B1 - Prison (4)

My current location was the underground prison.
It was always damp and musty, but somehow it felt several times worse now.
The already oppressive air seemed to grow even heavier.
This was all because of the situation we were in.

‘The current time is 4:44…’

The elevator, our only means of transportation, had stopped working.
We were stranded on B1.
Memories of those days flashed before my eyes.
More than a week of starving before finally dying of hunger. Those horrible memories resurfaced and gnawed at my mind.

“Damn…”
“What’s wrong all of a sudden?”
“Just got a little dizzy. Don’t worry about it.”

I barely managed to suppress my anxiety.
Last time, I’d been alone. This time, Han Gyeong-ah was here with me.
That was an obvious difference. The same past wouldn’t repeat itself.

“You don’t know what’s going on either?”

I answered as if the question itself were ridiculous.

“Of course not. What do you think I am?”
“But… you know things about this place!”

Han Gyeong-ah huffed angrily. Apparently, because of yesterday’s warning, she thought I knew something…
She was completely off the mark.
I genuinely had no idea.
I’d simply gone to sleep and woken up trapped underground. I wasn’t a fortune-teller. How was I supposed to predict this?

“If I knew what this place was, do you think I’d be stuck like this?”

I lifted my cuffed wrists for emphasis.
For reference, Han Gyeong-ah had put these cuffs on me back in Chapter 1.
This wasn’t exactly the state you’d expect from someone who knew this place.

“So you really don’t know anything…? Seriously?”

She asked with obvious doubt.
She seemed to have trouble accepting that her intuition might have been wrong.

“I’m telling you, I was abducted just like you were. How many times do I have to say it before you believe me?”

My shameless Third-Rate Villain act worked perfectly. Han Gyeong-ah stared at me in utter disbelief.

“You really warned me because you had a nightmare?!”
“Yep. Guess it was a prophetic dream.”
“What are you… Are you out of your mind?! This isn’t something to joke about!!”

Either way, I’d gotten through it. My innocence was established. After all, we were both trapped in the same situation.

“I don’t know what this is, but at least it’s definitely not normal.”
“I know that without you telling me…”

Was this another effect of the regression?
This hadn’t happened in my previous life. Events were unfolding differently from before.
I brought up the message that had appeared before me immediately after my death.

The game’s system had given me a Tutorial. Its condition, escaping the basement, matched our current situation perfectly.

‘The problem is how we’re supposed to escape like this…’

There had to be a way.
If this was a game, there would be some clue hidden somewhere that would let us escape.
More importantly, I had a reliable ally right beside me.

“Gyeong-ah, I’ve got a proposal.”
“A proposal?”
“How about we work together?”
“I refuse.”

She rejected me instantly.
Unfortunately, my reliable ally didn’t seem interested in helping me.

“Why?”
“How am I supposed to trust you? Who knows what you’re plotting?”

Han Gyeong-ah folded her arms and glared suspiciously at me. Yet another seed of distrust planted by Kim Yohan.

“This is an emergency. If this keeps up, we’ll both die. This isn’t the time to be doubting each other.”

We were in the same boat.
We had no idea what danger might be lurking around us. We needed to put our heads together and find a solution.

“That’s true, but…”

Even after hearing that, Han Gyeong-ah hesitated. That was how rock-bottom her trust in me was.
Kim Yohan, you bastard… You weren’t even recyclable trash.

“Fine. Then let’s do this.”

Reluctantly, I offered the best compromise I could think of.

“I’ll just stay here and talk. You listen, then decide for yourself what to do.”

I’d only offer advice.
The final decision would be hers.

“You can at least do that, right?”

Han Gyeong-ah thought for a moment.
Apparently deciding there was little downside, she eventually nodded.

“…Fine. But remember, I’m not going to blindly do everything you say!”
“Yeah, yeah.”

It was temporary, but we’d formed a cooperative relationship. Now all that remained was figuring out what was happening.
「Tower Death Game」 was an adventure game built around deduction, with puzzle, horror, and mystery elements.
Every visible trace was a clue or piece of evidence, something that could help overcome an obstacle.

‘There has to be some way to escape hidden somewhere.’

I slowly looked around the cell holding me. Its interior had been thoughtfully left completely empty for the prisoner’s comfort.
There was nothing that could really be called a clue.
All I could see was stale dust and cobwebs in the corners.
Honestly, I knew that better than anyone.
Including my previous life, I’d spent more than a week imprisoned in this cell.
If there had been anything here, I’d have found it long ago.

“Gyeong-ah, what do you have on you right now?”
“My things? A notebook, a flashlight… and my handgun.”

Han Gyeong-ah showed me what she had in the pockets of her uniform.
The flashlight seemed like the most immediately useful item.

“Try turning on the flashlight.”
“I think I broke it when I fell upstairs earlier…”

When she switched it on, a faint light flickered for a moment before sputtering out.

“See? It’s broken.”

Han Gyeong-ah grumbled.
When she tried to put the flashlight away again, I stopped her.

“Give it to me.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“See if I can fix it.”

She gave me a doubtful look, but apparently figured there wasn’t much I could do with a broken flashlight anyway, so she handed it over.

“Here.”

The moment I took it through the bars, a message appeared before my eyes.

[Acquired Flashlight.]
system_fail

‘…Huh.’

It was the kind of item-acquisition message you’d expect to see in an RPG Maker game.
Were certain objects being treated as Items?
The attention to game logic was absurdly thorough. I examined the flashlight.
This time, an item description appeared.

Basic information, nothing more.
There wasn’t anything that looked like a useful hint. It looked fine on the outside, yet wouldn’t light up.
What was wrong with it?
The moment I started thinking about it, a choice appeared before me.

‘It can do this too?’
The choice was obvious. I disassembled the flashlight without hesitation.
Clatter, clatter-
When I twisted the lens section counterclockwise, the flashlight came apart as though I’d unscrewed a lid.
Its interior was laid bare.

“This…”

Looking closer, I saw that the battery was sitting loose inside. Had the impact from her fall knocked it out of place?
I’d found the problem.
The flashlight itself was fine. It was nothing more than poor battery contact.

‘No wonder it wouldn’t work.’

I took out the battery and fitted it properly against the terminals.
It clicked neatly into place.
Would that do it?
I reassembled the flashlight and switched it on.

Click-!
A bright beam burst through the darkness.

“…There.”
“You fixed it?!”
“Good thing the circuitry wasn’t damaged.”

The item’s system description changed as well.

Now we could search dark places. There might be clues hidden somewhere I didn’t know about.

“Gyeong-ah, let me borrow this for a bit.”

I swept the beam around the cell where I was imprisoned. At first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual.
Heavy iron bars, a clammy floor, cracked outer walls…

‘Guess shining a light around doesn’t magically create clues that aren’t there…’

Just as I was beginning to feel disappointed, I shone the flashlight across the hall and spotted a small opening beyond the bars.

“Huh? There’s a hole over there.”
“A hole?”

I pointed toward the outer wall across the corridor. In a secluded corner was a hole about fifteen centimeters across.
It was positioned so that you could barely find it even with a flashlight. Spotting it with the naked eye would have been almost impossible.
It was hidden so cleverly that we almost missed it.

“How long has that been there…?”

Han Gyeong-ah tilted her head and approached the corner.
Thinking it might be a clue, she peered closely into the hole.
At that exact moment, something small and fast shot out like an arrow.
Dirty gray fur, round beady eyes, and a disgusting tail.

Squeak, squeak-!
A rat suddenly darted across the corridor.

“Shit!”

The instant I saw it, goosebumps erupted all over my body. Han Gyeong-ah, who was much closer, nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Aaaaaah!!”

Her scream echoed through the basement. She clung to the bars and begged me.

“A r-r-r-rat!! D-Do something!”
“Sorry, Gyeong-ah. Rats scare me too…”

The rat scurried all over the basement. Every time it came anywhere near her, Han Gyeong-ah practically leaped into the air.

Squeak, squeak-!
“D-Don’t come near me!”

Her face had gone so pale she looked ready to faint. Honestly, if I’d been standing out there with her, I probably would’ve reacted the same way.
For the first time, I was grateful to be locked inside a cell.
That was when I noticed something faintly glinting in the rat’s mouth.

‘What’s that…?’

Looking closely, I saw that it was carrying something. But before I could tell what it was, the rat darted straight back into the hole.

“Haaaa…”

Han Gyeong-ah finally managed to calm down and pressed a hand to her chest.

“Block it! Block that hole right now!!”
“Wait… Sorry, but can you hold off for just a minute?”
“W-Why?!”

That rat had been carrying something in its mouth. It might be an important clue for escaping the basement.

“What? That rat had something in its mouth?”
“Probably.”
“I didn’t see anything…”
“Because you were too busy panicking.”

Han Gyeong-ah couldn’t answer and merely worked her lips in frustration.

“You’re saying you want to lure that disgusting thing back out?!”
“Well… It’s worth checking.”
“Ugh…”

She shuddered all over in disgust.
Honestly, I hated the idea too.
We’d have to see that thing again.
A filthy, disgusting rat, exactly the kind you’d expect to find in an underground passage.
Just imagining it made every hair on my body stand on end.
Worse, if we wanted whatever it was carrying, we’d have to catch the rat with our bare hands.

“I can’t do it!!”

Han Gyeong-ah waved both hands frantically, horrified. There was no way she’d be able to touch the rat, much less catch it.
But I couldn’t exactly do it while trapped behind bars either…

“Hmm.”

I stared at the rat hole across the corridor. Tiny footprints and strands of fur were scattered around the entrance.
The first problem was getting the rat back outside. Then we’d need some way to take the object from it without touching it.

‘In that case…’

A clever idea suddenly came to me.
A method that met both conditions and would still let us steal what it had.

“Gyeong-ah, do you still have it?”

I called out to Han Gyeong-ah, who had put plenty of distance between herself and the rat hole.

“What are you talking about…?”
“You know. What I didn’t finish yesterday.”

In my previous life, I had starved to death.
The first four days had been bearable, but beyond that I’d nearly lost my mind.
My mind had grown hazy, and I’d barely clung to life like a half-dead corpse.
Right after returning to the past,
I’d wolfed down breakfast the moment I received it.
I did the same at lunch. Dinner was a little different.
Even if my body hadn’t actually gone hungry for more than a week, my mind had. Eating three full meals in one day was harder than expected.
So I had saved some of what I’d gotten for dinner. Han Gyeong-ah handed me the bag sitting on the desk.

“Why? Are you hungry?”
“No, that’s not it.”

I opened the bag. Inside was half a piece of bread.

“I’m going to use it to lure out the rat.”