Chapter 32

Chapter 32 - Baekya Land - Attraction (3)

[3. Always be courteous to staff. He will not forgive verbal or physical abuse directed at employees.]

Ju-hee was undeniably faster than either Su-myeon or Du-pal.

She wove through the stiffly walking wax figures in an instant, heading straight for the Horror Maze.

'No—she's way too fast......'

Su-myeon thought as he sprinted through the amusement park, its colorful decorations blocking his sightlines at every turn.

At this rate, the others were going to lose Ju-hee.

"No, hold—is it—how is it—this far?!"

Du-pal, the very picture of a middle-aged man who didn't exercise enough, was already flagging.

The distance felt much greater than it had looked from above.

Just as Su-myeon was thinking they were in trouble, the Horror Maze came into view.

<Horror Maze 'PAPER IN LOOP' Rules of Use>

Please do not damage any property.

Please stop and stay at your desired location.

Please become one with us.

Forever.

"No!"

Ju-hee blew past the prominently displayed rules and charged straight in, shouting.

Hyeon-seok was stepping into the Horror Maze right before her eyes.

She cried out desperately, but he walked inside as if he hadn't heard a thing.

"Wait!"

Ju-hee was about to plunge in alone, so Su-myeon shouted after her.

His call snapped her back to her senses, and she finally stopped.

"Please enter in order!"

"The line starts over there!"

Staff members scolded Ju-hee for breaking protocol.

In the meantime, the rest of the group caught up to her.

"Barging in could get us all killed."

"There's barely any line! Get over here!"

Du-pal immediately took a spot at the very back and waved Ju-hee over.

She stared at the entrance Hyeon-seok had disappeared into, still anxious and restless, but forced herself to turn away.

In these spaces inside urban legends, breaking the rules could get you killed.

Not just herself—the entire group could die.

What was meant to be a rescue could end in everyone's death because of one stupid mistake.

Ju-hee understood that well enough to barely rein herself in.

"Welcome to PAPER IN LOOP!"

"Ready to enter?"

As expected, the staff members were courteous—straight out of a training manual.

And uniformly, they all had faces and limbs on both front and back.

Unlike the staff they'd seen before, however, every one of them was dressed in office attire.

"We'll guide you into a truly terrifying world of horror!"

"There are exit points along the way, so if it gets too scary, you can escape through those!"

Whether or not they were aware that the most terrifying thing here was their own front-and-back fused bodies.

Ju-hee rushed inside before the staff even finished opening the door, let alone their explanation.

The only thing in her head was catching up to Hyeon-seok before the gap between them widened any further.

To keep from splitting up, the other three had no choice but to chase after her.

"......What is this?"

The interior they'd rushed into looked like an ordinary office.

And like a video playing on the wrong setting, multiple people were silently going through the motions of office work.

Just as a typical haunted house has actors playing ghosts—

This place had staff members cast as office workers, putting on a performance.

The role-playing actors inside were all busily flipping through documents and operating computers.

Their demeanor was similar to the mechanical wax people wandering outside.

"The haunted house...... is office-themed......?"

Ju-hee sounded baffled—this wasn't the scenery she'd braced herself for.

"Baekya Land's core theme is liberation from the duties and responsibilities of real life."

Su-myeon answered while scanning their surroundings.

"So in here, the grind of office life—defined by duty and responsibility—is the concept scarier than hell itself."

Du-pal nodded in sympathy at Su-myeon's words.

After more than twenty years of corporate life, he agreed to some extent.

"Can't say that's wrong."

That said, the supernatural horrors he'd witnessed firsthand inside these urban legends were plenty terrifying on their own.

At least dying from overwork was......

'Well—it's not like that never happens.'

Du-pal surveyed his surroundings with momentarily somber eyes.

There was no leisure for idle reflection.

Han-su, who'd been scouting the area, spoke up.

"He doesn't seem to be here. Let's go deeper."

At Han-su's suggestion, the group pressed further in.

The deeper they went, the scenery seemed to rewind through time.

The furnishings gradually transformed into increasingly outdated office equipment.

Eventually, they reached an era of bulky CRT monitors and cigarette smoke filling the air.

"There!"

Just when anxiety was mounting, they finally spotted Hyeon-seok.

But Ju-hee, who had been about to rush straight toward him, hesitated.

He wasn't wearing the modern suit she knew.

He was dressed in an old-fashioned suit with a slightly thick brown necktie.

Moreover, seated at the head of the room in that outfit, Hyeon-seok sat in a plush black leather chair with a somewhat haughty posture.

As if he were one of the staff performing in this maze's scenario......

"Don't tell me......"

At the ominous words Du-pal let slip, Ju-hee grabbed his arm tight.

Had he already been assimilated into this world—become one of the staff?

But wanting to deny it didn't change the sight before them.

In the silence, seated as if he owned the place, he simply smoked a cigarette with that imperious air.

His movements were deliberate, contrived—as though nothing around him existed.

Ju-hee's legs seemed to give out; she swayed on her feet.

"Things got a bit more complicated, but it's not hopeless."

Worried she might do something rash out of shock—

Su-myeon quickly steadied her and spoke.

"He's not going to move from that spot, at least. Let's go outside and think."

Ju-hee, dazed and hollow-eyed, let Su-myeon guide her out.

Fortunately, a large blue emergency exit sign was right nearby.

"......Sound."

"...Sorry?"

Ju-hee, being supported toward the exit, suddenly planted her feet firmly and turned back.

"He can still hear us, at least—right? He just can't move on his own?"

The entire rescue operation had been premised on Hyeon-seok retaining his sense of self.

Su-myeon nodded, and Ju-hee, standing before the exit, grabbed the door and shouted.

"Shin Hyeon-seok!"

Not sorrow, but a voice brimming with sheer grit and stubbornness.

Having come this far, Ju-hee had not the slightest intention of turning back empty-handed.

"Just hang on...... Just a little! Just hang on a little longer!"

I'll be right back......

Her voice blurred with the tears she was holding back as she stepped out.

Su-myeon was the last to leave, carefully watching Hyeon-seok's expression as Ju-hee's voice faded.

At a distance where it surely reached him.

Something subtly shifted in his eyes—Su-myeon was almost certain of it.

"You said there was a way. Right?"

The group emerged through the midway exit into some corner of Baekya Land.

Once outside, Ju-hee turned to Su-myeon and asked again. He nodded.

"......There is."

Su-myeon recalled the in-game walkthrough.

In the game, there were moments when the protagonist wandered too long and lost control of their body.

In those cases, there was an item you needed to reclaim agency.

"Follow me. Let's hurry."

He moved quickly, leading the group to the arcade—Dream Arcade.

Inside were game machines you'd typically find at any arcade.

But naturally, there were elements that were anything but typical.

"Ugh......"

Most of the games featured repulsive, horrifying graphics.

Even a simple whack-a-mole required you to crack open a rat's skull and splatter its brain to score.

The rhythm game's drum—the one you were supposed to tap in time—was fashioned from actual human skin, flayed and stretched taut.

Passing through the machines nobody wanted to touch, Su-myeon stopped in front of a claw machine.

"This is it."

It was named "Lip Collector," but inside, it was packed with candies.

Surrounding it were similar machines—Eyeball Collector, Finger Collector, Ear Collector, and more—lined up in a row.

The other machines appeared to contain actual body parts, but this one held nothing but candies.

"We need to win one of those."

Su-myeon pointed at a specific candy inside—a large, round one wrapped in paper.

<Prince's Tongue Tip>

A candy as crimson as the tongue of the prince who woke the princess from her eternal slumber.

"'Restores consciousness and returns the subject to a sound state.'...... Is what it says here?"

Du-pal read the description of the crimson candy from the product card mounted beside the machine.

"If he eats it, he should at least wake up from that state."

At Su-myeon's explanation, Ju-hee managed a relieved nod.

That was assuming he could still eat, of course.

But Su-myeon believed there was still hope, so he didn't burden Ju-hee with that detail.

Ju-hee, who had been inspecting the machine from every angle, spoke.

The machine bore a label instructing users to insert Baekya Coins.

"So we need to buy special coins?"

"For now, yes."

Su-myeon planned to first check whether the Rose Coins he had on him could be exchanged for Baekya Land's currency.

If not, they'd have to earn the local currency separately—which would eat up a lot of time.

The group headed for the arcade's counter.

"I'd like to purchase game coins. Do you happen to accept—"

"Yes! Please tap your Heartphone here."

Before Su-myeon could even finish, the staff demanded his phone, so he pulled out his Heartphone.

He carefully tapped it against the device the staff member offered.

DING—

[Balance: Ellis Hotel Voucher ₩49,500,000]

Remarkably, it was charging to the Ellis Hotel voucher.

"Oh! Then, ten coins please."

Come to think of it, the voucher he'd received back then covered 4,444 hours—roughly 180 days of use.

He still had a few months left on it.

He reflexively caught the clinking coins that dropped out, each stamped with a sun emblem.

But then an additional question nagged at him.

Setting aside the remaining validity—how could this even be used here?

"......"

The interior of the counter booth was too dim to see clearly.

Given how unsettling every staff member here looked, he hadn't thought to examine the counter attendant closely.

But something compelled him to look now, and Su-myeon tilted his head to peer inside.

The cashier's head wasn't a mascot suit or one of those wire-stitched, double-faced horrors.

"Step back, please."

Su-myeon murmured it low, almost under his breath, and the group shuffled back as one.

Seated inside was a staff member with a white head marked with a heart.

Identical to the staff they'd seen at Ellis Hotel.

Su-myeon was about to slowly retreat when—

GRAB—

The Heart staff member's hand shot out and seized Su-myeon's wrist.

He tried to shake it off reflexively, but the grip was impossibly strong—he couldn't budge it an inch.

"The Red Queen has been desperately searching for you, sir."