Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Shopping Mall (4)

[9. Please turn in any lost items you find to the nearest Customer Service Center. Anything claiming to be the owner of an item is not human.]

“Can you survive like that? Try walking a little harder!”

Ki San-hyeok cackled as he slapped the back of the head of the young man walking desperately.

At some point, his gang, numbering a little under ten, had split into three types.

Those who sided with Ki San-hyeok and shoved the weak from behind, the weak being shoved by them, and bystanders.

“If you keep dragging your feet like that, that monster’s going to come over and gut you clean like he’s dressing a piglet!”

He made others break the rules, while Ki San-hyeok merely controlled him from behind.

The young man being shoved by him was not only carrying the bulging bag alone, but already seemed to be injured.

“I-it’s coming! Mr. San-hyeok! It’s coming!”

Then, right on cue, the Mad Hatter, whose steps had been thudding, appeared.

A huge body that looked well over two meters tall, and a comically large, high hat.

Its appearance was like a children’s toy, but when red light flashed here and there across its wide smiling face, it looked only grotesque.

As soon as the Mad Hatter came into view, Ki San-hyeok and his gang scattered and hid like cockroaches.

The only one who failed to hide was the injured man carrying all the baggage.

“N-no! No! Take me with you! Take me!”

The voice shouting so desperately was far too vivid, as if it came from a nightmare.

The wretched scream of a human being who wanted to live. A fear-stricken sob.

Su-myeon felt like plugging his ears, but he got to his feet.

“Let’s raise the shutter.”

At Su-myeon’s words, Ju-hee also rose as if she had been waiting.

If they heard something like that and offered no help, it would surely become a nightmare that tormented them for the rest of their lives.

But how could they raise it?

At Ju-hee’s gaze, which seemed to ask that, Su-myeon went straight to the store computer.

“This is connected to the system, so we can’t raise it by force.”

The store computer was filled with scarlet, and he did not even want to touch it, but Su-myeon hurriedly launched the security program.

“J-just a second… Mr. Su-myeon!”

“Just wait a second!”

I can do it in no time, so stop rushing me!

[Happy!Fun!HeIsComing!DoNotForget!Welcome!Together!TrustMe¡OpenUp!Forever!TheDayOfDoom!FestivalOfBlood!]

When he clicked the inverted exclamation mark among the bizarre combinations of words filling the desktop, a map of the stores appeared.

Originally, he would have had to search through the Shopping Mall, find hints, and figure it out, but Su-myeon already knew.

Each store’s shutter was marked in the shape of a guillotine.

Su-myeon clicked the guillotine marked at the entrance of the shoe store.

CLACK-

With a heavy metallic sound, the shutter began to rise.

But there was no spare time to do anything.

At the same time, a desperate scream rang out.

“U-uaaaaagh!”

When he hurriedly raised his head, along with Ju-hee’s back as she covered her mouth….

THUD!

After seeing the Mad Hatter’s silhouette, Su-myeon did not look any longer and closed the shutter again.

The young man had already been caught by the Mad Hatter.

He decided not to think too deeply about the “something” being torn from him piece by piece.

“Hrk.”

From the sight of Ju-hee suppressing a retch, he could only faintly recall the horrific execution scene in the game.

Red and pink things made of pixels. But reality would not be that simple.

Along with the young man’s voice, groaning as if he had lost all strength, the Mad Hatter looked around.

After failing to find any other beings, the Mad Hatter hurriedly disappeared somewhere again.

“….”

After all sound vanished, silence flowed.

In the Shopping Mall, which had gone quiet now that even the alarm had vanished at some point, Ki San-hyeok and his gang appeared again.

In the place where the young man had just been dragged away, along with a pool of blood, the heavy bag he had failed to take remained.

“Hey, this time you carry it.”

Ki San-hyeok shoved the next person’s back and made him pick up what had fallen to the floor.

Because Ju-hee’s face was pale and her hands were trembling, Su-myeon said one thing.

“That should be safe to carry.”

The person forced to take on the luggage picked up the bag, but the alarm did not sound again.

It was just as Su-myeon had said.

Once the theft had already happened and the items had come out of the store, they were no longer Hotel property.

The one picking up the bag with trembling hands was Kim Young-cheol.

He was a character Su-myeon knew well from the game.

He was someone who helped quite a bit in clearing the game, so it was a little unfortunate that he had ended up mixed in there.

“Uaaaaaagh!”

A distant, spine-chilling scream rang out again, and Su-myeon frowned for a moment.

The one who had just been caught would probably be “sorted” by body part by the Mad Hatter and turned into new merchandise.

As Su-myeon thought that, Ki San-hyeok confirmed again that no alarm was sounding, and only then did he smirk.

“As expected, you can pick up a dead bastard’s stuff.”

Ki San-hyeok had enough brains to grasp the rules in his own way.

Having personally confirmed that the rules were absolute, he was clearing the Hotel by digging into loopholes.

And he was doing it while using other people’s lives as if they were his own spare ones.

“Hold it in.”

Ju-hee’s fists trembled with rage, but Su-myeon caught her and made her sit.

If they ran into them now and it turned into a fistfight, their side would be at a disadvantage.

Just Ju-hee and Su-myeon would have a hard time facing that gang.

Only after waiting until they had passed completely did the two raise the shutter again and leave the store.

“Mr. Su-myeon!”

“Su-myeon hyung!”

Fortunately, before he had walked far, Su-myeon was able to meet Han-su and Ha-min.

“Everyone’s safe! You and Ju-hee noona were the only ones we couldn’t contact, so everyone was worried!”

And there had been those impossible screams and strange laughter, too.

Ha-min looked like he was about to burst into tears again, saying he had nearly died of fear.

While the two of them had spotted Ki San-hyeok and held their breath, everyone else seemed to have contacted one another by phone.

“Before I entered the store, I saw something like that.”

Han-su pointed to a pillar of one store.

There, as if it were an advertising poster, a phrase written in pretty handwriting was attached.

[In an emergency, the guillotine will come down, so welcome it with arms wide open!]

“Han-su hyung thought that looked suspicious, so he told everyone not to move and to hide and wait for now.”

At Ha-min’s addition, Ju-hee understood in a different direction.

“Ah… Mr. Su-myeon, you saw that too….”

That warning notice was probably something only Han-su had seen at most.

Although Su-myeon wondered how Han-su had managed to find it, he nodded.

Their joy at meeting safely, at least with those who remained, lasted only a moment.

“More importantly, I think another problem is going to come up.”

With a troubled expression, Ju-hee told them what she and Su-myeon had witnessed.

Thanks to her curious and willing personality, things were a little easier for Su-myeon.

“Are you saying that man treats other people like objects?”

“I think it’s worse than that.”

If he had truly treated them like objects without emotion, it might have been better.

He was the sort of human who did not hesitate to mock and demean others unnecessarily.

“Human garbage.”

Ha-min’s summary was exactly right.

But the problem was that such garbage was here with them in an isolated space.

Seeing the others grow more anxious, Su-myeon thought briefly and quietly offered an opinion.

“For now, even if it’s a bit stifling, how about staying here one more day?”

When Su-myeon gave his opinion, Han-su nodded.

“Let’s do that.”

…He doesn’t even ask why. Is this the protagonist’s scale?

Though he felt awkward, once even Han-su agreed, the others nodded without any complaint.

They had been aiming for a fast clear, but the situation had gotten a little tangled.

It seemed safer to put some distance between themselves and Ki San-hyeok’s group ahead.

With crazy bastards, avoiding them was the best policy.

“Will it be enough if we simply rest and stay here for a day?”

Han-su approached Su-myeon and asked.

Su-myeon, now too tired to ask back, nodded.

Since things had turned out this way, it seemed better for everyone to carefully gather supplies.

“For now, yes.”

The items left behind by someone taken by the Mad Hatter were treated as lost items, even if they were not merchandise for sale.

Ki San-hyeok would have missed that part, so Young-cheol, who had picked up a lost item, probably would not live long.

Maybe while we rest here for a day, the group ahead of us will be annihilated and cease to exist.

Thinking that, Su-myeon asked the protagonist standing in front of him.

“Did you happen to see the newly posted rule?”

When Han-su nodded, Su-myeon asked again.

“Would you like to go find a lost item with me?”

***

Because everyone was wrapped in anxiety, all five of them ended up moving together in a cluster.

But when they reached the blood-soaked scene, the others stopped a short distance away.

Only Su-myeon, Han-su, and Ju-hee approached and looked around.

“Here, they dropped one.”

A single sausage had fallen into the blood.

Honestly, he did not want to touch it. But thinking of the reward he would receive, he endured it and fished out the sausage.

At that sight, Han-su asked.

“Are you planning to take it to the Customer Service Center?”

“Yes. I don’t think they wrote ‘turn it in’ for no reason.”

At Su-myeon’s answer, Han-su looked around more, but Ki San-hyeok had been so thorough that he had scraped everything clean and left.

With the others following him like chicks trailing a mother hen, Su-myeon headed for the Customer Service Center.

Meanwhile, throughout the walk, the Shopping Mall’s wall kept stealing his gaze.

(^-^)

An emoticon was moving along the wall, always into the place Su-myeon’s line of sight reached.

“…….”

Clearly, it was following him.

Su-myeon was certain it was the cat doll that had introduced itself as Cheshire.

It felt as if he had gained a stalker, but it did not feel particularly threatening.

Especially since it had shown a friendly attitude toward Su-myeon.

Just then, Ha-min approached Su-myeon, who had been examining the wall.

“But Su-myeon hyung. Did you buy that?”

“Yeah. At the store earlier.”

Only then did everyone show interest in Su-myeon’s changed outfit.

Because someone had died and blood had splattered, they either had not noticed or had not had the chance to ask.

Su-myeon was wearing a jacket embroidered with ornate patterns that had not been there until just earlier.

“Uh…. Why would you wear that……. No, your taste is incredible. I-it looks cool!”

It had passed Su-myeon’s sense of aesthetics, but it seemed not to be much in the eyes of a young high school student.

Cheshire’s emoticon, which had been sneaking along wherever Su-myeon’s gaze reached, changed in displeasure at Ha-min’s words.

(-_-)p

The emoticon that seemed to be turning a thumb down appeared to boo Ha-min’s evaluation.

Su-myeon could see all sorts of things, but because of the horrible shops hidden everywhere like traps, most of the others walked while looking only straight ahead.

The Shopping Mall was wide, and only their footsteps echoed in the silence.

“…….”

Han-su, who had readily taken the lead after saying he had seen the Customer Service Center, stopped.

When they approached, mannequins were packed tightly inside the Customer Service Center, sitting in place.

After confirming the situation, Su-myeon stepped forward.

“Just in case, everyone stay outside and don’t look inside.”

Han-su still tried to follow, but Su-myeon lightly stopped him.

“I’ll be fine, so stay with the others.”

Su-myeon entered alone and turned familiarly.

Next to the door was a machine that dispensed numbered tickets.

The tickets were divided into categories according to the purpose of the visit.

[Heart Retrieval][Blood Intake][Pancreas Extraction][Lost Item Report]

Ah, I really hate this.

Even if it was something he already knew, hating it was hating it.

Su-myeon was about to press the button very carefully, making absolutely sure he did not press the wrong one.

Until a sudden voice sounded beside his ear.

“Excuse me….”