Chapter 174
Three large vans were waiting in the parking lot. The personnel taking part in the raid were divided into the special squad and everyone else, then got into the vans.
The van Ian got into was being driven by someone he had never seen before. A woman with ash-gray hair tied tightly back. Wearing a hearing aid in her ear, she waved as she looked at the mages in the back seat.
‘So this must be Venus, the one Mina Park mentioned.’
I’d expected as much ever since her name didn’t sound Korean, but she really was a foreigner. Her features were far removed from an East Asian’s.
If anything, she looked Slavic. Russian, probably.
He had no idea why a Russian had come to Korea and joined Korea’s Administration Bureau, but honestly, it didn’t matter. Whatever her circumstances were, they were none of Ian’s business.
He casually returned Venus’s greeting and sat down, then yanked the seat back.
With a creak, Ian’s body reclined. He closed his eyes and pulled the earphone from the bottom of the issued terminal, plugging it into his ear. At the same time, he connected to the operation’s communication server.
[Ah, can everyone hear me.]
Park Mina, seated in the van’s front passenger seat, brought the mic to her mouth and spoke. The agents’ replies came through the earphones, and she nodded as she manipulated the terminal.
[Good. Then I’ll continue the briefing. We’ll start while moving, so everyone get moving.]
Vroooom.
Venus took the lead and started driving. The other vans trailed behind her like a tail. Ian, lying back, focused on the briefing and calmly turned things over in his head. He lightly ignored the gesture Kim Yul made, trying to tease him.
[First, I’ll explain the underground facilities. Unlike the first and second floors, where mainly paintings are on display, the basement houses not only paintings but also dolls, statues, and blueprints. Unlike the paintings, which can be ignored, these can directly attack you, so please be careful.]
[What happens if they get you?]
[Most of them only cause simple physical death, but some entities will turn their victims into living taxidermy or into beings similar to themselves. So far, there are two entities that have done that: the blade used by Jack the Ripper, and Pygmalion.]
[…Pygmalion, you mean?]
[It’s nothing to be surprised about. Pygmalion is a mystery with an original counterpart. Being sealed in an isolation chamber doesn’t mean we’ve successfully subjugated it. Naturally, there have to be other instances as well.]
At Park Mina’s perfectly reasonable explanation, the other team leader fell silent. Ian gave a low hum and turned things over in his head.
‘If Pygmalion’s involved, this is going to be tricky.’
Pygmalion’s ability was simple.
Creation of statues. But those statues looked exactly like humans, and they could move however Pygmalion set them to. Because of that, there was more than enough room for them to cause confusion during survivor rescue operations.
Even setting that aside, the statues’ own combat power exceeded that of most humans. If they were pushed into a war of attrition, even the Administration Bureau would have a hard time. Infinite stone monstrosities springing up everywhere. Just imagining it was disgusting, wasn’t it?
But whatever the case, the Administration Bureau was a group that had spent a long time containing and studying Pygmalion. Of course, they had to know how to deal with it.
[If you encounter Pygmalion, you must leave the area as quickly as possible. Cover your face at all times, and female agents must not look even at Pygmalion’s toes. That said, you must not use any of your other senses either. Remember that the museum is called the Visual Museum.]
[The other senses……. ]
[This is the most important warning. Except in the museum’s internal safe zones, never use any sense other than sight. Touching something to check what it is, smelling it, listening closely, tasting it, and so on. All such actions are forbidden.]
“What, are we supposed not to breathe or what.”
Namgung Minhyuk, who had been listening silently to the briefing, blurted out. Park Mina answered immediately.
[Fortunately, the act of breathing itself doesn’t seem to fall under the concept of ‘smelling.’ So you should be fine.]
“Really? Then that’s a relief.”
[If you break the rules, your body will start mutating before you can even react. Into the ‘eyeball monster’ described in the notes left by survivors. The ones we’ve named are the Watchers. They were originally victims summoned to the museum, but the moment they become Watchers, their reason is all but stripped away. They simply move as designed.]
“No reason, huh…….”
Ian let out a quiet chuckle as he listened to her.
No reason.
For Ian, that was one of the most appetizing traits of all. He fiddled with the firearm in his arms and checked the magic hanging from his coat.
Maybe this wouldn’t be as difficult as he thought.
*
The briefing continued right up until just before they arrived at the museum. Thanks to that, Park Mina had to keep talking without a break.
By contrast, Kim Yul, sitting in the very back seat, had already pulled out her earphones and was nodding off. Namgung Minhyuk and Mika had also casually set their earphones aside and were each doing their own thing.
Not a single person was paying attention. Ian was the only mage still wearing his earphones properly. It showed why Kim Iseo was comparatively friendly with him.
“Haa…….”
Ian let out a long sigh and adjusted his earphones. At the same time, he took out his grimoire and held it.
A grimoire with a striking black cover and red lettering. A book born from the Sea of the Outer Cosmos, livelier in temperament than any other grimoire Ian possessed.
Deep-Sea Chronicle.
If Hand of Re-Creation excelled in all sorts of areas, and Blue Shackles and the Book of Contracts specialized in utility and defense, Deep-Sea Chronicle was a grimoire that poured everything into offense alone. Most of its spells focused solely on killing enemies.
Of course, it wasn’t as if it had no other spells at all. The spell that absorbed and neutralized shocks, and the spell that let you vanish from the sight of mindless beings—both were written in Deep-Sea Chronicle.
Still, it was true that the number of spells besides attack was extremely small compared to other grimoires.
Regardless of performance, if you kept using just one spell over and over, you’d eventually be countered. Unpredictability wasn’t a choice; it was a necessity.
But there was no particular need for unpredictability right now.
It was only an art museum. It might be a difficult place for Administration Bureau agents or others, but not for Ian. A place where mental attacks and monsters that had lost their reason coexisted couldn’t do him any harm. It was practically the perfect counter.
Still, this was the world of mysteries, where letting your guard down could get you killed in an instant, so he had no intention of relaxing completely. As always, he planned to do his best.
[Then this concludes the briefing. We will arrive shortly. Please take your preassigned positions, and I wish everyone a safe return. Ending communications. Team leaders, please move your members to the designated communication channels.]
While he was thinking, the long briefing finally came to an end. Park Mina let out a long breath and wiped away her sweat, and Kim Iseo straightened out her weapons before sending her a faint smile.
“Good work, Mina.”
“No… Huu, they trusted me with this, so I have to do my best. More importantly, Iseo, you memorized the channel number, right? Could you connect ahead of time and check it for me?”
“I already finished it ages ago. Communications are good, and the electronic shield set up against mystery infiltration is working fine.”
“Ah, that’s a relief. Then…”
Park Mina trailed off and looked over the mages. Mika, tapping on her smartphone with a sullen expression; Namgung Minhyuk, reading his grimoire with a serious look; Kim Yul, asleep with a cute expression; and Shin Ian, reclined in his seat while holding his grimoire.
Every one of them had such distinct personalities that just looking at them made it feel hard to breathe. But their skills were just as distinct, so she had no choice but to trust them. Park Mina cleared her throat to draw their attention and gave the terminal a little tilt.
“Now then, everyone. It’s about time to begin the operation. If you enter the code written on the terminal into the communication channel input box, a chat room and call room that only we can use will appear. So please enter it.”
“Ah, will do. So it’s finally starting.”
Namgung Minhyuk answered first. He closed [Shanhaijing], took out his terminal, and operated it skillfully. Mika didn’t answer either, but she quickly finished manipulating her terminal and went back to her smartphone.
Ian also slowly took out his terminal and entered the code. With a ding, he connected to the channel. A chat room and call room for seven people appeared. The UI was quite similar to the program used when playing games with friends, so he quickly got used to operating it. After entering the call room first, he woke Kim Yul, who was sleeping.
“Hey, wake up. We’re here.”
“……Mm……? Slurp…… Ugh…….”
Kim Yul slowly opened her eyes and slurped up the drool that had run down her mouth. Then she stared blankly up at Ian and smiled bashfully.
“A good-morning greeting? Are we already that close?”
“If you have time to spout nonsense, mess with the terminal instead. I trust you know how to use it.”
“Mm, how heartless.”
She puckered her lips, stretched, and then deftly operated the terminal to connect to the communication channel.
[Kim Yul: hi]
As soon as Kim Yul left the message, a reply came back at once.
[Venus: It’s nice to meet you, Kim Yul ^^]
A reply from Venus, who hadn’t said a single word until now. Kim Yul operated her terminal with a blank expression while swinging her legs around.
[Kim Yul: Yeah. Hi, Venus. Still can’t hear, huh? Can’t even talk.]
[Venus: That’s right. It’s congenital.]
[Kim Yul: haha]
Ian watched the two of them chat, smacking his lips.
He’d wondered because she was wearing a hearing aid, but she apparently was hearing-impaired after all.
‘If they’re deploying her in the operation despite that, she must have something going for her.’
He skillfully operated the terminal with one hand and watched Venus drive while bouncing his leg.
Not long after, the vehicle came to a stop in front of a certain museum.
A pure white museum with not a single visitor in sight. All the lights inside were on, yet there was no sense of human presence at all. For such a large museum, it looked extremely unnatural.
No matter if it was a day off, the museum’s managers or staff wouldn’t leave the building. A museum ran on a bare minimum of personnel, all of them hustling around to prepare for the next day’s normal opening. They rarely left it entirely unattended for a day.
What’s more, the museum before them wasn’t even closed today. The doors were wide open, and the machines in the main hall were working furiously.
And yet there were no people. Something that should have been there, in a place where it couldn’t be missing, had evaporated.
It was an anomaly that left no room for doubt. Ian loosened his stiff wrist and stared at the museum with cold eyes.
“I’ll get off here.”
Kim Iseo said as she grabbed the case full of firearms. With a rattle, the door opened and she got out first. The others followed one after another.
“Grrr……! It’s been a while since I’ve been outside. Feels like we’ve been riding in the car for almost two hours.”
Namgung Minhyuk muttered while stretching. Kim Iseo replied as she tucked her pistol into her holster.
“We came quite far. There was nowhere else we could enter with certainty, so we had no choice.”
“I’m not scolding you, so don’t be so deferential. It makes me want to kill you.”
“Understood. Then let’s begin the operation.”
Kim Iseo lightly brushed off Namgung Minhyuk’s words, took out her shotgun, and looked back at everyone.
“Unlike the other teams, our special squad does not enter at the same time or communicate among team leaders. We judge independently and act independently. That is our team’s style.”
“Sounds good to me. I like it.”
Mika gave a hazy smile and put her hands in her pockets. She was chewing gum noisily with the hood of a zip-up hoodie pulled over her head.
“Then are we going in right away? This looks like the back door, for sure.”
“Yes. We’ll go in right away. If anyone has any questions before then, please speak up.”
No one opened their mouth despite her words. Kim Iseo nodded.
“Good. Then we’ll enter. I’ll be issuing the orders, so please follow them.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She turned at once and started walking toward the museum while loading shells into the shotgun in her hand.
Venus fastened two combat hatchets to her waist and followed after her, while Park Mina moved along clutching her terminal tightly. Ian and Kim Yul followed behind them. Namgung Minhyuk and Mika took rear security.
They hadn’t discussed formation beforehand, but they entered the museum following the formation that had naturally taken shape. As they opened the glass doors and stepped inside, a thick smell of blood slowly crept up.
One step.
A strange sensation came from the tip of the foot that stepped beyond the open door.
It felt as if he were stepping on sticky paint.
Two steps.
His vision warped slightly. The forms of the paintings hanging on the walls changed, and something appeared out of thin air where there had been nothing.
“Cover one eye.”
Three steps.
In front of the altered painting.
The Watchers that suddenly appeared before the clock painting made from human bodies shifted the single eyeball that served as their head and stared blankly at Ian’s group. Then, after confirming that the group had closed one eye, they began focusing on the painting again.
Four steps.
Screeeech, bang!
With a huge crash, the door they had entered through slammed shut. In its place, a painting appeared where the door had been: a demon stabbing to death a human who seemed to be fleeing from hell. Park Mina swallowed hard and trembled, while Namgung Minhyuk curved the corners of his mouth as if amused.
Five steps.
The scenery changed completely. The museum’s pure white walls were painted blood-red, and the space warped as they entered a new world.
A world of mysteries, not Earth. A place called the other side, or the reverse world.
They had finally set foot in the mysteries’ art museum, where the very concept of a museum had been eaten away piece by piece.
“…….”
Ian idly wiggled the grimoire in his hand and gazed quietly at the Watchers, who didn’t even spare him a glance. Then, without anyone noticing, he fully opened the eye he’d kept shut.
[……]
[……]
Even so, there wasn’t a single Watcher that showed any interest in him. They merely scraped at his body with their sharp optic nerves, making strange kikik sounds.
At that reaction, Ian curled his lips into a smile.
The Art Museum Subjugation Begins.