Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Baekya Land - Parade (2)

[5. Do not become a front-row spectator of the parade. Their performance is a merciless festival of blood. Unless you wish to become its sacrifice, you must stay away from the parade.]

"Damn, this is insane...!"

Su-myeon panicked when he confirmed that, of all directions, the one they had run toward was the parade's path of travel.

"Ugh...."

On top of that, Hyeon-seok was not in good shape. His half-waxified body was slow and stiff.

"My body...."

"If you push yourself too hard, it'll cause problems even after you return to reality."

Watching the back of his hand crumble like a cracked candle, Su-myeon gritted his teeth.

It was already too late to catch Ju-hee and Du-pal.

DUM-DUDUM.

The sound of drums announcing the start of the parade rang out.

He had forcibly cut off the flute's sound and bought time to act freely, but the moment had already come.

'Is it because there are several of us?'

The rule that said you must not close your eyes when the flute cannot be heard. In truth, that was a rule that could never be kept.

A human can't help but blink and close their eyes eventually.

Keeping one's eyes open without ever blinking was something only the wax humans could manage.

That was why they had chosen to escape in a hurry, even at the risk of being chased by the wax humans.

"What is going on here?"

"The parade is start—"

Screee…

Su-myeon tried to answer Han-su's question, but stopped at the piercing sound of the flute. Covering his ears and looking around, he saw something ripple in the far distance, from the edge of the theme park.

Soon, a gigantic silhouette came into view, entering Baekya Land as if passing straight through the wall.

The Pied Piper, appearing in person at last.

The owner of this Baekya Land. The very one who had bewitched countless humans and lured them here.

"Mr. Shin Hyeon-seok, listen carefully."

Su-myeon smacked the shoulder of Hyeon-seok, who stood dazed by the flute's sound droning on until it deafened the ears.

"Pull yourself together!"

To the man who had barely come to his senses from the jolt, he recited the precautions.

"All that's left now is to escape from here, so keep that candy in your mouth. Let it melt as slowly as possible."

The parade was beginning.

Considering how they had run off, Ju-hee and Du-pal would already be somewhere close to the parade procession. And that route was a straight line toward the entrance the group had used to come into Baekya Land.

It was the fastest way to escape.

"Then, we run just like this, join up with Ms. Ju-hee and Mr. Du-pal, and head straight outside."

"Will that really be so easy?"

At Han-su's question, Su-myeon let out a short sigh.

There would be obstacles along the way. But there was no time to prepare for everything before setting out.

The more time they wasted like this, the more difficult the situation would become.

[Attention, all guests of Baekya Land!]

A broadcast in a cheerful voice began to play.

[Soon, the pride of our Baekya Land—the Parade of Radiance—will begin!]

The announcement continued, declaring the start of the parade and asking everyone to clear the surroundings.

There was no luxury of thinking through every possibility.

"We'll have to make it work."

With Su-myeon in the lead, the group dashed straight toward the escape route.

A path left clear for the parade procession. Before long, they spotted Ju-hee and Du-pal with both ears covered.

It seemed they couldn't pull themselves out of the lingering echo of the flute's sound that had bored into their minds in an instant.

Seeing them, Hyeon-seok shouted.

"Shin Ju-hee!"

...Shin Ju-hee? Not Go Ju-hee? Before he could even question it, Ju-hee, hearing that voice, snapped her head up.

The moment she confirmed it was Hyeon-seok, the rims of Ju-hee's eyes flushed red in an instant.

It seemed a touching reunion was about to unfold, but.

"I was worried about you, you bastard!"

Ju-hee shrieked and lunged at him.

Her attitude was so fierce it rendered meaningless all the respectful "Executive Director" titles she had used for him until now. And just like that, she smacked Hyeon-seok across the head.

"Good grief."

A blow so hard that even Du-pal, startled, momentarily forgot the aftereffects of the flute and flinched.

Ju-hee had struck him with all her might—hard enough that a startled Han-su had to hold Hyeon-seok up.

"Ah, seriously...."

He was curious what history lay between the two, but now was not the time. If anything, it was fortunate that the bewildering scene had snapped everyone wide awake for the moment.

Su-myeon all but dragged them along, trying to put distance between them and the parade procession gradually approaching from afar. But they were already within range where the parade could not be completely avoided.

BWOOO.

A sound grown heavy and rough, like a horn.

The sounds of all kinds of instruments mingled behind it, but they came through muffled, as if submerged in water.

Only the flute's sound was clear amid those countless noises.

A cloying flute sound, seeking to free the self's anguish from everything.

The flute's sound lingers in his ears.

He finds himself listening to it. If he could just let go of all this hardship and adversity and become free....

"There's still some distance to the exit! Don't focus on that sound!"

Su-myeon shouted as if to steady himself, his own focus drifting toward the sound again and again. But "sound" had a viciously wide range.

Avoiding it completely all the way to the exit was physically impossible.

Already, the massive figure of the Pied Piper could be seen between the various rides and buildings.

A frame at least three times the size of an ordinary human, a crude, oversized flute held in his mouth.

A man with deathly pale-blue skin, draped in a dark crimson robe.

"Mr. Su-myeon. At this rate, we will be caught."

Han-su offered the negative prediction as if certain of it.

Su-myeon couldn't deny it.

"Then I'll have to do something."

With that, Su-myeon raised his Heartphone and opened his Inventory. It might not match the flute's sound, but Su-myeon, too, had a weapon effective at considerable range.

Amid the complicated situation, Su-myeon decided on a physically certain method.

"If the flute is smashed to pieces, he won't be able to play it."

From his Inventory, Su-myeon drew out his K2 rifle. About twenty rounds still remained. With a gigantic target before him that left no need for hesitation, Su-myeon immediately took his stance.

BANG! BANG!

Gunshots rang out, fierce bursts of gunpowder.

At the end of that sound, the enormous flute and the Pied Piper's fingers gripping it were pierced through.

Pitch-black blood streamed down from the gigantic hand.

Fweee.

From the broken flute came the sound of escaping air instead of high notes. Having drawn gradually closer along with the parade procession, the Pied Piper's form was now clearly visible.

He was mounted atop an enormous parade float.

The huge figure bent his head nearly ninety degrees, as if displeased at being interrupted.

While the playing had stopped for a moment, Su-myeon did not stop.

BANG!

Su-myeon fired one more shot to make certain.

The bullet struck true, and half of the enormous flute broke off and fell. As if taking a moment to assess the situation, the Pied Piper peered down at his own hand.

The broken flute. Fingers streaming with blood. Having grasped its own condition, the thing slowly rose.

CRASH—!

Soon, the enraged Pied Piper braced against the ground with a dull thud and stood.

The float he had been riding looked white at a glance, but the whiteness came from its material.

The Pied Piper rose, violently crushing down on the thing, which was made entirely of bleached bones.

Through the gaps of the shattered bones, organs were revealed, throbbing like a living organism.

Was that, too, some living creature that had been corrupted, like the wax humans? Curiosity arose, but he didn't particularly want to know the answer.

"M-Mr. Su-myeon!"

"Let's just run for now!"

For now, the flute's sound had stopped. The group urged him to run for the exit again. But Su-myeon calmly raised his rifle once more.

He didn't think that he, a slow runner, would be faster than that giant sprinting at full speed.

"Run on ahead!"

After telling the group to go first, Su-myeon corrected his stance once more.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

The ground shook heavily with every step.

Aiming at the Pied Piper charging head-on was a relatively easy task.

Once again, two gunshots rang out.

---!

Struck dead-on in both eyeballs, the Pied Piper let out a monstrous shriek.

The indescribable scream, howled through tears of blood, sent tremors through his whole body.

"H-Hurry!"

Only after confirming that the Pied Piper had collapsed with a monstrous shriek did Su-myeon turn at his companions' urging.

Clatter—

Just then, something caught at Su-myeon's feet as he turned.

Not spent casings—a dozen or so familiar Rose Coins lay scattered at his feet.

Upon seeing the fallen coins, Su-myeon didn't hesitate for even an instant.

Reflexively, he crouched low, almost dropping to the ground, and grabbed a fistful of coins, as many as his hand could hold.

"Mr. Su-myeon!"

"Hurry!"

Chasing the shouts of those who had run ahead, the way sprinters do.

Su-myeon kicked off the ground and ran as if leaping into a sprint.

The exit soon came into view, but it was considerably farther than expected. His breath had climbed to his throat, and his lungs felt ready to burst at any moment—too far to run all the way.

Far from escaping the Pied Piper, he could barely even catch up with the ones he had told to run first.

<Little Mermaid's Breath>

Breathe freely anywhere, even underwater.

Su-myeon popped the blue candy Du-pal had pulled from the capsule machine into his mouth.
In an instant, his breathing came freely, and running grew easier. His legs, pushed to their limit, were trembling a little, of course—but with his breathing alone freed, running became far more bearable.

***

No one named Shin Hyeon-seok among those holding the title of Executive Director within Shinseong Group.

In particular, the Executive Director position at Shuin, the cosmetics affiliate, is recorded as vacant.

"How is that even possible?"

Hwi-yeon asked the subordinate, relaying the information.

The staff member also tilted his head with a puzzled expression and answered in an uncertain tone.

"Well, the thing is... it does look strange, even to me."

Shinseong was one of the top conglomerates in the country—you could count its peers on one hand.

What's more, Shinseong's Shuin had gained worldwide fame and was a sizable affiliate. And they had left the Executive Director position at a place like that completely vacant for years, without reason?

"This isn't the kind of issue the shareholders would sit quietly on, either...."

The current head of Shinseong Group was extremely old.

It was a period when not only Shinseong's second generation but even its third were working hard to expand their stakes in management however they could.

"An Executive Director vacancy under the cosmetics division at a time like this... and they just leave it alone? That's far too strange, isn't it?"

A deeply unnatural situation.

Hwi-yeon thought the odds that Young-cheol's claims were true were growing.

It was actually more plausible to assume that the position had once had a rightful owner, and that the person had vanished.

Because in a society as cutthroat as South Korea's, there was no way such a seat would be left empty without reason.

"Check it one more time."

With an uneasy expression, the staff member picked up the receiver again.

He himself had plenty of doubts, so a second confirmation seemed necessary.

"Yes, about the matter I asked you earlier."

Lee Hwi-yeon. She was an agent of South Korea's National Intelligence Service. And not just any agent—she was a section-chief-level figure, the youngest in the NIS to lead her own team.

"......What? What did you say? No, but earlier......."

The team member, who had been gathering information at her request, shifted the receiver to his other hand with a troubled expression.