Chapter 126
Chapter 126
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 126
Chapter Title: The Smiler (2)
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Cheongho didn't react to my provocation.
"Kuhuh, kuhuhuhk, kuhihi, kuhuhuhu…."
He just burst into that grating laugh again.
'He keeps laughing.'
It was probably laughter erupting regardless of his emotions.
"Chairman. Surely there's such a thing as rank, isn't there? If you were going to be enthralled, it should have been by something on the level of an Abyssal Being."
I'd had some idea already, but now it was clear what was involved. Shadows, prophecies, and that contextless laughter that kept appearing.
'Now even this third-rate nonsense is bothering me.'
[The Smiler].
The malicious one, the laughing skull, the caller of madness, the shadow in the darkness, the monster in the fog, offspring of the serpent, the wicked prophet.
A mad prophet who always foretold only unfortunate futures, ruin, and despair.
I could rattle off a few more fancy names associated with this bastard, but [The Smiler] wasn't an Abyssal Being.
He was a step below that....
'A greater spirit.'
Or an Outer God. If I had to belittle it, just an ancient entity.
In the original Cthulhu Mythos that formed the basis of [Cthulhu World], such distinctions weren't clear-cut, but in [Cthulhu World], they were sharply divided for game balance reasons.
In short, it was something like a candidate for Abyssal Being status.
"That book... kukuk, uheet! Uhuhuhu... that book contained the truth. It was good, so good that I read it before handing it over to you. Kukukuku…."
"What a disaster. Unlike the lies adults tell children, not everything written in books is always the truth."
That was especially true if it was a book from [Cthulhu World].
And even more so if it was an ancient tome written in a foreign language? You shouldn't just filter the contents—you should refuse contact altogether.
Cheongho had read the book infused with [The Smiler]'s power and become his slave.
"It was originally hidden inside this bunker.... Kukuk, kuku... The guy I took this place from told me never to touch it."
Ah, you don't need to share those fine details....
But something else was nagging at me.
'His condition is too good.'
Of course, he was far from normal, but considering the omens throughout this entire bunker, he was in remarkably fine shape.
He was communicating his will relatively concretely and clearly, wasn't he?
'No, more than that.'
There was something off about what Cheongho was saying.
His state didn't seem human so much as an NPC that had met certain conditions.
I'm getting overly cautious. Maybe I should probe a bit more?
"Chairman. Was it you who sent me the message to take the book?"
"Uheet! Uhehehehehet! Uhahahaha!!"
Cheongho laughed loudly again.
He was laughing so hard it seemed like he'd keel over, rolling on the floor any second.
"Yes! I went to the trouble of sending the message, but foolish Kim Shin-hwa! You went off to the wrong place and wasted time pointlessly."
"Thanks to that, I could protect your family, and I made a tidy sum. By the way, how did you send the message without the other directors knowing?"
"I, I am not just the kingpin of Paju—I rule all violence in this Republic of Korea. I'm the Blue Tiger. One of the three heads of the Triad Council. I still have hundreds of networks left to move without those old fogeys noticing."
Well, well?
Cheongho had reached the point of explaining his own character backstory.
If I asked who his first love was right now, he'd probably launch into a heartfelt love story about a gruff but passionate man who lacked the words to express himself, but whose heart burned hot.
'Talking to this guy is pointless.'
He was just a puppet.
I briefly averted my gaze from Cheongho and scanned the room.
Where was the book? It couldn't be an ordinary one. It was probably an artifact in its own right, or something worthy of being called an avatar of [The Smiler].
[Mana Detection]
[Transparent Entity Detection]
[Curse Detection]
[Trap Detection]
[Perception]
[Heavenly Sight]
Kiiiiing....
'Found it.'
Amid the unpleasant noise filling not just the room but the entire bunker, I detected a dissonant gaze.
A sticky, malevolent gaze that was hard to attribute to any human.
The gaze's location was....
'Damn, things keep escalating.'
I'd definitely sensed something, but the spot was just an empty wall.
Another secret door and hidden room? No, there wasn't even a door?
What was the structure behind that wall? This mana pattern was probably....
"Kuhuk... What an intriguing expression. Sensing something? Kuhuhuhu…."
Another one commenting on my face. Can you even see my face under the mask?
I turned back to Cheongho.
'Ah, this is getting really annoying. Should I just burn it all down and be done with it?'
No, too soon.
Pushing through with brute force before clarifying the form of the book embodying [The Smiler]'s power wasn't wise. If I botched it, it might flee outright or trigger some unforeseen event.
'Tch, better to play out this event a bit more.'
"Chairman—."
Knowing it was pointless, I still spoke to him.
"You seem to understand what I'm saying, at least?"
"I understand, I understand? Uhahat! Ahahahak! Uhak!"
"Well, being able to output that level of response is pretty encouraging. You might recover with treatment."
"Really? Kukuk, kuk, kuk, and?"
I knew this was meaningless too.
No point in persuading him—he couldn't be turned back.
It was too late for Cheongho.
"How about it? Wouldn't it be better to return to the Triad Council—no, to your home—instead of staying here?"
"Go back? What happens if I do?"
"Well, you'd get to see your family."
"Hehehe... Family, underlings, comrades, organization—all, all, all meaningless and futile. Here, in this darkness, between hollow death and pointless laughter, in the midst of laughs scattering into emptiness, I have attained truth!"
"Ah, truth?"
I sighed in response.
I didn't hide the blatant sarcasm, but Cheongho either didn't pick up on my tone or ignored it and kept talking.
"This world, this world exists only for the great minds in the deepest abyss, beyond the distant galaxies our minds cannot reach, up there above!"
"Wow, profound realization. Does it lead into the typical doomsday stuff about ruin and all that?"
"Our world, this universe, is nothing but a hollow, meaningless prank for those great minds' brief amusement and diversion—no, a lowbrow momentary joke. The kind of boredom-killer you peek at for a moment out of curiosity before losing interest and tossing it away!"
"Huh? Not heading into doom and destruction?"
"Why, why are you fine? You, you too peered into that deep, deep, dark, dark, hollow, hollow abyss, didn't you? Why haven't you gone mad? What's the difference between you and me!"
"Sigh, different? What's different? We're the same—."
Why am I fine?
What are you talking about? I'm already insane.
I'm just pretending to be sane because I can't get any crazier than this.
"—Chairman, you just haven't gone fully mad."
"What? What? What?"
"Better to fully embrace that madness and become a cultist, or thoroughly reject the knowledge and turn into a raving lunatic. Lingering in this unstable in-between only prolongs the suffering."
"No! I'm already too far gone. But Kim Shin-hwa, my brother! You're completely different from us. You're living a completely different life! You're different from us—your soul structure, your mind structure, your body structure are all completely different. I intuited it the moment I clashed mana with you last time. You're from another world."
I wanted to smack him and end it, but the time wasn't right.
Attacking at a sloppy moment with half-baked methods would just let the bastard lurking behind, cackling mischievously, escape.
Patience was needed now. Just a little longer.
He'd reveal his weakness soon enough.
"No. Chairman, you're suffering from delusions right now. The things you're thinking of aren't your own thoughts—they're forced delusions implanted by someone."
I knew Cheongho's words weren't complete nonsense.
Even so, I deliberately denied them.
[The Smiler] only spoke the truth.
But there was only one reason he did.
Truth was more reliably destructive to the human mind than any magic or curse.
"You can escape this world. Right? But you lack knowledge, lack power! I can give you the knowledge you lack, the power you lack!"
Come to think of it, at some point, the laughter had vanished from Cheongho's speech.
In its place were grotesque longing, pathological ecstasy, and unnatural conviction filling his expression, voice, and gestures.
Ah, had he finally met some condition? It was about to start.
"This way! This way, follow me! It's still too sturdy, this space! We need to break it more! Come here! We can change this world even further! My god! The voice of revelation that granted me true wisdom, I shall show you the language of truth!"
"Chairman. There's nothing there."
"Foolish Kim Shin-hwa! My brother! Open your eyes! I've seen the truth! This world is not fixed at all—it's so fragile! What you see with your eyes is not the truth!"
Cheongho charged toward the wall shrouded in thick darkness.
It was definitely the spot where I'd sensed something earlier.
'Yeah, the usual pattern.'
I'd been waiting for it.
That was why I'd dragged out this horrific conversation.
'There was originally nothing beyond that wall.'
It should have been a solid wall.
Even beyond it, there should have been nothing but dirt and rocks.
But as Cheongho said, this world's physical laws and causality were so fragile and unstable.
'Full of tricks.'
The spatial structure and setup were changing. 'It was too dark to see, but let's say there was actually a space here.'
The moment the wall parted, revealing the interior....
[After a long and arduous journey, you have finally met the Cheongho you so desperately sought. But astonishingly, the one awaiting you where Cheongho should be was not Cheongho. It was merely something that stole his form—a manifestation of a surreal entity connected to the abyss. Yet with your astonishing intuition, you sensed this beforehand. To draw out the entity behind it all, you deliberately hid your true feelings and conversed with this dissonant being. What remarkable patience. And your endurance has paid off. In the end, the dissonant entity calling itself Cheongho has decided to reveal its true form of its own accord.]
What the hell? I'd been standing still this whole time—what's this now? Move!
The message window that popped up out of nowhere flooded my vision with a massive wall of text.
No, wait—not at this timing, blocking my view?
I tried expanding my detection, but the noise intensified. Couldn't sense anything.
From beyond the message window came Cheongho's voice.
"Ia! Ia!! Look at this! Kim Shin-hwa! Behold! It descended in the form of a book, but this is my god! The one watching over all! The one mocking all the futility in this world! Truly wise! The great prophet!"
[The wall shrouded in darkness transformed without a moment's hesitation into a vast space draped in deep shadows. Within waits a massive tome crafted from the bones of living creatures, darkness, and a laugh so horrifically hollow. This book is a great entity that has existed in this universe since before humanity invented the concept of writing, for billions of years. You thought it fell short of Abyssal Being status, but you were wrong. 'The Smiler,' 'The Great Prophet,' 'The Tome of Greed and Ruin' clearly harbors the potential to one day ascend to the ranks of the Great Old Ones....]
"Get out of the way!"
Pajijijik!!
I unleashed lightning at the message window obstructing my view.
I didn't know if the attack worked, but the window vanished as if repelled by the sparks.
In my finally cleared vision was....
'A book?'
No.
Contrary to the message window's description, what emerged from the darkness was a bizarre specter in a humanoid silhouette.
A massive skull draped in a jet-black cloak, a grotesque being composed of thousands upon hundreds of bones.
An ancient, aged evil spirit that had existed since before humans invented writing.
"Oooh... I understand! I now comprehend your will! Kim Shin-hwa, a feast for my brother was what you needed! Understood! I understand your will to prepare me for this day! A feast! I shall become the feast for Kim Shin-hwa, for Kim Shin-hwa! Right here, me! Me! Me! Me! Descend through my flesh! Fatten the sacrifice of this feast through me! I offer it gladly!"
Cheongho suddenly raised that massive hand and gripped his own head.
A brutish motion.
Wooduk.
The sound of bones crumbling.
Cheongho was now... tearing off his own skull!