Chapter 158
Chapter 158
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 158
Chapter Title: Fake Little Mermaid
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Jin Na-sol raised her head.
From beyond the alley, something peeked out, staring at her.
A tailless baby mermaid.
It threw something at her.
Whoosh.
The projectile sparkled in the light.
Jin Na-sol unhesitatingly reached out and grabbed the nape of the employee who was rushing toward her like he was fleeing, using him to block it.
"Hik!"
The moment the employee struck by the shards let out a shrill scream, soap-bubble-like glass erupted from his entire body, trapping his head and hands.
And atop that, geometric traditional patterns floated up like stamped seals.
'...Bureau!'
A recorded warning blared from the pattern.
The standard announcement that the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau always made when initiating suppression of civilians obstructing official duties.
It was also an item. Hearing the sound stripped away hostility and instilled an irresistible sense of authority that demanded obedience.
For ordinary people, anyway.
'Troublesome.'
Blood vessels throbbed at the temples of Jin Na-sol, who wore the golden mask of the elite team.
Disguised as mermaids, but Bureau agents.
"Annoying."
"Kugh,"
Jin Na-sol kicked the restrained employee away and, as if by magic, donned her monocle to identify the agent.
Two, beyond the alley.
'Engage?'
No. What mattered was finishing the mission quickly and racking up points. Maximum effect with minimal stamina drain—that was boosting work efficiency.
In this case, skip the hassle of item hunting, hop on the evacuation train, and clear out.
But...
"Infuriating."
A severed nail shot straight ahead, slamming into the alley's far end.
"...!"
Her irritation threshold crossed, merging with chronic migraines, finally spurred Jin Na-sol into motion.
The nail screeched, viciously gouging the wall before snagging at the corner.
Along with a few strands of the chief agent's bangs.
"Agent!"
"Eek, that stings."
But her opponents were Xuanwu Team 1, veterans of close-quarters combat. Even shrunk to child size, ingrained reflexes let them dodge effortlessly.
"Pursue during wire retrieval."
She moved just like that...
The butterfly-masked deputy grabbed the wire and rocketed back toward her.
The two Bureau agents immediately rolled aside for cover and opened fire.
Glass handgun.
"Agh!"
Jin Na-sol yanked the restrained employee over with her index finger's wire to block.
The Daydream employee struck by the Bureau's villain-suppression round screamed.
"Aaaah! Baby mermaid! Mermaid!!"
The moron wasn't even dying—no injury from a single Bureau bullet—yet throwing a fit.
And still mistaking it for just a baby mermaid? His brain must have a hole...
......Huh.
'There is one?'
Jin Na-sol peered through her monocle.
Behind the two Bureau agents, another one.
A baby mermaid.
......!
At that instant, one of the presumed 'agent' special entities—the slightly bulkier one—shifted just a bit.
To better shield the baby mermaid.
"Aha."
A Team's deputy narrowed her eyes.
She hurled the restrained employee at the agent and launched her nail wire again.
Toward the baby mermaid behind him.
"...!"
Ting.
A cheerful ping, and the nail ricocheted off.
The Bureau agent moved.
"Ha."
Jin Na-sol slipped backward out of the standoff.
Her headache forgotten, her mind savored a brief thrill. If the agent had bothered to protect it...
Truth was, there was only one possibility.
'The baby mermaid's a civilian?'
This was...
Jin Na-sol's eyes gleamed savagely.
Anger be damned—board the evacuation train and exfil. Crystal-clear priority.
'If push comes to shove, take the baby mermaid hostage.'
Jin Na-sol casually snapped the parts affixed to her nails and tossed them forward.
Smoke billowed up.
Exploiting the obscured vision, she narrowly slipped back through the alley gap.
Her mind cooked up the most brutal, straightforward plan, but her points obsession dictated a smarter, more efficient play...
"Hey."
Jin Na-sol reeled in a rookie employee who'd been peeking via wire, gauging her escape angle.
A woman in a pony mask.
"Y-Yes?"
"Draw their eyes."
"Me?"
Pony mask Kang Ihak pointed at herself, eyes round like saucers in mock surprise.
"They'll just restrain you and cut you loose from holding. You're a newbie—no interference record. No grounds to lock you up."
"Oh..."
Kang Ihak glanced back, then flashed a huge grin.
"Brilliant plan, Deputy! Then let's sic that goat guy on 'em! Hiding like a dead rat..."
"One gold coin per day detained."
"I'll do it."
The gold-worshipper beamed and shot up a thumbs-up.
Still smiling.
"But Deputy! If you're bullshitting, I'll rat your details to the Bureau on the way out... and take a long-term collateral loan in your name."
"Go ahead."
Jin Na-sol left the rookie as bait and retreated, sprinting for a clean getaway...
Kiiing—
Blades rained down.
"...!!"
Sickles with bells scattered everywhere, sealing her retreat and spearing her leg.
'...!'
Agonizing pain surged up her leg, numbing it.
The Bureau's anti-personnel gear for supernatural disasters mostly auto-targeted villains for minimal necessary kills.
In other words, restraint tools calibrated to slay in the required fashion.
"Ah, for real!"
The special entity—Bureau agent in tailless baby mermaid guise—shoved Kang Ihak aside with a laugh and charged her.
'That motherfucker.'
Targeting elite team members.
Veteran agents occasionally pulled this.
Elite exploration logs and testimonies were gold.
Plus, anyone elite at Daydream Corp was a assumed villain by default.
Once jailed, they'd find leverage.
'Kill it?'
Whoever it was, constant meddler.
Jin Na-sol belly-crawled across the ground, slipping a hand inside her suit to draw lethal gear.
BOW DOWN
An immense, crushing will descended upon the entire alley.
Everything froze.
It was violence entirely devoid of context.
The fleeing Daydream Inc. employees, the goat-masked rookie staring at the ground, the baby mermaids, the disguised Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau agents, and even the pony-masked Kang Ihak caught mid-motion.
All of them were paralyzed, able to do nothing but roll their eyes upward.
A colossal gaze was fixated upon them.
No. It wasn't a gaze. It was language.
■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■
A horrifying stream of syllables tore through the silence, and the mere sound of it manifested as a crushing pressure bearing down on humanity. Words that defied description—a lexicon drawn from the abyssal beyond, fundamentally alien, structurally impossible for a human mind to process—came crashing into reality from a higher dimension. Be grateful you cannot comprehend it! The moment understanding dawns, your mind is irreparably shattered!
One of the Daydream employees, slumped against the damp cobblestones, began to foam at the mouth, his body thrashing violently before his own hands clamped around his throat in a desperate attempt to choke himself.
Speak
The baby mermaids who had been giggling moments before collapsed, lifeless and limp.
Bow down
Kang Ihak stared blankly into the sky, her eyes vacant, before abruptly slamming her forehead into the hard ground.
A muttered voice echoed.
Speak
It wasn't actually uttering those exact words! But when forcibly filtered through the limited scope of human cognition, that was how it registered. Oh, the seductive whispers of the abyss. Deep. So incredibly deep. So alluring. We must flee. But we cannot flee?????? So enticing yet so utterly profane????? We must worship it????
"D-Death..."
Someone stammered. A broken mutter.
"He said... we're all going to die. He told us to prepare for our demise, uh..."
"What the hell are you babbling about?!"
Jin Na-sol barely managed to seize someone by the collar—not just anyone, but Baek Saheon, the rookie in the black goat mask.
"He told us to ready ourselves for death! Death! That damn cat! That monster, Kim Sol...!"
A maw materialized above the narrow alley.
A colossal, shadowy silhouette of a gaping mouth, wide enough to swallow the entire street and everything within it. It began to articulate.
It is still reciting something! It is reading—no, no...!
Damn it.
"Agent Choi loaded the most potent mental defense round he possessed into his glass handgun, fighting an overwhelming compulsion to bite through his own tongue. He had only three rounds left—absolute prioritization was necessary."
What? Wait.
The external narration and internal thoughts were beginning to blur together.
"Suddenly, even the frantic inner voices and chaotic thoughts of the Daydream Inc. employees became perfectly legible. Agent Bronze swallowed hard. ...The fundamental supernatural architecture of the ghost story, which typically restricts its hallucinatory effects solely to the children, is being entirely bypassed."
Hold on a second.
"A freezing wave of dread crawled up the jagged scar on his neck."
This phenomenon manifesting right now... could it be...
"An Annihilation-class sanction?"
"What do you want?! What do you want from us?! Why are we being killed?! I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I'll do anything—I don't even know what you want me to do, but I'll do it! Please, just leave us alon—"
"......"
"......"
It vanished.
The familiar, glittering facade of the Twinkle Twinkle Ocean Palace and the gloomy depths of the Mermaid Grave snapped back into view.
Thud—
They all collapsed onto the ground, their eyes hollow and unfocused. The indescribably vast and terrifying ■■■ had evaporated, and the suffocating void slowly began to fill with normal air once more...
And then, a chilling premonition settled over them.
"Just a moment ago... you screamed that you would do anything..."
Every eye in the alley slowly turned to fixate on the black goat mask-wearing Baek Saheon.
"You claimed that if the presence left, you would do whatever it asked..."
As Baek Saheon's face drained of all color, turning a sickly, ashen gray—
Jingle.
"...!"
Something stepped silently out of the suffocating darkness at the far end of the alley.
"That's..."
It was a black cat.
The crimson-eyed feline stared blankly at the terrified humans. A historical symbol of misfortune, bearing a long legacy of fear and persecution, yet merely a familiar street stray moving through the everyday world.
The central figure of the world's most renowned short horror tale.
The cat took a deliberate step forward.
"...!"
A faint, unsettling crackle seemed to accompany its shifting silhouette.
Tension rippled violently through the gathered crowd. They completely abandoned their complex rivalries, corporate hostilities, and immediate conflicts, wholly consumed by watching the creature's movements.
Stopping directly before the black goat mask, it opened its small mouth.
[This way]
"...!"
A clear, undeniable will was projected.
[This way]
The cat's piercing gaze was locked onto a specific direction.
Baek Saheon staggered unsteadily to his feet. He glared down at the cat, his face completely pale, and then slowly began to walk.
The black feline paced silently alongside him. The humans and the disguised baby mermaids alike staggered forward in a macabre procession...
'It's working. It's actually working.'
Even if, internally, he was Kim Soleum, desperately swallowing back cold sweat and tears of sheer panic!
– Do you happen to have a tattoo sticker that vocalizes anything I input, somewhat like a text-to-speech app? ...Ah! You can custom print it right here on the spot?
Yes, exactly that.
At the Moonlight Tattoo Shop, Kim Soleum had acquired a musical-note tattoo sticker explicitly designed to 'transmit internal thoughts as spoken words.' He had carefully applied it to his paw pad. Now, he moved awkwardly on all fours, desperately projecting an aura of composed, otherworldly authority. Regardless of his internal terror, he was profoundly relieved that the events were unfolding exactly as he had planned.
'I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind!'
A few hours prior.
'Huu.'
Emerging from the Moonlight Tattoo Shop, Kim Soleum had shed his feline disguise, temporarily reverting back to the form of a human child.
He scanned the surroundings—the vibrant, blissful paradise of the theme park—and fought down a violent shudder.
The old transformation stamp was now heavily worn. One more use, and its magic would be entirely spent... But the task ahead was absolutely a deed that required human hands.
"I finally have the opportunity to test it."
He retrieved the item he had been meticulously saving for a desperate moment.
Reaching deep within the magical inventory tattoo etched into his skin, he finally withdrew the object he had purchased long ago from the enigmatic Space Shopping Mall.
'Huu.'
Right then...
It was a profoundly disturbing tome. The cover was bound in what appeared to be human skin, sealed shut with thick, dark red wax, and embossed with human faces contorted in eternal screams.
Necronomicon
The Book of the Dead.
Kim Soleum stared down at the ancient, cursed grimoire, its heavy red-wax seal seeming to hold back unspeakable, sanity-shattering secrets.
'...Even Brown recognized this thing.'
But there was one crucial detail about it.
– This is not the authentic Necronomicon you are thinking of.
It was exactly as Brown had warned him back then.
Kim Soleum reverted to his cat form and carefully shifted his forepaws to avoid drawing any suspicion.
By gingerly feeling beneath the imposing wax seal with his soft paws... he found it. There, hidden right at the edge, was a tiny, mundane metal hinge.
Of course. This horrifying artifact...
'This grim tome was really just a hollow bookcase.'
When he clicked it open—
Click.
Inside rested a standard, wireless-bound softcover book, printed with neat, modern fonts and a remarkably generic cover.
Necronomicon
Easy Korean Revised Edition Now Available!
A slick yet incredibly tacky modern publication.
"......"
At this point, anyone would be thinking, '????' but he just had to bear with the absurdity a bit longer. He flipped open the cover. Just past the table of contents, the main text began.
Wijah e'i wijah e'i enkuru ga zakayip hirigeubu someruka bua-teu ni— allat hotelp peurigibeu winiwi-keu zaiche-ruleuge
...Did you catch that?
It was alien, Lovecraftian vocabulary written out in crude, approximated Korean phonetics.
Right. This cursed book was nothing more than a (different kind of) horrific mistranslation...! According to the researchers who documented it in the wiki, it was so riddled with typos and grammatical errors that it was practically a comedy.
A botched, bootleg edition that clumsily attempted to mimic the pronunciation of some archaic version of the true Necronomicon!
'In the realm of cosmic horror, fictional tongues are deliberately designed to be nearly impossible for the human mouth to fully pronounce or the human mind to understand, making this phonetic guide truly pointless.'
Needless to say, it possessed absolutely zero capacity to summon the true madness or genuine cosmic dread of the authentic artifact. Its actual nature was...
A ghost story artifact specifically designed to mock crowdfunding scams.
Mm-hmm, exactly. It was that sort of item.
Yet in the world of ghost stories, there is always at least one gruesome side effect attached to every item. And this corrupted, scam edition possessed exactly one—perfectly appropriate to its fraudulent theme. Exactly what one would expect from a fake...
A purely psychological effect.
In short, it was an elaborate bluff item designed solely for intimidation!
And it was a little embarrassing to use...
The more deeply the reader is immersed in horror media, or if they possess a high level of suggestibility, the more vivid and pronounced the hallucinatory effects become.
...Which meant, Kim Soleum grimly judged, it was an item practically tailor-made for him.
'Keuugh.'
Of course, he had nearly lost his own mind while reading it.
Without the stabilizing effects of the magical lemonade he had purchased from the Moonlight Tattoo Shop, he might have suffered a complete mental collapse, bleeding from every pore.
Anyway.
'I can't do that again.'
He couldn't force himself to read another line. He would undoubtedly go mad mid-sentence. And if he remained in his cat form and was caught reading a book out loud, the entire illusion would be shattered.
But that terrifying psychological aura only triggered when someone was actively reading the fake Necronomicon aloud.
So, currently disguised as a cat, Kim Soleum's actual physical abilities were no different from any ordinary street animal...
'Could I actually... fool them into following me?'
He had no choice but to try.
[This way]
And so Kim Soleum resolutely led the procession of Daydream Inc. employees and Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau agents, projecting the aura of an extraordinary, otherworldly creature.
'Please, I beg of you all, just help me escape this place.'
Their ultimate destination...
The hidden sanctuary where the Angel's Sigh still remained.