Stuck in the Wall Bunny Girl (1): Bunny Girl in the Cursed Mart
It was definitely a smooth shopping trip at first. My luck was pretty good, too. The snack aisle had the milk-flavored caramels that had been my absolute favorite since my firefighter days on sale.
The pork belly I planned to cook for dinner was also high-quality meat at a bargain price. I filled the shopping cart with a happy heart. Seeing it packed full of bright red cuts of meat, the corners of my mouth turned up in a wide, silly grin.
The Praising Goddess points out that your smile is lewd.
Shut up.
Just when I was starting to feel good, she had to butt in. In a burst of annoyance, I grabbed another pack of beef as well.
There were a few changes that came after my body transformed. My palate had become strangely fond of sweets, and the amount I ate had suddenly increased. I had no idea why. The current me required far more calories than I ever did during my firefighter days.
It felt like my basal metabolic rate had skyrocketed. To feel properly full, I needed to put away at least three or four servings. I had even been asked if I did mukbang streams.
Thanks to that, my food expenses had shot up sharply. It was a relief that the Anomaly Management Bureau gave me generous compensation money. Otherwise I might have ended up living on nothing but instant ramen.
The Praising Goddess tempts you to buy carrots. After all, a bunny needs carrots.
I don’t want any. I like meat. What does a carrot even taste like anyway?
Since my firefighter days I had loved meat. I was especially crazy about pork belly. After tough scenes on the job, greasy food was always what I craved. I still remembered grilling kimchi in the sizzling pork fat with my colleagues. We were friends who really understood each other.
When the constellation changed my gender, every trace of my old life in this world changed along with it. The aspiring nurse Lee Hasol had no connection whatsoever to firefighter colleagues.
The Praising Goddess apologizes. There was no way to preserve your human relationships as well.
So you do know how to apologize. The constellation’s messages carried emotion, however faint. I could feel she was genuinely downcast, so I decided not to press the issue.
It’s fine. If the chance comes, we’ll meet again someday. It’s not like we were personally close anyway.
Hmm. Her mood had completely tanked. Better change the subject.
She was a nuisance of a constellation in many ways, but it was also true that she helped me just as much. Seeing the usually energetic girl like this made me feel uneasy.
As a result, I could now save more people than I ever had during my firefighter days. The money I would earn in the future would be on a completely different scale, and danger had always been dangerous. If you excluded the part about suddenly becoming a woman, it wasn’t all bad.
Let’s stop by the vegetable section at least. If I ate a carrot like she wanted, she might cheer up a little.
The moment I turned my steps, something changed.
The Praising Goddess warns in shock. This is not the place you knew. Look around carefully.
A sense of dissonance rose from the deepest part of my instincts. The feeling of something snapping, twisting, breaking. The noisy chatter of people stopped for a single moment, then returned. The mart I saw again had subtly changed. Especially the customers around me.
Their appearances felt wrong. They lacked any sense of life, like ambiguously well-made mannequins. It was hard to put into exact words, but their behavior and looks filled me with unease.
— Bababam~ Bababbarababam~ Bababam~ —
We apologize for the great inconvenience.
Daon Mart.
The changed logo song was just the cherry on top. This confirmed I had been dragged into a horror story. And I had heard of this particular one before.
Daon Mart ghost story. But it’s a little different from what I remember…
It was a tale about a supermarket that had vanished long ago but continued doing business somewhere. Naturally the customers were not human, and the stores inside were far from ordinary.
The survival rate was roughly twenty percent. Even that figure had been officially confirmed by the bureau. Considering every person who had ever entered had been a hunter, the difficulty was clearly high.
However, the Anomaly Management Bureau had never rated this anomaly’s danger level very highly.
NAME:Daon Mart
THREAT LEVEL:C
IDENTIFICATION NUMBER:BPA-LOC-II-035
TYPE:Pocket dimension mimicking a closed supermarket
Appears in the form of a supermarket building that went out of business in ■■■■. Multiple stores are located inside, but both staff and customers are hostile to humans. The building’s exterior is distinctive and easily distinguished from a normal large supermarket. If you have not yet entered, escape is possible by moving away from the building. It has been confirmed that anomalies inside cannot exert influence beyond the structure.
The Praising Goddess warns you. This anomaly’s domain is extremely unstable. She strongly recommends escaping as quietly as possible.
This was the first time my constellation had ever spoken this gravely. A chill ran down my spine. There really must be something dangerous here.
Sure enough, from nearby came heavy thud… thump… footsteps. From the shadow it cast, the figure looked like a giant holding a massive blade. I immediately turned my eyes away and pretended to browse the products.
I don’t know what that is, but absolutely do not make eye contact.
When an anomaly mimicked a specific location, the correct response in nine out of ten cases was to act like an ordinary user of that facility. The problem was that I had no ability to actually pay for anything in this place.
There was no way the anomaly would accept banknotes issued by the Bank of Korea. Credit cards? Mobile payments? If you could settle a bill that way, it wouldn’t be a horror story—it would be a comedy skit. And how would they even handle the value-added tax payable to the National Tax Service?
The Praising Goddess claps and agrees. That is a very wise response.
That much was basic knowledge. I had studied hard whenever I had the chance. A small surge of pride ran through me.
Anyway, the golden rule of escaping a horror story was natural behavior. Quietly, without drawing attention. I had to act as if I belonged here, just another customer.
If I kept pretending to shop and quietly looked for the exit, I could—
“U-uwaaaaaagh! Save me! Please, someone save me!”
Ah. A human voice. So I wasn’t the only one who had been dragged in.
My body moved before my brain could even process the thought.
* * *
Blood and internal organs are originally symbols of horror. Humans instinctively associate the sight of blood with death. We evolved to avoid danger at the primal level. Add in the metallic stench unique to blood and the physiological revulsion caused by exposed organs.
Modern people who grew up without ever having to witness such things had a hard time building any resistance. Even awakeners needed time to adapt to the visuals of horror stories. Lee Hasol’s mental fortitude, forged through a career as a rescue worker, was clearly an outlier.
Therefore, the ordinary college student Yu Seo-gyeom was not reacting in an especially pathetic way. When normal people fell into a horror story, they usually spiraled into full panic.
“W-what the hell is this? Are these… are these real human organs?”
— Mr. Jang Nyeong-bok’s Lungs —
Try our 67-year-aged organs!
“Ugh… I really can’t look at stuff like this.”
Seo-gyeom hadn’t started screaming right away. Everyone in the world knew horror stories existed. Most information was tightly classified, but basic survival rules were common knowledge. He had at least tried to stay somewhat calm.
“Customer, would you like to try our kids’ cafe?”
“We’re currently operating it as a no-kids zone, so it’s perfect for adult customers to enjoy.”
“You’ll definitely have fun, sir. We’ve just received a huge shipment of brand-new toys!”
“That’s strange… It should be fun. So fresh…”
Even when he saw the clerk with the upside-down face soliciting customers. Even when that same clerk pulled out a severed head dripping with blood. He had trembled, repeating the same mantra over and over.
Pretend you didn’t hear. Pretend you didn’t hear. Pretend you didn’t hear.
That determination had been so desperate he had bitten his own tongue hard enough to draw blood while trying to hold back a scream.
Seo-gyeom’s mistake began right there.
Where should I go now? First… let’s head somewhere with lots of people. Yeah. There might be others like me.
Wandering around here alone was terrifying. He couldn’t even muster the courage to head toward deserted areas. He also had a good excuse. From ancient times, ghosts had always targeted lone people in dark places rather than groups in bright ones, hadn’t they? In horror movies, the guy who acted tough was always the first to die.
Just ten minutes after entering the mart, Seo-gyeom paid the price for his misjudgment.
The rule he had broken was Do not enter the mart while bleeding.
The giant holding the massive blade grabbed his shoulder.
— Smells like blood…
— Fresh… meat?
— Should put it back… in the warehouse…
No matter how hard he tried to steel his mind this time, he couldn’t hold back the scream.
“U-uwaaaaaagh! Save me! Please, someone save me!”
He ran desperately, but the giant was unnaturally fast. For a brief moment he knocked over nearby customers while sprinting down the aisle. Then something sharp sank into his calf.
“Aaaagh! Agh! Huaaaaagh!”
He didn’t understand. He had no idea what was happening. His leg wouldn’t move properly. So Seo-gyeom tried to crawl away using both arms. A long red trail of blood followed him across the floor.
Thud… thump.
The giant now followed at a leisurely pace. There was no need to hurry when the meat had already been caught.
Just as tears filled Seo-gyeom’s eyes, an unnaturally beautiful, pure-white leg appeared in front of him. It belonged to a girl. She wore pure white stockings and a snow-white bunny girl outfit. Her silver hair and crimson eyes gleamed.
For a moment, Seo-gyeom forgot even the pain and thought only one thing.
She’s beautiful…
Then the girl opened her mouth.