Red Yarn of Nostalgia coils around my neck.
The first thing I felt was clarity.
The sensation of everything being distinct and in its proper place.
"……."
I blinked.
I was able to blink.
Eyelids and eyebrows. The field of vision seen through the cornea was clear….
I looked down at my hands. There, bare skin without any black rubber, a human hand fully exposed.
I clenched and unclenched my bare fist.
Right.
This was what it originally felt like.
This was the sensation.
The shock naturally faded, leaving only traces behind, and familiarity remained.
Natural emotions and sensations.
And in that place, a forgotten, familiar feeling also crept in.
Yes. A feeling.
I was definitely this….
Tap.
…….
…….
I lowered my head.
There was no bare hand.
There, only divine hooves and scales attached to melting, amorphous flesh could be see —
Forcibly, I put on gloves.
I force them on.
I force them on.
"…Roe?"
I force them on.
I force them on.
Done.
Human fingers.
Fingers with a silhouette similar to a human's are visible.
And through the gaps between them, I see.
The floor.
A single thread lying on the floor, looking completely worn and frayed.
Pilled, dirty, discolored, and now worthless—
The Yarn has snapped.
"…!"
"Wait…"
It was an illusion.
Did you think Nostalgia Kitty could help you? Did you think what you're experiencing now is Contamination? Did you think there was a possibility of returning to a time when your body and mind were healthy?
Did you believe you could return to a time when you were cradled in the comfort of ignorance? Did you think you would find hints from it, know which direction to go, figure out how to navigate this world, reset your goals, return to being human, return home, and finally go home?
Did you wish for such things?
Did you believe it was possible?
Really?
The horror of six months spent alone underground, seeing nothing but ghost stories and corpses, crashes over me as I realize the impossible wish, the wrong wish, the unnecessary knowledge, waking from this grotesque body, experiencing this.
Wearing Nostalgia Kitty was a mistake.
Not all effects can take only the good. One cannot possess only the human form, only the body capable of interaction. What this means, that is to say, what it is, is the emotions I should have felt if I were human.
It means my fear and despair also return.
And once experienced, even if brain and body collapse like mush in an instant, it does not disappear.
It remains.
Unbearable.
…….
Smoke rises.
It continues to rise, covering this space, filling it until there are no gaps to escape, it can fill, yet it is insufficient….
…….
The space,
is insufficient.
"Roe, wai—"
I got up.
The one wearing the Badger Mask falls over into the thick smoke. I moved him onto the bed. To rest.
I faced the Sergeant.
He says nothing. Because his work hours have ended, and he has neither the obligation nor the authority to control me.
So I
"Excuse me…"
.
"Is there… anything I can do."
I opened the door of the Containment Cell.
I walk straight out.
The Black Smoke that flowed out fills the containment corridor.
Red and blue lights flash on.
Like Annex Basement 13.
[Evacuation warning. High-Grade Darkness containment failed. Evacuation warning. High-Grade Darkness containment failed. Evacuation warning. High-Grade Darkness containment failed…]
Alarms ring in the corridor.
And in my head as well.
You cannot leave the designated area! You cannot leave the designated area! You cannot leave the designated are—
You did not designate where I should be after work hours. You only assigned new work, but did not designate my space, nor informed me through voice, signature, or implication.
Therefore.
I can choose where to rest after work hours.
I can go anywhere.
I wal—
Stopped.
But the unbearableness does not disappear. Why doesn't it disappear? Why? Why…….
Ah.
Right.
I continue moving my feet. The distance narrows as I ride the smoke.
The containment corridor soon ends. The rental warehouse front appears. Most of the Guard Team had left their posts to prepare equipment and arm themselves to suppress the escaped Containment Entity, so only a few remained.
I know.
That there must be a flaw in their calculations.
Since an unrealistically fast movement ability was not observed in Containment Entity (130666), the disaster caused by the miscalculation that it would take at least three times longer to reach the rental warehouse.
A situation that could be described in this manner.
"Don—"
The few remaining Security Team staff sink in the smoke.
I find keys in one of their pockets, open the rental warehouse door, and exit.
Continuing to walk, until I reach the central elevator.
Ding.
The elevator stops. I boarded it.
The floor I must go to is decided.
-17th floor is… especially where research staff searching for new Darkness are.
17th floor.
[The doors are opening.]
A neat office space of glass and marble appears, once visited in a different form.
The smoke that filled the elevator pushes out as if crushing the office space.
[Evacuation warning. High-Grade Darkness containment failed. Evacuation warning. High-Grade Darkness containment failed. Evacuation warning. High-Grade Darkness containment failed…]
"Aaaaack!"
"Run! Run…"
Those in lab coats ran toward the emergency exit. One who inhaled the smoke collapses. Crying, wailing, bursting into laughter, clutching their heads and muttering. Begging.
All those melting mosaics.
I moved my steps into them.
Until what I sought appeared.
Toward the office I already knew.
[Research Team 1 A]
To the clean, spacious place at the very end.
Before they could escape.
Before they could hide.
I gather the smoke that had spread throughout the corridor, pool it at my feet, make it surge upward, and cover an entire section of the corridor.
Thus I isolate Research Team 1's office.
With smoke.
…….
Now those inside cannot escape.
Darkness and silence pool before the corridor.
In that, I open the door.
"Ah."
There, only one person was working the night shift.
[Evacuation warning. High-Grade Darkness containment failed. Evacuation warning. High-Grade Darkness containment failed. Evacuation warning. High-Grade Darkness containment failed…]
Amidst the clamorous alarm, one who had been scanning CCTV footage with enraptured eyes.
Kwak Jekang, who had been checking the corridor CCTV from the Containment Cell to where I had come from, raised his head toward the open door.
The expression of one who has realized something.
"You… no, you."
…….
"It was Kim Soleum, wasn't it?"
I approach.
"Not a vessel, but you were like that from the beginning. From the star—!"
I grabbed his throat.
A white lab coat drapes beneath the feet of one lifted into the air.
"Going to kill me? Angry? Haha…."
As fear and terror seem to fill his eyes, soon ecstasy and curiosity well up.
"But… aren't you curious?"
…….
"I simply cannot figure out what you are. How you harvested Dream Essence, by what means you move between Darkness and human…."
Kwak Jekang's eyes beyond his glasses look at me.
He's smiling.
"Actually… don't you not know either? ……What kind of being you are."
…….
"You don't want to be tied to the company, do you? I'll help you! Director Cheong Dallae? What do I care. A researcher should act like a researcher! The root! The truth! One must pursue understanding!"
A voice filled with madness shouts. Conviction and longing burst forth.
"If you're trying to find out why you were called to this place, why you have that form, I will fully cooperate! No, I earnestly request that you let me cooperate!"
Enraptured eyes.
"Dying here like this wouldn't be so bad either…! But there are things I want to see, so I simply cannot help it…."
…….
I loosened the strength in my grip.
The throat held in my hand falls to the floor.
"Ugh!"
But Kwak Jekang complains not, looking at me with eyes flashing in ecstasy.
"That's it! A wise choice…."
I knelt before his eyes.
And meeting his gaze, I spoke with smoke.
I don't want to?
"…!!"
I can't believe it?
"Excuse me."
The smoke forms letters.
Untrustworthy thing
: Subject for deletion
"…! Wait."
His panting grows louder.
I declare.
Warning 3
Reason : Insulting remarks toward a worker
Accumulated warnings : 3 / Strikes left until disciplinary action :0
Smoke rises from the black gas mask.
To envelop Kwak Jekang's head.
"Wait,"
He steps back.
I don't follow. But the smoke follows.
And it wraps around his features….
Slowly suffocating, the researcher wheezes and groans in agony, exhaling breath, then desperately manages to force out a single word.
"…Then!"
His still-free arm fumbles backward, fingers slipping several times before barely grasping his own drawer.
A place where Twilight Grade Darkness is temporarily stored.
Fumbling inside, he pulls something out.
"This, if you use thi… how about it?"
Held out with difficulty before my eyes.
…Red thread.
A form very similar to what I had just used.
The smoke writhes.
But recalling that it is not Yarn and is thin and slender, I calm it….
And I also realize that it has a completely different purpose.
"If we make it so betrayal is impossible, so one can only be reliable, that would suffice, wouldn't it!"
There is one thing that matches that description.
Red Finger
: A Darkness that literally realizes the nursery rhyme "Pinky promise, hook and lock, promise me."
When one swears a single vow and hangs the thread on the pinky fingertip, that vow is inevitably fulfilled.
Because trying to break it means death.
"The usage is…."
Kwak Jekang, who had been moving his mouth, made a sound that was neither laughter nor sobbing when I tore open its packaging and pulled his own pinky finger.
"You… know this Darkness."
There is nothing I do not know.
If it is described.
I took the red thread and tied it on Kwak Jekang's pinky finger.
Kwak Jekang sweats cold sweat as he smiles.
"I vow. Um… I will not betray you."
I looked at him.
Denied.
Reason : Inaccurate
"…I will fully cooperate?"
Denied.
Reason : Inaccurate
I slowly changed the smoke.
Accumulated failures : 2
Remaining attempts : 1
Cold sweat forms and drips from Kwak Jekang's face.
"…Then, could you tell me what to vow? I don't want to die because I made something up and looked suspicious, that would be troublesome in many ways!"
…….
The smoke draws a sentence.
Proposal :
I will not go against your will from now on.
Kwak Jekang's eyes waver.
Having realized the comprehensive and total meaning contained in the sentence.
But his mouth opens.
Because there is no other choice.
"I… will not go against your will from now on…."
Thud.
I pulled the red thread.
The last joint of the researcher's pinky finger, where the thread had been wound, is cut off.
Blood spurts.
"Ahahaha! Ahahaha!!"
Watching the last joint of his own pinky finger roll on the floor, clutching his left hand from which blood gushes, Kwak Jekang laughed.
"Thank you…. Thank you!"
6 minutes later.
I return directly to the Containment Cell.
There is commotion outside the door, but it doesn't matter.
Two Security Team members, even if they disappeared, it's fine…. because it means they returned safely.
I simply thought about this new situation.
About what the experience of being wrapped in Yarn returned to me.
About fear and unbearableness.
…And I reached a conclusion.
'I must find out.'
Why I exist in this form in this place.
Who on earth called me.
To do that, I must first find out the secrets of this company.
What lies in the Main Building basement.
What the Cheerful Research Institute was.
And if even after learning all this, there is no way….
…….
Then, I'll give up.
It was the moment I decided thus.
[That is quite an interesting plan. Friend!]
'……!'
I raised my body.
…There was something on the bed where I had been lying alone.
A fluffy body. Lovely pink ears, black eyes, and a butterfly necktie around its neck.
And.
[Mr. Roe Deer.]
A call.
'…Braun?'
[Ah, my friend finally calls my name. How delightful this is!]
Good Friend was there.
Discussion