Jin Nasol looked up.
Something peered around the corner of the alley, staring right at her. A tail-less mer-child.
It hurled something at her.
Whoosh.
The projectile glittered in the dim light.
Without hesitation, Jin Nasol reached out, grabbed the fleeing employee by the scruff and stopped the attack.
"Hicc!"
The moment glass shards struck the employee, bubble-like shards erupted across his body, encasing head and hands in a crystalline cage. Then, over it all, a geometric, traditional seal appeared, as if stamped in midair.
'…The Bureau!'
[Warning. You are currently obstructing a rescue operation in a supernatural disaster.]
[Cease obstruction of official duty and surrender. Surrender. Surrender…]
The seal emitted a recorded warning.
It was mandatory whenever a civilian obstructs a Disaster Bureau operation. At the same time, it functioned as an item. Hearing that broadcast drains aggression and compels compliance.
Well, that is, for ordinary people.
'Nuisance.'
A vein pulsed in Jin Nasol's temple beneath the golden mask of the elite team.
Those weren't merfolk fledglings but agent punks in disguise. "How irritating."
"Ugh…"
Jin Nasol kicked the bound employee aside, then, as if by magic, donned her monocle to identify the agents.
Two agents stood beyond the corner.
'Should I pursue them?'
No, no. The priority was finishing the mission quickly and racking up points. Maximal effect for minimal effort. That meant ditching tedious item searches and boarding the escape vessel to clear the Darkness. But…
"What a fucking drag."
A severed nail soared like a projectile, embedding itself in the far wall. "…!"
Her irritation boiled over into action. Nails screeched as they gouged the wall, catching on the corner.
Along with a few of Agent Choi's cut bangs.
"Agent!"
"Uck, what a piece of work."
But these were Black Tortoise Team 1 veterans, adept at one-on-one combat. Even in a child's form, Agent Choi dodged with practiced ease. "When you reel in the wire, pursue."
He moved…
Then Assistant Manager Butterfly seized the wire and fired it back, aiming at the mer-child behind the agent.
The two Disaster Bureau agents rolled aside and returned fire. Shattered glass shards flew.
"Argh!"
Jin Nasol pulled the bound employee toward her using the wire on her forefinger, blocking the shot.
The Daydream Inc. employee was hit by a Bureau restraint round and screamed, "Ahh! A mer-child! Merfolk!!"
The fool cried as if a Bureau bullet would kill them, though they weren't even scratched.
And they still saw only a mer-child—clearly his brain was completely gone…
...Hmm.
Jin Nasol peered through her monocle again.
Behind the two agents, there was one more.
A mer-child.
...!
At that moment, one of the unusual 'agent' entities—slightly larger— shifted its position to better hide the mer-child.
"Aha."
A-squad's Assistant Manager Butterfly narrowed her eyes. She tossed the bound employee at the agent, then sprang the wire nail again. This time, toward the mer-child behind the agent.
"…!"
Ping.
The nail clicked off the wall and flew true.
The Bureau agent moved again.
"Ha."
Jin Nasol seized the opening, sliding backward out of the standoff. For a brief moment, her headache vanished in a rush of exhilaration. Because if the Bureau agents had truly committed to defending that point… there was only one possibility left.
'Is a mer-child considered a civilian?'
This meant…
—Critical intel for a manual revision!
Huge points.
Jin Nasol's eyes shone fiercely.
Anger aside, she had to board that escape vessel immediately. A clear priority had emerged.
'If all else fails, take the mer-child hostage.'
Jin Nasol casually snapped off the part attached to her nail and hurled it forward.
A smoke screen billowed up.
Using the gap in the obscured view, she slipped back through the alley by a hair's breadth.
Her mind had conceived the simplest, most violent solution, yet her relentless focus on points demanded a smarter plan, and the words tumbled out…
"Hey."
Jin Nasol used her wire to eavesdrop, then yanked in the other rookie employee who'd been plotting an escape route in the meantime. The woman wearing the pony mask.
"Yes, yes?"
"Draw their attention to you."
"Me?"
Kang Yihak, the pony-masked rookie, pointed at herself in surprise, eyes wide.
"You'll at most be detained, thrown in a cell, then released. You're still a rookie—no obstruction record, no grounds to lock you up."
"Oh…"
Kang Yihak glanced back, then beamed.
"Brilliant plan, Assistant Manager! Then let's have Mr. Goat do it. Look at him, he's pretending to be a dead rat anyway…"
"One gold piece per day of detention."
"I respectfully volunteer."
The unrelenting gold-worshipper grinned and gave an immediate thumbs-up.
"Just one thing, Assistant Manager. If you're lying, I'll squeal your personal info to the Bureau, then take out a long-term secured loan in your name on the way out."
"Go right ahead."
Leaving the rookie as a decoy, Jin Nasol stepped back and began to run for a quick escape…
Khiiiiiiing—
Blades rained down.
"…!!"
Bell-tipped traditional swords poured out all around, blocking her path and embedding in Jin Nasol's legs.
'…!'
A wave of excruciating pain shot up her limbs, paralyzing them. Most of the Bureau's anti-human gear is designed to kill marked villains when minimal deaths are required in a supernatural disaster. They were tools for subduing and killing as needed.
"Oh, come on!"
One agent in the form of a tailless mer-child laughed, shoved Kang Yihak aside, and charged toward her.
'That goddamn bastard.'
It was targeting the elite team.
Occasionally a veteran agent would behave like this.
Field records and testimonies from the elite team were prime intel. And besides, anyone who rose to that level at Daydream Inc. was assumed villainous.
Locked up, you could squeeze them for anything.
'Should I just kill this fucker?'
Whoever it was, he's been obstructing her at every turn.
Crawling on her belly, Jin Nasol reached into her suit and drew out a lethal weapo
BOW DOWN
A tremendous will slammed into the entire alley.
Everything froze.
Contextless violence.
The fleeing employees of Daydream Inc., the goat mask with his head bowed, the mer-children, the agents from the Disaster Management Bureau, and even the pony mask mid-gesture.
All of them could only move their eyeballs, looking upward.
A massive eye was watching.
No. It was language.
■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■
A sinister string of words was being spoken aloud, and the very sound became a gaze directed at humankind. Words that couldn't be described— language from beyond, fundamentally unknowable, conceptually ungraspable—came crashing down from another dimension. Be grateful that you can't understand it! The moment you do, it's irreversible!
One of Daydream Inc. Corporation's employees, collapsed on the ground, began frothing at the mouth, convulsed, and ended up strangling themselves.
Speak The mer-children who had been laughing suddenly collapsed.
Bow down
Kang Yihak gaped up at the sky, vacant, then slammed her forehead into the ground.
A muttering voice.
Speak
It wasn't even saying that in the first place! But when filtered through human comprehension, that's what it sounded like. Oh, the whispers of the abyss. Deep. So deep So alluring We must escape But we cannot escape?????? So alluring and so profane????? We must worship it????
"D-Death…"
One person said so. Muttered.
"That guy said we're all gonna die. Told us to prepare for death, uh…"
"What are you talking about?"
Jin Nasol barely managed to grab someone by the collar—not just anyone, but the rookie in the goat mask.
"That guy told us to prepare for death! Death! The cat! That monster, Kim Sol…!"
A mouth appeared above the alley.
A massive shadow of an open mouth, as if to swallow everything. It began to speak.
It's still reading something! It's reading—no, no…!
Damn it.
"Agent Choi loaded the strongest mental defense round he had into the glass handgun, feeling an overwhelming urge to bite down on his own tongue. There were only three rounds—prioritization was crucial." What? Wait.
The narration and thoughts were starting to merge.
"Even the thoughts and words of Daydream Inc.'s employees are now being understood. Agent Bronze swallowed hard. …The supernatural structure of the ghost story, which normally only presents hallucinations to children, is being ignored."
Hold on.
"A chilling sense of crisis crawled up the scar on his neck." This phenomenon that's appearing right now, this is…
"Annihilation-sanctioned?"
"What do you want?! What do you want from us?! Why are we dying?! I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I'll do anything—I don't even know what I'm supposed to do, but I'll do it! Please, just go awa— "
"..."
"..."
It vanished.
Twinkle Twinkle Ocean Palace and Mermaid Grave returned to view.
Thud—
They collapsed to the ground, eyes vacant. The indescribably vast ■■■ had disappeared, and the void slowly filled…
And then, a grim premonition.
"Just now you said you'd do anything…"
All eyes turned to the black goat mask-wearing Baek Saheon. "If I go away, you'll do anything, you said…"
As Baek Saheon's face went ashen—
Jingle.
"…!"
Something emerged silently from the darkness at the alley's end. "That…"
It was a black cat.
The red-eyed quadruped stared blankly at the humans. A symbol of misfortune, a history of fear and persecution, a familiar street animal passing through everyday life.
The protagonist of the most famous short horror tale.
The cat stepped forward.
"…!"
A crackling sound accompanied its shifting form.
Tension rippled through the crowd. They halted their complex rivalries and conflicts to watch the moving creature.
Before the black-goat mask, it opened its mouth.
[This way]
"…!"
A will was spoken.
[This way]
The cat's gaze was directed towards that side.
Baek Saheon staggered to his feet, glared at the cat with a pale face, then began to move.
The black quadruped walked alongside him. Humans and mer-children alike staggered along…
'It's working, it's working.'
Even if inside he was Kim Soleum swallowing cold sweat and tears!
– Do you have a sticker for tattoos that reads aloud anything I input, like an app? …Ah! You can print it on the spot?
Yes, that's right.
At Moonlight Tattoo Shop, Kim Soleum had purchased a music-note tattoo sticker that 'transmits thoughts as spoken words' and applied it to his pawpad. He moved on all fours, desperately projecting composed authority. In any case, he was relieved that events were unfolding as intended.
'I thought I'd actually go crazy!'
A few hours earlier.
'Huu.'
Emerging from Moonlight Tattoo Shop, Kim Soleum shed his cat guise and returned to being a child.
He surveyed the surroundings—once again a blissful paradise—and stifled a shudder.
The old stamp was now tattered. One more use and it'd be spent…. But this was absolutely a deed that had to be done in human form. "I finally have the chance to try it."
He retrieved the item he had been saving.
Deep within the inventory tattoo on his skin, he at last drew out the object he'd bought long ago at the Space Shopping Mall.
'Huu.'
Right then…
It was a strange tome. Its cover was bound in human skin, finished with dark red wax, bearing human faces mid-scream.
Necronomicon
The Book of Death.
Kim Soleum stared at the ancient grimoire, its red-wax seal seeming to hold back unspeakable secrets.
'…Braun recognized it.'
But there's one thing about it.
– This is not the Necronomicon you're thinking of.
It's exactly as he said back then.
Kim Soleum reverted to cat form and shifted his forepaws. To reduce suspicion.
By carefully feeling beneath the wax with his paws… he could find it. There, at the edge, was a tiny hinge.
Of course. This thing…
'This grim tome was really just a bookcase.'
When he opened it—
Click.
He saw a wireless-bound softcover with neat, standard fonts and cover.
네크로노미콘
Easy Korean Revised Edition Now Available!
A slick yet tacky modern publication.
"..."
At this point you're probably thinking, '????' but just bear it a bit more. He flipped the cover. Beyond the table of contents, the text began.
Wijah e'i wijah e'i enkuru ga zakayip hirigeubu someruka bua-teu ni— allat hotelp peurigibeu winiwi-keu zaiche-ruleuge
…Did you catch that?
Alien words written in approximated phonetics.
Right. This book was a (different kind of) horrific mistranslation…! According to researchers in the , it was so full of typos it was laughable.
A botched edition that clumsily mimicked the pronunciation of some old-version Necronomicon!
'In cosmic horror, fictional tongues are nearly impossible to fully pronounce or understand, so this was truly pointless.'
Needless to say, it couldn't summon the madness or cosmic dread of the real thing. Its true nature was…
A ghost story mocking crowdfunding scams.
Mm-hmm, right. That sort of item.
Yet in every ghost story, there's always at least one gruesome side effect. And this corrupted edition had exactly one—appropriate to its scam theme. Exactly what's expected… A psychological effect.
When this book is read aloud, the reader falls into a state of delusion, experiencing madness and fear as if a colossal entity has truly descended. It is also estimated that all individuals within a 10-meter radius who hear the reader's voice are subject to similar effects.
The more deeply the reader is immersed in horror media or possesses a high level of suggestibility, the more vivid and pronounced the effects become.
At the very least, it provides the reader with an immersive experience– making it, relatively speaking, a more 'honest' form of deception.
—Assistant Manager Lee Yeonhwa of Research Team 1
In short, a bluff item for intimidation!
And a little embarrassing…
The more deeply the reader is immersed in horror media or possesses a high level of suggestibility, the more vivid and pronounced the effects become.
…Which meant, Kim Soleum judged, it was an item made for him. 'Keuugh.'
Of course, he nearly lost his mind reading it.
Without the lemonade from Moonlight Tattoo Shop, he might have bled from every pore.
Anyway.
'I can't do that anymore.'
He couldn't read another line. He'd go mad mid-reading. And if he stayed in cat form and was caught reading it, the plan would be ruined. But that terrifying psychological effect only triggered when reading the Necronomicon.
So, disguised as a cat now, Kim Soleum's abilities were no different from any other street animal…
'Could I… fool them?'
But he had to try.
[This way]
And so Kim Soleum resolutely led the Daydream Inc. employees and the Disaster Bureau agents as if he were an extraordinary creature. 'Please, I implore you, just help me escape.'
Their destination…
The place where the Angel's Sigh still remained.