Chapter 86: What Makes Up a Human (3)

Mu-yeon was so enormous that the safety bar did not really hold Su-myeon in place.

"You're really going to be okay, right?"

Hwi-yeon, who had also been watching, asked again with several meanings contained in the question.

Did he really need to go through this much trouble for her younger brother?

She felt guilt and responsibility.

But Su-myeon also had his own reasons for doing this.

'There's no guarantee my parents won't look like this either.'

Cheshire, who had become a doll, and Mu-yeon, who had become a monstrous wolf.

They probably had not remained inside ghost stories for as long as those two, but the possibility was always there.

There was nothing wrong with finding solutions to anything in advance.

"Don't worry, and please take care of sorting out the remaining situation."

Smoke discovered simultaneously on three mountains located quite far apart.

All kinds of stories, starting with rumors of deliberate arson, were spreading chaotically.

It was a time when they needed to pay attention to media control and the management of related personnel.

At Su-myeon's request, Hwi-yeon nodded as well and stepped half a pace back from the lift.

Su-myeon raised his phone and checked the time.

[PM 11:59]

"I'll be back....Don't get your hopes up too much."

[AM 00:00]

As the time changed, the lift began moving with a clunk.

The seat hanging from a single cable slowly moved away into the mountain filled with darkness.

It was late at night, but the mountain air, still filled with the warmth of summer, was quite mild.

But the higher they gradually climbed, the more a chill began to seep in.

While Su-myeon adjusted his excessively flashy sukajan, the lift gave a violent jolt.

"Ugh, w-wait...!"

Mu-yeon was waking up.

He looked disoriented, as though he had just opened his eyes from a nightmare.

As the enormous wolf shifted his body, the lift rocked back and forth and creaked.

"Mr. Lee Mu-yeon!"

Su-myeon hurriedly grabbed the safety bar and called his name.

Only then, as though he had finally come to his senses a little, Mu-yeon quietly looked around.

Left and right, and then up and down....

"...!"

Looking down below, Mu-yeon flinched in shock and clung tightly to Su-myeon's shoulder.

His hot body temperature, like a puppy's, and soft fur touched him.

Su-myeon desperately resisted the urge to vigorously rub his head as though petting a large dog.

"......What kind of dogshit situation is this...?"

Cheshire's drawn-out voice followed, as though he too had just come to his senses.

With both of them beginning to express themselves at the same time, it was hectic, but Su-myeon took Cheshire out of his pocket.

"Both of you, I'll explain everything one thing at a time, so please stay still."

I don't want to fall from here and die....

Sitting on a rattling lift with beings who were human but no longer human made the whole situation feel a little unreal.

"......What?"

Cheshire still looked displeased.

For now, Mu-yeon seemed afraid of heights and was clinging to Su-myeon's sleeve with his teeth, so Su-myeon thought he could explain things to him more slowly.

First, Su-myeon spoke to Cheshire, who looked ready to leave at any moment.

"I'm sorry. Cheshire."

Cheshire paused at Su-myeon's words, which had suddenly begun with an apology.

"I brought you with me because I wanted to apologize."

Eyes made of buttons, from which emotions were difficult to read.

A body wrapped in soft, fluffy fabric and filled with clumps of cotton.

There was no trace of a living creature in any of it, but something existed within him.

The essence of a human being.

"I know that, whatever the case, you haven't harmed me. I understand that you're confused about what you're feeling too."

At Su-myeon's continuing words, Cheshire seemed to feel a little better.

Cheshire began climbing onto his shoulder as usual and settled on Su-myeon's shoulder.

"......But what's with that puppy?"

At Cheshire's expression of puppy, Mu-yeon let out a small growl.

"This is, um... Team Leader Lee Hwi-yeon's younger brother."

"......Ah."

That woman who was looking for her younger brother?

Thinking that, Cheshire tilted his head.

The higher they climbed, the colder the air gradually became.

Before even the atmosphere became colder, Su-myeon continued.

"Mr. Mu-yeon was originally human too, but he was lost inside a ghost story for a long time. After going through this and that, he ended up looking like this."

At Su-myeon's words, Mu-yeon made a small whining sound.

Mu-yeon had seen Su-myeon together with Hwi-yeon and the others, so he did not immediately show aggression.

But he was only barely maintaining his composure.

He too was just as unable to understand the current situation.

Mu-yeon lightly tapped Su-myeon's body with one large forepaw.

Trying to explain the situation to beings on both sides who had once been human made Su-myeon feel as though one mouth was not enough.

"At Team Leader Hwi-yeon's request, I'm on my way to a place where we might be able to find out how you can become human again."

A way to become human again.

At that enticing sentence, Mu-yeon stared fixedly at Su-myeon.

"I can't be certain, but we need to check every possibility there is."

So, will you help me?

At Su-myeon's question, Mu-yeon nodded his enormous head.

Before long, along with the cold wind in the distance, the Inventor's Castle where Bell lived came into view.

Su-myeon took out his Heartphone and began putting in the large number of Rose Coins he had brought.

Then he tossed out the words he had been thinking about as lightly as possible, in a calm tone, as though they were nothing important.

"Cheshire, did you know that you used to be human?"

".........What?"

At Su-myeon's words, Cheshire froze completely.

A fairly long silence followed.

Along with the wind that had grown cold enough to make his cheeks sting, the surroundings gradually became quiet.

An eerie silence.

The lift slowly moving through the darkness.

Beneath their feet was nothing but pitch-black darkness where they could not see even an inch ahead.

"......Me?"

Along with Cheshire's confused voice, Su-myeon pushed all the Rose Coins into the inventory.

[Rose Coins: 150]

Would this be enough to have an easy conversation with Bell and get something good out of her?

Su-myeon added one more thing to Cheshire, who had fallen deep into thought.

"The same goes for you, Cheshire."

The back of the small stuffed doll's head.

An object from which he could not read any sign of what it was thinking.

And yet, something that let him tell it was agonizing over something.

Wasn't that proof that his soul was human?

"No one asked me to, but I want to find a way for you to become human again too. So I'd like you to cooperate."

Before long, the rattling lift came to a stop.

When Su-myeon turned his gaze, the Inventor's Castle he had already visited once stood alone not far away.

***

Lee Mu-yeon, in truth, could not remember many things.

How old he was, what kind of person he had been, what his parents had been like.

Nothing remained in his memory.

However, there were a few moments he remembered clearly.

'I'll, I'll go first.'

Blood pouring frighteningly from one arm.

His older sister, trembling in fear, yet stepping forward for his sake.

'With this, you're really saving all of us.'

Hye-won, who had betrayed him while saying that.

Someone he had once thought of like an older sister and relied on.

"...."

He did not know why he had not lost his reason to the desire to kill like the other wolves.

He only knew that, amid memories growing dimmer day by day, he desperately suppressed his desire for revenge.

The sounds of the city he heard every day.

He circled around it and silently tolerated all the outrageous things they did there.

Still, at least they had survived without disappearing.

If that was what it took to accomplish their goal, then survive that way.

That was what he had wanted.

If the older sister in his memories had not suddenly appeared here again after growing so much.

And if he had not personally seen Hye-won trying to harm that sister.

He probably would have continued enduring things while barely holding on to his reason through those thoughts.

'Are you Mr. Lee Mu-yeon?'

The immense confusion of the moment he had bitten Hye-won and been drenched in blood, and Su-myeon's question thrown into the middle of it.

At that brief question, Mu-yeon's mind jolted awake as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped over him.

Exactly as his question said.

He was Lee Mu-yeon.

Not some black wolf trapped in this absurd mountain, but Lee Mu-yeon.

Lee Mu-yeon, the younger brother of a woman named Lee Hwi-yeon.

That was who he was, so why had he needlessly entertained such noble thoughts as though he were someone's guardian?

Why had he clung to thoughts like that as though they were his very identity?

'We're all getting out of here together.'

When Su-myeon said that, Hwi-yeon looked at him with eyes full of trust.

The childishness of her youth was gone, but those steadfast eyes unmistakably belonged to the older sister he had respected and loved.

Even Seung-min, who was muttering like a madman, Su-myeon took along as he climbed the stairs.

Those stairs that, to Mu-yeon, had been like hell itself for taking his sister away from him.

'Today, you're escaping this place with your sister.'

Just remember that one thing.

As though bewitched by Su-myeon's voice.

Sticking tightly beside Hwi-yeon, Mu-yeon had climbed those stairs like that.

His memories had cut off there and resumed here.

Had he really made it outside?

"...We've arrived."

Lost in thought, Mu-yeon nodded at Su-myeon's voice beside him.

If his sister could look at this man that way, then Mu-yeon had no reason not to trust him too.

Mu-yeon once again set foot inside an unfamiliar illusion, yet strangely, his mind felt completely clear.

There were still many things he could not remember, but that did not frighten or unsettle him.

For some reason, if it was this man beside him.

A strange instinctive belief welled up inside Mu-yeon that he would somehow manage to do something about anything.

***

CREEEAK-

In front of the castle doors.

As though it had been waiting for them today as well, the door opened automatically first.

Su-myeon was still just as cautious, but he stepped inside a little more boldly than last time.

Mu-yeon walked close beside him, his fur bristling with tension.

Su-myeon had continued watching Mu-yeon while he slept even in reality, but from Mu-yeon's perspective, what did Su-myeon feel like?

'...Am I someone he can trust?'

There was no way for Su-myeon to know.

The main hall beyond the front entrance was still as beautiful as an indoor garden.

Flowers of many colors and warm, fragrant air.

"......."

Su-myeon once again looked at the golden rose in the center of the garden.

Viewed through the Cyclops Contact Lens still stuck to his eye, its form had changed somewhat from before.

Its true appearance had been made of flesh and thorny vines.

By now, that had become half mixed with the form of the golden rose visible to the naked eye.

The more of it that had become actual gold, the less grotesque it looked.

It did not seem like a bad sign.

"......Bell! It's me!"

Su-myeon cautiously raised his voice.

There was no chance of snow falling on a day like this, so the Beast probably would not react to this much noise.

Su-myeon's voice joined the faint sounds of machinery operating throughout the hall.

The sound of Mu-yeon cautiously stepping ahead into the hall echoed.

As the TAP-TAP sound of his claws striking the tile continued, the feeling was strange.

Should he say it somehow looked peaceful?

After watching for a moment the bizarre sight of a pitch-black wolf opening three eyes and smelling the flowers, the voice he had been waiting for came.

"You show up without contacting me first, what brings you here?"

Bell was still dressed casually in yellow overalls.

Then, the moving floor that had carried Su-myeon before.

Standing atop it, Bell reached Su-myeon in an instant.

"And today you even brought some doggy with you?"

There, there.

Ignoring the third eye on his forehead entirely, Bell freely began petting Mu-yeon.

He seemed bewildered, but perhaps because Bell was also a beautiful woman, Mu-yeon's tail swayed gently.

Careful not to let the atmosphere change, Su-myeon continued as calmly as possible.

"You know. It wasn't exactly a situation where I had the luxury of contacting you."

Even after returning to reality, communication had not been free.

Bell gave a light smile at Su-myeon's words, then quietly looked at him.

Seeing that she seemed to be waiting for his business, Su-myeon slowly guided the flow of the conversation.

"There are quite a few things I want to ask you."

Bell grinned at Su-myeon's words and held out her palm as though asking him to give her something.

Su-myeon nodded.

"I'll pay the price."