Chapter 48

We went up onto the empty stage.

When we lifted the curtain and stepped behind it, half-made 「Fake Humans」 greeted us.

At the sight, a woman was horrified.

“Mom……!”

I hurriedly covered the woman’s mouth with my hand before she could scream.

The woman flinched and looked at me, and I watched the surroundings briefly before shaking my head.

Nod—

At the woman’s nod that she understood, I slowly removed my hand.

Right now, we were moving to the escape location while taking the 「Fake Humans」 with us.

That location was none other than behind the stage.

The backstage area where the stage equipment was located was as deep and wide as the audience seats.

On top of that, the ceiling height was far higher.

While the theater entrance and lobby side had only 3 floors, the back side had no fewer than 6.

The center was wide open, and only corridors with railings along the walls were stacked floor by floor.

And in the center, steel structures for moving stage equipment were tangled together in a messy web.

If that were all, it would have looked bleak like a construction site.

But on those structures, 「Fake Humans」 that seemed to number in the hundreds even by rough estimate were hanging in clusters like fruit.

No, fruit was too kind a word. That sight was closer to hundreds of hanged corpses.

The most horrifying thing was that their eyes were open, watching us.

They kept looking at us.

As if trying to learn human behavior.

As if trying to remember the end met by their seniors whose identities had been exposed.

“Phew…….”

Swallowing my tension, I passed between the legs of the 「Fake Humans」.

The others followed behind me, dragging their own 「Fake Humans」.

As we moved deeper into the stage, the shapes of the 「Fake Humans」 hanging from the steel frames grew even more bizarre.

The ones farther inside had not yet taken on human form completely, so they looked like roughly clumped lumps of meat.

Even their clothing had fused with their skin, as if human and clothes had been mixed together carelessly and hardened again.

Their forms, their overwhelming numbers, and their persistent gazes were all chilling.

The one fortunate thing was that they did not engage in predation here.

The reason was that this was their cultivation room.

Instead, an entirely different level of danger remained here.

I glanced up at the ceiling.

The ceiling was terrifyingly high and sunk in darkness.

They were probably hiding in that darkness.

「Alpha」 and 「Delta」.

Those things that even the Bureau had failed to catch and had barely managed to imprison here.

They would supposedly deploy immediately if we made a commotion on stage, so we had to desperately hold our breath.

We barely reached the stairs.

When we climbed up to the third floor along that dizzying railing, a door appeared.

When we opened that door, a green grass field spread out before us.

And in the middle of it stood something in a black uniform, its face covered with black cloth.

---

If you have rooted out a 「Fake Human」, go out to the outdoor terrace through the third-floor door behind the stage.

There, you will find the 「Thing in the Old Uniform」.

If you stand before the 「Thing in the Old Uniform」 while holding a 「Fake Human」’s hand, it will send you home.

※Do not mind it even if the 「Thing in the Old Uniform」 draws a gun. Its target is not you.

---

“In order, one person at a time.”

At my words, the person at the front held the 「Fake Human」’s hand and went before the 「Thing in the Old Uniform」.

The 「Thing in the Old Uniform」, which had stood like a mannequin, drew a gun.

BANG—!

It shot the 「Fake Human」’s heart with the gun, and the person who had been with that 「Fake Human」 disappeared at the same time.

If these people left today, everyone who had arrived before me would be gone.

Except for the ones still wearing skeleton masks.

“Thank you. Really, truly, thank you.”

And among the people leaving today was the woman who had told us about the situation here.

The woman said goodbye tearfully, then took a business card from her pocket.

“Please come by later.”

It was a coupon for a small café.

“I’ll give you coffee or pie, anything, for free until I close the shop. Mm, even if you don’t really need it, please still come at least once. You can bring lots of friends too.”

“Yes, I’ll come visit.”

When I nodded, the woman smiled and waved.

BANG—!

Along with a single gunshot, that woman also returned home.

---

“I’ll give you the money back. Please just get lost.”

It was when I returned after sending the people out.

The teddy bear, who had called me aside, suddenly said that.

“What money? The water money?”

“Yeah. I’ll give you the 100 million back, so just leave. You’ve done enough too.”

A way of speaking that mixed irritation and pleading, truly like a little kid.

Right, it was about time he started whining.

So far, the number of people who had gone out while bypassing this guy was 9 in all.

Even calculating only 30 million won per person, that was 270 million won.

It had already lightly exceeded the food money I, or more precisely, the Bureau, had paid.

And this loss would continue going forward.

It seemed he had finally realized that and come to me, but I refused flatly.

“I don’t want to.”

“Ah, why!”

“Why? Why don’t you just go somewhere else? You won’t be able to make money here anymore.”

“Don’t talk bullshit. Ah, then I’ll give you 130 million!”

“Before I came, you were making hundreds of millions here every day. But only 30 million extra?”

I asked back, not because I had any intention of negotiating, but because I was dumbfounded.

This guy could not even negotiate.

I knew the scale of the money that bastard was collecting here.

But if he offered 30 million here, who would accept it?

When I looked incredulous, the teddy bear shouted back instead.

“It’s not like I ate all of that! Then 150 million won. This is all the money I have right now. I’ll give you 50 million more, so please leave, okay?”

“Hey, is that really your money?”

“Then what am I supposed to do! I have tribute payments to make too! What does it have to do with you that you’re interfering!”

The teddy bear stamped his feet as he grew angry.

And I focused on a word that had passed by.

“Tribute payments?”

“Yeah! I paid money to come here too! I’m paying 60 million won every day to the hyung who sends me the goods! I’d only just started making money, and because of you, it all got blown away again!”

Right, the revenue structure had been a little too unusual for this idiot to have made it.

There was a separate planner, and this guy was the field manager.

“So please save me……. Please save me, hyung. You were rich to begin with, so you can leave and live well…….”

The teddy bear even knelt down completely.

There was no need to deliberately provoke this guy, who had grown utterly servile.

But I was dumbfounded, and more than angry, I felt pity as I asked,

“Did you save other people?”

“…….”

“What you mean by ‘save me’ right now is that you want me to let you squeeze other people again. But why should I listen to that request?”

“Fuck…… This fucker is acting so fucking superior…… You unemployed bastard who only met good parents…… If I’d been born like you, I wouldn’t live like this either, you fucker.”

“Don’t compare. Talk about yourself. What will you do if there are people who were born like you and still live properly?”

“Fuck! Then what am I supposed to do? I’m going to die like this! If this place gets ruined, I really will die!”

“Why not wash your hands of it instead?”

“What?”

“Take this chance to quit doing dangerous things, go outside, and live decently.”

“……Will you take responsibility if the hyungs come to catch me?”

“That’s for you to take responsibility for. It’s a land mine you stepped on.”

“You bastard…….”

Looking at the teddy bear flaring up again, I let out a sigh.

“Of course there must be an environment you can blame. But did you make no choices at all?”

“…….”

“A trash bastard latched onto you because you were in a dump. Then at least try to get out of there before you ask for help.”

The teddy bear said nothing more.

Because of the costume head he wore, I could not tell what kind of face he was making.

The teddy bear costume head was only cute.

---

Day 6.

Ding-dong— ding-dong—

The performance began again.

With a dry, crumbly biscuit in my mouth, I remained on the third floor today too and looked down at the first floor.

Choi Sang-eun and the people were now moving naturally.

By contrast, the teddy bear was alone today too.

It seemed he had left the skeletons at the base in case Choi Sang-eun persuaded them, but aside from that, he still appeared to have no countermeasure at all.

This is troublesome.

The 「National Theater」’s escape routine was almost established.

The people who came first told those who came later the escape method, then left.

If the stay was shortened, there would be no particular need for food either.

They could just fast for 1 day, well.

There was still quite a bit of bottled water and biscuits I had bought left too, so we could stockpile it for emergencies.

As long as this circulation structure was maintained, escaping the 「National Theater」 was not difficult at all.

The only problem remaining now was that teddy bear.

Honestly, I had thought that once his source of money dried up, he would leave on his own.

He had earned plenty over a month, so I thought he would go without lingering attachment.

But judging by what he said about tribute payments, it seemed that bastard was also in a position where he could not move as he pleased.

On top of that, his income was cut off, while only the expense called tribute payments was piling up day by day.

When cornered like this, whether human or animal, one became ferocious. So how do we drive that out……?

Cha Si-eon had already warned me yesterday.

“Contaminated person Kim Hae-seong’s condition is unstable. He may cause an incident soon.”

Right, it looked that way to me too.

So I asked Cha Si-eon in return what he was going to do about that damn teddy bear.

“As a result of internal review, we confirmed that Kim Hae-seong intentionally damaged the Survival Rules placed in the performance hall. We have decided to regard this as intentional obstruction of official duties and book him.”

“However, it is difficult to directly connect it to loss of life, so requesting the management contractor to respond is difficult under the current circumstances.”

“I also suggested deploying our team, but entering an A-grade danger zone requires going through an internal approval procedure. It appears approval will take some time.”

This will not work for that reason, and that will not work for this reason.

Cut it out already, you damn public servants…….

What should I really do?

I had to leave soon too.

The appropriate stay period inside a Special Zone set by the Bureau was 9 days at longest.

If I ignored this regulation and remained indefinitely in a Special Zone, contamination could begin.

On top of that, I could not eat these biscuits anymore.

It was not as if I had done something grand, so if only that teddy bear bastard were not here, I felt like I could leave things to the people behind me and go.

Of course, if that teddy bear went mad and ran wild, I did not have any particularly sharp move either.

Hmm, what should I do?

I thought while holding a biscuit I could no longer swallow in my mouth.

Ding-dong— ding-dong—

The performance ended again.

The sorting proceeded quickly too.

“Two people, three fakes!”

After Choi Sang-eun informed me of the situation, he tried to come up to the third floor.

But the teddy bear suddenly began creeping toward the people.

“Wh-what……! Why are you doing this?”

Choi Sang-eun grew startled and wary, but the teddy bear simply passed Choi Sang-eun by.

Then he spoke earnestly to the woman standing behind him.

“Noona, would you like to come to our side? Our side has more food too.”

Dude, even in this situation, you…….

Dumbfounded, I looked toward the woman the teddy bear was pestering.

The woman who had made the teddy bear even stupider was wearing a beige cardigan and a long skirt.

Her outfit alone did feel pretty, but from above, I could not see her face well.

But just then, the woman looked up toward me.

Our eyes met, and I dropped the biscuit I had been holding in my mouth.

……Ms. Baek Sa-ra?