Chapter 96: Dragon Palace Hospital (2)

2. Escape Method.

First, it is important to recognize where you are located.

If your initial starting point is underground, you can exit through the lobby above ground.

However, if your location is confirmed to be above ground from the very beginning.

Do not move carelessly under any circumstances.

In that case, please check Item 7 again.

Su-myeon stared down at the cool, small hand gripping his own.

His vision still had not adjusted to the darkness, and he could not see anything.

Even the Eye of Truth was useless when there was nothing visible to begin with, leaving him unable to identify or distinguish anything.

In the darkness, Su-myeon carefully opened his mouth.

“......Ju-hee?”

“...Yeah?”

No.

This hand was not Ju-hee’s.

Ju-hee’s slightly hoarse voice came from more than a step away.

Then... this hand was....

Flash―

In an instant, the hospital lights came back on, illuminating the surroundings.

Su-myeon immediately tried to identify whatever was holding onto him, but his eyes, which had only just started adjusting to the darkness, now struggled to cope with the sudden brightness.

Because he had not managed to see it properly, he could not be certain of anything.

But before Su-myeon could even fully process the situation.

Bang!

Cheshire violently slammed the head of whatever had been holding Su-myeon’s hand into the station desk.

“Aah!”

The force was strong enough to make Ju-hee scream reflexively in shock.

Su-myeon was equally startled and could not even respond as he tried to understand what was happening.

Only then did his eyes finally adjust enough for him to clearly make out his surroundings.

Whatever Cheshire was holding had its head buried against the corner of the desk.

From the caved-in portion spilled rotting, pitch-black blood, chunks of flesh, and fragments of stark white bone.

“W-What is that....”

While Ju-hee struggled to suppress her nausea in shock and confusion.

Cheshire casually released its hair and stretched as though he had finally woken up a little.

“Just... something like a sewer rat....”

He waved a hand dismissively, as though saying there was no need to worry about it.

Whatever it was, its skull had been smashed apart, sending the contents inside splattering everywhere.

It was a monster dressed in a hospital gown, with grotesquely thin and elongated limbs.

Its body was unnaturally small, but its stomach was enormously swollen.

Su-myeon decided not to examine it any further.

Whatever it had been, it was going to be enjoying a long rest now.

“Give me a second.”

After finally tearing his attention away, Su-myeon pulled out his Heartphone and fed the roll cake to Dokkaebi AI.

The price for the question he had asked last time about the identity of a being inside a ghost story had been fairly steep.

Rather than use it only when a question suddenly came up and risk suffering physical damage, it seemed better to keep feeding it in advance whenever the thought occurred to him.

“First, let’s figure out what floor we’re on.”

Only after feeding the dokkaebi did Su-myeon leave the station as he spoke.

The walls were decorated with the same colorful patterns characteristic of a pediatric ward as the place they had been in before.

But now, the space was filled with such an unnatural silence that even the sound of breathing felt intrusive.

It gave a distinct sense that this was a completely different space from the hospital that had been noisy with machinery and people.

The footsteps of the three echoed through the surroundings with abnormal loudness.

When they headed toward the emergency stairs and elevators, they spotted a sign indicating the floor.

[B5]

“Basement fifth floor....”

Su-myeon let out a small sigh.

It was almost ridiculous that he felt relieved.

“Then let’s go up.”

Su-myeon immediately opened the fire door to the emergency stairs.

Inside, they were met by the violent sound of rushing liquid and a partially collapsed staircase.

The relief he had felt only moments ago suddenly seemed absurd.

“Wow, nothing’s ever easy.”

Cheshire leisurely looked at the ruined stairs beside Su-myeon.

Worse still, some unidentified, thick, crimson liquid like blood was pouring down from above like a waterfall.

The metallic smell made it clear that it was definitely not water.

In any case, the cascading liquid continued flowing downward toward someplace far below.

Apparently, this was not the lowest floor and the underground structure extended even deeper.

But there probably was not an idiot among them willing to go farther down.

“Looks like we have no choice but to use the elevator.”

Ju-hee cautiously offered her opinion.

Because of the enclosed nature of an elevator, it would be difficult to respond if something unexpected happened.

Perhaps because of that, Su-myeon felt a sense of foreboding creeping over him, but they had no other choice for now.

“So that’s what we decided~?”

Unlike the cautious Su-myeon and Ju-hee, Cheshire turned around without hesitation.

The moment he pressed the elevator button, they heard the machinery begin to move.

Ding―

With a cheerful sound, the elevator doors opened.

The inside was extremely bright, but the mirrors covering three of the walls gave Su-myeon another ominous feeling.

Cheshire stepped inside without hesitation, and Ju-hee let out a short sigh before entering while staring down at her feet.

Su-myeon kept his gaze fixed straight ahead and, the moment he stepped into the elevator, turned around to face the doors.

Just in case, he tried pressing the button for the first floor, but naturally, the elevator moved on its own.

He pressed the first-floor button, but nothing happened.

“It never goes against expectations.”

“......Apparently not.”

Ju-hee answered Su-myeon while trying to sound unaffected.

The elevator moved for only a brief moment before stopping again.

A short stillness and silence.

Then the doors opened.

Splaash―

“......!”

When the elevator doors opened, a sign reading B4 could be seen beyond the wall.

But before anything else, crimson liquid violently rushed inside.

The liquid they had seen pouring down the emergency stairs like a waterfall had clearly flooded the entire floor.

Before the three even had time to react, they quickly climbed onto the waiting chairs visible in front of them.

“Damn it.... Even when I was a doll, getting wet was what I hated most.”

Cheshire complained while looking down at his sneakers, now thoroughly soaked in blood.

Though being a little wet hardly seemed like the problem right now.

Su-myeon looked toward the grumbling Cheshire and asked.

“Cheshire, can you sense anything? Or is there anything else you know?”

Just as they had sent Mu-yeon along to White Night Land to serve as protection.

The reason Su-myeon had brought Cheshire today was because Cheshire had helped him in various ways even back when he was still a stuffed doll.

The information Cheshire had given him had actually been more useful than his teleportation ability.

Back then, even Cheshire himself had seemed confused as to why he felt compelled to act that way, but Su-myeon was convinced it had been the humanity still remaining inside him.

Besides, had he not just helped Su-myeon first when he was nearly in danger?

There was no doubt that, at his core, Cheshire possessed a fundamentally good human nature.

Under Su-myeon’s gaze, filled with that certainty, Cheshire subtly avoided eye contact.

“...Who knows.”

After thinking for a moment, Cheshire suddenly took off one of his sneakers, which had been soaked through and ruined by the red liquid.

Then, without warning, he hurled it deep into the dark morgue.

The moment the sound of splashing rang out.

All around them came noises like freshly caught giant fish thrashing violently.

3. How to Deal with Monsters

3-1) Fish with Twisted Faces

It detects waves forming in the body of water you are in and approaches.

If possible, do not enter flooded areas.

If you are forced to enter one, draw its attention elsewhere and lure it away before moving.

If you are caught, you may end up looking the same way it does by its hands.

Despite the liquid being crimson, viscous, and opaque, apparently it was full of fish.

The noisy thrashing.

The sounds of fins slapping against the surface.

Judging from the noise alone, there had to be well over a dozen of them.

After confirming the presence of the fish, Cheshire took off his other shoe as well and threw it even farther away.

The noises erupted again.

He was clearly trying to lure the fish farther away.

Seeing the obvious intent behind Cheshire’s actions, Su-myeon shouted.

“Check the emergency stairs!”

At his words, Ju-hee immediately ran toward the emergency stairwell without hesitation.

Pressing an elevator button, waiting for the doors to open, and then waiting for them to close again took longer than one might think.

Wasn’t that one of the most common horror clichés?

The protagonist desperately hammering the close-door button, even though pressing it repeatedly would not make it shut any faster, while trying to escape from a monster or ghost rushing toward them....

'Damn it. I really don’t want to end up like that.'

Still, just in case, Su-myeon pressed the elevator button.

Then Ju-hee shouted toward him.

“The stairs continue upward! Come this way!”

Fortunately, this time the stairs leading upward were intact.

Following Cheshire, who lightly jumped down, Su-myeon pushed through the sticky liquid that seemed to cling to his ankles as he moved toward the emergency stairs.

Fortunately, perhaps thanks to Zephyros’s Wind, although he felt an unnatural sensation around his shins, his speed did not decrease significantly.

Behind him came the strange friction sounds of large fins slapping against the surface.

Ignoring them as best he could, Su-myeon barely made it through the fire door before Ju-hee immediately slammed it shut.

Thud! Thud thud!

Something crashed into the door, but the fire door was extremely sturdy.

They had run less than five meters.

So why was his heart pounding this hard?

Su-myeon finally took a short breath and looked upward.

“Let’s go up.”

He hoped the stairs would continue all the way to the first-floor lobby, but unfortunately, after going up only one floor, the group stopped again.

A barred door above them had been secured with a padlock.

From the looks of it, it required a key.

“We’ll have to find it somewhere in here.”

A cliché like searching for a key.

By now, even Ju-hee sighed as though she had expected something like this.

Cheshire, walking in front, abruptly opened the door leading into the third basement floor.

The third basement floor contained various medication preparation rooms.

“But don’t you think there were probably a few Rose Coins in that water back there?”

Su-myeon privately agreed with Cheshire, but that did not mean he intended to go back.

Not with that flooded area crawling with so many fish.

Nothing good could possibly come from staying there for long.

“Let’s search inside first.”

Following Su-myeon’s words, the group moved deeper inside.

Like a stereotypical hospital, a long corridor painted entirely white stretched ahead.

Rooms used to prepare medications, each labeled with different names, were lined up along one side of the hallway.

The first thing they saw was a prescription preparation room where pills were being sorted beyond a large glass window.

A machine inside was diligently operating with regular clicking noises, dividing medicine into single doses and packaging them in translucent paper packets.

The problem was that it was not packaging ordinary pills, but small unidentified fragments.

Most of them looked like pieces of bone, organs, or flesh.

“This is fucking disgusting.”

Ju-hee said it aloud, but Su-myeon was thinking exactly the same thing.

Still, they had to search places where the key might be, so they went inside.

As Ju-hee looked around the room, she stopped in front of a desk off to one side.

She cautiously opened one of the drawers, sucked in a startled breath, and immediately slammed it shut again.

“.......”

What had been inside?

Su-myeon already knew.

He had played through the same scene in the game.

Even so, he had no choice but to open them.

Half resigned, he opened another drawer right next to the one Ju-hee had checked.

Inside was a bundle of nerves tangled with unidentified chunks of flesh, writhing on its own as though it were alive.

“...Whew....”

If his sanity were represented as a numerical stat like in the game, he probably would have lost about five points.

Thinking that, Su-myeon closed the drawer again.

The reason he had no choice but to open them even though he already knew what might be inside.

Was because the location of the key was randomized every time.