Chapter 124

Noquia began to sob, clutching the hem of Theo’s pants and wailing loudly.

“Hey, hic, I really thought I was going to die.”

“You… you’re not dead?!”

“Why are you trying to kill off a perfectly healthy person?! Waaaaah!”

“You—you bastard, are you a ghost? Get off me!”

Theo tried to push her away, deeply suspicious, but Noquia clung on even tighter, as if she intended to rip his pants.

“I’m not! I’m a living person! I can’t let go! Do you know how hard I looked for you?
Uwaaaaah!”

Noquia wept and blubbered, wiping her tears and snot directly onto Theo’s pants. Horrified, Theo shoved her back with all his might and scrambled to his feet, retreating several steps.

He looked down at his pants, now covered in… substances, unable to bring himself to touch them and feeling utterly lost. Meanwhile, the rejected Noquia fumbled as she stood up. With a look of utter panic, she began flailing her arms in the air, searching for Theo.

“Hey, hey… where are you? Where did you go?”

Something was clearly wrong. Theo tilted his head and reached out to catch Noquia’s wandering hand.

“What’s wrong with you?”

As soon as Theo’s hand touched hers, Noquia’s panic subsided instantly, and she gripped his hand with a death grip.

“I can’t see very well….”

“…What?”

Noquia confessed everything that had happened—from hearing the voice calling her by the attic door to her unintentional reply, and everything that followed.

“I lost consciousness while watching fingernail shavings fall into my eyes. When I woke up, everything was a white blur, and my eyes feel gritty, like there’s sand stuck in them.”

“So you’ve just been wandering around in that state?”

“Yeah…. Do you understand how I feel now?”

“No…. I don’t, and I don’t want to.”

Theo shuddered. It was horrifying just to think about. Noquia spoke as if it were a casual anecdote, but the hand holding Theo’s was trembling intermittently.

Though she was acting tough, Theo looked at her with pity, noticing her behavior was far from her usual self. Then, he spotted something and reached out.

“Wait, what’s that on your waist?”

“Huh? My waist?”

Noquia questioned him, fumbling around her waistband.

“Huh? What is this?”

A decorative pendant was hanging from Noquia’s waist.

“Isn’t that a decorative pendant?”

“A decorative pendant? Why is this attached to me?”

“How should I know?”

Noquia tried to pull the decorative pendant off, but it wouldn’t budge, as if it had become part of her clothes.

“It won’t come off?”

“Yeah… you try. I can’t see well enough to get it.”

“Oh? Okay.”

Theo handed the lantern to Noquia and tried to untie the pendant from her waist, but the knot wouldn’t loosen.

“It’s not working.”

“It’s not? Damn it… what is this? It’s making me nervous.”

Noquia tugged at the decorative pendant violently, but it remained stubbornly in place.

“Stop it. If it were meant to come off, it would have come off ages ago.”

Theo stopped Noquia from her pointless struggle. Noquia slumped her shoulders in defeat, then suddenly looked around as if she had just remembered something.

“By the way, where are the others?”

“Huh? Oh….”

Theo let his voice trail off and let out a low sigh. He began to explain everything that had happened to them after Noquia had disappeared.

Noquia was absolutely appalled to learn that the Bride wasn’t “Dead” but “Rotten,” and that the Rotten couldn’t lift their heads.

“So, we got hit with a double-whammy by that Bride?”

“Pretty much.”

“Incredible….”

“Anyway, I was in a real bind being left all alone, so I’m just glad I ran into you.”

“Ha! It seems I am your savior.”

“Cut the crap.”

Having shared a bit of mindless banter, both of them felt some of the tension bleed away. After a hollow laugh, the two exchanged determined looks and joined hands, deciding to move out to find the missing three. It was the formation of a truly spectacular duet: a coward and a blind woman.

“…Hey…”

Father opened her eyes with a heavy scowl as someone shook her while calling her name. She saw Holanghee looking down at her with a serious expression.

“Are you awake?”

The moment Father opened her eyes, Holanghee urged her to get up, tugging at her arm without so much as a ‘hello.’ Sitting up in a daze, Father scanned the surroundings with blurry eyes. It was a place she had never seen before. It wasn’t dark, thanks to several hanging lanterns installed nearby.

“Where are we?”

Father asked, sweeping her messy hair back, but Holanghee simply shook her head with that same grim face.

“I don’t know either.”

“What about Theo and Blaine?”

“They weren’t here. It’s just the two of us.”

Father scanned the area once more. She clearly remembered being attacked by the Bride, but everything after that was a blank. She had simply opened her eyes to find herself here. Even the lantern she had been carrying was gone.

First, she had to grasp the situation. Father stood up quickly. After taking a deep breath, she shouted Theo and Blaine’s names at the top of her lungs.

“Theo! Blaine!”

Her voice rang out and faded. She focused on the silence that followed, but no answer came back. It seemed the two weren’t nearby. Then where could they be?

The best course of action would be to return to the place where they were attacked, but they couldn’t even figure out where they currently were.

Just as Father rested her chin on her hand to brainstorm a way out, Holanghee asked as if talking to herself.

“Didn’t you say the Bride was a ‘Rotten’ one?”

“Huh?”

“We didn’t step on the floor, so how did she find us and attack? Did the sweeties get it wrong?”

“…I don’t know either.”

“I don’t understand any of this….”

“It could just be another cheap trick. Let’s not overthink it. Maybe the Bride isn’t ‘Rotten,’ or maybe that warning about not stepping on the floor was a lie.”

“Yeah….”

“Anyway, nothing good comes from staying in one place for too long. let’s move.”

“Where to?”

“It’ll be easier to get our bearings from the outside rather than this maze-like interior. Let’s just focus on getting out.”

It was a logical point. Holanghee nodded, and Father checked their surroundings. They were in a long, straight corridor. They lacked a lantern, but the sparse hanging lanterns provided enough light to move. The only problem was whether to go forward or backward.

As Holanghee stared at the indecisive Father, she noticed something swinging from Father’s waist and tilted her head.

“What’s that on your waist?”

“Huh?”

Father looked back at Holanghee, who pointed and said, “That.” Father followed Holanghee’s finger and finally discovered the object attached to her waistband.

“What is this? A decorative pendant?”

Father grabbed the decorative pendant and pulled. But it wouldn’t budge, almost as if it were fused to her waist. After a few more futile tugs, Father looked at Holanghee in bewilderment, only to spot an identical decorative pendant on Holanghee’s waist.

“Hey, you have one too.”

At Father’s stunned gesture, a startled Holanghee quickly looked down at her own waist.

“What the?!”

An identical decorative pendant was hanging from Holanghee’s waist as well. In a panic, Holanghee tried to rip it off, but the pendant refused to separate from her, as if it were part of her very body.

After making a fuss for a while, the two realized the decorative pendant were never coming off and slumped their shoulders in resignation.

“Is it some kind of marker?”

Father muttered with a weary face. Holanghee didn’t even seem to want to answer, her brow furrowed in annoyance. However, she soon stepped forward and spoke.

“I don’t know. Let’s just clear this annoying dungeon and get out of here.”

Following Holanghee’s lead, the two decided to head forward. The corridor—devoid of windows or doors—seemed to stretch on forever. Walking aimlessly while occasionally checking behind them, they both stopped at the same time upon seeing something.

A door. A tightly closed paper door.

Hoping the endless corridor had finally reached its end, the two hurried forward and slid the door open.

“?”

Their brows narrowed at the strange sense of displacement the room provided.

The room was furnished with a decorative folding screen, a plush floor-mattress, and a curved ‘tiger-leg’ tea table. Most unsettling, however, was the spread laid out upon it: a tea set for two, flanked by an array of traditional sweets—vibrant striped candies, candied kumquats, ginger ribbons, and dried persimmons. It looked as if a host had just stepped out for a moment.

As the two stepped into the room as if possessed, the door behind them slammed shut.

Thud.

Snapped back to their senses by the sound of the door closing, they both recalled the warning [Do not close the door for the living] and spun around quickly. But at that exact moment, the sound of another door opening echoed from somewhere else.

Frozen in their turning posture, they blinked and exchanged looks before slowly scanning the room. The door behind them was shut, yet nothing happened.

That meant another door had opened, just as they had heard. The two searched the room thoroughly and eventually found a door hidden behind the folding screen.

Beyond the door was a hallway of moderate width. Pictures were lined up along both sides of the passage. Looking at the hallway and the paintings with suspicious eyes, Father examined the painting right next to the door.

In the painting, a small girl and a boy stood side-by-side, holding hands. Father shifted her gaze to the next painting. It depicted a slightly older girl and boy; the boy was tucking a flower behind the girl’s ear.

“This looks like a clue….”

Father stepped into the passage without hesitation. Holanghee looked back and forth between Father and the hallway in confusion before following close behind.

The two examined the paintings one by one, which seemed to be arranged in chronological order. The boy and girl, who appeared to be childhood friends, grew up together, their feelings evolving from friendship into love.

Passing through adolescence and into adulthood, the boy promised to marry the girl. It felt like watching a heartwarming chronicle. Unable to hide the smiles tugging at their lips, the two continued through the gallery until they stood before the final painting.

The last painting depicted a woman in wedding robes crying over a man who lay collapsed before her, drenched in blood.

Seeing the happy story end in tragedy, the two were left speechless. Then, the wall next to the final painting opened, revealing a room.

Leaving the passage with a bitter taste in their mouths, they tilted their heads at the familiar sight of the room beyond.

A folding screen, a padded mat, and a low tea table sat in the center of the room. The table was meticulously set for two guests, featuring a spread of brightly striped candies, glazed kumquats, ginger-knot cookies, and dried persimmons. Everything was in its perfect, terrifying place.

It was the exact same room that had been on the other side of the passage.