#0 City in the Fog

Once I accepted the request, Director-nim warned, “Be careful before you look,” and then pulled something out of a file.

What they pulled out was a survey paper.

“…? What is this? A questionnaire?”

“It’s a survey that started circulating around the same time the [Mysterious Fog] appeared. Would you like to take a closer look?”

As they said, I checked it first.

The content of the survey, and the wording of each item itself, seemed to have no major issues.

However, strangely, I could feel a peculiar flow of spiritual power throughout this entire survey page.

Perhaps, a hypnotic spell designed to manipulate human perception was cast upon it.

It was designed to draw one deeper into hypnosis by repeatedly reading each question and answering it.

It started with light and common-sense questions asking for simple personal information or hobbies and preferences, but by the end of the long survey, it led to utterly illogical content such as, “Will you bear children for us? Bear children and offer them.”

Is a hypnotic spell cast on this paper itself? Indeed, faintly, I could feel demonic power.

Could it be that there isn’t just one such paper? That would require considerable spiritual power and skill, and I thought the effect would be difficult to see compared to the consumption. Perhaps only one in several hundred people would fall for it.

However, listening to Director-nim’s explanation, new disappearances, seemingly caused by this questionnaire, were still occurring.

“They lure people into the survey using luxury bags, brand perfumes, and other products targeting young women as bait, and then guide the hypnotized women towards the [Mysterious Fog] through the survey. We confirmed one of the new missing persons through CCTV near the fog; she arrived by bus and walked towards the fog as if possessed.”

‘A demon that handles hypnotic spells….’

Usually, these psychic demons have low combat abilities.

Above all, exorcists have resistance, and they constantly maintain barriers to protect their own minds, so most psychic attacks from demons cannot take effect.

I should be careful, but there’s nothing to worry about.

With that, I finished my business at the Exorcist Association and stepped outside.

* * *

…………………….

………………

……

“This is….”

Narak-dong, Honryeong District, Seoul.

This was the area where the [Mysterious Fog] had appeared this time, and now the entire village, including the mountain ridge that stretched far from Narak-dong, was enveloped in fog.

I was currently standing near the boundary line where the fog enveloping Narak-dong was visible.

Having received the request from the Exorcist Association, I immediately prepared and came straight to this place.

First, I observed from outside the fog, looking around.

The fog, which didn’t disappear even with the sun out, was certainly unusual, but the people moving within it didn’t seem to feel any particular discomfort.

Seeing it directly, I understood. Not only the people who disappeared into this fog, but also those moving within it, already had their perceptions twisted to some extent.

Despite being an obvious abnormal phenomenon, the reason no major commotion occurred among the people was not merely because they were accustomed to this scenery, but because their perception was forcibly distorted by external factors.

So that they wouldn’t find this fog suspicious. So that they would simply regard it as an everyday scene.

A hypnotic spell that made them think that way permeated this fog.

But if this was the maximum ability of this demon, honestly, I felt it wouldn’t be much.

As mentioned earlier, psychic demons generally have low combat abilities. Furthermore, the technique of mental interference itself doesn’t work well on exorcists.

Even a demon with A+ rank demonic power cannot control a low B-rank exorcist who is forewarned and well-prepared.

Therefore, most psychic demons have a low risk level compared to the demonic power they possess.

And in my opinion, the demon that caused this fog seemed to be at a level that could be sufficiently subjugated by a B-rank exorcist team from the Exorcist Association.

‘However, I shouldn’t let my guard down. Exorcists from the Exorcist Association wouldn’t have failed to return against a demon of that level.’

Checking the list of missing personnel dispatched by the Exorcist Association, most were B to D-rank, but there was also one A-rank exorcist.

That many people had not returned. It was too early to take it lightly and conclude.

“…Is this enough preliminary investigation?”

It seemed this was the limit of information I could obtain without entering.

I couldn’t just sit around and waste time. I could already feel the ‘Curse of the Succubus’ placed upon me growing stronger day by day.

Thus, I boldly stepped into the fog, which I had kept my distance from until now.

─At that time, I didn’t know. How could I have known?

There was no way I could have known that this choice, this moment of stepping into the fog, would irrevocably lead my life to ruin.

Or perhaps, it was already destined to be this way ever since I received the Curse of the Succubus a year ago….

* * *

Pushing through the fog, deeper inside.

As I moved forward, the surroundings instantly became hazy, and I couldn’t see an inch in front of me.

I tried to retreat to check, but no matter how far back I went, I never exited the original fog.

Perhaps I couldn’t simply exit. Maybe it was a barrier, or I had crossed into an entirely different space.

I could still go back if I wanted to. But in that case, the exorcist’s intrusion would be discovered.

In that scenario, I might not be able to re-enter this space, and in the worst case, this entire [Mysterious Fog] might disappear from this location along with the missing people.

‘For now, should I advance… But where to?’

In a situation where I couldn’t see in any direction, I couldn’t just wander aimlessly without knowing my destination.

As I pondered for a moment, I suddenly felt a strange presence in my pocket.

I took out what was in my pocket.

What I took out was a piece of paper folded twice. It was the questionnaire sheet I had received from Director-nim.

As I unfolded the paper, the original letters and ink wriggled like worms, moving across the paper’s surface.

Then, a new drawing appeared on the paper.

The drawing was an arrow.

[Advance 20 steps forward]

Oh, so it’s like a guide.

There was no reason to doubt or delay. I followed the paper’s instructions.

When I advanced 20 steps as instructed, the content on the paper changed again.

Next was the instruction: [15 steps right, 7 steps left, advance].

As expected, I followed it. And then the next instruction was given.

After that, monotonous and annoying instructions continued to repeat.

It would make me retrace my steps, stand still and march in place, or even lie down on the ground and hop forward on one leg….

Just as I began to consider tearing up this annoying paper guide, the fog finally lifted, revealing a new landscape.

“……Oh…?”

At some point, the fog had receded far away.

And I, realizing it, was standing in the middle of a residential area that seemed perfectly normal.

* * *

After breaking through the fog, I found myself in a residential area where ordinary people lived.

At first, I wondered if I had passed through the fog and ended up in Narak-dong, but after checking the address plate of a nearby house, I realized that wasn’t the case.

According to the address plate, this place was Myeonggu-dong, not Narak-dong. And I had never heard of such a place name while living in Seoul.

‘The signal… isn’t working?’

My smartphone was dead. The communication talisman that should connect to Director-nim of the Exorcist Association was also useless.

Giving up on contacting the outside, I decided to leave the spot and move.

First, I needed to scout the surroundings and assess the situation.

This was an ordinary residential area, like any other.

Although it felt somewhat quiet and tranquil, it wasn’t as if there was no everyday noise at all.

Just then, I encountered an elderly man walking his dog in an alley. The elderly man glanced at me, dressed in a tracksuit, but passed by slowly without any particular reaction.

In that manner, I walked around the area for about two hours.

Besides the elderly man I first met, I encountered quite a few people. Again, I couldn’t find anything suspicious. No matter how I looked, they appeared to be nothing but humans.

What I also found out was that the space within this fog was extremely vast.

It was at least several times larger than the original area of Narak-dong.

After passing through the residential area, I even saw a bustling downtown area, and confirmed the presence of schools and large buildings.

It wasn’t just the size of a single neighborhood… perhaps even a small city. At least from this position, I couldn’t discern the boundaries of the fog enveloping the space.

I couldn’t possibly estimate how vast the space was, but it was clear that this city was blocked by walls of fog, both above and to the sides.

‘Where on earth did all these people come from….’

The confirmed missing persons were only a few dozen young women.

But upon checking, there were far more people than that. It was clear there were more people than the original population of Narak-dong, which had been obscured by the fog.

Just in case, I tried talking to them, and they clearly seemed to be real people, not dolls.

Moreover, I found a woman I had seen on the missing persons list. I didn’t speak to her, but after briefly tailing her to observe, she seemed to be living a normal life without sensing anything unusual.

How could this be?

That point was puzzling, but most importantly, what was greatest was the demonic power that filled this space.

Demonic power was similar to an exorcist’s spiritual power; in other words, it was the energy of demons.

Demons, whether large or small, possess this demonic power, and exorcists track their presence to find them.

Normally, one would track demonic power to find the demon’s location, but strangely, within this fog-filled space, the presence of demonic power was felt widely everywhere.

It felt as if demonic power had been widely sprayed with an atomizer. Like this, it would be impossible to specifically track it unless it was an exceptionally strong demonic aura.

It was this vast, and my demonic power antenna function was also dead.

In this situation, blindly searching for the cause of the fog by foot would be somewhat unreasonable.

‘In that case….’

Saying there was no other choice, I took out the paper I had put back in my pocket.

The paper that had guided me from the fog to this place.

The content on that paper was pointing to somewhere within this city.