The witch's son.......
"If I told you I really know nothing, would you believe me?"
"I'd have believed you up until I saw that pool. I did believe you, in fact. But now it's a bit much."
She clenches a fist.
She comes toward me looking ready to pin me down at any second.
Seeing that, a hollow laugh leaked out of me without my meaning it to.
Come to think of it, it isn't as though I'd been with her all that long.
I must have quietly decided a deep bond had formed between us.
"In all honesty, I know nothing."
Her expression gradually hardens as she hears my answer.
"But it's true that there are things I've hidden from you."
On her way toward me, she stopped.
"What did you hide?"
I laid everything out honestly.
What my mother had been to me across my whole life, what I'd been through since coming to the officetel.
Everything I'd hidden until now, the Pond Snail, the membership, all of it.
Partly because I needed her help to get out of this place, but more than that......
I didn't want to disappoint her.
Even if she had mistaken me for a criminal because of the bug inside my body.
Because she was a good person.
My account ran fairly long, but she didn't cut me off even once.
She only lowered her head slightly and listened in silence, thinking.
She was still doing it now that I'd finished.
At last her thoughts must have come together; she spoke.
"That must have been hard to swallow."
"What?"
"Not one thing has gone the way you wanted it to, has it? You've just been shoved along until you ended up here."
"You believe everything I said?"
"What, was it a lie?"
Her expression says she never doubted for a second.
Seeing that face....... my eyes go a little hot.
I'm not saying I cried.
As I've said before, I'm not the type who tears up easily.
She looks at me and raises one corner of her mouth slightly.
"So in the end my hunch was right this time too. Which makes things more difficult, doesn't it?"
"Difficult?"
"Hearing your story clears a few things up."
She pointed at the pool.
"What do you think that is?"
When I looked where her finger was aimed, what was there was the central basin, the largest of the pool's three.
Something is jutting up out of the bright red blood sloshing inside it.
The part above the surface is still small, so I can't tell exactly what it is...... but from what protrudes above the blood, it looks like a spear driven in upside down, only the shaft showing.
"That wasn't there earlier......."
"It's rising, little by little."
As she says, even though blood keeps flowing in and the surface keeps climbing, that shaft-like thing is rising slowly.
"What is it?"
"An altar, I think."
"An altar?"
An altar, out of nowhere?
"Have you looked at the flyer again since you came in here?"
The flyer she gave me.
It's still tucked inside my swimsuit.
Before I could take mine out, she held out the one she was carrying.
Cops and Robbers Offerings!
Thank you for visiting our Olympic Sports Center again today!
For the fellowship and affection of our users, and in keeping with current trends, our center has prepared a simple recreational program.
▶ Game: Cops and Robbers Offerings
▶ Date and time: Every Wednesday, 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
▶ Eligible: All visitors
▶ Venue: Olympic Sports Center, 4th floor indoor swimming pool ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
[How to Play]
1. On entry, every participant is randomly assigned the role of 'Cop' or 'Robber.' (Check inside your locker!)
2. Cops must find the Robbers and take them to jail. Cops must catch every Offering and present it at the altar.RobbersOfferings must flee without being caught by the Cops for the duration of the time limit.
3. Roles may be changed mid-game if certain conditions are met. (Look for those conditions inside the game area!)
[What to Bring]
1. A healthy body and a healthy mind. (All supplies, swimwear included, are provided free of charge by the center!)
[Important Rules]
- For smooth operation, withdrawal after entry is not permitted.
- Acts of violence between participants are prohibited. However, acts of enforcement by Cops are not deemed violence.
- Participants who break the rules forfeit their 'right of use.'
[Usage Information]
- This program is operated with our members'the Offerings' safetyterror and despair as the highest priority.
- Normal use of the pool is available after the game ends.
- For a pleasant memory, please cooperate actively with staff instructions.
※ The contents of this flyer may change without prior notice.
※ The flyer you are viewing was written on ●● month ●● day at ●● hours ●● minutes ●● seconds.
Only a few words have changed, and yet the impression the flyer gives is completely different.
The purpose of this place was never CnR to begin with.
It was a massacre rite for presenting offerings.
"When you took the two of them to the restroom, I checked just in case, and it had changed."
"They're allowed to change the rules like that?"
"It's written right down here. 'The contents of this flyer may change without prior notice.'"
"......."
No, she's right about that, but.......
"From what the flyer says, the Cops have to present us at the altar, right? But do you see an altar anywhere?"
At her words I swept my eyes beyond the glass door again, but nothing like an altar is visible.
I focused again on 'that thing' rising from beneath the central basin.
"If that is an altar, why is it down there?"
"I don't know exactly either, but maybe it's because the game proper hasn't started yet?"
The game proper.
I found myself looking up.
The pool beyond the ceiling, where the victims have at some point vanished and only red bloodstains remain.
That's what a pool looks like once the game proper has begun.
"At first I thought the purpose of this place was presenting offerings to some wicked being, an evil god. But."
She looked at me.
"That membership you said you have."
"The membership?"
"And the compass you said was in your swim bag."
"......."
"You're a special existence here. The only one receiving special treatment."
A special existence.
She's right.
After all, the reason I came here in the first place, after listening to the Pond Snail, was to obtain the power my mother left me.
"Maybe......."
She bites her lip, as if about to say something hard to say.
"Maybe, and this is purely a feeling of mine."
A feeling.
The hunch that made her believe I was innocent.
What is that hunch about to tell her this time?
She must have steeled herself; she looked at me and spoke.
"All of this might be purely for you."
.......
.......
What...?
"What does that mean?"
"I'm saying the blood filling that basin, the offerings presented at the altar, all of it might be offerings for you."
"No, no, I think that's a bit of an overreach......."
"You said you came to obtain the power your mother left you."
My eyes go beyond the glass door without me meaning them to.
The blood and flesh visible above the transparent ceiling.
The scattered organs visible beneath the transparent floor.
And all of that is for me?
Haha.......
That truly makes no sense.
"There was a similar case before."
The face looking at me is more serious than at any point so far.
It makes my head spin all the more.
"Across the whole Han River, ninety-three people went missing in under an hour. And the person presumed to have done it......."
Ryu Do-ha suddenly stops mid-sentence.
She looks at me.
"By now you know who I'm about to name, don't you?"
.......
I think I do.
"My mother, by any chance......?"
"Yes. That witch."
"......."
"We lost your mother, but we caught one of her followers at the scene."
I want to clap both hands over my ears right now.
I no longer want to hear what she's saying.
"Asked where the missing people were, he answered like this. That they had become offerings for the witch."
My lips won't part.
On some level I'd been feeling it.
That my mother could never have been a good being.
Honestly, at this point you'd have to be an idiot not to feel it.
But that hideous scene is all for me?
I wanted to argue back that it wasn't, that there was no way.
But this time my own hunch is telling me something.
That Ryu Do-ha's guess might be right.
"But......."
Just as I barely got my mouth open to deny it somehow.
AAAAAAAAAAH—!
A scream from beyond the glass door.
So much clearer than anything we've heard until now.
The source of the sound is the restroom in front of us.
Ryu Do-ha throws herself toward the restroom without hesitation.
Just as I move to follow her, something catches my eye.
Beneath the red blood filling the central basin, something writhes and rises quietly.
At first I thought it was simply debris.
But what broke through the red surface was a human head.
Not one.
More than ten heads, even at a rough count.
They're Cops.
They'd been waiting for us beneath the bloodwater.
Ryu Do-ha still hasn't noticed them appear.
With their faces shriveled by the bloodwater, they no longer even look human in shape.
Bloodwater soaked into every crease of their faces, they begin advancing toward Ryu Do-ha.
When I looked toward the restroom entrance, Ryu Do-ha had already disappeared inside.
I'm still closer to the restroom.
The instant I hurried through the glass door.
WHOOOOOSH
Something enormous surges violently up out of the central basin.
The shaft that had been jutting above the surface.
It wasn't part of an altar.
Bloodwater pouring down like rain.
What shows through it is a boat.
To be exact, an old excursion boat that could pass for a ghost ship.
A small-to-midsize two-deck excursion boat of the kind easily seen on the Han River, but far too large to have been under a swimming pool basin.
The boat surges vertically upward like a whale breaching, then slams straight down onto the floor.
The impact sends bloodwater flooding in every direction, and Cops are swept away on it.
The bloodwater pouring out of the basin stains the whole pool red.
In an instant the entire pool looks like a lake filled with bloodwater.
The moment the excursion boat has fully surfaced, the numbers frozen on the display begin to move.
[ 00 : 59 : 59 ]
The Cops flung in all directions come to their senses and rise to their feet.
Faces twisted with creases and rage look at me.
The game proper has begun.
***
The moment she stepped into the women's restroom, what came into Do-ha's eyes was Mi-ae, her swimsuit stained red.
Her hands had split open and were soaked in blood, but she seemed to feel no pain and kept pounding on a toilet stall door.
Mi-ae looks at Do-ha, who has only just entered the restroom.
Red-stained pupils, visible through the goggles Mi-ae is wearing.
The moment she saw those pupils, Ryu Do-ha was certain.
'The goggles are the problem.'
Mi-ae opened her mouth like a zombie and lunged at Do-ha.
Just before both hands, white bone laid bare, could fall on her, Do-ha's body rotated and she kicked Mi-ae in the stomach with her back foot with all her strength.
Mi-ae flew back, struck her head against the wall, and went limp.
After confirming that her movement had stopped completely, Do-ha knocked on the stall door.
"Miss Seo-yun! It's me."
With a click the door opens.
The face of Seo-yun coming out from inside is, contrary to expectation, utterly calm.
A question flashed through Do-ha's mind at the sight.
"They're coming!"
But it faded quickly because of Do-yul, who came in right after.
"They?"
"The Cops! And the boat......."
Do-yul suddenly starts hacking, as if something went down the wrong way.
After a few coughs, Do-yul spoke.
"A boat has surfaced."