Chapter 77
Fear surges in.
More than being trapped in this bizarre world.
More than getting caught by those horrible butcher monsters again.
An even deeper fear feels like it's clamping down on my heart.
I was already walking slowly.
To identify the corpse.
"Where do you think you're going!"
As I started back the way I came, a flustered Kim Seongjin grabbed me. After I told him briefly that I had something to check, I started walking again.
What was it again?
Was it that one?
I check the corpses hanging from the hooks.
Regardless of gender. Various ages. Corpses of vivid, unmistakably real human beings—there's no way they could be fake. The dead stare down at me with blank faces.
Pass.
Pass.
Not this one either.
This one isn't it either.
And then.
"Ah."
I...
I stopped in front of my own corpse.
A man who, no matter how I looked at him, could only be me.
This is...
me.
The corpse version of me is looking down at me with hollow eyes.
"...!"
Unbearable fear surged up, and for a moment I almost screamed. But I couldn't do that in front of Kim Seongjin, so I forced it down.
That's me?
How is my corpse here?
Then what am I...!
No way, am I a doppelganger?!
This corpse is the doppelganger?
Or am I the doppelganger?!
In a panic, I muttered the status window.
——————————
[●Status Window]
Name: Grong
Title: The One Who Activated the Reality Re-recognition Device
.
.
Cycle: 2
Death Count: 18 (-1)
[●Death Counts by Cycle]
[●Collected Endings]
[●Functions]
[●Resolution List]
[●Owned Abilities]
[●Point Shop]
[●Mailbox]
[...]
——————————
There was nothing wrong with the status window. But just because it looked fine didn't give me any confidence. The status window itself was suspicious to begin with.
Something was seriously wrong.
A fierce urge surges up inside me—the urge to get rid of this corpse in front of me. I want to turn it to dust as quickly as possible. I want to erase its very existence!
I doubted this strange impulse that had risen out of my fear.
Feeling murderous intent the moment you see another version of yourself... no matter how I looked at it, that's a doppelganger. But if it really were a doppelganger, shouldn't a notification pop up?
What kind of ghost story is this, anyway?
And what the hell does it have to do with this human meat factory!
"W-what?! What is it!"
Seeing me trembling in front of the corpse, Kim Seongjin, who had been moving cautiously, came over. He also checked the corpse hanging in front of me.
He realizes that the corpse and I look exactly alike, and his jaw drops in shock.
"T-this corpse, what is it! Why does it look exactly like you! What are you! What the hell is this corpse to you! What the hell are you, huh!"
Kim Seongjin's eyes fill with fear and madness. Trembling all over, he staggers backward and points at me with his right hand. Whether an extreme anxiety disorder has manifested or something, he's stuffing the fingers of his left hand into his mouth and chewing on them.
"I don't know either. I can't tell why my corpse is hanging here. Maybe it's one of the strange anomalies occurring in this space. Pull yourself together, Kim Seongjin. Don't panic."
I explained as calmly as I could.
Even now, an unbelievably intense urge to destroy this corpse is boiling up inside me.
This really is something like a doppelganger phenomenon.
When the doppelganger and the original meet, both are immediately consumed by extreme murderous intent and want to kill the fake to prove that they're the real one. In the next moment, they plunge into a slaughter to kill each other, and only one remains.
Whatever happens, the one that dies is the doppelganger, and the one left standing is the real one. That's what a doppelganger is.
But.
If this were really a doppelganger ghost story... then a notification should appear. A notification that I'd encountered a ghost-story doppelganger. The fact that nothing is popping up is probably proof that it's not.
No...!
I'd been through all kinds of things, but there had been countless times when the status window didn't give any notification at all!
I'm telling Kim Seongjin not to panic, but right now I'm on the verge of going insane!
"A-ah...! Haa! Haa!"
When I stay still, Kim Seongjin starts breathing rapidly.
Then he shakes his head and comes back toward me.
"C-corpse! Right! You said it was an anomaly that happened in this space!"
"That's possible."
I'd like to believe that too.
"Then maybe this is it!"
"What?"
His eyes flash as if he's figured something out.
His flashing eyes were filled with madness.
"A corpse! It's a corpse! If an anomaly created your own corpse, then all you have to do is get rid of it! Then we'll disappear too!"
"What the...? So you're saying if we get rid of the corpse, we can escape?"
"Y-yeah! That's exactly it! I'm sure of it!"
Kim Seongjin's argument was this:
If he found and destroyed the corpse that appeared in this human meat factory, he could go back.
It was ridiculous nonsense.
The leap in logic was way too extreme.
Having to find and destroy your own corpse in order to return? A theory born from such an extreme leap in logic is something only someone completely consumed by madness could come up with.
But if the appearance of one's own corpse really is an anomaly of this space itself... then it wouldn't hurt to test it once.
"H-hey, there's your corpse here, so find mine too! Hurry, hurry! We have to find it!"
"Got it."
We didn't have any better option right now anyway.
I searched for his corpse together with Kim Seongjin.
However.
"I-it's gone...! It's not here!"
We checked every corpse, but couldn't find one that looked like Kim Seongjin.
His corpse isn't here.
Looks like the theory that a person's own corpse appears here is wrong.
"Yeah, that's it!"
Kim Seongjin drops to his knees and clutches his own face.
"I've been here too long! There's no way my corpse would still be around! It's already been canned and delivered!"
"Well..."
That's right.
Even if a corpse really did appear, he'd spent far too long here. That would mean the corpse had already been fully processed.
"My corpse isn't here! Ehehehehe!"
Kim Seongjin, utterly losing his mind, burst into laughter.
I immediately covered his mouth.
"Calm down. We don't know if that theory is even true. Besides, saying we have to get rid of the corpse is too much of a leap."
"A-a leap?! In a twisted world like this, it's right to think in twisted ways! I-I'm done for! My corpse isn't here! Then I can't escape, gghhh! I'm going to be bound here forever!"
If Kim Seongjin's theory is true,
then now that his corpse is gone, escape would be impossible for him.
Forever.
"Please!"
"..."
"Please! Don't abandon me! Please! I want to live! Find another way, please! Please! You're an agent, aren't you! Please! Gghhh!"
Utter despair.
He howls, having completely lost all hope of living.
Should I abandon Kim Seongjin?
Should I leave him behind and do what I have to do?
More than anything, I have one more mission.
I need to return to the bathroom and write down what I've learned in the notebook. Maybe because time has passed, Kim Seongjin can't write in it anymore, but I probably still can.
Wait.
Kim Seongjin said he can no longer write in that supernatural notebook. Could it be... that you can only write in it while your own corpse remains in this human meat factory?
I hadn't thought of that.
Maybe Kim Seongjin's theory is actually right. If I destroy that corpse, I might be counted as having disappeared from this space and be able to escape.
But how... ah!
The grinder!
There's a grinder!
If I throw the corpse into that grinder, it'll be completely pulverized in just a few seconds! Then it should count as having gotten rid of the corpse!
So being turned into meat and delivered is a failure, but putting it in the grinder counts as success?
Then that explains what I felt just now. The moment I saw my corpse, I was seized by an intense urge to destroy it. Maybe that's because that was the escape method.
I want to test it right away.
I want to grab my corpse, run, and shove it into the grinder.
But if that really lets me escape,
Kim Seongjin would be left here alone.
"..."
As expected.
I can't leave him like that.
I can't abandon Kim Seongjin.
I'm going to save this guy!
"Kim Seongjin!"
"Huh...?"
I grabbed his shoulders.
"Pull yourself together. I want to test right now whether putting your own corpse hanging here into the grinder might let us escape, but I won't do it."
"W-what...?"
"I can't escape and leave you behind here alone. I won't abandon you. So calm down."
"S-sob! R-really...?"
"Yeah."
"Thank you! S-sob! Thank you, thank you!"
Kim Seongjin thanks me while crying. If I were a fake Bureau agent, I'd have abandoned him right away. But I'm Grong of the real Bureau, not one of those fake Bureau bastards.
I don't abandon civilians caught up in anomalies.
"Let's find another way together. The only thing I can think of right now is to go after the human meat supply truck. That's the plan."
"B-but that's dangerous...!"
"There's no other way. We have to do it. For now, we hide. Once their break is over and work hours begin, we'll go back out and lie in wait. To do that, we need to stay alive. Understand?"
"O-okay...!"
I don't know how this will turn out.
Even if things go smoothly and we return to reality through the human meat supply truck,
I don't know what will happen to Kim Seongjin, who has already lost his corpse here.
And if my corpse hanging here gets processed... I don't know what will happen then either.
Even so, I keep going.
For the slim chance that I can save someone caught up in an anomaly.
* * *
I spent the time in the human meat storage room with Kim Seongjin.
Fortunately, the butcher monsters didn't come in while we were hiding here.
While we were waiting,
ㅡWooooong!
I heard the machine start up.
More precisely, it was the sound of the power coming on and the motor starting to turn.
"I think their break is over."
"Yeah."
Once work starts, they'll come into the factory.
In that gap, we'll go outside and wait for the human meat supply truck, which may or may not come. From here on out, it's all improvisation anyway. I'm going to hijack that truck somehow and see this through to the end.
ㅡThump, thump, thump.
Footsteps are coming from outside.
The butcher monsters are returning.
Would they come check this way... the human meat storage room? If they come in to inspect it, everything falls apart. I waited, keeping my composure.
...
They don't come in.
By now, they should all have returned inside the factory.
The moment Kim Seongjin nodded at me,
ㅡKikikikikik!
The rail with the corpses hanging from it started moving!
"Damn...!"
If this keeps up, these corpses will move on to the next line and eventually be processed. My corpse here will be processed too.
Instead of going into the grinder, it'll end up in a can.
And then... what the hell happens?
Wouldn't the return point get messed up or something?
I grow anxious.
But.
I have to do what I have to do.
Because I'm an agent!
"T-then the corpse...!"
"Quiet. Seeing the machine move, it looks like everyone's gone back and work has started. We can go out safely now."
"O-okay."
We headed straight for the door.
I cautiously checked outside.
Right after confirming there were no monsters wandering around,
we went back outside the factory.
"Phew."
From here on out, it's pure gambling. Whether the monsters' truck comes or not—that's all it comes down to.
And it also depends on how fast the rail moves.
But I'm not going to think pessimistically.
Would these guys just sit back and watch their human meat supply run out? Once it's all processed, would they just sit there sucking their thumbs?
I don't think so.
The factory rail had already started moving.
Then the truck should be coming soon.
As we hid there,
"Gasp...!"
A truck really did appear in the distance!
"I-it's real...! The human meat supply truck is here!"
Kim Seongjin cried. Just as we expected, there really was a truck that brought in human meat.
"We're going to hijack it. There isn't a detailed plan. Improvisation is key. Use your judgment, got it?"
"Use my judgment...!"
A frightened expression.
Looks like he needs some encouragement.
"Can't you handle even this much as a World Politics board user? Haven't you always had experience dodging the eyes of beings like the Bureau?"
"O-of course I do! I can do it! A-and I can drive the truck too!"
"That's reassuring."
Actually, I do have a class 2 automatic license.
ㅡScreeeech.
The truck comes in through the back entrance and stops.
A butcher monster gets out of the truck. Then it goes to the back and opens the cargo hold. As expected, the inside is full of corpses, and it starts taking them out... right now!
ㅡWhoosh!
At the signal, Kim Seongjin and I dashed out together. While running, I was so focused on keeping our footsteps as quiet as possible that we ended up running in a rather awkward way, but thanks to that, we managed to get close to the driver's seat!
Get in!
Get in!
The moment I hoisted Kim Seongjin up,
ㅡThump, thump, thump!
The butcher monster unloading the human meat notices us and starts running straight toward us!
"Fuck!"