Chapter 289
Chapter 289
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 289
Chapter Title: Investigation and Inquiry
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“I should’ve at least grabbed a bite to eat.”
It had been a while since I’d gone home and seen Heo Sang-hyun, but here I was, leaving without even eating.
I’d just wrapped up a major quest in Sokcho.
Normally, I would’ve kicked back for days, savoring the delicious meal he prepared for me…
Swish—
Even in this humid, silent night with not a breath of wind, the long hem of my robe fluttered, tickling the back of my hand.
The [Night Veil Winged Robe] was an artifact woven from dreamlike illusion threads and the weft of midnight darkness.
“Settle down already,” I muttered.
Maybe I was just exhausted and projecting too much, but it felt like the robe was worried about me.
I was pretty tired, though.
“Well… if push comes to shove, I can always magic my way back home.”
I rubbed my stiff neck and shoulders, scanning the surroundings again.
A rusty metal sign reading [House of Healing].
It wasn’t printed—someone had written it by hand. How old was this place?
Below it, a hefty padlock and chains secured the front gate.
CCTV cameras positioned at regular intervals.
So this was…
“Security meant for people, huh?”
It was laughably lax compared to what you’d see in Paju, squeezed between the Great Wall and Seoul.
“Can’t blame them, though.”
They probably didn’t have to deal with surreal monsters, madness-driven cultists, or superpowered fixers very often.
This was Ansan.
A fairly peaceful city, not too far from Seoul.
How peaceful?
There were no quests or events in Ansan that players needed to worry about.
Actually, it went beyond that.
Ansan wasn’t even a place players could visit in the first place.
In [Cthulhu World], Ansan was an unimplemented area with no city map at all.
That’s why I hadn’t paid much attention when Jang Hyun-deok said he was heading there. It really was a place with nothing going on.
‘Man, what a headache.’
Even outside game knowledge, I didn’t know much about Ansan as a city. I’d never had reason to visit or care.
So I had no idea what dangers might lurk at this [House of Healing], or even if it was a game-exclusive location.
“If someone would just tell me the theme or genre, that’d make things a lot easier.”
I recalled Park Gwang-rim’s eerie words.
“This isn’t normal. Everyone here is overly happy—too peaceful! Something’s wrong! Kim Shin-hwa! A place like this shouldn’t exist! Jang Hyun-deok is probably dead.”
What had happened here?
Healing? Happiness? Peace?
It gave off cultish vibes, but in [Cthulhu World], cults were as common as kimchi in Korean cuisine.
That didn’t confirm anything.
“Anyway, that’s all the info I can glean for now.”
Up to this point, everything had been events and quests I knew about.
The game and its lore often diverged, but nothing like stumbling into a completely unknown place like this.
“Hmm…”
Not this time.
I could bulldoze in relying on my level, but that might trigger some absurd chain of ridiculous events.
“Last time, just messing up the departure date turned everything into a total mess.”
[Cthulhu World] was a game woven from insanity, malice, irrationality, and nonsense by lunatics.
You had to account for possibilities like the world ending because you stepped in with the wrong foot first. No room for rash moves.
“Feels like getting a free DLC, though.”
* * *
Whoosh—
The sound of my robe flapping in the wind.
In the end, I spread out my detection magic in all directions and followed the barbed wire fence.
The standard play when entering new territory: scout slowly and gather info.
The [House of Healing] sat at the foot of Suri Mountain in northeast Ansan, with plenty of trees for cover.
“What kind of flowers are those?”
Beyond the fence, unnaturally vivid flowers bloomed. Thorny vines crept along the wire.
“Not normal, that’s for sure.”
The thorns resembled rose stems, but the flowers sprouting wildly from them were red—no, purple—actually, magenta was the better word.
Florescent magenta flowers, eerie in their brightness.
I’d never seen anything like them.
At first, I thought they were only on the rose vines, but they dotted the grass beyond too.
“Still, Park Gwang-rim left something behind, I bet.”
I didn’t throw money at him for no reason.
Park Gwang-rim was an NPC specialized in investigation and reconnaissance.
Considering he did the legwork himself, he was even more capable than Tudor in some ways.
And when Park Gwang-rim ran into danger during an investigation, he always left clues for the player to find.
“Probably… over there?”
[Leap]
Whoosh—
A gut feeling, but I’d factored in the terrain.
I didn’t know the size of the [House of Healing], but unless they were burrowed into the mountain, something should be visible from there.
“Hmm. There it is.”
Far off, a building that reminded me of a school came into view.
It was overgrown with ivy-like plants, dense with those ominous glowing flowers along the vines.
“What the hell are those flowers?”
Why were they growing on the grass, the rose vines, and now the ivy too?
They looked almost like parasites, latching onto the plants like separate creatures.
And—there it was.
[Leap]
Whoosh—
Something was under the fence.
“A diary?”
A thick binder notebook with a leather cover and snap buttons.
It would’ve been hard to spot without magic. Faint traces of mana leaked from it.
I unsnapped it and flipped it open: dense post-its, folded papers, and—
“Mana stone fragments.”
A small shard of mana stone had been jammed between the pages.
Someone had hastily wedged it in and tossed it over the fence.
Hoping someone who could sense mana would find it.
No light source nearby, so I concentrated mana in my eyes and read the contents.
Rustle—
“Hmm…”
As expected, this was Park Gwang-rim’s notebook.
Not surprising.
He’d left clues in similar ways in other quests I’d done.
But…
“I hope the rest doesn’t play out the same.”
In that quest, Park Gwang-rim had his brain extracted by a Mi-Go and met a gruesome end.
What had he seen inside?
I sped through the notebook.
Chinese and Korean mixed chaotically, fragmented on purpose to keep players from piecing it together easily. But I could read Chinese fluently now.
Reconstructing it gave:
* * *
[哈哈哈 (Hahaha)!]
Repeated outbursts of joy.
He must’ve been in high spirits then. I’d really sent him 10 billion won.
[10 billion just to find one person? Where else does an offer like that come from? It’s not Kim Shin-hwa-ssi, it’s Kim Shin-hwa-nim, no, Goddess Kim Shin-hwa. From now on…]
Things like that. He was overly excited.
Pages of plans for how to spend the money.
[With what I’ve saved so far, I could buy a house in Sejong City or bring my family to Korea. Korea’s the only place still resembling a country in this world.]
The exact opposite of Jang Hyun-deok’s wishes.
By [Cthulhu World]’s standards, Park Gwang-rim’s dreams were a bit more sensible.
But even those had an expiration date.
This world was doomed soon.
Stories of family and relatives in China, his sister’s hospital bills for a bizarre tumor growing on her body, his uncle lost to delirium. His brother turned cultist, relatives killed by that brother, another brother, cousins, more kin.
No need to dwell on that.
Skipping pages, the tone shifted.
[Jang Hyun-deok. Dead? Deceased?]
Park Gwang-rim soon realized his ability wasn’t working right and panicked.
He used a special pendulum for [Dowsing].
It let him pinpoint a target’s location by how it swung over a map.
He laid out dozens of paper maps and swung the pendulum repeatedly, but got no clear answers.
[The biggest part is definitely in Ansan. Dismembered?]
肢解 (Zhi-jie).
An ancient Chinese punishment: dismembering and displaying the corpse.
Later mentions of [organ trafficking] and [dismemberment murders] recurred.
Park Gwang-rim’s [Dowsing] didn’t account for the target’s condition. Say the target lost an arm.
If they dumped it in Mokpo and fled to Busan, where were they? Mokpo? Busan?
Most would say Busan—the bulk or the head.
But Park Gwang-rim’s ability treated severed parts as equally valid targets, ruining precision.
From the notes, it didn’t register tiny fragments.
But a healthy person divided into large chunks meant… Jang Hyun-deok might be tied to organ trafficking or dismemberment killings.
[Surely Goddess Kim Shin-hwa won’t demand the money back if he’s dead? Please. Have mercy.]
* * *
In the end, Park Gwang-rim gave up on his ability and rushed to Ansan for old-school inquiries and detective work.
[He said he went to an orphanage, but none of the registered ones show traces of a Jang Hyun-deok visiting.]
A point where most investigations would stall, but Park Gwang-rim quickly latched onto a lead.
He’d adapted his [Dowsing] to find helpful contacts and worked through conversations.
[Jang Hyun-deok headed to a place called the House of Healing.]
He confirmed a figure matching Jang Hyun-deok had gone to the [House of Healing] near Suri Mountain.
He picked up weird rumors too.
“The [House of Healing] is an orphanage? Nah. Why would it be?”
Testimony from one of Ansan’s few illegal info brokers.
“The [House of Healing] is where they stash washed-up retired fixers and bleed them dry.”
Fixers who pushed too far inevitably snapped mentally or physically.
It was supposedly a recovery and rehab spot for them.
“Oh, yeah, I heard they had some kids there. Sketchy, but they run it pretty straight. Some of those kids grow up fine, get jobs elsewhere, or even become fixers.”
The broker continued with a strange look.
“They do illegal stuff mostly, but in this day and age, it’s a blessing they can do anything.”
Minor details, maybe.
Park Gwang-rim seemed curious how the broker knew, but the man brushed it off.
“The kids came to Ansan regularly. Kids from out of town, suddenly showing up as fixers? Had to dig a little.”
Park Gwang-rim paid for details on what they did in Ansan.
“They’d buy toys or candy, drop by the House of Healing, then leave quick. For a cult joint, they treated ’em decent, I guess.”
Park Gwang-rim’s footnote on that caught my eye.
[Brainwashing? Or hostages?]
“Lately, something’s up. All the House of Healing kids showed up at once. Saw ’em go in, but nobody’s seen ’em come out. That’s new. When? The first one appeared…”
That date was the day after the [Predator in the Mountains] descended and the world rolled back.
Had the rollback triggered some change?