Chapter 24

Chapter 24. Sonds Like Teen Spirit

The vibration rang. Again.

[Aunt]

[Slide to Talk]

I said I’m not answering. Please, just stop.

I rejected it.

[Aunt]

[Slide to Greet]

Wait. What?

In any case, I rejected it.

[Aunt]

[Slide to Delete]

One could not delete something that did not exist.

Reject.

[Aunt]

[Slide to Unify]

It was getting more and more unpleasant.

Reject.

[Aunt]

[Slide to Kill]

……Reject.

[Aunt]

[Slide to Revive]

…….

…….

…….

“Mr. Seon Yuhan.”

“Ah? Yes?”

At the sudden call, I was startled and almost dropped my phone.

When I turned my head, Choi Jaeha was making an extremely subtle expression.

It was a strange face, as if he himself did not know what expression he should make and had failed to control it.

“No, I’m seriously not trying to, you know…… disparage you? Or anything.”

Even though there was no one to watch his reaction, Choi Jaeha glanced around and stammered as if whispering in my ear.

“Mr. Seon Yuhan, are you maybe…… not very well, mentally speaking?”

“Pardon?”

“No, seeing you grin by yourself in a situation like this is honestly starting to really scare me.”

Did I smile?

I unconsciously touched the corners of my mouth, then lowered my hand again and turned off the screen.

I needed to be careful.

“If something is wrong with you, tell me in advance, seriously. Please. So I can at least prepare myself.”

“Mm, I will try?”

“Nooo, this is not something you try to dooo. Ah, forget it. Forget, p, mmph……!”

Choi Jaeha, who had been walking well ahead, suddenly covered his mouth and jumped, then spun around once in place and hurriedly stuck himself behind me.

He pressed so close that I could even feel his pounding heartbeat.

“A-Are you all right? Why…….”

“O-Over there…….”

The large accountant trembled and stretched out his hand.

“I-Inside that black car……! Can’t you see it……? There’s something in the back seat……!”

I moved my gaze in the direction Choi Jaeha was pointing.

Very slowly.

I kept my mouth tightly shut and narrowed my eyes in case I screamed.

At the place where Choi Jaeha’s fingertip pointed, there was a black passenger car, and inside it…….

“There is nothing there.”

“U-Uh? What are you talking about? That can’t be right. Did you look at the wrong car? Th-That one…… huh?”

Choi Jaeha, who had been cowering behind me, shuffled out and made a foolish expression.

“What the hell. It really is gone. No, there was seriously something creepy-looking there earlier. Seriously. It was like some kind of shadow, and there were teeth everywhere, ugh. It really was there.”

“Yes, I know. I know you are not lying.”

The Labyrinth had probably done it to startle Choi Jaeha.

“You got through it well.”

“Oof…….”

Choi Jaeha grabbed his knees and let out a long sigh like someone exhausted from intense exercise.

“I’m glad I covered my mouth halfway through. I seriously almost—”

“……Mr. Choi Jaeha?”

Choi Jaeha froze mid-sentence.

Then he slowly straightened up and looked somewhere. With an expression as if he had witnessed something more horrifying than a monster.

That made me extremely uneasy. The fact that he was not even screaming.

“Minha……?”

“Pardon?”

“Choi Minha? Minha!”

“Mr. Choi Jaeha, wait…….”

Choi Jaeha shook me off and began running like mad.

That cowardly man. Without even a single light. Straight into the darkness.

“Choi Minha, where, where are you? Why are you, why, here……. Minha. Call me Uncle again……. I can’t hear you! Where are you?”

Rattle, rattle.

When I barely caught up, Choi Jaeha was pulling on car door handles one by one and pounding on trunks.

“Are you here? Choi Minha, where are you?! Are you in here? Why? Why? Why? That makes no sense……. Minha, you, you shouldn’t be here……. You can’t be here, Choi Minha…….”

A man trapped in a Labyrinth searched desperately for his niece like a madman, his face covered in tears.

After hearing the voice of a niece who was not even here.

“Mr. Choi Jaeha, calm down……. Your niece is not here.”

I grabbed the accountant as he frantically pounded on the cars.

“Let go! It’s really her voice……!”

The force of his resistance was quite strong.

It was not only what we saw with our eyes that we had to be careful of.

What we heard with our ears had to be treated carefully too.

“I, at first, I really thought it wasn’t real too, but she said she had club activities nearby today and finished early, so she came to see me. It’s really her voice. She says she can’t breathe. She’s trapped. Hurry, we have to open it quickly! If you won’t help, then let me go!”

“I cannot hear any voice. You are the only one hearing it, Mr. Choi Jaeha.”

“D-Don’t lie! You just don’t want to save her!”

“I am not lying. Mr. Choi Jaeha. Your niece is not here. Do not wor—”

—Clank.

The moment I heard that heavy metallic sound, every bone in my body stiffened as if being reassembled.

It was coming.

“Mr. Choi Jaeha, please stop. Stop and hide.”

I choked Choi Jaeha from behind just enough to shock him and fell to the floor with him.

Choi Jaeha collapsed awkwardly in front of me and kept repeating his niece’s name.

“That thing heard your voice…….”

Maybe it was already too late.

Splash, squelch.

Since the merciful World-Honored One had heard Choi Jaeha’s cry, it would guide him away from this world full of suffering.

Whir, whirr. I heard the faint sound of tiny gears turning.

I bit my tongue and covered my ears with both hands, suppressing the urge to vomit out a scream.

“Do not forget. Delusion takes form, form becomes attachment, and attachment summons further affliction.”

Clatter, clank.

In the sealed darkness, the sound of its mantra and footsteps rang out like a grand epic.

“Open your eyes.”

Could I dare defy him?

“Look.”

The words of the World-Honored One stood above any rule.

“It is the shadow born from your delusion, and the form of the truth you turned your back on.”

Human flesh and mechanical bones coexisted harmoniously in that single body.

Unrecognizable Hanja were written densely across its plain Buddhist robe.

On its half-exposed ribs, there were scraps that had not yet managed to rot away.

It was dark red and rusted here and there, as if it had endured far too many years. No, that was not rust…….

The only parts left intact on its half-destroyed head were smiling lips and two plump ears.

Indeed, it was a wondrous and perfect form.

“Open your ears.”

When I lowered both hands, the voice that had sounded muffled finally became clear.

“Listen.”

The World-Honored One’s hand approached.

Toward me.

“True suchness shall liberate you.”

No.

Toward the one placed before me, the one who was not me.

Mercy was not mine.

Grind, crunch.

I closed my eyes again.

“Ggh, ughhh…….”

I closed my ears.

Crack, splatter.

I covered my mouth.

Rattle, clatter…….

Calm down. Stay calm. I have to stay calm. It is not like this is my first time seeing a dead person. I have experienced it too. It is not my fault. It is not my fault. It is all right. It is not my fault? It is not my fault? Calm down! Cover your ears. Close your eyes. Cover your mouth. Yes. Like that.

“…….”

At last, peace came.

“……Yuhan.”

The World-Honored One left me. No, that was not my World-Honored One.

It was not a Tathagata statue to which one should offer Buddhist rites, nor a Buddha before whom one should properly worship.

“Mr. Seon Yuhan……!”

“Yes?”

At the sensation of my shoulder being tapped and my vision shaking, I was startled and turned my head.

I saw Director Yoo Hyunjae’s face crouched in front of me.

His living body was blocking the dead body.

“We heard what sounded like a loud noise and came because we were worried…….”

Yoo Hyunjae supported me and helped me stand, then guided me away, turning me toward a side where Choi Jaeha’s corpse was not visible.

“When we arrived, that monster-like Buddha statue was already close……. I am sorry we could not help.”

“Mr. Seon Yuhan…….”

Hwang Juyeon was holding Jeong Jiho close and covering the child’s eyes.

She was also standing in a position where Choi Jaeha’s corpse could not be properly seen.

“But that box is…….”

“Ah, this is.”

Once I seemed to have calmed down somewhat, Yoo Hyunjae and Hwang Juyeon gestured with their eyes toward the badly crumpled parcel box in my hand.

“It appeared on top of the car with the same tire pattern as that skid mark.”

I peeled the box away, which felt as if it had stuck to my palm, and gave a short explanation as if exhaling a sigh.

Rip, riiip…….

When I opened the box, what came out was an ornament with a wooden cross hanging at the center of a cord slightly too short to be a necklace.

“Ah, I know what this is.”

Hwang Juyeon recognized it quickly.

“It is something you hang on a car’s rearview mirror as decoration. Then this time, do we need to look for a car with a cross decoration like this?”

“That may be the case. Then, Mr. Seon Yuhan, please sit here and rest for a moment with Jiho…….”

I looked up at Hwang Juyeon and Yoo Hyunjae, who were naturally trying to leave me behind.

“But I am all right—”

“—Mr. Seon Yuhan. My eyes were wrong.”

A voice so steady it sounded almost dry.

“You were not Raider material. Not at all.”

Yoo Hyunjae said that as he pressed me back down when I had half risen.

“Because you do not know where you are right now.”

“……What do I not know?”

“You do not know what kind of Labyrinth you are in. And do you not also fail to know what state you yourself are in?”

What do you know? What the hell do you know? You may have had a hard time when you were young, but now you sit on top of that high building, watching Labyrinths from across the river, so what do you know? What do you know about me, about Labyrinths, about being in a state where I must live even though I cannot die even after dying?

Unrefined words swarmed inside me like insects.

“To me, this floor seems like a place where you are bound to die the more you drive yourself into a corner. Am I wrong? Calm down a little and take a deep breath. You said you are Jiho’s guardian too, did you not?”

Those words brought me to my senses.

When I lowered my gaze, the silent child’s round eyes were looking up at me.

It seemed I had made them anxious.

“Jiho also happened to need rest anyway, and that is why we are leaving him with you. You can help us, correct?”

“……Yes.”

I lowered my head weakly, almost like a nod.

As my unjust anger toward him gradually subsided, shame rose in its place.

“Then we will be back. Please rest.”

“We will be right back, Mr. Seon Yuhan. Jiho, rest well too.”

The child’s bracken-like hand saw them off.

I sat leaning against a pillar and pulled the child close so they could see as little as possible.

……Wait.

As I stared blankly at the badly crumpled empty parcel box, my body trembled at an ominous premonition that suddenly brushed past me.

‘Sammae Delivery…… Is there a place like that? The address is Seoul…… This is this building, and, huh? Go1020? What kind of address is this? What lunatic orders a parcel to their own car?’

Why a parcel?

Why was the cross inside a parcel box?

If that cross really was a clue.

Did it have to be inside a parcel box?

Wouldn’t simply placing the cross ornament there have been enough?

Ah. No way.

Bzzz.

I anxiously looked at the phone screen that suddenly vibrated and lit up.

[〈Sammae Delivery〉

Ding-dong¿

Customer Seon Yuhan¡

This is Sammae Delivery, delivering mercy.

For you, our absent customer, we delivered the item to the consignment location (in front of your representative). Please find your precious Pure Land. Hurry.

Come.]

Clatter…….

Somewhere, a faint metallic sound rang out.

From the place where the others, who had followed the wrong clue, should be.