Chapter 27

Chapter 27. Kalpa Fire

Bzzzt, bzzzt…….

Yoo Hyunjae and I silently shut our mouths and met each other’s eyes, agreeing that the sound of the radio was not an auditory hallucination belonging to either of us alone.

For a while, music played through the static, as if the frequency were being adjusted here and there, until finally a clearer sound came out.

「Hello, listeners of .」

It was a long-running radio program that had shared the history of that broadcasting station.

「……Here is today’s story. ‘Hello, DJ Jeong! Tomorrow, I’m going on a trip alone with my girlfriend. I’m going to forget about credits and everything else and just have fun.’ Oh, you must be so excited. ‘We’ll go for a drive, hike, eat delicious food, and I’ll show her my villa too,’ oh! Even a villa? That is so wonderful. Ahem, ‘I’m going to show her the villa too. Does DJ Jeong happen to know any places to recommend near Yeongun Mountain?’ Ah, Yeongun Mountain…….」

Yeongun Mountain?

There were people who traveled there?

「……Wishing you a wonderful trip, here is a song by a lovely mixed duo currently rising in popularity…….」

A song played with the low sound quality unique to radio.

For a song supposedly “currently rising in popularity,” even being generous, it was a song from the early 2000s.

“It seems to be an old broadcast.”

“I think so.”

If that was the case, I roughly understood the contents of the story.

“When you hear Yeongun Mountain, does anything come to mind, Mr. Seon Yuhan?”

I stared quietly at Yoo Hyunjae.

His expression was not that of someone asking because he did not know.

I did not know why he was deliberately wasting time like that.

“Yes.”

Yoo Hyunjae widened his eyes as if telling me to continue.

“It underwent Labyrinthization. A few years ago.”

To be precise, five years ago, part of Yeongun Mountain had become an Invasive Labyrinth.

It was a place rarely visited by people, but since the Labyrinthized area included a small road, every vehicle passing through that spot disappeared.

“As far as I know, a wildfire broke out a week after it became known that it had undergone Labyrinthization, and the Labyrinth disappeared.”

Whether it had started by accident, or whether the people trapped inside had set it deliberately.

They had been released from the Labyrinth. Through death.

“You know quite a lot. But there is one more thing you should know.”

When I looked at him as if asking what that was, Yoo Hyunjae gestured with his eyes toward the silent radio and continued speaking.

“Other than the bodies of those trapped in the Labyrinth, unidentified fragments of white bone were discovered. They had been buried in that mountain since long ago.”

“Unidentified……? Ah, I remember.”

Come to think of it, back when I had been following news about the Yeongun Mountain Labyrinth, the public’s interest had suddenly gathered around the bone fragments that were discovered, and because of that, I had failed to properly obtain information about the Labyrinth itself.

“From what I heard, the damage was severe, so DNA extraction did not work properly. Still, they somehow gathered the remaining fragments and estimated the form from them.”

The Yuwi Guild director rubbed around his chin as if recalling a memory, then suddenly frowned.

“I believe they concluded it was…… a girl around middle or high school age.”

“Fu.”

Ck…….

Regardless of my will, my mind began fitting the puzzle pieces together simply.

About twenty years ago, in the early 2000s.

Some adult bastard went on a trip near Yeongun Mountain with his middle- or high-school-aged “girlfriend.”

There, for some reason, that girl must have been hit by a car going almost at full speed and had her entire body twisted. Like the dummy inside that delivery truck.

After that, she was buried on Yeongun Mountain.

Roughly fifteen years later, five years ago.

Part of Yeongun Mountain became an Invasive Labyrinth, and when it was resolved through total internal annihilation, some of the girl’s bones were discovered during the cleanup…….

“Ha…….”

“We have learned this much, and yet we still do not even know that child’s name. Perhaps there may be a clue to it here.”

Yoo Hyunjae flicked the car catalog in his hand, then opened it and held it out so I could read with him.

We began turning the pages slowly, wondering if there might be some mark that stood out.

Flip, flip.

The sound of thin paper turning continued.

“Ah, this must be it. There is something like a memo slipped inside.”

Yoo Hyunjae stopped at one page and pointed to a dark green SUV.

But my eyes were fixed on the memo that had been tucked between the pages like a bookmark.

“Mr. Seon Yuhan?”

I slowly reached out toward that memo.

For some reason, my fingertips seemed to be trembling.

“Why are you suddenly doing that?”

“The drawing. The drawing is…….”

On the paper was a picture of a hand, seemingly drawn in red pen.

A drawing of a balance scale tilted to one side.

Tap―.

The moment I dropped the memo as if I had been burned.

Bzzzt, bzzzzzt…….

The radio turned on again, and a static-filled song began playing before gradually becoming clearer.

At last, the intro ended.

「I’m on my way to yo」

And the song truly began.

***

「Yo be there, my dear」

I knew this song.

I knew it so, so well that…… it felt as if blood was draining from every hole in my body. No no nonono no matter how much flows out I cannot die until equilibrium is reached.

“Mr. Seon Yuhan, are you seeing something strange right now?”

I did not, nothing, no, there is nothing, I paid it all back.

“Clench your fists tightly and release them, and try breathing slowly. One, two…….”

No, this is wrong, too many and the hands. Do I have to cut them off?

“One hundred and five seconds.”

Someone grabbed and shook my shoulders as if trying to break them.

“The average between one minute thirty seconds and two minutes is one hundred and five seconds.”

What, suddenly……?

“You muttered ‘about one minute thirty seconds to two minutes’ earlier, did you not? After Ms. Hwang Juyeon died. You were measuring the time from when she was bitten by the snake until the monster came.”

Right. Hwang Juyeon died. Because of me. Or was that last time? Or the time before that?

“Mr. Seon Yuhan. Not death or anything else. Focus on the rules. If you know the rules, you can leave the Labyrinth. Think only of that.”

Rules, rules, rules. But how do we get out if we do not know them?

“Ms. Hwang Juyeon’s heart rate almost never dropped below 110 for around 105 seconds. In other words.”

In other words, if a heart rate of about 110 or higher was maintained for around 105 seconds, that monster would come.

“And that monster.”

And that monster crudely imitated a Buddha. Telling people to escape afflictions.

What did 105 seconds mean? What did 110 heartbeats mean?

Around 105 and 110. Between them.

105, 106, 107, 108…….

Clatter.

The moment I heard the footsteps of the profane and sorrowful Tathagata statue, its voice spread through my mind as if I had attained sudden enlightenment.

‘You fail to realize that your mind is bound by the 108 afflictions. How, then, can you sever them, and how can you escape them to reach perfect enlightenment?’

The 108 afflictions.

“108.”

“That does seem to be the answer. There is a margin of error, but it took around that long just now too……. However, please understand that I had no intention of deliberately using you as an experiment, Mr. Seon Yuhan. I did not know this would happen either.”

There was no need for him to make that expression.

Because I did not think that was bad.

“I am sorry I could not be of help.”

Crunch, grind.

The sound of the car body crumpling and glass breaking reached my ears.

1. Escape the 108 Afflictions. The World-Honored One Is Listening to Your Heart.

“If it were possible to turn back time, what would you do, Mr. Seon Yuhan?”

“…….”

No, even so, if he had noticed the rule, he could have told me earlier.

……Of course, he probably had neither certainty nor the composure to do that, and even if I had known in advance, it was not as if I could have calmed my heart.

“Mr. Seon Yuhan?”

“Mr. Interviewer. This building has undergone Labyrinthization.”

This time, please, let us escape.

***

“Aaaaaagh!”

“Wh-What the hell, you! Are you insane……?”

In the parking lot, we simply started by eliminating the concern about screams entirely.

A loud voice from the throat, and a loud voice from the heart. It seemed better to have only one concern than two.

However, I did not mention the numbers, whether 108 seconds or 108 beats.

I had not measured them strictly myself, and there was no way to make them believe me.

“Wow, this dark green is pretty nice too.”

The five of us somehow finally arrived in front of the vehicle we had seen in the car catalog.

U9356, dark green SUV, 09.

How much damned trouble had we gone through to get here?

Under the sedan with the Go1020 number where the parcel had been placed, Hwang Juyeon had seen her former piano teacher rolling their eyes and screamed.

Inside the Bae9502 delivery truck where the crash-test dummy was, Jeong Jiho had apparently seen an illusion of their mother and could not even properly cry, only whimpering.

And Choi Jaeha, inside the Seo8102 sports sedan…….

No. Forget it. It was impressive that this man was still alive.

“Shall we open it and look around now?”

While Choi Jaeha, Yoo Hyunjae, and Hwang Juyeon searched the driver’s seat, passenger seat, and back seat respectively, I decided to hold Jeong Jiho’s hand and check the trunk.

“Mr. Choi Jaeha, please open the trunk from your side!”

“Yeeah, one moment.”

Click.

The trunk opened, and I paused for a moment.

“Mr. Seon Yuhan, did something come out in the trunk? I do not think there is anything much on this side……!”

Something had come out.

Five white chrysanthemums arranged in a vase.

……And very coincidentally, there were exactly five of us.

If possible, I hoped we were the ones offering flowers. Not the other way around.

“Why are you not answering? What is it?”

“Ah.”

Suddenly, I turned my gaze to the vase.

It was low for a vase and wide around the middle, so it looked somewhat crude, but it was white porcelain with gold trim and an antique orchid drawn on it.

Ah, this was.

I hurriedly turned it so I could see the other side.

Then I saw the Hanja engraved in the middle.

[Late　　　]

As expected.

It was not a flower vase.

“It is an urn.”

“Huh?”

“Mm? An urn……?”

We all gathered and looked into the urn with chrysanthemums stuck inside.

Other than the flowers, it was empty.

The chrysanthemums smelled of incense.

“Its name is not written, and I think that is what we need to find out.”

“The story we heard on the radio earlier and the white-bone corpse from the Yeongun Mountain Labyrinth. Those two must be the clues.”

“No, how are we supposed to find the name of some kid we do not even know with that……?”

It was not as if that feeling did not surge up in me too.

“We probably can find it. A Labyrinth does not give unsolvable problems…….”

As long as one did not die and remained alive, a Labyrinth could always be resolved. In theory.

The problem was dying while solving it.

A Labyrinth that could not be solved even if one died and woke up again?

Then that probably meant one had missed a clue the Labyrinth had provided.

I took out my phone and looked again through the things I had photographed and memorized in this parking lot each time.

Go1020, black sedan, 11.

Bae9502, white box truck, E02.

Seo8102, red sports sedan, 11.

U9356, dark green SUV, 09.

These were the only pieces of information I had obtained in this parking lot, so the answer was likely here too.

[Late　　　]

Moreover, the name that would go into this urn would be four syllables at most. In Hangul.

So if I removed the petty numbers from the four vehicle numbers containing Hangul—‘Go1020,’ ‘Bae9502,’ ‘Seo8102,’ and ‘U9356.’

Go, Bae, Seo, U.

“Late Bae Seou…….”

I found the deceased’s name.

[Late Bae Seou]

No sooner had I called the name than the three syllables were neatly engraved on the urn.

“Uh, Bae Seou……? Gasp, Mr. Seon Yuhan! Smoke is coming from the flowers!”

“Ah, uh……?”

“Hey, put it down quickly! It is catching fire, fire!”

Flames rose from the five chrysanthemums stuck inside, and in an instant, they burned up and disappeared.

“…….”

Only the ashes of flowers giving off the smell of incense remained inside the urn.

As I looked into it, I remembered that day.

“What day?”

The moment I heard that voice, so horrifyingly dear.

“The day you threw my ashes into the sewer?”

My breath stopped where I stood.