Ch.116116 – Resolution Arc 2

# 116 – Answer Chapter # 2

The magic mirror installed in the communal bathroom.

Who on earth would install such a thing?

Why?

Jeongseok said.

“These things are usually planned during the construction phase. This mansion was built around the same time Yeongji High School was established… And look at this.”

Click-

Jeongseok showed me the blueprint.

It seemed to be the blueprint of this mansion.

“I compared this blueprint with the actual size of the mansion, and the width is different. The actual mansion is much wider than what’s shown in the blueprint. But the spacing between rooms and the width of the stairs are exactly the same.”

“What’s the problem with that?”

I couldn’t understand and wanted an explanation. Jeongseok replied with a serious face.

“It means there’s excess space. According to this blueprint, there shouldn’t be any space behind the bathroom mirror. But try knocking on it.”

Knock knock-

The sound was too strange for it to be just a mirror attached to a wall.

As if there was a space behind it…

“…Is this for real?”

In the mansion of the Cheon family, who treated even major corporations like servants, there was only one person who could have done something like this from the design and construction phase.

“…Did the Chairman create a secret space?”

Why on earth would he do that?

Did he build this elaborate mansion with such perverted sexual tastes just to peep at the women working in his mansion while they bathed naked in the communal bathroom?

“I knew it…”

So Chairman Cheon Daegon was a perverted psycho with sexual deviations after all!

Actually, I had been suspicious of Chairman Cheon Daegon for a while.

It seemed strange that someone with so much money and power didn’t have a single sexual scandal.

If I had that kind of authority and power… I would have filled this mansion with even more pretty noonas. It would be a complete doll house.

If I just said “Water,” Teacher Hong Miri and that rude Hong Yeri would scramble to bring me water.

Pretty maid noonas would stick to me 24 hours a day, massaging my shoulders and feeding me grapes.

For a man who had all the money and power, that would be the natural thing to do.

That’s normal.

But the Chairman didn’t do that.

I found that suspicious, and today I felt like all the puzzle pieces were falling into place. The Chairman was a human with perverted sexual desires who got excited only by secretly watching others from hidden spaces!

Nevertheless, I couldn’t bring myself to say such things in front of Yu Dahui, who was the Chairman’s family, so I whispered only into Jeongseok’s ear.

“What do you think? About my deduction.”

Jeongseok frowned after hearing my story.

“No… the preferences you’re talking about aren’t exactly normal either…”

My preference for wanting to fill the mansion with pretty noonas isn’t normal?

What do you know when you’re abnormally obsessed with just Bong Jiyeon!

Of course, I didn’t say that out loud.

“Grandfather…?”

I could see Yu Dahui’s pupils shaking severely.

But she quickly shook her head.

“I don’t think Grandfather is the culprit. For better or worse, Grandfather doesn’t care about people beneath him.”

“Hey, how would you know that? You have to check everything to know. Rich people are different on the inside than they appear.”

Yang Juhui wrapped a towel that had been placed in the bathroom around her fist.

Crash-!

I wondered what she was trying to do, but Yang Juhui broke the magic mirror with her towel-wrapped fist like a glove.

Whoosh-

A space where wind could pass through appeared beyond the broken glass.

It looked like a space large enough for at least one person to enter.

“Let’s go in. We might meet the culprit or whoever it is.”

Click-

Yang Juhui checked the blade of a box cutter.

I became… scared in many ways.

# # #

It was a passage large enough for one person to pass through.

Such passages extended both upward and downward.

“I can see the kitchen…”

I looked at the kitchen through a small gap in the passage.

There were holes everywhere that allowed views into the kitchen, living room, reception room, hallway, private rooms, and more.

“This feels awful.”

Yu Dahui, a resident of the house, frowned.

Since Yu Dahui rarely showed a cold expression, her emotions were clearly conveyed.

It made sense that a sensitive high school girl like Yu Dahui would feel uncomfortable with something like this in her home.

We discovered that these passages ultimately connected to the outside of the mansion as well.

It was a passage where torches were burning.

Jeongseok said while looking at the passage.

“It’s just like a bunker built for evacuation during war. The fact that torches are burning means… someone is maintaining these torches. Is it the Chairman…?”

“We’ll find out if we go.”

We continued to advance along the long passage.

It was eerie and frightening.

With each step, it felt like someone was watching me, following behind me.

“If something happens, you must protect Yeongwon. As long as Yeongwon is alive, we can turn back time by spending 100 points. Ha Yeongwon, you must survive no matter what.”

Jeongseok said in a grave voice.

Seeing his voice trembling, he seemed scared of the current situation. Of course, his logic was reasonable as always.

If I stay alive, I can rewind time.

But what if I die…? Would time automatically rewind by consuming points…?

Either way, it wasn’t something I could test like a gamble.

After walking for a while, we found a door at the end of the passage.

It looked like a thick iron door.

Clank, creak-

The door opened easily when I pulled the handle.

And a pungent stench wafted from inside.

“Ugh. What’s this smell?”

I pinched my nose.

And I could see animal carcasses scattered around. It was an underground space where the bodies of rats, pigeons, crows, and other animals were displayed like trophies.

They also looked like they had been partially eaten by someone.

We avoided the corpses and went deeper inside.

“A bed…”

I could see a bed and a bathroom.

It was a place that felt like someone had lived here. There were also ominous items like collars and chains. There were many iron bars as well.

“Oh, this rat…”

I could spot the white rat with a cut-off tail that I had made eye contact with through the crack in the basement.

This meant that the basement where all the cockroaches had appeared was connected to this place.

“No wonder there were cockroaches with all these corpses connected to that place. Damn it.”

Turning my eyes away from the horrific scene, I saw a staircase leading upward.

We followed the stairs up.

Then we saw bookshelves with neatly arranged books.

There was an antique-looking drawer, models like globes, and displays of small dinosaur fossils. There was also a doll inside a glass case.

The floor was elegantly covered with carpet, making it look almost like a museum.

There was also a window.

Outside the window, bell-shaped flowers were jingling their dainty petals in the summer breeze. This building was surrounded by lily of the valley flowers.

“This is… Grandfather’s study.”

Yu Dahui identified the place while looking at a photo placed on the desk.

In a small frame, there was what appeared to be a very old photograph showing two young men and one woman smiling together.

Next to it was a medicine container full of antidotes that Mrs. Danvers had given to Kwon Sua.

“If this is Chairman Cheon Daegon’s study…”

This was a place where no one except the Chairman could set foot.

The fact that such a place was connected to the mansion’s secret passages…

I fell into deep thought.

I was thinking.

“It seems like the Chairman was raising something in the basement of his study. Judging by the iron bars and collars in the basement… it seems like he was preventing it from wandering around freely outside.”

But such a basement was connected to the mansion’s secret spaces through passages.

While it was impossible to influence the mansion from the secret spaces, it was entirely possible to peek and observe.

In other words, the being living in the study’s basement was like the Phantom of the Opera, listening to and watching the events unfolding in this mansion.

“But what if an earthquake created a hole in the basement? What if something that had to move around like a ghost only through secret passages could now reach directly into the mansion through that hole…?”

A chilling sensation ran down my spine.

And it seemed Yang Juhui also sensed the ominous feeling.

“Hey, if what you’re saying is true, someone should have been here. Where is that bastard now? Where is it now?!”

Where is it—

I reached a conclusion and felt we couldn’t stay here any longer.

“We have to go! We have to go! We need to get to the mansion! The people in the mansion are in danger! The noonas and the ahjumma are in danger!”

I flung open the door of the Chairman’s office.

Crossing through the lily of the valley field was the fastest way to get back to the mansion.

Kwon Sua, who had taken the antidote, followed behind me.

Patter patter-

We ran with all our might toward the mansion.

After running and running, we arrived at the mansion, and despite it being only 4 PM, the interior of the mansion was as dark as night. And a fishy metallic smell was stinging my nose.

Thwack-! Thwack-! Thwack-! Thwack-!

A strange noise could be heard at regular intervals.

I slowly entered the mansion and headed toward the kitchen where the sound was coming from.

The pitch-black kitchen.

Something was boiling, and someone was cutting something placed on a cutting board with a kitchen knife, but the thing on the cutting board had five fingers.

“Ugh.”

I felt terrified and disgusted.

But I tried not to look away and focused on observing the entity holding the knife.

It was tall.

About 2 meters.

Its entire body was covered with what looked like black fur, its limbs were skeletal, and its eyes were hollow.

A ghost. No, it looked more like a demon or some terrible evil with limbs attached to it.

I had never seen anything like it before.

I was so terrified that my legs froze, and at that moment, Kwon Sua, who was looking into the kitchen with me, pulled my arm.

“R-run!”

We need to run away.

That’s what she seemed to be saying.

Thwack-!

The kitchen knife that had been striking the cutting board suddenly stopped.

And then it looked in my direction.

“……”

As I made eye contact with it, I felt dizzy. Its bright red eyes and mouth stretched wide with a flickering tongue made me want to faint.

“Aaaaah!”

I screamed at the top of my lungs and ran away.

Kwon Sua followed behind me, and we were able to return to the study.

“G-ghost. There was a man-eating ghost. A man-eating ghost… We’re dead. Noona Somi and the ahjumma too… Ugh, uweeeek, uweeeeek-!”

Having witnessed the horrific scene and having run at full speed until I was out of breath, I ended up vomiting everything inside me onto the floor.

Kwon Sua said to me as I was doing this.

“It’s… it’s not a ghost. That… that’s not a ghost… it’s a human. It’s a human! A human!”

A human!?

Damn, that was even more surprising and terrifying!

At that moment.

Jeongseok, who was looking out the window, shouted.

“Hey, this man-eating ghost you’re talking about…”

“Huh!”

When I came to my senses and looked outside, the creature was standing in the lily of the valley field.

Under the hot scorching sun, in the middle of summer with cicadas loudly chirping, it stood pitch black like spilled ink.

I was scared that it had followed us.

“No. It can’t come in here. There are flowers blooming like a defensive barrier that are fatal if it even smells their pollen. That’s it!”

The flowers planted around the Chairman’s office were undoubtedly planted to prevent that creature from approaching freely, to prevent that creature in the basement from going outside freely!

As I was thinking this, the man-eating monster began to stride across the flower field, holding a kitchen knife dripping with blood.

“…It doesn’t affect it?”

Did the monster take an antidote too?!

While I was dumbfounded, the monster entered and struck Jeongseok’s head with the kitchen knife.

“Ugh.”

Jeongseok let out a short scream and died.

I closed my eyes and imagined winding the clock’s spring in my mind.

『《The Broken Clock》rewinds its spring.』

『100P consumed.』

『Remaining points: 324』

Click, bang-!

A blinding flash went off.

“I need to find out the identity of that creature. The ahjumma who has lived in this mansion for a long time must know everything. I need to ask her.”

“What? What’s he suddenly talking about?”

“Yeongwon, what’s wrong?”

Yang Juhui and Yu Dahui tilted their heads in confusion.

But I thought there was no time and I couldn’t contain my anger.

“Ahjumma! Tell me the truth!”

I went straight to Mrs. Danvers, who was resting in the shade of the garden.

And I asked.

“That thing living in the basement of the Chairman’s office. What the hell is it? If we stay like this, it will kill us all today! Tell me honestly! I already know everything!”

“……”

The ahjumma’s eyes widened as she sat on a long bench reading a book.

She looked at me with a very surprised face.

“…You saw ‘it’? How? I told you not to enter the Chairman’s study! You bad boy! It’s a miracle you came back alive! You bad boy! Why do you always do things you’re told not to do?!”

“Ahjumma! This is not the time for such talk! We’re all going to die! We need to stop that thing! We’re all going to die! We need to eliminate it first! Aaaah! Aaaaaah!”

I screamed while pulling my hair.

And I even did an angry breakdance with my head on the ground.

Perhaps startled by my outburst, the ahjumma stepped back hesitantly and then let out a small sigh.

“That creature… that person is Master Cheon Taegon, the Chairman’s twin brother.”