Chapter 34
Haa....
Thump, thump, thump.
I banged my fist against the black circular barrier surrounding the forest's perimeter.
Judging the forest's size by the number of steps it took to walk around it, the 'Forest of the Faceless Ones' didn't seem to have swallowed a very large area.
If it had swallowed up all of Surisan, just walking around it wouldn't have been enough to find the end.
Then I'd have had to search a forest twice the size of Yeouido for seven photos.
I couldn't even guess how many people would have been caught up in that, and more than anything, the odds of dying would be close to 100 percent.
If the 'Forest of the Faceless Ones' followed the game mechanics I knew, it didn't need that much area.
A small forest large enough for the trapped people to wander around in.
I couldn't tell yet whether it expanded or shrank depending on the number of people, but that would be revealed in time.
What mattered right now was that I wouldn't get lost in the forest.
Come to think of it, I still hadn't checked the information on the 'Faceless Man.'
I hid behind a tree again and checked the forest's entity report on my terminal.
+++
.
.
.
[Faceless Man - Normal]
The Faceless Man is an entity that appears in the 'Forest of the Faceless Ones.'
Its appearance is similar to that of an adult man in a black suit, but there is no facial area at all.
As stated above, it has been confirmed that the same number of faceless men appear as the number of people caught up in the entity.
The individual threat posed by each entity is not especially high, but oddly enough, no behavior other than remaining still has been observed.
Even when moving or launching a physical attack, the Faceless Man's posture did not change.
To aid understanding, some survivor testimony is recorded below.
'That thing came up to me and slapped me hard across the face. It closed the distance like it had teleported, but its posture stayed exactly the same from start to finish.'
'It was the same when I ran. There were definitely footprints on the ground, but I never saw it walking or running. It just kept the same standing posture.'
'Yeo-ko ghost story! Yeo-ko gwae-dam, okay? Like Korea movie student ghost teleport, okay?'
Other than the fact that no actions are observed, the entity itself is not highly threatening.
In fact, numerous survivors successfully neutralized the faceless men without much difficulty.
However, in some cases, entities using long-range attacks with high piercing and killing power have been confirmed, so caution is advised.
Depending on the situation, actively reducing the number of entities to facilitate escape can also be an effective strategy.
When a Faceless Man's life activity ceases, the body immediately disappears and leaves no trace behind.
That concludes the information on the normal entity; below is information on the special entity.
[Faceless Man - Variant]
Within the 'Forest of the Faceless Ones,' there exists a single Faceless Man variant regardless of the number of people inside.
It cannot be distinguished by appearance; the attack method described below is what differentiates the normal and variant forms.
This entity displays characteristics nearly identical to the 'Faceless Man' known to the public as a creepypasta.
Based on the combined testimony of survivors, the variant is presumed to begin acting in earnest once three or more photos have been recovered.
The following is the variant's attack method.
If the variant is brought into view, severe noise erupts in the eyeballs, and if you keep observing it for more than five seconds, the target dies instantly.
It has also been confirmed that if physical contact with the variant is maintained for three seconds, the target dies.
As of now, the variant has not been observed attempting any direct attack other than the two methods above.
However, the variant's movement speed is similar to that of an adult male walking, and it tends to get faster as more photos are recovered.
Unlike ordinary faceless men, it cannot be subdued,
so employees should keep this in mind and immediately avert their gaze and create distance if they spot the variant.
++++
The information was enough.
I turned off the terminal and stayed alert to my surroundings.
Faceless men equal to the number of people, and the variant.
Killable faceless men equal to the number of people, and the original faceless man who couldn't be killed.
If anything, it was a relief that not a single one had appeared yet.
Crack!
I snapped off a fairly long branch from the tree I had been leaning against.
There were two uses for it.
First, this way, even if I got lost, I'd be able to recognize the spot when I came back.
Second, I could use it as a secret weapon against the bastards I was about to run into.
‘Never kill the faceless ■■■.’
‘If you meet one, use ■■ to write ■■ on the ground and prove that you’re ■■.’
If I plugged the information from the entity report into the hint Eua-deulidae had given me....
That was when it happened.
Kreeeeeeech!
"Ugh!"
A screeching noise like metal being scraped across metal flooded my head in an instant.
A piercing noise that wasn't coming through my ears, but seemed to be stabbed straight into my nerves.
I froze for a moment, clutching my head with both arms.
Kiii...k.
Soon after, the noise in my head vanished as if it had never existed.
I quickly let go of the arms that had been covering my head and picked up the wooden stick I had dropped on the ground.
Because there was only one reason this had happened.
+++
The moment a single photo is removed from the tree, ear-piercing noise rings out and the 'Faceless Men' begin to move.
+++
Someone must have taken one of the seven photos off the tree.
And that meant...
Sssssss.
Just like the faceless man that suddenly appeared before my eyes.
That multiple entities had begun to move.
Haa....
The moment I spotted the bastard, I pulled my gaze up from the ground and fixed it on him again.
There was no noise anomaly.
In other words, it was an ordinary faceless man, not the variant.
Of course, the report said the thing would only start moving after three photos had been removed,
but once I'd already recorded something I couldn't even perceive as a warning sign, it was safer to prepare for every possibility than to trust the report completely.
I lifted the arm that wasn't holding the stick and addressed the entity in front of me.
"... Can you hear me?"
The faceless man didn't stir at all.
It only made a wet, sticky sound and slowly, slowly moved away from me in the same posture.
‘Never kill the faceless ■■■.’
Instead of aiming my gun at it, I tapped the dirt with the stick.
The faceless man that had been moving away stopped.
Tap, tap, tap.
After confirming that the faceless man wasn't creating any more distance, I drew a line in the dirt with the stick.
All the while, I kept glancing at the faceless man in case something unexpected happened.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Only the chirping of insects and the sound of writing on the dirt filled the silence.
After a little while, I stepped back a few paces from the writing on the dirt.
[I am human.]
Step, step, step.
The faceless man began to approach as I backed away.
I took a closer look at the way it moved, something I hadn't had time to observe before.
Just as the witness accounts had described, its standing posture never changed as it closed the distance.
I think I understood why the foreigner had mentioned the Korean ghost.
Was that too much of a stretch?
The more certain I became about what the entity really was, the more the thoughts that had been frozen solid began to loosen.
Step, step, step
The faceless man that had been slowly closing in finally stopped in front of the writing.
Swish, swish, swish.
Before long, tiny writing began to appear beside the large letters I had written, as if being traced out by a fingertip.
Step, step, step
Then the faceless man began slowly backing away.
After it had opened up quite a bit of distance, it stopped moving.
Only then did I slowly approach the writing and check the small letters.
Ah, how the hell am I supposed to deal with these bastards?
‘Never kill the faceless ■■■.’
‘If you meet one, use ■■ to write ■■ on the ground and prove that you’re ■■.’
I was filling in the blanks with the information from the entity report.
The reason survivors had been able to reduce the number of level 3 entities without much difficulty.
The reason the Faceless Men had appeared in numbers equal to the people inside the Forest of the Faceless Ones.
The reason you'd regret it for the rest of your life once you learned the truth.
This was the information Eua-deulidae had wanted to tell me.
Never kill a faceless man.
When you meet one, write on the ground to prove that you're human.
Why would you ever do something like that to an entity when you couldn't even guarantee your life?
Because the faceless man before me wasn't an entity.
Because the other faceless men weren't entities either.
The ordinary type of faceless man listed in the Bureau as easy to subdue and even capable of being killed....
were humans who had only appeared to one another as faceless men because of the Forest of the Faceless Ones.
Haa....
Beside the large letters that said, 'I am human,' there was a small, crooked line of writing.
[Mister, have you seen my mom?]