Ch.168168 – Floor 3.5 3

# 3.5 Floor # 3

—Boom boom pow—.

Giganoto was a lizard with a good sense of rhythm.

As always, Giganoto leaped while emitting a strange beat.

When this normally laid-back creature ran at full speed, it truly looked like a black flash.

Pop-!

Giganoto attached itself to the Rhythm Ghost’s face.

—Gecko—.

“Gyaaak! Aaaak! What is this! What is this!”

The Rhythm Ghost writhed left and right in apparent shock, and with that long neck, it looked just like a snake going berserk after being stung by a bee.

Giganoto had jumped out of Dahui’s school vest and lunged at the Rhythm Ghost. Watching that scene was quite satisfying.

“You old maid ghost! How do you like the taste of dinosaur!”

Giganoto was one of the only ghosts I had never been able to exorcise.

All I could do was chase it away.

“Feel the wrath of the Cretaceous period!”

Though we somehow ended up living together, Giganoto’s true identity might be something terrifyingly powerful beyond our comprehension.

Faced with the attack of such an unidentified creature, the Rhythm Ghost seemed helpless, collapsing to the floor and thrashing about wildly.

“You brats! You brats!”

Whatever the case, what mattered was that Giganoto had cleared a path for us.

I could sense the men approaching from behind us getting closer.

“Dahui! We need to go now!”

I shouted toward Dahui, who seemed slightly dazed.

She was patting her school vest, which had noticeably decreased in volume.

“I think it got even smaller!”

“That’s just your imagination! Let’s go! Hurry!”

Whoosh-!

I grabbed Dahui’s hand and ran.

Soon, I could hear the men’s voices from behind.

“What… what kind of ghost is this? Isn’t this the Piano Ghost? It looks exactly like what I’ve heard about!”

“It’s an evil spirit. An evil spirit!”

“Let’s catch it! Grab it! Get it! Beat it up! It looks weakened! Now’s our chance! Now!”

These guys are truly insane.

Believing in their numbers, the men seemed intent on fighting the Rhythm Ghost. Were they trying to exploit the opening Giganoto had created?

“Aack! Shit, I’m caught! Help me! Some-something’s entering my ear!”

“Hehe! Delicious.”

“That crazy ghost bastard! Yeongbok! Yeongboook!”

While screams of agony and a woman’s hate-filled shrieks shook the old school building, Dahui and I ran frantically toward the third floor.

But as luck would have it, the Dancing Ghost was waiting for me at the entrance to the third floor.

“Hahahahahahaha!”

As always, it clung to the ceiling with its mouth wide open, laughing in an extremely wicked manner, full of malice. It felt like it was sneering, “Hehe! You can’t pass!”

It was truly one mountain after another.

I suddenly felt angry.

Why does the world keep making things so difficult for me? Nothing ever goes smoothly.

I can’t just keep taking it and having things taken from me forever.

A cornered rat will bite a cat, and right now I was an angry squirrel. For the record, a hungry and angry squirrel will even eat snakes.

“You bastard!”

I swung the cleaver in my hand and lunged at the Dancing Ghost.

The dull cleaver might only leave bruises when used against people, but it was supposed to be effective against ghosts. If what those crazy men said was true, this knife would be an effective weapon against ghosts.

Slash-!

And it seemed to be true—the hand reaching for me from the ceiling was severely cut.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!”

The evil spirit let out an extremely loud scream of agony.

It quickly hid itself in the shadows cast on the ceiling.

Seeing that, I felt like my blood was being fried like oil.

“I did it! Come down! You bastard! Where did you go! You son of a bitch!”

I had sliced through a ghost with a single stroke.

Did I have a talent for wielding knives? I never imagined I would awaken a talent I didn’t even know I had. I’ve certainly experienced all sorts of things in my life.

“Yeongwon, let’s go!”

“Right!”

Before my newly emerged courage could fade, I sprinted toward the third floor. Taking two steps at a time, almost flying up the stairs, I was greeted by the imposing door that was wide open as always.

Whoooosh-.

It was still an intimidating place that made people feel small.

I tore off one of the talismans attached to the entrance and entered through the massive pillar door without hesitation.

Then I felt a dizzying shock, as if many worms were crawling through my head.

The quirk was beginning to consume my body.

“Yeongwon, snap out of it!”

Slap-! Slap slap slap-!

Dahui slapped my cheeks repeatedly.

Thanks to her “Elegance” trait, Dahui wasn’t affected by the quirk, which allowed me to take out a talisman from my pocket and chew it down.

My vision cleared instantly.

Before me stretched the landscape of the third floor, filled with red temples. Now that we were here, I started feeling overwhelmed about what to do next.

Could Yang Juhui be somewhere around here?

Would we be able to find her and return safely?

Grip-.

I tightened my hold on the cleaver. I was planning to swing it if necessary, but honestly, I doubted whether this dull knife would be effective against the demons that appeared in this place.

Buldansa, where ancient monsters existed.

In this place filled with malice and curses, Dahui and I were like hamsters in a tiger’s den.

If it weren’t for finding Juhui, I would never have explored a place like this.

Grip-.

I clutched the talisman I had torn off from the third floor and looked around.

Our goal was to deliver this talisman to Yang Juhui.

Keeping that in mind, I was about to walk toward the dark temple when—

“Over here.”

I heard someone calling me.

It was a woman’s voice.

But it was an unfamiliar voice I had never heard before, which made me confused.

“Dahui, did you hear that too? Someone just called us.”

“I heard it too.”

If Dahui heard it too, then it wasn’t just my imagination.

I felt slightly relieved, but also curious and wary.

There were so many entities in this world trying to tempt me into falling into a pit of despair.

I couldn’t guarantee that the voice we just heard wasn’t one of them.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiing-!

At that moment, the bell-less chimes hanging all around Buldansa began to ring loudly.

This meant only one thing.

It was a warning that the Gandara Shaman Demon was about to appear.

“Hurry! Over here! Come this way!”

I heard someone shouting again.

If we stayed here, we would face the terrifying spider woman. Thinking there was no other option, I ran frantically toward the temple where the voice was coming from.

# # #

There were several buildings in Buldansa.

The temple I had taken shelter in was one of them.

What was peculiar was that there was a hole in the temple wall connecting to what looked like a cave. And the voice was coming from beyond it.

“Over here.”

The voice was guiding us toward that dark cave.

A voice coming from the cave.

And the jingling bell sounds coming from outside the temple.

Caught between these two choices, I decided to hold Dahui’s hand and explore the cave.

After going deep into the cave, we came upon a plaza littered with what looked like the corpses of dead animals.

Burning candles were everywhere, and the walls were covered with unknown patterns written like letters with something resembling filth. Clothes were scattered on the floor.

They looked like traditional attire, but not Korean—more like Japanese style. I could tell this place was related to the six-handed onmyoji.

After all, the scattered clothing belonged to that onmyoji bastard.

“…This is that bastard’s lair.”

This cave was clearly the onmyoji’s dwelling.

In other words, a lion’s den.

Did we enter the lion-like onmyoji’s den to avoid the tiger-like Gandara Shaman? The voice from the cave was clearly trying to trick us.

Oh my, now we’re surely going to die.

As I was thinking this, trembling with fear, Dahui patted my back firmly.

“Stay calm. That onmyoji doesn’t seem to be here.”

“…Really?”

As Dahui suggested, when I calmed down and looked around, indeed, while there were plenty of traces of the onmyoji, he was nowhere to be seen. Had he gone out somewhere?

Whatever the case, it was fortunate for us.

And given that we didn’t know when that demon-like onmyoji would return, we needed to make a quick decision or achieve something.

I quietly asked the cave:

“What do you want from us!”

There must have been a reason why the ‘voice’ led us here.

It could be a trap to trick us, but it could also be a stroke of luck.

Holding onto a sliver of hope, I asked again:

“Why did you call us!”

“Over here.”

Then I heard the voice again.

As I approached the cave wall, I saw what looked like a rusty iron door and what appeared to be stairs.

Stairs going up.

“…Could these be stairs leading to the upper floor?”

It was quite surprising.

I never expected to find stairs leading to the upper level at such an unexpected time.

“Ugh!”

Creak, creak-.

I tried to open the iron door.

But it was firmly locked, and I couldn’t open it with my strength alone.

“You can’t open that door by force.”

The voice came from the other side of the iron bars again.

“You need to bring the key from the temple on the opposite side. The key is guarded by a woman. You probably just met her.”

“The spider woman? You mean the Gandara Shaman, right?”

I found myself speaking politely for no reason.

Soon, a thin voice came back like an answer from beyond the iron bars.

“Appearance or name isn’t important. What matters is the role. The role of maintaining taboos. With your current abilities, you can’t escape from that woman. Normally, you wouldn’t have been able to enter this onmyoji cave either.”

The voice beyond the iron bars seemed to know a lot.

“The onmyoji has been away for a long time. It’s the first time he’s been absent for so long. That’s why I was able to talk to you.”

The onmyoji was absent?

Could it be because we summoned him in the operating room and challenged him? I couldn’t think of any other reason. It must be because of that.

So our actions back then weren’t meaningless!

With a joyful heart, I asked:

“Excuse me. Do you know Yang Juhui? She’s a girl wearing a school uniform similar to ours. She must be wandering around here somewhere, but we can’t find her!”

“Yang Juhui… I don’t know. But if you’ve looked everywhere and still can’t find her, she might have entered the 3.5 layer. They say those who enter that place never return.”

Never return?

As my vision blurred at those words, a hand suddenly emerged from the dark, shadowy iron bars.

It was a woman’s hand. Judging by the sleeve that reached her wrist, she seemed to be wearing a school uniform.

It looked like a Yeongji High School uniform.

“Take this. With this, you’ll be able to find the missing person. It’s a compass of desire that guides its owner to their wish. The needle of this compass doesn’t point north, but toward what you desire.”

There was a compass on her palm.

It was an extremely old and worn compass, the kind people from the Joseon Dynasty might have used. Looking closely, I saw it had Japanese writing, not Chinese characters.

“I also entered this place to find someone and ended up trapped. Who I was looking for… After so much time has passed, I’ve forgotten who I was as well.”

A woman who had lost her identity.

I carefully examined the thickness of her wrist, the shape of her fingers, and the feeling conveyed by her voice.

“Just a moment.”

Slide-.

After receiving the compass, I also grabbed the woman’s palm.

It was an extremely hot palm.

A soft and hot hand.

Having felt this sensation somewhere before, I asked the iron bars:

“Are you perhaps Yang Dohui?”