Chapter 116

Beyond the door, a single lantern sat on the floor. Its flame cast a faint, flickering light around the surroundings. The air carried the scent of books—that distinct smell of paper emitted by aged volumes.

The group stepped cautiously out of the room, looking around the space illuminated by the lantern. Sliding paper doors lined both sides, accompanied by crude wooden shelves packed with sparse clusters of old books.

Judging by the lantern and the paper doors, it felt like a traditional Hanok; judging by the abundance of books, it seemed to be a library. Father stepped forward tentatively, picked up the lantern from the floor, and swept the light across the room.

“What is this place now?”

Her voice was thick with wariness. The oppression of the pitch-black space and the chill of the stagnant air made everyone’s shoulders hunch instinctively.

Father absentmindedly rubbed her arms, shining the light here and there before turning it back toward the way they had come.

“Uh…”

The passage they had exited was now blocked by a heavy wooden board door. She tried pushing and pulling it, but the door didn’t budge. It meant there was no going back.

“What are we even supposed to do here?”

Father turned back around irritably. For a split second, she faced total darkness. Feeling as if something might leap out and lunged at her, she quickly swung the lantern forward. Only when the faint light illuminated the ground beneath her feet did she feel a sense of relief.

“Why even ask? The goal is obviously to escape,” Noquia said flatly, starting to walk. Holanghee followed right behind her.

“Let’s dig around and see if any clues turn up.”

With those two in the lead, the remaining three began to move. Relying on the single lantern, they started searching every corner of the library.

The wooden shelves held three types of documents: bamboo slips, scrolls, and stitched books. They began checking every item, pulling them out, unrolling them, and flipping through the pages.

After some time had passed, Holanghee, who was unrolling a bamboo slip, found something and called everyone over.

“There’s something written here.”

Everyone crowded around Holanghee, peering at the bamboo slip in her hand. While all the other documents they had checked were filled with unreadable characters, the slip in Holanghee’s hand was written in clear Hangul.

Relying on the lantern light, Holanghee slowly read the text aloud.

“The living walk. The dead…”

Trailing off, Holanghee stopped and furrowed her brow, narrowing her eyes. She ran her thumb over the characters a few times. The sentence following ‘The dead’ was blacked out, as if covered in ink. It looked as though someone had forcibly erased it—or intentionally hidden it.

“It’s erased, I can’t see it… And… The rotten crawl.”

Having read to the final sentence, Holanghee looked at the others to gauge their reaction. Everyone was staring at the bamboo slip with stiff expressions. Father pointed to the blackened space after ‘The dead.’

“The living and the rotten are one thing, but why is the part about the dead erased?”

“Exactly… How are the dead supposed to get around?”

Noquia chimed in, rubbing over the text just as Holanghee had, but the ink wouldn’t budge. Not knowing the truth about ‘the dead’ sent an involuntary chill down their spines, prompting them to turn and scan their surroundings.

“This is getting creepy,” Holanghee muttered, shivering.

Theo grumbled, “I told you we should have gone to Treasure Hunter.”

At his persistent whining about the other stage, Father nudged Theo in the ribs with her elbow.

“Ugh, you scaredy-cat. Are you actually afraid?”

She smirked, teasing him in hopes of a reaction, but Theo simply frowned and answered honestly, without trying to hide a thing.

“Yeah, I’m scared. I hate this kind of stuff.”

Father, Holanghee, and Noquia were caught off guard. They had guessed he was afraid from the way he avoided The Unreturning Guest at the entrance. They expected him to deny it if asked directly, but Theo had admitted it far too easily.

It reached a point where they felt slightly guilty for forcing him into it. The three exchanged sheepish glances before nodding slightly, as if reaching a silent resolution.

“Blaine, you’d better protect your hyung well.”

“Pardon?”

Blaine’s eyes went round at Father’s sudden summons. Then, Holanghee and Noquia closed in on him, patting his shoulders and back while whispering conspiratorially.

“Would you mind protecting us? You’re the one who has to do it.”

“This is your chance to score some points. Be the Knight in Shining Armor. The Black Knight.”

They were wicked adults. They were the ones who had started this mess, but because they didn’t want to deal with the consequences, they were shifting all the responsibility onto Blaine and playing innocent. They knew Blaine would be overjoyed just by the fact that he could protect Theo.

Just as they expected, Blaine’s wide, surprised eyes began to sparkle. He immediately stuck close to Theo’s side.

“Hyung, I’ll stay right next to you the whole time.”

“Huh?”

Theo, eyeing them suspiciously at the sudden remark, looked at Father, Holanghee, and Noquia. The three of them had perfectly serene faces, wearing satisfied smiles. Theo felt a vein throbbing in his temple.

These rascals are planning to dump everything on Blaine.

“If you’re scared, should we hold hands?”

“…….”

Theo didn’t answer, only glared at the three of them. However, he didn’t forget to reach out. Blaine watched Theo’s hand overlap with his own, looking more blissful than ever.

Leaving behind the grumpy-faced Theo and the radiant Blaine holding hands, Father raised the lantern once more to survey their surroundings.

“It doesn’t look like there are any more hints or items to find here. Let’s head outside.”

Everyone nodded and followed behind Father. Since there was only one lantern, the person holding it had to lead the way.

Exiting the library led them to a long corridor. On the ceiling of the endless hallway, five-colored fabrics hung down, and the walls were covered in a continuous series of ink-wash paintings. It was so immersive it almost felt like a landscape stretching beyond a window rather than a mere painting.

There was no path forward other than this corridor. They stared blankly at the ceiling and walls before cautiously taking their first steps.

Even after walking for quite a while, the hallway seemed never-ending. Noquia, fascinated by the seamless ink paintings, brushed her hand against the wall and asked abruptly.

“But when is the ghost coming out?”

“Hey, have you ever seen a ghost show up right at the beginning of a horror game or movie?”

“It’ll come out when the time is right, obviously.”

Holanghee and Father replied dismissively. They, too, were beginning to feel bored by the unchanging corridor.

Their conversation grew sparse, and yawns were beginning to escape from the boredom when suddenly—shhh, shhh—the sound of something dragging echoed from somewhere. Everyone’s feet stopped as if on cue, and they focused on the noise.

Father struggled to see through the gloom, swinging the lantern back and forth. As she thrust the light forward as far as it would go, the far end of the hallway came into faint view. At that exact moment, something like a red cloth swept across the corner of the corridor and vanished.

Everyone froze, staring intensely at the corner where the red cloth had disappeared. The sound of people swallowing dryly filled the silence.

They waited on guard, fearing something might jump out from the corner to ambush them, but nothing happened. The dragging shhh, shhh noise didn’t return.

Once they calmed their pounding hearts, they moved slowly toward the end of the hall. The path ahead was blocked, but paths branched out to the left and right. A piece of paper was stuck to the front wall.

[Do not close the door for the sake of the living.]

“For the sake of the living… do not close the door?”

Holanghee looked puzzled after reading the text, and Theo whispered at the same time.

“It seems… ‘the living’ refers to us, right?”

Everyone’s eyes turned to Theo.

“We are ‘the living’?”

Father asked back, and Theo nodded slowly while looking at her.

“Doesn’t it make sense? It’s not like we’re ‘the dead’ or ‘the rotten.’ Plus, we’re walking.”

“Then… that means we shouldn’t close any doors from now on?”

Father looked at the paper again, and the other four instinctively scanned the area. They looked around to see if there was anything that could be called a door. However, no matter where they looked, there were no windows or doors—only the endless corridor.

No one wanted to take the first step. It felt like they would be swallowed by the vast darkness regardless of where they went. Holanghee, absentmindedly rubbing her arms, huddled close to Father who held the lantern and asked in an anxious voice.

“Which way should we go now?”

“This way.”

Theo pointed to the left without hesitation. The right was the direction where the red cloth had vanished. It was Theo’s arbitrary decision, but no one objected, so they all moved to the left as if it were the obvious choice.

After walking through the continuing corridor for who knows how long, a blueish light appeared at a wide-open exit ahead. Relieved that they could finally leave the hallway, everyone hurried toward the exit.

Stepping out of the corridor brought them outside. There was a wide courtyard, walls, and pavilions scattered here and there. Above, the moon hung bright and full, and the night sky was packed with a Milky Way that looked ready to pour down on them.

“Phew…”

They let out the breath they had been holding. Inhaling the chilly night air, they turned back to look at where they had come from. An arched exit and the darkened corridor. Fortunately, the exit had no door.

The outside was bright enough that they didn’t even need the lantern, thanks to the moon. They looked around the courtyard by the moonlight, but nothing specific was found.

Since there were no signposts or instructions, they wandered aimlessly through the yard. However, they soon found a beacon. In the distance, light was leaking out from one of the pavilions.