Chapter 116: Answer Edition (2)

A two-way mirror installed in the public bath. Who on earth would install such a thing?

Why?

Jung-seok said.

"These things are usually planned during the construction phase. This mansion was built around the same time Yeongji High School was established... And look at this."

Click-

Jung-seok showed me a blueprint. It seemed to be the blueprint of this mansion.

"I compared this blueprint with the actual size of the mansion, and the width is different. The actual mansion is much wider than the blueprint. But the spacing of the rooms and the width of the stairs are the same."

"What's the problem with that?"

I couldn't understand and asked for an explanation. Jung-seok replied with a serious face.

"It means there's excess space. According to this blueprint, there should be no space behind this bathroom mirror. But knock on the mirror."

Knock knock-

The sound was too strange for it to be just a mirror stuck to the wall as if there was space behind it...

"...Is this for real?"

In the Cheon family mansion, which treats even large corporations like servants, there was only one person who could do such a thing from the blueprint and construction phase.

"...The Chairman created a secret space?"

Why on earth would he do that?

Did he painstakingly build this mansion with such a perverted sexual taste to peep at the noonas working in his mansion bathing naked in the public bath?

"So..."

So Chairman Cheon Dae-gon was a sexually deviant psycho pervert after all!

Actually, I had been suspicious of Chairman Cheon Dae-gon for a while.

It was strange that someone with so much money and power didn't have a single sexual scandal. If I had that kind of authority and power... I would have filled this mansion with even more pretty noonas. It would be a complete doll's house.

If I just said "Water," Ms. Hong Mi-ri and that rude Hong Ye-ri would scramble to bring me water.

Pretty housekeeper noonas would stick to me 24 hours a day, massaging my shoulders and feeding me grapes.

For a man with all the money and power, that would be natural. That's normal.

But the Chairman didn't do that.

I found that suspicious, and today I felt like all the puzzle pieces were falling into place.

The Chairman was a person with a perverted sexual desire who only got excited by secretly watching others from a hidden space!

Nevertheless, I couldn't say such things in front of Yoo Dahee, who was the Chairman's family, so I whispered only to Jung-seok's ear.

"What do you think? My deduction."

Jung-seok frowned after hearing my story.

"No... the taste you're talking about isn't normal either..."

My taste of wanting to fill the mansion with pretty noonas isn't normal? What do you know, you who abnormally cling only to Bong Ji-yeon!

Of course, I didn't say that out loud.

"Grandfather...?"

I could see Yoo Dahee's pupils shaking severely, but Yoo Dahee quickly shook her head.

"I don't think Grandfather is the culprit. Grandfather doesn't care about subordinates, for better or worse."

"Hey, how do you know that? You don't know until you check. Rich people are different on the inside from how they appear."

Yang Juhee wrapped a towel from the bathroom around her fist.

Crash-!

I wondered what she was trying to do, and Yang Juhee broke the two-way mirror with her towel-wrapped fist like a glove.

Whoosh-

A space where wind passed through appeared beyond the broken glass. It was a space big enough for one person to enter easily.

"Let's go in. We might meet the culprit or whatever."

Click-

Yang Juhee checked the blade of her box cutter.

I... became scared in many ways.

***

It was a passage big enough for one person to pass through. Such passages extended both upwards and downwards.

"I can see the kitchen..."

I looked at the kitchen through a small gap in the passage.

There were holes everywhere that showed the living room, reception room, corridor, private rooms, and more.

"This feels awful."

Yoo Dahee, a resident of the house, frowned. As Yoo Dahee rarely showed a cold expression, her emotion was clearly conveyed.

It wasn't strange for Yoo Dahee, a high school girl at a sensitive age, to feel bad if there was something like this in her house.

We could see that these passages eventually connected to the outside of the mansion. It was a passage where torches were burning.

Jung-seok said, looking at the passage.

"It's just like a bunker made for evacuation during war. The fact that torches are burning means... someone is managing these torches. Is it the Chairman...?"

"We'll know if we go."

We continued advancing along the long, long passage. It was eerie and scary.

With each step, it felt like someone was watching me, following me from behind.

"If something happens, we need to protect Young-won. As long as Young-won is alive, we can turn back time by consuming 100 points. Ha Young-won, you must survive no matter what."

Jung-seok said in a solemn voice.

Seeing his voice trembling, he seemed scared of the current situation too. Of course, his logic was reasonable as always.

If I'm alive, we can rewind time.

What if I die...? Will time automatically rewind by consuming points...? It wasn't something we could test like a gamble, even if we didn't know.

After walking for a while like that, we found a door at the end of the passage. It looked like a thick iron door.

Click, creak-

When I pulled the handle, the door opened easily. And a pungent stench wafted from inside.

"Ugh. What's this smell?"

I pinched my nose.

And I could see animal carcasses strewn around. It was an underground space where corpses of rats, pigeons, crows, etc., were displayed like trophies.

Some looked like they had been eaten. We went deeper inside, avoiding the corpses.

"A bed..."

We saw a bed and a bathroom.

It could be seen as a place where someone had lived. There were also ominous objects like leashes and chains. There were many iron bars too.

"Oh, this rat..."

I could see the white rat with a cut tail that I had made eye contact with in the basement crack here too.

What this meant was that the basement where there were lots of cockroaches was connected to here.

"No wonder cockroaches come out when it's connected to a place full of corpses like this. Damn it."

Turning my eyes away from the horrific scene, I saw stairs going up. We went up the stairs.

Then we saw bookshelves neatly filled with books.

There was an antique-looking drawer, models like globes, and displays of small dinosaur fossils. There was also a doll inside a glass case.

The floor was elegantly carpeted, making it look almost like a museum.

There was also a window.

Outside, lily of the valley flowers were gently swaying their cute petals in the summer breeze. This building was surrounded by these flowers on all sides.

"This is... Grandfather's study."

Yoo Dahee identified the place, looking at a photo on the desk.

In a small frame was an old-looking photo of two young men and a woman smiling together.

Next to it was a medicine bottle full of antidotes like the one Mrs. Danvers had given to Kwon Sua.

"If this is Chairman Cheon Dae-gon's study..."

This was a place no one but the Chairman could enter.

The fact that such a place was connected to the mansion's secret passages… 

I fell into deep thought.

Think about it.

"It seems the Chairman was raising something in the basement of his study. Judging by the iron bars and leashes in the basement... it looks like he was preventing it from wandering outside freely."

But that basement was connected to the mansion's secret spaces through passages.

It wasn't possible to influence the mansion from the secret space, but watching and observing would have been entirely possible.

In other words, the being living in the study's basement was listening to and watching the events in this mansion like the Phantom of the Opera.

"But what if an earthquake created a hole in the basement? If something that had to move only through secret passages like a ghost could now reach directly into the mansion through that hole...?"

A chill ran down my spine. It seems Yang Juhee also sensed the ominous feeling.

"Hey, if that's true, someone should be here. Where is that thing now? Where is it now!"

Where─

I came to a realization and thought we couldn't stay here.

"We have to go! We have to go! We have to go to the mansion! The people in the mansion are in danger! The noonas and ajumma are in danger!"

I flung open the door of the Chairman's office.

Crossing the lily of the valley flower bed was the fastest way back to the mansion. Kwon Sua, who had taken the antidote, followed behind me.

Pitter-patter-

We ran with all our might towards the mansion.

After running for a while, we arrived at the mansion. Although it was only 4 PM, the inside of the mansion was as dark as night. And a fishy, metallic smell stung our noses.

Thud-! Thud-! Thud-! Thud-!

A strange noise was heard at regular intervals. I slowly entered the mansion and headed towards the kitchen where the sound was coming from.

The pitch-black kitchen.

Something was boiling, and someone was cutting something on a chopping board with a kitchen knife, but the thing on the chopping board had five fingers.

"Ugh."

I felt terribly frightened and disgusted. But I tried to look at the being holding the knife without turning away.

It was tall.

About 2 meters. Its whole body was covered in what looked like black fur, its limbs were skinny, and its eyes were hollow.

A ghost. No, it looked more like a demon or something terrible with evil attached to limbs rather than a ghost.

I had never seen anything like it before. I was so scared that my legs froze, and Kwon Sua, who was peeking into the kitchen with me, pulled my arm.

"R-run!"

We need to run away.

That's what she seemed to be saying.

Thud-!

The kitchen knife that had been chopping on the cutting board suddenly stopped. And it looked in my direction.

"......"

As I made eye contact with it, I felt dizzy. Its bright red eyes and widely split mouth with a flicking tongue made me want to faint.

"Aaaaah!"

I screamed with all my might and ran away. Kwon Sua followed behind me, and we managed to return to the study.

"G-ghost. There was a man-eating ghost. A man-eating ghost... They're dead. So-mi noona, the ajumma... Ugh, uuuugh, uuuuugh-!"

Having witnessed such a horrific scene and running at full speed until I was out of breath, I ended up vomiting everything in my body onto the floor.

Kwon Sua said to me.

"It's... it's not a ghost. That... it's not a ghost, it's a human! A human!"

A human!?

Damn, that was an even more shocking and terrifying story!

Just then, Jung-seok, who was looking out the window, shouted.

"Hey, that man-eating ghost you're talking about..."

"Gasp!"

When I came to my senses and looked outside, it was standing in the lily of the valley flower bed.

In the scorching sunlight, in the midsummer with cicadas crying loudly, it was pitch black like ink someone had accidentally spilled.

I was scared that it had followed us.

"No. It can't come in here. There are flowers blooming like a barrier that are fatal just from smelling their pollen. That's right!"

The flowers planted around the Chairman's office must have been to prevent that thing from approaching carelessly, to prevent that thing in the basement from going outside freely!

As I was thinking this, the man-eating monster started striding across the flower bed, holding a bloody kitchen knife.

"...It doesn't work?"

Did the monster eat an antidote or something!

While I was dumbfounded, the monster came in and chopped down on Jung-seok's head with the kitchen knife.

"Ugh."

Jung-seok let out a short scream and died.

I closed my eyes and imagined winding the clock's spring in my mind.

"《Sloppy Clock》 is rewinding its spring."

"100P consumed."

"324 points remaining"

Click, flash-!

A dazzling flash burst.

"I need to find out its identity. The ajumma who's lived in this mansion for a long time must know everything. I need to ask her."

"What's he suddenly talking about?"

"Young-won, what's wrong?"

Yang Juhee and Yoo Dahee tilted their heads in confusion. But I thought there was no time and couldn't contain my anger.

"Ajumma! Tell me the truth!"

I went straight to Mrs. Danvers, who was resting in the shade of the garden.

And I asked.

"The thing living in the basement of the Chairman's office. What exactly is its identity? If we stay like this, it will kill us all today! Tell me honestly! I already know everything!"

"......"

The eyes of the ajumma reading a book on the long bench widened. She looked at me with a very surprised face.

"You saw 'that'? How? I told you not to go into the Chairman's office! You bad boy! It's a miracle you came back alive! You bad boy! Why do you always do things you're told not to do!"

"Ajumma! This is not the time to talk about that! I'm telling you we're all going to die! We need to stop that thing! We're all going to die! We need to get rid of it first! Aaaagh! Aaaaaaagh!"

I screamed, pulling my hair. And I even did an angry breakdance with my head on the ground.

Flustered by my outburst, the ajumma stepped back and let out a small sigh.

"That thing... that person is Young Master Cheon Tae-gon, the Chairman's twin brother."