Chapter 143
When I closed my eyes, the world turned pitch black.
If my guess was right, the "Spider Woman" was a being called the Gandara priestess. Something between a ghost made from a dead person and a transcendent being close to a god.
It was something as irresistible as a law of nature, like how water becomes steam at 100 degrees and freezes at 0 degrees.
It had a natural order, like how certain values are derived when you input numbers into an equation.
I thought that 'seeing' her seemed to call forth the value of 'death'.
I was reminded of Medusa from a comic book I read as a child. The monster Medusa with snakes for hair. The Gandara priestess also seems to be a Japanese yokai originally entangled with 'snakes', so they could be seen as similar.
Ring, ring-! Ring-!
The bell sound rang as if it would tear our ears. I wondered if everyone was following me well.
If we keep going this way, we should reach the "Shop".
"Guys! Are you following well! Don't open your eyes no matter what! Hold the hand of the person in front of you!"
I was leading everyone at the front. It was natural since I was the only one who knew the geography of this third floor.
Crack, crackle, snap-
I heard a sound like stiffened joints being reassembled. It was a noise that sent chills down the spine of anyone who heard it.
Shiver-
Maybe because of the goosebumps, I felt the cold on my skin intensify.
The sensation of cold penetrating through my clothes and caressing my cheeks from deep within my bones. But it turned out that sensation was actually someone's hand caressing my cheek.
"Open your eyes."
Someone caressing my cheek told me. I was so scared and my legs were shaking so much that I couldn't walk properly.
If I didn't have the 《Strong Heart》 trait, I might have died spitting out my heart through my mouth by now.
"......"
I kept my mouth shut, afraid that even answering might be harmful.
From now on, I'm a stone Buddha. A stone Buddha that can't see, can't hear, and can't speak.
"Kyaaaaaaaaah!"
Just then, a woman screamed. It was Yang Juhee's scream.
What on earth is happening? Why is Yang Juhee screaming!
Was there some variable I didn't know about because she had been offered as the 《Sacrificial Virgin》? The thought of opening my eyes and helping Yang Juhee filled my mind.
Helping friends who trusted me and stayed with me until now was a more natural norm to me than saving a baby falling into a river. But at this moment, I put the brakes on my actions.
"Kyaaaaaaaaah!"
That pitiful scream, that's not Yang Juhee. Yang Juhee's scream doesn't sound like that.
Yang Juhee's scream isn't that feminine, rather it's more like a duck with its head squashed. To describe it in words, it's more like a death cry of 'Quack!'
Therefore, Yang Juhee's voice just now was a lie. It was trying to lure me out with a lie.
I was surprised at myself for figuring out such a trick, and at the same time, a feeling of unfairness scraped my mood from head to toe.
This unfairness was like waiting in line for a long time at a store, only for the sales to stop right in front of me for some reason. The unfairness of feeling like all the harsh things in the world only happen to me.
"Open your eyes. I won't eat you."
The woman now whispered in my ear.
Stroke, stroke-
The ice-cold hand caressing my cheek was still freezing me. Feeling so unfair, I opened my mouth as if to complain somewhere.
"You won't eat me?"
"That's right."
"Instead of eating me, you're planning to kill me horribly!"
I remembered Jung-seok being dismembered like a doll in the hands of a mischievous child. The Gandara priestess wasn't a ghost that ate people, but one that dismembered and killed.
"Death is just a state. Do you know ice?"
Ice? Is the Gandara priestess asking me if I know ice right now?
"Let's say water freezes and becomes ice. If that ice melts in hot fire, becomes water again, turns into boiling steam and becomes invisible, can we say that existence has disappeared?"
I don't know. More importantly, I heard you were a Japanese ghost, but your Korean is excellent. At this rate, you seem to speak better than me.
"The death of living beings is the same. The form changes, but the existence doesn't disappear. This world is such a place. A cave of eternal recurrence where beginning and end interlock─"
Squeeze-
The hand that had been caressing my cheek now choked my neck. My breath was cut off. I felt my body floating in the air.
Why!
Why me when I had my eyes closed? Maybe engaging in conversation was a foolish action after all.
"I'm just returning you to a purer form. Take off your shadow. Escape the cave and witness the radiance. The rotting flesh is nothing but chains binding the prisoner's ankles─"
"Gack! Guh-gack!"
"Ha Young-won!"
Just then, I heard someone calling my name. It was Yang Juhee. At the same time, the strength in the hand choking my neck loosened.
"You, you saw me."
From the priestess's words, it seemed Yang Juhee had opened her eyes.
To save me?
I couldn't think of any other reason. The cold that had dominated my body, almost freezing my fingers, seemed to melt away at Yang Juhee's fiery courage.
What will happen now? It seems unlikely we'll make it to the shop without incident.
Ring, ring-!
The noisy bell sound was still ringing and I couldn't open my eyes. A suffocating situation.
Yang Juhee said.
"I've undergone the ritual! You can't harm me!"
"Is that so. You're that woman's bloodline. If you thought that meager sorcery would protect you, you're greatly mistaken. Come here. I'll pluck out your eyes and lick them like candy."
Grab-! Gack, guh-gack-
I heard Yang Juhee's painful sounds. She was probably being choked by the eight hands of the Gandara priestess.
At this point, I had to take action too.
"Yang Juhee!"
Pop-
I opened my eyes that I had been keeping closed. Then I heard a voice from behind me.
"What?"
...What?
This answer was different from what I expected. There was an excessively calm edge to Yang Juhee's voice.
Despite the situation, compared to the scream I had expected, it was close to a coquettish whine.
When I turned my head, I saw Yang Juhee, Ms. Hong Mi-ri, and Yoo Dahee with their eyes closed.
They had their eyes shut and were still following me, holding each other's hands.
"......"
What on earth is going on-
Before I could even think that, my eyes, bright as an owl's at night, spotted a woman with long hair in the darkness. Her face didn't look human at all, with too much white in her eyes and pupils as small as millet seeds. Why such a face?
Maybe it had evolved to burst the hearts of humans who saw it with fear.
"Guh-guh-guh-guh-guh-guh-guh-"
Creeeeak-
The woman's mouth opened wide as if to swallow my head whole. And then, letting out an incomprehensibly loud scream, she started approaching me with eight arms, making me want to collapse on the spot.
"Ah shit! I'm caught! I'm totally caught!"
How much of this was my hallucination?
I suddenly remembered hearing that there was some strange gas on this third floor that messed with people's minds and even made them lose their memories. I might have been affected by something like that.
"Guys! I'm running away! I have to escape!"
"You idiot! Ha Young-won, you stupid bastard!"
Yang Juhee spat out a harsh curse. She opened her eyes and pulled out a box cutter from her hand.
Slide-
That's the "Eternal Box Cutter". How many lives have we owed to that thing so far?
But in front of a being like the Gandara priestess, that box cutter seemed as flimsy as a toothpick aimed at a tank. Of course, Yang Juhee raised her hand high as if she couldn't care less about that.
And she swung her hand down hard towards the spider woman lunging at me.
Slash-!
The blade touched the spider woman's shoulder.
"Aaaaargh───!"
At that moment, the Gandara spider woman let out a scream so loud it made us all collapse, then backed away and disappeared with a swish.
Only one of the Gandara priestess's arms was left on the spot. It was an arm with a flower tattoo on the back of the hand.
"Hey! Are you okay?"
Yang Juhee checked my complexion. I nodded.
"The box cutter works!"
Ring, ring-!
But the bells were still ringing. I shouted to everyone.
"Let's just run with our eyes open!"
We just ran with all our might towards the shop.
***
As time passes after waking from a dream, those memories tend to evaporate and disappear. That's how it had been for Kang Bada with the past times.
Wandering through the dark underside of the school. Memories of laughing and crying together with everyone. Things like the smell of shampoo he experienced for the first time or the hot cicada sounds of summer vacation gradually evaporated.
For the man in his mid-thirties, even the time when he was a high school student felt like a dream.
He felt as if he had dropped into adulthood the moment he was born. So, he began a journey to trace his memories.
If he repeated the path he had come from the beginning, he might see something he had missed.
And so, the place he arrived at was a hospital. An obstetrics and gynecology clinic that wouldn't be strange if it had closed long ago.
Late dawn.
Kang Bada entered a building as old as the old school building and went into a room labeled "Director's Office".
Inside, a woman wearing glasses was sitting. She was the director of this hospital.
"It's been a long time. You remember me, right?"
"How could I forget? You caused so much trouble. Because of you all, our hospital doesn't get any business. The sound of babies crying... it won't leave my ears. I quit my job because of it."
Dr. Kim San, the director of Kim San Obstetrics and Gynecology, looked at Kang Bada with resentful eyes.
The sound of babies crying that had started a few days ago was gnawing at the mind of the woman in her 50s. Kang Bada decided to ask her only the main point.
"Would there be medical records from 17 years ago?"
"Of which woman? The moment when a male high school student who didn't even have money to pay the doctor brought a woman, begging to save her? Why are you asking about that after 17 years?"
Kang Bada recalled an old memory. Memories he had forgotten due to the poison on the third floor.
"My wife... died shortly after giving birth to our daughter. She hanged herself. I didn't want to accept it. That leaving me behind... meant her love wasn't enough..."
The man had been running away from the past. He didn't have the courage to face the reason why the woman had left him behind.
The hospital director said to Kang Bada.
"Just get to the point."
"I still can't believe she killed herself. We had agreed to look for another way. Chae-yeon had agreed to join too."
Kang Bada was paying the price for the things he had forgotten.
What was the corridor? What had happened on the fourth floor where Ha Chae-yeon had arrived? The wish she had made to the Clock of Eternity─
Swish-
The director handed an envelope to Kang Bada.
"This is a letter Yoo In-na left for you. It took 17 years because you came so late. I hope you find the answer you're looking for."
Rustle-
Kang Bada opened the letter. Inside were just two lines of text and a square ticket enclosed.
[Happy birthday, Bada. Let's go on a trip with Dahee later.]
It was a zoo ticket. Yoo In-na liked animals. And what this pointed to was clear.
"...She was trying to live."
A person resolved to commit suicide doesn't buy tickets for the future.
This meant one thing. His lover, Yoo In-na, had never thought of suicide at all.
Homicide. A death disguised as suicide.
Kang Bada felt like he knew who the culprit was.