Chapter 8
008 – What Magicians Do (5)
The security rulebook.
Despite all the twists and turns, I could say this with certainty.
This rulebook had been written to save people.
Look at the fourth item.
*4. Survival tips for an encounter with Lord Wagijagi in the basement*
What mattered here was the phrase ‘survival tips.’
Nikon the MeTuber had been able to see four rules, and even though he’d been missing for about a week, he was still alive.
His existence proved that this rulebook wasn’t simply meant to feed people to something.
And I thought the fifth item was the key to escaping.
*5.━─━─━───.*
*Odd numbers must become even, and even numbers must become odd.*
*Lord Wagijagi, Wagi-wagi-jagi-jagi─.*
The details of the fifth item had been erased.
But at least the sentence ‘Odd numbers must become even, and even numbers must become odd’ was perfectly intact.
It was frustratingly vague and ambiguous.
But I couldn’t think of any other way out of here.
Still, just in case, I went to check the entrance I’d come through.
“Haa… The hole I came in through really is gone.”
“Right? I told you!”
Where the hole and rope should have been, a concrete ceiling filled the space, as if they’d never been there.
“Ms. I-ryeong, look around for a ladder on the wall or a door in the ceiling.”
“…A door?”
“The entrance Ms. I-ryeong and I came through was just a hole in the floor, right? There should be a proper door for getting in and out of this basement. The one I locked with a padlock.”
“…Ah! The bolt cutters!”
Bolt cutters?
When I raised an eyebrow, Ms. I-ryeong read my expression and hurriedly explained.
“That bastard Jang Geun-beom tried to cut the padlock on the basement door with bolt cutters! But they wouldn’t cut through, so he looked around and found the hole!”
So that was what had happened.
Whatever the case, Ms. I-ryeong understood which ‘door’ I meant.
We could get out through it─.
Maybe she’d realized the same thing, because a spark of life returned to her eyes.
There was just one problem.
As we started looking for the door, the sound of bells rang out again.
Jingle, jingle─.
The ominous presence made Ms. I-ryeong’s hair stand on end.
She soon started barking like a vicious dog.
“F-fuck! Get lost! Don’t come any closer! Get lost!”
Honestly, I’d never heard a woman swear so crudely before.
And if she was a pretty woman with pink hair, the sight was all the stranger.
Even the normally docile Bori-bori scowled like an enraged beast.
“Urrrr-!”
Then, once again, the bells couldn’t approach us and faded into the distance.
“I-it went away! I saved you, mister! They said I had a spiritual gift when I was little, and that I had to become a shaman if I wanted to live a long time! Maybe that’s why I can chase ghosts away!”
Ms. I-ryeong grabbed my arm and shook it up and down.
Was that really what had happened?
‘I think Bori-bori was the one who chased it away.’
Bori-bori had once chased away Ms. Ming, the Thai evil spirit, by barking at her furiously.
And just a little while ago, Bori-bori had made Wagijagi back off, too.
Could that be what had happened this time as well?
Of course, I had no idea how long Bori-bori’s threats would keep working.
So I kept moving, and finally reached the destination I’d been looking for.
“I knew it’d be somewhere around here.”
There was a ladder-like structure made from bent steel beams attached to the wall.
Near the ceiling, a massive iron door loomed over us.
“…Aha! A door!”
Ms. I-ryeong darted forward first.
She scrambled up the rusty ladder and pounded on the iron door─.
Thud, thud, thud-
Naturally, it didn’t open.
“Aaaah! The door’s rusted shut! It won’t open!”
Was it really rusted shut?
No, it was probably because of the ‘Sealing’ magic I’d drawn outside.
*5.━─━─━───.*
*Odd numbers must become even, and even numbers must become odd.*
*Lord Wagijagi, Wagi-wagi-jagi-jagi─.*
Maybe it was because of this fifth rule.
Perhaps the door was designed to open only if we followed this rule.
But I had no intention of following the fifth rule as written.
I could sense something like ‘malice’ coming from this rulebook.
And I thought that feeling was coming from this fifth item in particular.
Ms. I-ryeong, who claimed to have good instincts because she was a self-proclaimed shaman, had called the rulebook ‘creepy.’ That must have been because of this fifth rule, not the others.
Wasn’t this fifth rule both the way out of the basement and a trap?
I had a reason for thinking so.
The phrase about even numbers becoming odd and odd numbers becoming even.
It could only mean something like this.
If two people came in, one had to die to make the number odd.
And even if three people came in, one had to die to make the number even before they could leave─.
In other words, it was a bizarre system that demanded someone’s ‘sacrifice.’
There were only two ways for me and Ms. I-ryeong, an even number, to become an odd number.
So what was I supposed to do now?
Did one of us have to fall, just as the fifth rule said?
An ordinary person would have had to do that.
But.
‘We’re both getting out.’
I’m a magician.
Clack, clack-
I climbed the rusty ladder.
Then I reached toward the iron door in the ceiling.
The heavy, solid, rusty metal door felt unmistakable beneath my palm.
On the other side, the ‘Sealing’ symbol I’d drawn must have been holding firm.
Time to experiment.
What would happen if I drew the ‘Opening’ symbol over the ‘Sealing’ symbol I’d drawn earlier?
Scribble, scribble, scribble─.
I drew the magic circle with my fingertip to see for myself.
And─.
Clink─. Rattle, rattle─.
I heard something unlocking outside.
It seemed the padlock on the other side had come undone.
So drawing a new magic circle over an existing one overwrote it.
In a way, it was perfectly straightforward, and that made it satisfying.
“Hup!”
I put my weight into pushing the door.
It creaked─ and swung upward.
Just as the summer breeze slipping through the gap brushed my face with its warmth,
【Aaaah─Aaaaaah─!!!】
A sorrowful wail, like that of a beast robbed of its young, seized me by the nape.
The voices spread ominously in several directions, like a terrible choir.
What, was it pissed off because I’d left without following its ‘rules’?
Serves you right!
My magic worked on the abnormal, too!
It felt incredibly satisfying and refreshing, like washing sweat from my body with cold water.
A jaunty rhythm entered my steps as I headed for the surface.
The summer dawn was beginning to break, and it welcomed me.
“Waaaaaa! Waaah!”
Ms. I-ryeong, who’d grabbed my hand and climbed up to the surface, was overjoyed to see the world again.
Could anyone really be that happy?
“Thank you so much! Mis—Yuseong! No, Oppa Yuseong! Thank you so much!”
With a rush─, Ms. I-ryeong threw her arms around me.
She must have been running and falling all over the basement, drenched in sweat, but she smelled sweet, like peaches.
“Oppa, thank you so much! Sniff, sob….”
Ms. I-ryeong clung to me and burst into tears.
It seemed the composure she’d been clinging to while pretending to be brave had finally crumbled with her relief, and everything she’d been holding back was pouring out like a floodgate had opened.
“Thank you. Really….”
In the end, her words dissolved into sobs I couldn’t understand.
I pulled away from her and took out my phone.
At last, I could make a call.
“Yes, is this the police station?”
I still had to do what needed to be done.
No trespassing!
# # #
At 5:20 a.m., the police arrived.
They went into the basement.
And something strange happened.
“There’s nothing here.”
There was nothing.
Not the bright-red gates.
Not the bats as big as my torso.
Not the unidentified monster.
There was only a cramped, unfinished underground parking garage, fitting for a small shopping plaza.
As dust piled over construction waste billowed into the air, the police coughed their way back out.
“Sir, are you saying there’s someone else in there? Are you sure?”
When the police officer asked me, I looked at Ms. I-ryeong.
Jang Geun-beom, Nikon, Mi-young.
Where had the people who’d supposedly been with Ms. I-ryeong gone?
Ms. I-ryeong only gaped like a goldfish, repeating, “But they really were in there….” as if she couldn’t understand it either.
‘Did the space change?’
At that moment, I formed a hypothesis.
Could there be another space in this basement, one ordinary people couldn’t reach, just like the rules only I could see?
Thinking that way would explain everything that had just happened.
Just then, a man in a black suit arrived at the scene.
He seemed to say something to the police, then came over to me.
“You’re Yuseong, the security guard at Dori Building, right? Let’s talk inside for now.”
He looked to be in his early thirties and strode into the container office.
Then he took a coffee stick from beside the water dispenser, poured it into a paper cup, and stirred the coffee. His movements were so familiar that he seemed like someone who’d been here a long time.
He offered me the coffee.
But what surprised me came next.
“Urrrrr─!”
Bori-bori’s tail shot up as Bori-bori looked at the man in the suit before us.
But it seemed different from Bori-bori’s usual threats.
Bori-bori was cowering in the corner of the container like a rat trapped in a corner.
‘…Is Bori-bori scared?’
I’d never seen Bori-bori like that before.
While I was still surprised by all this, the man adjusted his glasses and asked,
“Is there something over there?”
“…No, just a mosquito….”
For some reason, I found myself lying.
The fact that Bori-bori was afraid of something.
In such an abnormal situation, I couldn’t help but…
I took a sip of coffee to cover my awkward expression.
It tasted sweet.
“Silicone, cement, industrial adhesive. Do you know what happens when construction waste is left in a sealed space for a long time?”
“Huh?”
“It gives off toxic gas. If you breathe it in, you can experience hallucinations or hear voices. It’s caused by the toluene in industrial adhesives.”
“Hallucinations and voices?”
“Yes. Ms. Kim I-ryeong and you, Mr. Ha Yu-seong, were suffering from hallucinations and hearing voices. It may seem like a mild case, but it can be fatal. You need emergency treatment.”
Rustle─. Tap.
The man held out a small, square paper box to me.
It was white and about the size of my palm.
「Neuron Clear Tablet, 1 count」
Medicine? A box of medicine?
As I looked at it in puzzlement, the man pushed up his glasses with his index finger.
He seemed to be insisting with his whole body that I take the medicine.
“Urrrrr-.”
Bori-bori was still cowering in the corner, watching the man.
“…Do I have to take it right now?”
“The sooner, the better. If the poisoning continues for too long, you’ll experience hallucinations and hear voices more often. People say they start seeing hideous monsters or dead people in the middle of their everyday lives.”
Would taking that medicine make it go away?
As I tried to work it out in my head, the man sighed.
“─Mr. Yuseong, don’t you want to go back to your normal life? If you take this medicine, you’ll stop being targeted by monster hallucinations or getting lost at intersections.”
The man spoke in a businesslike, matter-of-fact tone,
but there seemed to be a slight hint of irritation in it.
He clearly knew what he was talking about.
He knew I was the sort of person who might be targeted by some unknown monster or get lost at an intersection─.
At that moment, my heart pounded harder than ever before.
A question swelled in my chest and burst past my lips.
“…Are you a magician?”
Pfft─.
The eyes behind his utterly cold glasses narrowed.
The impassive man had smiled for the first time.
At that moment, I arrived at an answer.
…So it really was this man!
The sort who created rulebooks!
“Urrrrrr….”
Bori-bori was still wary of him in the corner.
Even after he stood up and disappeared without a trace.