Chapter 95

■ Final Communication Record #7 of the Late Team Leader Kang Seung-cheol

That is all I have to report.

I am sorry. I could not produce any meaningful results.

It will be difficult for me to return.

I too am in a state that can no longer be called human.

I am truly sorry I cannot return, Manager.

For my final action, I intend to explore the inside of the 「False God」.

The core of this space is certainly inside the 「False God」’s body.

So I am going to take explosives and let the 「False God」 eat me.

For that purpose, I have continued consuming 「Imitation Rice」 and deliberately spent time with the 「Exhibition Docent」 as well.

With an ordinary human body, being chewed once would be enough to cause death, but if I am a contaminated person, I should be able to hold out a little longer.

The sensation of becoming a contaminated person is not so bad.

It feels as if I am discovering muscles I have never used before for the first time, and trying to move them.

But if I drag this out any longer, I think this too will become dangerous.

I have begun to feel grateful to the 「False God」 for scattering 「Imitation Rice」.

Before this faith grows any stronger, I will carry out the final operation.

No, Manager.

Manager, Manager!

Do not let the sacrifice of our people become meaningless.

You must not collapse now.

Hold out until the end.

If I am to resent you, I will do it later, in person, when we meet.

So for now, please wish me luck.

I too wish you and the Bureau luck.

---

BOOM—!

With a roar, fragments that had once been a wall flew in every direction.

The wall I had blown up was not a concrete wall, but a partition wall made of wooden boards and the like.

So it broke through more easily than expected, and thanks to that, I had 3 spare bombs left.

I packed those bombs carefully again and headed to the Donation Hall.

Because the 「Exhibition Docent」 here was already dead, there was no one to stop me even if I touched the artifacts inside.

There, I took a large picture scroll.

Then I hung it over the hole in the wall I had blown open.

With this, the basic setup was complete.

The current time was 9:03 a.m.

There were 3 hours until noon, when the 「False God」 would wake.

There were 19 hours until 4 a.m., when it would eat people.

If my plan failed, then my remaining lifespan was 19 hours at most.

“Manager, preparations are complete.”

-Good, you worked hard.

Manager Kwon Mu-seop’s voice, as he answered me, was lower than usual.

So I asked, half-joking and half-serious,

“By any chance, is your intuition bad right now?”

-No, my intuition is not bad. Rather, it is on the good side.

“That is a relief. To be honest, mine is too.”

-Haa…….

When I deliberately joked, Kwon Mu-seop let out a deep sigh.

-This must be what they call mirror therapy. You and Cha Si-eon both, honestly……

-You are the one who gave permission. Who are you blaming?

After Kwon Mu-seop’s lament, Yoon U-jeong’s cold rebuke followed.

Kwon Mu-seop only groaned as if he had nothing to say.

“There are still 19 hours left. If you are truly worried about me, please open the passage during that time.”

-How can you say that right now……

Kwon Mu-seop groaned again.

Giving him grief again was Yoon U-jeong’s job, and I headed to the third floor while listening to that sound.

I went to the café on the third floor and gathered all the seat cushions and cushions.

Carrying them, I went back down to the second floor and stacked them neatly in front of the wall where I had hung the scroll.

At noon, I would have to withstand the ‘Looking Down’ again.

For a full 16 hours.

If I lay face-down on the bare floor like the first time, my joints and muscles would all stiffen.

Then my movements after the ‘Looking Down’ ended would also be restricted.

So I made a soft nest out of seat cushions and cushions.

After arranging cushions on top of several layers of seat cushions, a fairly decent bed was made.

I lay down on it on my back and looped a wire around my wrist.

That wire was connected to the scroll covering the wall.

Now the setup was truly complete.

“I have finished all preparations and lain down. I will wait in this state until 4 a.m. tomorrow.”

-Good.

Kwon Mu-seop murmured bitterly.

I was about to ask him, “Please wish me luck,” but closed my mouth.

I wish you luck.

It was a blessing the agents of the Special Management Bureau often used.

When Cha Si-eon first said it, I thought it truly did not suit him.

I had thought, these people coldly dig through only manuals, yet their greeting is pointlessly lyrical.

But my impression has changed a little these days.

For some reason, steel-like agents craving luck at the final moment felt mournful.

As much as that greeting had been used for a long time, and often, many people’s memories must be tangled in it too.

So I could not readily ask Kwon Mu-seop for luck.

But Kwon Mu-seop spoke first.

-I wish you luck, Do-un.

“……Thank you.”

Hoping that luck would truly follow me, I closed my eyes.

How long had I waited in that state?

CLACKCLACKCLACK—!

The sound of the 「False God」 stretching announced noon.

---

I felt my body stiffen under the 「False God」’s ‘Looking Down’.

I had gone to the trouble of preparing a place to lie down.

But once I could not move even slightly, rather than feeling cozy, I felt as if I were trapped in a coffin.

The 「False God」 subdued humans simply by looking down on them.

It made humans offer the person beside them as a sacrifice, and dropped rice as the price.

And it subordinated those who ate that rice to itself again.

It was an existence as heinous as could be.

But what was more heinous than that thing’s existence was the fact that it too was nothing but an imitation.

July 1950.

They say that in those days, the riverside of the Han River was entirely white sand.

An era when the white river sand softly crunched beneath the waves pushing toward the riverbank.

In a pit on that dazzling white sandy beach, 40 to 50 people were shot dead all on the same day, at the same time.

It was the doing of the North Korean army and those who supported them.

The reason so many people were dragged away and killed was that they were public servants or local notables.

On the other hand, the ones who informed on them and caused them to be executed were poor people who had worked as servants or delivered coal briquettes in Seoul.

But this should not be considered the people’s judgment against wicked wealthy classes.

Because the truly high-ranking people had already abandoned Seoul and fled before the Hangang Bridge was cut off.

Those who remained in Seoul were people trapped there because they had not managed to evacuate in time.

Moreover, truly ordinary people who had not put on any armband, women and children, were holding their breath and trembling in fear at the world that had changed overnight.

They hoped this harsh era would pass quickly; they did not take the lead in executing their neighbors as if their own world had arrived.

It was an era that boiled fiercely like that.

I still did not know why the memory of the space, which had gradually been buried, had revived and was swallowing people.

All I could do now was close my eyes.

Just as in that harsh era, all I could do was hope that all of this would pass soon.

---

RUUUUMBLE—!

With the sound of the ground shaking, the pressure crushing my body disappeared.

I hurriedly got up to loosen my stiff body.

Compared to yesterday, when I had been lying face-down on the bare floor, my condition was certainly decent.

CLACKCLACKCLACK—!

The 「False God」, which had been raising its head all the way to the ceiling, was moving its cervical bones and descending.

It slowly coiled through the air as it descended, like a dragon coming down to earth.

And it discovered me.

Me, the only person in the second-floor corridor.

The 「False God」 turned its head and came straight toward me.

The moment I faced it, my breath caught in my throat again.

“That person!”

“That person!”

“That person!”

At that moment, shouts came from below.

Unhesitating voices pointing me out as today’s sacrifice.

Yes, you must be boiling too.

You were dragged into this incomprehensible hell and must be getting roasted in hellfire.

I cannot blame you for enduring however you can to survive.

So let us turn off the fire first.

The era we live in now is kinder than that brutal age.

CLACK—!

I faced the 「False God」 as it came closer and closer toward me.

I felt cold sweat drip down my nape.

It was indeed a dreadful presence.

But I was not dead yet.

Not yesterday, and not today.

I had looked straight at the 「False God」, but I was alive, not dead.

That means you are not a god.

It means you are nothing but a monster pretending to be a god.

I hammered that fact into myself and barely moved my body, which was being crushed by intimidation.

RATTLE—!

I dodged the 「False God」’s wires coming toward me by a hair’s breadth.

With my body shifted to the side like that, I pulled hard on the wire looped around my right arm.

Flutter— tap—!

Then the scroll hanging behind my back fell to the floor.

What had been hidden behind the scroll was a hole in the wall.

And beyond it was a true god, the 「Half-Lotus-Seated Buddha Statues」.

Those who see God will surely die.

That was a profound principle carved into myth.

For this world that could only imitate, it must be a weighty law it had no choice but to follow.

Then what would happen if the 「False God」 faced a true god?

I had certainty, but no optimism.

Because the stake in this gamble was my life, I did not relax and waited for the result.

It was then.

Ttak—!

Ttak— ttak—!

Ttadadadadadadak—!

The 「False God」 that faced the 「Half-Lotus-Seated Buddha Statues」 began making a bizarre sound.

It stopped tall in midair and made ominous bone sounds, then began loosening the tightly interwoven joints of its bones.

Is it…… working?

Can I hope for a victory by judgment?

The 「False God」 was gradually being dismantled.

Even as it separated into individual bone fragments, the 「False God」 remained fixed in the air.

As if each and every one of those countless bones were being exhibited.

I kept watching that sight with strength in my jaw.

It did seem that some change had occurred.

But I did not know whether that counted as death.

For deaths or disappearances of undead-types like that, the standard was for the skeleton to collapse in a heap or scatter into ash.

What on earth is that state?

The way it still maintained its form felt ominous for some reason.

With impatience, I examined the 「False God」, whose mouth was open wide.

And beyond that throat, through the spine that had spread open, I saw a pitch-black sphere.

I doubted my own eyes.

“The core…….”

But my mouth moved on its own and dispelled my doubt.

“I found the core!”

Without realizing it, I shouted.

That black sphere, close to darkness.

That was certainly the core of the Special Zone.

Team Leader Kang Seung-cheol’s prediction had been correct.

The core of 「National Museum of Korea」, which could not be found anywhere, had been held inside the 「False God」’s body.

If I broke that, could I get out of here?

But it was not a distance I could reach by stretching out my hand.

That core was embedded around the middle of the 「False God」’s long spine.

In terms of position, it was in the air at the height of the second floor, and a good 20m beyond the railing of the corridor where I stood.

How do I deal with that?

The table is fully set, but how do I blow that up…….

I fiddled with the bomb in my pocket, then looked down at the first-floor corridor.

The people, startled by the strange turn, were blankly looking up at the dismantled 「False God」.

……Right. Earlier, I said we should turn off the fire.

I took my hand off the bomb and removed my gloves.

Then I entered the open mouth of the 「False God」.

Tap, tap, tap—

In that state, I stepped onto the spine bones like a suspension bridge and ran toward the core.