The Shocker
In the space of a single breath he crossed the corridor. Far ahead, hurried footsteps were already receding into the distance.
The pursuer had realized Minel was coming and broken into a full retreat.
Click.
Minel watched the fluorescent lights of the corridor ahead wink out one after another. Instantly, Hounds began to form in the darkness.
A stalling tactic.
Minel did not hesitate. He charged straight in and swung Silence.
Shhk—!
Shhk—!
Shhk—!
Every time the blade parted flesh, it felt startlingly light in his hand—like slicing through damp paper. The slightest graze reduced them to shreds.
“The pattern’s familiar…”
Before, facing a pack of Hounds had required a measure of Noise just to keep them at bay. Now Silence alone cleared the entire corridor. Their movements were simply that easy to read.
He punched through the hallway in an instant, reached the corner, and flipped the switch. Looking down the opposite stretch, he saw the pursuer still only halfway across the central junction, running hard.
Minel raised Noise and aimed past the man’s back.
BOOM—!
The floor cratered. A heart-stopping tremor rolled through the corridor. The man startled and toppled flat on his face.
The enhanced Noise now looked powerful enough to obliterate not merely a head, but an entire upper body.
“Stop. Unless you want to die.”
Minel advanced at a measured pace. His gaze stayed locked on the corner; there was no telling when or from where other enemies might appear.
In that same moment the man twisted around, thrust a gun forward, and squeezed the trigger.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Three rounds. Not one of them touched Minel’s body. Two froze mid-air and dropped; the third had missed from the start.
He could have answered with gunfire of his own. But Noise’s power was excessive—capture would be impossible; the man would simply die—so he held back. He had trusted the reinforced armor. Instead, bullet immunity activated first.
“What level is that gun?”
Minel walked up as if nothing had happened and asked the question. The pursuer’s jaw went slack. He had watched those bullets stop dead in empty air with his own two eyes. His will to fight shattered on the spot.
“Level two…”
So level-two rounds could be stopped. Why?
“Do skills have levels too…?”
It was only a muttered thought, but the pursuer took it as a question aimed at him and answered.
“Skills automatically match your own level.”
“Your own level?”
“The highest floor you’ve reached becomes your level. That’s what I’ve heard.”
If skill levels rose on their own, they would be far more practical than items locked at a fixed rank. Silence and Noise were the exceptions, of course.
When Minel fixed him with a stare, the pursuer pressed his back to the wall and slid down. Pure terror filled his eyes. Minel set the edge of Silence against the man’s throat and tested the theory he had formed moments earlier.
“You have a tracking skill?”
The pursuer nodded.
“You killed one of our party members. I follow the mark he left behind.”
Minel nodded. That mist—so that had been the mark. And a real party after all. The Backrooms never made things easy.
“Is there more of the party?”
“If I tell you, will you let me live?”
“As long as you don’t try anything stupid.”
A simple answer. It was the only hope left. The pursuer studied Minel’s face for a moment, then spoke as if resigning himself.
“I only do location tracking. That’s all.”
So the firearm he had fired had been the bare minimum for self-defense. Which meant the rest of the party would be carrying heavier weapons.
“How many of you are there?”
“The Miller Party I belong to has a total of twenty people.”
Minel doubted his ears for an instant.
“Twenty?”
At the repeated question the pursuer smiled. Twenty was a number no one could take lightly. Perhaps that was why confidence crept back into his voice; the words came faster.
“I’m not bluffing. Twenty total, ten combatants. Even if you’re strong, you won’t handle that many. And Miller, our leader, came down from the 3rd Floor.”
“…”
Minel kept silent. The pursuer seemed to feel the pressure of that silence and lowered his voice, trying persuasion.
“Of course we don’t want a fight with someone like you either. I’ll tell you everything you want, straight and true—just let me go. Then we can both pretend none of this happened.”
“…”
When Minel still said nothing, the pursuer grew more agitated. Anxiety crawled up the nape of his neck and down his spine. He watched Minel carefully and spoke again.
“Earlier I saw you moving with Chori… You really shouldn’t trust that sly little brat.”
“Why?”
After the long silence Minel finally spoke, and the pursuer almost sagged with relief. He forced firmness into his tone.
“That kid’s tricked plenty of people already. The ones who died because of the brat? Easily over a hundred.”
If that were true, Hina was in danger. Yet Minel caught the contradiction at once.
“Then why have you kept the child alive until now?”
He asked it as calmly as if discussing the weather—why they had not simply killed the child. In that instant the pursuer’s eyes flinched on instinct. He was certain now: this man would kill without a second thought.
“We trade with them.”
“What kind of trade?”
“We give Blood Crystals; they give us water and food. The efficiency is insane—five Blood Crystals feed twenty people three full meals a day for a month.”
Twenty people. One month. Three meals. The numbers bounced and stacked in Minel’s head. Even simple multiplication made a hundred and eighty servings. In the resource-starved Backrooms, the quantity was absurd.
One detail still felt wrong.
“Why Blood Crystals?”
“No idea. Probably uses them to make the food somehow.”
Minel nodded, then asked the next question lightly, as though the thought had only just occurred to him.
“Then why not just kidnap them?”
“…”
When no answer came, Minel’s voice cut in like a blade.
“Answer or die.”
The pursuer had not refused to speak; he had simply frozen in shock. The question lay so far outside ordinary sense that words failed him. This man was genuinely dangerous—not posturing, not joking. Real danger.
“I heard they tried a few years back. Then that bitch’s monster suddenly showed up and slaughtered everyone. Anyone involved ended up as bloody pulp.”
“…”
A monster appearing out of nowhere to massacre them? The pursuer’s mouth twisted into a half-smile as he continued.
“That’s her method. That pure little face reels people in, then she has her monster kill them.”
“Her monster?”
“There’s a monster she calls Mom.”
Chori’s Mother was a monster? Was that why Chori had suddenly insisted on going to see her? Hina had said Chori was pure. But if this man was telling the truth, Hina might be in danger right now.
Minel’s eyes deepened into a sharp yellow gleam. The pursuer swallowed hard. The Wildness rising in Minel’s pupils was for Hina’s sake, but the man could not know that; he assumed it was murderous intent aimed at him.
He lurched to his feet. Minel reacted instantly, shoving him back—but not before something left the man’s hand. There had been no sound of an inventory opening. A translucent violet butterfly fluttered free and began to fly away into the distance.
Minel seized the pursuer by the nape of the neck at once.
“Gah—!”
The man choked out a groan. Minel brought his face close and snarled.
“What did you just do?”
“Hhk… Trying to stay alive. Don’t… don’t worry. Non-combat skill.”
“Explain.”
The man raised both hands in agony. When Minel released him, he cleared his throat and spoke in a low voice.
“You’ve got a party member too, right? Probably with Chori right now. Am I wrong? One wrong move and your partner could die because of that kid.”
“…”
“Let me live and I’ll put in a good word with my leader. Someone with your skill—we could kill that dog of a bitch together.”
“…”
“We only want Chori. The Blood Crystals the kid’s collected, and the secret of making water and food. That’s all. We won’t touch you or your woman. Kill Chori and then we each go our own way.”
The last tightrope walk of a man staring death in the face. Grasping at any straw, desperation thick in every word. Yet, strangely, Minel sensed no falsehood in them. Whatever else might be lies, the pure, concentrated killing intent toward Chori was real.
The possibility that Chori was dangerous had always existed. In the Backrooms, where morality did not even amount to a speck of dust, one could not think of a child the way one would in the real world.
“I’ve heard enough.”
“…”
“I’ll just knock you out.”
Minel closed the distance and applied a choke. The man thrashed, but once blood flow to the brain was cut off he lost consciousness within seconds. Minel left him where he lay.
“…”
Whether to trust Chori or this man was still unknown. Whether Chori’s Mother was a veteran survivor or a monster was unknown. For now the best course was to keep moving with Chori and respond according to the situation if even a hint of suspicion appeared.
Minel walked quickly back toward Hina and Chori.
But they were not where he had told them to wait.
Instead, a massive monster waited.
Zzzzzzt—!
Zzzzzzt—!
The stench of flesh burning like a lightning-struck tree filled the corridor. The creature’s entire body looked scorched; blackened fur twisted and matted together. Every individual hair-tip quivered as though charged with current, and within that fur tiny blue flashes lived and died. The hide covering its limbs was not hide at all—it clung wetly, like torn flesh dried tight to the bone.
It had no eyes. From the empty sockets yellow smoke rose without end, and inside that smoke miniature bolts of lightning continually sparked into being and vanished.
Zzzzzzt—!
Zzzzzzt—!
Something uglier and more hopeless than any Hound by far. Electricity coiled around its whole frame; every step produced the sound of metal cooking. When the body trembled, the entire corridor gave a short convulsion. Minel felt as if his organs had been shocked; the nape of his neck went numb.
Crack—!
Crack—!
Crack—!
Blue static erupted from its body and methodically shattered every nearby fluorescent light. Artificial light died. As the corridor darkened, the lightning born from the monster’s form became the only illumination left.
A rare monster of the same tier as the Smiler he had seen on the 1st Floor. There could be no doubt.
Then pain slammed into both eyes. His brain, forced to witness the Mystery of the Backrooms, overloaded.
Of all times…
Normally he would have groaned and collapsed. Having endured it several times already, he managed to clamp a hand over his mouth and duck into a side corridor. A creature of Mystery whose mere gaze could shred sanity.
After a short while the headache from the ocular pressure began to recede.
“Could Chori’s Mother have been that monster…?”
Minel pulled out the Backrooms Codex.
Shocker — A rare beast monster wreathed in blue lightning. It possesses no eyes, giving its face the appearance of staring into empty air.
Though its sockets are hollow, it perceives the world through lightning and residual senses. Bolts continually coil around its body, scorching everything nearby.
This lightning generates a distinctive electromagnetic field that denies the intrusion of metal. To inflict damage, one must first discharge the lightning itself with overwhelming firepower or shock.
A rare monster. Even approaching one was difficult. What had become of Hina?
Minel forced his unmoving body upright and began to scan the surroundings. At that moment several men appeared around the far corner.
One mountain after another.
Minel slipped the Backrooms Codex back into inventory, drew Noise at once, and leveled it in their direction.