GSGW c233

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Chapter 233

The one waiting for me in front of the elevator.

New employee Kim Heoun.

“Employee?”

I cannot distinguish people’s faces.

They look like melted mosaics, and their voices are difficult to make out, like old radio recordings.

So I cannot tell how much the “new employee Kim Heoun” standing before the elevator resembles the Mr. Jang Heoun I once knew… But I can be certain of one thing.

'…This situation is strange.'

Something about this is wrong.

And the person beside me likely understands that even better than I do.

A director of this company.

“Hello. You must be the new member of this field exploration team.”

“Ah. Yes…! My name is Kim Heoun.”

“I see. …But how did you get in?”

“…Excuse me?”

“You’re with the Field Exploration Team, right? Then you shouldn’t be able to enter this security team area freely… so I was wondering how you ended up here.”

Silence.

“And how did you find this elevator? Knowing that the employee would be here—”

Ho Yuwon points at me.

“—how did you know that?”

"......"

His mouth opens.

“I imitated them.”

…What?

“I imitated the security team to enter, and I imitated the research team to find where the employee was.”

'Imitated…?'

At the moment that ominous feeling rises—

A smile spreads across Kim Heoun’s unseen face.

“But I’ve already accomplished my purpose for joining the company with this, so it’s fine if I’m fired for it.”

Then he looks at me.

“Employee.”

His purpose for joining.

—There’s something I need to find.

It was me.

“There’s no need to worry. Nothing caused any disturbance. I only came to get the chance to introduce myself properly… because I wanted to express my gratitude.”

Then Kim Heoun bows deeply toward me.

“Thank you for saving us. Because of you, the people at the facility all survived.”

……

Wait.

“Thanks to you, Jang Heoun’s wish came true.”

Which means…

“Ah. Unfortunately, it seems my guess was wrong, Roe Deer.”

And I realize.

The two bottles of Wish Tickets that were given to Go Yeongeun…

'They weren’t used to revive Mr. Jang Heoun…!'

To begin with, someone as intelligent and composed as her would hardly make such a sloppy wish with a Wish Ticket. If anything…

'She probably felt more uneasy keeping the Wish Tickets on her.'

Someone might discover them and steal them.

And she may have heard that although the Disaster Management Bureau is doing its best to improve Jang Heoun’s condition, no one knows when he will fully recover.

If that is the case, rather than holding onto the Wish Ticket indefinitely and risking an accident… it would make more sense that she used one on Jang Heoun’s behalf.

Recovery from contamination already has precedents—handled by the security team and others—so she could entrust that to the Disaster Management Bureau.

Instead, she must have made the real wish.

Like this.

Please grant Mr. Jang Heoun’s wish.

And Jang Heoun’s wish was…

—He wanted to save his precious family.

……

Before my eyes, I see Jang Heoun’s fulfilled wish.

A person named Kim Heoun.

One of the family members from the provincial religious social welfare facility where the orphaned Jang Heoun grew up—the place that was burned to the ground in the fire.

[What an interesting situation, my friend.]

[And tell me—how exactly does this person know that you handed over the Wish Tickets?]

[And doesn’t that vague explanation of his “imitation” ability bother you?]

…That.

'I have… a guess.'

A creeping dread climbs my spine. One shocking possibility rises in my mind.

…I narrow it down through questions.

Question: Your relationship with Jang Heoun

“Ah. We’re family who grew up in the same facility. Seven out of the eight of us died in the fire.”

Question: Why are your names identical

“At the facility, people living together originally receive the same name. Our surnames are different, so we share the given name instead. Because we’re family.”

Question: Rules shared by the family

“There weren’t really rules… but we all receive the same education, eat the same food, and sleep in the same place so we can live in a way suitable for the name ‘Heoun.’ So we can experience the same things fairly.”

Question: An example of a “lifestyle suitable for the name Heoun.”

“Ah. It wasn’t difficult. For example… going to sleep late and waking up late.”

……

“Reading poetry at least twice a week, becoming afraid of blood, starting middle school a year early, and dropping out of high school.”

And then—

“Whenever we meet a shaman or a member of another religion, we do not introduce ourselves by name.”

……

The final question.

Question: The name of the facility

“Ah, that place was….”

But I already know the answer.

There are many strange organizations in this world, but there is only one insane group that operates an orphanage like this.

“…It’s a facility called Paradise of Love Shelter.”

……

Paradise of Love.

“You know it?”

Yes.

A fairly well-known cult group in Korea within this world.

I have even seen the name once in the Disaster Management Bureau.

—Human life is filled with fear. Your lover from paradise, who will protect and love you so you are no longer afraid, is waiting for you. Come to the Paradise of Love.

When the White Tiger Team handled the ghost story 'The Red Clothes at Exit 4' at my suggestion, the agents wrote propaganda pretending to be cult recruiters—and those lines were impersonating that very group.

But there is something else I remember even more clearly.

This organization had its own page on the <Dark Exploration Records> wiki.

Paradise of Love

One of the new religious movements that became popular in Korea in the early 2000s within the <Dark Exploration Records> universe.

Promoting slogans such as “You can meet your ideal partner” or “We will transform you into the ideal partner you imagine,” it gained notoriety on the early internet by recruiting young people with tempting promises.

However, in reality, it was an unethical and occult cult that reshaped the lives of its followers—forcing them through bizarre rituals so they could become something suitable for a specific being known as the “Lover of Paradise.”

And—

This process was widely praised for the intriguing hypothesis that it may have been influenced by the Mimicry Sect of the Church of the Luminous Unknown. Eventually, it was established that Paradise of Love was one of the subordinate organizations of the Mimicry Sect.

The facility belongs to the Church of the Luminous Unknown.

Jang Heoun grows up in one of the Church’s facilities.

And to save the believers of the Church of the Luminous Unknown who grow up with him, he joins Daydream Inc. …

The orphans of the facility he calls his “family,” the ones who become targets of the ritual together.

'......'

By the time I reach this point, I can understand how Heoun of the Cheerful Research Institute connects to all of this …

'So that Heoun is the ritual’s target.'

At times like this, if the “Lover of Paradise” is a real person, they even attempt to steal that person’s narrative through a ritual process of imitation.

An act that follows the doctrine of the Church of the Luminous Unknown, which seeks to become a meaningful existence in this world.

'Were they raising someone who could imitate Lee Heoun of the Cheerful Research Institute and steal that researcher’s role?'

Stories that are never written in the <Dark Exploration Records>, details I never knew, approach me through the words of people around him.

It feels like an illusion—cold sweat that should not be there sliding down my spine …

[Ah, they imitate every twist and turn of someone’s life, crafting a role that produces a story similar to theirs…]

[Perhaps inheriting the spirit of the industrial capitalist era, they treat stories like machine parts—cutting and processing them.]

[As if expecting that the same process will produce the exact same product!]

And one of those products stands before us.

A replica made in imitation of “Lee Heoun.”

Kim Heoun lowers his head deeply.

“Um… actually, it was a lie when I said I came just to introduce myself.”

……

“I came to find you because there is something I desperately want to ask of you.”

He speaks with extreme politeness.

A completely absurd request.

“Just as you took in Jang Heoun… could you take all of us in as well?”

…!!

“We can tell. Because we are the same Heoun. …Isn’t Jang Heoun happy now under you?”

My head begins to ache.

The reason for the request

“…We cannot go back anywhere else.”

His voice lowers.

“The facility where we lived burned down, and the other shelters of Paradise of Love… we cannot go there. …… We cannot live like before.”

He does not need to say why.

'Fire.'

That fire is also part of the ritual meant to imitate the narrative of the researcher at the Cheerful Research Institute …

And surviving that fire—possessing the narrative “survivor of a large fire at a residential witness facility”—is what completes Jang Heoun.

But this person… He is one of those who are filtered out and used as material in that process.

“Please… give us the same name that Jang Heoun received.”

…….

“Then we can exist as the same person. That is how we were raised!”

His voice grows desperate.

“…The fact that Jang Heoun entered first even feels meaningful somehow. As if he were the eldest son, receiving the surname ‘Jang,’ doesn’t it? Then we could continue—”

I raise my hand. Kim Heoun hurriedly bows his head, almost as if expecting my hand to reach him. But…

Smoke rises from my hand.

Rejection

“…Huh?”

Other excellent choices

▶ Break away from Lee Heoun’s life

▶ Live your own life

“Huh? But… I…”

Heh. From beside the elevator, I hear Ho Yuwon let out a small laugh, as though he has just heard something utterly ridiculous.

And then—

“I already received the authority of the Mimicry Sect, so… in order to enter here… if things stay like this I can’t escape—”

“Have you become unhappy?”

Slice.

Kim Heoun splits into two.

Right before my eyes, the upper half of his divided body slides off at an angle and falls to the floor with a wet splat.

Blood spreads.

Blood stains the tips of my shoes.

And so, for the first time, I am able to see Kim Heoun’s face.

Because now that he is dead, he is no longer a person.

The dead face of a young man in his twenties—somewhat dark and gentle-looking, and quite similar to Mr. Jang Heoun—freezes in a mixture of expectation and despair …

“Congratulations. Now you will be happy forever.”

And then I realize something.

A Wish Ticket is personal omnipotence.

Which means—the fact that, during the process of fulfilling Mr. Jang Heoun’s wish, seven people simply come back to life instead of Mr. Jang Heoun or Ms. Go Yeongeun being moved to another world already tells me something.

From the beginning, this wish is judged as something that cannot greatly affect the world.

Because—

-They will die again very soon.

“Hello?”

I lift my head.

Covered in Kim Heoun’s blood, the one smiling calmly looks like a delicate teenager.

He is even wearing a worn-out old school uniform.

But the emergency broadcast beginning to sound throughout the building lets me guess his true identity …

[Evacuation warning. Containment failure for high-power intruder. Evacuation warning. Containment failure for high-power intruder. Evacuation warning. Containment failure for high-risk intruder…]

…I think.

'Kim Heoun said he entered by imitation.'

He said he received the authority of the Mimicry Sect.

That is not something a person who grows up merely in one of the Church’s lower facilities—those ritual facilities disguised as a new religion for external use—should be able to use.

There is only one meaning.

Someone helped him.

“Wow, you look pretty cool.”

Someone who must have swallowed dozens of fragments of the Sacred Law Scripture, a fanatic who willingly becomes closer to a supernatural tale than to a human.

A follower of Ireum-nim.

“Do you happen to know Ireum-nim?”

An executive of the Church of the Luminous Unknown stands before me.

And from their words and behavior… I can infer the faction.

It is not the Mimicry Sect. This is…

Happy Ending Sect

A faction within the Church of the Luminous Unknown that pursues the most altruistic values. They strive to grant a happy ending to those who have no chance of surviving the end of the world under Ireum-nim's attention—those considered meaningless.

Their method is usually death.

Because the dead cannot become unhappy.

“Even if you don’t know, it’s fine. Hmm… a fox and a dragon, both are cool… come with me.”

The elevator we are riding in—

twists.

“Why don’t you serve Ireum-nim together with us?”

/tn. I don't want to see your Ireum-nim go away T-T

 

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