Ch.172172 – The Snake’s Tail 1

# 172 – The Snake’s Tail # 1

“Congratulations! The player has successfully escaped from the Nightmare Corridor!”

“Beginning settlement for 1 survivor.”

The settlement for Yang Juhui, who had remained behind but escaped from the nightmare, was successfully processed.

Clink-clink-clink-clink.

The sound of countless coins falling echoed as text appeared before me like ending credits.

“Ghost Encounters: 25 times + 250 P”

“Escapees: 1 person + 100 P”

“Item Acquired: Japanese Military Sword (Rare) + 100 P”

“Nightmare Corridor Progress: 5% + 50 P”

“Total: 500 P”

I was already struggling with a shortage of points.

Thanks to Yang Juhui’s settlement and the rabbit piggy bank’s savings, I now had some breathing room.

My current point balance is 840 P.

It’s a lot if you think about it one way, but not much if you think about it another. After everything I’ve experienced, I’ve realized that when it comes to points, the more the better. It seemed best to scrape together as many as possible.

“Yeongwon, I’m done showering.”

Just then, Dahui came out of the bathroom after washing her hair.

I prepared to take my turn in the shower while discreetly checking her condition.

“Dahui, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Completely energetic.”

Dahui flexed her arm to show her bicep.

She looked healthy. However, she couldn’t remember anything about what happened yesterday.

She had forgotten all about how much we struggled in the corridor, and even the artificial respiration in the underwater cave—it was as if none of it had happened.

I thought that might be for the best.

Since coming out of the underwater cave, I’d been a bit self-conscious about how to face Dahui.

Although Dahui acted like nothing happened, it had been my first kiss.

It wasn’t like the kisses you see in dramas or movies, just a simple pressing of lips. Nevertheless, for someone with hot-blooded youth like me, it was stimulating enough to make the back of my head tingle.

Whoosh-

Thinking about it made my face flush bright red.

I hurriedly entered the bathroom, turned on the water, and cooled my head with cold water.

‘Dahui doesn’t even remember.’

Come to think of it, since it happened in a dream, maybe it should be considered as if it never happened.

I mean, just because I became rich in a dream doesn’t make me actually rich. Just because I did something intimate with a woman in a dream doesn’t mean I’ve lost my virginity.

In reality, I’d just be a teenage boy who had a wet dream.

Similarly, kissing Dahui in the dream should probably be considered something that never actually happened. It was a life-saving measure to begin with.

Creak, creak-

After turning off the rusty faucet, I came out to the living room where Dahui was fidgeting awkwardly. She flinched at my appearance as if startled and seemed somewhat uncomfortable.

“I didn’t do anything!”

Above all, she was acting suspiciously.

What did she mean she didn’t do anything?

“What didn’t you do?”

“I don’t know!”

What did she mean she didn’t know?

This was extremely suspicious.

What could Dahui have done while I was showering?

Like playing a game of spot-the-difference, I tried to see if anything had changed, and with my decent powers of observation, I noticed a significant change in the fish tank.

“Giganoto!”

Giganoto in the fish tank.

His proud, plump tail had fallen off.

Wait, how did this happen?

When I looked at Dahui, she held out the tail she had been holding in her hand.

“…I just wanted to pet him. Pfft….”

It seemed Dahui had tried to pet Giganoto, but feeling threatened, Giganoto had detached his tail and escaped.

I’d noticed before that while Dahui loved animals, animals didn’t particularly like her. It was truly a one-sided love.

On the other hand, animals loved Yang Juhui. Giganoto had been especially fond of her.

“Well, the tail will grow back. That’s interesting. He never dropped his tail no matter what we did, so I thought it was undetachable.”

“Will he be okay? I heard lizard tails are nutrient reserves.”

Dahui looked slightly worried.

As I took the plump tail from her, I thought about it briefly. If Giganoto were an ordinary lizard, it might be a problem, but being a descendant of dinosaurs (presumably), he should be fine.

“Giganoto is tough, so he’ll be fine. He’s been a big help to us.”

Pat, pat-

I stroked Giganoto in the fish tank.

He made a light sound in response to my touch.

“Boombooboompow.”

A sound indicating he was feeling good.

Ding-

A new message appeared on my Status Window.

It said I had acquired a new item.

“Giganoto’s Tail: A tail detached from the mysterious creature Giganoto. It wriggles and moves as if alive on its own. Can summon Giganoto. Disappears after one use.”

It was an item that could summon Giganoto.

Who would have thought that a tail detached from Giganoto would become an item?

This is what they call turning misfortune into blessing.

# # #

“Hey everyone, it’s been too long.”

I felt incredibly happy seeing my friends gathered at the secret base. In terms of actual time, we’d only been apart for about a day, but it felt like we hadn’t met in ages.

It might have felt that way because of all the hardships I’d been through.

“Teacher Hong Miri, I’m so glad to see you too. And Sua. Even Bong Jiyeon!”

Today was the day when all the pirates gathered.

Bong Jiyeon frowned at my honest sentiment.

“Why are you being so dramatic?”

I must have seemed like I was overreacting.

Honestly, I wanted to hug everyone tightly and even give them kisses.

But I held back because that would obviously make things weird.

“Where’s Juhui?”

I asked about Yang Juhui’s absence.

I had been in contact with her earlier.

Soon, First Mate Jeongseok answered.

“She’s still at the hospital. Apparently, they have some tests to run. It can’t be helped. Someone who suddenly fell into a coma and then suddenly woke up—I’m not sure what modern medicine can figure out, though.”

Hmph-

Jeongseok snorted. Though he was just a high school student, he seemed to have developed an arrogant attitude toward doctors.

He seemed to feel superior for exploring and breaking through a world unknown to others. It was understandable.

Chatter, chatter-

As always, I sat at the round table and gave everyone a general explanation of what had happened yesterday.

The strangers wandering around the first floor.

Giganoto, who jumped out and helped us in a crisis on the second floor.

The onmyoji’s lair discovered on the third floor. The “staircase” located there and the “voice” presumed to be Yang Dohui.

And the pond leading to floor 3.5 and the strange humans existing beyond it.

Everyone’s expressions were quite serious as they listened to my story, and each person reacted to different points. For starters, Jeongseok seemed concerned about the people wandering on the first floor.

“The first floor was an easy place to conquer because there were no ghosts. It could be dangerous if people wander around stealing things. In some ways, they might be worse than ghosts.”

“They were like shamans. They seemed to treat the items in the old school building like treasures and tried to capture ghosts as if they were hunting animals.”

It was sudden to have strangers swarming around the old school building.

However, Jeongseok nodded as if he had anticipated this.

“It was foreseeable. Your Status Window opened the shop to fight against heroes and watchers. This development might actually be natural.”

When I heard it put that way, it made sense.

“Those of us with Status Windows have an overwhelming advantage in survival. The key is to conquer the corridor while considering this advantage.”

“I’m more curious about this floor 3.5. Yang Juhui spent a month there? Even though only a day passed in reality?”

Bong Jiyeon was curious about floor 3.5.

I didn’t know much about floor 3.5 either, so I couldn’t explain much. Kwon Sua trembled—she was trembling in many ways.

“Japanese soldiers appearing… It’s so scary. You said there was also a senile old man. A place where such people exist freely. And so many shadows. Why is my shadow there?”

I had encountered Kwon Sua’s shadow on floor 3.5.

I had been wondering whether it was really Kwon Sua’s shadow or just my imagination, but seeing the “real thing” here, I could be more certain.

That shadow was indeed Kwon Sua’s shadow.

Soon, Teacher Hong Miri, who had been listening maturely, tapped the desk with her pink nails to get our attention.

“The fact that there’s a shadow means there must be light and a physical form somewhere that casts that shadow. Did the shadow there look like Sua’s shadow here?”

“No. The shadow there seemed separate from the shadow in our reality. It was like there were two Kwon Suas. It looked like a Kwon Sua living in a separate world…”

It was difficult to explain.

However, what was certain was that this expedition had yielded more than expected.

“The important thing is that we found out where Yang Dohui is. She’s on the fourth floor. The onmyoji seems to have taken her to the fourth floor and imprisoned her there. She doesn’t even seem to remember who she is.”

The path to the fourth floor was in the onmyoji’s lair.

Of course, that door was locked, but the key was supposedly at what could be called the Gandara Shaman’s shrine or altar.

“So if we conquer the third floor, the path to the fourth floor will open. Unlike the second floor, which we could bypass with various tricks, we can’t avoid the demons on the third floor. A frontal assault is indeed the right approach.”

The good news was that we had figured out how to defeat the “onmyoji.”

He was a “demon.” And I roughly knew his name. And the sealing method.

The problem was the key guardian, the Gandara Shaman, and Jeongseok knew this well.

“Like the evil spirits on the second floor, Japanese ghosts are like natural disasters with no strategy to defeat them. All we can do is hide under a sturdy roof and hope the typhoon and earthquake pass.”

The Gandara Shaman wasn’t just an evil spirit but an entity like a demon. Since she wasn’t meant to be conquered in the first place, it might be impossible to break through.

‘If Kim Geonho with the Destroyer trait were here, could we have opened the onmyoji’s door without a key? Then we wouldn’t have had to face the Gandara Shaman.’

It was regrettable in many ways.

Of course, I did have his relic, the “Destroyer’s Glove.”

“Destroyer’s Glove: A round leather glove. Protects the hand when hitting people or breaking objects. Can open locked boxes without keys, but the glove disappears after use.”

I wondered if this could be used to break the door’s lock.

“But it’s not like there’s absolutely no strategy. I’ve researched this ‘Gandara Shaman ghost story’ in various ways. Actually, the shaman we met is only half.”

“Half?”

“Yes. The woman we met was a monster with a female body and multiple arms, making her look like a spider. But in the ghost story, the shaman is actually closer to a ‘snake’ than a spider.”

A snake?