Rewriting the Rules
From the floor below, the grumbling of the streamers echoed up.
We had to finish everything before they made their way up.
"Minhye, are you okay?"
"Yes... Yes, Sunbae. Thanks to you..."
Minhye clenched her teeth, as if steeling her resolve, and stood up.
I led her toward the tightly shut door of Room 404.
It's even older and... creepier than I thought.
The dark brown paint was peeling in patches, and the doorknob was rusted a deep red.
I spoke softly into my in-ear mic.
"Seyeon, now's the time. Send the key. We're going straight in."
Seyeon's calm voice came through the earpiece.
Just then, a small audio file arrived on my phone.
It was the decisive evidence Seyeon had wrung out of the old fox, Director Oh Jeongsu.
I pressed my smartphone flat against the weathered wood of Room 404's door.
Then, I tapped the play button on the screen.
An arrogant voice, utterly devoid of remorse.
The moment the voice of the former hospital director, Oh Jeongsu, echoed down the hallway through the speaker, something bizarre happened.
Cre-e-eak.
With a spine-chilling screech, the tightly sealed door of Room 404 slowly began to swing open. As it parted, a stagnant gust of stale dust, rotting paper, and the faint metallic tang of blood billowed out from within.
Ugh... it reeks.
The door swung fully open, revealing the room's interior.
Minhye covered her mouth as her eyes swept the space.
An old, dust-covered typewriter sat solitary in the center.
On the walls hung a collection of black-and-white photographs, framed like portraits.
Terrified faces, expressions contorted in agony, hollow eyes staring blankly into nothingness...
Every single one of them looked like someone who had died unjustly in this hospital, victims claimed by the curse.
"Are all of these..." Minhye muttered. "Are they the people who already fell victim to the curse? Preserved forever in these photos?"
I nodded grimly.
"Yes. If we don't resolve this quickly, those streamers downstairs will be the next photos hung on this wall. And the sacrifices will just keep mounting."
No sooner had the words left my mouth than the typewriter in the center of the room began to move.
Clack.
As if an invisible finger had struck a key.
Danger.
My instincts screamed at me to back away, but—
Clack, clack, clack...
The typewriter began to clatter rapidly on its own.
Instantly, my body froze solid.
Dammit...
No matter how hard I tried to move, my feet felt rooted to the floor.
Sensation drained from my limbs, and my entire body felt as though it were turning into a cold plaster statue.
Is it my turn now?
I fought desperately to resist, but my body refused to obey my will.
Even rolling my eyes was an agonizing struggle.
I could feel the edges of my vision slowly bleeding into monochrome.
At this rate, I would become just another one of the hundreds of black-and-white photos lining the walls.
Dammit!
The typewriter did not stop.
It was a humiliating, undeniable truth.
My past—failing pitches, being ignored by the world.
The typewriter was dragging out my deepest sense of defeat, recording it as my "final sentence."
The moment it was completed, I would be preserved forever as a photograph on the wall.
"Sunbae! Are you okay? Sunbae! Sunbae!"
Beside me, Minhye grabbed my arm and shook me, but it was no use.
I just need to hold on a little longer...!
I grit my teeth and forced my eyes wide.
It was then—
Static...
A familiar voice crackled loudly through the air, sounding like a PA announcement.
"Ah, ah. Mic test. Pardon the interruption for a brief announcement."
It was Deokhu's voice.
"As of this moment, the final record of the truth behind the atrocities committed at Namyeong Neuropsychiatric Hospital is being released to the world."
The moment his voice echoed through the building, the crushing weight of the curse began to lift.
Sensation slowly crept back into the tips of my frozen fingers.
This is my only chance!
I squeezed out every last drop of my strength.
Forcing my stiff legs to move, I took one heavy step after another toward the typewriter.
My body felt as heavy as lead, as if I were wading through the crushing depths of the deep sea.
The typewriter was still typing, still writing my end.
I dragged myself to the front of the typewriter.
Summoning every ounce of strength into my stiffening fingers, I slammed my hand down on the backspace key, hammering it repeatedly.
Letter by letter, my final sentence began to vanish.
Instantly, I felt the wrath of the vengeful spirit. Every single photograph in the room seemed to glare at me in unison. The keys of the typewriter resisted violently, pushing back against my fingers.
But I began to type the final paragraph of the exposé, the one that contained the absolute truth of this tragedy.
Pouring all my strength into my hands, typing as if my fingers might shatter.
...Though the greed of Director Oh Jeongsu claimed countless victims, the courage of a reporter who sought to record the truth was buried in the dark. But now, those forgotten records...
With every letter I struck, the malevolent, vengeful energy filling the room grew weaker.
Summoning the absolute last of my strength, I typed the final sentence and struck the period.
In that instant,
A deep crack splintered across the old typewriter in the center of the room.
It hissed, spewing thick black smoke, before shattering into a million pieces.
"Sunbae! Look at this!"
Just as Minhye pointed out, the black-and-white spirit photographs covering the walls began to fade. The faces in the photos seemed to offer me faint, gentle smiles.
Then, one by one, they dissolved into particles of light and scattered into the air.
Every single soul trapped in Room 404 had been liberated.
Whew...
All the strength drained from my body.
It's over...
Dragging our exhausted bodies, we quietly made our way out of the hospital.
Meanwhile, the group of streamers who had been milling about in the first-floor lobby looked utterly terrified, likely due to the mysterious broadcast that had suddenly echoed throughout the hospital and the bizarre phenomena that followed.
"Hey, hey... what the hell? The whole vibe of this place just completely flipped. Is it just me?"
"Hyung, should we just get out of here? Honestly, today's stream was legendary enough."
"Legendary? How many viewers did we pull?"
"We hit the jackpot, seriously. We need to leave. If we stay here, I feel like I'm gonna get wrecked."
"Yeah, let's do that."
"Doesn't it feel kind of chilly all of a sudden?"
"If it didn't feel chilly in a place like this, that'd be weirder."
They hurriedly packed up their gear and scrambled out of the hospital.
Watching their retreating figures from a distance, we didn't say a word, only exchanging quiet glances.
The next morning,
A new urban legend began to spread across online horror forums and MeTube.
The story went that a mysterious radio broadcast had echoed through Namyeong Neuropsychiatric Hospital in the dead of night. The broadcast exposed the horrific corruption of the hospital, and rumors claimed that all paranormal activity there had ceased immediately afterward.
Our "Team Minjun" returned to the hideout.
Though everyone was exhausted from the all-night battle,
Their faces were bright with hope—perhaps because this was our first victory achieved through teamwork.
We peeled the scenario paper off the wall.
Our first official task was complete.
"We did it perfectly!"
"Not a single hitch!"
Minhye said softly as she watched the paper dissolve into ash.
"Hehe... shouldn't someone be giving us an award for this?"
Deokhu replied with a tired laugh.
We looked at each other in silence.
It was a bond and a sense of achievement far deeper than what I had felt during the Full Synchronization.
This was our first victory achieved not alone, but as a "team."
Just then,
The smartphone in my pocket vibrated.
I pulled it out and checked the screen.
A black notification window, resembling a system message, was floating in the center.
First official task completed.
Rewards are being distributed.
"Rewards?"
At my murmur, the team's eyes all snapped to my phone.
Below the notification window, a [CONFIRM] button was blinking.
Gulp.
Swallowing hard, I carefully tapped the button.
A new message appeared.
Reward: Part of the Author's Authority has been unlocked.
Acquired Ability: ⟨ Setting Addition ⟩
Description: Starting from the next task, you can add a single line of your own 'setting' to the rules of the existing scenario.
"Adding a setting?"
I couldn't help but gasp.
"This is insane..."
"Why? What is it, Hyung? What does it say?"
Deokhu pressed close to my side, staring intently at the smartphone screen.
Minhye and Seyeon were also watching me with tense expressions.
I read the contents of the screen aloud to them.
"The reward... the reward has been distributed. It says part of the author's authority has been unlocked. I got a new ability. It's called Setting Addition."
"Setting Addition?" Minhye asked, and I continued.
"Yeah. Starting from the next task, I can add a single line of my own setting to the rules of the existing scenario. And that setting apparently exerts an absolute influence on the story's causality."
Once I finished explaining, Deokhu scratched his head and asked, "Hyung, but what does that actually mean? What kind of setting are you adding?"
I fell into thought for a moment.
How could I explain this to make them understand the sheer value of this incredible ability?
I decided to use the scenario we had just resolved as an example.
"Alright, listen closely," I said, looking around at my team members.
"What was the biggest obstacle in this 'Room 404' scenario? To open that tightly locked door, we had to personally track down the old hospital director and get his confession. If Seyeon hadn't cleverly infiltrated his place and recorded it, we wouldn't have even been able to open the door, and it would've been over for us."
"That's true. I agree," Seyeon nodded.
"But what if I had this ability beforehand?"
"Uh... then things would have been different?"
"Exactly. It would have been completely different. Before the scenario even began, I could have added a single line of setting: 'However, the door to Room 404 will open on its own when someone who knows the hospital's corruption shows a willingness to speak the truth.'"
"Oh, wow!!!"
"What would happen then?"
"We wouldn't have had to go find the director at all!"
"Right? All I, or any of our team members, would have had to do was stand in front of Room 404 and sincerely shout, 'I will reveal the truth of this hospital!' and the door would have opened on its own. The very rules of the story would have bent to our advantage."
"Whoa... that's insane," Minhye muttered under her breath.
"So, for the next scenario, we can basically create a setting that serves as the key to resolving it?"
"Exactly," I said, nodding.
"Of course, I'm sure there are limitations. Something like, 'However, this ghost just dies'—a setting that completely shatters the foundation of the story—probably won't work. But as long as it doesn't disrupt the flow of the narrative, we've essentially gained a key that can expose a critical weakness or create a decisive opportunity for us."
Until now, we had been passive players, wandering within the rules of a given scenario to find a predetermined solution.
But from now on?
We could change the rules of the game ourselves.
We had acquired, quite literally, the authority of the author.
Whew...
I let out a soft sigh.
It was then that the smartphone screen changed once more.