Chapter 48
As they walked down the corridor, they surveyed their surroundings.
Pure white wallpaper. Flickering lights.
Nurses ran around talking to one another in some strange language, while patients slumped inside the rooms. The nameplates bearing the patients’ names were so melted and warped they were barely recognizable.
‘It wasn’t erased by someone. Looks like it melted away on its own.’
Had they been like this from the start? Or had the victims captured as patients slowly died and melted like this?
If he had to choose, the latter seemed more likely. The degree of melting differed from one patient to another, so they didn’t seem to have been in that state from the beginning. If this hypothesis was correct, exploration would become much easier. Simply moving around and looking for names that were still legible would save them a great deal of time.
It wasn’t information he needed to hide. Ian immediately told Cecilia the hypothesis that had occurred to him. She listened with a serious expression, then nodded.
“Good idea. Let’s try it.”
With her agreement, they continued exploring the 6th floor.
But there wasn’t a single patient here with a normal name. The only one even remotely usable was a half-melted name reading ‘Kim Min-su.’ His mental state wasn’t intact either, so he wasn’t worth taking along.
They moved on to the next floor and repeated the same thing several times. The 7th floor, the 8th floor, the 9th floor... By the time they reached the 12th floor, the two of them sat down on a bench to rest for a moment.
“Hoo...”
He wanted a cigarette, but his throat stung, so he gave up. If he smoked in his current state, he was sure he’d feel pain as if his throat were truly burning away. Still, just to get the feeling, he kept the cigarette between his lips and bobbed it lightly.
‘As long as I follow the rules, there’s no risk of being killed. The things I need to watch out for are the doctors and starvation.’
Unless you were a patient, you couldn’t just put food in your mouth in this hospital. Stealing the patients’ meals was impossible, and if he bought food from the convenience store, an internist would appear... In practice, the only thing he had to eat was his own blood.
It might quench his thirst, but it wouldn’t fill his stomach. The longer this went on, the more he was bound to suffer from hunger.
So he had to move quickly. After this rest, he planned to keep climbing all the way to the 66th floor without stopping. He had already finished talking everything over with Cecilia.
‘I want to keep combat to a minimum if possible. We’re in no position to know what’ll happen if we pick a fight for no reason...’
If the other side showed hostility first, or if the situation truly left him no choice, he’d use magic without asking questions. Otherwise, there was no need to pull the trigger first.
Judgment had to be quick and careful.
Using force only when absolutely necessary was the best approach.
“Mage Ian.”
While he was thinking, Cecilia spoke to him. Ian turned his head and looked down at her.
“Why.”
“When we get out of here, I want to talk a little.”
“...Talk?”
When Ian asked with a frown, she nodded.
“The reason I came to Korea. I’d like to ask for your advice.”
“...Is it about magic?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not because of the Eighth Book of Moses, is it?”
“...? Why bring up that grimoire all of a sudden?”
Cecilia blinked and asked back.
“That’s managed over in the Arab world. The Vatican’s grimoires are just the ‘Book of Pope Honorius.’”
The Book of Pope Honorius.
It wasn’t a particularly famous grimoire, but it had fairly high recognition among other mages. It contained spells for summoning angels, divine-type magic, and methods for fighting by commanding mindless masses of pure divinity.
It was a grimoire Ian had personally researched in case he ever ran into it, but once the Eighth Book of Moses was shattered and he could no longer carry ordinary grimoires, he lost interest in it.
‘More importantly, the Eighth Book of Moses was under Arab control?’
He had naturally assumed it was Christian-related and kept in the Vatican, but apparently that wasn’t the case. That meant the Sixth and Seventh Books were likely in Arab territory as well.
He didn’t think they’d actually come all the way over here just to avenge their brother, but he couldn’t rule out fanatics coming after him once they learned where the grimoire was. Once they escaped the hospital, he’d need to prepare in advance.
‘I’ve got a lot to do.’
He hadn’t planned to enjoy his free time for long, but it looked like he’d have to cut his vacation much shorter than expected.
To do that, escaping the hospital came first. Ian rubbed his aching throat and stood up.
“I’ll hear you out. So let’s focus on getting out.”
“Yeah. Got it. Let’s go to the 13th floor.”
Cecilia adjusted her grip on the dagger and took the lead.
They had already finished exploring the 12th floor. Now it was time to go back up.
Ziiing.
They got into the elevator and held down the button marked 13. When they reached the floor in the blink of an eye, they stepped out and quickly checked the nameplates beside the ward doors.
No luck on the 13th floor.
They found one moderately melted name on the 14th floor, but gave up because the brain was gone.
No luck on the 15th floor.
The 16th floor was marked as the psychiatric ward, so they didn’t bother going there.
No luck on the 17th and 18th floors.
They skipped the 19th floor because it was the ICU.
And then, the 20th floor.
Ziiing.
A familiar sight came into view beyond the softly opening door. Ian, having searched nonstop, tapped his slightly numb thigh with his fist as he walked the corridor. Cecilia followed behind him and whispered.
“There are more nurses than on the other floors.”
“...”
She was right. Ian didn’t answer because his throat was throbbing; he just nodded and tapped the grimoire with his finger.
There had been nurses on the other floors too. There simply hadn’t been very many.
The nurses he’d run into while moving around were only three in total. Even the nurses sitting down and reading charts rarely numbered more than two or three.
But on the 20th floor, he’d already met five nurses not long after taking just a few steps.
“Patient, please stay calm. You’ll be going into another surgery soon.”
“Check the condition of that patient over there for me. And if they still say they won’t take their medicine, tear their throat open and feed it to them that way.”
“Bleeding patient over here! Bring me centipedes, gauze, and maggots!”
He let out a low groan at the sight of the nurses running around in perfect formation.
Their conversation was anything but normal, but the way they treated the patients wasn’t all that different from real nurses. Separate from their grotesque appearance, they were putting everything they had into nursing duty.
That didn’t mean they were safe. There was no guarantee the treatments they handed out would improve anyone’s condition; judging by the patients on the other floors, they were more likely to make things worse. And there was no guarantee their attitude toward patients would be the same as their attitude toward ‘uninvited guests.’
He wouldn’t let his guard down. His finger stayed on the trigger, and the grimoire was gripped tightly in his hand so he could respond at any moment. As long as he kept his wits about him, there was no need to worry about being helplessly taken down.
‘Reverse Aim is still working. It’ll break after two more warnings, but for now this is enough.’
As long as it could detect threats ahead of time, its performance was certainly solid. He couldn’t rely on it completely, but he could trust it.
“Let’s move without provoking the nurses for no reason. And the fact that there are so many nurses probably means this floor is different from the others.”
“I was thinking the same thing. The floors with few nurses had no survivors, and the ones with a few had a bit more. So this place is...”
“It’s probably where the odds of finding someone normal are highest. Let’s go.”
Rustle.
Ian walked down the corridor with the grimoire open. Cecilia stayed right beside him as if guarding him, keeping an eye on their surroundings.
After quite a while, Cecilia’s eyes suddenly lit up as she checked the nameplates.
“Over there!”
She grabbed Ian’s sleeve and gestured.
“The name is written clearly.”
“...”
Ian turned his head toward where Cecilia pointed.
[%@%^][!#$%^]
[김%!^61][Park Hee-soo]
A four-bed room. Among the names of the patients melting into mush, one was still left perfectly clear. The two of them immediately approached the room and peered inside through the window in the door.
“...It’s hard to see because of the curtain.”
“According to the bed arrangement, it’s the right-side window bed. Are you going in?”
Cecilia asked with her pistol in hand. Ian nodded without the slightest hesitation.
“Of course. We went through all that trouble to find someone normal, so there’s no reason to hesitate here.”
“Are you going to hide your face?”
“Is there anything to hide?”
“...Well, no.”
“Then it can’t be helped. I don’t want to, either, but there’s no other way. We’ll just have to make sure he keeps his mouth shut later.”
“No violence.”
“I’ll do it the way a mage would.”
“...That somehow made me even more worried.”
Ian left the muttering Cecilia behind and opened the room door.
At the same time, the patients lying still inside went into convulsions.
“Aaaaaaaah!!!”
“Today they put centipedes in my head and maggots are chewing through my body, and the bleeding and fever are rebirthing me as a new species.”
“...”
Someone screamed, someone muttered like a madman, and someone scratched at their body with their eyes and mouth sewn shut.
In the middle of all that chaos, only one bed was normal. Ian immediately walked into the room and pulled back the curtain at the right-side window bed.
Swish!
Once the pure white curtain was pulled aside, a middle-aged man lying on the bed came into view. His eyes were closed as if he were asleep, but Ian instantly realized he was only pretending.
This was much better than screaming. Looking down at the man pretending to snore, he checked once for any place where his body had been altered.
Fortunately, his appearance was fine. At the very least, there were no traces of any procedure. That meant a doctor hadn’t touched him.
And the fact that he was pretending to sleep meant his mind was intact too.
This was enough to meet the conditions.
The moment he reached that conclusion, Ian pressed the gun muzzle to the man’s forehead. He heard Cecilia’s startled voice for a split second, but ignored it and spoke.
“I know you’re pretending to sleep. You’re neither a nurse nor a doctor, so open your eyes and answer me. If you scream, I’ll pull the trigger, so keep your reply as brief as possible.”
There was a reason he was coming on so strong from the start. No matter who Ian was, he wouldn’t point a gun at an innocent person first.
‘I’ve confirmed he’s a normal patient, but that doesn’t mean I can trust him blindly. I need to talk to him.’
What if this man was a lunatic patient pretending to be fine? Could he completely rule out that possibility?
No, he couldn’t. So he needed to choose every move carefully. That was why he’d drawn the gun first—to react quickly, of course, and to firmly establish who held the upper hand in the conversation.
Press.
With a cold expression, Ian pressed the muzzle down and moved his lips.
“Answer.”
“...”
Feeling as if the gun were pushing his forehead back, the man slowly opened his eyes and met Ian’s gaze. He said nothing at first, then saw the grimoire in Ian’s hand and Cecilia gripping the cross-shaped dagger, and broke into a grin.
“A mage and an inquisitor? That’s a really strange combination.”