Chapter 34
Human Exhibition: On the Boundlessness of the Human Body
Thinking I might have misread it, I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
『Human Exhibition: On the Boundlessness of the Human Body』
Explore the human body—the most beautiful of materials.
The nation’s largest immersive exhibition, overwhelmingly reinterpreting the human form through the aesthetics of art.
Number of Visitors Allowed: 2–4
No, I had read it correctly.
Damn it. A human exhibition?
At least the high school and the park had pretended to have normal names. This one was openly declaring, I’m going to kill you.
“Hanmu? Hanmu?”
Dohan called to me as I stood rigid, trembling violently on the inside.
“Are you listening?”
“Ah, yes. I’m listening.”
I hadn’t heard a single word. I was too nervous.
“Don’t open that. It’ll drag you inside immediately.”
I promptly handed the leaflet to Dohan. The sensation it left on my fingers was unpleasant.
“Is this another ‘relic’?”
“Oh, something similar. It was slipped in among ordinary leaflets that anyone could take.”
Someone had actually thought to open this suspicious thing?
Then again, the exhibition’s title was so bizarre that curiosity alone might have prompted someone to unfold it.
“It probably won’t be as difficult as you think. The Rats have already set the table. We’ll just be adding our spoons.”
“Is that so? I heard it rose from Grade 4 to Grade 3.”
“Having some information is still better than having none. Apparently, they’ve already been dismantling it for two weeks.”
They had failed to conquer it after two weeks?
Come to think of it, Team Leader Yong had once implied that he hadn’t expected me to clear one in a single day.
Of course. There were a hundred spaces on the achievement chart. If people could fill one every day, everyone would have made their wish and resigned already.
“Why am I the one being left behind? Senior and I can go together!”
Haebin protested, her cheeks flushing bright red with frustration.
Dohan merely smiled leisurely and poked her cheeks as though he found her adorable.
“Those are our Team Leader’s orders. If you have a complaint, take it up with him.”
“I will!”
Haebin threw down the cleaning-supply bag she had been packing and immediately dashed into the hallway.
Dohyeon watched her go before turning toward me.
“She’s simple, isn’t she?”
“Are you talking about Ms. Haebin?”
“Who else would I mean?”
Beside him, Dohan burst out laughing.
“Haha! No wonder the Team Leader is so protective of her. Well, shall we get going?”
“We aren’t going to wait for her?”
“Our Team Leader has been away since yesterday. She’ll be searching for quite a while.”
He had baited Haebin without even blinking.
Poor Ms. Haebin.
“You don’t need your Team Leader’s permission to provide support?”
“As long as we come back alive, we probably won’t get in too much trouble.”
What an irresponsible answer.
Was it really all right for a company to operate like this?
As I resumed packing the bag Haebin had thrown aside, Dohyeon spoke to me.
“My brother was excited that he finally had a chance to work with you. Just make sure you bring him back alive.”
“…I’ll do my best. Where are we going, by the way?”
“You need to meet up with the others. I’ll only be seeing you off.”
The more I saw of the twins, the more apparent it became that their personalities were as different as their appearances.
If Dohyeon was soft-spoken, Dohan was cheerful and outgoing.
The latter was also remarkably sociable and kept trying to talk to me.
“How old are you, Hanmu?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“We’re the same age! Why don’t we speak casually?”
“I don’t mind, but I’m more comfortable speaking this way.”
“Really? Hey, Dohyeon! He says we can talk casually!”
“I’d rather not…”
Perhaps he simply didn’t understand the concept of rejection.
The designated meeting point with the Rats was the ground-floor lobby of Daecheonmyeong.
As befitted their rivalry, they had chosen a location that was not particularly close to either team’s office.
“New face. You’re the cleaner?”
The Rats were already there.
A man whose jet-black hair was slicked back in a pompadour narrowed his eyes at me. Behind him stood the short-haired man I had met in the cafeteria.
“Your Team Leader came personally. Ours isn’t here, though. Haha.”
“It’s our assignment. And I believe I asked him the question.”
They said sensitive people could recognize their own kind.
The Rat Team Leader was both sensitive and prickly.
Perhaps it was his glasses, or the shirt and tie beneath his uniform, but he looked more like a senior manager at a major corporation than someone who risked his life running through the field for a ghost-story company.
“My name is Kim Hanmu. As you said, I’m with the Cleaning Team.”
I extended my hand for a greeting, but he saw it and ignored it. Instead, he gestured toward the man behind him with his eyes.
“Jo Yangseon. Call me Team Leader Jo. This is Seo Gitae.”
What the hell had happened to his personality?
No. Endure it.
Not everyone at work could be compatible with me.
Team Leader Jo looked directly at Dohan and crooked a finger.
“If you’re done dawdling, return the leaflet you stole.”
“Come on, ‘stole’ is such an ugly word. Please say that I kindly carried it for you because I was worried it might be heavy.”
“You know I dislike wordplay.”
So he really had stolen it?
Then again, someone with Team Leader Jo’s personality probably wouldn’t have handed it over willingly.
“Have a safe trip, Hanmu. I’ll explain everything to Ms. Haebin.”
As though he had anticipated Team Leader Jo’s reaction, Dohyeon smiled gently and waved goodbye.
For some reason, I felt as though I had become his accomplice.
I hadn’t deceived anyone on purpose.
Once the leaflet passed into Team Leader Jo’s hands, he unfolded it.
The pages, stuck together with what appeared to be blood and pus, peeled apart with a wet ripping sound.
The intuition that I had willingly stepped into an elaborate trap pressed down on my entire body.
Darkness descended along with a surge of nausea, as though I had been trapped inside a narrow container and shaken dozens of times.
“…Ugh.”
I wasn’t sure when it had begun, but an unnaturally white light stabbed at the optic nerves beneath my eyelids.
Only then did I open my eyes.
Spotless white walls, floor, and ceiling surrounded me.
Is this the Human Exhibition?
Unlike me, who was disoriented, the others who had entered with me seemed accustomed to arriving this way.
“Haah… I’m already sick to death of this place. Hm?”
“What the hell? How did you get in?”
“Huh?!”
Standing in the same formation as before, Team Leader Jo and Seo Gitae turned around to look at me.
Dohan did too.
No—was there someone even farther behind me?
I instinctively followed their gazes and turned around, only to freeze in bewilderment.
“How did you get in here?”
Dohyeon, who had kept his distance to avoid becoming involved, was looking around in confusion.
Team Leader Jo, Seo Gitae, Dohan, and me.
We were already at the maximum capacity.
Dohan appeared equally baffled.
“What? Wait, why? How did I get pulled in?”
“It should only allow two to four people inside. Why…”
Team Leader Jo waved dismissively and turned away, as though he could not even be bothered to deal with us.
“Maybe it’s because the grade increased. Figure it out yourselves.”
He reached into an exhibition ticket booth marked TICKET, took something, and passed through the turnstile.
“Where are you going?”
“Do we have to walk around with you people? I heard you’re talented. Try handling things yourselves.”
Seo Gitae was the one who answered me.
They did not enter the area marked EXHIBITION HALL 1.
Instead, they passed through a door marked STAFF ONLY.
The door slammed shut behind them, leaving only the twins and me.
“…That’s incredible.”
“Now you understand, right? Those bastards are no joke.”
It felt as though a storm had swept through and disappeared.
Dohyeon cautiously spoke.
“Hanmu, do you happen to know how to clear this ghost story? What about you, Hyung? Haven’t you heard anything?”
“Ah, the data belongs to the Rats, so— Ah! Those goddamn bastards!”
Realizing something, Dohan screamed and pointed at the door.
That was right.
Dohan had been so confident because the Rats had repeatedly entered this ghost story and collected data on it.
But afraid that we might steal their performance credit, the two Rats had left on their own without sharing a single piece of攻略 information.
They said you could be betrayed by an ax you trusted, but I had just been struck by an ax I had never trusted in the first place.
So that’s how you want to play this.
They knew the ghost story was dangerous.
They knew we had no information.
And they had deliberately abandoned us.
They had crossed the line.
“What determines who receives the performance credit?”
“You mean the stickers placed on the achievement chart?”
“Yes.”
Dohan seemed to wonder why I was asking, but soon answered.
“For people like us, it goes to whoever attaches the most dismantling markers. That’s roughly how it’s decided.”
“What if I completely eradicate it before it can be dismantled?”
“Then the credit would go to you, Hanmu.”
“Those stickers looked removable. They can be transferred, can’t they?”
“Yeah. It almost never happens, though.”
Good. I had made my decision.
“I’ll put one more sticker on your achievement chart, Mr. Dohan.”
“Wait. Hold on. You’re going to give your sticker to me?”
“Yes.”
There was a saying that competition wasn’t about winning. It was about pissing off your opponent.
They had crossed the line first.
How could I sleep peacefully without making them regret it?
“Are you serious? More importantly, are you actually confident you can eradicate this thing?”
“Hyung, did you not listen to a word Ms. Haebin said?”
“I thought she was only hyping him up!”
The app should have updated by now.
[Completion Requirement: Exhibit an artwork in Exhibition Hall 3.]
- We recommend listening carefully to the audio guide and viewing each artwork according to its instructions.
Good. It had updat—
[!DANGER!]
Snatch!
Before I could finish reading the rules—no, when I had barely read the first one—something snatched away my phone.
“No!”
It was as black as though it had been coated in paint, but it was unmistakably shaped like a human hand.
Holding my phone between its thumb and index finger, it ran across the floor using only its middle and ring fingers before slipping beneath the turnstile.
“What the hell? Hanmu, is that your phone?”
“Yes!”
It wasn’t just a phone.
That’s my lifeline!
Without the app, I couldn’t check the rules.
And that wasn’t all. I would lose access to every function the app had given me, including [Dictionary] and [Waste Sorting].
Walking around a Grade 3 ghost story without it would be suicide.
And there’s no way I can beat the Rats without it!
Without the slightest hesitation, I vaulted over the turnstile.
“Hanmu, be careful!”
“I already checked it!”
The ticket booth at the exhibition entrance was unstaffed.
[FREE ADMISSION FOR ALL HUMANS]
There was only an empty basket that had once contained something and that short notice, so it should be safe.
I didn’t have time to examine it closely.
If I’m quick, I might still catch it…!
Just as I was about to lunge after the hand, Dohan grabbed me by the shoulder.
“It’s dangerous to go alone. You can always buy another phone.”
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
While I lost precious time, the hand slipped beneath the blackout curtain leading into EXHIBITION HALL 1.
Damn it.
No!
I roughly knocked Dohan’s hand away.
“I absolutely need that phone.”
“What, did you coat it in honey or something?”
“I coated it in my life. You two can follow at your own pace.”
Leaving Dohan staring dumbfounded at his swatted-away hand, I pulled aside the curtain leading into the first exhibition hall.
“…This is insane.”
This was no small exhibition.
The enormous hall resembled a grand art museum. The Rats had clearly been here before, as dismantling markers had been attached to the artworks like seizure notices.
What seized my attention more than anything else were the countless severed wrists.
Someone spoke to me.
“Hello. I am the docent who will assist you during your visit.”
There was nothing on the face of the creature that introduced itself as a docent.
It looked as if its hairless scalp had been stretched downward and pulled over its face. Only the bridge of its nose remained. Its eyes, mouth, and ears were all concealed beneath peach-colored skin veined with clearly visible capillaries.
Despite its grotesque appearance, it wore a perfectly neat suit.
“The theme of Hall One is ‘The Reinterpretation of Parts.’”
“…I see.”
The docent’s nailless finger pointed toward an artwork.
It was indicating the wrists I had been staring at.
Countless severed wrists hung in midair, swaying like a mobile.
Their severed ends were unnaturally clean, without a single drop of blood, making them resemble models.
But some hands had nail art. Others had calluses or moles—details that would never have been included if they were merely artificial models.
They must be real human hands.
Things that had once been parts of actual people were suspended at identical heights and identical angles.
The arrangement made it seem as though they were flaunting the fact that they had become a work of art.
That was precisely what made me feel sick.
“Would you like to know the title of this piece?”
I did not.
I had spotted a black hand clambering through the swaying mobile of severed hands.
The bastard that had stolen my phone.
“No.”
I plunged into the most horrifying mobile in the world, while the docent calmly began its explanation.
“This piece is entitled ‘Ten Thousand Left Hands.’”
Was it because the docent had spoken?
Or because I had leaped into it?
For a moment, I had the illusion that every component of the work known as Ten Thousand Left Hands had begun to writhe.