The Hospital Where People Vanish [3]
[The Hospital That Eats People]
The finale of the Four Great Urban Legends of Seoul — and the most grotesque of them all.
The gist of the legend was this:
Hello, Shaman Kim.
I'm submitting this report because something strange has been happening to me lately.
It concerns Team Leader A at the company I work for.
He and I were classmates at the same high school. Unlike me — who took extra exam retakes and got hired relatively late for one reason or another — he landed a job straight out of college and built his career fast.
The problem is that back in our school days, I bullied Team Leader A. A little. Just a very little.
Maybe that's why Team Leader A — famous around the office for being kind and good at his job — treats only me with cold, frigid formality.
Really, how petty can you get, holding a grudge over ancient history...
Sorry for the rambling. Anyway, the strangeness began when Team Leader A got into a traffic accident and was hospitalized.
I remember the company descending into total chaos at the time, since he was heading up a major project.
At first, everyone worried about him. He was diligent, warm, good to absolutely everyone.
But as time passed, people mentioned him less and less, and at some point nobody was thinking about Team Leader A at all.
In the beginning I assumed it was just the topic going stale — plenty of time had passed, after all.
I realized that wasn't it during lunch break, when I brought him up without thinking:
"That jerk Team Leader A — after all the trouble he caused half the office, when is he planning on coming back?"
"Team Leader A?"
"Yeah, he's been in the hospital over a month now, hasn't he? I heard four weeks of recovery — shouldn't he have been discharged ages ago? He was admitted to Cosmos Medical Center, right? Is he just holding out on purpose to squeeze out more insurance money?"
"Who's Team Leader A?"
"Huh?"
"This is the first I'm hearing of him... what about you?"
"No clue. You?"
"Don't know him either?"
People hadn't stopped talking about Team Leader A because the topic went stale.
Somehow — I don't know how — every single person at the company had completely forgotten Team Leader A.
What's stranger is that no matter how much time passed, Team Leader A never came back to work.
He should have been discharged after about four weeks.
And here begins the truly terrifying part of this strange story.
So, a few weeks went by with Team Leader A never returning — and then I noticed something eerie.
Someone else had, at some point, taken Team Leader A's seat.
A Team Leader B — kind, capable, and easygoing, much like the original Team Leader A.
The truly bizarre thing is this: I never once heard any announcement about a new team leader arriving, and I was never introduced to him. And yet, somehow, I already knew all about Team Leader B.
His age. His hobbies. What he liked and disliked. Even his lunch preferences.
As if he had been sitting in that seat from the very beginning.
Until I became aware of Team Leader B's existence, Team Leader A's name was still there in the company paperwork and the personnel roster — people simply didn't remember it.
But the clearer Team Leader B's presence became, the more Team Leader A's name began to vanish from the documents and the roster as well.
As though the new team leader were overwriting the original one's very existence.
Sorry, that ran long. Honestly, though, this wasn't a report asking anyone to fix anything.
Hehe, the truth is, now that the team leader's been swapped, I'm just sooo happy~.
Team Leader B isn't cold to me the way ■Team Leader was, and he's so kind. Love it~.
And thinking about it now... I do wonder whether a person called ■■■ never existed in this world to begin with~.
Yes. No, of course he didn't. It was all my imagination.
I made the whole thing up because I wanted to write a juicy story.
■···■···■■···Team Leader B, love you always!
The Hospital That Eats People was a kind of body-snatcher legend layered with perception contamination: a person admitted to the hospital is slowly forgotten by everyone around them, until — before anyone notices — someone else, presumably not human, takes their place.
"Soo-ah, who's the current Team 1 captain at the Paranormal Administration Bureau?"
"Sorry? Oh — that would be ■■■, of course."
"......"
The corruption was already underway.
The original Team 1 captain of the Bureau had been Baek Gong-ju.
And ■■■ was, right now, in the middle of eroding Baek Gong-ju's place.
Then a question occurred to me.
'Why was I still remembering Baek Gong-ju?'
The answer came easily.
Just like the tipster and Bureau Director Yoo Dong-cheol, it was because I didn't particularly like Baek Gong-ju — no, because I flat-out disliked her.
Come to think of it, how many sleepless nights had I spent watching the Bureau's every move? Given that [Baek Gong-ju = the Paranormal Administration Bureau] in all but name, I'd quietly regarded her as a thorn in my side the whole time.
'And that's exactly why I was able to save her just now, of all things...'
Ridiculously enough, this anomaly only allowed people who disliked the victim to escape the distortion of perception.
'The problem, of course, is that people who dislike the victim have zero incentive to solve the case.'
If it hadn't been for Princess Bari's request, I'd have been slowly forgetting Baek Gong-ju myself right now — and at some point I'd have simply assumed that ■■■ was the Bureau's Team 1 captain, without ever questioning it.
No — maybe it wouldn't even have been gradual. It might have happened far faster than that.
According to the tip, Team Leader B, having stolen Team Leader A's position, treated the tipster remarkably well — the exact opposite of Team Leader A.
The anomaly wooed anyone whose perception hadn't been compromised.
'It goes this far because that step is apparently necessary for a complete overwrite.'
Which meant the new Team 1 captain, ■■■, was probably busy currying favor with Director Yoo Dong-cheol as we spoke.
So that nobody would go looking for the real Baek Gong-ju. So that everyone would perceive the impostor as having always been there.
"This is maddening... Soo-ah, show me that family relation certificate again."
"Yes."
SUBJECT:Yoon Soo-jeong
FATHER:Yoon Su-hyuk
MOTHER:Baek Gong-ju
So the moment Baek Gong-ju's name vanished from that paper — would that be our time limit?
"For now, one thing's certain: Cosmos Medical Center and this anomaly are connected in some way..."
Team Leader A had been hospitalized at Cosmos Medical Center too.
'...Damn it, I still don't have nearly enough information.'
The Heaven-Shifting Star Arts had told me that Baek Dong-sik had some connection to this anomaly, and that a far larger power stood behind him.
But...
'Yes, someone from the Bureau came to see me.'
...Every word after that opening line had been nothing but terse yes-or-no answers, so I hadn't been able to extract anything further.
'Should I grab Baek Dong-sik and torture the answers out of him...?'
That's how dire the situation was. The Hospital That Eats People anomaly had a fatality rate so high that gathering information was even harder than it had been with the Suicide Train.
The victim's very existence was erased from the memories of everyone around them, so tips barely came in at all.
Worse, once the overwrite finished, even the paper and digital records disappeared — making the information trail vanish entirely.
'And yet the damn thing spread far and wide as an urban legend. Hilarious.'
For now, I'd keep abducting and interrogating Baek Dong-sik as an absolute last resort...
"Let's take another careful look at the hospital first."
If there was something hidden in the place itself — Cosmos Medical Center — then a proper investigation might yet turn up more.
And so, with my senses sharper than before, I combed through Cosmos Medical Center.
But no matter how hard I looked, there was nothing special to find.
Well, of course. If something had been there, I'd have caught it on the first sweep.
Thus the hospital tour dragged on without a single result, and the sun was already hanging low and heavy in the sky.
"I don't think searching the hospital further is going to get us anything. What should we do?"
"...Let's look around just a little longer."
I said it while watching the sunset pour through the corridor's floor-to-ceiling windows.
And then—
Bzzzzzzz.
Yoon Soo-ah's phone rang.
"Who is it?"
"Ah, it's Team Leader ■■-hyuk."
"What?"
"Soo-ah, take the family relation certificate out again."
"Yes? Yes!"
Ignoring the still-ringing phone, Yoon Soo-ah held out the certificate.
SUBJECT:Yoon Soo-jeong
FATHER:Yoon Su-hyuk
MOTHER:Baek Gong■
"Damn it..."
The distortion of the document had already begun.
"...Answer it. On speaker."
"Yes."
-·········
Yoon Soo-ah answered, but nothing came through the receiver.
There was only cold silence, and within it a strange sound — like a jar packed full of insects, scuttling and scraping against one another.
And then—
Click.
The call cut off in under a minute.
"What the hell was that?"
"Sorry? What do you mean? It was just a check-in call telling me to rest well, of course. Team LeaderYoonSuhyukmayseembluntontheoutsidebuthe'sactuallythoughtfulandhealwayslooksafterhissubordinatesandhealwaysputs himself at the front of any dangerous job so he has truly admirable character, which is why even when one of us is on vacation he personally makes check-in calls like this."
"What?"
When I stared at her in disbelief, Yoon Soo-ah only looked back at me with an expression that asked what my problem was.
Cold sweat slid down my spine.
'So this is how the replacement happens?'
It made sense, actually. With the original erased, the impostor now had to fill the empty space with its own existence.
Only then could it truly be called a swap.
"And he also asked me to pass along his thanks to you, Shaman Kim, for the Suicide Train case and the Man-Eating Tiger of Bukhansan case. He said that unlike those other unregistered psychics, you're someone society genuinely needs, and that even if pressure comes down from above, the Bureau will protect you."
"What?"
For one instant, my heart pounded — even as I recognized it for exactly what it was: the same play Team Leader B had run on the tipster.
With no one left to trust on any side but my Anomaly Raid Squad teammates, even that transparent flattery sounded unbearably sweet to my ears.
'Get a grip! If I fall for it too, it's over!'
But no matter where I dug, there were no clues to be found.
'Fine, then. I'll just abduct that bastard Baek Dong-sik and—'
And then, suddenly—
"Huh?"
A strange wave of déjà vu washed over me.
The shadow that the sunset, pouring through the corridor's window, had carved onto my body was oddly, unsettlingly familiar.
I stepped to the side and studied the full shape of the shadow etched into the wall.
"...A transmutation circle?"
The light streaming through the glass overlapped with exquisite precision against the building's interior frames, the corridor railings, the fixtures and furnishings — and in shadow, it was inscribing a specific symbol.
"No way..."
I bolted for the Cosmos Medical Center guide map hanging nearby.
"......"
The buildings of Cosmos Medical Center were arranged in circular formations to an almost unnatural degree.
And if my memory served, an oddly large number of the building exteriors had been finished with floor-to-ceiling windows.
Before the sun could set, I rushed through the hospital's interior, verifying every pattern the shadows traced.
Cosmos Medical Center was so vast that the clock was against us, but with the help of Yoon Soo-ah, Wang Lingguan, and Fey, we just barely made it in time.
"I got them all photographed!"
-Grrrrrrrrrumble!
— An organized list of the patterns from the west wing.
"Thank you!"
I compiled the symbols, sketched them onto my phone, and then drew out the transmutation circle, matching each mark to the place it had been found.
Looking at the completed circle, I doubted my own eyes.
The pinnacle of alchemy — an out-of-rank difficulty beyond even level five in Paracelsus's Alchemy Workshop.
The Philosopher's Stone.
The transmutation circle inscribed across Cosmos Medical Center in shadow had been drawn to create the Philosopher's Stone.
'Why would this be here, of all places?'
There was no way it was coincidence.
There had to be a reason. And thinking about it simply, the reason was obvious.
'It's a transmutation circle for making the Philosopher's Stone, so naturally it was carved to make the Philosopher's Stone.'
In other words...
'Cosmos Medical Center itself is a colossal workbench for manufacturing the Philosopher's Stone?'
But it was hard to wrap my head around. A Philosopher's Stone isn't something you produce just by drawing a pretty circle.
If it were that easy, why would Cosmos have raised all that hell at Lostco?
'No — set that part aside for now. Don't waste time debating whether it can actually be made. Assume it can, and move forward from there.'
Then the very first question was this: why go to the trouble of such a convoluted method? If Cosmos could have drawn a transmutation circle anywhere, then carving one into a hospital meant the hospital itself was necessary.
'What is it about hospitals, in our everyday lives, that sets them apart from every other place?'
The answer came fast.
'People die there.'
Where, per square meter, do the most human beings die?
Hospitals. Obviously.
And Cosmos Medical Center housed the largest emergency medical center in all of Seoul.
One out of every three people in Seoul who suffered trauma grave enough to threaten their life was brought here.
That many people clawed their lives back within these walls — and just as many breathed their last here too.
Which meant the reason Cosmos had insisted on carving the Philosopher's Stone's transmutation circle into a hospital, of all places, was...
'Because it's a place where people die.'
Was what they wanted death itself?
Or were they after what comes after a person dies?
'The byproduct of a finished death... the soul.'
A chill crawled up my spine.
Because I understood why Cosmos had laid this transmutation circle so cunningly beneath this place.
They were attempting to reproduce, by some means, the closest-to-perfect Philosopher's Stone that Paracelsus had ever created — [Choi Eun-ha].
...Whether they had succeeded or failed, of course, was another story entirely.
Backing up, then — what connected the transmutation circle that made the Philosopher's Stone to The Hospital That Eats People?
'That's what I need to find out, starting now.'
This was probably the limit of what I could scrape together fidgeting around on my own.
Which left two options: seize Baek Dong-sik and interrogate him...
'Or provoke the other side into making a move.'
"Yes! Hello, my little koi, welcome back — it's Shaman Kim."
Oh!! Shaman Kim's stream is on!
Another all-nighter stream again, isn't it!?
Ooooooh!
So what are you hunting this time?
"This is the final episode of Here Comes Shaman Kim Season 1 — the last of Seoul's Four Great Urban Legends, the Hospital That Eats People arc. Let's go live."
I adjusted the camera angle until Cosmos Medical Center filled the frame completely — and flashed a wide, toothy grin.