Into the Third Floor
Hina waited quietly inside Chori's room.
The drawings that covered every wall, the dolls and toys, were all proof of the solitude Chori had endured. No playmates of the same age. No proper adults to meet. The only conversation partners had been a mother who woke only once every few months and a blacksmith who repeated the same mechanical exchanges without variation.
Hina was not as unmoved as Minel, yet she was hardly one to be swept away by emotion. Even so, a bitter ache rose from deep in her chest and slowly tightened around her heart.
Then the door opened.
"Ah… Unnie…"
Tears she could not hold back forced their way out. Hina went to her at once and gathered Chori into her arms without a word. Chori wept there for a long time.
When the child finally grew calm, Hina spoke carefully.
"If you're all right with it, come with us from now on."
"…What about Mom?"
Chori's voice was small, yet it held a determination not to let her mother go.
Hina could not answer at once. False comfort would have been easy, but she knew it would only wound the child more deeply.
"Your mother… would want that too. For you to be safe."
At those words Chori's eyes opened wide for a moment, then slowly closed. A brief silence followed. Then Chori gave a small nod. Resolution and lingering attachment mixed on her face.
Soon the door opened again. Chori looked toward it with hope, but the only figure that stepped out of the darkness was Minel. His expression was as cold as ever, yet his eyes alone were soft. He approached Chori slowly and held something out.
In his palm lay a small, worn necklace. The silver had dulled and blackened in places, yet the tiny glass bead at its center still shone with clear light.
"Your mother left this."
More precisely, it was an item she had left behind—proof that in the end she had stepped outside the frame of humanity and become a complete monster. Checking it with the Backrooms Field Guide, Minel found it was a catalyst-type item that strengthened non-combat skills. Perhaps it had been shaped by Chori's mother's final wish: to help her daughter survive in the Backrooms until the very end.
"Hold it with both hands."
Minel's voice was lower than usual, careful not to offer careless comfort. Chori stared at the necklace in silence. Whether from trembling fingers or falling tears, a drop soaked into the bead.
Minel watched her for a moment, then slowly closed the necklace into her hands. At that firm touch Chori swallowed hard, yet she could not speak a single word. She only gripped the necklace tightly with both hands.
Suddenly Chori's eyes flew open like full moons.
"This is… Mom's smell…"
She looked up at Minel and nodded with all her strength. Seeing that, Minel turned away without a word, as if to say it was enough.
"You're a party member now, Chori."
"Yes."
It was both a promise and a command. Yet Chori received the words like a place of rest, as though she understood the situation completely. Tears still clung to her lashes, but her eyes were clear.
There was no need to worry further.
After that she moved with brisk purpose, packing every item in the house into her inventory one by one.
"Please wait outside just a little."
Chori spoke stoutly and threw herself into the packing. Minel and Hina stepped out into the emergency corridor first. Before a full minute had passed, Chori emerged.
They were about to leave when Chori stopped and looked back at the room where her mother had been.
"We have to go."
"Yes. I know."
Chori answered evenly, closed the door, and walked past Hina and Minel to take the lead. Her face was expressionless, yet the sorrow settled within it was a depth beyond words. Simply seeing that expression made it hard for Hina to hold back the surge of feeling. But the one who most wanted to cry right now was Chori. As the older sister, she could not cry first.
Once outside, Chori stood before the entrance. She closed her eyes and stretched both hands toward the door. Golden light poured from the threshold, then faded completely.
"It'll take about two weeks to reach the third floor. Even leaving out sleep and meals, that's how long."
The terrain of the second floor had no rises or falls. If two weeks were required, the entrance to the third floor lay roughly four hundred fifty kilometers away in a straight line—the distance from Seoul to Jeju Island. Just how vast were the Backrooms, really?
While Minel turned the thought over, Hina wore a puzzled look. Understanding the meaning of that look, Minel spoke quietly.
"Hunting wasn't necessary."
If the third-floor entrance lay two full weeks away, they could have bypassed the Shocker entirely. Minel's words were simple, yet Hina grasped every circumstance behind them.
"Mom wanted me to be able to keep living on the second floor by myself. That's why she lied. So please forgive her."
Minel had spoken so that only Hina would understand, yet Chori had caught on. The child who had just lost her mother understood the situation with an accuracy hard to believe. For Chori's sake, Hina shook off the grief. Once she collected herself, what she needed to do rose naturally to mind.
"Minel takes point. Chori next. I'll cover the rear."
Minel gave a quiet nod of agreement.
The two-week journey was long and silent. The corridors of the second floor stretched like an endless maze, yet whenever Minel led the way the path opened straight ahead. They met not a single person. Instead, darkened corridors appeared from time to time, and from that darkness Hounds revealed themselves. When their low, drawn-out howls rose, the blue flash of Silence cut through the dark and silenced every sound. Hina's movements were precise every time. With the marksmanship of the Digital Vein and her agile footwork she supported Minel appropriately while never forgetting to watch every direction.
Chori provided good food and a comfortable house. Thanks to her the three of them ate well, released their stress, and slept free of tension inside the house. As the days passed they grew accustomed to one another's rhythm, until a nod or a glance was enough to know the next action.
And at last the long corridor ended. In the middle of the wall a massive iron door revealed itself. Minel peered through. Nothing. Empty space. A strangely cool, heavy air drifted out.
"This… seems to be it."
It was utterly different from every stretch of the second floor they had seen for the past two weeks. This was unmistakably the passage to the third floor.
"We got here sooner than I expected."
Chori stepped one pace closer, gazing at the door. In place of fear a small but certain resolve settled on her face.
At that moment—
Clack.
The sound of a lock releasing echoed. Though no one had touched it, the enormous metal door began to open of its own accord.
Kreeeeeak.
Metal ground against metal, the sound boring into the corridor. Through the widening gap a cold, damp wind brushed their faces. Dust, old machine oil, and an unidentifiable foul odor rode that wind. At the same time the bright fluorescent lights on the ceiling flickered on, revealing a corridor no different from any other on the second floor. Yet a rhythmic vibration and the sound of something scraping the floor rolled toward them.
Hina instinctively took a step back. Minel's hand was already closed around Silence's grip.
"Stay tight and follow."
The three of them entered slowly. From cracks where the wallpaper had lifted and split, a pale mist of moisture seeped out. With every step the smell of mold and rusted iron grew stronger. Here too the old fluorescent tubes on the ceiling flickered irregularly. Hina absently touched the wall, felt the sticky dampness of the surface, and snatched her hand back.
"The humidity keeps getting worse. We never had this on the second floor."
"Means we're close to the third."
Minel's voice was calm, yet his eyes were sharper than usual.
Before long the corridor transformed completely. The wallpaper had almost entirely peeled away, exposing red-rusted iron plates. The floor was slick with a mixture of oil grime and black dust. Thick pipes snaked across ceiling and walls, and from within them came a sound like something boiling. On one wall they saw graffiti. Crude, crooked letters scrawled in black marker.
[This way is a trap.]
An arrow was drawn beneath it, pointing exactly along the path they had been walking.
Hina narrowed her eyes.
"There's only one road. If that way is a trap, which way are we supposed to go?"
Chori gripped the necklace with both hands and lowered her head slightly.
"Mom told me. Follow the warning signs exactly as they say."
Words from Chori's mother, who had come down from the upper floors, could be trusted without question.
"Let's look for a hidden path."
They searched the surroundings for a while, yet found none.
"Then I guess we have no choice but to turn back."
In the end they retraced their steps. They expected the second floor to reappear, but the corridor stretched on without end. Only a few minutes later the same wall and the same graffiti appeared before them.
[This way is a trap.]
The same handwriting, the same arrow, even the dust and stains on the wall matched perfectly.
"We… just passed this place."
Hina's voice trembled slightly. Minel tried to walk past the warning without a word, yet an inexplicable sense of wrongness held him. After a moment he turned and began walking back the way they had come. A U-turn. Yet before long the identical graffiti awaited them once more.
[This way is a trap.]
The only difference was that this time the arrow pointed not in the direction they intended to go, but back the way they had come.
"Looks like we shouldn't turn back this time."
Minel stepped closer and examined the warning more carefully. A faint light rose from the arrow drawn beneath the text. Without a sufficient accumulation of Mystery, one could not see the secrets of the Backrooms. Perhaps the arrow itself was a structure visible only once Mystery had been built up.
"This is where they got fooled."
"What?"
"Those without Mystery."
"…"
The party did not turn around as the warning instructed; they walked straight ahead. Once again the warning appeared. With every warning they passed, the humidity and rusted stench of the corridor grew thicker, the boiling of liquid inside the ceiling pipes louder, and the mechanical vibration underfoot stronger.
Chori tightened her grip on the necklace.
"The Backrooms… aren't spinning us around. They're pushing us in. Should I try making an entrance?"
"Insurance never hurts."
Unfortunately, Chori's house skill would not activate. It seemed unusable between floors.
"Guess we have no choice but to keep going."
"Don't look so down, Chori. You're already helping us plenty. You know that, right?"
"Yes, Unnie."
The fifth warning. The sixth. The seventh. After they had passed thirteen warnings in all, the corridor lights suddenly went dark.
"…"
"…"
"…"
While all three stood frozen, a faint metallic vibration rose strongly underfoot, and a massive metal door began to emerge from the darkness. It was a form they had never seen before. Deep claw marks covered the warped iron bars, and through the gaps a damp wind blew with an unpleasant sound. The boiling they had heard from afar now seemed to burst from just beyond the door.
"This really is… the third floor."
Hina's voice scattered like a single breath. At that moment the lock released with a clack. The huge iron door began to open slowly of its own accord.
Minel narrowed his eyes for a moment and stared into the darkness beyond. Then he stepped forward.
And so they reached the third floor.