Chapter 26

Chodam Park—West Gate (5)

“Aaaaaagh!!”

Woo Minhyeong’s eyes bulged. The pain reached him a beat late, and he buckled at the knees, thrashing as a harrowing scream tore from his throat.

My paralyzed mind snapped back into motion, and I reached out to grab Woo Minhyeong by the arm.

What the hell was Park Hyeonho doing?

“You there! What are you doing? Are you just going to let this happen?!”

“No, I… Uh…”

The duck wasn’t merely biting Woo Minhyeong’s calf. It violently shook its head like a rabid dog worrying its prey.

Park Hyeonho’s face went deathly pale as he watched chunks of flesh scatter in every direction from only a few feet away.

He was panicking.

“Ms. Haebin, take that man and run.”

“Yes! What about you, Senior?”

Could I pry apart that tightly clamped beak?

It only looked like a duck on the outside. Inside, it was an aberration. Better than grabbing it and struggling uselessly…

...Fuck it.

Thud!

My kick struck the duck in the stomach. It was lighter than expected and went flying into the bushes beyond the path.

In its place, blood gushed from the fist-sized hole torn out of Woo Minhyeong’s calf.

“Aaaagh! Hngh, haah! My leg! S-Save me…”

“Grab him.”

I lifted Woo Minhyeong’s arm as he gasped through a face smeared with tears and saliva.

Park Hyeonho had been staggering ahead while Myeong Haebin dragged him along, but after hearing the scream, he returned, his face still deathly white.

“Minhyeong! Hey, Woo Minhyeong! Stay with me. Are you okay?”

Rustling and shuffling came simultaneously from beyond the bushes where the duck had landed.

It emerged with a limp, apparently having broken one leg when I kicked it. The feathers on its chest were soaked in blood.

It chewed Woo Minhyeong’s flesh inside its smacking beak, then swallowed with a gulp.

“QUAAACK!”

The creature opened its empty maw wide and spread both wings.

Instead of a tongue or teeth, layer upon layer of colorful shards from broken glass bottles protruded from inside its beak.

No wonder his leg looked like that after being bitten.

“Aren’t you going to help?”

Park Hyeonho’s unfocused eyes turned toward me. His gaze sharpened, and he nodded.

“M-Minhyeong, let’s go. Okay?”

“Hngh, haah… It hurts…”

Dragging a grown man by myself in his current condition would have been difficult, but once Park Hyeonho supported his other arm, the weight I had to carry decreased considerably.

“Ms. Haebin, go ahead and check for anomalies.”

“Yes!”

We left the checking to Myeong Haebin, the only one among us who could still move lightly.

Park Hyeonho and I supported Woo Minhyeong between us and began walking. He trembled uncontrollably and could barely use his left leg.

“Quack! Quack, quack!”

The metallic, strangled cries of the duck pursued us, accompanied by the flapping of wings and irregular, wet footsteps.

“Why does the path look like this? Excuse me—i-is this really the same path we took earlier?!”

The park had visibly changed.

It had grown so humid that a hazy mist hung in the air, making it difficult to see clearly. Leaves dangling from the overgrown trees lining the path repeatedly slapped us across the face.

“It is, so keep moving.”

“How can you be sure?”

Threatened by the transformed environment, Park Hyeonho’s breathing grew ragged.

“Then stop if you want.”

“...Fuck you!”

Unwilling to face the duck again, Park Hyeonho hoisted Woo Minhyeong’s arm higher and began striding forward with renewed vigor.

Couldn’t I have answered him more politely?

Try walking forty-five kilometers without eating or drinking, remaining tense the entire time, and then running while supporting an injured man.

See how polite you sound.

“QUAAACK!”

The duck dragged one leg behind it as it pursued us, showing no sign of falling behind.

Then our formation abruptly stopped.

Park Hyeonho, who had been panting heavily until moments ago, froze in front of the stepping-stones across the pond.

“What are you doing? Cross!”

Myeong Haebin, already halfway across, shouted back at us.

But Park Hyeonho’s voice shook with terror.

“There’s even more water now! And what the hell are all those weird fish?!”

The water level had risen again. The pond had swollen so much that even if we climbed onto the stepping-stones, the water would reach the tops of our feet.

There were far more fish than before. The pond looked more like a landfill than a body of water.

Desperate to escape, the creatures were squeezing onto the stepping-stones and even onto dry land, where they flopped helplessly.

“Quack! Quack! Quack!”

The duck’s raucous cries drew even closer, accompanied by the sound of branches being shoved aside.

“Ugh… Fuck!”

Cursing, Park Hyeonho leaped onto the stepping-stones. Foul-smelling water splashed around his feet. The trash fish he stepped on writhed frantically, making the pond bubble as though it were boiling.

“Fuck! I fucking hate this! Fuck!”

With curses hanging from every word, Park Hyeonho moved forward, and the rest of us followed him onto the stepping-stones.

His cursing was understandable.

Every time one of the fish made of garbage was stepped on, it burst and scattered its innards.

The water was a rustling, sticky mixture of glitter, scraps of plastic, drinking straws, and something resembling melted ice cream.

The sensation of that water seeping into our shoes was indescribably revolting.

But we could neither stop nor turn back.

We stared straight ahead and forced ourselves onward, one step at a time, until we reached land that had also been reduced to something resembling a mud pit.

“Haah… The duck… Hngh…”

Only after we were gasping for breath did we realize that we could no longer hear the duck.

“I-I think it’s gone… Hah…”

“I’m seriously going to die…”

Now that we could finally stop running, groans arose from all around us.

I was no exception. My entire body was drenched, as though I had showered in sweat.

“...Let’s lay Mr. Minhyeong down here for a moment.”

“G-Gently—aaaagh!”

Apparently, even changing his position caused unbearable pain. Woo Minhyeong’s scream echoed through the silent park.

The wound, already missing a large chunk of flesh, had been exposed to the contaminated pond water. It had become so gruesome that I hesitated even to touch it, and it was still bleeding.

How am I supposed to stop the bleeding?

Of course I had never treated a person before.

All I knew how to do was apply bandages, put on ointment, and take someone to a hospital.

I thought there had been some unopened disposable cleaning cloths in our bag, but we had lost everything and had nothing left.

At that moment, Myeong Haebin lightly pushed my shoulder aside and stepped in.

“Look at me. You—take off your jacket!”

Caught off guard, Park Hyeonho removed his windbreaker and handed it to her.

Myeong Haebin mercilessly pressed it into Woo Minhyeong’s wound as though trying to stuff it inside.

“Agh! Hngh… It hurts! It hurts!”

“Of course it hurts! You’re only alive because it didn’t reach an artery. And you—are you just going to stand there? Lift his leg or something. Senior, bring me his headband.”

So much for wanting to abandon them.

Myeong Haebin seemed far more accustomed to situations like this than I had expected.

She used the headband to tightly bind the leg just above Woo Minhyeong’s wound. Deciding that it still wasn’t enough, she snapped off a long branch, inserted it beneath the band, and twisted it like a rope until it tightened firmly.

Only then did the steadily dripping blood begin to slow.

“Phew! We’ve stopped the bleeding for now. I don’t think it’ll hold for very long, though.”

After tightly knotting the sleeves of the windbreaker to secure it in place, Myeong Haebin finally straightened her back in relief.

“You’re good at this. Have you done it often?”

“A little? Team Leader Yong says people like us get hurt a lot, so it’s useful to study this kind of thing. Sometimes he gives us emergency-treatment lessons.”

Woo Minhyeong still seemed to be conscious.

Park Hyeonho, who was holding his leg, stared sharply at us.

“Do you really work for a cleaning company?”

Damn.

Then again, ordinary cleaning-company employees probably didn’t get injured that often.

Before I could respond, Myeong Haebin spoke first.

“You should be grateful. And what are you going to do if we don’t?”

“I-I was only asking.”

“We explain everything to you, and all you do is argue and get in the way.”

“I’m… sorry.”

The uncooperative attitude he had shown earlier was gone. Thoroughly subdued, Park Hyeonho awkwardly apologized.

Well, he had probably become aggressive because the situation was too much for him to accept.

I should try to understand.

More importantly, the duck’s noisy footsteps and cries had vanished completely, even though we had heard them clearly before crossing the stepping-stones.

Something must have changed.

The fish had been struggling to escape the pond, and the duck, which had previously remained on the water, had come ashore.

Did something happen to the pond that prevented the duck from feeding in the water?

If so, it would make sense that the duck couldn’t cross.

But the mere rise in water level wasn’t enough to explain it.

What was I missing?

Woo Minhyeong lay on his back on the dirt, panting in a voice barely louder than a dying man’s whisper.

“Could we… rest here for just a little while…?”

Only one level remained before [Perfect].

The park, which hadn’t seemed particularly dangerous at first, was gradually assuming an appearance befitting a ghost story.

We didn’t know what had changed in the pond, and I didn’t want to waste time while we remained ignorant.

There was also the condition of Woo Minhyeong’s leg to consider.

“I’d like to let you rest longer, but if we’re not careful, you may end up resting forever.”

“I-I’ll go. I can… keep going.”

As though reaching a decision, Woo Minhyeong clenched his fist and forced himself upright. Then he extended one hand, asking me to help him.

“Good decision.”

The moment I took his hand—

With a sudden flutter, pure-white feathers briefly obscured my vision.

Then Woo Minhyeong’s head disappeared.

I had never wanted to learn what sound a headless human body made.

Fsssh. Spurt. Gush.

His heart continued pumping, forcing blood through his body. A fountain of crimson erupted from his severed carotid artery.

The hand that had been reaching toward me moments ago fell away, and the headless body collapsed to the ground, knees first.

“Fuck.”

“W-Woo Min…”

An unfinished name stumbled from Park Hyeonho’s lips.

It was a hollow call with nowhere to go.

“Quack… Kweh.”

A beak opened and closed with the sound of something being greedily chewed.

My gaze naturally shifted toward it.

The duck stood there with its wings spread wide, its beak raised.

A tuft of thin, curly hair and an ear protruding above its beak were swallowed with a gulp and disappeared. Apparently unsatisfied, the creature smacked its beak as though chewing cud while keeping its eyes fixed on us.

Could such a small duck swallow a human head in a single bite?

No—could a duck even sever someone’s head in the blink of an eye?

Only then did I notice the ground beneath its feet.

A trail of ugly white feathers stretched from the blood-soaked ground beneath the duck all the way back to the bushes at the edge of the pond.

Instead of using the stepping-stones, did it circle all the way around the pond to follow us?

“...Say it.”

Park Hyeonho’s muttering broke the silence.

The last thread of reason he had desperately clung to had finally snapped.

His eyes, bloodshot from the whites to the rims, turned toward me.

“Tell me it’s a hidden-camera prank! Tell me right now!!”

What was I supposed to say?

I had known that ghost stories could snuff out a human life as casually as crushing a fly.

But seeing it happen right before my eyes was—

Thwack!

At that moment, Myeong Haebin struck Park Hyeonho.

She punched him directly in the cheek.

The blow was powerful enough to make him stagger as he clutched his face.

It happened so suddenly that even the furious Park Hyeonho stared at her in bewilderment.

“I told you that you were getting in the way.”

Then she turned toward me and smiled brightly, as though expecting praise.

“I tried doing it the way I was taught, but I guess one punch really isn’t enough to knock someone unconscious!”

She had been quiet for so long that I had forgotten.

Right.

This was the kind of person Myeong Haebin was.

Someone capable of becoming utterly inhuman.

The headache I had forgotten came rushing back.

“Ms. Haebin, the situation is already complicated enough. Don’t make it worse.”

Woo Minhyeong was dead.

Park Hyeonho had lost his mind.

Myeong Haebin was acting unpredictably.

And on top of all that—

Do Not Feed.

Was this really okay?

Had the water-level gauge risen again?

If it had finally filled all the way, then what would happen next—

“Since everything seems screwed anyway, why don’t we start by giving the duck some more food?”

I literally just told you not to make things more difficult.