GSGW c241
Chapter 241
I open my eyes.
But nothing is visible.
I try to move my hand.
But nothing moves.
I am fixed in place, unable to do anything.
And then I understand.
Why the countless sentient beings trapped inside the box of the Fixed Number Praise Sect suffer for decades, tortured until death, unable to use any of the abilities or items they possessed in life.
'I’ve been swallowed.'
I cannot perform any action.
Right now, my body is tightly gripped by something, sealed in place.
For meditation.
Digestive fluid begins to secrete.
—It’s hell, hell, this is hell. How can something hurt this much? I understand now the horror of what true, primordial pain is. Descriptions about reliving your saddest memories or triggering deep trauma are lukewarm and complicated—comforts for those whose bodies are safe. I envy them. True pain comes from the body. The kind of pain that destroys the mind.
—This pain scraping away membrane and nerves layer by layer with needles! Pain across my entire body! My skin twists and burns over organs I can’t even locate. It feels like I’m trapped in an endlessly burning hell. My mouth—are they forcing it open and pouring digestive fluid inside? No! Thank goodness I don’t have an esophagus—no, it feels like one is being drilled through—
A voice echoes inside my head.
The voice of the ascetic calmly recites the pain I feel—my torment, my analysis, my begging, my screams—exactly as they are.
And…
—Don’twanttodiedon’twanttodiedon’twanttodie stop! stop! stop! why? why did this happen it hurts it hurts it hurts!! Ireum-nim I did something valuable it hurts! I did something valuable! Save me kill me save me kill me
—I can’t breathe. I can’t endure the pain. I know instinctively. No one could endure this for decades. I think it might be fortunate that I entered instead—but how long can that thought last? Even imagining it is terrifying. The pain won’t even let my mind go numb. A supernatural disaster like this…
Two other sentient voices.
The voices of others being tortured echo right beside me. Displaying each other’s suffering—that is the completion of the “Seeker Inside the Box.”
As it is, we will remain helpless in the digestive fluid, connected as parts of the Seeker, suffering for decades within whispers of madness created by each other’s pain.
The digestive fluid acts as a kind of preservative, preventing us from dying while forcing us to feel pain with a clear mind.
Madness, fear.
And yet this insane pain does not even allow escape into madness.
'Happy Maker…!'
I desperately miss the item that is not in my hands right now. But I—I…
'Endure.'
I try to release smoke.
No—rather, I transform entirely into smoke.
Smoke is one of my components, so it is possible even without movement. The smoke tightly fills what seems like the Seeker's brood pouch that seals me in place.
Even as smoke, the pain does not fade. Every surface, every point of contact screams with agony.
But there is one difference.
'Smoke is a gas.'
Within the smoke, at the deepest center, I recreate only one part of my body.
A horn.
And I barely manage to shake it.
Jingle.
The bell attached to the horn rings clearly.
'…Ha!'
The pain does not disappear. But my thinking and willpower return.
'Something… I can do.'
Something I can do!
I know another human is right beside the pouch binding me in place.
'…Slowly.'
For the first time, I feel grateful that I cannot find my vocal cords—even though I want to scream.
'This time…'
Near the surface of the smoke, I bring out a tiny patch of skin from beneath my uniform.
My tattoo.
'Inventory…!'
I try to shove the strange membrane sealing me inside into the tattoo itself.
But it doesn’t work.
'...!'
Every attempt to store it only tightens the pouch further. The volume shrinks by the same amount I try to put into the tattoo, overloading even my smoke-transformed body.
'It won’t work.'
And as if lubricating, the creature simply secretes more digestive fluid.
/tn. lubricating is crazy 💀
—Pain! Pain! Even after turning into black smoke, the pain doesn’t disappear. It grows worse.
No amount of physical resistance works. Inside the box, the victim is merely a component inside the Seeker's stomach—so the Seeker cannot be harmed.
Yet I still receive the physical pain completely. What an absurd and hellish ghost story this is.
—Stop, stop, the digestive fluid—I’m going to die—no, it just feels like dying—this insane pain is worse than anything I experienced in Daydream Inc., even on the Tamra-bound train
Then—
—Agent Grapes?
……
….!
—This makes no sense. Why? Why Agent Grapes instead of a villain? I assumed whoever pushed me had resentment toward the Disaster Management Bureau—but the pain makes the reason irrelevant now. No.
—We’re supposed to endure this pain here for decades? Him too?
The Seeker displays mental suffering as well.
Agent Bronze’s mental suffering.
And mine.
—I’m used to pain. I can endure it. I’m used to pain. I can take a different form, so it’s a little better. Inside the smoke I shake the bell—no, it hurts! Pain! No, I can end—
At that moment—
—I see it! Thoughts connected to pain are heard by the other. Thoughts linked to pain… pain…
Agent Bronze realizes it.
And the Seeker's whisper—once displaying pain—changes.
Faster now. Unstable. Reflecting the target’s state.
—I am in pain. So if I can partially turn into smoke—if I can move even a little inside it—I will immediately use the five-colored shoelaces to escape this pain.
…!!
—Immediately. I can’t endure this pain anymore. Tie the shoelaces and walk. Just fulfilling the act of walking is enough! Quickly!
……
And then I remember.
'Even with shoelaces, Agent Bronze cannot leave.'
Just like in Looky Mart, when both his legs were severed and he couldn’t use the five-colored shoelaces—now, sealed like this, he cannot escape either.
Only I can.
Which means once I leave…
Those who remain will continue being displayed and tortured here, a place they can never escape.
Together with whoever the box swallows next in my place.
……
……
—I can’t hear Agent Grapes anymore. Did he leave? Am I the only one suffering this pain now? It would be hopeful—but if he escaped alone, wouldn’t I curse him for it? This unbearable pain…
I turn part of the smoke into the shape of a hand.
Exposing bare skin,
I touch the membrane.
To the 'Seeker Inside the Box'.
Seeker Inside the Box
An authority of the Church of the Luminous Unknown recorded in the Dark Exploration Records. Rank 6 authority within the Fixed Number Praise Sect.
According to the laws of the Fixed Number Praise Sect, the practitioner severs their own legs and undergoes prolonged ascetic meditation inside a box, eventually awakening this authority and becoming a creature within the box that secretes digestive fluid.
They are practitioners who concentrate on the most primordial form of pain.
After swallowing the number of sacrifices assigned to the box, once the box closes it will never open again until the sacrifices die.
Victims who come into contact with the digestive fluid inside the box become connected to the ascetic and themselves turn into practitioners of suffering.
Erase.
Seeker Inside the Box
An authority of the Church of the Luminous Unknown recorded in the Dark Exploration Records. Rank 6 authority within the Fixed Number Praise Sect.
According to the laws of the Fixed Number Praise Sect, the practitioner severs their own legs and undergoes prolonged ascetic meditation inside a box, eventually awakening this authority and becoming a creature within the box that secretes digestive fluid.
They are practitioners who concentrate on the most primordial form of pain.
After swallowing the number of sacrifices assigned to the box, once the box closes it will never open again until the sacrifices die.
Victims who come into contact with the digestive fluid inside the box become connected to the ascetic and themselves turn into practitioners of suffering.
A scream.
The Seeker screams—the shock of a narrative being erased, pleas for mercy, prayers to Ireum-nim, the wretched truth and painful meditation that once formed a hymn of fanatical praise—its completion helplessly erased, turning into something incomplete, stripped of its mystery. Pain.
Is this pain also the will of Ireum-nim?
Did He intend my suffering?
If so, should I accept—
I feel nauseous. No. Stop. Don’t sympathize. Just because I read it doesn’t mean I should agree with it. But there is nothing to vomit. Soon I won’t even be able to resist agreeing. My mind is collapsing. It has already collapsed, returning to something numb and empty. No.
The bell! The bell rings. It must ring. The sound of the bell—Kim Soleum collapses, then rebuilds himself. I have to endure. Instead of erasing one more thing—just endure one more moment.
Overwrite.
Seeker Inside the Box
An authority of the Church of the Luminous Unknown recorded in the Dark Exploration Records. Ranked 6 authority within the Fixed Number Praise Sect.
According to the laws of the Fixed Number Praise Sect, the practitioner severs their own legs and undergoes prolonged ascetic suffering and meditation inside a box. In the end, they awaken this authority and become a creature within the box that secretes digestive fluid.
They are practitioners who focus on the most primordial form of pain.
After swallowing the number of sacrifices assigned to the box, once the box closes—
if struck with a powerful shock from inside, it may open.
I pull my hand away.
……
……
At last.
According to the newly written text—
the Seeker Inside the Box, unable to withstand the shock of being forcibly read, erased, and rewritten…
Pop.
Bursts apart from that “powerful shock from inside.”
An intense pressure.
And then—
the liberation of the practitioner.
Pop.
Still sealed, I feel myself pushed out of the box.
With a strange sound, the Seeker melts away. The ghost story of the unopenable box—perfected through the Fixed Number Praise Sect’s brutal austerity and meditation—collapses.
And mine—
collapses too.
The sanity I barely regained, my identity as a human, my humanity, my emotions—
crushed into a pulp, leaving only faint traces.
Jingle.
The bell rings.
But I can no longer hear it.
Yet I am not sad.
Nor particularly distressed or in great pain.
Because that is the proper attitude of an employee.
I must return to Daydream Inc. to receive a replacement for my damaged uniform.
—Your uniform has been damaged. Return immediately and await further instruction. Your uniform has been damaged. Return immediately and await further instruction. Your uniform has been damaged. Return immediately and await further instruction…
An announcement echoes.
The next moment—
I spill out of the box.
Together with two other figures.
***
Ryu Jaekwang eventually realizes that the pain is gone.
Pain that exceeds the threshold lingers as phantom agony even after disappearing, so he only notices it belatedly.
He also realizes the voices in his head have stopped.
Neither his pain nor anyone else’s echoes there anymore.
"..…!"
He pushes aside the membrane of digestive fluid surrounding him, which has now lost its strange power.
The membrane of the dead Seeker can no longer enforce its absurd sealing ability. It gives way as he pushes it, and he slices through it with a small pocketknife, forcing his way outside.
Air.
The moment he inhales—
he becomes aware of two other lumps of membrane beside him.
“...!”
He immediately drives the pocketknife into the one next to him. Desperately cutting through it, what emerges is—
'Ha.'
A man with the delicate appearance of a handsome boy, dressed in a school uniform. Someone he doesn’t recognize. Realizing this must be the cult member who had been swallowed by the box earlier, Bronze hurriedly turns to the next membrane.
A much larger mass.
This time, having regained a bit more composure, his hands move more carefully as he dismantles it.
From inside the hastily removed membrane appears—an employee wearing a black uniform, a gas mask, and countless horns.
Agent Grapes.
…Or at least, something that appears to be a supernatural phenomenon resembling him.
“…Agent Grapes.”
But there is no response.
Did he lose consciousness?
The gas mask remains in place, making it difficult to be sure, but the yellow lantern-like glow that once shone from his eyes is gone.
Agent Bronze carefully lifts Agent Grapes by the shoulder. Still no reaction.
From the cluster of countless horns on his head, fragments like shattered jade spill out. Agent Bronze gathers them and sets them aside for now.
'Aside from that… what else needs to be done…'
It is difficult to think clearly. His head is still clouded.
'…What did I hear earlier?'
The Seeker’s voice that had constantly whispered the suffering of practitioners in his mind—right before the end, it had said something strange.
Something bizarre and dreadful… yet related to truth—
'Ugh.'
Ryu Jaekwang presses his fingers against his furrowed brow.
Listening too closely to the whispers of a supernatural disaster—or dwelling on their contents—is never a good sign.
'…Contamination?'
But there are more urgent matters. Agent Grapes’ condition—and…
'…Agent Choi!'
Suddenly jolting upright as if splashed with cold water, goosebumps run down his spine.
Looking around properly now, the space where they had stood before being swallowed by the box remains exactly the same.
The box sits open, its blood-soaked hands resting on the floor, no numbers displayed. And—
no one else is there.
The desolate underground bunker shows no sign of human presence.
Instead, the bunker door has been completely torn off.
"......!"
From outside, a tremendous crashing sound echoes.
But the agent recognizes the noise immediately.
The ringing of a bell.
'This is…'
The sound of a ritual execution blade being slammed down.
Ryu Jaekwang grabs Agent Grapes and runs outside.
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