Chapter 82
Song Ah Rin looked at the fallen man with a stiff expression.
I couldn’t wrap my head around the situation.
Surely, I had left the room with Song Ah Rin, and now before my eyes was a man who had collapsed with his throat slit.
“Song Ah Rin.”
“…”
“What’s going on?”
At my words, Song Ah Rin turned to look at me.
“What do you mean, ‘what’s going on’?”
“I have no memory.”
“…So you’re saying the person who was quietly standing beside me until just now wasn’t you?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, then started explaining the situation.
“Karl confessed to me and died.”
“I’m aware of that part. Did you perhaps reject his confession?”
“No.”
A few drops of blood splattered on her face.
“That guy just appeared out of nowhere.”
She wiped the blood off her face with her sleeve.
Red stains had marked the white clothes she was wearing.
“He just appeared?”
“It was as if he suddenly teleported right in front of me.”
“…What was I doing?”
“You were just standing beside me.”
“Without saying anything?”
“Yeah. No, actually… I suddenly came to my senses and found myself in the church.”
She answered with her eyebrows furrowed.
I mulled over Song Ah Rin’s words.
Coming to my senses in the church.
In other words, was she experiencing something similar to what I went through?
“If that’s the case…”
At my words, she nodded as she looked at me.
“Something happened.”
“…”
I gazed at the man, whose throat had been cut horizontally and who was now dead.
A translucent window appeared above his head.
Wait, what?
I hurriedly looked back at the man.
My eyes had never reacted when witnessing death before.
[Name: Karl]
[Age: 22]
[Specialty: Actor]
[Talent: Actor]
[Background: He became a sacrifice of the plot, handing over his body, and in the end, even his soul.]
[Weakness: In a terrific play, there are always manipulators and directors.]
“Song Ah Rin.”
She turned her gaze toward me.
“This person… no… anyway, he’s not dead.”
“How can that be? If his throat is torn like that, he must be dead, usually.”
Song Ah Rin frowned as she looked at the bloodied Karl.
“…”
I stared intently at the man.
Blood flowed from his torn throat, and his fingers twitched.
Twitching fingers?
As a shock jolted through my temple, I urgently grabbed the back of Song Ah Rin’s neck and dove to the ground.
“Ahhh!”
Screaming, Song Ah Rin rolled on the floor beside me.
Something glinted and narrowly swept past us.
-Swish.
Suddenly, his body began to twitch.
Soon enough, his arm lifted unnaturally, and his neck twisted.
“Hey, that’s strange.”
“I know without you saying it.”
Covered in dust, Song Ah Rin got up, and I stood up, dusting myself off alongside her.
In a bizarre posture, he stood up. It looked like—
“A puppet!”
Song Ah Rin shouted and stepped back, and I put my hand inside my coat—
No gun.
“Damn it.”
With the mindset of picking something up, I pulled out the manual.
Seeing that, Song Ah Rin yelled incredulously.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“Use it to hit his head?”
With a creaking movement, Karl swung his hand.
-Swish!
The edge of his hand sliced the air, producing a sound that shouldn’t come from an ordinary strike.
It was too late to dodge.
I hastily raised the manual to block the attack, and with a loud thud, the manual shook.
A tingling sensation coursed through my body.
How is this human strength?
While I was blocking the strike with both hands, a familiar voice rang in my head scolding me.
“No matter how urgent it is, you shouldn’t handle a book like that!”
The voice of a child I often heard in the theater echoed in my mind, and at that moment, as if a string had snapped, Karl’s body slumped.
Before his stringless body fell to the ground—
“What’s that all about?”
His form vanished like smoke.
Song Ah Rin muttered as if she had lost her spirit, and I quickly examined the manual.
Despite being struck with such incredible force, the manual’s cover remained unscathed.
After catching my breath, I looked around.
Except for the blood scattered on the floor, it was as if Karl had never existed at all.
“It’s like a ghost’s performance.”
Song Ah Rin murmured, staring at the church ceiling.
“Maybe someone up there is watching us?”
“That’s certainly possible.”
I looked up following Song Ah Rin’s words.
A light, resembling a spotlight, shone through the stained glass, but I couldn’t see anything beyond that.
“At least, nothing is visible.”
“…Is this really a romance?”
Song Ah Rin looked at me seriously.
“I’m not someone who reads a lot of romance novels, but in all the ones I’ve read, there’s never a story where someone confesses and then gets their throat slit before hearing an answer.”
“Well, that’s true.”
Even morning dramas don’t have such developments.
“So I thought…”
Song Ah Rin glanced at her blood-spattered clothes.
“Isn’t this more of a thriller?”
“…Like the ‘Red Lady’?”
Song Ah Rin nodded.
“So does that mean we have to resolve this as if it were a romance again?”
“…That’s what worries me.”
Song Ah Rin looked down at the bloodstained floor.
“If we’re examining the reason why that man named Karl died, it comes down to just one thing.”
“…He confessed to you, right?”
“Right.”
She nodded.
“What if the story is about him dying because he confessed to me?”
“So you’re saying that Song Ah Rin is the cause of death? Like in the ‘Red Lady’?”
“That sounds a bit unpleasant when you put it that way.”
She frowned, yet nodded.
“I suppose it could be seen that way.”
“…But it isn’t wrong.”
Assuming that the ‘Theater Company’ is the culprit, it isn’t incorrect.
Let’s think from the perspective of the theater company.
There are basically two ways to dismantle the theater company.
First, change the genre.
By ambiguously mixing genres to prevent the identification of the correct one, we could confuse Song Ah Rin and me.
Second, after that, defeat the weakened villains.
In ‘Red Lady’, the lady herself was the villain and an easy target.
So how do we resolve this?
Simple. We pass the blame for the problem onto ourselves.
Soon, a translucent window appeared before my eyes.
[Critical: 0->1]
“…Damn it.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My horrific imagination came true.”
I turned my gaze away from Song Ah Rin, whose expression was puzzled.
The fact that a critical hit had occurred meant that my deduction was right.
However, that didn’t mean I could just shoot Song Ah Rin.
Unless there was a guarantee of retrying after death, if Song Ah Rin dies and becomes a puppet like Karl, death could bring about even more horrific outcomes.
Was there anything else that could help?
I opened the manual.
[Office Staff Manual]
[PLZ – Save the Manual]
1. The manual is delicate. Please handle it with care.
2. No matter how strong the manual is, avoid using it as a shield.
3. Treat the manual like an old friend.
Is it really not alive?
With a questioning feeling, I began flipping through the pages, and new information started to appear.
[Office Staff Manual]
[KQ – When no options other than death are visible]
1. Many Management Agency employees often come to think that death is the only solution when encountering isolated objects.
2. However, the life granted to you is usually only one, and if you die from a wrong choice, you will go to a place from which you cannot return.
3. When choosing death, consider carefully; do it only if you believe that death is false or if you are prepared to come back for sure.
4. Even if none of this applies, when it’s time to die, please refer to [T – Methods of Suicide].
5. But do not forget, human structure consists of body, mind, spirit, and
T section, huh?
I began to flip through the manual.
T section… T section…
[Office Staff Manual]
[T – Methods of Suicide]
[Not applicable to the individual.]
What’s this?
“Song Ah Rin.”
“What?”
“Do you want to see the T section of the manual?”
“Are you telling me to die?”
Song Ah Rin glared at me.
“No, I’m not. It’s just that I can’t see it.”
“Then maybe it’s not the time to die. I—”
While Song Ah Rin was grumbling and opening the book,
-Tap, tap, tap!
We exchanged glances as the sound of something tapping on the window reached us.
“What is that noise?”
“It’s the sound of something tapping on the window.”
-Tap, tap! Tap, tap!
The tapping grew stronger.
“Shall we open it?”
“I’ll do it.”
-Clang!
But before I could actually open the window, it shattered, and something came flying in.
“Ahhh!”
Song Ah Rin screamed and clung to me, as something black flew in fast.
It had wings and was flapping…
“A crow?”
It was a large crow.
The crow dropped something that was black and shiny.
“…Isn’t that a smartphone?”
Song Ah Rin muttered in surprise.
It was truly a smartphone.
Wearing a dress and tuxedo but now suddenly a smartphone.
As I was thinking that, the smartphone rang.
A restricted caller ID appeared on the screen.
“I’ll answer it.”
Slowly picking up the smartphone, I answered the call.
“Hello?”
[Oh! Jae Heon answered! Chae Yeon!]
<Isn’t he right next to you? He can hear you.>
[Jae Heon! Can you hear me? It’s Yu Da On!]
<Are you hurt? What about your injuries?>
The familiar voices of two people echoed loudly over the phone.
“No, wait a minute. Da On? Chae Yeon?”
“What?”
Song Ah Rin’s eyes widened upon hearing my words, and soon the voice from the phone rang out again.
[That’s right! It’s us! Jae Heon!]
“I can hear you!”
[We don’t have time! This call will probably get cut off soon…! I’ll tell you what I heard!]
Yu Da On’s voice echoed in my ears.
[Imagine a set!]
Find the set and the moon.
I understood.
I hastily looked outside the shattered window.
In the darkness where nothing was visible, only something round, resembling sunlight, floated in the sky.
