Chapter 30: Would you please give it back to me

A massive Western-style mansion stood tall upon the sprawling garden.
Constructed in the Georgian style, reportedly influenced by ancient Greek architecture, the house, combined with the surrounding fog, boasted an incredibly mystical and elegant appearance.

“It just opens?”

However, belying its grand appearance, the main door opened limply when the handle was pulled. Perhaps they didn’t feel the need for a lock since the island itself was restricted.

“Let’s go in.”

The interior of the house was very dark and difficult to see, but it seemed to be structured with wings A and B divided by a large central staircase.

“Open a window. I need to find the light switch.”
“This won’t open. There’s some weird panel attached to it.”

Something resembling a metal plate was attached to the window. More precisely, it looked like a shutter that had come down from above, covering the window. Han Yeoreum and I tried to push the metal plate up, but it wouldn’t budge.
As we were looking around the house for the light switch, a loud crashing sound echoed, and the light coming from the main door disappeared.

“Hic!”
“Ack! Wha-wha-what, what is it?”
“Calm down, it must have been the wind. Everyone, take out your phones and turn on the flashlight.”
“Ah, ahh. Flashlight, flashlight…”

As I used my phone’s flashlight function to dispel the darkness, Han Yeoreum also seemed to regain her composure, stopping her flustered movements and calmly taking out her phone.
However, the remaining person, Yu Garyeon, had collapsed on the floor and was just trembling uncontrollably.

“Garyeon, are you okay?”
“Ugh, ugh…”

Well, Garyeon had always been afraid of the dark. I approached her slowly, trying not to startle her, and spoke.

“It’s okay, it was just the wind.”
“Sob, ugh…”

Tears welled up in Yu Garyeon’s eyes, and her body trembled like a leaf, clearly very frightened.

“How pathetic, a grown adult. C-Can’t even handle this? It’s not scary at all. Right, it’s not scary at all.”

Han Yeoreum, grumbling, started walking towards the door, but her steps suddenly stopped.

“Huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
“W-Wait a minute, come here.”

Han Yeoreum urged me with a trembling voice.

“What is it?”
“Th-Th-Th-This. Aren’t we trapped? And, and what’s this, this stuff on here?”

I checked where Han Yeoreum was pointing. A massive shutter had come down where the main door had been just moments before.
Furthermore, wasn’t its surface splattered with an eerie, crimson liquid?

“Ah, ahh. Aaaaaah…”

Han Yeoreum, her mouth agape and letting out faint moans, finally screamed and started pounding on the shutter with her fists.

“I want out! I want out!”
“Calm down, this is probably just…”
“Calm? How can I be calm! We’re trapped! In this strange house we know nothing about!”

Han Yeoreum grabbed my collar and shook me back and forth. Wiping away the dirty saliva flying around my face, I gripped Han Yeoreum’s shoulders.

“This is obviously a prank planned by Oh Minseo. Hey, if you pull like that, my clothes will stretch.”

So this is why she said we all had to go in together… This can’t be the end, there must be more.
After barely prying off the frantic Han Yeoreum, I walked towards the door leading to Wing B to examine it.

“Don’t leave meeee!”
“M-M-M-M-Me too. Don’t leave meeee!”

Two cockroaches, making unpleasant sounds as they crawled, clung to my legs.

“This one doesn’t open.”
“That’s why I said we’re trapped!”

Ignoring Han Yeoreum’s screams, which felt like they would burst my eardrums, I headed towards the door connected to Wing A. It felt like walking with shackles.

After walking for a while, the moment I reached the door connected to Wing A,

“Huh…?”

With a squelching sound, faint gasps escaped from the two cockroaches clinging to my legs and crawling up.

“Uh… Uhoh? Th-Th-Th-This…?”

Flowing from the gap in the door before us was a crimson, sticky liquid.
Yu Garyeon, looking up at the door, soon realized what the liquid on her hand was.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“Wha-wha-wha-what, what is it now? What is it!”

As if triggered by Yu Garyeon’s scream, Han Yeoreum, who had been thrashing about, let out a crushing sound from under her foot.

“Huh.”

Han Yeoreum slowly lifted her shoe to see what she had just stepped on, and soon found a sticky piece of flesh stuck to the sole.

“Ugyaaaaaaaaaaah!”

If hell truly existed, wouldn’t it be like this?
Just as my eardrums were about to distort from the strange sound of the two women’s screams filling the house,

<How regrettable…>

A familiar woman’s voice came from the ceiling.

“Hi-Hiaaaaaah!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorryyyy… Sob—”

The two of them were now on the verge of unconsciousness, and my clothes, soaked in their bodily fluids, were about to lose their function.

<Ah… How regrettable, how regrettable… So regrettable… If I hadn’t entered this house… I wouldn’t have died like this…>

“Hwaah, I’m sorry. I’ll do anything you say, pleaaase…”
“Y-Yes. Please, just spare our lives.”

The two cockroaches trembled, curling their bodies up.

“Cut it out. That’s Oh Minseo’s voice, isn’t it?”

Judging by the unnatural connections and pronunciation, it was more accurately a TTS (Text-to-Speech system) created using Oh Minseo’s voice.

<Again, ignorant travelers have fearlessly opened the door of this house… Like me, once… But I have no intention of letting you die like me… Listen carefully… Besides you, there is another ‘existence’ living in this house… That thing is even now, looking for an opportunity to take your lives…>

The voice from the ceiling began a lengthy speech, but the gist was to work together, find the clues hidden in the room, and escape this house. I finally understood Oh Minseo’s intention.
She really liked those escape room cafes we used to go to sometimes, so she must have made one herself to use for recreational activities this time.
<If you’re prepared, pull out the knife stuck in the wall. And then, break down the door and enter…>

“So there are no ghosts, no zombies. It’s just an escape room.”
“Nooo… I don’t want to go in…”
“Let’s just stay here… We can just stay here until people come…”

I gently pushed away Han Yeoreum, who was clinging to my pants leg and sobbing, and said.

“You’ve even slept rough at night, what are you so afraid of?”
“There were no ghosts then…”

I clutched my throbbing head and continued.

“Putting other things aside, what about food? We can’t eat if we don’t get out of here.”
“I don’t need to eat that crap…”

You have to make sense.

“Then you guys stay here. I’ll go alone.”

I picked up the plastic toy knife stuck in the wall and started tearing off the tape sealing the door to Wing A.
…The detail is no joke. I started to feel a little excited. After tearing off all the tape, I calmed my excited steps and moved forward.

“No, no, don’t leave me!”
“Please don’t abandon meee…!”

****

The interior of Wing A was structured with five rooms centered around a ‘ㄷ’-shaped corridor.
According to Oh Minseo’s voice echoing from the ceiling, the monstrous creature living in this mansion was weak to light, so if we activated the generator in the inner room and lit up the entire mansion, we could defeat it.
However, to unlock the door to the room with the generator, we needed to explore the four preceding rooms, solve a riddle, and find a clue.

…To put it bluntly, it was an incredibly well-made escape room cafe.

“Hmm… FGCD… FGCD… Oh, why is my brain not working today?”
“Hohoho, perhaps it signifies numerical order? F is the sixth letter of the alphabet, so 6, G is 7. Something like that.”
“Ah, th-that could be it.”

The intricately crafted devices and puzzles, and Oh Minseo’s voice flowing out at just the right moments, telling the story and heightening the interest.
Thanks to that, even those two, who were initially just trembling, were now fully immersed, scared yet actively solving the riddles.

And I…

“Oh, ooh…”

I was in awe of the background art that constituted this place.

“Hey! We found the key, so stop fooling around and come out! A-Aren’t you going to escape?”
“J-Just a minute.”

Let’s see, the overall atmosphere was inspired by “Shine Sparkling,” and the monster’s design was from “R.H. Giger,” was it? Furthermore, the detail of each prop was so excellent that it elicited gasps of admiration.
Truly, this is art. You can’t see something like this even if you pay for it.

“You guys go ahead. I’ll look around a little more and then go.”
“Hey! St-Stop saying weird things and qu-qu-qu, quickly come out…!”

Even as Han Yeoreum’s rough hands pushed me from behind, I tried to commit to memory the scenery of this place, which was seeping deep into my soul.

…

“Th-This room is the last one, right?”
“That’s right, she said the generator is in the next room.”
“You, youyouyou, g-go in first. I, I, well. I have something to think about.”

Before us was a room darker than any we had explored so far. Perhaps overwhelmed by its atmosphere, the two of them started bickering about who would go in first.

Well, it didn’t matter if neither of them came in.

Around that time, I had realized that ‘it would be advantageous to escape quickly and then slowly observe the stage alone,’ and had been putting on a one-man show, swiftly solving the puzzles by myself.

Leaving the two burdensome lumps behind, I started examining the room here and there using my phone.

“Wait, don’t push. We-We can go in together—”
“W-Well, there’s a saying, ‘age before beauty.’ A-A-A-A brat like me should yield.”
“You, youyouyouyou.”

Just as Yu Garyeon, who lost the power struggle, was pushed into the room, a shutter above the door came down with a clanging sound.

“Hi-Hiaaaah!”

<Don’t be surprised… This place was originally a space to confine ‘It’… Any living creature with body heat should be able to leave without issue… Hmm? Huh…? Oh dear, it seems the heat sensor is broken… Well, don’t worry… If the two people in the room work together to amplify their heat, they should be able to open the door…>

As if to egg us on, frozen by the sudden situation, Oh Minseo’s voice calmly continued.

<What are you doing? Hurry up and hug… That’s the only way to get out of here…>

Yu Garyeon, as if dumbfounded by the highly problematic escape condition, sat down blankly, her face flushed red.

“Garyeon, are you okay—”

Bang!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Intense banging sounds, as if intending to shatter the door itself, filled the room. Beyond the small window on the shutter, Han Yeoreum was kicking at the door.

After continuing to kick the door for a long time, Han Yeoreum finally sighed as if giving up and was trying to say something to me through the window, but due to the soundproofing inside, I couldn’t hear anything.
However, I could only surmise from her fiercely glaring eyes that she was angry about something.

She probably thinks it’s not right for a man and a woman who aren’t even a couple to hug, even if it’s for escape.
That’s obvious. I made an OK sign with my fingers and waved it at Han Yeoreum, then approached Yu Garyeon.

“It’s okay, it’s probably just Oh Minseo’s usual malicious prank. There’s probably a real device to open the door hidden somewhere in the room, so let’s look for it.”
“…Yes.”

We slowly began to explore the room. After a few minutes of searching the room with Yu Garyeon, who was breathing heavily, something suddenly fell behind her with a clattering sound.

A face with its skull exposed from being eaten away, protruding internal organs here and there, clothes stained with spilled blood. It was, clearly, the form of a corpse.

“Hiiiiiiioppaaoooooooh!”

Terrified, Yu Garyeon rushed towards me. It was a sight that was no longer surprising, but there was one problem.

“Wait a minute, h-holding onto me is fine, but. Hey, that’s!”
“Idon’twanttoanymorepleasesavemeoppaaaaaaaaah—!”

Yu Garyeon, with monstrous strength, grabbed my shorts and shook them. Thanks to that, my pants were on the verge of falling down.

“Garyeon, it’s fake, fake! It’s a fake corpse made of a mannequin or something!”
“Hwaaaaaaaah—.”
“Hey, hey, hey, pants, my pants are falling down!”

Soon after, Yu Garyeon, who was holding onto my pants, lost her balance and fell. With a swoosh, a sound like something slipping…

“Huh…?”

Yu Garyeon, her eyes wide, stared blankly at the piece of cloth she was holding.

“Um… Could you give that back?”
“Ah, ahhh.”

Yu Garyeon’s face turned beet red, as if it would explode at any moment, and a strange, metallic sound, like a boiling kettle, escaped her lips.

“I-I’m so sorryyyy!”

Yu Garyeon, covering her face with her palms, ran away. I took that opportunity to quickly pull up my pants. Dammit.

“It wasn’t on purpose. I-I was just so scared.”

Before Yu Garyeon could finish her words, another fake corpse fell from the ceiling with a loud noise.

“Kyaaaaaaaah!”

Yu Garyeon screamed again and rushed towards me. However, this time, she aimed for my back, not my pants.

“It’s okay. I told you it’s fake.”

Yu Garyeon, her lips tightly shut, leaned against my back and trembled.

“This is really chaotic. Isn’t it?”

Yu Garyeon sniffled and swallowed.

“My clothes are covered in tears and snot, and my pants almost came off.”
“Th-That wasn’t on purpose, I told you.”

Yu Garyeon replied in a barely audible voice. Her pathetic appearance made it impossible for me not to laugh.
Well, it had been a really long time since I had seen Garyeon like this.

“Reminds me of old times. You were like this back then too, I think.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Why, when we went to that escape room cafe near Hongdae. You tried to take off my pants then too.”
“I told you, I-I-I, I didn’t do that!”

Her cotton-ball-like fists pounded relentlessly on my back.

“It hurts.”
“B-Because you’re saying weird things.”
“Okay.”

Yu Garyeon’s punching subsided. I didn’t miss that opportunity and gently spoke.

“You know, how did we end up like this?”

At those words, the breathing that had been tickling the back of my neck until a moment ago abruptly stopped.

“We were pretty close back then. We played games at the PC bang, and went to escape room cafes.”
“…”
“Can’t you tell me? Why you started to dislike me.”

Yu Garyeon, behind my back, was quiet. No, more accurately, she seemed to be endlessly contemplating something.
Her fidgeting hands, her erratically beating heart, I could feel them through my back.

“…That is.”

When she finally opened her mouth.

<What, you were really hugging for a full minute…? My, my… Anyway, congratulations… As a result of you two combining your body heat, the sensor was able to operate safely… Now, take the key in the room and go to the room with the generator…>

An unwelcome voice flowed from the ceiling.

“…”
“…”

<Oh, and… the escape mechanism for the room was hidden under the table on the right… You could have found it easily if you looked a little… You two seem to be quite fond of each other…>

“Garyeon, don’t worry about it, just continue what you were saying earlier.”
“Get out!”

The door creaked open.

“Aren’t you going to escape? Is this a joke? We need to get out and eat, I’m hungry!”
“Who was it that said it was okay just a moment ago? Did your hunger return after some time passed?”

Han Yeoreum scowled and shouted at Yu Garyeon. I found her so amusing that I was about to tease her, but,

“Uh, well, th-that’s right, well. Uh.”

Han Yeoreum, unlike usual, avoided my gaze and mumbled. A sudden chill ran down my spine.

“Come to think of it, you. You weren’t watching through that window the whole time, were you?”
“…”
“…You didn’t see anything, did you?”

Han Yeoreum didn’t say anything to my question and just quietly walked out of the room. Her ears, visible between her hair, were flushed like ripe tomatoes.