Ch.141Professor, Conclusion (4)

“Can’t you feel it? That gaze.”

Lethe looks up. There’s nothing there.

“It must be the same for everyone else.”

From behind the stage, the sound of screaming. The sound of something tearing. The sound of liquid splattering everywhere.

It was strange.

I had only played the tape, but stage directions like those used in plays appeared in my mind.

“Robin.”

“It’s a play script. Not just recorded voices, but sentences are stored together.”

“Let’s pause the tape for a moment.”

I pressed the pause button on the player.

The flowing voice stopped instantly, and Robin carefully examined the cassette.

“This looks like an ordinary machine… What do you think, Dabin?”

“I don’t see anything special either. It’s just a regular cassette tape player.”

“To be precise, it’s called a deck.”

Heo Yoon had already come over and was examining the deck.

“Then is there something strange about the tape?”

“That’s not it either. Dabin already checked the tape earlier, right?”

“Yes. There were no anomalies in the tape.”

“Then what could it be?”

“It must be the ‘information’ recorded on the tape. Right, Dabin?”

Robin keeps passing the conversation to me.

Using my ability is the most reliable way to verify anomalies here.

I nodded.

“But we can’t know in advance if it’s dangerous. That seems to be the anomaly the information possesses.”

“And if it was left by the Professor, that’s not all. This is a troublesome type.”

The conversation stalls momentarily.

In this situation, I can’t guarantee everyone’s safety.

But it’s not like going back would be safe either.

It could be the Professor’s trap, and ultimately, we need to protect the world.

Since we’ve come this far, we have to find out what’s on this tape.

“So we have no choice but to listen to all of it.”

Heo Yoon neatly summarizes the situation.

“I’ll press the button.”

“Yes. Let’s do that.”

Robin agrees first.

There’s no other way. Deliberating would just waste time.

But it’s unavoidable to worry about the others.

A moment of hesitation. Heo Yoon asks in a clear voice.

“Lim Dabin? Should I press it?”

“If it seems dangerous, I’ll say so right away.”

“Okay. Playing it again.”

Click.

The voice begins to flow from the deck again.

“I can’t stand it anymore.”

Static mixes in.

Researcher A raises a pen and stabs his own eye.

Lethe continues her lines, completely unfazed.

“I can feel the gaze constantly. Ever since I realized it, it’s been constant. Constant.”

“We’ve been possessed by something from the beginning. That something was sleeping in our minds, and now it’s awoken and running rampant.”

“It’s strange that these things didn’t happen sooner.”

“Why didn’t I know this?”

The laboratory transforms into a horrific place.

Researchers frantically cut their own bodies.

Some hold their exposed organs in their hands, giggling.

Armed guards take their own lives. Gunshots continue like a shower.

“Our minds adapted to live in finite time, and that was our weakness. The disease has long since exploited that gap and taken control of all of us.”

I swallowed nervously.

The woman in the video, Lethe, laughs as if she’s about to lose her breath, then barely manages to speak.

“Everyone must be liberated. From hell.”

The tape cut off.

Silence filled the room for a moment.

“Disease. What does that mean?”

Heo Yoon sinks into deep thought with a serious expression.

Daju seems somewhat relieved.

“It wasn’t as dangerous as I thought.”

“Still, it’s really unsettling.”

Jung Haewon is slightly anxious as usual.

I was quietly about to return to where everyone else was when I stopped.

There was still more recorded content left.

“Libra…”

This time it’s a man’s voice.

Click.

I stopped the playback with all my strength.

“Let’s get out of here. Quickly.”

“Huh?”

“Everyone except Yebin needs to leave.”

All I properly heard was just a few syllables.

I can’t even know for sure what content will come next.

But my intuition is telling me.

“You absolutely must not listen to what comes next.”

This is a trap aimed at me.

If it’s a trap strong enough to catch me, it could easily kill the others.

The others hurriedly leave the room.

Only Yebin remains by my side.

“Dabin.”

“Shh. I’m going to play it again now.”

Yebin tries to interject as if she has something urgent to ask.

“Couldn’t we listen to it later?”

“No. We have to listen now.”

Crrrreeeeak-

Like a twisted rubber band forcibly held in place, the deck is distorting.

If we delay any longer, the tape itself will be damaged.

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

I played the voice that had been cut off earlier.

“…Library. To be precise, the Wanderer’s Library, or the Infinite Archives.”

Just as I expected.

The Library. The very library where I serve as a Librarian.

The Professor speaks in a gentle voice.

And the speaker of the story is the Professor.

That very person.

I glared at the deck.

“The Library originally wanders between dimensions. It collects and records information. The Library is like a massive ark that stores all information from all worldlines.”

A paper clip on the desk falls to the floor.

“But now, it has dropped anchor and remains stationary.”

A paper boat floating in the air sinks to the floor.

The window vibrates as if about to break.

A fishy, metallic taste begins to permeate the air.

The floor creaks.

“I think you would know the reason.”

The Professor raises his head and looks at the audience.

The clean laboratory begins to collapse.

The windows scatter. The floor scatters. The air scatters.

“Ms. Lim Dabin.”

The “Professor” is right in front of me.

“Open your eyes again.”

Sitting at a desk placed on a blood-red floor. Looking at me.

Yebin, who had been beside me, has disappeared, and the surroundings have completely changed in an instant.

It’s exactly as it appeared on the recorded tape.

A blood-soaked floor.

Footprints are messily imprinted, perhaps from those who have already left.

Those who remain swim in their own blood and vomit.

“Hehehehe.”

The white coat of a researcher, laughing eerily with rolled-back eyes, has long been dyed red.

It was a catastrophe.

A horrific scene that never becomes familiar no matter how many times you see it.

Weak screams, the sound of entrails being pulled out and eyeballs being gouged.

The smell of metallic blood.

Various bodily fluids flowing messily and soaking the floor.

Orgy.

Cannibalism where they kill and eat each other.

Cross-sections of severed body parts.

All my senses scream.

“Ugh.”

I swallowed the urge to vomit.

Amidst all this carnage, the “Professor” just sat at his desk without the slightest movement.

Continuing to stare at me.

“This happened once before.”

“When?”

“When I saw the ending once. I was trying to go to the 7th Floor. But suddenly I was on the 6th Floor, and the scenery changed in an instant, just like now.”

I barely held onto my sanity.

I can’t waver here. If I waver here, I’ll end up like the future “me” from another worldline.

Killing everyone else and facing a terrible doom alone.

“It was you. Wasn’t it.”

My voice trembled. But I pushed the words out to the end.

Bang!

The sound came from the direction of the door.

“The door won’t open.”

“Daju, can you break it down?”

“Just a moment.”

Boom!

The loud noise continued several more times, but the door didn’t budge.

The voices only became more urgent.

“Hey, Lim Dabin! Answer! Lim Dabin!”

“Are you in there? Brother! Please answer!”

“Dabin…”

The voices soon became inaudible, buried under other sounds.

Fighting, blood splattering everywhere, someone screaming.

The scene outside must be worse than in here.

The “Professor” calmly offers me a handkerchief with a serene face.

“Stay calm.”

“…”

“First, I’ll answer your earlier question.”

When I finally refused to take the handkerchief, the “Professor” put it back in his upper pocket.

“I can see the future, and furthermore, I can fix outcomes. The latter is an ability I can only use in very limited situations, but it’s still worth using a few times when important.”

“Then…”

“Yes, I was the one who sent Dabin to the 6th Floor.”

“Then why did you do that?”

The “Professor” narrows his eyes.

His wrinkles become more pronounced. The wrinkles of an elderly gentleman who would have looked very kind if I had met him without knowing anything.

The “Professor” sighs briefly and then speaks in a gentle voice.

“I wanted you to see it.”

“See what…”

“What I wanted to show you was the future if you didn’t cooperate.”

I thought of the internet broadcast.

The empty night sky shown at the end, and the expression worn by another me from a different worldline.

But that was the future if I didn’t cooperate?

Wasn’t that what happened because I fell into the Professor’s trap?

I can’t believe it. No. I won’t believe it.

This is more likely to be a trap.

While mentally repeating these thoughts thousands of times, I let the Professor continue speaking.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t want such an ending either.”

“No. I don’t want an ending where people die, the world is destroyed, and eventually everything is forgotten.”

“I’m glad we think alike.”

A bit late, I realized what had been bothering me.

There’s no emotion in the “Professor’s” words.

He’s merely conveying facts, or what he believes to be the truth.

The “Professor” adjusted his posture slightly. Still sitting at the desk.

“So, I’ll make a proposal.”

“A proposal…?”

My voice continues to tremble.

The terrible carnage around me has long since left my field of vision.

Now all I can see is the “Professor.”

“In this ending I’ve designed, ‘Seven’ cannot devour the world. Everyone will survive in the end, and no one will be forgotten.”

“So that’s why you massacred people? By releasing the Fifth Apostle into the world?”

“This is not the time to question methods. We are now at the biggest crisis point in the story. If we don’t handle this properly, we’ll never be able to reach the ending.”

[It’s Yebin. Dabin. Can you hear me?]

[Right now in the Library… Warnings keep…]

Through the static.

Only the “Professor” speaks clearly.

“Let’s start with the relationship between this situation and the Library.”