Chapter 430
Chapter 430
Drip.
The sound of a water droplet echoed through the dark corridor.
"The power must be completely out."
"At least the emergency lights are on. That is a relief."
While my back was being treated and I was changing my shirt in the waiting room, even the flickering lights had finally died, leaving the second-floor hallway deathly bleak.
‘One corner of the wall even collapsed...’
It had been a close call. Fortunately, thanks to the flashlight Kim Rae-bin had brought, we were able to walk slowly.
"M-Moon-dae. Let me help..."
"I told you, I’m fine."
We couldn't afford to slow down any further. Besides, I was fit enough to walk.
A moment later, we faced reality in front of the stairs leading backstage.
"Hmm."
Through the gaps where the ceiling materials falling onto the stage had torn the door apart, chunks of concrete were visible.
"It got blocked when that... second collapsing sound happened."
It meant that when the third-floor corridor where I had been collapsed, this area was also smashed.
‘They must have told people not to come here because it was dangerous when the stage equipment first fell.’
In any case, trying to clear the stones to go this way would easily take over an hour, so I abandoned the idea without regret.
Ultimately, there was only one way to move.
"We have to go down this way."
I went to the spot where Seon A-hyun had caught me earlier.
It was the section of the hallway right next to the stage, where an entire wall had completely collapsed, leaving a gaping hole.
"..."
I shone the flashlight downward.
Whoosh—
The stale, chilly air created by the expanded space brushed against me.
I could see the debris of the collapsed stage, but since everything that was going to fall had already fallen, it looked reasonably stable.
"Let's head down there for now."
Onto the ruins of the stage.
The stage was massive, spanning the first floor where the audience sat and the second floor where the stage equipment was located.
The second floor was divided in half centered around the stage, and this right side, where the waiting rooms were, had been blocked off to prevent access to the upper floors.
Well, since the singers and agency staff were all outsiders, it was a proper design choice not to connect it to the upper floors used by the venue officials, but it meant we were effectively trapped.
‘So, in the end, there’s no other path to move through but here.’
Let's use it.
I grabbed what I had prepared from the waiting room.
It was a makeshift rope made by twisting and tying the thick curtains used for changing clothes in the waiting room. They had caught my eye while I was swapping shirts.
"W-will the curtains be okay?"
"I twisted them several times, so it'll hold."
Even during this, the time continued to tick down.
[00:33:12]
"We have 33 minutes left. Time is tight; we have to move one way or another."
"..."
If we wanted even a chance at stopping the insane disaster of the building collapsing further, that is.
Kim Rae-bin spoke up with a determined face.
"I will go first."
"No, first I—"
"Uh-huh! I-I'll hold it...!"
"Thank you!"
"..."
Fine, have it your way. I should stay crouched so I can grab them if anything happens.
Kim Rae-bin tied the rope firmly around his waist and asked as he watched Seon A-hyun secure the other end of the curtain.
"Moon-dae hyung, do you happen to know exactly how the given unit of one hour was measured?"
"I'd like to know that myself."
"So the situation is uncertain."
Kim Rae-bin nodded and carefully lowered his feet over the edge of the concrete.
"If the building is to collapse in exactly one hour, it sounds less like a prediction and more like someone has announced they will demolish the building, which is why I asked."
Look at this guy.
"...Let's talk once we're down. Be careful."
"Yes!"
He really was sharp when it came to theory.
Even earlier, he clearly looked like he was suppressing the urge to ask, 'How does the status window know such things?'
‘If I tell them the system is targeting me... things will get complicated.’
It wasn't that they would blame me, but they might become overprotective or worry unnecessarily, which could hinder our progress.
‘Let's keep my mouth shut.’
I followed Kim Rae-bin, carefully descending onto the stage debris.
After confirming that Seon A-hyun, the last one, had landed safely, I turned my head toward the audience seating, but...
"..."
"...Is anyone there?"
There was no answer from the audience seats, which were shrouded in dust and darkness.
[----]
Only a faint echo rang out.
A sense of incongruity washed over me...
‘Why is no one here?’
When I met that fan who was a graduate student earlier, she definitely implied that there were others besides herself who hadn't made it out.
‘In the first place, if someone was coming down onto a collapsed stage while shining a flashlight, people in the audience seats naturally would have reacted.’
The fact that there was no sound or reaction was quite unsettling.
"M-Moon-dae. For now... I'll look for a path."
"...Right."
I packed the curtain rope and carefully stepped down from the stage. After scattering to inspect the dark audience area, the results were in.
‘...The doors are jammed.’
Just as the graduate student said, all the evacuation routes were blocked. It seemed they had twisted and then been crushed because the weight balance had collapsed.
‘If we try to force them open and the ceiling comes down, we're done for.’
There seemed to be no way to get out to the first-floor lobby.
And there was no one else here besides us.
"Since Keun-dal hyung, whom you are looking for, likely came as an audience member, there is a high probability he has already escaped."
"Y-yeah, but since Moon-dae is sure he's still here... then, if he's not here, wouldn't he have moved somewhere else?"
"Moon-dae hyung, have you seen anyone else?"
I had.
"...There was a fan. Near the emergency stairs on the opposite side."
"...!!"
"We talked through a hole in the wall, but the room I was in collapsed, so I don't know where she went after that."
Worry and doubt flickered across their faces, but they offered a realistic answer first.
"Then she might have gone upstairs."
True.
However, the emergency exit leading to the stairs on the opposite side that the graduate student and I had used was also half-blocked by debris.
"I think... it got blocked by debris when Moon-dae fell earlier."
Isolated.
[00:26:51]
Meanwhile, the time dropped below 30 minutes.
‘...Stay calm.’
Panic doesn't help. Use your head.
‘Clearing the front of those emergency stairs within 20 minutes seems too risky.’
Would it be better to just force a door open and get these guys out in the meantime?
I suppressed a groan. I looked into the darkness beyond the partially exposed emergency stairs.
We couldn't just pass through. It was too narrow.
‘All three of us are tall, so it won't work.’
Should we try shouting... could that have a negative impact on the building?
‘If only we could communicate somehow.’
It would be great if we could make an announcement... Wait.
"...Rae-bin."
"Yes?"
I lowered my gaze.
All the evacuation routes were blocked, but there was still one place we could move to.
The place where the staff stayed while preparing for the shoot, the place I had bolted out of in a panic.
Backstage.
And speaking of the shoot.
‘They had prepared new equipment for this filming.’
"Do you happen to know how to use a drone?"
"...??"
This broadcasting station had tried to film with new products as a form of new-tech PPL.
One or two had been flying around during our shoot, and I had seen the wreckage in front of the stage earlier.
‘If that's the case.’
Wouldn't there be one or two spares?
I entered a sort of makeshift editing room inside the backstage area that managed the temporary stage transmission.
It was pitch black here as well without power, but the place to keep such heavy and expensive equipment was obvious.
"...There it is."
And I found it in one go, without being late. A drone inside an already opened box under a desk.
I picked up the drone.
"Let's send this through the gap in the emergency stairs."
"I see, that is a brilliant idea! I did not know you had an interest in drones, Moon-dae hyung."
"I don't."
"...?"
I grabbed Kim Rae-bin's shoulder.
"I believe you can do it."
"..."
Wasn't he the guy who mastered music equipment and all sorts of electronics? I believed that with his amazing creativity and intuition, he could do this too.
"I-I will do my absolute best...!"
Right.
"U-um, Moon-dae, the computer won't turn on because there's no power..."
"Let's use a laptop."
It was a shame there was no internet, but since the drone had its own internal cellular system, it was... possible to operate.
In that case.
[Whirrrr]
"...! It works!"
Kim Rae-bin quickly skimmed the drone manual, picked up the joystick, and with sparkling eyes, finished the connection in an instant and started the drone.
"Amazing, Rae-bin...!"
"Yeah, impressive."
"No! It seems it was already connected to this laptop, perhaps for a test run. I will move to the emergency stairs immediately!"
"Okay!"
‘...Is it a waste for him to just be an idol?’
I briefly thought about his stats, but now wasn't the time for such thoughts.
[00:17:52]
The time had been cut in half again in the meantime.
‘Whew.’
I clenched and unclenched my fists as I headed toward the emergency stairs.
Creeak.
I opened the iron door, and Seon A-hyun held it in place with one foot.
Kim Rae-bin sat down with the joystick.
"Then... I am sending it in."
"Go ahead."
[Whirrrrr—]
The drone flew into the black darkness.
"Fortunately, the battery is sufficient, and the attached light is doing its job."
"It really is...!"
On the screen linked to the laptop, the camera showed the drone, piloted by a beginner, wobbling and capturing awkward frames. It quickly flew up the stairs, and what the light illuminated was...
"The wall is broken here."
‘...So this is where she was standing.’
It was the broken wall where I had talked with the graduate student earlier.
Instead of the storage room that had tilted from the third floor into the empty space of the stage and met that wall, the light emitted from the drone simply cut through the empty air.
"..."
On the opposite side, there was a path connected to the other side of the backstage where I had escaped from the stage equipment, but it was an iron door anyway, so the drone couldn't open it.
...Where did she go?
"Keep going."
"Yes."
Let's at least find a trace of a person.
So, above the dark stairs tinged with the blue light of the emergency exit and the red light of the fire hydrant, the view moved up along the railing and around the corner...
"..."
"...It's blocked."
Thud.
Above that, it was blocked again by debris from the third-floor entrance.
It was the floor where the storage room I had entered was located.
It seemed to have been blocked by the impact of the floor collapsing.
"..."
The search was over. Without any traces or results.
"Ah..."
"What should we do?"
[00:15:47]
Fuck.
I swallowed hard and racked my brain as much as possible.
If the top was blocked...
"Let's go to the basement."
"Ah!"
The emergency stairs should lead down to the underground parking lot.
Human psychology might make one reluctant to go down into the basement of a collapsing building, so they might have preferred to go up, but rationally, an escape was possible through there as well.
If there was a parking lot, it would have been designed to withstand loads well, and since the entrance was large, it might not have collapsed.
‘Keun-dal might have thought of that.’
"Then I will head that way."
[00:14:25]
The drone flew again. Down, let's go down...
"...!"
"The door is open!"
Surprisingly, an iron door held open artificially using a fire extinguisher came into view.
‘They prepared for the door to twist due to the collapse.’
"There must be... someone there...!"
"Yes, I will go in!"
Kim Rae-bin moved the joystick carefully with hurried hands.
The light of the emergency lamps flickered across the laptop screen.
Beyond the iron door was a hallway, but no matter how I looked at it, it didn't seem like the path leading to the underground parking lot...
It looked like a space used by facility management staff, though I couldn't be sure because it was dark. There would likely be a breakroom or a CCTV room.
‘Did everyone evacuate this way?’
But for that, there were no signs of people—wait.
"That."
"Ah!"
"It looks like a person."
Something was visible next to the plain gray door at the end of the hallway. As soon as Kim Rae-bin saw it, he moved the drone faster to approach...
"...??"
"...!?"
It was a person. But...
"Sunbae-nim?"
It was Ju-dan.
The guy standing in front of the door as if standing guard made eye contact with the drone, made a strange expression, then rested his chin on his hand and nodded. Why isn't this punk even surprised... No, more importantly.
‘Why are you here?’
Since VTIC was in their waiting room, they should have been able to escape immediately... No, wait, come to think of it, these guys were also in their waiting room but couldn't get out.
I looked back at Seon A-hyun and Kim Rae-bin, but they were also dazed by the sudden indirect contact with their senior.
‘This is driving me crazy.’
[00:12:46]
I looked back and forth between the remaining time on the pop-up window and Ju-dan on the laptop.
‘Think. If I just think...’
Just as my brain felt like it was about to overload, suddenly, a ringtone rang out from behind.
[DING-DING—]
"...!"
No, it wasn't a smartphone ringtone... This was...
"An announcement...?"
At Seon A-hyun's voice, I momentarily took my eyes off the laptop screen and looked up.
From the speakers hanging everywhere next to the completely ruined stage, a voice with poor sound quality spread through the audience seating.
[To everyone still remaining in the building, this is an announcement. The vibrations seem to have mostly stopped. However, acting rashly, such as breaking down doors, can be dangerous.]
[Please wait for the rescue team in a safe place, such as near the emergency stairs, restrooms, or central pillars.]
It was a calm man's voice with good vocalization.
To anyone's ears, it was the perfect voice for an emergency announcement.
The problem was that it was a voice I knew.
And it was a voice the guys next to me knew as well.
"...Se-Se-jin hyung?"
That's Bae Se-jin.
Why the hell didn't that punk leave, and what is he doing there making an announcement!