Chapter 25

Chapter 25.

CHAPTER. 2

Sadang Station Exit 4 (1)

[1. I think I'm trapped in Sadang Station.]

Author: Anonymous

Didn't someone post something similar here yesterday?

I've been wandering alone in the Exit 4 corridor for three hours now.

I keep going forward but the same corridor just keeps repeating.

But… I'm definitely alone here, right? So why does it feel like I keep hearing one extra set of footsteps?

└ The footsteps keep getting closer

└ Why won't anyone reply to my post?

└ Is anybody there?

└ Please, someone, say something

└ I hear it. Footsteps, over and over

└ It's getting closer it's getting closer it's getting closer

----

Su-myeon stood still and let his thoughts settle.

<UTG: Sadang Station Exit 4> — a game based on the tale of the Pied Piper.

A flute sound driven by a strange belief: that it guided weary modern people toward happiness and an ideal world.

If you kept following the sound, it would grow louder and louder until you eventually crossed over into that "ideal" realm.

The way to escape without that happening was to ignore the flute and all the anomalies as much as possible and keep turning back.

In the face of an uncertainty with no end in sight, you had to hold your sanity together and keep retracing your steps, wishing to return, over and over.

"……Most of the posts online said people just found themselves out somehow."

Han-su looked at the Heartphone, which had opened what appeared to be an ordinary internet post.

But the post that had appeared now was different from the one they'd seen at the station.

"It's changed to a different post."

The messages from someone who'd been trapped here and writing had cut off with increasingly panicked comments about approaching footsteps.

Data that had never been transmitted anywhere, endlessly circling this anomalous space, had somehow drifted into their heartphones.

'That was one of the settings, alright….'

Su-myeon mulled over game lore that only he could now remember.

He'd decided to stop agonizing over why he alone could perceive and recall these things.

What mattered was that the knowledge actually worked.

"At the very least, we can't keep going forward like this person did. Let's turn back."

Han-su nodded at Su-myeon's words.

The two immediately turned and headed back toward the platform they'd come from.

But predictably, what greeted them was not the platform.

"…."

The same corridor leading to the exit. A Möbius strip — the scenery they'd just turned their backs on was spread before them again.

Su-myeon took a moment to survey their surroundings.

A quiet, bright, white subway corridor.

A narrow, straight path filled with faint dust and the stuffy air of an underground space.

A few old, ordinary flyers pasted to the wall and a discarded plastic cup rolling across the floor.

Su-myeon's gaze swept the seemingly unremarkable surroundings and stopped at the ceiling.

"Goddamn it."

Su-myeon bit out the curse, and Han-su followed his line of sight upward.

"…Is that……."

Between the rows of overhead lights, a single ceiling tile had been pried up and pushed halfway aside.

In the pitch-black darkness beyond, a pair of eyes gleamed.

"……."

"……."

Had it noticed them looking? The gaze — eerie in a way distinctly different from an animal's — stared down at the two of them without blinking.

'The footsteps.'

Whatever had appeared at some point and followed someone from behind — its source was staring right at them.

If they kept walking, it would probably slip silently down and trail behind them.

Without another word, Han-su and Su-myeon agreed.

Never breaking eye contact, they backed away step by step, retreating the way they'd come.

***

Ju-hee couldn't focus on work no matter how hard she tried.

After going through something that insane, being expected to return to everyday life like nothing happened.

How cruel was that? Ju-hee wanted to quit her job and everything else, but she couldn't — and that reality drew a sigh from her.

"……."

And she couldn't simply write it off as something that never happened.

Since returning from that bizarre hotel, a critical gap had opened in her life.

Ju-hee worked at a subsidiary under Shinseong Group, and right now all her work had ground to a halt.

Because the division head had disappeared.

The company, with a key figure having vanished into thin air, was in complete disarray.

Everyone sensed something was jammed, that nothing was functioning properly, yet no one could identify why.

'Our division head is gone!'

Even her protests were met with the same consistent response.

'We've never had a division head.'
'More importantly, Ju-hee, are you on track for the presentation on Friday?'

Nobody could properly grasp the situation.

"Never had one" was the best answer she could get, and everyone seemed to deliberately dodge the topic.

It was too unnatural to write off as her own delusion.

That only made it harder to focus on daily life.

[Ha-min: By the way, did you see this?]

Ju-hee clicked the messenger notification that popped up on her work computer.

[Ha-min: I checked with the Kihoe Group side, and it turns out Ki San-hyeok doesn't exist as a grandson at all in their records.]

The one person among those who hadn't made it out of that bizarre hotel whose identity had been certain.

Han-su had checked through official channels to see if a missing persons report had been filed, but San-hyeok had become a person who'd completely ceased to exist.

Just like Ju-hee's division head.

[Kim Young-cheol: I've been looking into some things too.]

[Kim Young-cheol: There are online communities of people searching for missing loved ones.]

[Kim Young-cheol: Just like us — only the person themselves can perceive the absence, while everyone around them has no idea.]

Photos gone. Records gone. The missing person exists only in one's own memory.

Too peculiar to dismiss as coincidence.

[Park Du-pal: That's creepy]

[Park Du-pal: But how do those people even realize something's wrong?]

[Ha-min: Whoa]

[Ha-min: What if they escaped from weird places just like us?]

[Ha-min: Remember what that headless lady said?]

[Ha-min: That once you've been inside and come back out, nothing will ever be the same.]

Ju-hee read their conversation and felt her chest tighten with frustration.

They'd been leaning on each other like this — exchanging messages every single day — trying to maintain their grip on reality.

But the more they talked, the more hopeless it seemed.

No matter how hard she tried to understand the situation, no solution presented itself.

Were the missing beyond rescue? What could they even do…?

[Kim Young-cheol: That's actually why I'm planning to talk with those groups.]

Ju-hee let out a short sigh after reading Young-cheol's message.

She was privately skeptical that gathering people in similar situations would produce anything meaningful.

Still — if they pooled their evidence, maybe something would change. That was all she could hope for.

Besides, Su-myeon was an extraordinarily perceptive person.

If he kept helping them, they could find their lost people — just as they'd escaped that bizarre hotel.

Clinging to that thought, Ju-hee was staring at the messenger with a heavy heart when she suddenly fired off a message.

[By the way]
[Have Su-myeon and Han-su made it home yet?]

The two who'd said they were checking out Sadang Station had gone silent at some point.

After Ju-hee's message, the chat went quiet.

Normally Su-myeon would've chimed in with his thoughts on the group's speculation by now, but he hadn't said a word.

[Ha-min: Hyung?]

Ha-min called out to the two, but still — no response.

Everyone seemed to trust that a reply would come any moment. No one said anything else.

Ten minutes passed. Then thirty. An hour. Three hours.

What had started as mild concern was now shading into alarm.

Unless he was asleep, Su-myeon had never gone this long without checking the chat.

[Su-myeon. Nothing's wrong, right?]

Even as Ju-hee typed the words, the dread had already settled cold across the back of her neck.

Something had clearly gone wrong.

"Go, are you not leaving?"

Just then, her seatmate — her supervising colleague — stood and grabbed his bag.

It was already past six.

Ju-hee hastily snatched up her bag and coat and rose from her seat.

[I'm heading to Sadang Station.]

***

"Everyone's probably figured out we're missing by now."

The subway station floor was caked with dust, but Su-myeon had simply sat down.

They'd been retracing their steps for hours now, over and over. Physically, he was approaching his limit.

"…Most likely."

Han-su stood on guard, scanning their surroundings as he gathered his thoughts.

The flute sound that had seemed to grow distant kept inching closer again.

It seemed whatever was chasing them was faster than their retreat.

"By the way, why do these keep turning up?"

Meanwhile, Han-su held up the Rose Coin he'd picked up on his forty-fourth trip back through the corridor.

Coins that had definitely not existed in the game were appearing here too.

"Well…."

How was he supposed to explain that?

After a moment's thought, Su-myeon spoke to Han-su.

"Could you give them to me?"

Unlike Su-myeon, Han-su didn't hesitate at all — he held out the two coins he'd collected.

As if to repay that trust, Su-myeon showed him directly instead of explaining in words. He placed the coins on the Heartphone's screen, and they melted into it as though absorbed.

[Rose Coins: 20]

"How…."

How is that possible?

Han-su swallowed the question and nodded.

There was no way a logical explanation existed.

It worked because this was an irrational space where irrational things were possible.

Accepting rather than understanding was more efficient here.

[New items have arrived!]

Just then, after swallowing the two coins, the Heartphone buzzed with a new notification.

"What's this now?"

Once again, Su-myeon answered Han-su's question by showing rather than telling.

When he opened an app Han-su had presumably never seen, a short loading screen gave way to a product catalog.

<Beautiful Belle's Secret Shop>

[Cyclops Contact Lens (10 coins)]

[Comfortable-fit contact lens exclusively for one-eyed beings. Shows the wearer the truth.]

[Dokkaebi AI App (20 coins)]

[Request specific data and the dokkaebi will output the desired information. However, the cost of information is paid in ■■.]

Two new products had been listed.

The Tin Woodsman's Heart, previously on sale, was still in the shop as well.

Each item's description promised incredible performance, but Su-myeon couldn't shake a lingering unease.

Having to stick some unknown thing into his eye — the lens was unsettling. And the AI app, with part of its description redacted, was equally off-putting.

"Tch…."

Should I buy it or not?

While Su-myeon deliberated, Han-su remained expressionless beside him.

In a situation where all he could do was accept what came, what Han-su could do best wasn't overthink things — it was keep the group safe.

He continued scanning their surroundings so nothing would go wrong while Su-myeon deliberated.

Thanks to that, Su-myeon was able to reach a decision after careful thought.