Chapter 217: Ch 217: Right there
The red thread of Nostalgia wrapped around my neck.
The first thing I felt was clarity.
The sense that everything was distinct and in its proper place.
"..."
I blinked.
I could blink.
Eyelids and eyelashes. A clear vision through the cornea...
I looked down at my hands. There were no black rubber gloves. Only the
bare skin of a human hand lay exposed there.
I clenched and unclenched my bare hand.
Yes.
This was how it used to feel.
This was the sensation.
The shock faded naturally, leaving only a trace, and what remained was
familiarity.
Natural feelings and sensations.
And in their place, a forgotten sense of familiarity entered again.
Yes. A feeling.
I clearly remembered this...
Thud.
...
...
I lowered my head.
The bare hand was gone.
All that’s left visible were divine hooves and scales, attached to amorphous,
melting flesh...
Forcibly, I put on the gloves.
Forced on.
Forced more.
"...Roe?"
More.
And more.
Done.
Human fingers.
Fingers with a silhouette resembling those of a human could be seen.
And through them, I saw it.
The floor.
On the floor lay a single thread, as if worn out and frayed.
Pilled, dirty, discolored, now completely worthless.
The thread had snapped.
"...!"
"Wait..."
It was a delusion.
Did you think Nostalgia Kitty could help you?
Did you think what you are experiencing now was contamination?
Did you believe there was a chance you could return to a time when your
body and mind had been healthy?
Did you believe you could return to the comfort of ignorance, embraced by
the peace it offered? That by taking a hint from that, you could know the
directiontowalkdiscoverawaytonavigatethisworldresetyourgoalsreturnto
beinghumanreturnhomefinallyreturnhomedidyoureallythinkofsuchthings?
Did you hope for that?
Did you believe it could happen?
Truly?
By making an absurd wish, the wrong wish, youcametorealizethingsthatyou
shouldneverhaveneededtoknowyouawakenedinagrotesquebodyyouhave
stayedintheundergroundforsixmonthsalonewithnothingbutghoststoriesand
corpsesandthefearofitallrushingin
Wearing the Nostalgia Kitty was a mistake.
Not all of its effects could be good. Havingonlyahumanshapeonlyabody
capableofinteraction is impossible. In other words these are emotions you
shouldhavefeltinthefirstplace hadyoutrulybeenhuman.
It means my fear and despair would return too.
And once experienced, they do not disappear, even if the brain and body
collapse like mush in an instant.
They remain.
Unbearable.
...
Smoke rises.
It keeps rising, filling this space completely, until there is no gap to escape
through. It could fill everything, and yet it is not enough...
...
The space.
Is not enough.
"Roe, wai—"
I stood up.
The one in the badger mask fell into the thick smoke. I carried him to the
bed. Let him rest.
I faced the sergeant.
He said nothing.
Because work hours were over, and he had neither the duty nor the
authority to control me.
So, pardo
"Um..."
.
"Is there... nothing I can do... for you?"
I opened the door of the isolation chamber.
And walked out as I was.
The black smoke pouring out filled the isolation corridor.
Red and blue lights flickered on.
Just like the 13th basement floor of the annex.
[Evacuation alert. High-grade Darkness containment failure. Evacuation
alert. High-grade Darkness containment failure. Evacuation alert. High-
grade Darkness containment failure...]
The alarms rang through the corridor.
And also inside my head.
You cannot leave the designated area!You cannot leave the designated
area!You cannot le
You people did not assign me a designated place to remain after work
hours. You only assigned me a new workplace. You did not designate my
space, not through words, not through a signature, not through implication.
Therefore.
I can choose my own place of rest after work hours.
I can go anywhere.
The
I stopped.
But the unbearable weight did not vanish.
Why doesn’t it vanish? Why? Why...
Ah.
Right.
I kept moving my feet.
Riding the smoke, the distance narrowed.
The isolation corridor soon ended. The rental storage front appeared.
Because the guards had left their posts to prepare equipment and arm
themselves to subdue the escaped containment entity, only a few remained
at their stations.
I knew.
That there was a miscalculation in their numbers.
Since no unrealistically rapid movement ability had been
observed in Contained Entity (130666), the miscalculation
that it would require at least three times longer to reach
the rental storage led to the incident.
A situation that could be recorded in exactly those terms.
"N—"
The few remaining Security Team members sank into the smoke.
From one of their bodies, I found a key, and with it, I opened the door of the
rental storage and stepped out.
I kept walking, until I arrived at the central elevator.
Ding.
The elevator stopped. I boarded it.
The floor I had to go to was already decided.
17th floor.
[The doors are opening.]
What appeared was a neat office space of glass and marble, which I had
once visited in another form.
The smoke that had filled the elevator poured outward, pressing down on
the office.
[Evacuation alert. High-grade Darkness containment failure. Evacuation
alert. High-grade Darkness containment failure. Evacuation alert. High-
grade Darkness containment failure...]
"Aaagh!"
"Run! Run...!"
Those in lab coats rushed toward the emergency exits.
Someone who inhaled the smoke collapsed. Others wailed, sobbed, burst
out laughing, clutched their heads and muttered. Some prostrated
themselves.
– The 17th floor... is where the researchers who scout for new Darkness
work.
All of them, melting mosaics.
I stepped forward among them.
Until what I sought appeared.
Toward the office I already knew.
[ Research Team 1 – A ]
There, in the clean and spacious room at the far end.
Before he could run.
Before he could hide.
I gathered the smoke spreading through the corridor, pooling it at my feet,
then sent it upward until it filled and covered an entire stretch of hallway.
Thus, I isolated Research Team 1’s office.
With smoke.
...
Now, no one inside could escape.
Darkness and stillness pooled before the hallway.
Within it, I opened the door.
"Ah."
There was only one person on night duty.
[Evacuation alert. High-grade Darkness containment failure. Evacuation
alert. High-grade Darkness containment failure. Evacuation alert. High-
grade Darkness containment failure...]
Amidst the blaring alarms, he was simply scanning CCTV footage with
rapturous eyes.
From the isolation chamber to the corridor I had passed through, Kwak
Jekang, who had been checking the monitors, lifted his head toward the
open door.
The expression of one who realized something.
"You... Or rather." [1]
"..."
"You were Kim Soleum, weren’t you?"
I advanced.
"It wasn’t the vessel. It’s always been you from the very start. From the ver
—!"
I seized his throat.
His feet dangled in the air, the white lab coat hanging beneath him.
"Here to kill me? Out of anger? Hahaha..."
At first, fear and dread filled his eyes, but soon they brimmed with ecstasy
and curiosity.
"But... aren’t you curious?"
...
"I truly cannot figure out what you are. How you harvested Dream Essence,
how you crossed between Darkness and human..."
Through the lenses of his glasses, Kwak Jekang’s eyes fixed on me.
He was smiling.
"In fact... isn’t it that you don’t even know? ...What you really are."
...
"You don’t want to remain bound to the company, do you? I can help you!
Director Cheong Dallae? Who cares about that. A researcher should be true
to research! To seek the origin! The truth! Understanding!"
His voice, frenzied, shouted. Conviction and fervor burst forth.
"If what you want is to know why you were summoned here, why you took
that form, then I will cooperate fully! No, I earnestly beg you to let me
cooperate!"
His eyes glinted with rapture.
"To die here like this wouldn’t be so bad...! But I can’t endure it, because
there are things I must see..."
...
I released my grip.
The neck in my hand dropped to the floor.
"Ugh!"
But Kwak Jekang, without complaint, looked up at me with eyes gleaming
with rapture.
"Yes! A wise choice—"
I bent my knees and crouched down before his face.
And meeting his eyes, I spoke in smoke.
Don’t want to, okay?
"...!!"
Can’t trust you, can I?
"Wait."
The smoke traced letters.
Untrustworthy thing
: Subject for deletion
"...! W-Wait."
His panting grew louder.
I gave a warning.
Warning 3
Reason : Insult directed toward employee
Cumulative warnings : 3 / Strikes left until disciplinary action : 0
From the black gas mask, smoke billowed out.
To encircle Kwak Jekang’s head.
"Wait, just—"
He stumbled backward.
I did not follow. But the smoke did.
It wrapped around his features...
The researcher, choking as his breath was gradually cut off, coughing,
wheezing, straining in agony, finally squeezed out a desperate word.
"...Then!"
With his free hand still flailing behind him, his fingers slipped again and
again until he barely managed to grasp his drawer.
A place where Twilight-class Darkness was kept in temporary storage.
From inside, fumbling, he pulled something out.
"If... if we use this, what do you think, sir?"
He barely managed to extend it toward me.
...A red thread.
Its form was strikingly similar to what I had just used.
The smoke writhed.
But then, recalling that it was not yarn, that it was thin and narrow, I stilled
it...
And I realized it had a completely different purpose.
"If we make it so betrayal is impossible, so one must be reliable, isn’t that
enough!"
There is only one Darkness that fits that description.
Red Finger
: A Darkness that literally fulfills the words of the
children’s song, ’Hook your pinky and promise, promise’.
When a single vow is sworn and a thread is looped
around the tip joint of the pinky finger, that vow will come
true without fail.
Because to break it is to die.
"The method is..."
Lips trembling, Kwak Jekang made a sound that was half laughter and half
sobbing as I tore open its packaging and pulled at his pinky finger.
"You... know this Darkness, don’t you."
There is nothing I do not know.
So long as it has been written.
I bound Kwak Jekang’s pinky finger with the red thread.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as he smiled.
"I swear. Um... I will not betray you."
I looked at him.
Invalid.
Reason : Inaccuracy
"...Then— I will cooperate fully?"
Invalid.
Reason : Inaccuracy
Slowly, I reshaped the smoke.
Accumulated failures : 2
Remaining attempts : 1
Sweat dripped down Kwak Jekang’s face.
"...In that case, could you tell me exactly what vow you want? If I make
something up again and look suspicious and die, that’ll be troublesome for
both of us!"
...
The smoke traced a sentence.
Suggestion :
I will never go against your will henceforth.
Kwak Jekang’s eyes shook.
Because he understood the encompassing, absolute meaning in the words.
But his mouth opened.
For there was no other choice.
"I... will never go against your will henceforth..."
Snap.
I pulled the red thread.
The end joint of the researcher’s pinky finger was severed.
Blood splattered.
"Ahahahaha! Ahahahahahaha!!"
Clutching his left hand as blood spurted, watching the tip of his pinky roll
across the floor, Kwak Jekang laughed.
"Thank you, sir... Thank you!"
Six minutes later.
I returned directly to the isolation chamber.
Noise was rising outside the door, but it did not matter.
Even if the two Security Team members were gone, it was fine... It only
meant they had returned safely.
I simply thought about this new situation.
About what being bound by thread had returned to me.
About fear, and about the unbearable.
...And I reached a conclusion.
’I must know.’
Why I exist here in this form.
Who exactly it was that summoned me.
To do that, first, I must uncover the secrets of this company.
What lies beneath the main building.
What exactly the Cheerful Research Institute was.
And if, even after learning all of this, there is no possible way...
...
Then I will give up.
It was at this moment that I made a decision.
[Now that’s an exciting plan, Friend!]
’...!’
I got up.
...On the bed where I had been lying alone, something was there.
A fluffy body. Pink, endearing ears. Black eyes. And a bow tie hung around
its neck.
And.
[Mr. Roe Deer.]
The call.
’...Braun?’
[Ah, at last you speak my name, Friend. How delightful this is!]
The Good Friend was right there.
Note/s:
[1] ’You’ – Two different ways to say ’you’ were used here, the first was
somewhat more casual, while the second has a more respectful undertone
depending on the context, but it can also sound condescending and meant to
be demeaning. Language is weird and context is key as per usual OTL ↵