Chapter 29

Chodam Park- West Gate (8)

The puddle had definitely been up ahead.

“...!”

“Wait...”

Myeong Haebin, who had been walking in front, suddenly plunged downward.

“Haebin!”
“Whoa! What the—since when was this place...?”

Myeong Haebin flailed about, trying to escape the puddle that had transformed into a swamp.

Park Hyeonho firmly grabbed her hand and barely managed to pull her out.

“Puhah! Cough.”

While I patted Myeong Haebin on the back so she could spit out the mud that had filled her mouth, Park Hyeonho rummaged through the plastic bag hanging from his wrist.

“...Do you want to drink what’s left of this?”
“Isn’t that the last bottle?”
“We still have one more.”
“Then I’ll drink it!”

At least Park Hyeonho was adapting quickly.

Though it would be more accurate to say that he had been forced to adapt in order to survive.

“Aw, there’s hardly anything left.”
“That’s why I said ‘what’s left’...”

The liquid in the plastic bottle he handed Myeong Haebin barely covered the bottom.

In effect, we had only one full bottle remaining.

“Haah...”

Perhaps feeling an unnecessary sense of guilt, Park Hyeonho wiped his sticky forehead with his damp sleeve. Even his deep sigh was swallowed by the mist.

A cheerful voice pierced the gloomy atmosphere.

“But that makes exactly fifty!”
“What does?”
“The number of times we’ve discovered a new anomaly! You said you counted every single step you took, Senior, so I was inspired and decided to count too.”

Despite having nearly died moments ago, Myeong Haebin roughly wiped her mud-caked arms against a bench, crossed them with satisfaction, and nodded to herself.

Park Hyeonho’s eyes darted around before he finally gave in and asked,

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Discovering fifty new anomalies might be the trigger for our escape. If we’re lucky, it means we might actually be able to leave this time. If we’re unlucky, we may need to find even more.”
“Or, if we’re even less lucky, the number of anomalies we discover might have nothing to do with the condition for escaping.”

I expected him to complain, but Park Hyeonho faintly raised the corners of his mouth.

“Still, that’s good news.”

By now, we had also grown accustomed to writing complaints and placing them inside the “Citizens’ Suggestion Box.”

“Hey, you missed the convenience store. The bars on the container.”
“Ah, were they missing again?”

After seeing the same scenery close to thirty times, even I had begun to miss things.

Whenever that happened, I made the not-quite-an-excuse that this had ceased to be a test of observation and had become a battle of physical and mental endurance.

Click.

I slipped the postcard inside and continued walking.

But we could not escape.

Fifty became sixty-two.

Seventy-seven became ninety-eight.

It was almost awe-inspiring how such a small park could contain so many anomalies.

The garbage fish all became the same color.

The pond water turned into a highly corrosive acid and surged into the air.

Trees walked out of the forest and attacked us.

Dangling vines suddenly coiled around our necks and yanked us backward.

The exercise equipment in the fitness area shattered and flew at us.

Minor injuries accumulated as well.

A dark bruise spread across Myeong Haebin’s forearm.

Vine marks remained around Park Hyeonho’s neck.

My uniform melted and was reduced to tatters.

Fluid seeped from a rash that had broken out around Myeong Haebin’s ankle.

Park Hyeonho’s palm was cut open.

My left knee was busted.

Park Hyeonho no longer asked how much farther we had to go.

He must have realized it too.

There was no point in asking.

At some point, I stopped counting the number of laps we had completed.

The cushioning in the insoles of my overworked sneakers had long since been completely flattened. Water and mud from the pond had soaked into my shoes, rubbing against my blisters and causing excruciating pain.

And then we reached the hundredth anomaly.

[Chodam Park Gom-yut]

Finding even a single trace of that bastard called hope was damn near impossible.

“Let’s stop and rest.”
“We can keep going a little longer...!”
“We’re going to rest properly. We’ll take turns standing watch.”

Continuing like this was impossible.

I could feel that everyone’s bodies and minds had been worn down to their limits and were moving through sheer force of will.

We had to rest, even if we had to force ourselves to do it.

“How are our food supplies?”
“We’ve finished all the drinks, there are a few candies left, and this is the last piece of bread. Though only half of it remains.”
“It’s better than nothing.”

Park Hyeonho, who had somehow become responsible for our food supplies, pulled the last cream bun from the bag.

We tore the remaining half into smaller pieces and divided them as evenly as possible.

No matter how long I chewed the bread, until it turned into mush, I couldn’t taste a thing.

I could only hope it would help fill my stomach.

“Let’s decide the order for standing watch.”
“I’m fine with anything! What about you, Hyeonho?”

Park Hyeonho seemed to think for a moment before scratching at the ground with his dirty fingertips.

“I’ll take the second shift.”
“That will be the most exhausting one. Are you aware of that?”
“O-of course! It’s just... you two have been walking longer than I have. That’s all.”

Our little Park Hyeonho had changed.

What happened to the man who had suspected me and called me a lunatic?

Then again, after enduring an endless forced march through a hellish place like this, even people who had never shared any camaraderie before would start to develop some.

“Then I’ll go first. You get plenty of sleep, Senior!”
“How are we going to keep track of the time...?”
“Let’s take two hours each.”
“...I don’t want to stay here any longer than necessary. Wake me in two hours.”

Time seemed frozen in this place, with the moon fixed in the sky, making it impossible to tell how much had passed.

However, basic functions on our phones still worked. Not the clocks, which were permanently frozen at 19:00, but things like timers.

“Haebin, your phone still has plenty of battery, right? Use the timer.”
“Of course. Hurry up and sleep. Go on.”

We had neither blankets nor anything else to shield us from the damp ground and the clammy mist. Yet the instant I laid my head down, sleep overwhelmed me.

Actually, saying that sleep overwhelmed me would be inaccurate.

It was closer to losing consciousness.

Everything went dark.

Rustle. Scrape.

It felt as though I had closed my eyes for only a moment when the sounds reached my sharply alert ears.

My eyes snapped open.

As I hurriedly sat up, Park Hyeonho, who had been squatting motionlessly nearby, stared at me in surprise.

“Wh-what is it? It’s not time yet...”
“Didn’t you just hear something?”
“Nothing at all.”

I tapped the screen of the phone lying at Park Hyeonho’s feet.

[Timer]

0:08:13

There were a little over eight minutes left before the shift change.

I had awakened nearly ten minutes early.

Perhaps because I had woken at such an awkward time, exhaustion weighed painfully on my shoulders.

If I fall asleep again now, I’ll probably feel even more exhausted.

I might as well begin my watch a little early.

“Hyeonho, you can go to sleep now. I’ll take over for the rest of your shift.”
“Um... well, there’s something...”

Park Hyeonho had been about to lie down in relief, but he stopped and called to me in a quiet voice.

“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Why ask when you already know the answer?”

Park Hyeonho’s shoulders visibly flinched.

“You really have a way with people...”

It was his own fault for asking a starving, thirsty, exhausted person whether he was hungry.

Park Hyeonho rubbed the back of his neck and pondered for a while before finally speaking.

“When we get out, I’ll buy you a meal.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I run a barbecue restaurant in the next neighborhood. Going through all this hell together has to count for something. I can at least do that much.”
“...”

“Wh-why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’ll wake her. Shh.”

When I merely stared at him without answering, Park Hyeonho’s voice began to rise.

He firmly closed his mouth, his dark eyes darting about.

“If you don’t want to, then forget—”
“I’ll go. I was simply surprised.”

“It’s just... if you hadn’t been here, I would have...”

He was talking about Woo Minhyeong.

Perhaps regretting dredging up a memory he had pushed into the back of his mind, Park Hyeonho grimaced as though he felt sick.

“Earlier, I asked whether you saw the environmental campaign when you entered this park.”
“You did. Why bring that up now?”
“You said that ‘nothing happened,’ but I’m curious about exactly what did happen.”

Park Hyeonho did not seem eager to discuss it, but he answered anyway.

“It was just... some strange guy. He suddenly asked whether I was garbage and gave me a question...”
“And?”
“It was a snack wrapper. I said I’d throw it away with the plastics, but he told me I was wrong.”

Naturally. Snack wrappers had to be cleaned before being recycled with plastic film; otherwise, they belonged in general waste.

“Did he suggest another campaign?”
“He did. He told me to go pick up some garbage. But there was something unsettling about him, so I refused. That’s why I said nothing happened.”
“Then you didn’t receive a bracelet either.”
“No. Did I... do something wrong?”

Bzzzt—

The phone flashed and vibrated as its timer reached zero.

“Your shift is over. Get some sleep. You must be tired.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”
“Even if you did, finding out now would probably be meaningless. We passed that point a long time ago.”

After repeatedly questioning me, Park Hyeonho finally seemed to give up. He lay down, fumbling into position, and curled into a ball.

I set a two-hour timer on my phone and turned around. Park Hyeonho must have already fallen asleep, as his shoulders were rising and falling steadily.

Rustle.

This time, I heard it clearly.

An anomaly? Or an aberration like the duck?

I raised my head, already reaching out to wake the other two.

Within the bushes where my gaze had stopped, a white figure set something down before swaying away and swiftly vanishing.

What was that? It didn’t threaten us at all.

I looked down at the two sleeping people, then cautiously approached the spot where I had sensed the presence, taking care not to make any footsteps.

There, I found a bag as long as my forearm—one that made me doubt my own eyes.

[Old-Fashioned Nostalgic Puffed-Rice Crackers]

They were tray-shaped, crispy crackers made by flattening grains of rice and puffing them under high pressure.

It was one of the products I had seen at the convenience store.

It had been on the lowest shelf, probably because it was unpopular...

Why is this here?

I glanced around in search of the vanished white figure, but it was nowhere to be seen.

On the off chance that it might be safe, I opened the bag and pulled out a cracker.

With a crisp snap, the brittle puffed-rice cracker broke apart and stuck to my tongue.

There was no strange pain or unsettling flavor.

In other words, it was an ordinary puffed-rice cracker.

This was strange.

We couldn’t eat food brought in from outside this ghost story—or anything stolen from the convenience store, either.

Who could it have been?

How had they bought something from a convenience store that was already closed? Why had they chosen this single bag of puffed-rice crackers? And why had they left it in front of us?

There were nothing but questions.

However, no one other than us existed inside this ghost story.

That meant I had to assume it was an anomaly.

A benevolent anomaly...

Nothing like that had ever existed before.

The rustling bag might have been distracting, but Myeong Haebin and Park Hyeonho were apparently so exhausted that they remained sound asleep, oblivious to the world.

“Haah.”

I sat down with my back against the leg of the bench.

Only silence surrounded me.

We had already lost any chance of escaping through the proper route.

It was only a guess, but the environmental protection campaign had most likely been the normal escape route.

When we first entered the park, if we had used the bags handed out at the booth to clear away all the garbage beside the pond, the west gate might have appeared with surprising ease.

That must have been why the aberration had made the same offer to Park Hyeonho and Woo Minhyeong after they entered in the middle of the loop.

Of course, both of them had ignored the offer.

Still, it seemed we were not entirely out of options.

The convenience-store owner said, “Throw garbage into the perfect pond.”

Would throwing even more garbage into an already severely polluted pond make any difference?

I turned on the phone whose timer was still running.

[Achievement]

! Separate the two civilians. (Incomplete)

Reward: New feature update

In the silent mist, only the app’s screen shone coldly before my eyes.

I don’t know what this new feature will be, but it’s bound to help me, isn’t it?

The improved digestion and tool-enhancement features had both proven useful.

Perhaps clearing the ghost story would become easier if I abandoned Park Hyeonho.

“Still, I’d be less than human if I promised to go eat with him and then abandoned him.”

Without realizing it, I vigorously scratched my mud-caked hair.

A way out. A way to get out...

As I turned the problem over and over in my mind, the two hours passed in an instant, and the timer announced that it had ended.

“Time’s up. Wake up.”
“Mmm... Already? I only just fell asleep.”
“Doesn’t feel like I slept at all. Yawn...”

The moment the two exhausted people saw the large plastic bag I waved in front of them, all traces of sleep seemed to vanish.

“Huh?! Wh-what in the world is that...?”
“Whoa! Can we eat it?”
“Apparently. An anomaly brought it to us.”
“An anomaly?! Where did it come from?!”

Even as she exclaimed, Myeong Haebin had already bitten into a puffed-rice cracker.

“It’s real. Wow, it really is!”

After glancing at Myeong Haebin, Park Hyeonho quickly snatched one from the bag as well.

“Eat them sparingly—never mind. Go ahead.”

The sight of the two of them—covered in mud, leaves, and sweat—miserably nibbling on puffed-rice crackers was so pitiful that I couldn’t bring myself to stop them.

I probably looked no different.

Right. If we wanted to revive our sinking morale, even slightly, we first had to fill our stomachs.

“I was seriously starving. What did you say these crackers were called?”
“It’s written right here. Wait, you’ve never eaten puffed-rice crackers before?”
“No! That can happen, you know.”

Under ordinary circumstances, none of us would have given the faintly oily-smelling crackers a second glance. Yet their effect on our morale was remarkable.

Naturally, we reported that anomaly through the Citizens’ Suggestion Box.

At least, it had seemed like the obvious choice—until we received an unexpected response.

[Notice]

Complaints concerning issues that have not been clearly verified are increasing.

To ensure the park’s smooth operation, please refrain from submitting unnecessary complaints.

※ This notice is intended to prevent safety-related accidents.

—Chodam Park—

My thoughts descended into confusion.

Had those puffed-rice crackers not been one of the park’s anomalies?

“But it was an anomaly. It definitely was!”
“Was it simply an act of kindness? But there shouldn’t be anyone else here. Then again, it didn’t seem inhuman either...”

What in the world had it been?

No—if it wanted to help us, it could have at least said that it wasn’t an anomaly.

A surge of resentment rose within me.

“Um, you two... I think you should take a look at this too.”

The water-level gauge had finally reached its farthest end.

[Our Pond’s Current Condition]

[Parched] ... [Low] ... [Average] ... [High] ... [Abundant] ... [Perfect]

Toward a perfect pond.