyone who could leave with them.

Mu-yeon, the black wolf, nudged the equally shaken Hwi-yeon forward with his head.

Toward the stairs once again.

This time, the two siblings began climbing together, even if one of them was now in a different form.

“We should go too.”

Su-myeon glanced briefly at the fallen child.

His limbs were sprawled unnaturally. And the hand extending from the pitch-black opening across his back was still twitching.

Whatever had been parasitizing the child was not dead yet.

It was feeling around its surroundings as though searching for its next host.

“Leave me... leave me too.... Someone like me, I....”

Seung-min muttered those words as his entire body trembled.

Su-myeon hesitated briefly, then his eyes met Han-su’s.

Seeing the savage expression twisting Han-su’s face, Su-myeon nodded.

Han-su immediately grabbed Seung-min by the collar and hauled him to his feet.

***

<In our next story. The source of the black smoke that began spreading near Bukaksan, Jirisan, and Taebaeksan at approximately 8 p.m. today has yet to be identified, while authorities have confirmed that there is currently no clear wildfire damage. At present, the smoke is believed to have been caused by hikers burning garbage...>

With a weary expression, Su-myeon switched off the radio.

A large van was parked at the campground near Mimi Lodge.

Taking off his glasses, he rubbed his dry eyes and stretched his legs across the seat beside him.

Eventually, Su-myeon simply lay down, and as he let out a sigh, the door suddenly swung open.

“You all right?”

It was Han-su, who had been checking the situation outside.

Still lying down, Su-myeon asked.

“Still no changes?”

“Yeah. I even went around the Mimi Lodge area wearing a gas mask, but there weren’t any unusual signs.”

“Su-myeon!”

I’m so tired I could die.

At Ju-hee’s voice calling him, Su-myeon barely managed to sit back up.

His entire body already felt like lead, but Su-myeon lightly brought a finger to his lips, signaling Ju-hee to keep quiet.

“Um....”

Ju-hee, who had been about to say something urgently, flinched at his gesture.

With the finger he had held to his lips, Su-myeon pointed toward the back of the van.

There, Hwi-yeon was asleep with her head resting against the vehicle window.

And beside her, the enormous wolf Mu-yeon was asleep as well, his head resting on her lap.

Since it was noisy outside, Ju-hee nodded and climbed into the van.

Once Han-su came inside as well and shut the door again, the noise diminished.

“.......”

Ju-hee stared at Mu-yeon for a moment.

If not for the eyelid on his forehead, he looked natural enough that someone could simply call him a rare breed of wolfdog and take him out for a walk.

And yet this creature, who looked like nothing more than a massive animal, was the younger brother Hwi-yeon had so desperately searched for.

It was difficult to know whether she should congratulate Hwi-yeon for finding him or console her.

“What happened?”

Su-myeon quietly asked as he adjusted his glasses, and Ju-hee continued.

“Ah, yes. Well.... They’ve located the area where the smoke around Jirisan seems to be originating. It’s the site of an old temple that’s now an abandoned building....”

There were no flames there either, nor could they clearly identify a particular hole the smoke was coming from.

Black smoke and the smell of burning were simply seeping up from around the area, as though rising directly through the ground.

“.......”

As Su-myeon fell into serious thought, Ju-hee added.

“No additional bodies or survivors have been found, and the agents are continuing their search.”

When The Witch’s Forest disappeared, countless bodies of those who had been trapped by the ghost story appeared at its point of origin.

The fact that nothing like that had happened this time probably meant they had failed to terminate it.

But there was still a possibility, however small, so they needed to keep checking until the smoke disappeared.

“Keep checking the Bukaksan area too, and have the surrounding area sealed off....”

I suppose I’ll have to request that myself.

With a worn-out expression, Su-myeon pulled out his phone and searched for Jang Bok-eum’s contact information.

It was the first time he had contacted him directly since receiving his number.

‘On the birthday of the mighty tiger, king of the mountain~’

A completely unexpected children’s song played as the caller ringback tone.

For a moment, Su-myeon checked his phone again, wondering whether he had called the wrong number.

[Director Jang Bok-eum]

It’s right?

Just as he was dumbfounded by the man’s genuinely insane taste, the other party answered.

‘Hello.’

A composed voice came through the receiver.

“Hello. This is Han Su-myeon.”

At the sound of Su-myeon’s voice, the other person fell silent for a moment.

Then came the busy rustling of something being moved around before he spoke again.

‘Things got out of hand again this time. I’ve already sent plenty of agents. What else do you need?’

He seemed to already be aware of the situation.

Then again, with it appearing on the news like that, it would have been stranger if he did not know.

“Please tighten control of the surrounding area. We escaped after setting a fire in an attempt to terminate the ghost story. If we’re lucky, the whole place inside may burn down, and the bodies of those who remained there could appear.”

Beside him, Su-myeon heard Ju-hee sharply suck in a breath at his words.

That was what Su-myeon had done.

‘.......’

Director Jang did not answer immediately.

He seemed to think for a moment, then suddenly let out a hearty laugh that did not suit him at all.

‘Understood.’

And that was the end of it.

Su-myeon stared at the disconnected phone with his face twisted into a deep frown.

He would probably handle the public-facing side of things on his own.

“Then... other than the man you brought out, Lee Seung-min, was there no one else inside who could have been rescued?”

At Ju-hee’s question, Su-myeon stared silently at the phone after the call had already ended.

There had been two survivors this time: Mu-yeon, whose outward appearance had completely changed, and Seung-min, whose inside had changed instead.

Those two.

They had brought Seung-min out because they could not bring themselves to leave him behind, but in truth, Su-myeon had doubts about whether he could really be called rescued.

Humans whose insides had been eaten away by monsters that had already taken root within them.

Even if they brought such people out of a ghost story, could their minds ever be restored to anything resembling normal?

“We didn’t save Mr. Lee Seung-min either.”

Han-su seemed to be thinking the same thing and spoke firmly.

“We’ve only put him on life support. I don’t know whether he can actually recover.”

“What do you mean...?”

“The owner of Room 404. You remember him, don’t you?”

“Ah....”

Han-su’s example was direct.

The man whose mind had been steeped in the ghost story until he went insane.

Those with physical abnormalities had recovered or were at least showing gradual signs of improvement, but he had not.

He had neither worsened nor improved.

He remained exactly as insane as before.

Listening to Han-su and Ju-hee talk, Su-myeon rested his head against the van window.

I'm tired.

That was the only thought he had left now.

“For now, then. Get some rest.”

Maybe it was obvious from his expression.

Ju-hee gave him some space.

When she opened the vehicle door, the acrid smell of smoke and the surrounding commotion flooded in again.

He still had no certainty that what he had done had been right.

But it had been the best he could do in that moment, and Su-myeon did not regret it.

He was neither a god nor some saintly ruler.

“Um... here.”

As Su-myeon immediately lay back down on the seat, Ju-hee watched him for a moment, then handed him something before closing the van door.

What landed in his hand was Cheshire, soft and fluffy.

“.......”

A strange sense of guilt slowly began creeping over him.

That doll was originally human too.

.

.

.

Remember.

The essence of a human is not the body, but the mind.

Remembering what Dokkaebi AI had said, Su-myeon let out another deep sigh.

For now, he stuffed the small doll into his pocket.

Cheshire had spent so long inside a ghost story that it had gradually lost its humanity.

Thinking of it that way, all of Cheshire’s strange behavior until now began to make sense.

Perhaps those behaviors had been part of Cheshire gradually recovering its humanity after finally encountering humans again.

Its unconscious longing for the human it had once been may have been what kept making Cheshire follow Su-myeon.

It must have been confused itself.

That would also explain why it had struggled to put those unconscious sensations into words.

“Nothing is ever easy.”

Su-myeon muttered almost to himself.

Han-su, who was still there, silently covered Su-myeon’s eyes with one hand.

“Get some sleep first.”

...I guess I should.

Without saying anything else, Su-myeon pushed Han-su’s hand away and closed his eyes.

No additional news came throughout the night.

The smoke gradually subsided as the night passed.