Chapter 2

Clean ■

My vision was red.

It was not because of the blood, nor because I had gone blind.

Red candles now illuminated the entire house like the crimson lamps in a butcher shop’s display case. When we had been running around searching for an exit, the house had been completely dark.

Even the white sheets that had covered the furniture in the living room where we had been sitting together were gone. It hardly seemed like the same place anymore.

“Ha, shit....”

It was only natural to wonder whether this was really the same house.

But the large pool of blood by the front door remained, as did the cleaning equipment prominently marked with the name DAESUNG CLEANING.

“Hup.”

I inhaled deeply and slapped my dazed face as hard as I could. There was a sharp smack, and sparks flashed before my eyes.

“Sir, why did you suddenly...?”

“I’m trying to clear my head.”

Is this a dream?

My cheek began swelling almost immediately, and it hurt like hell. But at least my foggy mind had snapped back to attention.

I had no idea what kind of supernatural trickery this was, but getting out alive came first.

Myeong Haebin—the youngest employee, my assistant, and possibly the only other survivor in this house—pointed beyond the pool of blood.

“We... can’t leave through that door, can we?”

The front door through which the monster had entered stood wide open, as though I were free to leave whenever I wanted.

“I don’t know.”

I pulled the pen from the breast pocket of my vest and threw it through the doorway.

The pen sailed in an arc, but the instant it crossed the threshold, it vanished without a trace.

Just like my senior had.

“Looks like we can’t.”

There was no way to simply flee this house. That meant I had no choice but to trust the instructions from the app that had already saved my life once.

[Completion condition: Clean ■.]

It said clean, not escape or eliminate.

Judging by the conditions listed beneath it, ■ referred to the monster trapped inside the room.

And considering that the app had already helped me survive....

For ■ to return, the altar must always be kept clean.

Cleaning the altar might be the key to escaping this place.

“We need to find the altar.”

“An altar...? Where did that come from? What does it look like?”

“I don’t know.”

The transformed interior now resembled an old-fashioned house, with wooden walls and dark wooden furniture. Even the table was covered with an intricately woven lace tablecloth.

At the same time, aside from the candles burning red instead of an ordinary color, it looked like a perfectly normal home.

An altar in a place like this....

Without the app, the thought would never have crossed my mind.

“Let’s look for it. There were three rooms on the first floor, right?”

“Yes. Two guest rooms and a storage room. I think they said there was a study and a master bedroom upstairs.”

Should we search the first floor before the monster emerged?

But....

“They wouldn’t have put an altar in a guest room. Why don’t we check upstairs first?”

She had been thinking the same thing as me.

This was reality, not some game where randomly clicking everything would eventually reveal a clue.

In that case, the most likely place to find an altar was—

“Let’s check the study first.”

“Yes, sir. But... you said there was still one more person alive. What about them...?”

My hand stopped as I was slinging the bag of cleaning supplies over my shoulder.

She was probably referring to the employee who had been the first to reach the back door and cling to it.

I alternated between staring down the dark corridor leading toward the utility room and looking at the staircase beside us.

Then I squeezed my eyes shut.

“After we find a way to escape....”

The instant I finished speaking, a familiar handle entered my grip.

It was the shaft of a mop.

“....”

“Right! Of course. Finding a way out comes first.”

Myeong Haebin headed upstairs ahead of me.

But the mouth I caught a fleeting glimpse of had been... smiling.

Was it my imagination?

No, staying alive had to be Haebin’s priority too. That was only logical.

Please, don’t get paranoid.

I shook my head vigorously to dispel the thought, then followed her up the old staircase.

“Wow. This looks like something from a movie....”

The study resembled the set of a Western film. Like the rooms downstairs, it had wooden bookcases filled neatly with hardcover books, along with a massive desk and a comfortable armchair.

“There could be one or two books for summoning monsters hidden among these, and we’d never know.”

The titles on the spines were embossed in gold and silver, suggesting that these were no ordinary novels. Under normal circumstances, I would not have dared touch them and would have settled for dusting around them.

But was there really an altar in a place like this?

Perhaps it was not as large and imposing as I had imagined.

Bzzz.

The app updated again.

Humans who wish to consult the books in the study must show proper courtesy.

It was worrying about nothing.

I had come here to find the altar, not to read books.

“Haebin, don’t touch any of the books. Just in case.”

“Okay! But this drawer is locked.”

Myeong Haebin, who had been searching around the enormous desk, thrust her hand into the air like a student eager to answer a question.

“A drawer?”

“Yes. You never know. Maybe there’s a note inside saying you have to pull a certain book to open the secret passage leading to the altar or something?”

She had clearly watched too many movies.

Still, her suggestion was not entirely unreasonable, so I went over to the desk as she struggled with the drawer.

“That’s strange. There isn’t a keyhole.”

“Let me see. Move aside.”

The drawer, its natural wood grain plainly visible, was already open by a tiny amount. Perhaps Haebin had damaged it while trying to force it open.

But no matter how hard I pulled, it only rattled and refused to open any farther.

It isn’t locked. Something inside must be obstructing it.

I turned on my phone’s flashlight and found a thick layer of black, mudlike substance caked along the drawer’s side rails.

No wonder it would not open.

Calling it mud was generous. It looked more like a lump of tar or hardened chewing gum.

“I think we need to scrape this off before it’ll open.”

“No wonder it wouldn’t budge. How did you figure that out?”

“If it were locked, there would’ve been a broken latch.”

Nothing breaks without a reason.

Sweep it, wipe it down, repair it, and it will work perfectly well again.

Let’s take a look.

I pulled a dry cloth from the cleaning bag, wrapped it around my hand, and felt around. I tried scraping the substance away with my fingertips, but it was both hard and sticky. It did not seem likely to come off like this.

“There’s no way that’ll work.”

“We won’t know until I try. What if it opens?”

Myeong Haebin shifted anxiously from foot to foot, but I could not simply ignore a problem after noticing it.

I sprayed diluted detergent onto the cloth, covered the mass with it, and extended my other hand.

“Give me a scraper.”

“Plastic or metal?”

“Metal. Something sharp.”

Myeong Haebin looked at me as though I were acting strangely, but still placed the scraper in my hand.

I laid the thin but sturdy blade almost flat and pressed it against the mass stuck to the rail, trying to pry it away.

Then came the sound of wood bending and breaking outside the room.

Creak. Crack.

It seemed the monster had finally escaped.

“I-I’ll go lock the door...!”

Rather than looking toward Haebin as she anxiously hurried to the door, I concentrated on what I was doing.

This is nothing but half-hardened gum.

I’m just doing an ordinary cleaning job.

Don’t be scared, Kim Hanmu.

I removed the cloth and pushed the scraper’s blade beneath the foul-smelling, viscous mass.

Part of it, now softened, yielded beneath the scraper and created a gap.

It was working.

Thump, scrape... Thump.

The sound of footsteps that had already left me traumatized came from downstairs, climbing the steps one at a time.

There was nowhere to run or hide in this place. We were nothing more than trapped rats.

I seized the loosened mass and carefully pulled, making sure it did not snap. With a long, sticky rip, the portion lodged deep inside came out in one piece.

“Sir, please hurry...!”

By the time Myeong Haebin could no longer contain herself and spoke, the drawer finally moved.

Clunk.

“It’s open—!”

But then a shrill scream came from outside.

“H-Help me! Please! Is anyone there?!”

The door to the adjacent room rattled, followed by the sound of someone running out.

Apparently, the third person I had deliberately avoided searching for was still alive.

To make matters worse, the object inside the drawer was not a note but a book bound in black leather.

Record of Prayers to Pure Avarice

I could not decipher most of the Chinese characters, except for the one meaning avarice. Beneath them, however, Korean words had been engraved into the cover.

A Prayer Book for Him

Prayer?

Hadn’t the second rule been about prayer?

“What should we do? Should I open the door for him?”

“Wait.”

Sweat gathered on the hand clutching the prayer book.

Wasn’t this a book too?

If so, didn’t I have to show it proper courtesy?

I did not know what kind of courtesy it demanded.

But one thing was certain. If I hesitated until it was too late—if I heard everything happening outside and ultimately chose to ignore it....

“I’ll have nightmares even if I survive.”

I could no longer pretend not to know.

I flung open the cover.

A maw like the monster’s burst from inside the book.

Before I could throw it away—

Crunch.

It bit off the left hand that had rudely opened its cover in violation of the rule.

“...!!”

My severed wrist burned as though every nerve in my body had been gathered there. Blood poured from it like water from an open faucet.

The pain stole my breath, leaving me unable even to scream.

“D-Don’t come closer! Stay away from me!”

Thump, scrape....

The footsteps outside drew closer, as did the screams.

If I did nothing, I would lose only a hand, but the employee outside would be devoured from head to toe.

I pressed the bleeding stump firmly against my thigh to slow the blood loss, then turned the pages with my intact right hand.

Contents

[A Lullaby for the Sun That Cannot Sleep]

[A Sacred Feast for the God Built of Bones]

[A Vow Offered to Flowing Blood]

I understood instinctively.

Many prayers were listed, but only one of them was correct.

Why would the rule specify a prayer “for itself”?

There was a clue.

Among the many titles in the contents, two were stained with the same black substance I had scraped from the drawer.

But I had no time to examine and analyze them one by one.

“Haebin, open the door now.”

“What? Are you serious...? Sir, your hand...!”

“I know. Just open the door.”

Seeing the blood dripping from my wrist, Myeong Haebin’s mouth fell open. But instead of hesitating, she threw the door wide.

“Aaaaaargh!”

The employee in the hallway had apparently lost his footing while fleeing and fallen. The monster was chewing on his torn shoe.

It did not appear to have seriously injured or begun eating him yet.

He crawled frantically across the floor, his face covered in tears.

“Hanmu! Save me!”

People really were absurd.

A man standing right in front of him was covered in blood after losing a hand, yet he still found himself begging that man to save him.

The prayer book lay open to the contents in my hand.

I had narrowed the possibilities down to two.

[A Prayer for the Hungry Beast]

[Adoration of He Who Has Forgotten Satiety]

Which one was it?

“Now there are three.”

A thin hand seized the employee’s ankle and dragged him backward. Its innocent voice murmured as though the meal before it looked irresistibly delicious.

I supported the book with my left arm, oblivious to the fact that my wound had opened and begun bleeding heavily again, then turned the page with my right hand.

I read aloud the ink pressed into the yellowed page.

Adoration of He Who Has Forgotten Satiety.

“You remember not what it means to be filled, and we, too, embrace hunger as a virtue.”

The mouth opening toward the employee’s head suddenly stopped.

Its smooth, eyeless head slowly rose and turned toward me.

“From a place lower than the soil beneath your feet, we revere the stirring of your stomach.”

I could not look away.

A voice that did not seem to belong to me resonated through the air, as if someone had laid a cassette tape across my tongue.

“H-Haaah...!”

“Come this way, sir!”

While the monster and I remained frozen on opposite sides of that grotesque prayer, Myeong Haebin grabbed the employee and dragged him away as he crawled on his weakened legs.

But I could not stop reciting the prayer.

“Knowing that your hunger shall never be satisfied....”

The monster stopped directly in front of me, drool dripping from its mouths.

I could not retreat a single step.

“We shall set your table even as you sleep.”

That was the end of the prayer.

I had no way of knowing whether I had chosen correctly.

The jaws of the mouths covering the monster’s entire body opened and closed several times.

“You promise?”

Its hot, blood-reeking breath washed over my face. A long red tongue emerged and licked the stump of my wrist.

“You promise to prepare a new table for me when I wake up?”

The monster slowly lowered itself, curled its body into a ball where it stood, and closed its mouths.

Its back rose and fell as though it had truly fallen asleep.

A moment later, a terrified shudder crawled up my spine.

I had survived.