Is the National Museum of Korea... Alive? (1)

Friday morning. The day of the outdoor class.

Mom and Dad had already left for the hospital, and my sister—dressed up and looking unfairly pretty—was on her way out too. I almost grabbed her to ask a favor... and then thought better of it.

The National Museum of Korea was over in Yongsan, and Uihan University sat near the line between Seoul and Gyeonggi. If she dropped me off, she'd be late for lecture.

"Got something to say?"

"Nah~. Study hard."

"What's going on? It's fine, just tell me."

I'd started to speak and stopped, and now she was pressing me, curious what I'd been about to say. It really wasn't anything.

"We've got outdoor class today. I was only gonna ask you for a ride. That's all."

"Oh, it's already that time of year? You're a third-year, so... this time it'd be the National Museum of Korea, right?"

"Yeah. I don't really want to go, but they're taking attendance."

"Aigoo, you should've told me yesterday! I'm trying to leave on time—what kind of moment is this to bring it up?"

Fair enough.

She was only in an ordinary sky-blue dress over black leggings, and still the clothes hung on her like a crime. A haute-couture mannequin, worlds apart from a bargain-bin rack like me. She hesitated a moment, then opened her mouth with an apologetic look, as if she'd already decided it wouldn't work.

"There isn't time. Sorry."

"It's fine. My fault for not saying anything sooner. I can take a taxi, so go on."

"Next time, tell me first, all right?"

"I got it, so hurry up and go."

"Heehee."

She giggled at the playful little shove and headed out. Time for me to get moving too, then? Even by taxi it would take over thirty minutes.

I glanced at the clock pointing at eight, threw on my school jacket, and stepped out the front door with Franc.

Our school had a tradition of holding an outdoor class every year, and all three grades went on the same day. Because it was tradition, they didn't fix a date in advance. They simply picked a clear day sometime around April, so the thing never got canceled.

The program itself was nothing special. Nine hundred students couldn't all gather in one place, so they split the first- and third-years into Group A and the second-years into Group B. Group A went to the National Museum of Korea. Group B hiked Achasan, the mountain split down the middle between Seoul and Guri.

Last year I'd climbed Achasan. I'd been pouring sweat and grumbling about why anyone would hike a mountain at all, when a P.E. teacher passing by informed me it was to build stamina. Build stamina? If you want stamina, you exercise regularly—you don't get fit off one lousy hike! A normal person who barely works out can kill themselves climbing a mountain and all they walk away with is wrecked knees!

That day had been truly the worst. I was still getting used to my self-imposed outcast status, I didn't know anyone, my body was dying... and my sister, who'd been looking out for me without making a show of it, had gone off to the museum on the student-council officer's privilege she'd held since her second year. It had been awful enough to make me cry.

Still, if it were now, hiking might not be so bad. I wouldn't get tired, for one. There'd be kids gathering around me, and Franc would be there, so I wouldn't be bored.

Han Go-eun at the head of them, then the popular five—Kim Chang-hyun, Cho Min-ho, Su Yu-ri, Han Go-eun, and Kang So-ra on top of that. For some reason, whenever there was any excuse to gather, they always ended up clustered around me. It had been pretty uncomfortable at first, but I didn't have to pay anyone special mind, accommodate them, or manage the mood. I was basically the group's symbol, and I'd adapted fast.

Even during class there were activities that required groups of six or three, and this way I didn't have to stand around awkwardly when the teams were being formed.

I'd worried traffic might make me late, but fortunately I made it right on nine.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

I got out at the museum entrance and went in a little farther, and near a neatly landscaped pond, kids in the same uniform as mine were swarming. No one was still trickling in, so I seemed to be the last to arrive. Figures. Most of the kids at school were strict about time. Except Kang So-ra.

"Seoha~! Over here, over here~!"

I was scanning for my class under a downpour of stares when I spotted Han Go-eun near the pond, waving me over.

"Jung Seoha~? You're a minute late. Try to get here a little earlier!"

"Yes."

I ducked my head to the homeroom teacher scolding me. She pushed her glasses up, checked the roster on the teachers' tablet, then clapped to gather the class.

"All right, all right~! Attention! Look at your teacher! You there, quit the chatter!"

She called out the kids buzzing with excitement, and once their eyes were on her, she launched into the briefing.

"You saw all this back in first year, so it probably won't be much fun~! But it's been two years, so your memory's fuzzy, right? Just ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠think of it as refreshing what you remember and look around! The goal is the Phase Hall in the basement, so tour the exhibition halls first this morning! And at lunch we'll do another headcount here, so no running off~! If you do, it'll count as leaving early without permission! If you feel sick or something's wrong, call or text your teacher..."

"You're a little late?"

I was still listening to the notices when Han Go-eun nudged my elbow and spoke.

"Caught a taxi at eight, but traffic was bad."

"Right, right. I left an hour early too, and the cars jammed me up, so I only just got here."

Su Yu-ri gave me a sheepish fellow-latecomers smile, and I only nodded.

"Your odds of entering the Phase World aren't zero, so don't play sick and don't cut corners—look at everything carefully, one thing at a time! Understood~?!"

"Yes~!"

The class answered in a ragged chorus.

"Then gather back here at noon, and you're dismissed~!"

The other classes seemed to have finished roll call too. Kids clustered in twos and threes and scattered through the museum. Enough time had passed that I wasn't drawing the excessive attention and stares I'd gotten the day after finishing my second Phase World run.

...Excessive, mind you. Excessive.

Even as they dispersed, people were staring and snapping photos like it was a festival. The first-years, whom I rarely crossed paths with, were especially unbearable. Girls from other classes—faces I didn't know, let alone names—came up asking if I'd walk around with them, and every last one of them was shut down at the Han Go-eun line.

Convenient. The Han Go-eun Barrier.

"Man~, that Han Go-eun Barrier is no joke, huh?"

"What?"

Kim Chang-hyun said out loud exactly what I'd been thinking, and it startled me. Han Go-eun, of course, did not take the remark as well-meant in the slightest. She lit both fuses and started pecking at him.

For a ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠second I wondered whether I'd get the same treatment if I said it myself. I did not test the theory.

Leaving the two of them to what looked an awful lot like a marital spat, Su Yu-ri turned to the rest of us.

"Where should we start?"

"Um... m-maybe we should go to the Phase Hall in the basement first, like the teacher said? Th-they added a lot of exhibits this time, I heard."

"Ugh, what a paaain~. We already saw almost all of it in first year~. Why agaaain~."

Cho Min-ho and Kang So-ra, reactions at opposite poles.

"Ahaha. Still, it's been two years. Sora, you've pretty much forgotten it too, haven't you?"

"Even if I memorized it, it wouldn't help my life any~. I just wanna rest in the libraryyy."

"Sigh. Seoha, anywhere you want to see?"

"Anywhere's fine."

"Mmm. Go-eun. Chang-hyun. You two stop fighting and come over here."

Watching Su Yu-ri call everyone in to debate the route, I sighed on the inside.

The reason I'd said anywhere was fine was simple. In first year, my sister had chased me all the way to the museum on her student-council officer's rights, dragged me from the third floor down to basement level one, and made me look at every last thing for seven hours—and write a reflection essay on top of it. It hadn't been just me back then; other kids had been there too, and having my sister fuss over every little detail had been mortifying. Stupidly enough, that embarrassment had stuck, so I still remembered the museum's layout and all the rest of it.

But something... a feeling ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that tickled at my nerves made me turn and look around the museum.

"...?"

Franc — Telepathy

"Seoha? Is something the matter?"

Today Franc was in a sky-blue striped dress with thin shoulder straps. She followed the line of my gaze, then turned back with a curious look.

Seoha — Telepathy

"It's nothing. Something... I got a snag of a feeling off the museum, so I was looking. But even checking with Spatial Perception, there's nothing unusual."

Then Han Go-eun stepped forward and raised her voice.

"Aaah~! We're never gonna agree! Let's just start from the third floor, work our way down to basement one, eat lunch, and spend the afternoon resting in the library! How's that?!"

The mood said refuse, and you'd get hit.

"I don't wa—gack!"

Sure enough, Kim Chang-hyun tried to object and caught a hard smack across the back from a double-fused Han Go-eun.

"If you don't like it, go play by yourself!"

"Use your words—why are you hitting me?!"

"Because I figured you'd only come to your senses if you got hit! What about it?!"

And the two of them were at it again. Couldn't they see the class president sighing? Or Kang So-ra? I'd have to step in.

"Save the marital spat for later. Let's look around from the third floor."

"What marital spat?!"

Han Go-eun and Kim Chang-hyun spun at the same time and yelled it in perfect unison.

It is a marital spat, though.

‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The National Museum was described as having a first, second, and third floor, but in reality the building was a first floor, a mezzanine, and a second. Then the Phase World had appeared, they'd built a special Phase Hall, and a basement level had been added. You could tour the place end to end in roughly two hours, but the teacher had said today's purpose was the special exhibition in the Phase Hall, so most of the kids would skim the basement in the morning and then go play in the nearby park. Obvious.

But under the lead of our diligent class president and Han Go-eun—who didn't seem the diligent type, and was anyway—we decided to see the whole museum, and we went up to the third floor first. More diligent kids than I'd expected were already up there. Or was I the slack one?

We wandered the third floor with the others—white for a theme, finished in clean marble tile—looking over sculptures, crafts, photographs, paintings, and the rest... but hardly anything had changed from two years ago, and it was boring. If anything, the dark history of being dragged around by my sister kept surfacing, and all I wanted was to walk out of the museum.

Cho Min-ho and the girls were marveling and reading the little plaques, while Kim Chang-hyun and I hung back, staring blankly, and watched them do it.

"Hey, Seoha. You having fun?"

"Not really. Watching the girls is more fun."

Franc, overhearing the two of us, started looking at me with a slow, spinning smile. For some reason that expression felt dangerous. D-did I say something wrong?

Su Yu-ri matched the expression and the hand pose of a stone Buddha beside her, and Han Go-eun and Kang So-ra were dying of laughter, snapping photos and making a racket. Yeah. That side was definitely more entertaining.

"Right? Doesn't look like much has changed between two years ago and now, but I don't get what the girls find so fun that they're studying it that hard."

"They say girls really get into the atmosphere."

"Ugh, I'm bored. Weather like this, a game of basketball would be perfect. Haaawn~."

Kim Chang-hyun laced his fingers behind his head and yawned long and loud without bothering to cover his mouth. Han Go-eun glared daggers. He flinched, dropped his hands, and started reading her mood.

I snorted, pulled my eyes off the girls, and looked around.

The stone statue carved in the image of Shakyamuni stood against a wall whose floor wore a light-brown bark-grain pattern, the wall itself blackened and studded all over with white dots like polka dots. Some kind of exhibition design meant to make the statue stand out, I figured.

...But something had been needling me for a while now. No—more precisely, Spatial Perception had started to feel irritated. The direction was the exhibition room of the special Phase Hall underground, and the problem was that I couldn't pin down what the irritating sensation actually was.

The feeling bothered me enough that I swept the basement with Spatial Perception several times, and still I couldn't point at a thing and say that was the problem. I focused again and ran the sense slowly through the underground. Down there were several taxidermied aberrants, minerals gathered from the Phase World, plant specimens, and a good number of pieces of extremely old, corroded equipment on display. What stood out among them was a rectangular box with a strange pattern, set at the center of the Phase Hall...

"Not just the box. Most of the exhibits are holding Phase Power, even if it's only a trace."

"Huh? What'd you say?"

"Nothing. Talking to myself."

Kim Chang-hyun turned at the mutter. I shook my head and brushed it off.

The more I thought about it, the worse I started to feel. An unpleasant pounding, the kind you get watching a horror movie, kept getting worse. I gestured for the kids, who were about to move on, to stop.

"Huh? What?"

"Let's get out."

Su Yu-ri blinked, not understanding why I suddenly wanted to leave, but sharp-eyed Kang So-ra took one look at my face, then wordlessly caught Su Yu-ri and Han Go-eun by the arms and started walking them out. Kim Chang-hyun glanced at me too and took the bewildered Cho Min-ho with him. I followed, and the other kids who'd been hovering around me trailed after us like ducklings.

Kim Chang-hyun, now beside me, asked in a low voice.

"Something weird show up?"

Sensing something was off, not just Han Go-eun but the girls who'd been tagging after me shut their mouths and glanced my way. I raised my voice a little so they'd hear it too.

"No. But something's been getting on my nerves since earlier. It's an unpleasant feeling."

On a normal day I would have just turned it off. Spatial Perception was telling me something was wrong, though, and ignoring that would be stupid. Besides, my heart was pounding harder and harder. The cold in my chest was unpleasant. Like a hidden blade was about to come flying and bury itself in me.

I didn't explain in detail, but they didn't take the words lightly. Their faces hardened, and they picked up the pace, heading for the stairs. Kids from other classes and other grades who'd overheard started following behind us too.

"Wh-what do we do? Shouldn't we call the teacher and tell the kids to get clear?"

Su Yu-ri, thinking like a class president, spoke up. But what was I supposed to say? I feel bad for some reason. Please send everyone away?

"...I looked over the whole building with my detection ability, but I can't pinpoint what's wrong. It might just be me overreacting."

When I paused, the kids tensed and leaned in.

"For now, let's get outside and tell the teachers..."

In that instant a filthy feeling hit me, the same kind I'd had just before I met the Imoogi, and my heart started hammering. Goosebumps rose on my skin. My mood turned foul, and cold sweat began streaming down my forehead.

Don't tell me a Calamity—a highest-rank aberrant—is actually about to show up? This is reality.

Han Go-eun and Kang So-ra saw my face twist and the sweat running, and their own faces went bloodless.

"Ah... fuck. Hey! Run!!"

The moment I shouted, not just Han Go-eun's group but the kids around us all broke for the entrance at once, and I followed, pushing Spatial Perception to its limit and scouring everything in reach. The kids from other classes who'd been trailing us with uneasy faces saw me shout and run, and started running without a second word. A whole crowd moving together like that—first-years and other third-years who spotted us from elsewhere wore a what's going on? look, and then just ran with us for the time being.

"Huff—hoo—hah! Hey, Seoha. We good now?!"

We ran all the way out to where we'd gathered that morning, and behind us most of the school's kids had followed, panting hard. Had every one of them come out just from watching what I did?

It wasn't that strange. Ever since aberrants had started appearing in reality, we got evacuation and shelter drills several times a year. Museum staff and the few other visitors were visibly flustered at the sight of us suddenly stampeding out.

I counted with Spatial Perception and came up about thirty-one short. Inside the building, only six hadn't made it out, stuck in the restrooms. So where were the other twenty-five? I swept the area and found them playing here and there in the park beside the museum.

A hundred-odd kids stood around me in a loose ring, and every one of them was looking at me like they wanted me to say something.

"In the Phase World, I saw an aberrant that was insanely huge and terrifying. Right before I ran into it, I got this incredibly filthy feeling. I just felt that same thing. And I'm still feeling it."

"What? Then..."

"But I don't see an aberrant. That's why I said it might just be me overreacting."

I was brushing the goosebumps off my forearm when Su Yu-ri looked around, then let out a long breath of relief.

"Haaa. S-still, in that situation, evacuating is the right call. Once something happens, it's too late."

Swept along with the kids or not, the student affairs teacher was looking around and coming toward the cluster. Now that I noticed, teachers from the other classes were standing here and there with flustered faces too.

"You there... you're Jung Seoha? What is all this."

The student affairs teacher, mid-forties and looking stiff and prickly, was briefly startled to see me, then spoke again.

"Why did you run all the way out here? And why did those kids follow you?"

Looking at the kids spread out and staring this way, I answered.

"My ability kept warning me about something, so I ran outside to get clear, and the other kids chased after us."

"Hah. An ability, you say..."

Word had already spread through the school that I was a heavily watched major rookie, and that Madam herself had an eye on me. Having heard me out, the student affairs teacher didn't seem to think it was a joke. He pulled out his phone with a complicated face, and the kids who'd been leaning in to listen were just letting out their breaths when—

⛧ GUUUUUUUNG— ⛧

A groan rose from the museum. Not the earth. Something else.

"...?!"

"Huh? Wh-what's that sound?"

"The ground... I think it's shaking?"

"It's the museum!"

Not a rumble of the earth so much as something's groan spread from the museum, and the ground trembled faintly. Screams erupted all around in an instant and the place turned to chaos. The teachers soothed the screaming kids and hurriedly started herding them toward the road.

"You there! Don't just stand around gawking—get outside! Move!"

"Kids, don't run—brisk walk! You'll get hurt if you run, so don't run!"

"Student affairs teacher! Shouldn't we do a student headcount?!"

"Let's clear the children who've already gathered first! Kids, don't push the person in front of you. Walk calmly!"

"S-Seohaaa? Sh-shouldn't we be running too?"

"Yeah! You're still a minor, you can't fight! I said let's go!"

Su Yu-ri and Han Go-eun grabbed my arms and pulled without stopping to argue. I planted my feet and glared toward the museum. Seeing me refuse to budge, Franc drifted through the air with a face full of worry, looking back and forth between me and the building, and the five kids, Kang So-ra among them, were fidgeting anxiously.

Something was wrong. Why couldn't I feel an aberrant's Phase Power? And what had that ground-shake and that groan been? I should send these kids off first.

"You guys get clear first."

"What about you?!"

"I need to report it to the Ability User Association with my Certifier. The teachers look like they're calling now, but if I report through the Certifier, they might move faster."

The staff and visitors still inside the museum had all collapsed the moment that eerie sound spread. The six kids who hadn't made it out were down in restrooms and lounges too. If I told them where those kids were, wouldn't that help the rescue?

"R-right. Be careful!"

Kim Chang-hyun held me with a hard look, nodded, then caught the class president and Su Yu-ri—neither of whom wanted to leave—by the arms and took off toward the road. Cho Min-ho kept looking back at me as he ran after him...

"Kang So-ra, you're not going?"

"You've got something you're counting on, I suppose~, but watch yourself~. If this were a game, you'd be a newbie, you know~?"

Even in this situation, worrying about me in that slightly tense, languid voice... that was worry, right? She worried, then turned and ran.

The Certifier hummed to life. I hit the emergency call button and tried to connect to the Korea branch of the Ability User Association. It picked up before the ring had sounded three times.

📞 Certifier — World Phase Ability User Association

Yoon Ji-ae, Counselor, Korea General Branch

"This is Yoon Ji-ae, counselor at the Korea General Branch of the World Phase Ability User Association. How may I help you?"

"This is Jung Seoha of Time River. A strange roar and a ground tremor just happened at the National Museum of Korea, so I'm calling to report it."

📞 Certifier — Korea General Branch

Yoon Ji-ae

"Confirmed that the signal originated from an ability user's Certifier. I'll connect you to the External Special Operations Division."

Whew. Judging by the urgent faces of the teachers far off, receivers to their ears, they were trying to report to the Ability User Association and not getting through.