Meow?
A purring sound tickled my ears.
Beneath the feet of us three, now arrived on the second floor, black ink spread out in a long path.
As if an ink carpet had been laid over a floor of fine calligraphy paper.
And on either side of that ink path, ...cats were applauding us.
Standing on two legs, no less.
"Everyone who's made it to the second floor~ Congratulations~!"
"Yaaay~!"
At the cheering of countless cats, I was left dumbfounded.
Sharp, slanted eyes, soft fur, ears twitching to attention.
Aside from behaving like humans, they were exactly like real cats.
'Though behaving like humans is the strangest part of all.'
"The cats are talking?!"
"What is this, a cartoon...."
Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon recoiled at the sight of cats strolling about on two legs.
'Completely unmoved by looks like those. What arid people....'
"Welcome to the second floor! We will now guide the visitors."
"To where?"
To Go Gyu-min's question, the cats gave no answer at all.
The countless cats all turned their bodies as one.
Then, lining up in formation, they began to dance with delight.
Ah. Congratulations!
Ah. Congratulations!
Where they'd even pulled them from, some of the cats were beating drums too.
We slowly followed where the cats led.
Each time the cats bounced and danced, soil spread over the pale ground and trees sprang up.
"Young Kim, what is this?"
"It feels like a Japanese festival. Maybe they're welcoming us?"
"So carefree, honestly.... The cats are walking upright, and they talk!!"
Go Gyu-min burst out at me.
He'd been mellow for a while, but the grumbling temper returned in no time.
"What. A forest again?"
Jang Si-woon looked around with an indifferent expression.
In step with the cats' footsteps, the scenery had transformed completely.
But it differed from the forest we'd walked on the first floor. The first floor's trees had mostly been firs, the kind you'd use for a Christmas tree.
Here on the second floor, pines and bamboo were gathered together, unnaturally arranged.
'Given those cats' whole atmosphere too — is it Eastern art this time?'
"We have arrived!"
As I walked along deducing about the second floor's quest, the cats suddenly halted.
The three of us hurriedly stopped as well, afraid of colliding with them.
A cool wind shook the leaves.
'No — it feels a little eerie....'
"Meow-meow~!"
"Meow-meow~!"
"Meow-meow~!"
The cats abruptly began crying out as if in chorus.
Then the cat standing at the very front turned its body around with supple grace.
The other cats turned after it and looked at us.
"Visitors who have passed Floor 1 Exhibition: Hell and Hope."
The cat's voice, which had rumbled with purring, was now unusually crisp.
In the cat's sharpened pupils, for an instant, I felt not cuteness but a chilling dread.
"Is this place a new hell? Oh no~"
"A hell? Oh no~"
The cats clasped both hands... no, both forepaws to their cheeks and shook their heads side to side.
Just then, the small stones scattered on the path bounced upward.
THUD-! THUD-! THUD-!
"The ground is shaking!"
"An earthquake?! No.... This isn't a tremor rising from underground!"
We all looked out past the dense trees.
At the racket, the birds perched in the trees took off into the sky.
Something was approaching, headed this way.
The cats pricked up their ears, dropped to all fours, and bolted, each in a different direction.
"H-hey! Where are you going...?!"
"A beast larger than us must come — a beast on four legs!"
Even as I stretched out my hand and shouted, the cat left only that riddle behind and was gone.
Seized by a bad feeling, we too began to move, meaning to run after the cats.
But then, with a splintering crack, the trees that had been concealing the 'something' beyond all came crashing down.
"Run!!"
Jang Si-woon's cry became the signal, and we all sprinted with everything we had.
THOOM-!!
"Gyaaaahh...!!"
Together with the tremendous boom came a human scream.
At the unfamiliar man's voice, I turned my head as if bewitched.
'That's a human?!'
A man covered in dirt — he must have fallen once already — was running this way.
And not just him. Behind the man, three more people were running.
"I've never seen these people before?!"
"Is that another fake human the tower made?"
Jang Si-woon and Go Gyu-min, too, fell into confusion at the sight of the people running toward us from afar.
"Haah, hah...!!"
'Damn it! Is there no perk that improves your athleticism?!'
Just like on the first floor, I was falling behind Jang Si-woon and Go Gyu-min again.
However fast I tried to move my feet, I only panted harder; my speed wouldn't rise.
"!!"
The man running behind me fell — and, arms outstretched, snatched hold of my ankle.
I had not wanted to fall this time, and yet, ankle caught in the man's grip, I toppled straight over.
I thrashed violently, trying to break free of him.
Even when I unintentionally struck the man's face, he would not release my ankle.
"What are you doing! Let go of me!!"
"S-save me! The Skeleton Yokai has appeared!!"
"The Skeleton Yokai...?"
A name that chilled the blood just to hear.
"Ji-san! Why are you back there again?!!"
Jang Si-woon and Go Gyu-min, who had run on far ahead, were looking at me with exasperated faces.
This time, it wasn't only my stamina's fault.
THUD-!!
"Hiik...! It's here!!"
The unidentified creature that had caused the tremors finally revealed itself.
'Can that even be called... a creature?'
A gigantic hand raked through the broken trees.
As the man had said, it was no ordinary hand..., but a white, skeletal hand.
Following the hand, a skeletal torso and then a skull came into view.
A yokai in the form of a skeleton was dragging its body along, crawling toward us.
It was slow — but its body was so vast that the distance closed in moments.
"Ahh.... How bitter my grief. How bitter."
"Holy—.... Wh-what is that?"
Hearing the Skeleton Yokai's voice, Jang Si-woon spat a curse.
Within a single sentence, every syllable came out in a different voice.
It sounded like many humans blended together — different sexes, different ages.
"We only set foot here to fulfill our desperate wishes...."
"And in the end, we became a lump — mere components."
"How bitter my grief. How bitter."
'It looks like a Japanese yokai. Don't tell me it's made from visitors...?'
At the words wish and component, my heart dropped.
And the human arm attached to the Curator's shoulder flashed through my mind.
'Like that arm, that skeleton too-'
"Break my bones, I beg you. Please, break these bones...."
"Uwaaagh-!!"
The Skeleton Yokai, closing in fast, seized the man beside me.
Then, with its bony forefinger and thumb, it plucked the man up and placed him into its mouth.
Inside the Skeleton Yokai's mouth, the man wept and screamed.
CRUNCH-
"-!!"
I squeezed my eyes shut. It was far too late to run now.
Me too. Just like that man.
No-
THUD-! THUD-! THUD-!
'...It passed by?'
The Skeleton Yokai swallowed the man, then moved on ahead.
I'd been certain my turn was next....
'Why did it pass me over...?'
Ah.
Before the halted Skeleton Yokai stood Jang Si-woon and Go Gyu-min.
Before the two could even flee, the Skeleton Yokai lifted Jang Si-woon up.
"Aaaaagh-!!"
"Si-woon!!"
Even as she screamed, Jang Si-woon thrashed, struggling to break free of the Skeleton Yokai gripping her hood.
Then. The Skeleton Yokai, jaws gaping wide, suddenly froze.
"The scent clings. I have erred."
"Where is the rat hiding...."
The Skeleton Yokai peered around, then set Jang Si-woon down as if tossing her aside.
"Aagh!!"
"Si-woon, student!"
Go Gyu-min threw his body forward to catch her.
Catching Jang Si-woon, he tumbled over backward with her.
"Ah, urgh-! Damn it, my back...."
"Mr. Go!"
The Skeleton Yokai thrust its hand deep into the brush near where Jang Si-woon had been standing.
"Kyaaah-!!"
The skeleton pulled out the woman who had been hiding there and brought her up before its face.
Its teeth clacked together — in rage, it seemed.
"Only those who have watched the setting sun three times shall become bone."
"N-no! It's only been two days for me!!"
"...A lie."
"Hiik- gyaaaahh...!!"
CRUNCH-!!
This time I shut my eyes and covered my ears as well.
But even so, the sound of breaking forced its way between my fingers and into my ears.
"Break my bones, I beg you. Please, break these bones...."
"Only those who have watched the setting sun three times shall become bone...."
Thud.... Thud.... Thud....
Having finished off all the people who'd come running, the Skeleton Yokai turned away and vanished into the distance.
And so only we remained in the ruined forest.
"Si-woon, student. Are you all right?"
"Y-yes. Thank you...."
Jang Si-woon barely managed to move her trembling lips to answer Go Gyu-min.
Her legs had given out completely; even when Go Gyu-min helped her up, she couldn't stand properly.
[Now, everyone.]
[How did you find your tour of the second-floor exhibition hall?]
"Curator!!"
A swirling robe appeared in our midst. The form of the torso rose up through the cloth.
At the Curator's nonchalant manner, fury boiled up.
[First — did you exchange greetings with the visitors who reached the second floor before you?]
"You're saying there were others besides us who succeeded at the quest?!"
[Visitor Go Gyu-min. Do you imagine the Museum's doors stood open only in that one secluded alley, that one aging commercial building?]
Go Gyu-min could say nothing. Neither could I.
Busy solving the quest, we hadn't thought that far at all.
[The Museum of Wishes is connected to a great many spaces.]
[To accommodate that multitude of visitors, many dimensions are required.]
[Gathering, then scattering. Gathering again, then ending up alone.]
I roughly understood the Curator's explanation.
The Museum of Wishes connects to a great many spaces and draws in countless visitors.
'And even within the same floor, there are multiple dimensions, so that people never run into each other on the same timeline — something like that.'
But if so.
"By your own account, those people just now were also simply people who joined for their wishes."
[.......]
"Did it have to go this far?"
I struggled to steady my shaking voice, but the emotion showed through in the end.
"Becoming a component is horrific enough. Did the visitors who failed the quest really have to be disposed of so cruelly?"
[It is the path they chose.]
"No one could have predicted it would be a path like this!"
In the end, I shouted.
The more heated my emotions ran, the more it felt like the Curator was winning — I'd wanted to hold back if I possibly could.
"And on top of that, you puppet the people who became components as you please...."
[Puppet them?]
At my words, the Curator tilted where its head would be. As if it genuinely didn't understand.
[Devouring visitors is what the components themselves desire.]
"That can't be. They became components by failing quests themselves — there's no way they'd want to harm others-"
[Visitor Kim Ji-san. How can you be certain?]
"......."
Inside this tower, I still can't be certain of anything.
Even so, I wanted, somehow, to refute the Curator's claim that this was a slaughter the components desired.
"That Skeleton Yokai must be a system built before any components ever existed."
Before any visitor was eliminated and became a component, the Skeleton Yokai would already have existed on the second-floor map.
Like a machine designed to receive the very first visitors.
If the beasts on the first floor moved so mechanically because they, too, were all part of this tower's system.
"A yokai that died itself and carries that grievance — yet tries to kill the living. A monster with not one shred of humanity left."
[.......]
"The visitors who became components were merely absorbed into that system and assimilated."
Because it's a fabrication, it became a lump of resentment. That's all.
Real humans might not be so cruel.
[Do you truly think so?]
"...?"
[Do you believe humanity is a beautiful quality? Are you confident your own heart holds not a trace of ugliness?]
The moment I asserted it with as much conviction as I could muster, the Curator turned and seized on me instead.
A perfect counterblow.
I do think there are more humans with beautiful hearts than not....
But could I count myself among those humans?
'How squalid my own heart has been — it surfaces whether I want to remember it or not.'
"I have to believe that, to endure a place like this."
Whether it was an answer to the former question or the latter, I left deliberately vague.
There was no need to bare my unsightly inner self to Go Gyu-min and Jang Si-woon.
[Understood, very well.]
[Then — may you carry that beautiful heart with you and complete the quests to the very end-]
To my surprise, the Curator didn't press further, and announced the quest.
The abrupt cut in the flow was disorienting — but inwardly, I was relieved the subject had moved on.
From the Curator's sleeve, a leaflet sprang out.
The leaflet rose into the air and spread fully open.
Fwish-
=================
-Oh me, onlookers. So ye've climbed the stone stair.
-Monstrous strange beasts abound here. Even a bag o' bones among 'em.
-Yet that skeleton be no mere skeleton — 'tis people, transformed!
-Once the sun has turned thrice over, this thread of life shall snap, helpless as can be.
-How could human strength e'er bear such a thing?
-But one way there be.
-Past the one draped in white hide, a beast big as a house shall come down.
=================