Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Happy Playroom (2)

[12. Please do not make contact with a child without a guardian’s permission.]

Red, sagging skin was dragging an enormous body beyond the bright fluorescent lights, crawling forward like a caterpillar.

“Please help over here!”

Ju-hee came over and grabbed Su-myeon’s arm, but she soon saw the same thing too.

Before she could scream, Su-myeon reached out and covered her mouth.

“Ha ha ha ha!”

The crawling mass of vivid red skin began to let out clear laughter.

The red thing wriggled its torso like an insect, and because of the sagging skin on its face, its features could not be properly distinguished.

All that could be seen clearly was a wide-open mouth that made the sound of a child laughing.

And inside that mouth was nothing but an empty void.

“Hngh…….”

Startled, Ju-hee seemed to understand Su-myeon’s intention and held her breath.

That monster was clearly reacting to sound.

“Ha…… ha ha ha…….”

Despite Ju-hee’s efforts to even stop her breathing, the baby monster was drawing closer and closer.

On top of that, as though it had noticed them, the laughter it was making gradually died down, and it tilted its head as if feeling curiosity.

Would even their pounding heartbeats be discovered?

Su-myeon and Ju-hee did not move at all and remained frozen where they were.

“…….”

Following the laughter that had grown quieter, the baby monster slowly turned its body.

Precisely toward the direction where Su-myeon and Ju-hee were.

“Run!”

Su-myeon became certain that their location had been exposed and immediately grabbed Ju-hee and ran.

“What the hell happened?”

When Su-myeon shouted, Ju-hee grimaced.

He had been away for only about ten minutes.

The course of events that had happened in that time was simple.

***

[FREE! Don’t leave any behind!]

A machine placed in one corner of the shop where the group had been resting for a short while.

It looked like an ordinary soft-serve ice cream machine, and a colorful warning was attached to it.

“Can we eat this?”

Before anyone could stop him, Du-pal, who had discovered the machine, touched the ice cream machine.

Startled by the sight, Ju-hee shot to her feet.

“How can you just touch anything like that?”

“No, I mean, it’s an ice cream machine…….”

Du-pal muttered in a flustered voice.

The machine, whose button had already been pressed, began to run with an ordinary humming sound.

“Is there any guarantee that ice cream will come out?”

“Still, on the floor below, all the shops were normal…. Most of them were normal!”

At Du-pal’s complacent words, Han-su and Ha-min, who had been watching, also sighed.

It was true that most of them had been normal, but would this machine also fall under “most”?

Now that it had already been touched, they would only know by watching.

Tap.

Just then, an ice cream cone fell into Du-pal’s hand, which he had been holding beneath the machine.

At a glance, it seemed relatively ordinary, but Du-pal’s face began turning deathly pale.

Realizing that something was wrong, everyone hurriedly stepped away from the machine.

The cone-shaped object that resembled an ice cream cone was some yellowish thing that looked as though tough pigskin had been peeled off.

On top of that, what looked like raw intestines then poured out in a stream, imitating the shape of soft serve.

“Aaaagh!”

“You must not drop it!”

Han-su, who had been watching the situation, barely managed to grab Du-pal’s wrist.

Holding him in place so he would not drop the ice cream.

That was as far as he could respond.

The reason Ju-hee hurriedly went to call Su-myeon after seeing that sight was because they could not come up with any particular solution.

“Wh-what do we do now? With that?”

While Ju-hee went to call Su-myeon.

Ha-min, whose face had turned pale, pointed at what Du-pal was holding.

“If we cook it, maybe we could eat it? It kind of feels like large intestine…….”

“Uegh…….”

At Du-pal’s words, spoken in pallor as he rambled about anything at all, Ha-min retched.

While everyone was at a loss over what to do.

The laughter and cheerful music that had been coming through the speakers suddenly cut off.

Instead, the sound of Su-myeon and Ju-hee’s footsteps returning could be heard.

“Su-myeon. There is a problem…….”

The moment Su-myeon returned, Han-su, who had been about to explain the situation, paused.

The atmosphere around Su-myeon and Ju-hee as they ran over was anything but normal.

“We’ve got a problem over here too.”

At Su-myeon’s words, Du-pal shouted,

“No!”

There were already more than enough problems on this side!

At Du-pal’s scream-like voice, Su-myeon looked at him.

After seeing Du-pal’s tearful face, Su-myeon instead nodded.

“Good job. Let’s put that to use first.”

Good job?

Because they could not tell whether that was sarcasm or sincere, the group’s gazes lost their way.

Then, a sound that did not allow any more leisure reached them.

“Waaaaaah!”

Before they knew it, the monster chasing the two of them was letting out a piercing wail.

It was the cry of a baby expressing dissatisfaction at the adults who had interrupted its fun play.

However, the thing making that sound had an appearance that could not be found cute at all.

“Holy shit……!”

Du-pal recoiled in horror.

The crawling, caterpillar-like monster had only its wide-open mouth clearly visible beyond its sagging facial skin.

Ha-min also backed away from the difficult-to-understand combination.

“Aaagh!”

“Wh-what is that thing?!”

Ha-min, who was immediately searching for a path to escape, was the first to recognize the problem.

“Su-myeon! Su-myeon!! This is a single path!”

Ha-min called Su-myeon urgently.

At this rate, their only option to avoid the monster was to go back down to the floor below.

However, Su-myeon grabbed Du-pal and dragged him over.

“Throw it!”

“What? This? At that thing?!”

Startled, Du-pal lifted up the sticky fake ice cream.

“When a baby cries, why do you think it cries?”

When Su-myeon hurriedly added that, Du-pal muttered without realizing it.

“Well, usually because it’s hungry…….”

Du-pal flinched as though he had realized something.

Then, without asking again, he threw the fake ice cream he was holding with all his strength.

In the meantime, the baby monster that had come closer showed its explicit form in greater detail.

It was not purely caterpillar-like.

It had something that could be called shoulders in its own way.

It was crawling by wriggling its shoulder blades like arms.

The “ice cream” Du-pal threw slipped right into that monster’s mouth.

“Ugh…… hnngh…….”

Then the baby monster immediately stopped crying and moving, shutting its mouth tight.

As it chewed what it had put in its mouth, Su-myeon shouted,

“Run!”

If that had not been there, it would have tried to stuff something else into its mouth.

Having escaped the worst situation, the group slipped past the stopped baby monster and ran deeper inside.

“Th-the stairs!”

When the blue stairs Su-myeon had seen earlier appeared, Ha-min shouted as if relieved.

However, Su-myeon ran past those stairs instead.

“Turn right!”

Fortunately, these were people who had already experienced surviving on the floor below by listening only to Su-myeon’s words.

Without knowing why, they changed direction.

WHOOOSH—

The moment they passed beside the stairs, a giant weight dropped onto the blue staircase.

Huge weights tied to massive iron chains began swinging with a threatening sound.

If they had run up the stairs without knowing, they would have collided with those things in an instant and would not have had bones left to gather.

“We have to dodge those and go up?”

Was their fundamental objective not to go up?

At Ju-hee’s question, Han-su replied,

“It seems there is no other way.”

However, Su-myeon’s thoughts were a little different.

He did not particularly want to step forward, but Su-myeon turned his gaze somewhere other than the stairs.

To the right of the stairs.

There was a corridor where flickering fluorescent lights continued inward.

Damn it.

[Guardian Lounge]

He saw a sign that clearly marked the place.

Go? Don’t go? Go? Don’t go?

“B-but……! But, Su-myeon!”

While he was agonizing over it, Du-pal, who had been catching his breath with a troubled expression, called Su-myeon.

“Don’t tell me giving it that ice cream counted as contact?”

At Du-pal’s trembling voice, Han-su calmly answered,

“You simply need to look at the rules as rules.”

What the hell does that mean?

When everyone looked uncertain at Han-su’s words, Su-myeon explained it more simply.

“Of course that counts as contact!”

They had recognized each other, and an interaction had occurred.

“……Then.”

Du-pal stopped talking.

In other words, Du-pal had broken the rule.

Before they knew it, the laughter and music coming from the speakers had stopped, and the baby monster’s sounds had also disappeared.

As the people gradually became terrified in the silence, Su-myeon continued his inner conflict.

Go? Don’t go? Go? Don’t go?

His head was still uncertain, but in the end, there was only one answer.

“Su-myeon?!”

Ju-hee called him in surprise when she saw Su-myeon suddenly turn around and walk into the corridor.

“Hide for now!”

Su-myeon had decided.

He would quietly resolve this alone and return.

However, unexpectedly, it was Du-pal who grabbed Su-myeon.

“I’m going with you!”

Su-myeon had been about to refuse someone else’s company again, but Du-pal appealed quite strongly.

“I…. Anyway, you’re trying to deal with what just happened, right? Let me come with you.”

After thinking for a moment, Su-myeon nodded.

Du-pal did not seem particularly special, but he was a surprisingly useful character.

And the item Su-myeon had bought for him would probably be fairly useful here too.

“If you insist, then let’s go together.”

“Then I will accompany you as well.”

When Han-su also joined in, Su-myeon briefly thought about it.

Ju-hee, thinking that Su-myeon was worried because of them, stepped forward first.

“Don’t worry. We can manage by ourselves too.”

“Right! I can protect Miss Ju-hee…. Ugh!”

At Ju-hee’s words, Ha-min said something cheeky.

Then Ju-hee, who snorted as if dumbfounded, cut him off by pressing down firmly on his head.

“I’ll protect the minor, so please go.”

It was not simply because he was worried about them that Su-myeon had hesitated, but….

It’ll be fine.

If it was those two, they would probably stay obediently enough.

And it was not as though he could control every single person forever.

“Yes, then I’ll go and come back. Please stay safe.”

At that point, Su-myeon turned around and headed to the Guardian Lounge.

The Kids Club, which had suddenly been wrapped in silence, evoked an even greater sense of wrongness and discomfort.

If it had been quiet from the beginning, the difference would not have felt so large.

In the silence, he kept listening for signs of monsters that might come from anywhere.

Facilities that were excessively clean and well-maintained.

The surrounding scenery, filled with nothing but incongruity, made them shut their mouths in more ways than one.

“…….”

Unlike the clean surroundings, the particularly murky green light of an old fluorescent lamp flickered.

Su-myeon, Han-su, and Du-pal, who had been walking inward with unease, stopped.

Click.

“I think there was something about keeping it bright. Right?”

Saying that, Du-pal turned on the camping flashlight he had bought on the floor below.

The item he had purchased with Su-myeon’s help was a flashlight.

Su-myeon nodded at his action and stepped deeper into the corridor.

Once they had a controllable light source in hand, he felt a little more stable.

As expected, in a horror game, there’s no essential item like a flashlight.

As he walked while thinking something pointless like that, they soon drew close to the Guardian Lounge.

In front of that door, the three of them stopped again.

The surroundings were still quiet.

“Should I just open it?”

Han-su asked in the silence as he grabbed the lounge’s doorknob.

When Su-myeon nodded, Han-su opened the door without hesitation.

“…….”

The inside was covered in pitch-black darkness.

From within the endless blackness came humidity and a subtle stench.

In that darkness.

Unexpectedly, Du-pal stepped forward first without fear.

Su-myeon grabbed his arm.

Then he slightly tilted the hand holding the flashlight upward, not forward.

“…….”

There was an enormous face there.

At the fact that they had nearly walked right into that mouth, Han-su also reflexively grabbed Du-pal.

If they went any farther forward, it seemed as though that enormous mouth would snap shut and trap them inside.

“……So now, do we ask for permission……?”

But at Du-pal’s words, Su-myeon took out the gun slung across his back.

“No. If there’s no guardian, then we won’t need permission or anything in the first place, will we?”

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Translator’s Note: This is not a good thing. I’m noticing that you guys still aren’t rating or reviewing this series on Novel Updates ?

How am I supposed to stay motivated to post chapters regularly like this? ?