One Jelly Per Person

⟨ SOL Jelly Store Phone ⟩

One of the defective prototypes that Manager Lee Wonwoo of BOND's Product Development Team had handed out as gifts during our field trip.

And there it was now, in the palm of my hand.

I picked up the absurdly long tag coiled around the MP3's lanyard and ran my eyes down the print as fast as I could.

Having read it all the way to the end, I pressed the file-shaped icon on the MP3's screen as if in a trance. The display switched, and a list of contacts lined up one after another.

And at the very top of that list…

"…!"

"Press it!"

"Wha— hold on, just a second."

What stopped me from mashing it outright was that suspiciously overlong tag, stretched out with fine print.

I read the words on it over again, chewing each line carefully, and this time one passage in particular jumped out at me.

And beside it, in slanting handwritten script…

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.

The screen of the MP3 in my hand hadn't changed.

Then what the hell is this?

"Press it!"

Nabi's urging and the urgency of our situation pushed my heart to hurry. I quickly steadied my breathing and moved my finger.

Tap.

Right. It wasn't as if I had a better option lined up anyway. Rumor or ghost story, what did it matter? If it got me out of here, I'd do anything. Truly the trajectory of a "debtor" who, on the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠strength of sheer survival instinct alone, had sold his present life and even his afterlife to a monster friend.

Following the instructions, I fitted the earphone into my ear and waited. Before long, a cheerful chime rang out and a recorded voice began to play.

A community center?

It was a community-center recording down to the letter. I wavered in mild confusion before finally pressing 3.

More than the unfamiliar currency unit, more even than that dubious phrase — "Earth's exchange rate" — a different set of words wedged itself deep in my ear.

Emergency dispatch!

If someone could be summoned here to help us, wouldn't that be a far more certain escape route than the advice or relief supplies written on that tag?

I gave my answer without a moment's hesitation.

"Yes."

Unless it was prohibitively expensive — and even then, it seemed a small price against the value of our lives.

However…

"…What?"

I opened my mouth before I'd even finished counting the zeros.

"No. Cancel that."

…There. I'd finished counting by then.

One point five billion.

Seriously — had the exchange rate lost its mind?

After agonizing over it, I pulled one earphone free and whispered to Moon Chaeyoung.

"Team Leader Moon."

"Yes?"

"By any chance… would you happen to have 1.5 billion won in your account?"

The corner of Moon Chaeyoung's mouth — which had, if anything, been tilted faintly upward — went into free fall. Maybe it was the darkness, but she even looked murderous. Or was that just my imagination?

Go ahead and curse me out. I'd rather you did.

"Teacher."

"Yes?"

"I am, admittedly, a team leader at a major corporation, but I am not paid so handsomely that 1.5 billion won would simply be sitting in my account."

"…Right. Sorry for the pointless question."

Feeling inexplicably apologetic, I bobbed my head toward her and fitted the earphone back into my ear. Desperate to escape, I'd even run simulations on splitting 1.5 billion won every which way, but…

Getting out of here would only mean tumbling into a whole new hell of loans.

In the end, I had no choice but to take the other branch.

"Option two, please. Advice and relief supplies."

Who knew the day would come when not having 1.5 billion won would wound me this deeply.

A moment later, light flashed from the MP3's screen. That light washed over the cathedral's interior in the dungeon and vanished in an instant.

It was, frankly, an astonishing speed.

Because apart from me… no one else seemed to have noticed that light at all.

Mutation Hall?

The place I'd walked into was a dungeon, though? …Which could only mean — no way — that what this thing called a "Mutation Hall" was what we called a "dungeon."

I tore through my bag on the spot.

Found it.

In the bag's inner pocket, my fingers closed around a square box that hadn't been there before.

"…"

I unzipped it fast and fished it out: a lemon-yellow square box. I ripped along the perforation, and inside, snuggled into adorable plastic wrappers, lay a whole row of lemon-shaped jellies.

I read the door-sized sticker slapped across the back of the box, then finished peeling open the plastic wrapper.

Just as the tag promised — relief supplies that fit the situation to a tee.

A game of truth and lies dressed up as confession. In here, these jellies were nothing short of a cheat key for sorting true from false on the spot.

Not that I'd know the effect for certain until someone actually ate one.

Only one way to find out.

"I'm boooored~ I'm so bored~ Can't I just go in there? Huh? Please?"

Noa, who had been holding it in this entire time, finally latched on with a whine. And not just Noa — the children clustered nearby piled in one after another, as if every ounce of restraint they'd been bottling up had burst at once.

"Aaaahhh~ I wanna go in there too~~ I'm gonna go~"

"Shh! Wooju, quiet down, can't you?"

"Mom, can't I go in there too?"

"Nope. You go in there, and there's no snack for you today. None."

"Dad, I actually rather like candy myself, you know."

"Quiet, you. You're in high school already — how are you still this immature?"

Some not-quite-children seemed to be mixed in with the lot…

Humming under my breath, I looked at the enormous glass jar beside the altar.

To think, of all things, that looked fun to a child's eyes.

The candy syrup had risen to the waists of the people sealed inside the glass jar, and they had gone white as sheets.

The grown-ups hoisted the children onto their shoulders or scooped them up in their arms, desperate to keep them from sinking into the syrup.

Of course, the children trapped in that glass jar, blissfully oblivious to the gravity of it all, looked far too busy enjoying themselves to care.

"Mister, lift me up higher, please!"

"Miss, can I touch this thing?"

"Ah — no, don't. It might be dangerous…!"

Counting the jellies in my hand, I spoke to Noa as evenly as I could.

"Noa, if you go in there, it's going to be crazy sticky, you know? It'll cling to your socks and your hair and everything — wouldn't that feel super gross?"

"We'll just play and then wash it off!"

Why are you suddenly so smart?

The answer was so refreshingly airtight that I had no comeback left. Confirming the five jellies in my hand, I gave Noa an awkward smile.

If only we could get home and wash up, it would truly be the most magnificent texture play ever.

Provided we could get home, that is.

And please — let the syrup in that glass jar rise more slowly than we could clear this dungeon.

Reconnaissance complete. Time to move.

I slid over, without a sound, to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the very end of the bench.

The gap between the benches. I studied the wide-open aisle that ran straight to the altar.

Yeah. I can make this work.

Just as I decided I had the timing more or less down—

It's starting.

"Hey, listen! I'm gonna spout nothing but lies, got it?! You know what I'm saying?!"

"Huh?"

"Ugh, if I have to say something no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠matter what, then just lie the whole time! Then all I have to do is declare that the mister did nothing but lie!"

This round's picks were a boy in a school uniform and a dim-looking man in his fifties.

What was genuinely surprising, though, was that the student had registered the fact that he'd been snagged for the confession and arrived at that plan in the very same breath.

"Oh, look at that. He actually used his head."

"Doesn't he, though."

"It won't get him anywhere, though. Probably."

At Moon Chaeyoung's words, I nodded, a pang of pity in my chest.

That's exactly what I thought.

A rigged round of Go-Stop.

Believer or priest, the moment you armored yourself entirely in truth or entirely in lies, there ceased to be any way to get the call wrong. Whether the answer was lie or truth.

And yet…

The voice had said it, clear as day:

Besides, since the believer's utterances carried no will of their own, it seemed even the believers themselves only learned what they'd said after it had left their mouths. Whether they had lied, or told the truth.

With everything moving as fast as it had, it was the kind of detail you could easily have missed.

So no — that little cheat wasn't going to fly.

Which meant… assuming nothing went wrong, I had my own job to do.

"Mister, you heard me, right? Nothing but lies! Absolutely nothing but lies!"

Having drilled that warning home, I let the boy pass as he was hauled toward the altar, and kept my eyes on the man slowly, steadily closing the distance behind him.

His face does not look good.

And just before the man passed in front of me—

Quick as a whip, I pressed it into his hand.

He was the believer this time, right?

"Eat it right now. Chew it up nice and fine, then swallow."

The Pinocchio jelly.

"Ye-yes?"

"Now! Hurry!"

"Ah — yes! Yep!"

Browbeaten by my eyes and my urging, the man dumped a jelly into his mouth and chewed.

Even as he was dragged toward the altar, he kept glancing back at me, once, then again.

Hey, quit looking at me like I'm some raving lunatic.

I felt sweat sliding down my spine.

Here we go.

"Uh — this morning I left the house without folding the laundry. My wife told me to fold it, but I was too busy, so… Uh, the words are seriously coming out on their own?"

The man looked flustered by the speech spilling out of him with no regard for his own will. What came next, however, nearly knocked him out cold.

"Huh? Wha? My nose?"

Mid-sentence, his nose was growing.

"Now what in the world is that."

Ignoring Moon Chaeyoung's mutter beside me, I swung my gaze across the way to the student.

He'd been on the verge of shouting lie at any second — until he saw the man's lengthening nose and clamped his mouth shut again.

He's rattled.

But of this, I was certain.

That kid knows the answer.

Truthfully, there was no way not to. Anyone who'd made it through elementary school in South Korea, fit and fine, would have one fairy tale spring to mind without even trying.

The world-famous fairy tale. Pinocchio.

"The reason the nose grows is—"

The instant I finished muttering, the student opened his mouth.

"Lie."

?

"No, wait! Falsehood! He lied!"

Attaboy. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Falsehood. Gotta use the pretty word.

"Haah…"

I exhaled a breath of relief. Come on, kid — one demonstration, that's all I ask. Get the hang of it.

The voice rang out, and the man opened his mouth again.

"My daughter started high school this year and practically lives at her cram school, and I hated that, so just once — just once — I called her academy behind her back…. Told them my girl was sick and couldn't come in today."

Watching the misty-eyed man grope at his elongated nose, the student answered without a flicker of hesitation.

"That one's real. That was the truth."

The man's nose had not grown during his second confession. The student had read that meaning exactly right.

"Whoa — holy crap, whoa! Mister! We did it!"

"Mm. Nice work, kid. But my nose…"

"Oh, come on, what's a nose? Hurry up and sit down!"

Ringing a hearty slap off the aggrieved man's backside, the two of them returned to their seats in the warmest possible spirits.

Watching them with a distant look, Moon Chaeyoung turned to me wearing an odd expression.

"A nose that grows when you lie — that's Pinocchio, plain and simple… wouldn't you say, Teacher?"

Dodging the oddly lit-up gleam in her eyes, I answered in a deliberately innocent tone.

"That's right, isn't it? Whatever could it be."

Needless to say, I had no intention of walking her through those results line by line.

And because she might just get sucked into it, too.

Even granting it had come from BOND's Product Development Team, this was the fruit of an unverified, condemned prototype. If my judgment call happened to end in the worst possible outcome, I had zero intention of dragging Moon Chaeyoung down with me.

Besides — once you knew, there was no escaping becoming a party to it.

"My, my. A surprisingly sloppy dungeon, isn't it?"

"…"

"Still, I'll take it. Look — the clear gauge is already half full. At this rate… honestly, just a few more rounds of this and we're done."

That much was true.

But…

By now the syrup's surface had climbed to around the sternum.

I have to finish this as fast as I possibly can.

Yet I was only impatient now — no longer afraid. There was a proven way through, and a situation built to receive it.

Everyone below the altar had just watched the whole thing unfold. So even if Pinocchio didn't spring to mind, they could infer plenty.

That the change in the believer's body was the answer itself.

Which meant, so long as I pressed a jelly into the hand of every chosen believer…

We all walk out of here safe.

As long as we ran this a few more times without hurrying the jar's waterline along.

Fortunately, events rolled forward faster and steadier than I'd projected.

Across several more confessions powered by the jellies, I worked up such nerve that I was pressing a jelly into each believer's hand on the walk to the altar — even tossing in a cheer for good measure.

"Oh, there's barely any room left now."

The syrup sloshed beneath an adult woman's chin. Even then, the grown-ups hoisted the children overhead and held the line.

"No. No. It is not getting in my mouth. I am on a diet, I told you."

"Please! It's so sweet I could die… blegh."

Faster. Faster.

And at last—

"Teacher, I think this is the last one."

A nod.

Let's nail this. Last one.

Click.

The light died, and a beat later—

Light poured down onto my right shoulder.

Glittering dust, right beside me… beside me?

"…!"

"Huh? Wooooah! It's my turn now, right? I get to go in there now, right?!"

Noa…

had drawn the confession.

I watched the child bounce up and down, speechless.

Disaster.

But a far greater disaster followed.

My clenched fist loosened bit by bit until it finally opened all the way…

and in it… was nothing.

I'd used up every last jelly.

In that instant, a single sentence flashed across my mind like a floodlight:

I hadn't given one single thought to the number.

Wow.

Wow, what do I do.

"Yesss! Teacher, I'll be right back!"