Ch.115115 – Resolution Arc 1

# 115 – Answer Chapter #1

Mememememe─.

In the sweltering summer, only the sound of cicadas filled the spacious garden.

The first to speak was Jeongseok, who was quick to understand.

“So we’ve died twice and this is our third round? Your trait ‘The Broken Clock’ consumed 100P to rewind time and brought us back?”

“Yes! Everyone just died! Jeongseok, you jumped from the third floor and got seriously injured!”

“A third floor is about 9 to 10 meters high. Jumping doesn’t necessarily kill you. In the worst case, you might live with a disability for the rest of your life, but as long as you don’t become vegetative, it’s better than dying.”

“Right! That’s exactly what you said before jumping!”

While Jeongseok was nodding as if he understood, Yang Juhui, Kwon Sua, and Yu Dahui wore subtle expressions as if they didn’t trust my words.

They probably felt like I was lying.

If we don’t solve this problem, how many more times will I have to witness this scene?

How many more times will I have to explain everyone’s deaths?

“Traveling back in time. I didn’t know people could do such things.”

Yu Dahui poked my arm repeatedly while expressing amazement.

She seemed more surprised by the time reversal than by the fact that we all died.

Yang Juhui also clenched her fist and shouted.

“Then couldn’t we predict all the lottery numbers? We’re rich now!”

Boom-boom-boom-.

Yang Juhui danced, wiggling her shoulders and hips as if she was genuinely happy.

It was a somewhat funny dance, but maybe because she was pretty, it was still cute to watch.

However… I didn’t know much about how this Broken Clock rewound time. What were those words that appeared back then?

“‘The Broken Clock’ rewinds the spring.”

“100P consumed.”

“Remaining points: 424”

“Every time we fail, it consumes 100 points to return to this moment. I currently have 424 points.”

“It feels like returning to a save point! I wonder if the photo we took became the save point? If it consumes 100 points each time, that means we have 4 more chances!”

Kwon Sua, who played games as a hobby, explained the situation by comparing it to a game system. It was exactly as she said.

Our calculator Jeongseok added:

“We need to learn more about ‘The Broken Clock.’ Why this particular moment is the save point. And what happens if we run out of points. Also…”

“Hey, shouldn’t we find out who the culprit is? They killed all of us!”

Yang Juhui, who had been in a good mood thinking about winning the lottery, got angry. She realized that finding the ‘culprit’ who killed us was the priority. I agreed with her.

“The first time we were poisoned, we suspected the older sisters and aunts working in this mansion. But the second time, when the mansion caught fire, I discovered that there was another presence in this mansion besides us. There’s something else here besides us. That’s the culprit.”

The culprit wasn’t human from the beginning.

Something inhuman killed us and toyed with us.

We burned to death because we were on the wrong track with our investigation.

“Something is in the mansion…”

Yu Dahui muttered quietly.

Soon, she spoke as if something had occurred to her.

“The older sisters always said they felt like someone was watching them. And things often went missing, and food disappeared from the kitchen refrigerator. And we’re not supposed to wander around our house after 10 PM…”

We decided to keep all possibilities open.

If we could connect the suspicious incidents that had been happening in this mansion with the current situation, we might be able to identify the culprit.

“Guys, let’s all survive this time. We’re all going to survive together. Now, let’s find the culprit. Let’s find out everything about the ‘suspicious incidents’ happening in this mansion!”

# # #

“Somi noona.”

“Oh, Yeongwon! Can you check the seasoning of this galbitang?”

I headed to the kitchen.

Somi noona, who had died from a knife wound, greeted me kindly and warmly.

I felt foolish for having suspected such kind older sisters even for a moment.

And I couldn’t tolerate the existence of the culprit who had committed such ruthless murders.

“Noona, I wanted to ask you something. You mentioned that food keeps disappearing from the refrigerator, right?”

“That’s right. Someone keeps stealing food! At first, I thought it might be Baekseol, but they even take packaged raw meat. Baekseol wouldn’t do that, would she?”

Food disappearing from the refrigerator…

I suddenly became curious.

“Have you thought about installing CCTV or cameras?”

“Our chairman doesn’t like having CCTV inside the house.”

“Why? With such a large house, installing CCTV would seem better for security.”

“I don’t know either.”

The chairman doesn’t want to install CCTV…

I’m not sure if this is important information or just a preference.

Rustle-.

Suddenly, I felt a chill.

There’s only one thing that gives me such a creepy feeling.

“Cockroach!”

I spotted a cockroach in the kitchen.

Soon, Somi noona also had a fit.

“Cockroach! We need to catch it! We need to catch it! Baekseol! Baekseol, catch the cockroach! Baekseol!”

Somi noona called for Baekseol and then brought poison made from lily of the valley and placed it in the kitchen.

I said to her:

“This is dangerous if ingested, right?”

“Of course it’s dangerous! It would be terrible if someone ate it! Don’t even put it near your mouth!”

……

I thought hard for a while.

And finally made a decision.

“Oops!”

Splash-.

“Hey! Hey hey hey! What are you doing? What are you doing to the galbitang I worked so hard to make! You bad boy! You bad boy! What are you doing! Ha Yeongwon, you bad boy!”

I poured the poison into the galbitang.

I made it so that no one could eat the galbitang at all.

By rendering the dish completely inedible, I eliminated any possibility of someone eating poisoned food.

“I’m sorry. My foot slipped…”

“…Sigh, it can’t be helped. Just be thankful you didn’t hit anything and hurt your head!”

Pinch-.

Somi noona grabbed and pulled my cheek.

“This is a big problem. What should we do for dinner? The housekeeper will scold me.”

“Should we just order chicken?”

“Should we?”

Even a ghost couldn’t tamper with freshly delivered chicken.

Then I spotted another cockroach.

“Come to think of it, you said there weren’t any cockroaches before, right?”

“That’s right! They suddenly appeared everywhere! Remember that earthquake we had? They’ve been around since then!”

Cockroaches that started appearing after the earthquake.

I thought about the reasons why cockroaches might appear.

The biggest reason might be that the house wasn’t clean enough.

Although several older sisters swept and cleaned this house all day, it was too large, and there might be areas they couldn’t reach.

Perhaps… this might be related to the incidents happening now.

“I’m sorry for ruining the galbitang. As an apology, I’ll catch the cockroaches for you.”

“Really? If you get rid of all the cockroaches, I’ll forgive you!”

I decided to search for places where cockroaches might come from.

Naturally, I ended up in the basement boiler room of the mansion, where I heard the sound of cockroaches scurrying around—sha-sha-shak-sha-sha-shak.

“So you want me to catch cockroaches?”

Yang Juhui frowned.

“Do I look like someone who’s good at catching cockroaches to you?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Well, that’s true.”

Chiiiiik-.

Yang Juhui put on a mask and started spraying cockroach repellent.

Sa-sa-sa-sa-sak-.

It was quite satisfying to see those disgusting bugs disappear.

But there were too many of them.

“At this rate, it’s like humans are living in a cockroach house, not the other way around.”

Yang Juhui laughed with a “pa-heu-heu.”

She was right.

Buzzzz-!

“Hey! They’re flying! They’re flying! Hiiiii!”

The cockroaches suddenly spread their wings and flew toward me, and I was genuinely terrified.

I quickly hid behind Yang Juhui, but she also freaked out.

“Hey! Where are you touching? Hey! That tickles! Don’t touch my side! Ack!”

I really hated cockroaches.

If I were to complete the Nightmare Corridor and get that wish-granting orb or whatever it was, I might consider making cockroaches extinct in this world.

Anyway.

As we looked around, I noticed a large crack in the basement boiler room. There were cracks in both the floor and ceiling. The sizes varied, but the larger cracks were big enough for a person to squeeze through.

“It doesn’t look like an old hole. It must have formed during the earthquake.”

When I was unlocking the second floor of the Nightmare Corridor, a major earthquake hit Gaeryong, causing buildings to crack and streetlights to fall.

It seems even this magnificent mansion couldn’t escape the effects of the earthquake.

The cockroaches were coming out from those cracks.

Sha-shak, sha-sha-shak-.

“Ugh, damn. It’s like a nest or something.”

Yang Juhui, who briefly peered into the crack, frowned at the unbearable stench despite wearing a mask.

“Ugh, what’s this smell? It smells like a rotting corpse.”

Swish-.

Yang Juhui bravely extended her white-gloved hand and picked up the source of the stench.

It was meat with packaging torn off, crawling with all kinds of maggots. There were many such items in the crack.

“Blech. I’m really going to throw up. Who would put such things here? No wonder there are so many cockroaches! Ugh, damn. We can’t just burn it all!”

To me, who had witnessed friends burning to death, it didn’t sound like a joke.

Anyway, I felt like I had gained significant insight into why so many cockroaches were appearing.

Whooooosh-.

I looked at the large crack again.

I thought there might be something besides cockroaches beyond that dark, black space.

Whooooosh-.

It also felt like wind was passing through.

—Squeak squeak.

“Whoa, damn, what’s that!”

I noticed a white rat with a stubby tail huddled inside the hole.

Rats, cockroaches—it was just too much.

Finally, I couldn’t contain my anger.

“Juhui, let’s get some cement and just seal it all up.”

I had learned how to mix cement when catching the Water Ghost last time.

Yang Juhui and I brought cement, gravel, and sand from the storage room, mixed them in the right proportions, and applied the mixture to the cracks. Only after filling all the gaps did I feel at ease.

When I returned to the kitchen to tell Somi noona about our achievement, I ran into Jeongseok, Yu Dahui, and Kwon Sua’s group.

Jeongseok said to me:

“Hey, good timing. You’ll be shocked to know what we found in the large bathroom.”

The large bathroom?

That’s where everyone died vomiting blood.

Wondering what they had discovered, I followed Jeongseok.

He entered the men’s bath.

And pointed to a large mirror installed on the wall of the men’s bath.

“Hey, take a good look at this mirror.”

“Mirror?”

“This looks like a mirror, but it’s slightly different. It’s a one-way mirror with reflective film attached to a glass window. The characteristic of such an object is that while you can’t see through from this side, someone on the other side can see in.”

A magic mirror.

It’s a term for an object that appears as a mirror from one side but as a window from the other.

I heard it’s used in places like police interrogation rooms.

“Wait, Jeongseok, are you saying… someone was peeping into the bathroom?”

“Yes. Remember how the housekeeping sisters said they felt like someone was watching them? Especially when they were bathing. I suspected something and checked around the bathroom, and that’s what I found.”

“I discovered it! I’m sensitive to these things. Sometimes sasaeng fans give gifts with hidden recorders or small cameras, so I’m an expert in these matters. I told you I have good instincts!”

Kwon Sua proudly puffed out her chest as she spoke.

As a new member of our pirate crew, she had made a significant contribution.

Yu Dahui frowned as if she felt extremely uncomfortable.

“Who would install such a thing in the bathroom, and why?”