GSGW c260
Chapter 260
I opened my eyes.
A dark yet clean platform. But beyond the screen doors, the opposite platform was in a horrific state.
‘…The scenery of Segwang Station.’
Entry successful.
Looking down at myself—returned once again to a human form—I drew in a deep breath.
‘This time, everyone succeeds.’
And I went over it again.
The plans we had made.
—Ah, right. When you all wake up again, you may find yourselves waking up somewhere other than the main building of the Disaster Management Bureau.
—Huh?
—I pulled out the passage and brought it over. You’ll wake up in a very safe place….
That meant agents and Daydream Inc. employees wouldn’t suddenly collapse and reappear en masse in the Bureau’s main building anymore.
Even considering it was supposedly sealed, it was astonishing how Ho Yuwon had managed to find a way to extract something from the Bureau’s exclusive passage.
‘…Though considering that persistence, maybe it’s not that surprising.’
In any case, since my disappearance would likely cause considerable controversy within the Bureau, I left a message on the wooden floor of the main hall: ‘Stepped out briefly into a dream for a walk—will return.’ This was to account for the staff in charge.
And lastly.
The emergency escape method from dream-Segwang Special City.
—This is the euthanasia pill you requested, Roe Deer.
—...!
—It guarantees a peaceful death. Perhaps the most humane product among Daydream Inc.’s offerings?
Agent Bronze looked like he would rather bite his own tongue than take it, but in the end, he accepted it.
After all, judging from the noose incident alone, the risk of falling into a coma without ever escaping due to full contamination couldn’t be ignored.
‘It’s here.’
I checked that the pill was safely in my pocket, and also confirmed that the items I had brought were all in place.
At the same time, I visually counted our personnel.
Like me, two agents wearing Hahoe masks were getting up from the platform floor.
‘…There was some disagreement with the agents about infiltrating Segwang City.’
—For this exploration, it’d be better if you public officials sit this one out. We don’t know how long it’ll take.
—Hey now, I used up all my leave and came, sir.
For this mission, it seemed they had somehow managed to make time until Assistant Manager Lee Seoyu could be rescued.
—And… if there’s someone to rescue, how could we leave the agents behind?
From Agent Choi’s bitter smile and Agent Bronze’s hardened expression, a heavy sense of responsibility could be felt.
Still, since Black Tortoise Team 1 couldn’t keep leaving for an exploration that might take several days, if there were a next time, it would probably be difficult for them to spare time like this again.
Even so, the fact that they agreed to come along this time was meaningful enough.
“Alright. Grapes, your body okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine.”
From beneath the Hahoe mask, glowing blue eyes looked at me and gave a slight nod.
And the next lineup was….
“Is everyone awake?”
“Yes.”
Figures in suits wearing animal masks.
The current and former Field Exploration Team members of Daydream Inc.
Section Chief Lee Jaheon.
Assistant Manager Eun Haje.
Supervisor Baek Saheon.
And….
“Supervisor Roe Deer.”
Assistant Manager Eun Haje grinned and patted my back.
The old title—it almost felt nostalgic.
Here I was, in a proper human form, dressed in a suit.
[Oh. Of course, I’m here as well, my friend.]
Personnel check complete.
“Everyone has successfully entered Segwang Special City.”
It was a perfect start.
“Let’s go.”
I nodded.
First…
Segwang Transportation Corporation
Segwang Station
The platform we stood on was cold and pristine, as if it were a lie that we had once been caught by nooses here. As if it had been reset.
“Roe Deer, I think you were right. Looks like our customer count got reset.”
“Yes. That’s a relief.”
Normally, once subway operations end, the system shuts down. In other words, once a day passes, the boarding date registered on a single-use transit card expires and becomes unusable.
Naturally, this meant we would no longer be tracked by those eerie nooses in the concourse.
"......"
However, just above those stairs—
“…The fog’s range seems to have expanded.”
The fog in the concourse could be seen, with the naked eye, encroaching toward the platform below as if it were writhing.
‘…Is it because we were caught on the platform?’
It felt far more threatening and ominous than when we first arrived.
And right at the point where the stairs ended, something seemed ready to burst out, swaying.
The hanged ones.
Exactly the same form as when we died before.
"......"
“Do you think the corpses are still there?”
“It would be better not to check.”
“Oh. Old man, I agree.”
Baek Saheon’s face turned pale as he listened to this brutal conversation right beside him.
Considering he had been pushed into this after trying to back out at the last moment near the well, he seemed to have grasped the severity of this Catastrophe-Level disaster.
“Alright. Let’s prepare. Supervisor Goat. Is your eye in good condition?”
“…Yes.”
He even felt around his eyepatch before answering obediently.
‘He must’ve done the calculations.’
Acting up here wouldn’t help his survival, and the completion reward was far too tempting.
After all, Ho Yuwon had offered him a Wish Ticket as the project reward as well.
…Using me as a witness to prove it.
—Everyone who successfully completed their duties last time received a potion. Isn’t that right, Roe Deer?
—Affirmative
…Even so, no matter what I said, I wasn’t sure how he’d react.
“Then for now, entering the fog… the three of us—myself, Section Chief Lizard, and Supervisor Goat—should be sufficient.”
“Wait.”
“The rest of you, please stay at a distance where you won’t touch the fog and give us signals. So we can find the stairs.”
“Hold on a second.”
As expected.
“Then I think the reward distribution should be different. This won’t do. Only three people work while the rest just signal? We’ll need to renegotiate.”
“Ha. Feels like we’re back home.”
Assistant Manager Eun Haje nodded, clearly impressed by how fitting this was for the Field Exploration Team.
Baek Saheon seemed to be gauging whether someone would step up and offer their share of rewards or items to resolve this.
‘He’s figured he’s essential, given how urgently he was recruited.’
In that sense too, he was quick with calculations.
‘He’s not the type to settle down with some reasonable explanation like “Assistant Manager will give instructions while judging escape timing, and the agents need to stay back for later support.”’
If he were, his nickname wouldn’t be “viper”—it’d be “owl.”
Hmm. Maybe it was because we rushed in too quickly and didn’t set the tone properly.
Yeah. I think this is necessary at least once.
Smiling, I quietly said to Baek Saheon.
“Not a fan? Someone else can do it instead. We already have a method.”
Then I lowered my voice further and smiled faintly.
“We can just remove the eyeball of a Type A male in his 20s again.”
“….…!"
“Someone else will get the transplant. Don’t worry. Even if you die from blood loss, you’ll just wake up in reality anyway.”
Baek Saheon instinctively pressed his eye.
“Want to do it?”
"......"
“Think about it. If you intentionally mess up the exploration, it’ll hurt the project, so we could do that.”
“…N-no.”
“Hm?”
“I’ll just go.”
“But what if you get upset and deliberately give us wrong visual information? That would be worrying. Go ahead, speak comfortably.”
“I won’t do that.”
“Hm… Well, even if you survive alone, you’ll still have to keep seeing these people’s faces outside, so why would you do something like that, right?”
"......."
“But honestly, lying might be kind of fun.”
“No—”
“Yeah. Sounds fun.”
“No, it's not…!”
“It'd be fun, though.”
“No, I said…!”
“Alright. Then do a good job.”
Pat, pat.
I tapped Baek Saheon’s shoulder.
“Oh~ what were you two talking about so warmly for so long?”
“Ah. I encouraged him.”
“~~!"
“He says he’ll do his best.”
“Whew, thank you, citizen.”
Baek Saheon looked like he wanted to curse me out, but in the end, he removed his eyepatch and stared into the fog.
Good.
‘That prevents trolling.’
It had been a while since I went through something this nerve-wracking—it almost felt nostalgic.
I deliberately avoided looking at Agent Choi, whose Hahoe mask somehow seemed to be spinning with amusement….
“I’ll proceed.”
And the reason all of this could be carried out with certainty…
“I’ll leave the rear to you, Section Chief.”
“Yes.”
Was thanks to Section Chief Lee Jaheon.
***
I took another step forward into the fog of the concourse.
Just now, I had gone to the information board, copied down all the rules, and memorized them.
And just like when I approached the board, I pierced through the fog with the suncatcher the agents had given me, this time faintly locating the “Transit Card Recharge and Vending Machine” to set my direction.
“This way.”
Up to this point, it was similar to before…
But the approach was different.
We could choose the safest path.
“Just follow the exact route Supervisor Goat takes, Section Chief.”
“Yes.”
Through his vision, Baek Saheon would map out the route with the least “danger” possible.
And in this process, we wouldn’t use the warding pollack.
‘It was hard to obtain, anyway.’
It wasn’t necessary for the escape method we were attempting this time.
Instead, to follow the rule “Do not separate from your party,” we used two items.
Nothing extraordinary—just items that kept us within a certain radius of each other.
Handcuffs without chains.
Invisible cuffs that prevent each other from leaving a set radius.
This item, born from Daydream Inc.’s Kind Seed Kit, belonged to Assistant Manager Eun Haje.
And as we walked…
“We’ve arrived.”
At the one-time transit card machine, I pulled out cards.
Seven in total.
“There are six of us, so why—”
“Shh.”
I took all the cards. And then…
From here on was the important part.
"......"
After carefully checking the ticket gate, I moved past the entrance.
Alone.
And then.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep-beep….
I tagged all six cards I was holding, one by one, for boarding.
And the moment I tagged the sixth card, I passed through the gate.
“…Done.”
I put five of them into one pocket. Then, instead of running, I moved forward at a brisk, alert pace.
Into the thickening fog.
…Along with the sound of news beginning to echo from somewhere.
—Another body has been discovered in the ■■■ Forest of Segwang Special City.
[Oh. It’s starting again.]
Cold sweat ran down reflexively.
I shook the bell and forced myself to keep moving so as not to be entranced by the broadcast. Beside me, I could hear Baek Saheon grinding his teeth as he directed our path.
“What the hell is this, this….”
To eyes that could perceive danger, it must have looked like a field of landmines.
And ones moving toward us, at that.
More precisely…
—Don’t you want to give up too?
Toward me.
“……”
Baek Saheon seemed to be desperately choosing the least dangerous direction as we moved.
And once we were far enough from the gate, we picked up speed.
“Huff.”
Above my head as I ran, something hard yet soft tapped against me. Feet of corpses. It wasn't far. I focused my thoughts to keep from succumbing to fear.
‘I did everything I could.’
All I had to do was move faster.
This was a place where the more people there were, the harder it became to respond. The key was for a small group to continuously look out for one another and move without separating.
‘That’s why three is optimal.’
One to secure vision.
One to lead movement.
And…
One to physically destroy.
—Don’t you want to gi—
Thud—
“Lower your head.”
Section Chief Lee Jaheon extended his hand.
A noose falling toward my head was caught in his grasp. As the muscles in his arm tightened with strain, the tough rope was torn apart strand by strand.
In his relentless motion, the noose that had tried to seize my neck was shredded in his hand.
No—
It wasn’t just one.
Whoosh.
From within the fog, nooses and corpses falling toward me were continuously crushed by Section Chief Lee Jaheon’s sheer strength.
It was overwhelming force.
“We’ll move faster!”
“Yes.”
Even while running, Section Chief Lee Jaheon began mercilessly smashing anything within reach—corpses, trees, nooses alike.
A mad act that completely ignored the rules.
‘This is insane.’
So this was the power of a physically specialized agent.
It was so overwhelming it felt as if a horror novel had suddenly turned into pulp fiction—I almost forgot my fear and felt a strange sense of catharsis.
I barely had time to savor the satisfaction of this perfect recruitment—
Slash—
[Goodness, that one was quite close!]
While running toward the stairs, I nearly got hanged three times, barely avoiding it each time thanks to Section Chief Lee Jaheon.
‘Ha…’
And finally…
I saw them.
The stairs. And within the fog, the blue-glowing blade of a guillotine.
‘We made it.’
Just before stepping onto it—
……
I stopped.
“Are you crazy? Right now—”
“Take off the cuffs and go down.”
Without questioning twice, Baek Saheon released the cuffs and ran down the stairs.
But…
The fog did not follow him.
‘As expected.’
Last time, when it chased us below the platform, it was because we had been recognized as passengers.
Which meant, in reverse—
‘Only those recognized as passengers shouldn’t go down to the platform. We just need to hold out until the train arrives.’
In other words, I alone would hold all the cards.
Simply put, I was drawing all the nooses’ aggro.
Of course, in this state, I was perfectly set up to die.
Even if Section Chief Lee Jaheon blocked them, he himself would become a target by breaking countless rules, meaning the danger would increase exponentially over time as he reached his limits…
“Good work, Grapes.”
From here on, others would join in.
From the platform stairs—where they wouldn’t touch the fog—a golden rope that repelled the mist spread beneath my feet, and enchanted bullets began firing.
Equipment prepared by the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau for this exploration.
“Hold on!”
As the one designated as a “visitor” of the Forest of Final Moments, every strange phenomenon I experienced was being suppressed as much as possible by the others.
And as I endured—
The train is arriving.
“It’s coming!”
The roar of the approaching train echoed. I stood barely at the edge of the stairs, dodging nooses and holding on as long as I could.
Passengers are advised to observe etiquette and board safely.
Endure.
Again.
Endure.
And then—
The screen doors are opening.
“Roe Deer, now!”
I turned around.
Then I reached into my pocket and threw the five cards down onto the platform.
“...!”
The cards landed neatly near the open screen doors.
“Pick them up and get on!”
That’s right.
‘Whoever tags the gate doesn’t matter—if you’re holding a ticket, you’re a passenger…!’
So if we delayed gaining passenger status until the very last moment—right before boarding—
‘We can use the platform as safely as possible…!’
“Now!”
We moved at the same time.
As people ran down the stairs, grabbed the cards, and dashed into the train, I started running a step behind them—to delay the spreading fog as much as possible.
Beside me, Section Chief Lee Jaheon ran while tearing apart ropes and branches. Fragments of wood, straw, and dried flesh scattered through the air.
“Section Chief!”
Assistant Manager Eun Haje, having grabbed a card from the floor, threw one. Section Chief Lee Jaheon shook off the remains of a noose, caught the card, and shoved me into the train as he leapt in after me.
Lastly, Agent Choi grabbed a card—
The screen doors are closing.
Section Chief Lee Jaheon yanked away the noose falling toward Agent Choi.
I grabbed Agent Choi’s arm and threw him—
Into the train.
Thud.
"......"
"......"
“Ha.”
Lying sprawled on the train floor, Agent Choi let out a breath.
“We made it.”
[The train is departing.]
With a thunderous roar, we began leaving Segwang Station behind.
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