episode_0078

When I opened my eyes again, the place was a large vacant lot. When I looked around, I could see the apartment I was in far away, so I knew that Allie had placed me in a place away from the apartment.

‘Thank you, Ally…’

If I had tried to leave the apartment alone, I would have definitely encountered another monster. Hikiko-san might be following me too… It’s not that there weren’t dangers when I met Ally, but in the end, I survived. …Is this too complacent?

As expected, I need to develop a sense of crisis. In this nightmare full of dangerous creatures, I have to come to my senses to survive alone without Sohee… Ah, but I guess there’s nothing we can do about Ally.

After thinking about that, I looked around again. I wonder if I’m missing something or if there’s some hidden risk factor.

After confirming with the naked eye that there was no particular threat, I opened the notebook, but as expected, there were no new rules. When I think about it, I was hoping that there would be rules related to dolls… I guess it’s a system that requires the real thing to be in front of you.

Except for the time-related abilities and solution-related abilities that Mr. Demon told me about, there is still a lot of information about the notebook, so there are a lot of things I have to find out myself… But let’s not get nervous. If you are in a hurry, nothing will work out.

‘First of all, should I avoid traditional markets?’

Allie’s last words, the ‘bad woman’ is in the traditional market… This must mean that the woman is in the market. I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything if I just go there, so my top priority would be to either gather information and go find it, or find the doll and get out of the nightmare.

…Then where should we go? Stuck from the beginning? There is no place in particular that comes to mind.

No, there was only one place… There was a place that came to mind, but it was almost certain that it was a very dangerous place. Still, if I go, I wonder if there’s only one place… It seems like it would be very dangerous to just search anywhere.

library.

The place that Sohee mentioned in passing when she was explaining the unusual object… It is certain that there are dangerous unique objects there, but there is no place better than the library to get information.

Sohee also said that she learned about the moon and hospitals from books… I don’t know what’s written in the books in the library, but maybe there’s some helpful information for me or something about bad women.

A dangerous entity that might come out if I open the book… I have no choice but to rely on my notebook. Unless it’s an instant death penalty where they try to kill you right away, there’s probably a way to survive.

Okay, then let’s start with the goal of going to the library.

…If you think about it, visiting the library is also work. The only way to find it is to walk around as carefully as possible. …Ah, I want to become a man who makes better plans…

I left the vacant lot and entered the city again, but the city looked completely different than when I walked with Sohee.

The street, which had been quiet without a single person passing by, had disappeared everywhere and had become like an alien world with pale humans walking around.

All of the blurry people walking on the streets seemed like meaningless beings who walked for a while, disappeared, and reappeared repeatedly, but there were some that stood out among them.

A giant figure grabbing a passing human and tearing their limbs and scattering them, black wild dogs knocking them to the ground and stabbing them in the stomach… they all looked very dangerous, but the notebook did not contain any particular information.

I tried to avoid their gaze by keeping my body as low as possible and walking through the alleys, but as expected, the drain on my mental power was enormous.

That’s right… the moment the blurry humans died, they somehow looked like ordinary people.

Fortunately, the body disappeared soon after, but seeing the internal organs strewn in the air and lying on the floor over and over again was too much to slowly eat away at my sanity.

However, I couldn’t look away because they were doing this in the middle of the street, so there was no other place to go if I avoided them. It doesn’t seem like the library is in an alley…

‘…a big problem.’

Still, while I was somehow able to avoid it, I ran into my first difficulty.

Until now, I had enough places to hide so I wasn’t exposed to danger, but the road was cut off and I had to cross the crosswalk.

There is no way to cross here… How do I avoid the black wild dogs right in front of the crosswalk? Should I sneak across when I’m eating another hazy human…? I think he might look at me when I approach him.

If it were just a wild dog, it would probably be able to overcome it somehow, but there are several cars driving on the road… They all seem to be speeding and moving very fast.

Still, would stopping when the light turns green be the minimum salvation? Being hit by a car and dying in a nightmare is nothing to laugh about…

I couldn’t think of any other way, so I hid behind a trash can and carefully observed the car and wild dog, and was able to find a pattern.

When the struggle of the human being they were eating stopped, the wild dogs threw it away and caught a new human from somewhere, and once out of three times, the timing of the green light overlapped and the wild dogs disappeared the moment the car stopped.

If you’re aiming for that moment, is that the only moment?

‘once…’

A hazy human in the shape of a woman was being stabbed in the stomach by a wild dog and having its internal organs eaten. I know in my head that I’m not human, but I still bite my lips tightly, perhaps because of my foolish nature.

‘twice…’

This time it is in the form of a child. If those wild dogs are also monsters created by that woman, then are they monsters born out of fear of wild dogs…? Is it a similar entity?

Whatever it is, it’s the worst kind of bad taste… They’re unnecessary beings that don’t need to be made, but I made them simply because I wanted to see someone suffer…

‘third time…’

After watching the child get his bones chewed up and eaten by the wild dogs, the wild dogs moved on to find another victim. At the same time, the light changed to green, and the cars that were driving like crazy all stopped moving.

After that – I just ran like crazy.

Maybe it was because I was running with all my might, or maybe it was because the street was quieter than I thought, but soon the sound of my footsteps began to echo. When I slightly turned my head to the side at the sound that was louder than expected, I saw wild dogs running furiously, all drooling.

“Haa…haa…”

The moment you were already caught by a wild dog, there was no other option. I entered the crosswalk and ran and ran like crazy.

I didn’t have time to look back, but ok! Wow! I could tell that the wild dogs were chasing me by the barking sound. What should I do if they chase me even after crossing the crosswalk?

“…Wait!”

While running on a crosswalk that felt longer than expected, the signal suddenly changed and the stopped cars started moving. The truck right in front of me started accelerating too fast, and I got a chill that if I had taken one more step, I would have been hit by the car.

A wild dog in the back, a car in front… Is this something called a dilemma? Still, I can’t give up in a place like this…!

I moved my stopped leg again and started crossing the crosswalk again. The cars started to speed up without paying attention to my presence, but they got scared and ran like crazy, thinking that if they stopped again, they would die.

“Success…I did it…”

As a result of running frantically, I was able to safely cross the crosswalk, although I can only explain it as luck.

When I turned around because I couldn’t hear the wild dogs barking, the wild dogs had already turned into pieces and were being crushed by tires, losing their shape. It would normally be sad to see a dog dying, but you can’t help but find it refreshing to see those wild dogs dying…hehe, it looks good.

I walked down the street again, feeling both a sense of accomplishment and exhilaration. Because you never know what might come if you stop in a place like this… Still, I felt confident that I could accomplish something with this wild dog incident.

The street I arrived at after crossing the crosswalk was a quiet street with no visible people from before. No, rather than being quiet… there was no visible presence.

Crunchy… Crunchy… Crunchy…

However, this time the noise was very intense. I heard strange noises all over the street that reminded me of bugs crawling, and they kept bothering me.

Even though I tried blocking my ears, the sound was still stuck in my head, so I gave up trying and walked as fast as I could. Although there is no visual stimulation… noise can be this painful.

Crunchy… Aaaaa!!

Suddenly, a man’s scream was heard mixed with the sound of the insect. The sound of the man continuing to scream in frustration as if he was being tortured was so loud that it could have drowned out the sound of insects, but it was coming from both the left and the right, tormenting me.

“Ahh…”

I knew it wasn’t effective, but naturally I had no choice but to cover my ears. When I felt a wet sensation on the hand covering my ear and removed it, dark red blood flowed out, confirming that I had actually suffered a physical blow.

It’s much more threatening than the hazy streets of humans…

The surrounding area was filled with ordinary houses and no other unusual buildings, so I felt like I was going out of my mind with the distance of having to get to the crosswalk visible in the distance.

I don’t know what I’ll find if I pass through here… but at least it’ll be better than here. Ah, now even my head hurts… Jebaal…

While I was shedding tears from the pain, I saw someone coming out of the alley.

The screaming I could still hear was painful, but I instinctively crouched down and took out my notebook because I thought I should prepare. If there is a threat, read the notebook and deal with it right away…!

“Oh my, such a cute boy. Why are you suffering?”

Dark white makeup, bright red mouth makeup. The colorful balloons he was holding… I had definitely seen him before.

” Mr. Gacy…”

He seemed very happy and was laughing from ear to ear. He was the clown that Sohee saw when she was with him.