Chapter 87: What Makes Up a Human(4)

Learning something through questions.

Paying an appropriate price for that act was a method he had already experienced before.

Before abruptly getting to the main point.

Su-myeon slowly began with minor questions, one by one.

“Um, about the Dokkaebi AI I bought last time.”

Bell, who had been stroking Mu-yeon’s soft, pitch-black fur, tilted her head.

“Ah, that. I didn’t make that one, so I don’t really know much about it. Why? Is there a problem?”

But I’m not giving you a refund.

At Bell’s firm words, Su-myeon furrowed his brow.

What was that supposed to mean now?

Not everything sold in the Secret Shop was made by Bell?

“You didn’t make it yourself? Then, who....”

“I don’t know. I was just selling it for someone else. I only took a commission.”

Now that he heard that, it did make sense.

It was a product completely different in nature from the others.

There was a clear difference between it and Bell’s other items, which had mostly been physical objects.

It seemed more like something a developer should have made than an inventor.

Bell, who had been petting Mu-yeon, straightened up again and moved a little closer to Su-myeon.

“They’re, a little different from us. I don’t know much about them.”

“Who exactly are ‘they’?”

Not letting Bell’s vague wording slip by, Su-myeon asked again.

When she stopped answering, Su-myeon held out his Heartphone.

Coins 5 disappeared before Bell approached him and answered.

“Gods.”

Su-myeon froze at Bell’s words.

This was another thing he had not expected....

“Wait, then. This Dokkaebi AI....”

“A real dokkaebi probably made it, right? Probably-”

Bell’s answer was still vague, but it was enough to understand the context.

All the ghost stories he had encountered until now had been other worlds based on legends, fairy tales, and the like.

Fictional worlds rampaging because they wanted to influence reality.

But if they were gods.

“Supernatural beings that exist in your reality.”

Bell continued.

Not unnatural phenomena, but beings that transcended nature.

When Bell touched his phone again, another coin disappeared.

[Coins Held : 140]

“Those beings have started taking an interest in you too.”

And causality was quite useful to them as well if they could get their hands on it.

After all, supernatural beings were no different in always wanting to meddle in the mortal world.

At Bell’s answer, Su-myeon swept his hair back for a moment.

He had started with this question because he thought it would be the lightest one, but instead the situation had become more complicated.

A real dokkaebi....

“Then, ...what about this lens stuck to my eye?”

Su-myeon forced the conversation in another direction.

Even if real dokkaebi or whatever they were had taken an interest in him, there was nothing he could do about it immediately anyway.

Rather, just as with Bell or Cheshire, it could be seen as an opportunity to build a friendly relationship with them.

That was something to think about later.

At Su-myeon’s next question, Bell moved even closer.

A thick floral scent, somehow fishy and strong enough to sting his nose, suddenly washed over him.

Bell leaned in close and stared intently into Su-myeon’s left eye.

“You’ve been wearing it for a long time, haven’t you? It settled in nicely. It doesn’t look like there’s any problem?”

Bell was close enough for him to feel her breath.

Her eyes had a strange gleam to them, almost like glass marbles.

Even with a beautiful woman approaching him, the only emotion he felt was a chill.

Su-myeon swallowed dryly once and answered.

“......It won’t come out, though? It’s completely stuck to my eye.”

And she was saying there was no problem?

At Su-myeon’s words, Bell nodded.

“Yeah. That’s right. That’s what it was made to do. Don’t tell me you were planning to take it out and put it back in every time something happened?”

Why would you do something that inconvenient? You can just stick it on permanently.

At Bell’s voice, which made it sound obvious, Su-myeon was once again left speechless.

But he soon protested properly.

“A contact lens is originally something you put in only when you need it and take out afterward. If that’s what it does, you shouldn’t have named it that.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t know. Sorry.”

Bell shamelessly gave the brief reply and stepped back.

Her answer was consistent.

“But there are no refunds. It’s already stuck on.”

Damn, it.

He suddenly understood all the warnings telling him not to trust this woman.

It was not as though the thing had been useless, but their perspectives on the situation itself were far too different.

How could she possibly think it was fine to just stick this thing onto someone’s eyeball!

“Your eyesight is probably better now than it was when you used to wear glasses anyway, so isn’t that a good thing for you?”

“Then you could at least have made it black!”

“Ah-right. I’ll make the next one black.”

No, seriously. This woman.

Su-myeon was once again rendered speechless, so he vigorously rubbed his left eye with the back of his hand.

If it had been an ordinary lens, that action would have made it spin around, if not come out entirely.

But just as Bell had said, the lens that had completely settled into place did not move even slightly.

“So, don’t tell me you came all the way here just to ask about things like that? If you really want to remove it, pulling out the eye is another option.”

But I still won’t give you a refund.

Bell’s words were still absurd, but none of those things were actually the main point.

“No, there are other things I want to ask about.”

Even though he had received answers shocking enough in their own right, none of those had been the purpose of his plan.

Su-myeon looked at the beast and the doll, both staring only at him.

Compared to everything he had been through, having one left eye change was probably not much of a problem.

After barely collecting himself, Su-myeon continued with the real question.

“Bell, did you know that both of them were originally human?”

At Su-myeon’s question, Bell looked at Cheshire for a moment.

The two of them had known each other and lived together since before Su-myeon arrived.

And yet Cheshire had continued existing while forgetting that he had once been human.

No, saying that he had been living was inappropriate.

He had merely existed.

“That’s right.”

But Bell answered with an extremely flat affirmation without even asking for payment.

Su-myeon looked at Cheshire for a moment.

Bell had known, but Cheshire had not.

Even so, there was no trace of apology from Bell, so Su-myeon continued asking his questions one by one.

“Why... didn’t you tell Cheshire beforehand?”

Bell let out a sigh and took several steps back.

Her attitude contained more annoyance than guilt.

The beautifully tended, extravagant garden.

Bell slowly walked around it as she answered.

“Because telling him wouldn’t have meant I could do anything for him.”

Was there any need to tell him about a problem with no solution and make him troubled for no reason?

Bell spoke confidently.

It was not a reason that was difficult to understand, but Su-myeon could not help thinking it was cruel.

Even if there was no solution.

She could at least have told him. At least let him remember....

Cheshire had forgotten every memory of being human over a span of time so long that no one even knew how long it had been.

“Then, you couldn’t find a way to turn him back into a human?”

At Su-myeon’s words, Bell made a meaningful expression.

Her deal with Su-myeon had, from the beginning, been a deal involving the destruction of ghost stories.

Bell had wanted to disappear together with the Beast at the end of it.

Was that, because she had been unable to find a way?

“.......”

Neither smiling, nor crying, her face was expressionless.

Thinking the question might require additional payment, Su-myeon held out his phone, but Bell merely blinked.

With an expression that made it impossible to tell what she was thinking, Bell spoke again.

“A way, I know one. ......Probably.”

Her footsteps across the garden stopped in front of the golden rose.

“I just don’t know whether it’ll work.”

Bell carefully bent down and stroked the glass case that protected the golden rose so preciously.

Seeing the atmosphere around Bell somehow change, Su-myeon grew a little tense.

“You haven’t... tried it?”

Bell, who had been stroking the glass case, thought for a moment before straightening again and looking at Su-myeon.

“It would’ve been nice if you’d just quietly let yourself be used. You really do keep getting curious about things, don’t you?”

The words sounded almost sharp, and Su-myeon flinched and stepped back, while Mu-yeon growled as though trying to protect him.

“Can’t be helped. I’ll tell you honestly.”

Despite saying it as though she had no choice, Bell continued in a voice that was not shaken in the slightest.

When she grabbed Su-myeon’s Heartphone, the coins rapidly began to decrease again.

The price of the question was fairly high.

[Coins Held : 120]

“If you swallow a leaf from a fully grown, fully bloomed golden rose, you can return to your original form.”

Bell’s words were clear and straightforward.

Su-myeon looked at the golden rose again.

The true form of that golden rose, as seen through his left eye, was certainly no longer the crude mass of flesh he had seen at first.

A half-completed golden rose that had almost taken on the form of a plant.

What process had caused it to change?

“It takes causality to make the rose bloom.”

Bell’s continued explanation answered Su-myeon’s question.

“To begin with, if all I wanted was for you to eliminate ghost stories, there would’ve been no need for me to take Rose Coins as payment.”

It could simply have ended with him getting rid of them.

If this were a game, she could simply have provided items as rewards for the achievement of defeating the target.

But Bell had deliberately gathered causality through Rose Coins.

“...Then, that’s why.”

Only now did Su-myeon feel as though everything was falling into place.

The changed appearance of the golden rose.

That was the result of the causality obtained from the Rose Coins he had given Bell until now becoming nourishment for it.

If he continued gathering Rose Coins and giving them to her from now on?

If they could continue making more of these golden roses bloom?

Then....

“But.......”

Unlike Su-myeon, who was beginning to feel hope, Bell’s expression became somewhat sorrowful.

“What, do you think the essence of a human being is?”

Bell’s question came suddenly, but it was something Su-myeon had been thinking about more than anything else lately.

What was the essence that made up a human being?

The answer had already been given to him by something that might have been a real dokkaebi, or something similar to one.

“......The heart.”

Bell nodded at Su-myeon’s answer.

“Yeah, my husband has already lost even that.”

So, even if the golden rose bloomed, would it have any effect...?

Bell could not help being skeptical.

Listening to Bell’s story, Su-myeon suddenly realized one thing.

“Wait, does that mean the Beast was... originally human too? He wasn’t originally a being from the story?”

When Su-myeon asked again to make certain, Bell thought for a moment.

This time, an emotion resembling guilt passed across her face.

He did not know whom the guilt was for, or what it was about.

“......That’s right.”

Bell carefully continued the story.

Strictly speaking, Bell really was a being from the story.

The master of this ghost story.

But the other characters apart from that master....

“They were all originally human.”

Unlike Bell, the Beast had been hidden underground, his ego split apart, and his body mutated.

His beginning had been human.

“Then, then....”

In theory, the Beast had already crossed the point from which he could no longer return to being human.

Su-myeon now understood why Bell had initially wished for everything to disappear.

If he was already in a state from which there was no return.

Then she had probably chosen to disappear together with the Beast, the human she had once loved.

And yet, even while thinking that way, Bell had been unable to let go of her lingering hope for the golden rose.

Just in case, if. If even the tiniest shred of reason and self remained within the Beast.

“I thought the chance wasn’t 0%. It might be worth, trying.”

Bell’s voice lacked confidence, but her purpose and intention were clear.

“For now, I’m going to make the rose bloom and conduct an experiment to turn my husband back.”

But, whether it would succeed or not was still uncertain.

That was why Bell had been reluctant to say anything.

Because she did not know how many golden roses might be wasted on an uncertain experiment.