I Came Confidently Expecting a Creature Feature, but It Was Horror

Chapter 58

Bzzzzzzzz—!

….

This is fucking insane, seriously.

First it was torture by snoring and teeth grinding, and now I'm being tortured by tinnitus too.

Just hearing tinnitus all day would be shitty enough, but this was the kind that felt like someone was jabbing between the folds of my brain with a metal chopstick, so the discomfort was no joke.

Yesterday it was just mosquito-level buzzing in my ear and annoying as hell, but now it was a whole new kind of shitty, like someone was screeching a mic out of tune right into my ear canal.

Of course, pulling the blanket over my head didn't help.

Fuck, if it were just in my eardrums maybe I could do something about it, but how am I supposed to deal with a sound that's drilling straight through my brain matter?

'Isn't this serious?'

As I kept listening, that thought gradually came to me.

This tinnitus.

It wasn't just loud.

It was clearly packed with hostility.

It was spitting out a sticky murderous intent, like someone was cursing this camp.

I felt like I should run straight to Wilhelm's barracks and report it.

'And what exactly would you say?'

Imagine it.

Burst into the old professor's tent at 2 a.m.

"Professor! I'm picking up an ominous presence. We need a search party immediately!"

Then that rule-obsessed old man would probably lift his magnifying glass and say,

"What about the other students?"

"I can't feel it."

"Detection magic?"

"I haven't tried it because I didn't know about it, but it probably won't react."

"So you want me to wake up the entire force based on nothing but your sensitive little hunch?"

Obvious.

Even if he believed me, there was still a problem.

Given his personality, he'd definitely shout, "Everyone up! Full alert! Defensive formation!"

And then what?

I would have to keep watch not just tonight, but for days until this unidentified enemy showed itself.

That was even worse.

I really fucking hate anything that reminds me of the military.

That's why the 2.5-ton truck and 24-man tent bullshit is so fucking awful.

I reached a conclusion.

'I'm going to go and wreck it myself.'

"Hoo."

I kicked the blanket away irritably.

I'll show you what happens when a sleep-deprived Korean gets pissed off.

Rustle.

I threw on my outer coat and stepped out of the tent.

The night air was cold, but the tinnitus pounding in my head made me feel none of it.

'That way.'

The sound was coming from deeper in the forest, in the direction where the darkness lay thickest.

I moved without hesitation.

Step, step.

I didn't even hold my breath or try to muffle my footsteps.

There was no reason to sneak out like a stray cat.

I walked toward the camp boundary like I was out for a confident stroll.

And then.

Swish.

The moment I tried to cross the camp boundary, I felt the tiniest hint of a presence.

Not a single leaf stirred, but my senses reacted.

Someone was there.

Watchful eyes, their stealthy movements suggesting serious training, were silently fixed on me.

'The princess's escorts, maybe.'

Or Wilhelm's subordinates.

If it was the latter, then that old man definitely wouldn't have brought out enough people to fill several 2.5-ton trucks with heirs from each family and left them with no protection at all.

Ordinary students would have passed by without noticing, but right now I was so sensitive—no exaggeration—that I could hear the sound of ants rubbing their front legs together.

They were probably flustered seeing me sneak out.

Should they stop me, report it, or follow me.

Deal with it yourselves.

The important thing was that I hadn't hidden it.

Because that would be my alibi.

* * *

The forest was cloaked in darkness.

In the silence where not a single leaf stirred, a lone shadow held its breath atop a tree.

'The Seventh Shadow,' the chief of the Imperial Academy branch and a member of the Imperial Intelligence service.

He was watching a man trying to leave the camp with hawk-like eyes.

A violation of regulations.

He hadn't found any concrete evidence, but the instincts honed over years on the job were warning him.

There was definitely something here.

So letting him leave camp without permission like this was extremely dangerous.

Just as the shadow raised a hand to signal his subordinates.

Moonlight slipped through the clouds and lit the figure's face.

"……!"

The shadow's hand froze in midair.

Cassian del Parne.

The most closely watched person on this Legion Tour, and the man who had also achieved the most inexplicable feat.

'Why is he?'

Judging by his expression, he was clearly heading out to handle something important.

His brow was furrowed as though he were concentrating on something.

It even felt like killing intent, as if he were confronting an unseen enemy.

A subordinate agent hiding on a side branch sent a hand signal.

[Boss, should we subdue him?]

The Seventh Shadow hesitated for a moment.

'Subdue him?'

That guy?

How?

It wasn't as if he had judged the man impossible to subdue just because of the one spell he used yesterday.

'Maybe he has a reason.'

A man who had performed miracles while covered in the filth of the slums, not caring one bit if his body broke in the process.

And that man was sneaking into the forest in the middle of the night, with that solemn expression?

'If there really is a reason?'

The detector hadn't picked up anything, but...

What if he had sensed something?

If the current hypothesis was true, it also explained why he hadn't reported it.

'Given Professor Wilhelm's personality, he wouldn't move troops without solid evidence.'

Time would only be wasted, and the danger would grow in the meantime.

So he...

had decided to shoulder the burden himself.

'Alone... he's going into that darkness to eliminate the culprit.'

Rustle.

Cassian crossed the boundary.

He didn't even hide.

Surely, to avoid confusion, he was deliberately letting them know where he was even though he could easily conceal his presence.

[Boss?]

The subordinate signaled again.

Only then did the shadow shake his head.

Then he gave a hand signal order.

[Impossible to subdue. Report to Professor Wilhelm immediately.]

[What should I say?]

[Cassian del Parne detected an abnormality in the forest and began acting alone. Tell him I will pursue and escort him.]

The subordinate stared at him in surprise, but the Seventh Shadow had already leapt out.

Whoosh.

He silently bounded through the trees, following behind Cassian.

He couldn't afford to lose talent like that.

Even if he met a monster he couldn't handle, I would protect him with my life.

'The Empire's future is bright.'

Feeling his chest swell with emotion, the shadow followed the hero disappearing into the darkness.

"Ah, fuck. This is goddamn noisy, seriously."

"……!"

The shadow following him flinched.

'Noisy...? He can already sense the enemy's presence that clearly?'

The shadow was astonished by his incredible sense.

* * *

It wasn't hard to figure out the direction.

That awful high-frequency sound, as if my brain had been thrown into a blender and ground up.

I only had to walk in the direction the sound was coming from.

Like a piece of iron being drawn toward a magnet.

And eventually.

I stopped walking.

"……."

A massive shadow loomed before me.

A towering old tree that looked a head taller than every other tree in the forest, with overwhelming presence.

But that wasn't the problem.

Bzzzzzzzz—!

A scream that rang not in my eardrums, but in my brain.

The source of that sound was that very tree.

I jumped and grabbed the back of my neck.

"Fuck, it wasn't a living thing?"

I naturally thought it was a magic beast.

There are plenty of things like a toad that grew huge by sucking in the forest's vital energy, or some mutant queen mosquito.

If it had been something like that, it would've been better.

I could've just roasted it whole on the spot or buried it underground and suffocated it.

I was confident I could handle it with my signature click.

I narrowed my eyes and examined the tree.

Could it be an ent?

One of those walking trees you often see in fantasy novels?

But no matter how hard I looked, it didn't have eyes, a nose, or a mouth, let alone any movement in its branches that resembled arms or legs.

It was just a tree.

A tree that was a hundred percent plant, with roots planted firmly in the ground.

"……."

So you're telling me this creepy scream is really coming from a completely inanimate tree?

And only to me?

My spine went cold.

Fuck.

I was definitely confident coming here thinking this would be a creature feature.

"It was horror?"

I get superstitious like crazy, and I'm fucking terrified of ghosts.

Even in my past life, when my older sister and younger sister forced me to do other things, I'd let it slide, but the one thing I'd never do even if beaten to death was watch horror movies with them.

And now here I was, alone in the forest, face-to-face with a screaming tree.

Sssss...

The sound of the wind sounded like ghostly laughter.

My legs were shaking.

I was so scared my mouth had clamped shut.

I could feel my expression stiffening into a plaster statue.

'Let's run.'

This wasn't something in my area of expertise.

I'm not some fake cult mage-exorcist.

I carefully took a step back.

Step.

One step.

Step.

Two steps.

I clearly retreated backward.

But.

"……어?"

The old tree in front of me didn't get any farther away.

Why did it feel like it was actually filling my vision even more?

Sweating coldly, I stepped back hard once more.

But the result was the same.

It was like I was doing backsteps on a treadmill, except I was just marching in place.

"Huh, fuck."

Isn't this that phenomenon people say you can see when you're possessed by a ghost?

That urban legend about getting lost in a haunted forest and circling in place?

"Ah, fuck. I should've brought an exorcist... no, no. A priest."

Damn it, I should've brought Lily.

My pink retriever!

Fuck it, from now on I'm keeping her in my pocket like a Pocket Girl and taking her everywhere!

That was when I was panicking and desperately calling for Lily in my head.

Thud.

"……!"

A black object fell from the sky.

I clamped a hand over my mouth just as I was about to scream.

Was it a grim reaper?

Coming to take me away now?

But fortunately, the shape lit by the moonlight only looked like a grim reaper; it wasn't one.

It was the person who had been tailing me ever since I left camp.

I had been sensing his presence vividly, so when had I lost track of it?

…I lost it the moment I freaked out.

"Hoo……."

Relief washed over me.

I don't care if it's an old man or an old lady.

As long as it's not a ghost.

I never knew I'd be this happy to see another person.

I looked at him, hiding the tremor in my voice.

But the person's expression on the other side was unusual.

Normally I shouldn't have been able to tell because he was wearing a mask, but how did I know? Because

'His eyes are fucking intense. He looks like he's staring at some goddamn independence fighter. Creepy as hell.'

The masked man was staring at me intensely, with the look of someone treating me like a martyr.

"Entering the dungeon alone like this is far too dangerous, no matter how you look at it."

"……예?"

Dungeon?

What dungeon all of a sudden?

I asked stupidly.

"What did you say?"

"I know what you sensed."

The gender-ambiguous masked agent nodded solemnly and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"That backstep just now... it was a test to confirm the phase interference the dungeon barrier exerts on the surrounding space, wasn't it?"

"……."

Phase interference?

No, it wasn't.

I was just so scared I tried to run and ended up marching in place.

"As expected, you're incredible. You personally experienced the gap in subspace that can't even be identified with the naked eye and pinpointed the entrance's coordinates."

The gender-ambiguous masked agent babbled in awe.

"You only just realized that this tree was the dungeon entrance, and you were planning to go in alone, weren't you."

"……."

No, that's not it.

Where on earth did it look like that?