Chapter 12

Chapter 12. Hunting Humans (3)

The one whose foot had been blown off was the short overweight man.

There were holes in the floor he had been standing on and in the ceiling above his head.

Clean, tennis-ball-sized holes, as if drawn with a brush.

“Aaaaagh!”

The collapsed man screamed at the top of his lungs again.

At some point, the woman had gotten down from her wheelchair and was holding the man.

More precisely, she was tightening something that looked like a belt around his ankle.

“Please move him onto the wheelchair!”

The woman shouted while stopping the man’s bleeding.

At that sound, the rest came to their senses and lifted the bleeding man.

That was unexpected. I’d assumed they would naturally leave the injured behind.

I admired them inwardly and turned around.

I meant to run away in the confusion.

But someone grabbed my arm tightly from behind.

“Where are you going?”

When I looked back, the tall man was standing behind me.

No, hey, is this really the time to worry about me?

In my impatience, I thought about shaking this man off.

But when I saw the man, and what was beyond his shoulder, I suppressed the impulse.

The woman and the other men’s attention was already focused on me too.

Damn it, this really isn’t easy.

I opened my mouth, trying to think of a suitable excuse.

THUD—!

At that moment, another vibration came.

This time, it felt as if something heavy had fallen from the floor above.

At that sound, the men by the wheelchair signaled with their eyes to the man holding me.

Then they began moving first, pushing the wheelchair.

“Please help me up!”

When the woman who had given up the wheelchair shouted from the floor, the man holding me looked at me.

It seemed he had no intention of giving me an opening at all.

I had no choice but to grab the arm the woman held out.

But what is this?

The woman was heavier than I had expected.

I had been using a moderate amount of strength, but I was startled and lowered my body.

Only when I supported her with all my strength using both arms was the woman finally pulled to her feet.

The woman put her arm around my shoulder.

Only then did the man support her from the opposite side.

Like that, in a sticky display of cooperation, we followed the wheelchair moving ahead.

THUD— THUUD—!

The vibrations continued.

I also put aside the thought of running away for a moment.

No matter what, felons had to be better than monsters.

At least for now.

The place we soon arrived at was an operating room.

The men in front familiarly opened the operating room door.

And I was overwhelmed by the unexpected sight.

Beyond the door was not a cramped operating space, but a wide field.

Vivid blue flowers rippled like foam on waves.

Above them stood countless slender wooden poles.

And at their tips were wooden birds.

They were not ordinary poles, but sotdae poles connecting heaven and earth.

As I was startled by the countless sotdae poles and the flowers in full bloom, it happened.

A white cloth settled over my shoulders.

When I looked to the side, the woman and man who had come with me were covering me with something like a bed sheet.

“Be careful not to let your bare skin touch the ground, and lie face down.”

The woman said that and lowered herself.

Then she entered the wildflowers that had grown up to calf height.

The men who had arrived first were hiding among the sotdae poles the same way.

I did not know what was going on, but I also wrapped the sheet around myself and entered the grass.

The sensation touching my knees was strangely mushy.

While I curled up like that, the vibrations stopped.

Instead, there was a sound that had been faintly continuing for a while.

Drag— drag—

A sound of something being dragged.

A faint sound I could not tell was truly audible or a hallucination.

But that doubt of mine was immediately smashed by a roar.

BANG—!

With an explosion, the operating room door burst open.

Thank goodness.

That I had been biting my lower lip.

The taste of blood spread in my mouth, but I was able to swallow my scream.

Drag— drag—

The dragging sound grew clearer.

I wanted to turn and look toward the sound.

When I forced myself to endure that impulse, it entered my field of vision on its own.

And what I saw was…….

A monster

A corpse

Garbage

A test subject

Blasphemy

Or perhaps the Creator’s self-deprecating joke.

At a glance, it looked human.

The sight of it holding its spine upright and walking on two legs was, at least, that much.

But it was absolutely not human.

Its dried-out body was like an embalmed corpse or a rotten vine.

Above its neck was a smooth metal sphere.

I could not tell whether it had no head or was wearing some kind of helmet.

Its head and body were that shabby, but as if to compensate for it, only its right upper arm was grandiose.

Beneath a grotesquely swollen shoulder muscle, things that might have been blood vessels or wires dangled.

Below that, its enormous arm was tangled together with multiple gun barrels.

It looked as if a person had been wedged into a bundle of old rifles.

Just as its name said, it was the 「Moving Gun」.

Drag, drag—

The 「Moving Gun」 dragged its heavy arm and came in front of me.

I closed my eyes.

And covered my ears.

“……I think it’s gone.”

A long while later, the woman’s voice came.

When I slowly poked my head out from under the sheet, the 「Moving Gun」 had disappeared at some point.

Seeing the others standing, I also got up.

The ground kept feeling mushy, so I glanced under the sheet.

And regretted it.

Beneath the flower field, it was not soil, but something like chunks of flesh spread everywhere.

“Be careful. It sticks if it touches bare skin.”

So that was why she had given me a sheet to cover myself with.

I was about to thank the woman.

The moment I tried to, another scream came from the distance.

“Aaaagh!”

“Be quiet……!”

The others were holding down the injured man as he thrashed.

Seeing that commotion, the woman stretched her arm toward me.

For some reason, I naturally supported her.

When we approached, I saw that the men were treating the injured person.

It seemed the injured man had made a fuss because of the pain.

The woman took an ampoule and syringe out of her pocket and said,

“It’s a painkiller. You’ll feel better soon.”

When the woman gave him the injection, the men stepped back.

The overweight man also stopped thrashing and began sobbing.

“Ah, fuck…… Why is it only me every time…… That monster bastard saw my face. It definitely saw my face then……!”

“That’s why I told you not to take off your mask. You should’ve endured it even if it was hot…….”

“Shut up! Fuck! Don’t, don’t lecture me! Don’t you know that if I die, all of you bastards die too?!”

When the huge man tried to admonish him, the overweight man became violently angry.

I naturally thought a fight would break out.

But unexpectedly, the huge man backed down.

“……Fine, I get it, so rest.”

What is this?

That huge man’s personality had not looked ordinary either.

Why is he being so obedient now?

“You there, help us search. We were carrying out a mission here.”

When I failed to grasp the atmosphere, another man spoke to me.

It was the man wearing glasses over his mask, the one who had pushed the wheelchair earlier with the huge man.

Then the woman quietly tipped me off.

“It’s in the order I gave you earlier.”

I knew what she meant.

I remembered the contents too, but for the sake of showing them, I unfolded the order again.

-Type “B” Mission 3.

-Harvest an unrotted organ from the 「999 Sotdae Poles」 displayed in the operating theater on the 2nd floor of the main building.

-However, if the harvested organ tissue fuses with a convict’s body, the mission shall be considered failed.

I roughly understood the circumstances.

What stood before me was none other than the 「999 Sotdae Poles」.

For their mission, they had been searching here for an intact organ.

Then I had stepped on a trap, and they had all rushed out at the sound.

They must have been bewildered when I appeared in pajamas instead of the 「Moving Gun」.

So they were interrogating me when the 「Moving Gun」 really appeared.

Judging by their response afterward, they also seemed to know quite a bit about that monster’s habits.

But that was only from experience. As expected, they did not know the pattern Cha Si-eon had told me.

On top of that, at this rate, I was going to get swept up in it too.

“What are you going to do if that monster comes back while we’re sitting around here?”

At my question, the huge man and the glasses glanced at me.

Their attitude said, Why do we need such a vague assumption right now?

So I released a little more bait.

“Didn’t you hear that you shouldn’t stay in one place too long?”

“What are you talking about?”

“If you stay in one place for more than 10 minutes, that monster knows your location and comes for you. That’s what the man with the tied hair said. None of you know?”

As if this was the first they had heard of it, the men’s reactions were slow.

The huge man glared at me instead.

“What kind of bullshit…….”

“Wait. When we were digging up sand, we lured it somewhere else, but it came right back, didn’t it? Three times.”

The glasses stopped the huge man, who was about to get angry first.

Then, as if something had occurred to him, he asked me again.

“Did you hear anything else besides that?”

“If it sees your face, you become a target. It sometimes fires bullets that pierce walls, but the conditions still aren’t known. It’s active for 40 minutes and rests for 40 minutes.”

I only said that much and stopped.

-In order to enter its dormant phase, at least one person must be hunted.

That was the most important information, but I deliberately left it out.

The moment I said it, they would start drawing lots for a sacrifice. Why would I say that? Am I insane?

I feigned ignorance and waited for the men’s reactions.

Soon, the glasses pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed.

“Ah, those bastards…….”

“Can we believe that?”

“He hasn’t exactly said anything wrong. Some of it fits, and it’s true that Orange was shot.”

Fortunately, they seemed to believe me.

But who is Orange?

When I looked around, the woman pointed at the injured man.

“This person is Mr. Orange. We distinguish each other by armband color.”

At the word armband, I looked at the man’s arm.

There was an orange band around the upper arm of his work clothes.

The others also had different colors only on that part.

Were they calling each other by band color instead of names?

Well, I suppose revealing real names here would be awkward for both sides.

While I was at it, I checked the colors of the people’s bands.

The woman’s band was white.

The tall man who had grabbed me earlier was blue.

The huge man was red.

The bastard whose foot had been cut off was orange.

And the man wearing glasses over his mask was black.

Red and Black whispered to each other.

“What do we do now?”

“There’s no answer except here. The other floors are destroyed.”

“But how are we supposed to find it in 10 minutes?”

“We can take turns in 10-minute shifts.”

I had thought that huge Red was the leader, but looking at it now, Black seemed to be leading.

Black spoke as if he had already decided.

“If it chases the person whose face it saw first, then we can use Orange to lure the monster, and the rest of us can take turns working here.”

At those words, Orange, who had been lying there groaning, shouted.

“What kind of bullshit is that?!”

“All you need to do is sit in the wheelchair. That monster isn’t particularly fast either, so avoiding it carefully would be safer. Or do you want to stay here and get shot again?”

This Black knows how to handle people.

Black’s tone was gentle, but there were no gaps in it.

So Orange could not throw a tantrum like before and only grumbled.

With the initiative in his hands, Black asked the others,

“Then we’ll work in shifts. How should we split the teams?”

“Mr. Blue, Mr. Otter, and I will take Mr. Orange and circle around first. Mr. Black and Mr. Red, please organize the areas you were checking here.”

White answered Black.

But among the things she mentioned, something other than colors had been mixed in.

I looked at White, wondering who “Mr. Otter” was.

White was looking at me.

Following her gaze, I looked down at my clothes.

Ah, it’s me.

There was an otter reading a book drawn on my T-shirt.

A short while later, Blue brought another wheelchair.

White and Orange sat in the wheelchairs, and I watched the sight with quite a troubled heart.

Somehow, I had ended up being grouped with these serious criminals.

Was it all right for me to be doing this?

There was no way it was all right. Of course it wasn’t all right. It was absolutely not all right!

With strength in my eyes, I screamed inwardly.

Black approached me and held out his hand.

“It was so hectic that we couldn’t even greet each other. In any case, since things turned out this way, I look forward to working with you.”

Suddenly, I recalled the “Special Advice!” in the order.

-Convicts are distinguished by armband color. The darker the armband color, the more dangerous the person.

Thinking it was quite plausible, I gave Black’s hand a perfunctory shake.

It was rather cold.