Chapter 6
006 – What Magicians Do (3)
“Ha, fuck, imagine being some old-ass loser working security on a Friday night─.”
After being stopped from entering the abandoned building’s basement, Jang Geun-beom spat out curses as if venting his frustration.
But his anger over being humiliated still hadn’t subsided.
“Ugh, what a waste. I dressed up all nice because I thought we were filming a video today.”
“Seriously, all because of one fucking loser─.”
The women joined Geun-beom in cursing the security guard.
But if they called it quits now, they’d start trash-talking Geun-beom behind his back, too.
That wouldn’t do.
So Geun-beom went to his rental car and took out the thing he’d stashed in the trunk.
“Ta-da.”
“Oppa, what’s that?”
“What do you think? A bolt cutter. I saw where the basement was earlier.”
“Oh, look at you, all prepared.”
“That’s our 100,000-subscriber MeTuber!”
“Keep your voices down, you bitches.”
Geun-beom led the giggling women toward the metal hatch in the bushes.
But there was a problem.
Clang! Clang-clang─!
“Ah, fuck. Why won’t it cut?”
The industrial bolt cutter, powerful enough to bite through rebar in an instant, bounced off without cutting so much as the old chain around the padlock.
If anything, it was the bolt cutter that got chipped.
The women’s eyes turned cold as they looked at Geun-beom.
“Oppa, what are you doing? Put some muscle into it.”
“Wow, you’re so damn weak. You were the only one acting all tough.”
Grit─. Grit─.
Geun-beom ground his teeth, the muscles in his forehead bulging.
Just then, An Mi-young from ‘Mi-young TV’ pointed into the bushes.
“Oppa, there’s a hole over there.”
A hole?
At that, Geun-beom turned around.
A hole big enough for a person to fit through gaped open in the ground among the bushes.
Gooooo─.
Beyond the hole was nothing but unfathomable darkness, like the open throat of some creature.
‘…What is that? It wasn’t there when I looked earlier.’
It gave him a distinctly ominous feeling, but it was two in the morning now.
From what he’d looked up, it was almost time for the abandoned building’s security guard to make his patrol.
It’d be best to get into the hole before that annoying guard showed up and started making trouble.
An ordinary person might feel uneasy about heading toward the basement of an abandoned building, not knowing what was inside.
But Jang Geun-beom was a MeTuber.
He was so thirsty for provocative content, he could practically feel his throat drying up.
To him, this abandoned building was a gold mine that could revive his MeTube channel, whose growth and revenue had started to slow.
And the reason he thought so was a ‘video’ he’d seen recently.
「Hello, everyone! I’m Nikon from Horror Story Unicorn! Today, I’m going to work the night shift as a security guard at a building in Sanmun-dong, famous for being an abandoned building where ghosts appear!」
It was a live video from the MeTuber Geun-beom was trying to emulate.
That day, Geun-beom had been monitoring Nikon’s content to steal ideas, and when the broadcast was nearly an hour in, a chill ran down his spine.
During a patrol, Nikon headed down into the abandoned building’s basement. The moment he shone his flashlight into the darkness, he let out a huge scream and ended the broadcast.
Was it just for show? Wasn’t that a bit over the top─?
That was what Geun-beom had thought, but then he changed his mind when ‘Nikon’ didn’t livestream for days.
‘Could he really have disappeared?’
‘What if I go down into the basement and find that Nikon bastard? Or even discover some kind of clue?’
‘Even if it was all staged by Nikon, I could turn it into a video exposing the hoax. Anything would be good.’
Just thinking about it made the corners of his mouth stretch toward his ears.
Tap, tap─.
And so he climbed in and landed in the basement.
It wasn’t very deep.
The drop from the hole to the floor was about two meters.
For Geun-beom, who’d worked out to show off his muscles in front of women, that was nothing.
The women had brought ropes beforehand and used them to climb down to the floor.
“Wow, shit, I can’t see a thing, oppa.”
“The atmosphere here is insane. It’s kind of cold, too.”
The women each made a comment.
If their instincts had been a little sharper, they might have noticed the vapor puffing from their mouths every time they spoke.
Just then, Mi-young turned on her phone’s flashlight and lit up the area.
“It’s just chilly down here?”
The light revealed a scene like an ordinary abandoned basement.
What looked like construction debris had been left lying around, and a thick layer of dust covered everything.
Urgh─.
Someone gagged.
It was Kim I-ryeong, who had built her online persona around being a ‘college-student shaman.’
“Ugh, what is this place? I think there’s a weird smell, too.”
As Kim I-ryeong pinched her nose shut, something cracked─.
Geun-beom had stepped on something lying on the floor.
Rattle, rattle─.
It was a doll.
An old-fashioned Japanese doll.
Mi-young burst out laughing at the doll pieces rolling across the floor.
“Oppa, now you’re cursed!”
“Bullshit. Cursed, my ass.”
The moment Geun-beom twisted his lips into a defiant grin,
A huge scream rang out from far away━─.
Then something came charging toward them. As the women shrieked, “Eek!” and “Aah!”, an unknown person frantically shouted at Geun-beom.
“Aah! People! People! I’m saved! I’m saved!”
It was a naked man.
He clung to Geun-beom as if about to tackle him, groping him all over.
“You…you didn’t bring the rulebook? The rulebook! Ah…! You monkeys! You fucking monkeys! Aaaah!”
“What the fuck? What are you talking about?”
Geun-beom had wondered if the man was some filthy homeless person and whether he should punch him, but he quickly recognized that grimy face.
“Huh? Nikon?”
It was Nikon, the MeTuber presumed to have gone missing.
Geun-beom’s mood soared at finding him.
Jackpot─.
But that joy lasted only a moment. Nikon started tearing at his hair and screaming like a madman.
“L-let me out! Let me out now! I followed all the r-rules! Where is it? Where! Aaaaaah! What else am I supposed to dooooo?!”
“What the hell is this guy going on about?”
Geun-beom chuckled.
Just as he was getting his camera ready─
The smile faded from I-ryeong’s face.
She was the only one with sharp enough instincts to notice something was wrong.
“…But what happened to the hole we came in through?”
“What?”
【Wagi-jagi.】
Just then, it appeared.
As if it had been there from the very beginning.
Nikon wet himself.
“Aaaaaah! K-Komori! Komori!”
# # #
Over the past few days, I’d learned something from living with Bori-bori.
Bori-bori was probably a ‘demon,’ but surprisingly, they were pretty docile.
They didn’t seem interested in causing trouble. They just watched the world from the corner with wary eyes.
They ate whatever I gave them without being picky.
I guess I should be glad they weren’t demanding goats, sheep, or human sacrifices.
Pop─!
Bori-bori’s tail suddenly stood straight up.
Then they stared at the floor and let out a menacing growl─like an angry beast.
“…Wagi-jagi!”
It was an unfamiliar word.
But my brain, which had gotten quite a bit sharper lately, immediately recalled where and when I’d seen something similar.
「Dori Building Security Rules」
*4. Survival tips for an encounter with Lord Wagijagi in the basement*
*Remove anything bearing your name.*
*If you make eye contact, say “Komori.”*
*If you encounter a body part such as a leg or arm, offer the clothing worn on that part.*
They were strange rules for an ordinary security job.
Honestly, they’d been bothering me.
I never expected Bori-bori to say ‘Wagi-jagi.’
Beep-beep─.
Just then, the alarm went off.
It was already three in the morning.
Time for a patrol.
I picked up the flashlight again and left the office.
Bori-bori followed right behind me, pat-pat-pat─.
“The basement entrance is still fine!”
Clatter, clatter─.
I felt relieved as I looked at the basement hatch, where I’d drawn the magic circle for Sealing.
I’d been worried that Jang Geun-beom, whom I’d met earlier, might come back with something like a bolt cutter and break through the chain and padlock.
But it looked like he hadn’t.
Or maybe he’d tried and failed─?
Whoooooosh─.
Just then, a gust of wind blew from somewhere.
Wondering what it was, I noticed a whoooooosh─like the blast from an air conditioner coming from the overgrown bushes beside the basement hatch.
When I got closer, I saw something strange.
“What is this? A hole?”
It was a hole big enough for one person to climb through.
The opening in the ground was pitch-black, like the gaping maw of a giant fish.
I took out the security manual I’d brought and opened it.
*3. No entry to the basement*
*After 10:00 p.m., fully secure all basement entrances and increase patrols. If the basement door is found open, offer the sacrifice at the altar below.*
The part that bothered me was rule number three.
If the basement door was found open, offer the sacrifice at the altar below.
“Bori-bori, would you say this counts as the basement door being open?”
It was a hole leading underground.
Could you call that a door?
To begin with, where did a ‘door’ start and end?
If it was a boundary (門) you could go out (出) or come in (入) through, could it be called an entrance?
Under such a broad definition, this hole would count as an entrance, too.
‘If I ignore this rule, what might happen…?’
I stole a glance at the demon, Bori-bori.
I thought of Ms. Ming, who’d been a Pibbeop.
In a world where evil spirits and demons really existed, what were the odds that ignoring some ‘unknown rule’ would end with ~nothing happening~?
“…Ah, shit. I don’t want to go in.”
Normally, I’d never stick my head into some unknown hole like this.
But I’d met Bori-bori and been attacked by Ms. Ming─.
I’d learned that there were things in this world I ‘didn’t know about.’
Just as pheasants startled by gunfire don’t make the hunter disappear by burying their heads in the ground.
Ignoring those things wouldn’t make them go away.
Maybe turning away would bring even greater misfortune.
“All right. I’m a magician, aren’t I?”
Maybe I could discover some new kind of magical incantation I didn’t know about down there.
Steeling myself, I stepped toward the hole.
Someone had left a climbing rope hanging there, so getting down looked surprisingly easy.
Tap.
I landed in the damp, cold basement, and the first thing I saw was─.
A row of gates with bright-red pillars.
They rose chaotically on either side, crisscrossing one another. High above the gates, something like a black umbrella hung upside down. On closer inspection, they were enormous bats.
“Whoa, shit, what is this?”
“Torii─.”
Bori-bori, who’d followed me down into the basement, spoke.
I wondered what that meant, but checked the rulebook first.
「Dori Building Security Rules」
*3-1. How to manage sacrifices*
*An ample supply of sacrifices is stored inside the basement.*
It had definitely said to offer a sacrifice at the altar─.
I wondered where the sacrifices were stored, and when I turned around, I saw something like a display case set into the wall between the bright-red gates.
Inside it was a doll with black hair and loose, flowing clothes.
It was obviously filthy.
There was something creepy about its appearance, too.
……Could that be the sacrifice storage?
I approached it and tried to take out the doll.
Clatter, clatter─.
But something like iron bars held the doll firmly in place.
It had probably been left there so long that it was rusty and stiff. No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t open.
“How do I get this open?”
Should I ask Bori-bori to help?
Bori-bori was behind me, yawning away─.
Maybe we weren’t close enough for that yet.
So after agonizing over it for a while─a good idea suddenly flashed through my mind.
The ‘Sealing’ magic circle, with a circle and a triangle drawn inside it.
What if I drew it upside down?
I could draw the triangle on the outside and a circle in the middle.
I wondered if that would have the opposite effect of ‘Sealing.’
I decided to try it right away. The moment I drew a small magic circle on the bars with a water-based marker─
Click─!
“Whoa, shit, it actually works?”
The opposite of Sealing was Opening.
The magic circle for Opening!
At this point, I could probably call myself a real ‘magician’!
“Doll, you’re mine!”