Chapter 37
‘How did the original Dan Su-hyeok find another participant’s treasure?’
He thought hard, recalled the scene, and let out a hollow laugh.
So he didn’t find it.
‘He stole it from a participant who was returning after finding their treasure, really…’
He was something else, that guy.
Just when you thought he was endlessly cautious, he sometimes had a recklessly bold side.
‘Not that I’m in a position to call anyone else reckless.’
Did he know what kind of ghost the other party was to do such a thing?
Anyway, it seemed too risky for me to imitate. I was already on the host’s bad side for trying to go to the underground auction house without permission.
Let’s just look for it first.
I could see participants diligently opening doors in the corridor, looking for treasures.
‘Did they really hide them all only in rooms?’
I stopped walking and observed them.
The participants, except for me, were naturally assumed to be ghosts. But seeing the boy with glasses, I thought that maybe there were more humans here besides me.
If they were human, not ghosts…
Wouldn’t they unconsciously be concerned about the location where they hid their treasure?
Like that participant over there, opening doors and looking towards the staircase.
“……”
Up? Down? Where?
Following my gaze, the child in the black veil also looked towards the staircase.
The rooms in the corridor have many participants, so there’s more competition. I headed for the staircase.
The participant who was looking towards the staircase flinched.
[Hmm?]
When I tried to go down, the child behind me tilted its head.
When I changed direction to go up, the child jumped up and down excitedly.
The bottom of the veil covering its face fluttered, occasionally revealing the child’s round jawline.
[Hmm hmm!]
So it’s the upper floor.
I went up the stairs.
“……!!”
Then, I felt a frantic presence hurriedly following me from behind.
Thinking about it, nowhere is as safe as a place where the game has already ended.
I entered the room where we had played the finger-cutting game. The two large men were there. They were diligently scrubbing the dirty floor with mops.
“……?”
“……?”
“Ah, sorry. I’ll just look around for a moment without disturbing you.”
They probably wouldn’t harm me since I was participating in another game.
But maybe it was because I had heard the screams of those taken by these large men.
‘If I irritate those huge guys, it won’t end well for me.’
Be careful, careful.
Since we had sat on the floor for the game, there weren’t many places to hide things.
At best, behind the curtain or under the teacher’s desk, like I did?
[Swish swish, scrub scrub.]
[Fun cleaning time~!!]
A woman’s humming voice came from the radio. The large men started mopping again to the tune of the song.
First, under the teacher’s desk.
‘…Isn’t this too lacking in sincerity?’
A pink box.
Wait, isn’t that the pink box from the participant who got caught with me earlier?
“P-please.”
A voice came from behind. It was the participant who had followed me upstairs.
An adult woman, maybe an office worker, wearing a tattered suit jacket and only stockings, no shoes.
Her tear-streaked face was a mess, makeup smeared and melted. Blood flowed from within her long hair, soaking her left shoulder.
She pleaded.
“C-could you please just pretend you didn’t see it once?”
I lifted the pink box.
This?
“Y-yes! Please, I’m begging you. This time I staked my toenails! If they get pulled out, I might not be able to walk properly!”
I shook the pink box slightly.
So, pretend I didn’t see this?
‘Is she in her right mind?’
And it wasn’t even an important organ like a heart. In a game like this, having toenails pulled out was a big deal?
Besides, that was the body part she chose! If she didn’t want that, she should have staked a finger like me!
As if reading my mind, the woman glanced at my finger. Then she burst into tears.
“B-but if a finger gets cut off, it hurts so much…! How could anyone endure that!”
[Hmm…]
Even you think you’re hopeless, huh?
“I came to find my missing n-nephew… I had no idea it was a place like this.”
The woman’s hands trembled violently.
“If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have cared if my nephew was missing, dead or alive. I should have just lived my own life, whether my sister fainted and was hospitalized or not.”
The woman began to ramble.
‘Missing nephew?’
Was she, like me, here to find a family member?
Even so, I can’t just give up the treasure here. Sorry, but I have to find my sister too.
I tried to pass her and go outside, but she blocked my way. She was thin but taller than me, which was slightly threatening.
“Why, why won’t you grant my request?”
Something’s strange?
“You might be okay with dying, but I can’t die. I can’t get hurt either.”
“Y-you can just find another treasure, can’t you?”
“I can’t go. The participants who went into other rooms scream. I don’t want to hurt anymore.”
Drip, drip.
You’d think she would have run out of tears crying like that, but the woman cried incessantly. She wasn’t in a state to have a proper conversation.
Above all, those empty eyes… didn’t seem human.
‘I don’t know if it’s a ghost imitating a human, or a human who’s been adversely affected by being here.’
If it’s the latter, then I’m in danger too.
‘Wait.’
I recalled the thought I had while listening to the woman’s plea earlier.
Thinking whether having toenails pulled out was a big deal, feeling not an ounce of sympathy for a woman in a similar situation…
It seems I’m already becoming strange too.
‘I need to escape as soon as possible.’
I tightly gripped the box, shoved the woman aside with my whole body, and went out.
I was running down the stairs when.
“Hey!!!”
[Hmm hmm!]
I saw the child’s small hand pointing behind me. It seemed to be fluttering, signaling urgency, and my heart grew frantic too.
Because the sound of footsteps chasing right behind me was extremely fast.
Quick, quick, I need to get back. To the room on the lower floor where we submit the treasure!
“Give me back my treasure!!!”
That’s no longer human.
“Huff, huff!”
My legs, pushed to the limit from running all the way down to the basement, were slower than usual.
Wrong, I’m going to get caught at this rate.
Then, I spotted something passing by the lower staircase.
“It hurts, it hurts so much…”
The female participant without eyelids. The one who had offered a family member’s organ as her treasure instead.
She noticed the commotion and looked up. I gritted my teeth.
Of all times to meet like this, going up and down. I’m trapped.
‘Dangerous.’
As the woman got closer, it seemed I might have to abandon the box. An intuition, as if something was warning me.
I threw the pink box down the stairs.
Thud.
“Sa-a-a-ve me-e-e?”
The participant looked down with wide eyes at the box that had fallen in front of her.
Just as she reached out to pick up the box, the woman running down from behind rushed past me.
Her neck twisted, looking directly at me.
“Give it, my treasure!!”
Fortunately, I wasn’t the one holding the treasure.
The woman, at her running speed, crashed into the participant without eyelids. The participant fell, dropping the box.
The woman, on top of the participant, stretched out both hands and grabbed her head.
…Don’t tell me.
“Don’t anyone touch me!!!”
Abnormal blood vessels began bulging out on the woman’s arms. Her hands, clenched with full force, gripped the head of the participant without eyelids as if to crush it.
Crack, pop.
The participant’s neck began to turn. Unnaturally, severely.
“Ah, ah, ah…!”
The participant, who had been letting out painful moans, had her face turn a full circle until it faced forward again.
Thud!
The participant’s body went limp. The woman threw the body aside like trash and stood up.
“My thing, my precious treasure.”
The woman muttered, picking up the pink box rolling on the floor.
“……”
“……”
She held the box preciously, glanced at me, but fortunately soon moved away. Whether to hide the treasure or find another, I didn’t know.
‘I, I almost died.’
So where should I find another treasure now? Participants were already heading to the room one by two after finding their treasures.
Where did everyone think was the safest place to hide it?
Just as I was about to pass the dead participant.
The hem of her t-shirt, which had ridden up when she fell, exposing her down to her hips, was pushed up.
And I found it. The back pocket of her pants, bulging out peculiarly and conspicuously.
I carefully looked around.
‘No one has found it yet.’
Fortunately, the room for the treasure hunt game was close too. I slowly bent down and pulled the box from the back pocket.
It was a yellow box stained with blood.
I let out a sigh of relief and was about to head to the room when someone grabbed my ankle.
“Are you going to kill my mother?”
It was the participant without eyelids.
She should be dead already, how…
‘Now that I think about it, what’s inside here is…’
The family member’s organ she had staked. And two of them, at that.
What happens if a person loses two organs at once? My heart pounded.
The participant without eyelids giggled. A laugh that seemed confident I wouldn’t be able to take it away.
‘I need to move for Cho-hae’s sake.’
But my feet won’t move. If it were the participants here, maybe, but if an innocent person outside dies…
Would I become a murderer?
Killing an innocent person, someone who might be missing their daughter, not knowing anything?
I, I…
[Child.]
An invisible hand pushed me. The hand gripping my ankle fell away powerless.
My body was already inside the room.
[Congratulations!! You’ve found the treasure, Participant!]
There was no one where I looked back. Except for the corpse with its uncloseable eyes wide open.
