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“Did I do well?”

“Yes. Really.”

Ella pointed at William, who was sprawled on the floor.

“But isn’t it a problem if he’s passed out like this?”

“As for problems… hmm~ Are you worried about those ghosts breaking free and killing him?”

“Yes.”

Anastasia chuckled, thinking her sister couldn’t possibly be that naive. With a confident smile, she unzipped the belly of the bear doll she was holding tightly.

To her surprise, a surprisingly spacious area appeared.

It looked like a cozy area that could easily fit two people!

Anastasia fluttered her cape and pulled out a tentacle-like thing. She then used the tentacle to bind William’s body snugly and slid him right into the belly of the bear doll. After that, she fashioned a sort of blindfold for William’s eyes with the tentacle and then closed the zipper.

Squeak.

And just like that, William was inside the bear doll’s belly.

Completely subdued, no less.

“Now, we don’t have to worry. The Bodyguard Teddy Bear will buy us time until he wakes up from his dream. Even if evil spirits are released, it’ll knock them out like before, and if something overwhelming happens, it will do its utmost to flee to protect that person inside!”

“R-right…”

Anastasia wore a confident smile, as if to reassure Ella about the comfort of the Bodyguard Teddy Bear.

But Ella managed a stiff smile.

Seeing William bound and going inside there… somehow reminded her of a sacrificed victim in a horror movie.

Besides, wasn’t the setting a perfect place like out of a horror film?

An abandoned hospital standing alone in the middle of the vast sea.

There were even real evil spirits writhing on skewers, just for effect.

A genuine scene straight out of a horror movie.

“Ahem, so now we’ve safely secured him.”

“Right?”

“Shall we, um, go back now?”

Ella felt an indescribable chill as William vanished into the belly of the bear doll.

The emptiness and void felt when there should be people, but there was none at all.

It was an unease brought by the presence of something ‘other’ instead of the ‘same’ person.

On top of that, the discomfort from being in someone else’s dream, not her own.

Ella began to feel those negative emotions slowly overwhelming her that she hadn’t noticed due to her tension.

It was an emotional surge that seemed to come from her unconscious mind rather than reason.

Anastasia seemed to catch on to Ella’s state, slipping her arm between Ella’s and linking their arms again.

“Yes, since that person seems to be safe now, let’s go back. How about a walk with your sister?”

“Uh, huh?”

“Since there’s no one around, let’s do some shopping there! There should be a lot of fascinating clothes!”

“Wait, what?”

“I wonder if they have clothes just like the one I’m wearing!”

She purposefully led Ella in a disoriented frenzy.

Ella was holding her Gaming Owl tightly, making it impossible to resist and helplessly getting pulled along.

Tweet.

The Gaming Owl nestled in her arms seemed to glance at the Bodyguard Teddy Bear, slightly concerned, but looking at the bear doll with one hand on its waist seemed to reassure it, nodding as if to say “I get it.” Then it left behind a short word of encouragement, wishing for a safe return.

Tweet.

And so, the two girls and one creature disappeared.

All that remained was a teddy bear.

One person inside the teddy bear.

And four evil spirits.

In total, just six.

Considering the person inside had become more of an item than a human, saying there were five wouldn’t feel out of place.

Thus, the abandoned hospital fell back into silence.

The skewered evil spirits struggled, conserving their energy as they wriggled, while the bear doll maintained its distance, keeping tension for when they managed to escape.

And William, confined within, remained unconscious in his dream state.

As the thick silence hung heavy with tension…

An anomaly occurred.

Swoosh.

A sound began, like the wind brushing against paper.

Thin, fine, sharp, small, and strangely nerve-wracking.

The sound flowed along the hallways of the abandoned hospital, swirling around, accompanied by an unseen swarm of small creatures.

Swoosh.

A faint sound.

So tiny that neither its source nor its essence could be seen.

Even the direction of the sound seemed elusive.

Straining to listen, it seemed to come from above.

When focused, it felt like it came from the side wall.

It might resonate from the floor, or echo from a floor above.

It even felt like echoes passing along the columns.

As if the sound were occupying and weaving through the entirety of space, it came from all directions.

This bizarre sound converged in one spot.

Gathering like a thick, heavy liquid pooling down a slope, so did this strange sound move to a specific location.

That place was where the bear doll and the evil spirits were.

Swoosh.

Shwa—shh.

The sound was a vibration.

The sound was a warning.

The sound was footsteps.

The sound was the rustling of clothing.

And it was the sound made by someone.

The gathered sound moved with the mold seeping into the walls, swirling and slowly blackening them with animated black paint.

Finally, something began to emerge from the walls, which had turned into a filthy swamp.

Swoosh.

It was an arm.

So black that it was invisible against human skin, yet its shape was evidently human.

It was split into five sections, had a palm, a long arm, and joints.

It was made of something as dirty as if it had scooped up dust, wriggling as if formed from the swamp of the wall, scattering dirt as it grew smaller at times and filling vacant spots as ants gather to create color.

Thus an entire arm emerged from the wall.

Swoosh.

And from that arm, other parts began to slip out one by one.

Swoosh.

A leg emerged.

A pitch-black leg.

It looked as if it had come from a corpse charred black in the fire, frail and skinny.

Swoosh.

Hair began to sway and slip out.

It flowed incessantly, as if it would scatter with the gentlest breath, undulating like seaweed in the ocean.

Swoosh.

A face sculpted from ashes burst out.

Its features were distinct, resembling a sculpture, carrying a certain beauty, but the unnatural blackness surrounded it, making it eerie.

Swoosh.

And finally.

All the body parts emerged in full.

Dust-like bodies shaped into a human form.

Connecting to the wall of the hallway with a rope as thick as an umbilical cord.

Thus, the human form was molded.

“Ah—-”

The being formed exhaled a sound.

The vocal cords made of mold, hardened like a rock, resonated, and the conglomeration shaped like a lung moved to exhale breath. It spoke and moved with the scattering dust.

It gazed with its hollowed eye sockets at the evil spirits.

“Those with no substance yet still exist. Come with me.”

The mold-made human,

Park Jinseong, approached the evil spirits, scattering mold.

Just like a ghost tempting foolish humans, he extended his hand toward them and said,

“Come here. Come here. There’s a familiar scent here from the graveyard, so come here.”

His gestures were slow.

As if only Park Jinseong’s flesh had its time flow slowed down.

Thus, his appearance appeared all the more bizarre.

“The stench of rotting flesh. The black paint that devours flesh. Do you not smell the scent of decaying entrails flowing from the nine orifices, and the aroma of those settled on the dry filth? Come here. I am the existence that has been with you, and now I have come to collect you.”

Jinseong spread his arms wide as if to reassure them, moving toward the skewered evil spirits.

One step.

Another step.

[ No….]

[ No. We will not. ]

[ We do not want to go back to that dark place. ]

[ Get lost-! ]

The evil spirits shrieked.

Because Park Jinseong’s figure resembled a grim reaper come to collect them.

Because it appeared as if the rotten flesh they abandoned had brought the soul forth to face them.

But the evil spirits could only scream, powerless to do anything.

Like a butterfly pinned to a pin, they existed helplessly skewered, and even if they wished to resist, their limbs were mostly broken by Anastasia, making movement impossible.

The evil spirits were powerless.

They couldn’t stop or delay Jinseong’s steps.

They couldn’t dodge the arm reaching out to them.

What they could do was only move their mouths to curse.

But even that soon became impossible.

“Come here. You have lost your strength, lost your life, and your body shrinks and folds, and finally, you forget your very existence. Become the refuse that cannot even become a wandering soul, scattered in the world.”

[ Kyaaaaaah-! ]

From Jinseong’s hand, mold blossomed, painting the body of the evil spirits black.

From the point of contact, it spread rapidly, coating every bit down to their necks, and as soon as it stained just below the vocal cords, it broke apart immediately.

As if dried mushrooms turned to powder, the bodies of the evil spirits crumbled to dust and poured onto the ground. And the spilled dust was absorbed into Jinseong’s moldy form, and the evil spirit, left with only its head, got skewered by the string Jinseong had pulled out.

Thus, Jinseong skewered all the evil spirits, leaving only their heads behind.

He passed them through the empty eye sockets and throat, weaving them together tightly so they would not slip away and dragged them out of the abandoned hospital.

“Head, head. Clump of souls exuding the stench of the afterlife. Poor little servants still being used even as spirits. Now, let’s go. Let’s go to your master….”

And thus, Jinseong vanished.

With the compass that would guide him to the shaman…

 

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