Chapter 35
Screech, screech, screech.
[What does the uncle look like to you?]
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
[I can see a tall bald man in a suit.]
[I see. If it's okay, could you put a hand on the uncle's leg for me once?]
[I'm scared. What if the uncle eats me?]
[But the uncle likes vegetables.]
I kept writing and backing away, writing and backing away, talking to the faceless man who seemed to be a child.
While asking for help from someone who might know the answer.
[AarghComeAtMe, quick answer please]
Author : ForumBrowsingIsEasy
How to make a faceless man show his true form
If you know, tell me fast. The kid got dragged in here too.
Right now I'm apparently being seen as a faceless man.
How do I make my true form show?
I'll do whatever you tell me once I get outside, so please teach me.
The entity report couldn't be trusted either, and with the seniors gone, AarghComeAtMe was the only thing I could trust.
But the world was cruel.
[Comments]
AarghComeAtMe : Even if I hate your guts, if I knew, do you think I wouldn't tell you?
AarghComeAtMe : If there were a way, I wouldn't have written that "don't make me regret it" line in the first place.
AarghComeAtMe : The only reason I even found that out was because it was a special situation.
The answer from AarghComeAtMe, whom I'd trusted, wasn't the answer I wanted.
Ever since I'd joined the Bureau, things had always felt dark, but today it felt even more hopeless.
How was I supposed to persuade that child and protect her?
If only the child could see me normally, even if I looked like a faceless man to her, I could've at least told her to stand behind me.
"Haa...."
Of course, the gallery wasn't a god, and it wasn't invincible.
I knew deep down that I'd probably get this kind of answer, but I still couldn't help hoping.
Thud!
The wooden stick I was holding suddenly felt heavy, so I set it down on the ground and backed away.
I must be tired. But even so, there was still nothing solved, so I couldn't just sit down.
For now, the best thing I could do was leave the child here on the outskirts, figure out where the photos were as fast as possible, and peel them off one by one with as little delay as possible.
In the meantime, the variant—or the real faceless man—might appear, and other civilians, or in the worst case the seniors, might end up confronting the child.
That was the only option for now.
Just as I finished sorting through my thoughts and was about to speak to the child...
Screech, screech.
With a different sound from before, the writing suddenly began to get bigger.
[Did the uncle leave this stick here?]
Noticing something felt off, I looked down at the ground.
The wooden stick I had set down was gone.
The child backed away, making dragging marks in the dirt.
I hurriedly wrote on the ground with my finger.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
[By any chance, are you holding the stick right now?]
Screech, screech, screech.
[Yes. I'm holding it.]
[Then could you put the stick down here for a moment?]
Thud!
I heard something fall to the ground.
But even after hearing the sound, I still couldn't see the stick.
Was my hypothesis wrong? Then why....
Step, step, step.
"Ah."
Fortunately, the hypothesis wasn't wrong. When the boy stepped away from where he'd been writing, the wooden stick suddenly appeared, as if it had sprung up from nowhere.
Does that mean the last person to hold an item has to move a certain distance away before it shows itself?
Then if Bureau employees had ever fought each other, there was a chance they wouldn't have recognized one another.
Or maybe an employee had died without ever moving away from the pistol, or darkness, brush, or weather conditions I'd never experienced had obscured it.
I wondered if I might have found a stray bullet, but....
The faceless man was far too huge a target for that.
I even wondered whether, if I shot a hallucination, the same part would be hit, but for now I didn't want to know the result.
It was enough that I'd found hope in a place where nothing could be seen.
Even if I couldn't dispel the perceptual distortion, at least I should be able to make some kind of marker to protect the child.
With that thought, I picked up the stick.
Screech, screech, screech
[Thanks for doing what I told you. If we get out, is there anything you'd like to eat? I'll buy it all for you.]
Scritch, scritch, scritch
[I want two marble ice creams! Mom used to buy me one every time I took my medicine, but today I took my medicine and didn't get any ice cream.]
[If I can get your mom's permission, I'll buy you a hundred.]
Marble ice cream, huh. How modest.
Even for the sake of the child's marble ice cream, I absolutely had to get out of here alive.
When you're a kid and you take medicine and then suddenly don't get the reward, how heartbreaking is that.
...Medicine?
I put a hand in my pocket and felt a pill bottle.
When I opened the bottle, dozens of red capsules glittered inside.
Dumbass. Total dumbass. You goddamn blockhead.
What's the point of bringing them for emergencies if I'm too stupid to remember them when the emergency actually comes?
Without the slightest hesitation, I took out one capsule and shoved it into my mouth.
+++
Red pill: Shows therapeutic effects against mental illnesses such as hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, PTSD, and similar conditions.
Effective for 24 hours after ingestion, and repeated doses may be necessary depending on symptom severity.
+++
"Mom... I miss Mom sooooo much...."
Before long, the faceless man in front of me disappeared.
And in its place was a little girl with puffy eyes, crying bead-like tears.
[Little one. The uncle's going to cast a spell on you.]
Even while still crying, the child diligently wrote with her tiny hand.
The child's index finger was covered in mud.
[How?]
[I'll leave one pill on a leaf. If you swallow this pill, you'll be able to see the uncle's true form.]
[Mom told me not to eat anything strangers give me.]
[I promise. If you only take this pill, we'll find your mom, and I'll buy you 100 marble ice creams.]
[Really?]
[Of course.]
I even considered tricking her by calling it candy and getting her to eat it first.
But if I wanted her to keep following instructions later, I couldn't afford to lower her favorability too much.
I tore off a leaf of a suitable size, brushed off the dust, put the pill on top of it, set it on the ground, and stepped back.
"Sniff, sniff... huh?"
The child flinched as if she'd found the pill after it became visible.
After a moment, she came toward it in tiny little steps, picked up the capsule, squeezed her eyes shut, and swallowed it.
"Ah?"
The child's expression brightened a little at the strawberry flavor.
A moment later, she looked back at me again, her eyes widening in surprise.
"Huh?"
It worked.
"Didn't the uncle say he'd cast a spell?"
I lowered my stance and spread both arms.
"Wah... waaaah...."
Seeing my pose, the child—now looking about five to seven years old—came running into my arms and hugged me.
"Waaahhhhhhhh! I was so scared!"
I gently wrapped my arms around the child's body and slowly patted her back until she calmed down.
***
"So I have to stay right next to the uncle?"
"Yes!"
"If the uncle tells you to run?"
"Run back and hide behind a tree."
"Good, good. One more marble ice cream."
Keeping watch on our surroundings, we entered the forest.
From now on, we'll confirm everyone we meet is human and give them the medicine.
After gathering as many people as possible, we'll figure out where the photos are and ask everyone to help remove them at the same time.
That was the best plan I could think of right then.
How long had I been walking while carrying the child and leaning on the stick?
"It's definitely easy to subdue them, but... the feel is somehow off, y'know...."
A familiar voice came from a little farther away.
"Did you hear that too, Uncle?"
"Yeah. Sounds like someone I know."
Following the familiar voice, we ran toward where it had come from....
"I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die! There's a monster right next to me!"
"Please, please don't leave me tied up with this monster!"
Two old men in hiking clothes were tied tightly to a tree with rope, screaming while staring at each other.
And beside them was Kang Chae-young, clapping the dust off her hands.
"Senior Kang Chae-young!"
I called out to Kang Chae-young, but as expected, my voice didn't seem to reach her.
Squelch! Squelch! Squelch!
As I closed the distance with heavy footsteps, her gaze turned toward us.
Only now are you looking this way?
"What the hell! Now you two are merging too!?"
Click!
"Ah."
Kang Chae-young pulled a pistol from her pocket and aimed it at me.
"I don't know if you'll hear me, but if you come even a little closer than that, I'll shoot."
Kang Chae-young took up a cold, wary stance.
"...Would you stay behind the uncle for a bit?"
I set the child down. She immediately stood behind me and clung to my leg.
"It separates too!?"
Screech, screech, screech.
I slowly wrote and backed away, in case my senior might pull the trigger.
"What the hell, why are you backing off all of a sudden... huh?"
As the child and I backed away, Kang Chae-young checked the spot where we had been standing and her eyes widened.
[The village where time has stopped, elder.]
"This is...."
Got it.
I wrote again where we'd backed away to, placed the capsule on the leaf as before, and moved farther away.
Kang Chae-young moved toward us as we backed away.
[It's medicine I got from the counseling room.]
"Park Seongbin?"
Kang Chae-young picked up the pill on the leaf.
But, as expected, she didn't swallow it right away.
The me she was seeing was probably some strange faceless man with the ability to merge and split apart.
"Looks like there's no noise, so it isn't the variant...."
Kang Chae-young alternated her gaze between the capsule in her hand and me.
Maybe because she knew there was no point in keeping the standoff going.
"Since you're an oppa, I'll trust you once."
Kang Chae-young said that and swallowed the capsule without hesitation.
Good grief. What if I was wrong?
Once we got out of here, I figured I'd have to give her some kind of gift to thank her for trusting me.
Now all we had to do was wait until Kang Chae-young saw us as normal, and we'd have a dependable ally....
"Hide!"
I shouted at the child and dashed forward.
"Eh, w-what!?"
Kang Chae-young was startled by my sudden charge.
But as expected of a field response team member who'd survived this long, she quickly composed herself and pointed the gun back at me.
And then.
Bang-!
The trigger was pulled.