Chapter 36
Bang-!
The instant the gunshot rang out, my cheek burned hot.
It seemed the bullet Kang Chae-young fired had grazed my cheek.
To think my life would be threatened not by an entity, but by a senior.
In the time that seemed to slow to a crawl, two figures came into view.
Kang Chae-young, her pupils trembling as she held her gun on me.
“Behind you!”
Choi Yuna, charging toward Kang Chae-young at terrifying speed.
At this rate, Kang Chae-young would be subdued by Choi Yuna.
Then I'd have to take on Choi Yuna alone.
“Ha!”
Swish!
Kang Chae-young quickly darted to the side.
It was something I could never have imagined.
Unless she had eyes in the back of her head, there was no way she could have dodged that nimbly.
But seniors don't have eyes in the back of their heads, so there was only one conclusion.
“What the hell is this crazy bitch doing, suddenly coming at me like that!”
That meant the capsule medicine had kicked in, and my voice had reached Kang Chae-young's ears.
Whoosh!
The hand Choi Yuna had reached out from behind to hug Kang Chae-young sliced through empty air, and in that gap Kang Chae-young lunged at Choi Yuna.
“Can't you keep your damn wits about you!”
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
After that, a shockingly one-sided beating followed.
Kang Chae-young pummeling Choi Yuna all over with perfect regularity, as if she were pulling off a 108-step staircase 40-hit combo.
That was only natural, because as long as the other person appeared to be a faceless man, anything Choi Yuna did would look like she was just standing there.
How could you dodge violence when you couldn't see the wind-up or the process?
“Oppa!”
Kang Chae-young suddenly stopped beating her and looked at me.
Was it really the time to look at me?
“Huh?”
“Got any more pills?”
“Plenty.”
“Bring them over here.”
Choi Yuna stood quietly with a serious expression.
Her eyes held a mix of surprise and suspicion.
As I got closer, Kang Chae-young wrote something on Choi Yuna's palm with her finger.
Then Choi Yuna looked toward me with a startled expression.
More precisely, a little above my head, around where the faceless man's head would be.
“Have her take the medicine, oppa.”
“If I go close, won't she bite me?”
“I explained it all while beating her.”
“What do you mean, how do you do that? Anyone could tell it was just one-sided pummeling.”
“Aaaagh! The monster is merging!”
“What is that! Save me! Please! Anyone there!”
The two men tied to the tree started screaming as I approached the seniors.
“Could you please get those guys to quiet down a little?”
“Those old men already scared our innocent kid.”
“Once oppa gives her the medicine.”
“Okay.”
After Kang Chae-young wrote on her palm again, Choi Yuna opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue.
“Just feed me. I won't bite.”
I took a capsule from the pill bottle and gently placed it on the tongue she'd stuck out.
Though the pill itself couldn't be seen, Choi Yuna sensed something foreign on her tongue, closed her mouth for a moment, and rolled her tongue around.
Gulp.
She swallowed the medicine.
“By rough estimate, it should kick in in about a minute, so leave them like that. Give me two more pills.”
“Yes.”
With the pills in hand, Kang Chae-young walked over to the men tied to the tree.
Smack!
“Mmph!”
She forcibly stuffed the capsules into their mouths and covered them until they swallowed, only letting go after confirming their Adam's apples moved.
“Phew! Please, please, just spare my life! I'll never go near the mountain again... huh?”
“Aigoo, I'm going to die, I'm going to die! Police, where's the police... huh?”
The old men, who had been shouting themselves hoarse, were startled when the medicine kicked in and they saw the scene in front of them.
“Deoksik!”
“Hyung!”
And then they looked at each other, tied together by the same rope, and cried out in reunion.
“Looks like they're acquainted.”
“Like us?”
“Right. Then... senior?”
“Nice to meet you.”
When I turned around, Senior Choi Yuna was waving.
It didn't feel like we'd been apart for very long, but somehow it felt like ages had passed.
“Now you can come over here!”
At my shout, the child came running and clung to my leg.
I stretched out my arms and picked her up.
“Who's she?”
“I met her while looking for the photos. Thanks to her, I thought of using the medicine.”
“So the thing you saw as a merger was probably just because you were holding her...”
The old men had reacted similarly when Chae-young and I gathered, so that was probably the right answer.
Finding teammates and finding a way out eased my mind a little.
Because the variable of killing someone had disappeared.
Of course, the possibility of being killed by someone had disappeared too.
That said, if you asked whether that was as comforting as the answer before, it didn't compare at all.
I don't know whether to call this humanity or selfishness.
But as of now, I didn't have the luxury to ponder philosophical questions like that.
“Go stay with those sisters over there. I'll talk to these uncles for a bit.”
Once I put the child down, she ran straight to the seniors without a trace of caution.
With looks like that, no wonder the kids don't even stay wary.
“Have the seniors subdued any other faceless men?”
“No. She was going to be the first one.”
“These two are the first here! Ah, come here. Want some candy?”
Thankfully, the child's mother didn't seem to have been subdued.
After confirming that the child had gone to Kang Chae-young, I approached the two men tied to the tree.
“Have you seen any other monsters besides us?”
“As soon as I heard the sound of something scratching a blackboard, a monster appeared in front of me, and when I came to, I was tied to a tree.”
“Same with me. I encountered the monster, and when I came to, I was tied up...”
It seemed both of them had first encountered Kang Chae-young after the first photo was removed.
Whether to call that lucky or unlucky, I couldn't say.
“Did either of you remove the photo attached to the tree by any chance?”
“I-I did. I took it off because I was wondering what it was, and then suddenly I heard that blackboard-scratching sound...”
The man they called Deoksik took a photo out from inside his clothes.
A faceless man standing blankly against a white background.
Just how in the world do you decide to take something like that off while in your right mind?
The good thing, at least, was that even after quite some time had passed, no more photos had been removed.
If everyone here was everyone the forest had swallowed up, that was the best-case scenario.
Even if there were stragglers, it would mean no one had thought to remove a photo.
“Excluding the child, that's five people.”
“What do you mean 'the child'! She has a pretty name, Minseo! Right?”
Turning around, I saw Kang Chae-young and the child in her arms, candy in her mouth.
“They've only just met, and they've already introduced themselves.”
“If you share food, you're a good person, right?”
Minseo nodded at Kang Chae-young's words with a lollipop in her mouth.
“I have candy too.”
“I said that toothpaste-flavored thing isn't candy!”
A warm, tension-relieved atmosphere drifted around us.
“Let's make a plan.”
But this atmosphere didn't last very long.
We were still inside the Forest of the Faceless Ones, after all.
At Yuna's words, I untied the old men from the ropes.
“Thank you, thank you!”
“You saved our lives!”
“Thanks are all well and good, but to get out of here, we need your help. Please cooperate.”
“Of course! Deoksik and I hike mountains a lot, so our stamina is something we're confident in.”
The two of them were extremely cooperative.
Come to think of it, if I were them and was told I could get out after witnessing three faceless men merge, I'd have done anything.
Though I didn't get to see what the faceless men looked like when they merged, so I wouldn't know.
“The forest is narrow, and there are too many variables to split people up, so let's stay together and locate the photos.”
The seniors nodded.
So we set off to locate the photos.
***
“We've figured out where they all are.”
“The problem is, even if we try to remove the photos at the same time, we're one person short...”
Since the forest wasn't wide, it didn't take long to find the remaining six photos.
Every photo showed a faceless man standing against a white background.
The problem was that the photo Deoksik had removed happened to be the one in the center of the forest.
The other photos were evenly distributed all over the forest.
As if to prevent any easy exploit, none of them were kept close to one another.
“Senior Yuna, did you bring the wooden doll?”
If it was the wooden doll used in the hospital, it would surely be enough to use as a stand-in when removing the photos.
“Sorry, not this time. Something else.”
What she took out from her arms were three straw dolls.
“What's the effect of these?”
“Life Link. You share pain, and if one dies the others die with them, but the pain is reduced to one-third, and your life becomes three times sturdier.”
“Not bad.”
“Isn't this a Grade 3 item? You must've gone through a lot.”
If it was Yuna, this was exactly the sort of perfect survival prep she'd make.
The only small problem was that, in this situation, the wooden doll would have been much better.
This thing is really good, it really feels like a cheat item, but if I try to use it well here, I don't have any way to explain it...
If you remove one photo and take the other five at the same time, the variant doesn't appear.
That was why there was only one plan we could use.
I handed the mountain-climbing duo the pistols Choi Yuna and I were carrying.
“Here you go. They're pistols, but you know how to shoot, right?”
“Of course. If you're a Korean man, you know how to shoot.”
“In a little while, you'll hear that same blackboard-scratching sound from before. When that happens, head to the place we decided on earlier and get ready to remove the photos.”
Since the report said noise would ring out every time a photo was removed, it would be the same this time too.
“Thirty seconds before you remove the photos, fire your guns into the sky, and 30 seconds later remove the photos. Your younger brother should keep his gun on him for protecting Minseo.”
“Understood. I swear on both my balls, I'll protect the kid as safely as possible.”
“Please. If that monster from before appears, don't fight it—fire several shots into the sky and run away however you can.”
According to the entity report, the variant wouldn't appear until two photos were removed, but we had to prepare for the possibility.
Since the odds of civilians properly handling sudden developments were incredibly low.
After telling the two of them the plan, I went over to Minseo.
“Minseo, from now on the hiking uncles will take care of you.”
“I like the sisters and the uncles better.”
“From now on we're going to bring your mom over here. So just wait a little while, okay?”
“Really?”
I nodded at Minseo, whose eyes went wide the moment she heard the word mom.
“Of course. So listen to the hiking uncles and wait here. We'll bring her right away.”
“Yes!”
As I patted Minseo's lively head, Kang Chae-young and Choi Yuna came over.
“Here's a doll.”
Choi Yuna pressed a crudely made little straw doll into my hand.
“According to the report, we won't need it, but take it for now.”
Then Kang Chae-young also picked up a doll from Choi Yuna's palm.
“Go to the spot where you're removing the photo, take one off, run to the next point, and wait for the signal.”
“Got it.”
There might be more faceless men, but everyone here had taken the medicine and could see their true forms, so it didn't matter.
“Still, we're at the final stretch.”
Remove one photo, and if the remaining five are removed at the same time, it's over.
The escape route from the forest was finally starting to take shape.
.
.
.
Except for Kang Chae-young, who had gone to remove a photo, the rest of us gathered at the center of the forest and waited for the noise.
And a little while later.
Kreeeeeeek!
“Ugh!”
“Agh!”
A chilling screech rang out, and everyone clutched their heads.
“I think a photo got removed.”
“Looks like it.”
Thankfully, just like the noise at the beginning, it soon vanished from my head.
I lifted my head to tell the hiking duo, who were with Minseo, about the plan.
“Like I said before, please move to your assigned positions...”
That was when it happened.
Zzzt.
A faceless man was slowly closing in from a little ways away from the group.
Zzzzzzzzzzt!
Every time I looked at it, noise crawled into my vision and the sensation of the world cracking apart washed over my whole body.
“Go to the place I mentioned earlier! Hurry!”
Even though the third photo still hadn't been torn off yet.
The faceless man's variant—no, the one and only original—had now revealed itself right before our eyes.