About a minute has passed since the game began.
It's getting hard to breathe.
DRIP.
A bead of sweat gathered at the tip of my chin falls, TSSSSS, and the instant it hits the floor it starts seething.
Just as Ryu Do-ha predicted, the temperature in the room is nearly at the limit a human can endure.
If the floor I'm standing barefoot on were a wooden floor, if this room's walls and ceiling were made of wood, I could have held out well enough even at close to a hundred degrees, but regrettably the ceiling, walls, and floor surrounding me are not wood but smooth stone.
In a space like this, the interior temperature goes above eighty degrees?
No human can endure that.
Even now the skin of my feet feels cooked enough to slough off in pieces...
The problem is this isn't the end.
The interior temperature is still climbing.
'Damn it....'
I'm desperate to bolt out of here right now, but.
THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD.
The footsteps of dozens beyond the door.
The Cops are running to the pool.
To catch us.
I'd meant to wait a little longer for those footsteps to fade.
But the temperature is climbing faster than I expected.
'At this rate I'll be steamed alive before the Cops ever catch me.......'
First I hoisted Ryu Do-ha, collapsed on the floor, onto my back.
The added weight made the heat on my soles stronger, but I can't just leave her to be roasted on the floor.
HUFF, HUFF, HUFF.
My lungs must be slowly cooking; my breath comes short.
I'm barely holding on for now, but at this rate I won't last another minute.
But going out into a pool swarming with Cops is suicide, so there's only one method left.
The changing room.
And specifically going back to the women's changing room, where there was supposedly no 'staff member.'
But...
There was a reason I'd been waiting when I could have gone to the changing room long ago.
The vibration I can still feel in my left hand right now.
The compass-shaped tattoo Jang Seo-yun drew.
I have no idea how this is possible, but the needle of a compass that's nothing more than a tattoo is swinging precariously.
As if telling me not to go back to the changing room.
I'd tried to heed that warning as long as I could.
But I can't take it anymore.
What good is any of it if I die here?
"Let's go to the changing room."
Jang Seo-yun nods quietly at my words, and
"What? Why all of a sudden?! You said before we couldn't go!"
The middle-aged woman raises her voice at once.
Ignoring her shout, I ran straight for the white door.
The moment I grabbed the handle, my palm burned and I felt the skin sear onto it, but I gritted my teeth and pulled.
CLACK
The door opened, and the cool air I'd been longing for leaked in.
"Ugh......!"
Gritting my teeth as hard as I could, I forced my seared hand off the handle.
It hurts like hell.
Still, taking comfort in the cool air driving into my lungs, I hurried out.
The middle-aged woman and Jang Seo-yun come rushing out after me.
The moment my soles touched the shower room floor, the pain nearly dropped me on the spot, but I braced against the wall and held.
Fortunately, from where I'm standing, no other beings are visible.
After carefully setting Ryu Do-ha down on the floor, I hurried to a shower stall.
I was pouring cold water over my skinned hands and feet when the vibration in my left hand grew worse.
I looked at the back of my hand; the compass needle was trembling more violently.
'Why is it doing this, making a person nervous....?'
I was forcing myself to ignore the compass's warning and giving first aid when the woman screamed behind me.
"Th-th-there!!"
She's pointing beyond the glass door.
The moment I looked that way.
.......
I froze.
A smiling face looking at us.
No, human facial skin.
It's the 'staff member.'
It has appeared without my noticing, and is looking down at us through the glass door.
"What do we do?!"
"Just calm down!"
Its eyes are fixed on me.
When I slowly set down the showerhead I was holding, it starts coming toward me.
The distance between us is barely ten meters.
It was standing at the shower room entrance, so there was nowhere to run.
'What do I do?'
I glanced at the corner; the middle-aged woman and Jang Seo-yun looked back and forth between me and it with frightened faces.
And Ryu Do-ha, still unconscious.
Hemmed in on all four sides. There's no way to avoid it.
The staff member opens the glass door and comes into the shower room.
Its mouth moves beneath the facial skin with the smile stuffed and mounted on it.
"For a fair game, please enter the pool."
So it doesn't intend to harm us here and now?
It wants the game to run smoothly.
But the problem is that reaching the pool means passing through the white door's room.
I can't even guess how much hotter that room has gotten.
In other words, going back in there is suicide.
But as if it couldn't care less about such circumstances, the staff member keeps coming.
I glanced down at my left hand.
The closer it gets, the more violently the needle swings.
What do I do?
There's nowhere to run anyway, so should I charge it?
The scene at the entrance comes back to me.
The staff member tearing a man's arm off while he was alive.
Could I beat something like that?
Barehanded, no less?
Haa.......
In the end I'm given exactly two options.
Be torn apart by its hands, or be steamed to death in that room.
No matter how I turn it over, there's no way to get through this moment safely.
Then I caught movement at the edge of my vision.
The middle-aged woman, no, that damn woman.
Taking advantage of the staff member focusing on me, she creeps toward the entrance.... and slips straight out of the shower room.
'She runs off alone in a situation like this?'
Unlike her, Jang Seo-yun stands trembling in the corner.
She could at least run!
"For a fair game, please enter the pool."
It stopped in front of me.
Right, I have no way to run anyway.
Since it's come to this....
"And if I refuse?"
I signaled Jang Seo-yun to hurry and run, but whether from fear or from missing the cue, she just stood there.
"Failure to cooperate with the operator's instructions results in forfeiture of participant status."
It repeats the same line like an NPC.
The one difference is that the smile has gone from the mug it's aiming at me.
"I said no. Idiot."
Maybe giving up gave me room to breathe?
The trivial thought crossed my mind that the face without the smile actually looks more human, and in that moment the staff member lunged at me.
So fast I can't even think of dodging.
"Run, now!"
I shouted at Jang Seo-yun, but she only trembled and looked at me.
Facial skin fills my vision.
The instant its face reached my nose, I reflexively drew in a breath.
And with the feelings of an ostrich burying its head in sand, I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the end.......
.......
A fair amount of time seems to have passed, but nothing happens.
I cracked my eyes open and saw the staff member's face right in front of me, looking at me.
Pale facial skin and the glistening scales beneath it.
But look closely and its eyes aren't aimed at me.
It rolls its eyes around as if it can't see me.
'Why is it doing that?'
And another strange thing is that my vision is rippling.
As if I'd gone underwater.
Perhaps angry that I suddenly vanished, it swings its arms wildly.
I couldn't dodge in time and took a hit, but... its hand passed straight through my body.
'......?'
Its hand sweeps past without the slightest pain, without the slightest catch.
'Am I...... dead......?'
It swung again, and again passed right through me.
I'm not dead.
If I were, there'd be a corpse at my feet, and that thing would have no reason to be this angry.
'What is going on......?'
After flailing for a long while, the staff member seems to give up and looks at Jang Seo-yun standing in the corner.
It strides toward her.
Right then, running out of air, I let out the breath I'd been holding, and.... my rippling vision returned to normal.
And not just my vision.
The damp air on my skin.
The smell of wet tile.
And the sense that I exist here again.
All the other senses I hadn't been feeling came back.
At the same moment, the staff member walking toward Jang Seo-yun stopped.
Its head turns and it looks at me again.
The expression on its face as it looks at me is plainly rage.
As if refusing to lose me again, it charges at me at even greater speed.
When I hold my breath, my vision ripples again, and a faint light pours from the compass on the back of my hand!
And once more its enormous hand passes straight through me.
Experiencing this absurdity a second time, I understand.
This compass tattoo has some power.
And I've obtained that power.
Deflection, Submergence, Reverberation; the 'Submergence' I chose at Jang Seo-yun's question.
Doesn't this situation fit Submergence exactly?
The vision rippling as if I'd gone underwater, the cool touch on my skin....
'Can I move in this state?'
I took a step, and although I felt a slight resistance, as if underwater, I could move.
Good.
Leaving the staff member to smash up the shower stalls in its rage, I hurried toward the corner.
But walking, I understand something.
This is on a whole different level from simply holding your breath and walking on flat ground.
Even though I'm clearly stepping on the shower room tile, with every step I feel pulled into somewhere deep and bottomless.
And this chill wrapping my whole body.
It grows stronger with every step I take.
As if I were sinking into the deep sea.
Forcing my ever-heavier feet along, I kept going.
And...
"Haa......."
I let out the breath I'd been holding, and my vision sharpened again.
"Eh?"
Jang Seo-yun's eyes go round at the sight of me.
But she wasn't the only one who spotted me.
The staff member charges, its facial skin flapping.
Without a moment's hesitation I grabbed Jang Seo-yun's and Ryu Do-ha's hands.
If the ability I have is Submergence, couldn't I hide underwater together with them?
The moment I held my breath.
WHOOSH!
I feel my whole body sucked downward, as if I'd fallen into a trap.
The sinking is several times faster than when I used the ability alone.
The staff member came right up in front of me.
Its enormous hand slams down on the floor where Ryu Do-ha was lying, but the hand passes straight through her and shatters the floor tile.
It stops.
An instant of bewilderment, then rage.
It swings its hands like a madman.
Unable to touch us, its hands shatter innocent wall and floor tiles.
Dodging its attacks is fortunate, but.
One lapse of focus and I'll pass out.
My lungs feel ready to shrivel and burst in the other direction!
How long can I hold out like this?
For a moment the desire to breathe nearly broke me, but... if I breathe here...!
Ryu Do-ha's head will burst under that hand coming down!
And not just hers; Jang Seo-yun and I would both be minced meat under that hand too.
I steadied myself again.
The one saving grace is that, as if we're underwater, dragging Ryu Do-ha's and Jang Seo-yun's bodies takes little strength.
I looked toward Jang Seo-yun and saw her covering her nose and mouth with the hand I wasn't holding, unable to breathe.
When I gestured with my chin toward the shower room entrance, she nodded.
Clinging to a fading mind and blurring vision, I moved slowly toward the shower room entrance.
.......
"HURK—!"
The breath I'd been holding burst out as if tearing my lungs.
My legs give out.
After setting Ryu Do-ha down, I collapsed to the floor myself.
Cold. So cold.
As if ice-cold seawater rather than warm blood were circulating through every vessel in my body.
"Pull yourself together."
Jang Seo-yun's voice came from above my head, but my head kept dropping.
"Please...!"
At that desperate voice I barely managed to grit my teeth.
Right, as she says, there's no time to be doing this.
Catching my breath, I scanned my surroundings.
Where we are now is between the lockers.
We've barely made it any distance from the shower room entrance.
Behind me I hear tiles shattering.
It's the staff member.
It's still hammering madly at the spot where we vanished.
I slowly raised my left hand.
The compass on the back of it.
The needle doesn't move, as if to say we're safe now.
But this isn't the stage to relax at yet.
"You said earlier there were places to hide, right?"
Jang Seo-yun nodded.
I drew in one more breath.
Right, even if it's pushing myself, we have to get somewhere a little safer now.