089. The Hospital Where People Vanish [6]
“Now then, shall we have a look around?”
The central control room of Cosmos Medical Center's main building, deep inside the Inner Space.
Baek Dong-sik settled into the largest desk in the control room, coffee he'd brewed in advance in hand.
Slurp.
One gulp of strong black coffee to jolt himself awake, then he pulled out the familiar he'd received from headquarters.
“Crow.”
Caw—
A three-eyed crow burst out of Baek Dong-sik's shadow.
He couldn't help but chuckle wryly at the sight.
“Go.”
Caw!
Even now, he was the administrator of the facility behind Cosmos Medical Center.
But long years of corporate life had taught Baek Dong-sik one thing: you never got used to it—not couldn't get used to it, but simply weren't allowed to.
Which was exactly why, if only to bury the fatal mistake he'd just made, he could not let the dogs of the Paranormal Administration Bureau leave here alive.
'That clown calling himself a Master Kim or whatever, too—annoying problems keep piling up one after another...'
But it was fine.
Unlike last time, he'd caught wind of the intruders early enough. All he had to do now was clean them up, quick and tidy.
“Well then, let's take a look, shall we?”
Baek Dong-sik covered his left eye.
The crow familiar issued by the company shared its vision whenever he covered his left eye.
Whoooosh—
The crow had just arrived at the inpatient wing.
And the moment it swept into the corridor—
“Huh?”
At a scene he never could have anticipated, Baek Dong-sik let out a strange noise.
'What the—why are the Changelings...'
The Changelings he had summoned were prostrating themselves in the corridor like obedient vassals awaiting orders.
The order he'd given them was to deal with the Paranormal Administration Bureau's dogs.
He had never issued anything like this.
“What in the...”
Flustered, Baek Dong-sik started working the control room equipment.
Cosmos had built communications gear that functioned even inside the Inner Space.
But the newest video-capable systems had never been installed in Cosmos Medical Center—a facility whose priority had slipped considerably these days.
Fortunately, even this place had speakers and audio monitoring.
And the one line Baek Dong-sik overheard from the inpatient wing through that equipment froze him solid.
—Grab Baek Dong-sik, that bastard, and bring him here.
At those words, goosebumps rippled down Baek Dong-sik's spine.
'Wait, why am I scared? I don't know why the Changelings are acting like that, but there's no way they'd follow an order like—!'
At that very instant, the prostrate Changelings rose with blank, expressionless faces, streamed out of the inpatient wing, and began swarming toward the main building.
“Hiiiek!”
It looked like the opening scene of a zombie movie. Baek Dong-sik toppled backward out of his chair.
Only then did he understand.
'Something's gone wrong!'
He didn't know why, but control of the Changelings had been seized by the Paranormal Administration Bureau bastards!
'Don't tell me there's a contractor of a high-ranking fairy here!? No, impossible! Those things aren't just ordinary Changelings—they've been twisted into an urban legend, so nothing short of a king-rank fairy could override their rank—!'
As far as he knew, hardly anyone at the Paranormal Administration Bureau had contracted with a fairy in the first place.
And a contractor of a high-ranking fairy? Not a single one.
'Then how in the world—gah! No, this is not the time!'
Having thought that far, Baek Dong-sik remembered that now was not the time for theorizing.
They were coming.
The hundreds of Changelings he himself had summoned were sprinting toward the main building to capture him instead.
Figuring out why this was happening could wait. Hiding came first.
“Sh-shelter! Get to the shelter!”
There were a few places here that differed from reality, including the most critical core facilities.
The shelter was one of them.
A temporary refuge for unprecedented emergencies.
Inside were a year's worth of water and rations, an automatic water system, and everything needed to survive at least a year with no outside help.
Its defenses were solid and sturdy enough to withstand most physical and spiritual disasters.
The moment Baek Dong-sik bolted from the control room, he felt a creepy heat and vibration underfoot.
The Changelings had already reached the main building.
“Hah! Huaah!”
The shelter was on the topmost floor of the main building.
Whipping his old, ailing body onward, Baek Dong-sik ran for his life.
But—
Dudududududududu
The sprint of the Changelings was impossible to outrun with the labored footfalls of a spent middle-aged man.
“N-no!”
In the end, just short of the shelter door, Baek Dong-sik was caught in the Changelings' hands.
“L-let go! This suit is yellow, damn it!”
He thrashed with everything he had, but it was futile.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of grown men with human-level athleticism? No way he could hold out against that.
Above all, Baek Dong-sik wasn't a psychic; he'd merely been granted sorcery by the company.
He had neither the power nor the knowledge to break out of a situation like this.
And so, his bluster rendered utterly ridiculous, Baek Dong-sik was subdued in all of five minutes—and left with no choice but to be dragged away, helpless, by the very people he'd sneered at for crossing the line.
“Reliable little thing, isn't it...”
—Hmph. Whose power do you think commanded it? The result was only natural.
“Whoa, that's seriously amazing. Fey, you're the best.”
Since Fey had preened herself into a flutter, I offered her praise instead of the flat smackdown she didn't deserve this time.
She really had done all the work for us, after all.
I already knew Fey was a powerful fairy.
But watching that many fairies bow down and obey without so much as a peep at her authority made her seem impressive all over again.
Just then, the Changelings deposited Baek Dong-sik in front of me.
Thud.
“Kough!”
Baek Dong-sik rolled to a stop at my feet like a sack of laundry.
I crouched down to eye level with him as he groveled pathetically on the floor, and asked:
“Crossed a line, did I? Do tell.”
I tossed his own big-mouthed words right back at him.
“......”
“Well, whatever. You're the sort of human who kills anyone who crosses the line on the spot, maybe. But me? I'm merciful. Answer my questions honestly, and I'll let you live.”
“......What do you want to know?”
Well, look at that... He's folding faster than I expected.
A professional man in his mid-fifties does not bend his pride this easily, ever.
If he does bend it, it's only when there's an urgent reason to smooth the situation over as quickly as possible.
Which is to say—he's got a skeleton in his closet.
“You've got something you're hiding from Cosmos, don't you.”
Jolt!
At those words, Baek Dong-sik's body shot upright like an electrocuted fish.
“Called it.”
“H-how did you...!?”
“Otherwise there's no way you'd have come into the Inner Space all by yourself.”
Baek Dong-sik had demonstrated sorcerous abilities a few times, but as far as I could tell, he wasn't a true psychic.
The Changelings, too—he'd simply had sorcerous power transferred to him by someone else.
So with an intruder inside the Inner Space, his best play would've been to summon Cosmos's psychics and come in together—like in that stand-in show for Kim the Exorcist.
But Baek Dong-sik hadn't done that.
Which meant there was something he didn't want others to know—something he didn't want Cosmos to know, precisely.
“Choose wisely. Depending on how you behave, I might just finish this without ever reporting it to the Paranormal Administration Bureau or Cosmos.”
At that, Baek Dong-sik's head snapped up.
“R-really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“...But how am I supposed to believe that?”
“Then don't. Who stands to lose should be obvious to anyone who isn't a fool.”
At my words, Baek Dong-sik's face clouded over.
He'd strutted around talking about who crossed whose line, only to get wrecked in return.
And on top of that, the fact that his organization was hiding something dirty had been laid bare.
One way or another, the only option left to Baek Dong-sik was to beg for the other side's mercy.
“So do yourself a favor and answer my questions with a little sincerity.”
“......U-understood.”
Somewhere along the way, Baek Dong-sik's speech had shifted into formal honorifics.
“Then, first question. This Cosmos Medical Center—is it a facility built to manufacture urban legends artificially?”
“It is.”
“And the reason is to run experiments on Narrative Coercion?”
“That's correct.”
'So he's not lying.'
“From what I can see, [The Hospital That Eats People] looks like a Changeling phenomenon—the fairy child-swapping thing—twisted into an urban legend. Am I right?”
“...That's correct.”
“And the transmutation circle carved into the building through the shadows—what's it for?”
“That's... I don't know the details myself, but I'm told it's a kind of power source.”
“A power source?”
“Yes. To elevate an urban legend into a full-blown anomaly, you ordinarily need an enormous number of people. To do it with a small staff, you need something to make up the shortfall.”
“I see...”
Then came the real meat of the matter.
“Baek Gong-ju.”
“......”
“You know something.”
“......Yes.”
“Where is she right now?”
“..........”
The silence stretched long.
Seeing this, I was certain.
Whatever stain Baek Dong-sik was trying to hide was connected to Baek Gong-ju in some way.
Honestly, when I saw Baek Gong-ju had been caught up in an anomaly Cosmos created, I'd naturally assumed Cosmos had set out to throw her under the bus—but that wasn't it, apparently.
Grab!
“Quit clamming up and talk, NOW!”
Unable to stomach the silence any longer, Yoon Soo-ah seized Baek Dong-sik by the collar and shook him.
“Hiiiiiiiek!”
“Talk!”
When he still refused to speak, Yoon Soo-ah's telekinesis began laying waste to Baek Dong-sik's sparse head of hair.
Skrrt! Bzzzzzt!
“N-no! Stop it!”
“Not stopping!”
Rip! Skrrt!
Yoon Soo-ah's merciless telekinesis trampled the pitiful few flowers blooming across the barren wasteland of Baek Dong-sik's thin, lifeless scalp.
Ah, there go the patches—now it's a smooth, gleaming plain~.
And at this horrific torture, Baek Dong-sik finally raised the white flag.
“I surrender, I surrender! I'll tell you everything, so please, make it stop!”
At that, Yoon Soo-ah halted the torture.
“Talk.”
“...I-it's true that Baek Gong-ju entered the Inner Space after falling victim to BP01312, the Changeling anomaly we twisted out of an urban legend.”
“Writing a specific character code in the mirror is basically a kind of admin-privilege entry, I take it—which means there's a separate regular admission route. Tell me the conditions.”
“W-well... anyone who's recently suffered a major failure and come to Cosmos Medical Center in despair meets the conditions.”
And anyone who met those conditions entered the Inner Space, while a Changeling took their place out in the world.
“P-people who enter that way lose their strength quickly, because of a hidden rule that operates within this Inner Space. And once that happens, we... step in and make our adjustments...”
“They lose strength as a trait of the place? We haven't felt anything like that at all...?”
“That would make sense. It's a weak rule—one that doesn't work on powerful psychics.”
“Hold on. That means...”
“Yes... it didn't work on Baek Gong-ju either.”
And Baek Gong-ju, without giving Baek Dong-sik the chance to call in other psychics—or the chance to do a Changeling burst call like this time—had subdued the Inner Space outright.
The problem was what came after.
“Baek Gong-ju... being Special Grade, she apparently sensed something. None of us dreamed she'd actually find it...”
“Find what?”
“This Medical Center was built for another purpose entirely—before it ever became an experimental ground for manufacturing urban legends.”
To be precise, that other purpose was why the transmutation circle had been carved into the building, converting the souls of those who died in the hospital into energy.
And by repurposing that system, the place had belatedly become an urban-legend generation test site, he said.
“Though, well, that theory was finished being established some time ago, so we're only maintaining it now.”
“Spare me the footnote. So what was this place actually built for?”
“...The Paranormal Administration Bureau must already sense it too—that the end of days is dawning upon the world.”
Baek Dong-sik spoke of this sudden, out-of-nowhere topic as though announcing something grand.
“But I doubt you know why the end of days is dawning.”
“......Does Cosmos know?”
At my question, Baek Dong-sik recovered a trace of composure and answered in a voice brimming with pride.
“Of course. The whole reason this Medical Center was built in the first place was to observe the cause of the end of days.”
And Baek Gong-ju...
“In the process of observing the cause of the end of days, Baek Gong-ju... never came back.”