Chapter 97: Dragon Palace Hospital (3)

Su-myeon, who had been following Ju-hee as they rummaged through the desk drawers and even flipped through the books lying around, glanced toward Cheshire.

The floor was a mess of two red shoeprints mixed together with footprints.

None of the three looked particularly good dirtying the white floor like this, but Cheshire was especially bad.

The sight of him standing there in nothing but his socks, without even shoes on, kept bothering Su-myeon.

“Are you okay barefoot?”

“Uh.... Probably?”

When Su-myeon asked, Cheshire answered in the same listless voice as before.

Meanwhile, Ju-hee opened one of the cabinets lined up beside them, recoiled in disgust yet again, and shut it.

Inside, something that looked as though an entire sheet of human skin had been peeled cleanly from a body was hanging neatly from a clothes hanger.

It had been removed so perfectly that it almost looked like a movie prop.

After searching the area as quietly as possible, they left the preparation room again.

“Then next....”

Su-myeon was about to suggest checking the sterile preparation room next when he stopped.

As its name suggested, the sterile preparation room was designed with several layers of entrances to maintain a sterile environment.

But the entrance, which should have looked completely white and clean, appeared to Su-myeon as though something else was faintly overlapping it.

When he covered his right eye and looked only through his left, the doorway resembled the mouth of some enormous creature.

The filthy interior, rusted dark red, looked completely different from the other preparation rooms.

'That isn’t a real door....'

Just like what he had seen at Exit 4 of Sadang Station, it was a passage that looked blocked even though it was not.

A trap inside a ghost story that was not entirely unfamiliar.

And....

“......Back away.”

Something was standing inside.

Su-myeon hurriedly turned around and returned with the others to the room where the pills had been prepared.

The repetitive clicking of the machine still echoed through the room.

“Hide first!”

No one questioned the urgency in Su-myeon’s voice.

Unfortunately, there happened to be exactly three cabinets there.

And as Ju-hee had already discovered, one of them had a sheet of human skin hanging neatly inside.

Someone would have to hide in there with it.

“.......”

Absolutely not....

Su-myeon and Ju-hee exchanged looks that said exactly that, but it was only their honest reaction.

If someone had to go inside anyway, there was no point wasting time.

“I’ll....”

Su-myeon volunteered and was about to hide inside the ominous cabinet, but Cheshire moved first.

With a completely unconcerned expression, he casually pushed the human skin aside and slipped inside.

Click―

Su-myeon and Ju-hee stared blankly for a moment at the cabinet that had calmly closed before they each entered one of the empty cabinets.

Once all three had hidden themselves, they could only see outside through the ventilation slits in the cabinet doors.

Beyond five long, narrow vertical openings, they could see the white wall and the closed door of the preparation room.

With their vision and movement restricted, Su-myeon felt as though his hearing was gradually becoming sharper.

The heavy sound of feet dragging across the floor.

The sound of something blunt scraping slowly against the closed door.

Then, before long, whatever it was began pounding hard against the door.

The knocking gradually grew stronger, as though it intended to smash the door apart.

After several attempts.

As if it had suddenly realized something, the creature slowly turned the doorknob.

Creeeak―

The door opened so slowly that the hinges gave a faint squeal.

The dragging footsteps resumed, and the creature came into view through the slits of the cabinet.

Hsssh― Hsssh―

Its breathing was rough, like that of someone whose throat and nose were swollen shut from a severe cold.

The monster wheezed through its half-blocked airway, its shoulders rising and falling heavily with each breath.

It had the build of a sturdy adult man, and its eyes were cloudy white like those of a frozen pollock as it looked around.

Its lower jaw appeared fused to a neck nearly twice as long as an ordinary person’s, while its nose protruded upward like that of a softshell turtle.

In contrast to its short limbs, its enormous body was covered in grotesque metal that looked like armor.

3-2) The Man in Lead Armor

To avoid these creatures, which are highly sensitive to sound, you must even be careful with the sound of your breathing.

It wears a heavy shell made of lead and has short arms, so if you hide inside a cabinet or beneath a bed, it cannot detect you.

If you attract its attention, hide in one of those two places and wait until it loses interest.

Even if that takes hours or days.

The fishy metallic smell coming from it reached all the way inside the cabinet.

Hsssh― Hsssh―

Click. Click. Click. Click.

The repeated sound of its breathing and the machine operating.

Amid those noises, the three of them could not even swallow as they endured seconds and minutes that each felt like an hour.

***

At that same time, back in the real-world headquarters of the Unnatural Threat Governance.

Young-cheol, having sent his colleagues into ghost stories, was already making yet another trip back and forth between the office and the infirmary.

Unable to stand watching his anxious pacing any longer, Mi-ae snapped.

“If you’re going to keep doing that, just sit down here already!”

You’re driving me crazy!

At Mi-ae’s words, Young-cheol finally settled down in the office and sat in Ju-hee’s empty seat.

But he did not remain still for more than a few minutes.

Soon he was even bouncing his leg nervously, unable to sit still, and Mi-ae looked ready to lose her mind.

“You said your friend disappeared from that hospital, right?”

Ji-hoon spoke to him, apparently understanding his state of mind better than the others.

At that, Young-cheol seemed unable to hold it in any longer and began pouring out the story.

His friend.

The surgeon Yoon Jae-hak.

A close colleague who had been with him since medical school had vanished from the world without leaving a trace.

It had already been more than a year since he disappeared.

What made it especially painful was that Young-cheol had only remembered the fact after returning from Alice Hotel.

Ji-hoon listened quietly, then offered some comfort through his own experience.

“Sometimes, if there’s someone important that a ghost story needs, the owner of the ghost story treats that person pretty well.”

Treats them well...?

It did not exactly feel as though the Witch had treated him particularly well, but in another sense, it was true.

Unlike him, the person the Witch had treated as food was still recovering in the infirmary.

His weight was gradually returning to normal, but the tremendous physical strain would probably leave him with minor aftereffects for the rest of his life.

Sagging skin, damaged joints and liver.

Compared to things like that.

“......I suppose that’s true.”

Ji-hoon’s situation did seem better.

Young-cheol could only give a vague agreement.

Among victims of ghost stories, Ji-hoon was certainly one of the people who had come out in the best condition.

Ji-hoon gave a bitter smile and continued.

“And if Su-myeon’s guess is right, this ghost story is based on that story, isn’t it? The Tale of the Rabbit.”

The story in which a turtle brings back a rabbit’s liver for the Dragon King.

Even the original folktale was unpleasant and somewhat gruesome.

But if this ghost story was based on it.

“He might still be alive and physically intact. Though mentally, he’s probably suffered quite a shock....”

A doctor skilled enough to remove a liver from a human being with the minimum possible damage.

The owner of the ghost story had probably found some way to make use of that talent.

And since ghost stories generally preferred to preserve causality, it probably would not have tried to kill people unnecessarily.

Even after hearing Ji-hoon’s words, Young-cheol could not bring himself to nod.

His shoulders remained slumped, his expression still troubled.

Ji-hoon stopped there, but Mi-ae suddenly clapped her hands together.

“Ah! I get it now.”

Then she abruptly said something utterly tactless.

“You’re worried he might have been turned into an animal that fits the role, like Mu-yeon, aren’t you?”

Ji-hoon looked flustered by Mi-ae’s almost offensively direct remark.

But when Young-cheol’s face turned deathly pale, Ji-hoon hurriedly changed the subject.

“Come to think of it, how are you able to remember the people who entered the ghost stories this time?”

As far as Ji-hoon knew, Mi-ae was the only employee who had never experienced a ghost story at all.

So how was she able to remember the employees who had entered one?

Mi-ae rummaged around the desk as she answered.

“Ah! Of course I don’t remember the details either.”

As she spoke, Mi-ae showed Ji-hoon a sticky note.

It was something Su-myeon had given her before leaving.

Written on it were the names of the members of both teams who had entered ghost stories this time.

“But strangely enough, the records Chief Han writes and leaves behind don’t disappear.”

Normally, documents containing personal information about people who had entered ghost stories vanished completely.

But based on everything they had experienced so far, the records Su-myeon left behind were different.

Then Mi-ae opened a file.

It contained brief information about the team members.

“This is enough for me to know who everyone is well enough to work!”

Ji-hoon stared at her for a moment, unable to close his mouth.

He understood it in theory, but was that really something an ordinary person could accept so easily?

Her memories—specifically, memories of people she regularly interacted with—were repeatedly disappearing and returning.

Was that really something she could talk about so casually?

Of course, they were only coworkers at most, but Ji-hoon felt that if he were in her position, the psychological stress would be enormous.

But perhaps because Mi-ae was naturally so easygoing and unfazed, she simply treated information as information.

Apparently it did not bother her much.

“Hey.”

Du-pal addressed the two of them in a gloomy voice.

“If you’ve got time to chatter, how about helping me check those complaints about the private property from last time?”

Why the hell does this pile never get smaller?

At Du-pal’s words, Ji-hoon and Mi-ae hurriedly returned to work.

“.......”

But amid all of that.

Young-cheol continued bouncing his leg anxiously.

Please.

Please.

Let everyone come back safely without anything happening.

And if that was impossible....

If that was how it had to be, then maybe.

Perhaps it would be better if they could simply find peaceful rest in a painless death....

Even if it was pessimistic.

That was what he sincerely wished for.

***

For a length of time that made it impossible to tell whether several minutes or even several hours had passed, the three remained trapped inside the cabinets.

The Man in Lead Armor refused to disappear and stayed in the room for a very long time, but eventually it finally left.

Only after even its footsteps had faded into the distance did Su-myeon release the breath he had been holding and climb out of the cabinet.

The other two opened their cabinet doors and emerged after him.

“Did you see it?”

“You saw it, right?”

“You saw it too?”

The three spoke to one another at the same time.

They had all noticed the same thing.

The key hanging from the monster’s waist.

Their gazes met again, as though confirming that they had all reached the same conclusion.

Cheshire spoke first without hesitation.

“Let’s kill it.”

If they wanted the safest way to get that key, then....

Su-myeon did not disagree with Cheshire and nodded.

They were not assassins, and he had no confidence that they could sneak up on a monster with such sensitive hearing without being noticed.

For now, there was only one simple way to take the key from it.

Cheshire frowned as he watched Su-myeon and Ju-hee pull a gun and crowbar from the inventory.

“What, I’m supposed to fight barehanded? Give me something too. You’ve got all kinds of stuff packed in there.”

Just as Cheshire said.

By now, Su-myeon’s inventory had practically become a general store with almost nothing missing from it.

Fortunately, the inventory had no capacity limit, so it contained everything from emergency food and basic medicine to an inexhaustible supply of ammunition.

On top of that, most of the items he had bought from Bell after squeezing every last Coin out of her were stored there as well.

Among them, Su-myeon found something perfectly suitable.

What he pulled from the inventory was a pair of knuckles covered densely in vicious, razor-sharp spikes.

Su-myeon remembered the product description he had seen when purchasing it.

[Freya’s Knuckles]

[Knuckles infused with the chilling frost of the North, amplifying the strength of their wielder.]