Chapter 46
I—I’m scared.
It wasn’t the same kind of fear as when I faced someone who wanted to hurt me, or a ghost that terrified me.
It was the fear of seeing a real corpse.
In the escape room, the dead participants looked like people—or ghosts—but you couldn’t be sure.
But the owner of the feet dangling before me was someone Milli had acknowledged as human.
This place kept changing its surroundings.
I quickly lowered my head, staring at the ground, and whispered to Milli.
“P–Please help me. Milli.”
My voice trembled pathetically.
“I want to get out of here…”
Then on the ground in front of me, I saw semi-transparent military boots.
The owner of the large boots turned away, as if telling me to follow, and began walking.
Milli said nothing, but I kept my eyes on the boots and followed slowly. Every time I moved, the scenery around us shifted abruptly, blurring past my vision.
Rustle… rustle…
Footsteps behind me. Someone was following.
[Do not look back.]
I didn’t even have the courage to.
[Slowly.]
[Forward.]
I nodded repeatedly, listening only to Milli’s voice.
[More forward.]
“Huh?”
But how could I have expected this?
The place my only trustworthy guide led me to…
“Milli?”
…was a cliff.
A sheer drop so deep I couldn’t even see the bottom. Something so out of place it made no sense for it to exist in this forest.
Milli’s boots hovered over the empty air. I hurriedly looked up at him, but it was definitely his face.
Expressionless but handsome.
[Forward.]
“N–No! It’s a cliff! How can I go forward?!”
One more step would send me plummeting. Even the spot under my feet looked like it would crumble any second.
I tried to step back, but Milli reached out a hand.
“Wait—!”
His large hand grabbed my wrist and yanked me straight off the cliff.
“Ah!!”
I squeezed my eyes shut and gasped, but—
—there was no impact.
My feet weren’t dangling, nor did I feel like I was falling.
What…?
I carefully opened my eyes.
It wasn’t a cliff?
I was back in the forest. The traces were gone, but I knew this was where the woman had set me down earlier.
“Milli? What is going on?”
You literally threw me off a cliff…!
But I couldn’t say that. I just looked at him silently. Milli crossed his arms and looked around.
“Oh.”
At the end of his gaze was the woman from before. Exactly as she first appeared.
With an exhausted expression, she trudged forward. Left alone, she would surely hang herself again.
“Does this mean she’s been trapped here for a long time…?”
[To that human, this place is a dream.]
[And in it, she behaves the same way every day. Whether she wants to or not.]
“She… doesn’t even know what she’s doing?”
[Yes.]
To be forced to have such a tormenting dream, over and over…
I still couldn’t be sure if she was the author of that post.
But if my guess is right…
Why did I enter her dream? Since when?
The woman said someone asked her to bring me here.
Why would someone connect me to this woman’s dream?
I looked at Milli.
“You grabbed me at the cliff to help me, right?”
He didn’t answer, but the silence felt like confirmation.
The woman spotted the rope hanging from the branch again.
Watching her approach it, I asked,
“If she dies again, the same thing will happen, won’t it?”
[Move however you want.]
[Just like you’ve done so far.]
“But…”
[I can’t intervene directly anyway.]
[Only a little if your life is in danger.]
So earlier, he guided me off the cliff because seeing her corpse might have killed me.
Move however I want…
Right. In a surreal situation like this, there was no clear answer. Especially when none of this was in the original story at all!
If I want to survive, I need to think and act.
I’d already gotten involved by seeing her die. If I hadn’t noticed her at all, maybe things would be different—but Milli pointed her out himself.
He even told me to look at her.
Because ignoring it won’t solve anything.
Then I needed another approach.
The only thing I could try was preventing her death.
If a ghost is leading her to die, it might also try to stop or harm me.
That terrified me.
But if something did try to stop me, that would tell me what I needed to do.
Because the thing a ghost tries to stop is probably the right action.
“Excuse me!!”
I shouted urgently and waved my arms. My stiff legs started moving fast as I rushed toward her.
“Can you hear me?!”
She didn’t stop walking. Her hand stretched toward the rope, and I broke into a run.
“Hold on!!”
Agh—this was exhausting!
My lungs burned as I barely reached her and grabbed her arm to stop her.
I was tense—what if her face was grotesque or terrifying?
“……”
But she looked normal. Depressed, tired, but clean and ordinary.
Mid-to-late thirties, maybe.
She blinked slowly, meeting my eyes. Her arm was warm under my hand.
“…Can you hear my voice?”
I asked carefully.
“Oh.”
Her dull eyes regained light.
“Where is this…?”
“I don’t know. You looked like you were about to do something dangerous so I stopped you.”
“Dangerous?”
She shifted her gaze. It moved toward the rope hanging from the tree.
“Why…”
At the sight of it, her whole body trembled violently.
“Does this mean I finally attempted suicide in real life…?”
Finally? That was an odd thing to say.
And she said ‘real life,’ which meant she knew she was dreaming.
“I’m not sure what you mean. But I don’t think this is reality…”
“A dream…? Is this a dream?”
She suddenly grabbed my hand tightly.
“A real dream? And you stopped me?”
Her expression turned euphoric. I couldn’t keep up with her shifting emotions as she burst into delighted laughter.
“Thank you, thank you!”
It was the laugh of someone whose mind had snapped.
“For taking my dream!”
…What?
It happened in the blink of an eye.
Her body scattered like a mirage and vanished.
What the—
As I stood dumbfounded, my legs suddenly began moving on their own. Toward the rope she had been approaching.
[You’ve been tricked.]
Milli’s voice grew distant. My fading consciousness saw nothing but the rope.
A whisper echoed in my mind, like brainwashing:
Hurry. Put your neck in the rope.
End your own breath.
So this was what she felt earlier.
My body moved on its own as the rope lowered. I couldn’t even tell whether the branch descended or the rope lengthened.
“……”
My head slipped into the loop of the noose.
Immediately, it tightened violently. My breath was cut off—I couldn’t even scream.
As my vision blurred, I lifted my head.
Ah.
Corpses hung from the trees.
Countless of them.
All of them were looking at me.
I instinctively understood—
Now I would suffer the infinite death loop in her place.
Every corpse… had my face.
* * *
Meanwhile, Dan Seohyuk watched the people running ahead like they were possessed.
Strange, how he had ended up with them.
I don’t have time for this…
He recalled the days he had desperately searched for even the smallest clue to find his parents.
Compared to that, his current life was too peaceful. There was no time for leisurely hanging out with peers.
So why was he doing this now?
…Because I don’t know what variables might appear when I’m with Ma Choyeon.
Those variables might lead to clues about his parents.
Despite multiple regressions, Ma Choyeon had never appeared before. It was fine to change methods this time.
If nothing came out of it, he could simply go back to working alone.
“Hm?”
Noticing the absence of footsteps behind him, he turned.
Ma Choyeon was gone.
“Ma Choyeon?”
No response. He knew she wasn’t the type to play pranks like this.
He returned to the spot he last saw her—near Café Fio-reum.
In the empty alley lay a small note.
He bent down slowly, picked it up, and unfolded it.
<Help me.>
Dan Seohyuk realized at once—
She got involved with something again.
It was clearly a cry for help.
He exhaled deeply.
And without thinking, his feet began to move.
Would he really be able to walk away from Ma Choyeon later if this turned out to be a waste?
Probably not.
