Chapter 85: What Makes Up a Human (2)

The next morning.

All the female employees who had come into the office were clustered around Su-myeon.

“W-Wait a second....”

“Yes. Just stay still for a moment.”

Mi-ae stared carefully into Su-myeon’s eye and reached out a hand.

More precisely, it was because of the lens inserted into his left eye.

“Try not to close your eye.”

“......That’s....”

Do you really think I can?

Su-myeon timidly swallowed the rest of his words, but the eye Mi-ae’s finger was touching stung and hurt.

He could no longer tell whether what was running down his cheek was tears, the eye drops they had put in, or saline solution.

“No, why won’t this thing move?”

“Hold still a second. Let’s try nudging it a little.”

Even Ju-hee and Hwi-yeon had crowded around him, holding Su-myeon by the neck and poking at his eye.

“This is driving me crazy....”

Every employee with experience wearing contacts had gathered around and tried, but the lens he had put into his left eye would not come out.

The Cyclops Contact Lens.

He had only remembered it after getting home last night.

“It won’t come out.”

“Yes. It’s completely stuck.”

Just as Mi-ae declared.

It had completely adhered itself to his left eyeball.

“I’ll go get the doctor.”

In the end, even Young-cheol, who was already extremely busy, was called over.

But he too eventually had no choice but to reach the same conclusion.

“It isn’t simply dried onto the eye, so I don’t think this is something we can deal with in reality.”

Four days in the mountains, where he had never been able to let his guard down.

It seemed something had gone wrong because he had been unable to remove it the entire time.

After roughly wiping around his eye, Su-myeon checked the mirror.

His iris had become a hazy gray, as though the lens had completely fused with his eyeball.

If his bangs covered it, maybe it was not that noticeable at a glance....

“Look over here for a moment.”

Young-cheol suddenly spoke to Su-myeon.

“Is your vision the same in both eyes?”

At Young-cheol’s words, Su-myeon furrowed his brow.

He wondered why they were suddenly talking about his eyesight, but he looked at some documents lying far away and alternately covered each eye.

His eyesight had never been particularly good to begin with.

“.......”

With his left eye, he could clearly read every letter on the documents from quite far away.

He thought he finally understood why his glasses had kept feeling uncomfortable and why his eyes had been so tired.

“......I guess I need to get new glasses first.”

The situation of having some unknown thing completely fused to his eye gave him chills, but Su-myeon deliberately spoke lightly.

It felt unpleasant, but there was nothing he could do about it immediately.

It was only one eye, and there did not appear to be any direct problem with it, so he had even less time to spend on this.

There were plenty of other things besides Su-myeon’s eye that needed attention.

“How is Mr. Lee Seung-min?”

Young-cheol, who had been staring worriedly at Su-myeon’s eye, shook his head.

Seung-min, whom Han-su had practically dragged back by the collar.

His state of mental confusion was severe.

“For now... through sedatives and various other medications, we’ve managed to get him to the point where conversation is possible, but....”

During his consultation with Young-cheol, he had looked almost normal.

Of course, it was true that what had happened at the end had been a tremendous shock.

And being shocked by something of that magnitude was normal.

“The biggest thing right now seems to be the shock of losing his wife and son, so that makes it a little difficult to tell.”

But that was not what mattered.

The problem was his values.

A person could become emotionally agitated or unstable from shock, but values were a different matter.

“He simultaneously holds two extremely incompatible sets of ethical values.”

To save someone, sacrifice is necessary.

To make someone live, someone has to die.

There is no other way.

He would show that kind of extreme perspective, then suddenly display normal morals again.

He would tremble and ask how anyone could kill another person, saying that was not something a human being could do, only to change again in an instant.

“Then he sincerely seems to think that if you don’t kill them and only cut off their arms and legs, that should be fine.”

Listening to Young-cheol, Su-myeon let out a sigh.

“Then as for whether he can live a normal life....”

“I can’t say for certain. It doesn’t look like he’ll be able to return to ordinary life anytime soon.”

At Young-cheol’s words, Su-myeon nodded.

He had half expected it.

But that was precisely why it left him with so much to think about.

“We’ve finished identifying and sealing off the locations where the smoke originated at each mountain, but in the end, nothing came out.”

Mi-ae reported in the same voice she always used.

“With that, we’ll mark this case as search suspended.”

Not terminated, but temporarily suspended.

Since no trace of the missing people had appeared at the sites, the ghost story was still alive.

They simply had not managed to end it.

Still.

Because Su-myeon had set the place on fire, the bizarre cityscape had probably collapsed for the time being.

It would no longer be in a condition realistic enough to beguile people so easily.

If there were survivors who had not been eaten away by those parasites or turned into monsters, people who still had a chance of recovery, perhaps they might escape the ghost story later.

The city in the mountain would no longer be such a comfortable place to live.

“The owner of that ghost story seemed to protect causality quite strategically.”

The rules of the mountain.

Even when they caught the wolf monsters, they did not finish them off, instead consuming only parts of their bodies.

The being the city’s residents revered and called ‘Him.’

There had been testimony that it became angry when they killed something completely, so it was certain.

The master of the mountain did not want to lose even the smallest amount of causality.

“At least it won’t simply let them starve to death in that situation.”

“It’ll manufacture some artificial situation to keep them alive somehow, and people will gradually start thinking this place isn’t normal.”

If they still retained a normal way of thinking.

They would try to escape again.

“But it’s not that easy, is it?”

No matter how difficult life there became, they did not know that they had to climb the stairs for an exit to appear.

At Ju-hee’s worried expression, Hwi-yeon spoke.

“That’s why we left them a hint.”

***

About twenty hours earlier.

While waiting for Seung-min, who had gone to retrieve his family from the ghost story.

Han-su, Hwi-yeon, and Su-myeon sat together, writing something with a tree branch on the line of fuel cans arranged before them.

[Salvation awaits above the stairs.]

It sounded like something from a cult, but the strange wording had been Su-myeon’s suggestion.

“In situations like this, if you say it too directly, people get suspicious.”

Su-myeon’s explanation sounded convincing.

Besides, even apart from that, there was no one among them more experienced inside ghost stories than Su-myeon.

Without complaint, they carved the agreed-upon phrase identically onto dozens of fuel cans.

“And starting with Han-su hyung, drop the fuel cans you’re carrying as you come.”

Everything around them was connected by grass and trees anyway.

The entire area was so overgrown that even rocks and stones were rare, so once the flames caught, they would become impossible to control.

“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”

At Han-su’s words, Su-myeon stared into empty space for a moment.

He organized his thoughts as he continued speaking.

“Let’s do it like this. I’ll lead since I’m the one carrying the fire, and the two of you stay all the way in the back under the pretense of guarding me. Then there shouldn’t be any chance of the fire I’m carrying reaching you, right?”

Han-su and Hwi-yeon nodded at Su-myeon’s plan.

And all those fuel cans with the message written on them had been scattered around the stairs.

No matter how much everything had burned, at least some of the metal fuel cans should still remain.

***

“Once the people who are completely sick of the ghost story see that, won’t they want to seek that salvation?”

At Su-myeon’s words, Ju-hee was genuinely impressed.

Hidden inside his plan had ultimately been a scheme to save someone.

He always evaluated himself as someone who would be the first to abandon others when an extreme situation arose.

But in the end, he still left behind a way for them to be saved again...?

Ju-hee quietly nodded.

They had done more than enough of everything that was within their power.

Anything beyond that would depend on the will of the survivors left behind.

“I think we should keep the surrounding area sealed off and maintain security personnel there for the time being.”

Su-myeon had not given up yet.

He believed someone would see those signs and make it out.

Ju-hee nodded as well.

“Yes. I’ll let you know again if we hear anything.”

Once that discussion ended, everyone’s gaze naturally gathered on Hwi-yeon.

More precisely, on the enormous iron cage beside her.

They looked at Mu-yeon, locked inside with his eyes closed as though asleep.

In reality, he had done nothing but sleep continuously.

His heartbeat was calm and steady, so he was clearly not dead.

“Why isn’t he waking up?”

At Ju-hee’s words, silence fell for a moment.

Perhaps, regardless of what was inside him, his outward form belonged to the ghost story, and that was why it could not function here.

That was about as far as they could speculate.

But while no one dared say such a thing carelessly in front of Hwi-yeon.

“More importantly, is he supposed to keep living as a dog like that?”

Mi-ae asked the insensitive but essential question.

He could not live like that forever.

“And according to the report, you’re saying that Cheshire doll is also believed to have once been human, right?”

At least Mu-yeon was a living creature.

Cheshire, having become a doll, could not even have a heartbeat or breathe.

People who had once been human, but had become something that was no longer human.

“But you said those two could still think normally inside ghost stories, right?”

Mi-ae objectively interpreted the situation described in the report.

If that kind of mind was the essence of a human being.

Then wouldn’t they simply need to restore the body?

They had already changed once, so perhaps they could not return to exactly what they had been before, but couldn’t they at least be restored enough to live an ordinary life?

“.......”

After thinking for a moment, Su-myeon took out a heavy pouch.

It contained the Rose Coins he had obtained while leaving this ghost story.

“There is one place where we might be able to get advice about something like this.”

He did not know whether it would work for a doll as well, but he knew one story.

A story about a human who had become a beast returning to human form.

“Beauty and the Beast.”

That fairy tale ended with the Beast becoming human again.

“I need to go see Bell.”

***

The ski resort was quiet in the season approaching summer.

Once night fell, the already empty resort became so deserted that it was almost eerie.

The area around the ski lifts was especially bad, with the machinery shut down and protective covers draped over everything.

“Are you really going to be all right alone?”

Late at night, with midnight approaching.

The enormous cage containing Mu-yeon had been moved in front of the stopped ski lift.

Han-su and Hwi-yeon, who had helped push him there, clearly wanted to accompany Su-myeon.

Looking at Mu-yeon, who was still sleeping peacefully, Su-myeon shook his head.

“Bell is defensive by nature. If I bring more people along for no reason, she might become uncooperative. Last time, she told me to come alone too.”

Of course, he had promised Han-su that they would not split up inside a ghost story anymore, but wasn’t it a little different before actually entering one?

Su-myeon did not trust Bell completely.

But at least during their previous meeting, she had treated Su-myeon quite well.

They had made a mutually beneficial deal, and Su-myeon was faithfully keeping his end of the agreement.

He had established a foundation for earning a favorable attitude from her, so there was no reason to irritate her unnecessarily.

“.......”

Without saying anything, Han-su lifted the heavy Mu-yeon onto the stationary lift.

He looked as though he had plenty he wanted to say, but Su-myeon had to make a choice.

He did not want to bring a whole group of dependable allies along and make it obvious to her that he was suspicious of her.

Besides, the more people who went, the greater the causality.

Bell’s mansion seemed to possess very little causality, with only a narrow space confined to the mansion itself.

There was no need to go out of their way to increase its causality.

“For several reasons, it’s safer if I go alone.”

Han-su still did not answer Su-myeon.

He merely secured the safety bar for Su-myeon as he sat beside Mu-yeon.