Chapter 52
A booming rhythm of footsteps shook heaven and earth. Ian gripped the grimoire tightly, an unfamiliar chill crawling up his spine.
The presence was anything but ordinary. Ian didn't have a detection spell that could perfectly sense another person's aura, but just as one can look at a bear or tiger and recognize a predator, he could tell that whatever was coming down from above was no ordinary aberration.
“……damn it.”
If he stayed still, they were all doomed. The Watcher's tentacles were still tearing through the stairwell and slaughtering aberrations, but something enormous was coming down the stairs toward the underground parking lot as if none of that mattered.
There was only one possible meaning.
That the aberration above possessed force at least on par with the Watcher.
“Hurry up and find the car, you moron!”
The Administration Bureau agents, sweating cold sweat, urged the parking guard on. They seemed to have guessed what was slowly descending from above. No—more accurately, they probably knew from the very beginning.
‘A near-suicidal method. An escape not permitted by the space. Error…….’
He pieced together the fragments of knowledge he had obtained and calmly surveyed the current situation. He could feel overwhelming killing intent pricking at his back, but he forced himself to think as coolly as possible.
Normally, escaping from a hospital wasn't done by pressuring the security guards like this. The proper method was to get discharge approval from a doctor, then have the guardian and patient leave through the front gate as a group. Strictly speaking, what they were doing now was nothing different from an error.
But there was no way the Mystery would allow that error.
‘Anyone who didn't belong to the hospital was basically an impurity.’
And impurities were meant to be removed. There was no reason to leave some worthless virus lying around.
Then who removed impurities, viruses? Vaccines? Immune cells?
No, neither. The doctors and nurses were already standing in for them. They weren't efficient, but they were doing everything they could, pouring in sheer numbers to erase the impurities. Still, though useful, they weren't decisive, and the impurities were still running rampant, alive and trying to leave this place.
To kill such viruses, a higher authority was needed. The one who wielded the vaccine—the true owner of each and every cell—had to step in personally.
In other words, the master of this space.
To be exact.
“The hospital director.”
Thud!
The moment Ian murmured it, the footsteps came a little closer.
They were right above us. Something was giving off a faint, bubbling gurgle.
“Security, you son of a bitch! Hurry up and find the car already!!”
Park Heesu shouted, staggering on the trembling ground. The guard stammered, then suddenly brightened and answered.
“Found it! One car and two motorcycles! Is that right?”
“……! Y-yeah, that's right, so hand them all over!”
“Then I'll verify the vehicle number. Do you know the num—”
Bang!
Before the guard could even finish speaking, Ian drove a bullet into the bastard's brow. The round precisely smashed the aberration's head and splattered blood and brain matter everywhere.
With a thud, the guard's corpse collapsed face-first onto the floor. Park Heesu, who had been briefly startled by the bullet that had whisked past his ear, turned to Ian and mumbled through pursed lips.
“Hey, you son of a bitch... at least be careful when you shoot...!”
“This doesn't seem like the kind of situation for that. Let's hurry. The vehicles have spawned.”
Ian jerked his chin toward the cars that had suddenly appeared at the far end of the parking lot.
A normal sedan and two replica motorcycles.
The group rushed to the vehicles without anyone needing to say a word. The Bureau agents climbed into the sedan with practiced ease, and Ian and Cecilia each got on a bike.
“Can you ride?”
“Yeah. Good way to get around.”
Vroom!
Cecilia expertly started her bike. Ian also turned the key already in place, started his own, released the stand, and hit the accelerator. He didn't forget to work the clutch, either.
The bike surged forward with a ferocious growl. He'd gotten his license back in high school, so operating it wasn't difficult.
He took the lead, blasting through the wide-open parking lot and thrusting himself through the blood-soaked exit.
Thanks to the Watcher already having cleared the way, there were no obstacles. Ian glanced at the others following him in the rearview mirror, then sped up and burst completely out of the parking lot.
Vroooom!!
The moment they emerged onto the surface, exhaust roaring, what they saw was nothing but corpses strewn everywhere and the Watcher flying through the sky. Countless tentacles were still piercing the hospital's outer walls, yet a few hung slack toward the ground as if it still had some strength to spare.
It didn't seem especially hungry. Its gaze was still savage, but there was no hunger in it. A small mercy.
“Run, you motherfucker! Run to the boundary of this space!”
In the sedan's back seat, Park Heesu leaned halfway out the window and sprayed the area with buckshot from a shotgun. Ian stopped watching the Watcher and punched the accelerator. Cecilia streaked past him.
Kwagagagak!!
Whenever the tentacles writhed, corpses rained down from inside the hospital. The stench of blood filled the air, and the air contaminated by corpse toxin gave off a nauseating reek. Just breathing it in felt like his entire nasal cavity was going numb.
It was enough to show how many aberrations were dying here.
To think that just letting one Watcher loose could crush an entire urban legend.
He had known from the vague descriptions that it was strong, but this was too much. If this place had been reality instead of a space-type mystery, a real catastrophe might have occurred.
‘If possible, it'd be better to pick only weak ones for use in reality. In the city, it might be better not to use them at all—’
The moment he thought that.
Kwaaaang!!!
The parking lot entrance exploded, and a massive shockwave blasted out. Ian and his bike lurched dangerously to the side, and he clenched his teeth and barely managed to regain his balance.
“Whoa!”
“Hold the handlebars tight, you bastard!”
“I-I'm doing it!”
The car carrying the Bureau agents drifted left and right, and Cecilia came up beside Ian and shouted loudly.
“The hospital director!”
“……!”
Ian turned his head back to check the shattered parking-lot entrance.
[……]
A collapsed building. From within it, a long brain walked out.
It was literally a brain. All it had were four long arms, loosened brain folds writhing slightly, and cerebrospinal fluid dripping out. The pulsating mass of brain matter, beating like a heart, sprayed transparent liquid in all directions as it surveyed its surroundings.
It had no eyes, but it had optic nerves; no ears, but it had auditory cortex. Having acquired all five senses without any intermediate process, it fixed its gaze on Ian and the others and began rushing toward them.
Kwagagagagak!!!
Its four arms braced the ground like a four-legged beast. The bright blue name tag embedded in the back of its head glinted in the red light of the sky.
[Psychiatrist]
[Hospital Director]
[Johan]
As Ian had expected, it was the hospital director. He cursed inwardly and pushed his speed even higher.
Park Heesu wasn't just cursing inwardly.
“Fuckkkkk!!!”
He laughed loudly, his face a mixture of fear and excitement as he aimed his shotgun. It was because his brain, boiling in this extreme situation, was pumping out adrenaline and dopamine like crazy. He didn't bother resisting his own hormones.
“So damn disgustiiiing!”
Ratatatat!!
The shotgun belched fire and attacked the hospital director's cerebral cortex. But the pellets, the moment they touched the brain fluid, turned into tiny newborns and plopped to the floor.
“Waa! Waa! Waa—”
Crunch!
The hospital director grabbed one of the fallen newborns with its hand, crushed it, and poured its blood over the brain. At the absurd sight, Yeoul let out a dry laugh.
“Turning inorganic matter into organic matter? What the hell kind of nonsense is that...!”
“It's a mystery because it doesn't make sense! Aaaah, it's getting closer! Take your foot off the brake and just hit it, damn it!!”
“I'm doing it!”
Vroooom!!
Two motorcycles, one sedan, and a giant brain raced down the wide-open road. They were already over 140 km/h, yet the hospital director was charging after them as if he were doing 200.
The speed was completely out of proportion to that massive body. Kim Iseo was countering with the sniper rifle she'd brought in a gun case, but the rounds either veered off or turned into newborns before they could even pierce the bastard's cerebrospinal fluid and fell to the ground.
That meant physical attacks didn't work on him at all. Since he was in brain form, mental attacks would probably be effective, but the current group had no means of using any.
Cornered on all sides.
As Ian thought that and searched for a countermeasure, reaching for the grimoire, a huge shadow fell over his head.
When he reflexively looked up, he met the Watcher's eyes, as if it had somehow swum through the sky to reach them.
Its gaze seemed to ask, ‘Help?’, and Ian, without the slightest hesitation, closed the grimoire and curled his lips into a smirk.
“Devour it.”
[...heh.]
The Watcher's eyes curved into crescents. It immediately twisted its body and sent nearly a hundred million tentacles flying at the hospital director all at once.
Thudududud!
Like shells raining down from artillery, the tentacles pierced the hospital director's brain fluid and sprayed blood in every direction.
The hospital director's body, reduced to a mass of shredded flesh in an instant, was torn apart and scattered, and the Watcher let out a grotesque laugh through the countless mouths on its tentacles. Even if physical attacks didn't work, that didn't seem to be a rule that applied to creatures of the Outer God.
Park Heesu shouted as he looked at the hospital director, torn apart and scattered everywhere.
“Did we get him?!”
“Hey, you crazy bastard! You know that phrase is banned in the Bureau, right?!”
The moment Park Mina smacked the back of his head in alarm, the crushed brains gathered together again and regenerated.
“See?!”
Kwaduduk!
The hospital director slid across the floor and rapidly swung its two pairs of arms. Arms moving at inhuman speed grabbed all of the Watcher's tentacles and tore them off.
[Kyaak!]
Blue blood poured from the torn-off tentacles. Ian's head, already drenched in blood, was dyed blue as the Watcher regenerated its tentacles and formed them into a net, slamming it down onto the ground.
The hospital director was shredded into small pieces and then reassembled. Then it used its loosened brain folds like a harpoon to pierce the Watcher's body and swing it downward as if smashing with a hammer.
Kwaaaang!!
Blue blood exploded like a bomb from the Watcher's crushed body. Ian got drenched in it and gaped, mouth hanging open.
No way—there was actually an aberration that could fight an Outer Sea creature on equal footing.
Even though it wasn't being overwhelmed or crushed helplessly, the very fact that a battle was happening at all was astonishing. The shock that something he had thought invincible wasn't actually invincible slammed into his brain.
‘This isn't the Watcher being weak. The hospital director is absurdly strong.’
He knew this wasn't an ordinary space, but he hadn't expected it to be this extreme.
If they had summoned something even a little weaker than the Watcher... they wouldn't be racing down the road like this right now.
The more he thought about it, the more fortunate it seemed. Ian spat out the blood that had gotten into his mouth and turned his gaze away from the Watcher, which had started regenerating and fighting again.
Whether it meant to or not, there was no reason to miss this chance while it was buying them time. Ian lowered his body and floored it.
“Cecilia!”
“Yeah!”
Cecilia raced down the road in the same posture as him. The wind loud enough to deafen him, the roar of the exhaust, and the trembling vibration of the engine all made his heart pound. Ian wiped the blood from his face with his left hand and clenched his teeth.
Meanwhile, Park Heesu, who wasn't driving, watched the two monsters fighting and his eyes lit up.
“It's like a super monster showdown...”
“This is freaking awesome!”
The rookie floored the accelerator and agreed with him. Yeoul, sitting in the passenger seat, smacked him on the head.