The Hospital Where People Vanish [4]

"Wow, so many of you tuning in even at this late hour?"

"Um. 'Behind-the-scenes exorcism'? It's really nothing like that, ah, you see..."

"Ah... so the provinces have their share of problems too. Well... should the opportunity arise, I will consider a provincial tour before long."

The exorcism broadcast hadn't even properly begun — we were still just shooting the breeze — and yet the viewer count was already climbing at a steep angle. By the time Kim Do-sa got tangled up with a squad of nurses at the entrance of Cosmos Medical Center, all of them insisting that filming was strictly prohibited, the count blew past four hundred thousand.

"What I'm saying is, there's an anomaly inside this hospital that makes people disappear. If it doesn't get exorcised, something terrible will happen."

"No matter how many times you say that, filming inside the hospital is prohibited."

"Excuse me — you're Kim Do-sa, right? Could I get an autograph—"

"Nurse Park! What are you doing standing around? Stop them!"

And while the standoff at the entrance dragged on...

"......"

"......"

A group of men in black suits, in no way mistakable for patients, slipped past the arguing nurses and Kim Do-sa and stepped into Cosmos Medical Center. They strode right past the reception desk without so much as a glance.

"I can't believe they tracked us this far already..."

"This has become an annoying bit of work, hasn't it."

"At this point, it'd be simpler to just kill them and keep their mouths shut—"

"Could you? Both Section Chief Hwang and the Director have marked that man as a key to building the new era."

"He's still just one possibility among many, isn't he?"

"What can we do? Lowly grunts like us get cut down when we're told to cut down."

"Tch. The entrance is properly sealed, I trust?"

"Yes. Though given that Kim Do-sa fellow's skills are far from ordinary, I'd say we should run another inspection to be sure."

"Fine."

And so the two psychics employed by Cosmos made their rounds through the hospital, layering spells over the entrance to the Inner Space and tidying everything up as neatly as they could.

"Looks like Kim Do-sa is heading back in the end."

One of the suited men — the junior of the two — said it while checking his phone.

"Well, what else would he do?"

The senior one allowed himself a dry chuckle at the sight of Kim Do-sa outside the hospital, grumbling as he broadcast to his viewers. He'd been furious about wasting his day off on some random troublemaker, but watching that pitiful display had soothed his temper considerably.

"Right, let's head back."

"Yes. Honestly, getting worked over by a two-bit streamer like that — what a way to spend a day..."

After the two of them left the hospital, still griping between themselves, the man who had been tailing them the entire time they made their rounds murmured quietly:

"Sorry for all the hard work, fellas."

The voice belonged to Kim Do-sa — who was, at that very moment, still complaining away on the stream. But if the Kim Do-sa on the broadcast was still outside... then who exactly was this?

The answer, of course—

"Substitute deployed. The effect was spectacular."

— was Kim the Exorcist, Kim Do-sa's body double.

Kim Do-sa had summoned Kim the Exorcist under the pretense of a collab stream, cast the Narrative Compulsion [It's Hard to Tell Through a Screen] — the very trick Jeong-in had fallen for — and gone live. The result: Cosmos's psychics mobilized to guard against any eventuality, while the real Kim Do-sa, shapeshifting continuously with his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Heavenly River Tree transformation art, shadowed them the whole way.

Since he was already a sorcerer hovering at the very threshold of Special Grade, the Cosmos agents never once saw through his tail. In the end, they'd walked straight into a hollow trap and handed over a hint about the anomaly with their own two hands.

"Mr. Yi-yeon, did you manage to get any leads?"

Yoon Soo-ah asked after confirming that Kim the Exorcist had ended the stream and gotten home safely, then returning to my side.

"I did. It's mirrors."

The psychics Cosmos had sent had gone from ward to ward, layering their spells over the full-length mirrors at every nurses' station and reception desk.

"Mirrors?"

"A repertoire so common it's practically a cliché in this breed of fake urban legend."

I mean, think about it — isn't it everywhere in ghost stories? The one where a fake inside the mirror tries to take your place?

"We'll know the details once we check for ourselves."

I cast the transformation spell on Soo-ah as well — [Turned Her Into a Nurse] — and approached the full-length mirror at the main building's reception desk. The moment I drew close to the glass, my attention scattered, and other tasks I ought to be doing drifted naturally into my head.

'This is hardly the time, but I need to explain the sudden stream cutoff to the viewers, and finish taking over the warehouse hideout, and then, and then...' — ah. So this is the kind of spell it is.'

I raised my Do-ryeok and reached my hand toward the mirror.

Kiiiiiiing!

With a piercing shriek, the spell laid on the mirror shattered in a single stroke. However masterfully a spell might be crafted, it was helpless before a pure difference in weight class.

"Ugh! I— right, what I was supposed to be doing just now was..."

It seemed Soo-ah had taken the mirror's spell full force.

"You all right?"

"Yes."

Her expression suggested she was anything but, but she insisted she was fine, so we stood before the mirror together.

"Hmm... you call it a lead, but just staring at it like this, I honestly don't know what we're supposed to do with it..."

"Fair point."

But Cosmos's psychics wouldn't have bothered casting a perception-dulling spell on those mirrors for nothing. There had to be something in them.

And as I studied the glass, a single fact suddenly struck me.

"The mirror's pretty dirty, isn't it?"

It wasn't a stain, or grime, or anything burnt in — just a strangely whitish, cloudy patch.

"Wait. Don't tell me..."

Everyone, at least once in their life, has breathed on a window or a mirror and drawn a picture in the fog. Given time, the condensation fades — and of course, the drawing fades away with it.

The cloudiness on the full-length mirror was the residue of exactly that: something drawn on the fogged glass. But that only told us something had been drawn; the figure itself was far too blurred to make out.

Still, there was a way to check.

"Haaah."

I breathed onto the cloudy patch, and the picture once drawn there rose back to the surface. The oil from the fingertips that had drawn it the first time still lingered in the glass.

"Bingo."

That was what had been written on the mirror.

"Tir... na... nÓg?"

It was a word I'd never heard before.

— "What was it you just said?"

And to my surprise, it was Fey who reacted to the word.

"Do you have some idea what this name might be?"

— "Tír na nÓg is the name of the land of the fairies."

"Oh? Are you from there yourself, Fey?"

Fey, looking uncharacteristically scandalized, shook her head vigorously.

— "Do not jest. We are hardly from such a backwater."

Huh. So even the fairy realm has regional discrimination. What a tragedy.

Be that as it may, one thing was certain.

"Writing the word Tír na nÓg on the mirror must be some kind of condition."

"A condition for... what?"

"For entering the Inner ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Space, most likely."

And waiting inside that Inner Space would almost certainly be one of Cosmos's crucial secrets — one I had known nothing about until now.

"Ready?"

"Yes..."

That instant, the peculiar sensation that always wrapped around me when falling into the Inner Space — that feeling of space itself warping — took hold. Perhaps because training the Shukuchi had sharpened my sense of space far beyond what it once was—

'The texture of the Inner Space feels much clearer than before.'

Thanks to that, I managed to map out its structure before I'd even finished falling.

'A perfect replica of the Cosmos Medical Center layout.'

The main building where I'd originally stood, every annex and wing — all of it reproduced flawlessly. And most important of all—

'There are a lot of people inside.'

Signs of numerous presences stirred throughout the Inner Space.

'Cosmos people?'

I'd braced myself for a possible fight at the worst-case scenario when I dropped into the Inner Space of the Hospital Where People Vanish. But what greeted me instead was an utterly deserted main reception desk, and—

"Ugh!"

— Yoon Soo-ah, who had entered right behind me, and no one else.

"You okay?"

"Yes... I'm all right..."

Once Soo-ah had steadied herself, we began making our way through the Inner Space's Cosmos Medical Center. There was a high probability that Baek Gong-ju was somewhere in here too — but the main reception desk was empty, and there was no sign of anyone besides the two of us.

Then what were all those presences I'd felt at the moment of falling?

The answer lay in the inpatient wing, where the patients were housed.

"··················."

"You hear that?"

"Yes."

The moment we stepped into the inpatient wing, a sound rose up — like countless insects rustling inside jars.

...It was the same sound I'd heard during my phone call with Team Leader ■■.

"Careful. It sounds like people are gathered in here."

"People from Cosmos?"

"I can't say that much for certain."

They might be Cosmos's people — or they might be people twisted into something else by the anomaly. But the moment I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠checked the nameplate of the first patient room, a question mark bloomed in my head. Because instead of any patient's name, the plate read:

And from beyond the door, the insects kept rustling.

"Wait... those are people's voices, aren't they?"

The sound I'd taken for scuttling bugs was in fact the murmur of a great crowd of people, muttering low and ceaseless. I pushed down the dread crawling up my spine and opened the door.

The ward I'd opened was the cheapest room in Cosmos Medical Center's inpatient wing — an eight-bed shared room. And fittingly for the bargain rate, every single bed in it was occupied, not one empty.

The problem was that every person lying there was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, mumbling something ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over and over under their breath.

TheHeadlessManlosthisheadinacaraccidentandunabletopassonbecauseofhisgrudgehegoesafteranyonewhodrivessrangelyontheroadsandcutsofftheirheadbuthe movesasfastasacarsolosinghimisimpossible...

Every person in the room was chanting the exact same ghost story.

My shock at the grotesque tableau lasted only a moment — what gnawed at me far more was the name itself. The Headless Man.

A chilling hypothesis snapped into focus in my mind.

Tak.

"M-Mr. Yi-yeon!?"

I checked the nameplate of the room across the hall.

TheToothlessWomanhadallherteethpulledbyadentistsmistakeduringsurgeryandoutofhergrudgesheshowspeoplehermouthwithnoteethandasksAmIprettyandiftheysayno...

Another message from the stand-in broadcast. I went on checking every nameplate in the ward.

Mass-produced names, as if stamped from a mold — and the occupants within, chanting run-down mashups of ghost stories you've seen a dozen times before, as if they'd been copied wholesale.

Every last bit of it was testifying that the dreadful hypothesis forming in my head was the truth. A name naturally surfaced in my mind — and as if to confirm that hypothesis in person, the name that rose in my head came out to greet me.

That name — nostalgic, if I missed it; sick to death of it, if I didn't.

The moment I confirmed it, there was nothing left to do but admit it.

"...Those Cosmos bastards..."

They were manufacturing anomalies. Artificially.