Chapter 35
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
[What do I look like to you?]
Swish, swish, swish.
[You look like a tall, bald man in a suit.]
[I see. If it's okay, could you put your hand on my leg?]
[I'm scared. What if you eat me?]
[I like vegetables, though.]
I communicated with the faceless man who seemed to be a child by repeatedly writing, backing away, writing, and backing away.
I sought help from someone who might know the answer.
[Eua-deulidae, give me a quick answer.]
Author : ForumBrowsingIsEasy
How to make a Faceless Man appear as he really is
If you know, tell me quickly. A child was dragged in here too.
They say I look like a Faceless Man right now.
How can I make them see me as I really am?
I'll do anything you tell me once we get out, so please tell me.
I couldn't trust the entity report, and with the seniors gone, the only thing I could trust was Eua-deulidae.
But the world was cruel.
[Comments]
Eua-deulidae : If I knew, do you think I wouldn't have told you, no matter how much I hate you?
Eua-deulidae : If there had been a way, I wouldn't have had to write, 'Don't make me do something I'll regret.'
Eua-deulidae : I only learned that because the circumstances were special.
The answer from Eua-deulidae, whom I had trusted, wasn't the one I wanted.
Ever since I entered the Bureau, the road ahead had always felt dark, but today it felt darker than ever.
How could I convince that child and protect them?
If only the child could see me as I really was, I could tell them to stand behind me, even if the child looked like a Faceless Man to me.
“Haa….”
Of course, the gallery was neither a god nor invincible.
I had known deep down that this was the kind of answer I would get, but I had still held out hope.
Plop!
The wooden stick in my hand suddenly felt heavy, so I set it on the ground and stepped back.
I must have been exhausted. But that didn't mean anything had been solved, so I couldn't just sit down.
For now, the best method was to leave the child stationed here on the outskirts, quickly determine the locations of the photos, and remove them one after another with as little time between them as possible.
In the meantime, the variant—or rather, the real Faceless Man—might appear, I might run into another civilian, or, in the worst case, the seniors might end up facing off with the child.
For now, that was the only method available.
I was just organizing my thoughts and about to speak to the child when it happened.
Scratch, scratch.
With a different sound from before, writing began to appear in large letters.
[Is this the stick you left, mister?]
Realizing something was wrong, I looked at the ground.
The wooden stick I had set down was nowhere to be seen.
The child backed away, dragging the stick and leaving a trail in the dirt.
I hurriedly wrote on the ground with my finger.
Swish, swish, swish.
[Are you holding the stick right now?]
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
[Yes. I'm holding it.]
[Then could you put the stick down here?]
Plop!
I heard something fall onto the ground.
But even though I heard the sound, I couldn't see the stick.
Was my hypothesis wrong? Then why…?
Step, step, step.
“Ah.”
Fortunately, my hypothesis hadn't been wrong. When the boy moved away from where he had been writing, the wooden stick suddenly appeared, as if it had risen from the sky.
Did an object only become visible once the last person holding it moved a certain distance away?
If so, there was a chance that even Bureau employees who had fought each other hadn't been able to recognize one another.
An employee who died without moving far from their pistol, or perhaps darkness, underbrush, or weather conditions I hadn't experienced, might have concealed the pistol.
I wondered whether I might have found a stray bullet that had missed, but….
The Faceless Man was simply too large a target for that.
I even wondered whether a hallucination would be struck in the same places when shot, but I didn't want to know the answer now.
Finding hope in a place where I couldn't see anything was enough.
There was no way to undo the cognitive distortion, but at least I could create a marker to protect the child.
With that in mind, I picked up the stick.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
[Thanks for doing what I told you. Is there anything you want to eat when we get out? I'll buy you anything.]
Swish, swish, swish.
[I want two cups of marble ice cream! Mom bought me one every time I took my medicine properly, but I took my medicine today and didn't get any ice cream.]
[If your mom says it's okay, I'll buy you a hundred cups.]
Marble ice cream, huh. What a modest request.
I had to make it out alive, if only for the child's marble ice cream.
It was heartbreaking, as a child, to get a reward for taking medicine and then suddenly stop receiving it.
…Medicine?
When I put my hand in my pocket, I felt the pill bottle.
When I opened it, dozens of red capsules glittered inside.
You fucking idiot. You absolute fucking idiot. You thick-headed idiot.
What good was bringing them along for a contingency when I was too stupid to remember them when that contingency actually happened?
Without the slightest hesitation, I took out a capsule and popped it into my mouth.
+++
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The effects last for 24 hours after ingestion, and repeated doses may be necessary depending on the severity of the symptoms.
+++
“Mom… I miss yooouuu….”
Before long, the Faceless Man in front of me disappeared.
In its place was a little girl with swollen eyes, sobbing as beadlike tears streamed down her face.
[Little one. I'll cast a spell on you.]
Though she couldn't stop crying, the child diligently wrote with her tiny hands.
Her index finger was covered in mud.
[How?]
[I'll leave one of the pills on a leaf. If you swallow it, you'll be able to see what I really look like.]
[Mom told me not to eat anything strangers give me.]
[I promise. If you take this pill, we'll find your mom, and I'll buy you a hundred cups of marble ice cream.]
[Really?]
[Of course.]
I considered tricking her by calling it candy and getting her to take it that way.
But I needed to keep her affinity from dropping as much as possible so she would follow my instructions properly from here on.
I plucked off a suitably sized leaf, dusted it off, placed the pill on it, set it on the ground, and backed away.
“Sniffle, sniffle… huh?”
The child flinched when she noticed the now-visible pill.
Before long, she approached in tiny steps, picked up the capsule, squeezed her eyes shut, and swallowed it.
“Huh?”
The child's expression brightened slightly when she tasted the strawberry flavor.
A moment later, she looked at me, her eyes widening again in surprise.
“Huh?”
It worked.
“I said I was going to cast a spell, right?”
I lowered my stance and spread my arms.
“Waaah… waaah….”
The child, who now looked about five to seven years old, saw my pose and came rushing into my arms.
“Waaahhhhh! I was scared!”
I gently held the child and slowly patted her back until she calmed down.
***
“So you have to stay right next to mister, okay?”
“Yes!”
“What if mister tells you to run?”
“I run back and hide behind a tree.”
“That's right, that's right. One more cup of marble ice cream.”
I entered the forest while keeping watch on my surroundings.
From now on, I would prove I was human to everyone I met and give them the medicine.
I would gather as many people as possible, determine the locations of the photos, and ask them to cooperate in removing them simultaneously.
That was the best plan I could come up with right now.
How long had I been walking while carrying the child and using the stick for support?
“They're easy enough to subdue, but something about the feel is kind of unsettling....”
A familiar voice came from a short distance away.
“You heard that too, mister?”
“Yeah, sounds like someone I know.”
I ran toward where the familiar voice had come from, and….
“Oh god, I'm dying! I'm dying! There's a monster right next to me!”
"Please, please, don't tie me up with this monster!"
Two men dressed as hikers were tied tightly to a tree with rope, shouting as they stared at each other.
Beside them stood Kang Chae-young, brushing off her palms.
“Senior Kang Chae-young!”
I called out to Kang Chae-young, but, as expected, it didn't seem like she could hear me.
Splish! Splish! Splish!
As I closed the distance, making my footsteps as loud as possible, her gaze shifted toward us.
Only now are you looking this way?
“Huhhh! What the hell!? You two can even merge now!?”
Click!
“Ah.”
Kang Chae-young drew a pistol from her pocket and aimed it at me.
“I don't know if you can hear me, but if you come a little closer, I'll shoot.”
Kang Chae-young took a defensive stance as she spoke in a cold voice.
“…Want to stay behind me for a bit?”
I set the child down. They immediately stood behind me and clung to my leg.
“They can split apart, too!?”
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
I slowly wrote and backed away, just in case my senior pulled the trigger.
“What the hell, why are you backing away all of a sudden… huh?”
As I backed away with the child, Kang Chae-young checked the spot we'd occupied, and her eyes widened.
[The Village Where Time Stopped, Elder.]
“This is….”
It worked.
I wrote in the spot I'd retreated to once more, placed a capsule on a leaf as before, and moved farther away.
Kang Chae-young walked toward us by the same distance we'd retreated.
[This is the medicine I received from the counseling room.]
“Park Seongbin?”
Kang Chae-young picked up the medicine I had placed on the leaf.
But she didn't swallow it right away.
To her, I probably looked like a strange Faceless Man who could merge and separate.
“There’s no noise, so you’re not the variant….”
Kang Chae-young looked back and forth between the capsule in her hand and me.
Perhaps because she knew there was no point in continuing the standoff.
“Since you're oppa, I'll trust you this once.”
Kang Chae-young swallowed the capsule without hesitation.
Good grief. What would she have done if it hadn't been safe?
Once we got out, I felt I should give her some kind of gift to thank her for trusting me.
All I had to do was wait for us to look normal to Kang Chae-young, and I'd have a reliable ally. What a good plan….
“Hide!”
I shouted at the child and dashed forward.
“Wh-whaaaat!?”
Kang Chae-young was startled by my sudden charge.
But, as befitting a field-response team employee who had survived this long, she calmly aimed her gun at me again.
And then.
Bang-!
The trigger was pulled.