I opened my eyes.
But there is nothing to see.
I tried to move my hands.
But nothing moved.
I was fixed, unable to do anything.
And so I realized.
Why the countless intelligences trapped within this Jeongwon Chanyangsa's box, unable to use any of their abilities or possessions from life, were tortured for decades until they died powerlessly.
'I've been swallowed.'
I could do nothing.
My body was now tightly held and sealed by something.
For meditation.
Digestive fluid is secreted.
-Hell, hell, it's hell. How can it hurt this much? I realized the horror of what primal pain is. Descriptions like 'the saddest memories of my life repeat,' or 'deep trauma is stimulated' are merely lukewarm and complex, a comfortable exhibition for the comfortable. I envy them. True pain comes from the body. This pain that breaks the mind.
-This pain of having the membrane and nerves scraped away layer by layer with needles! Pain all over my body! My twisted skin, my internal organs whose location I don't even know, are burning. It feels like being trapped in an endlessly burning hell. My mouth, am I opening my mouth and pouring digestive fluid into it? No! It's fortunate I don't have a esophagus, or rather, it feels like my esophagus is being pierced….
A voice rings in my head.
The voice of a Seeker, reciting my pain, my anguish, my analysis, my pleas, and my screams exactly as I feel them.
And….
-Don't want to die, want to die, don't want to die, want to die, want to die, stop! Stop! Stop! Why? Why did it become like this, it hurts so much, it hurts! It hurts!! Lord Name, I did valuable work, it hurts! I did valuable work, save me, kill me, save me, kill me
-I'm suffocating. I can't bear the pain. I instinctively knew. I wouldn't be able to endure this for decades. I think it's fortunate that I came in, but the thought of how long this will last is so terrifying that I can't even predict it, and my mind isn't even clouding. This kind of Supernatural Disaster….
The voices of two other intelligences.
The voices of others being tortured, echoing right beside me, displayed to each other, was the completion of this 'Seeker in the Box'.
Like this, we will be connected as part of the Seeker in the digestive fluid, suffering for decades amidst the maddening whispers created by each other's pain.
The digestive fluid acts as a preservative, ensuring we don't die and feel the pain with clear minds.
Madness, terror.
But this insane pain that prevents escape even through madness!
'Happy Maker…!'
I desperately longed for the existence of that item, which I no longer had in my hands, but I, I….
'Endure.'
I try to emit smoke.
No, I transform into smoke myself.
Smoke is my component, so it's possible even without movement. The smoke tightly fills what seems like the Seeker's nurturing sac that sealed me.
Even as smoke, the pain doesn't subside, and every surface I touch screams in agony.
But there is one difference.
'Smoke is a gas.'
Within the smoke, from the innermost part, I recreated just one part.
A horn.
And I managed to shake it.
Jingle.
The bell attached to the horn rings clearly.
'…Ha!'
The pain doesn't disappear. But my thinking ability and willpower are restored.
'Thing, to do.'
Something I can do!
I know there is another human beside me in this sac that has bound me so I can't move an inch.
'…Slowly.'
For the first time, I am grateful that I cannot find my vocal cords, even though I want to wail.
'This time….'
To a place almost on the surface of the smoke, I bring out a patch of skin beneath my uniform.
My tattoo.
'Inventory…!'
I try to insert the membrane itself, which is sealing me, into the tattoo that is in contact with this strange membrane.
But it doesn't work properly.
'…!'
Every attempt to insert it only makes the sac narrower. It shrinks in volume by as much as I put into the tattoo. So much so that my body, transformed into smoke, is overloaded.
'It doesn't work.'
And it only secretes more digestive fluid, as if secreting lubricant!
-Pain! Pain! Even transformed into Black Smoke, the pain doesn't disappear. Rather, it intensifies.
All physical resistance is futile. As a victim inside the box, I am a component within the Seeker's stomach, so I cannot inflict harm on the Seeker!
But I receive physical pain in its entirety. What an absurd and hellish ghost story.
-No, stop, the digestive fluid, I'm going to die, no, it feels like dying, this insane pain, unlike anything I've experienced even in a Daydream or on the Tamna Line train, what is this
Then.
-Agent Grape?
....
…!
-This can't be. Why? Why Agent Grape and not an evil person? I assumed it was resentment towards the Disaster Management Bureau that pushed me, no, the pain makes the reason no longer important. No.
-Do I have to be here for decades feeling this pain? That person too?
The Seeker also displayed mental pain.
Agent Bronze's mental pain.
And mine as well.
-I am accustomed to pain, I can endure it. I am accustomed to pain, it's a little better because I can take other forms. Shaking the bell within the smoke, no, it hurts! Pain! No, I can endure….
At that moment.
-I understand! Thoughts associated with pain are heard by the other party. Associated with pain, associated with pain….
Agent Bronze realizes.
And the Seeker's whisper, which had been displaying pain, changed.
Faster and more unstable, as if reflecting the subject's state.
-I am in pain. Therefore, if I can partially transform into smoke, and if I have even a little freedom of movement within it, I will immediately use the Five Cardinal Colors Shoelace to escape this pain.
…!!
-Immediately. I can no longer bear this pain. Let's walk by tying the shoelaces. It's enough to fulfill the act of walking! Quickly!
....
And then I recall again.
'Agent Bronze cannot leave even with the shoelaces.'
Just as he couldn't use the Five Cardinal Colors Shoelace because his legs were cut off at Lucky Mart, the person sealed now cannot leave.
Only I can leave.
So, after I leave.
The others who remain will continue to be displayed and tortured in this place where they can never leave.
Along with a new person swallowed by the box in my place.
....
....
-I can't hear Agent Grape's voice. Did he perhaps leave? Am I the only one suffering this pain? It's hopeful, but will I end up cursing him for leaving alone? This terrible pain….
I turned a part of the smoke into the shape of a hand.
Exposing bare skin,
I touch the membrane.
To the 'Seeker in the Box'.
Seeker in the Box
A Divine Power appearing in the Darkness Exploration Record. Ranked 6th class in the Right Number Praise Sect.
According to the laws of the Jeongwon Chanyangsa, they severed their own legs and attained Divine Power through repeated asceticism and meditation within a box, becoming a creature within a box that secretes digestive fluid.
They are Jeongwon Chanyangsa who focus on the most primal pain.
After swallowing the number of sacrificial lambs assigned to the box, once closed, the box will never open until the sacrificial lamb dies.
Sacrificial lambs who come into contact with digestive fluid within the box are connected to the Jeongwon Chanyangsa and become ascetics. Delete. Seeker in the Box
A Divine Power appearing in the Darkness Exploration Record. Ranked 6th class in the Right Number Praise Sect.
According to the laws of the Jeongwon Chanyangsa, they severed their own legs and attained Divine Power through repeated asceticism and meditation within a box, becoming a creature within a box that secretes digestive fluid.
They are Jeongwon Chanyangsa who focus on the most primal pain.
After swallowing the number of sacrificial lambs assigned to the box, -Once closed, the box can also open with strong internal impact./
I remove my hand.
...
...
Eventually.
According to the newly written content.
The 'Seeker in the Box', unable to withstand the shock of being forcibly read, deleted, and modified....
Thump.
It bursts with this 'strong internal impact'.
Intense pressure.
And the liberation of the Seeker.
Thump.
I feel myself being pushed out of the box, still sealed.
The Jeongwon Chanyangsa, completed through arduous asceticism and meditation, the ghost story of the unopenable box, crumbles with a strange sound.
And mine too.
It crumbles.
My barely regained reason, my identity as a human, my humanity, my emotions.
Crushed into a pulp, leaving only traces.
Jingle.
The sound of a bell.
It can no longer be heard.
But I am not sad.
Nor am I greatly distressed or in pain.
That is the attitude of a worker.
I must return to the Daydream to receive a repaired uniform.
-Your uniform has been damaged. Return immediately and await instructions. Your uniform has been damaged. Return immediately and await instructions. Your uniform has been damaged. Return immediately and await instructions...
I hear the announcement.
The next moment.
I poured out of the box.
Along with two figures.
Ryu Jaegwan realizes that the pain has disappeared.
Pain that has exceeded its threshold leaves a phantom pain even after it's gone, so he realizes it belatedly.
And he realizes that the voices in his head are no longer heard.
Neither his own pain nor the pain of others.
"...!"
He pushed aside the digestive fluid membrane surrounding him, which had lost its strange power.
The dead Seeker's membrane no longer exerted its unreasonable sealing power, and he was able to tear it with a small pocketknife and emerge.
Air.
As he inhaled,
He becomes aware of two other membrane masses beside him.
"...!"
He immediately plunged the pocketknife into the one next to him. The result of the desperate process of dismantling was....
'Ha.'
A man with the appearance of a handsome boy in a school uniform. A stranger. Bronze, realizing this was a figure from a cult swallowed by the box earlier, hastily moved his hand to the next membrane.
A larger mass.
This time, with more reason regained, his dismantling hand is careful. From the hastily removed membrane emerges....
An employee dressed in a black uniform, with countless horns, wearing a gas mask.
Agent Grape.
...Presumably, a supernatural phenomenon.
"...Agent Grape."
But there is no reaction.
He was unconscious?
He couldn't be sure as the gas mask was still on, but he guessed so because the light of his eyes, which had been like yellow lanterns, was gone.
Agent Bronze carefully lifted Agent Grape's shoulder. But there was still no reaction.
However, from the mass of horns on his head, fragments of Jade flowed down. Agent Bronze picked them up and put them away for now.
'Besides that... what else can be done.'
His thoughts were difficult to organize. In fact, he was still groggy.
'...What was I hearing?'
The Seeker's voice, which had been whispering the pain of the ascetics incessantly in his mind, had indeed said something strange just before....
Something bizarre and terrifying, yet about truth....
'Ugh.'
Ryu Jaegwan frowned and pressed his temples.
Listening too closely to the whispers of supernatural disasters or dwelling on their content was a bad omen.
'...Contamination?'
But for now, he had more urgent matters to attend to. Agent Grape's condition, and...
'...Agent Choi!'
He sprang up, as if doused with cold water, a shiver running down his spine.
Looking around properly in his haste, he saw the space as it was before being swallowed by the box.
The box, with its empty number and blood-soaked hands spread on the floor, and....
No one was there.
The desolate underground bunker was devoid of human presence.
Instead, the door to the underground bunker had been completely torn open.
"...!"
And from outside, an immense roar was heard.
But the agent detected a familiar noise.
The sound of a bell.
'This is....'
It was the sound of the Ritual Executioner's Sword being swung.
Ryu Jaegwan grabbed Agent Grape and rushed outside.