Jin Nasol raised her head.
Something peeked out from beyond the alley and stared at her.
A tailless Mer-child.
It threw something at her.
Swish.
The projectile glinted in the light.
Without hesitation, Jin Nasol reached out and grabbed the collar of the employee who had been running toward her as if escaping, using them to block it.
"Hiek!"
The moment the employee was hit by the fragment, a sharp scream erupted as glass, like soap bubbles, burst out from their body, trapping and binding their head and hands.
And above that, a geometric traditional pattern emerged, looking as if it had been stamped there.
‘…The Management Bureau!’
[Warning. You are currently obstructing a rescue mission in a Supernatural Disaster.]
[Cease the obstruction of official duties and surrender. Surrender. Surrender….]
A recorded warning began to blare from the pattern.
It was the broadcast that the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau always announced when they began to suppress civilians obstructing official duties.
At the same time, it was an Item. Upon hearing that sound, one’s hostility would vanish, and they would feel an authority that demanded obedience.
That is, if they were a normal person.
‘How troublesome.’
Veins pulsed at the temple of Jin Nasol, who wore the Golden Mask of the Elite Squad.
To think they weren't mermaids, but those Management Bureau bastards disguised as special entities.
“What a nuisance.”
“Kugh…”
Jin Nasol kicked the bound employee away, and simultaneously, as if by magic, she donned a monocle to identify the agents.
Two beyond the alley.
‘Should I engage?’
No, she shouldn't. The important thing was to finish the mission quickly and accumulate Points. It was about achieving maximum effect with minimum physical exhaustion and increasing work efficiency.
In this case, it was right to stop searching for bothersome Items and quickly board the Escape Pod to clear the area.
But….
“It’s irritating.”
Her detached nails surged forward and embedded themselves beyond the alley.
“…!”
Her irritation level, which had surpassed its limit, merged with her chronic headache and finally forced Jin Nasol into action.
The nails scraped loudly against the wall, gouging it deeply before catching on the corner.
Along with a few strands of Agent Choi’s cut hair.
“Agent!”
“Yikes, that was a bit sharp.”
However, the opponents were Hyunmoo Team 1, experts in interpersonal combat. Even though they had become children, they skillfully avoided the blow according to habits ingrained in their bodies.
“Chase when the wire is retracted.”
Moving just like that….
The Assistant Manager in the Butterfly Mask gripped the wire and shot forward in the opposite direction.
The two Bureau agents immediately rolled to the side and returned fire.
Glass Hand Cannon.
“Ah!”
Jin Nasol pulled the bound employee toward her with the wire on her index finger to use as a shield.
The Daydream employee, hit by the Disaster Management Bureau's bullet for suppressing villains, screamed.
“Aaaaah! A Mer-child! A mermaid!!”
Even though the idiot wasn't dying and hadn't even been wounded by a single Bureau bullet, he was making a huge fuss.
Moreover, to think he still saw that as just a Mer-child, his brain must have a hole in it….
……Hmm.
‘Wait, it's actually there?’
Jin Nasol looked through the monocle with X-ray vision.
Behind the two Management Bureau agents, there was one more.
A Mer-child.
……!
At that moment. One of the special entities presumed to be an ‘Agent,’ the one with a slightly larger build, moved slightly.
To better hide the Mer-child.
“Aha.”
Team A Assistant Manager narrowed her eyes.
Then, throwing the bound employee at the agent, she launched her nail wire again.
Toward the Mer-child behind the agent.
“…!”
Ting.
With a crisp sound, the nail was deflected.
The Management Bureau agent had moved.
“Ha.”
Jin Nasol took advantage of that gap to slide backward and escape the confrontation.
Her head, momentarily forgetting the pain, felt a brief thrill. If the Management Bureau agent moved specifically to protect it… there was only one truth.
‘Is the Mer-child a Civilian?’
This was….
—Information worthy of a Manual update!
It was high-value Points.
Jin Nasol’s eyes glinted fiercely.
Anger or whatever, she had to board the Escape Pod and return immediately. A clear priority had emerged.
‘If worst comes to worst, I’ll take the Mer-child hostage.’
Jin Nasol naturally broke off a part attached to her Nail and threw it forward.
Smoke billowed up.
Taking advantage of the obscured vision, Jin Nasol narrowly slipped back between the alleys.
Her mind came up with the most violent and simple method, but her obsessive goal-oriented focus on Points brought a more effective and intelligent method to her lips….
“Hey.”
Using her wire, Jin Nasol dragged over a new employee who had been peeking and measuring her chances of escape.
A woman wearing a Pony Mask.
“Ye-yes?”
“Attract their attention.”
“Me?”
Pony Mask, Kang Yihak, pointed at herself as if startled, her eyes widening.
“At most, they'll bind you, put you in a holding cell, and then release you. You're still a rookie, so you don't have a record of obstruction. They have no grounds to throw you in prison.”
“Oh….”
Kang Yihak looked back and then grinned broadly.
“That’s a wonderful plan, Assistant Manager! Then let's make that Goat guy over there do it! He's hiding there, quiet as a mouse….”
“One gold bar for every day of detention.”
“I’ll go.”
The worshiper of mammon smiled brightly and immediately gave a thumbs up.
While smiling.
“But Assistant Manager! If you’re lying, I’m going to spill all your personal information to the Management Bureau, and on my way out, I’ll take out an organ-collateral loan in your name.”
“Go ahead.”
Leaving the rookie as an obstacle, Jin Nasol began to run backward for a quick escape….
Kieeeeeng—
Blades poured down.
“…!!”
Executioner’s Swords with bells attached rained down everywhere, blocking her retreat and piercing Jin Nasol’s leg.
‘…!’
Agonizing pain surged up her leg, paralyzing it.
Most of the Disaster Management Bureau's interpersonal equipment was intended to select and kill villains when a minimum death was necessary in a Supernatural Disaster situation.
In other words, they were magic weapons that suppressed the opponent so they could be killed in the necessary manner.
“Ah, seriously!”
The Management Bureau agent, in the form of a special entity, a tailless Mer-child, was running this way, pushing Kang Yihak aside with a laugh.
‘That son of a bitch.’
He was aiming for the Elite Squad.
Occasionally, there were such agents among the veterans.
Because the Exploration Records and testimonies of the Elite Squad were useful information.
Furthermore, they were basically certain that anyone who worked for Daydream Inc. long enough to become an elite was a villain.
Someone they could find something on once they threw them in prison.
‘Should I kill him?’
Whoever he was, he was someone who would have interfered at every turn.
Jin Nasol crawled along the ground and reached into her suit to pull out lethal equipment—
B o w D o w n
A M a s s i v e W i l l
Slammed into the entire alley.
Everything froze.
Contextless violence.
The fleeing Daydream employees, the Goat Mask who was bowing his head, the Mer-childs, the Bureau agents, and even the Pony Mask who was raising her hand.
Everyone rolled only their eyes to look up.
A giant eye was watching.
No, it was language.
■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■
The sound of reciting wicked verses became a gaze that stared down at humans. An indescribable language from the outside, beyond what humans could understand, a conceptually inexplicable extra-dimensional language poured down.
Be grateful for your lack of understanding! The moment you understand, there is no turning back!
One of the Daydream Inc. employees collapsed on the ground, convulsing and foaming at the mouth before strangling himself.
S p e a k
The Mer-childs went from laughing to fainting.
B o w D o w n
Kang Yihak's mouth hung open as she stared blankly into the air before slamming her head onto the ground.
The sound of muttering.
S p e a k
Originally, it wasn't those words! However, if one were to accept only the words that humans could understand, that is how it sounded. Oh, whispers of the abyss. Deep, so deep, how enchanting, we must flee, but we cannot flee?????? Truly enchanting and sacrilegious????? We must worship??
“D-die.”
Someone spoke. Muttered.
“He said we're all going to die. Death, prepare for it, uh….”
“What are you talking about?”
Jin Nasol barely managed to grab someone by the collar. No, it wasn't just s-s-someone, it was the rookie wearing the Goat Mask.
“He said to prepare for death! Death! The cat! The monster, Kim Sol…!”
A mouth appeared above the alley.
The shadow of a truly massive mouth opened as if to swallow everything.
It pronounced.
It's reading something more! It's reading! No, don't….
Damn it.
“Agent Choi, feeling like he wanted to bite his tongue, loaded the Glass Hand Cannon with the most powerful mental defense bullet he possessed. Since there were only three, priority was crucial.”
What? Wait. Words and thoughts are being swapped.
“Even the thoughts and words of the Daydream employees are being understood. Agent Bronze swallowed hard. …The supernatural aspect of the ghost story that shows hallucinations to children is being ignored.”
Wait a minute.
“A chilling sense of crisis surged up the scar on his neck.”
The phenomenon that has appeared now, this is….
“An Extermination Grade?”
“What exactly do you want! What do you want that you're doing this! Why are we dying! I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I don't know what I'm supposed to do, but I'll do it! I'll do it! Please, just go away!”
“…….”
“…….”
It vanished.
The Sparkling Dragon Palace and the Mermaid Tomb returned.
Thud.
The eyes of the people who slumped to the ground were vacant. As the indescribably massive ■■■ disappeared, the void was very slowly filled….
And.
A desolate foreboding.
“You, just now, said you'd do anything….”
Gazes turned toward the black Goat Mask.
Baek Saheon.
“If it went away, you said, you'd do, anything….”
The moment Baek Saheon’s face turned deathly pale.
Jingle.
“…!”
Something quietly walked out from the darkness at the end of the alley.
“Um….”
It was a black cat.
The red-eyed Quadrupedal Beast was observing the humans intently.
A symbol of misfortune, a history of fear and persecution, a street animal passed by amidst familiarity and a sense of daily life.
The protagonist of the most famous short horror story.
The cat approached.
“…!”
Its form flickered and moved.
The people, gripped by tension, stopped their complex power dynamics and conflicts and watched the thing that moved….
Standing before the black Goat, it opened its mouth.
[This way]
“…!”
A will was spoken.
[This way]
The cat stared toward the other side.
Baek Saheon staggered to his feet and, after glaring at the cat with a pale face, began to move.
Walking alongside the black Quadrupedal Beast, the people and the Mer-childs began to follow, staggering….
‘It, it worked.’
Even if the inside was Kim Soleum, swallowing cold sweat and tears!
—Is there a tattoo sticker like this, like an app that reads out what you input? …Ah! You can do instant printing?
That’s right.
Kim Soleum had purchased a tattoo sticker with a musical note pattern that had the ‘effect of conveying my thoughts to the surroundings like a spoken voice’ from the Moonlight Tattoo Shop and attached it to the sole of his foot.
He was desperately moving his four paws, pretending to be cold and significant.
Relieved that, at any rate, the situation was proceeding correctly.
‘I thought I was going to lose it!’
A few hours ago.
‘Whew.’
Leaving the Moonlight Tattoo Shop, Kim Soleum briefly shed his cat form and returned to being a child.
He suppressed a groan as he looked around at the surroundings that had turned into an ecstatic paradise again.
Now that the Stamp was tattered, it seemed like it would be difficult to use more than one more time… but this task absolutely had to be done in a human body.
“Finally using it.”
Because there was something to take out.
From the deepest part within the Benefactor tattoo, Kim Soleum finally brought out an item he had purchased from the Space Shopping Mall a long time ago.
“Whew.”
It was….
A bizarre book bound with the faces of screaming people, made of human skin and finished with a dark red wax coating.
Necronomicon
The Book of the Dead.
Kim Soleum peered at the form of the ancient book, which seemed sealed with red wax.
‘…Braun acted like he knew about it.’
But here's the thing.
—It's probably not the Necronomicon you know.
It was exactly as he had said then.
He turned back into a cat and moved his front paws. It was to reduce any sense of repulsion.
If he touched the area below the wax part carefully with his front paws like this… he could find it.
There was a hinge on the corner.
That’s right. This….
‘The ancient book form is just a book case.’
And if you opened it.
Click.
You could see the clean, typical font and cover of a wireless-bound softcover book.
Necronomicon
Easy Korean Revised Edition Released!
It was a neat and tacky modern publication.
“…….”
By this point, your head might be filled with ‘????,’ but let’s proceed a bit further.
He flipped open the cover.
Then, past the table of contents, text like this began to appear….
Ouija Ay Ouija Ay En-cru-ga Ja-ka-ib Hi-ri-ge-be So-mer-ka Beu-at Ni-al-lat Ho-tep Peu-re-gi-be Wi-ni-wi-ke Ja-i-che-ru-ge
…Did you notice?
Extraterrestrial language, transliterated phonetically, was roughly written down.
Yeah.
This book was, (in another sense), a terrible mistranslation, a defective copy…!
According to the researcher in the Dark Exploration Records, even that was full of typos and was pathetic.
A level that was terrible even to call a mistranslation, literally just a version that clumsily mimicked the pronunciation of some old edition of the Necronomicon!
‘Considering that in Cosmic Horror, Otherworldly Languages are usually difficult to fully understand or pronounce in human tongues, it’s a truly meaningless endeavor.’
Of course, the true identity of this thing, which couldn't actually call upon the power of a cosmic horror entity of madness and terror, was….
A ghost story satirizing book funding scams.
Well, yes. It was that kind of Item.
However, since a ghost story is a ghost story, it tended to have at least one effect that resulted in terrible consequences.
A capability fitting for a scam-themed ghost story.
It was… the psychological effect.
When reading the book, the reciter falls into the illusion that a massive entity has actually descended, plunging into madness and terror.
Additionally, it was presumed to have a similar influence on all humans within 10 meters in front of the reciter who heard the voice.
The more the reciter is a horror enthusiast with a strong tendency for immersion, the more concrete and certain the effect becomes.
—Anyway, it's a somewhat conscientious scam since it at least lets the reader get into the mood.
-Lee Yeonhwa, Research Team 1 Assistant Manager.
In a word, a bluffing Item for intimidation!
And, though it’s a bit embarrassing….
The more the reciter is a horror enthusiast with a strong tendency for immersion, the more concrete and certain the effect becomes.
…Kim Soleum had judged that it could be considered an Item for him.
‘Ugh.’
Of course, he thought he was going to lose his mind while reading it.
If it hadn't been for just the psychological effect, he might have been dripping blood from every orifice again. Or maybe it was thanks to the lemonade he had drunk at the Moonlight Tattoo Shop.
At any rate.
‘I can't do that anymore.’
He couldn't read the book any longer. For one, he felt like he would go crazy while reading it, and the moment he was caught reciting it while in his cat form and exposed as an Item, the plan would be screwed.
However, that terrifying psychological effect only manifests when reading the Necronomicon.
In other words, Kim Soleum, who was now in his cat form, had stats no different from a common street animal….
‘Can, can I fool them?’
But he had to.
[This way]
Thus, Kim Soleum steadfastly pretended to be an extraordinary creature and began to guide the Daydream Inc. employees and the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau agents.
‘Please, just cooperate until we escape.’
The destination….
Was the place where the Angel’s Sigh still remained.
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