Suicide Squad #3
Kwon Su-ho and Hong Miri seemed to know each other. In a way, it made perfect sense. Kwon Su-ho was the third-generation chaebol heir of the Ohsung Group and a student at Yeongji High—an infamous troublemaker even in Gaeryong City. Meanwhile, Hong Miri was a popular English teacher at the school. It wouldn’t be strange for the two of them to have some kind of connection.
“Teacher. I heard you’ve got some kind of escape talisman on you. Hand it over. Now.”
“I don’t want to. And do you really think you’re in any position to make demands? If you don’t want trouble with the chairman, you’d better behave. Before your father comes crawling on his knees in front of me again like last time.”
“…What the fuck did you just say, you bitch?”
Sparks were practically flying between Kwon Su-ho and Hong Miri. If the two of them really started fighting, I might be able to slip in and snatch the advantage. I shouted toward Kwon Su-ho.
“Hyung! Teacher Hong Miri said she kills anyone without a talisman! She told me dying lets you escape! She’s probably going to kill you too! Run!”
If Kwon Su-ho was a real superhuman, he should be able to tell I was speaking the truth. The moment his eyes flashed with murderous intent—
“This Hong Miri bitch is completely insane.”
Whoosh—!
Kwon Su-ho lunged at Hong Miri. He charged in low with both arms spread wide, looking exactly like a mixed martial artist. Crash—!
He grabbed her and slammed her down onto the floor of the women’s bathroom. No matter how strong Hong Miri was, she couldn’t resist the grappling technique of a 190-centimeter wall of muscle. She thrashed wildly and screamed.
“Aaaaaaaaagh! You fucking bastard!”
“Stay still! Where the hell did you hide the talisman?!”
From a distance, it probably looked like some thug trying to rape a woman. Up close, it looked exactly like that too. Was the fight really going to end with Kwon Su-ho stealing the talisman? If that happened, my own chances of getting it would drop even further. If a woman like Hong Miri had it, I might have had a chance to snatch it somehow. But fighting a healthy male student like Kwon Su-ho? I’d lose nine times out of ten.
“You fucking bitch! How dare you look down on me? You pathetic whore! Die, you bitch! Do you really think we’re the kind of trash who just sell shit and scrape by for money?!”
Thud—! Thud, thud—!
Kwon Su-ho’s boulder-like fists slammed into Hong Miri’s face and hammered her stomach. He clearly meant to kill her. But Hong Miri’s resistance was no joke either. Even while getting beaten one-sidedly, she clawed at him with her hands and feet, desperately trying to fight back.
Squeeze—!
A massive hand big enough to crush a basketball in one grip clamped around Hong Miri’s throat. She struggled with everything she had, but it looked useless.
“You son of a… bitch! You think you’ll get away with this…? I’m telling the chairman everything…!”
“Heh heh heh, didn’t you say everyone forgets if you die here?”
“……!”
“What’s wrong? I got that lesson too. Someone like you—a half-breed—and I are different from birth. I’m the main character of this world. So get on your belly and crawl under me like you’re supposed to…!”
Gurgle. Glurk—.
Hong Miri thrashed in terrible agony, flailing her arms and legs. If things kept going like this, it wouldn’t even be a fight—it would just be a one-sided beatdown ending in her defeat. And if Hong Miri lost like that, my own life would clearly be in danger too.
Listening to all this, it sounded like Hong Miri actually held more power than Kwon Su-ho. Probably because she was Chairman Cheon Daegon’s right-hand woman. In other words, the power behind Hong Miri—the chairman of the Yeongji Foundation—was far greater than the Ohsung Group standing behind Kwon Su-ho. That made this scene basically an act of rebellion. It looked like Kwon Su-ho planned to erase the witness—Hong Miri herself—so the whole thing would never have happened. After all, he clearly knew that people who died in this corridor lost their memories.
And that also meant there was a high chance he would kill me too, since I was another witness. In short, Hong Miri’s defeat would mean my death as well.
“Back when I was a freshman you acted so fucking high and mighty! Look at you now, you bitch! In the end you’re just getting pinned under me and can’t do shit! Because of you I got beaten with a golf club by my dad!”
Was it just my imagination? It felt like the script had suddenly changed from “kill” to “rape.” And right now, this was the perfect opportunity for me!
“Stop it! Don’t hurt Teacher Miri! Hyung! This isn’t right! Try talking it out! Hyung! Do you really want to see me go crazy…?! Hyung! Hyuuuuung!”
I finished my calculations in an instant but pretended to know nothing, yanking on Kwon Su-ho’s hair and ears. I even grabbed his arm and pulled. Kwon Su-ho looked shocked.
“What the hell, you retarded fuck! Get lost! You piece of shit!”
That one actually hurt to hear. Did he really think I’d just leave because he said so?
“There has to be a way for all of us to escape! Hyung! You know I’m not lying, right?! Stop fighting!”
“Hey! You fucking dog! Let go! Aaaagh!”
When I jabbed my fingers into Kwon Su-ho’s eyes, he finally couldn’t take it anymore and screamed.
“Aaaagh! You fucking bastard! I’ll kill you too!”
The moment Kwon Su-ho clutched his eyes and fell backward, Hong Miri struggled to her feet and immediately charged at him in retaliation. Then something shocking happened.
Crunch. Chomp—!
Hong Miri sank her teeth deep into Kwon Su-ho’s throat. Blood sprayed out like a fountain, and the entire area was instantly drenched in red stains and the metallic stench of blood.
“Aaaaaagh! Aaaaaaaaaagh!”
Kwon Su-ho screamed wildly. But it didn’t last long.
Thud.
Kwon Su-ho stopped moving. He was dead.
“Look at this bastard causing me so much trouble. Dogs always think they’re equal to humans if you treat them even a little nicely. They always try to climb up.”
Spit—.
Hong Miri spat something out. I really didn’t want to know what it was. Anyway, the fight ended in Hong Miri’s victory. But could you really call this a victory?
Her left arm was bent at a grotesque ‘L’ shape at the forearm. She had taken a brutal beating earlier, so her internal organs and ribs were probably badly damaged too. Yet Hong Miri didn’t show even the slightest sign of pain.
“Teacher, your arm…”
“What? It’s broken.”
With her right hand, she grabbed her own shattered left arm and yanked the bones back into place like she was assembling a puzzle. Crack. Crunch—.
The sounds alone were enough to make anyone flinch, but Hong Miri’s expression didn’t change at all. Come to think of it, even when Kwon Su-ho was beating her earlier, she hadn’t screamed once. Could she really not feel pain? Some kind of congenital analgesia? It made sense. But even if she couldn’t feel pain, the damage to her body didn’t disappear.
Hong Miri slumped down, breathing hard. She looked utterly exhausted.
“Ha Yeong-won. You… you son of a bitch… If you’re coming in, then come in now.”
The blood-soaked Hong Miri in front of me was far more terrifying than when she wore the red mask. She was radiating pure bloodlust.
“This is fucking annoying.”
With her uninjured right hand, she reached between her breasts and pulled out a talisman. Before I could do anything, she tore it apart. It crumbled away like ash. She had escaped.
“You can escape by tearing it? I thought you had to burn it.”
I had assumed the talisman needed to be burned. That’s what Yu Da-hui had told me. But if tearing it worked too… that was actually better.
“Yeong-won!”
Someone called my name from the bathroom entrance.
“Da-hui? Yu Da-hui?”
“Shh! Hurry! The shaman is coming this way soon! It was too loud!”
You have entered Room 「1-4」.
The moment I stepped into 「1-4」 with Yu Da-hui, a wave of relief washed over me, as if all the blood had drained from my body. I’m alive. That was the only thought in my head. Kwon Su-ho. Hong Miri. Everything that had just happened felt like a dream. In a way, it really had been a nightmare.
Anyway, I had gained several crucial pieces of information today. It seemed pushing the suicide squad into the Nightmare Corridor had been worth it after all. The only problem was that I had to survive and escape if I wanted to remember any of it.
“Da-hui. Do you have a talisman on you by any chance?”
I already knew the talisman on the first floor was gone. Yu Da-hui answered immediately.
“Yeah. I have an origami crane. If I release it, it can tell me the location of the nearest talisman on a sacred statue.”
She pulled out a small paper crane and showed it to me. It really was just folded paper. Tiny.
“My grandfather said this was one of my mother’s belongings. It was lost in reality, but for some reason it’s always in my pocket here.”
So she always started with that item. That explained how she could find the sacred statues so easily. Good information.
Jingle. Jingle.
The sound of bells rang out.
“…….”
“…….”
Both Yu Da-hui and I fell silent. Suddenly, a question popped into my head.
“Da-hui. This might seem random, but… what kind of person was your mother?”
“…I don’t really know. Both Grandfather and everyone else avoid talking about her. The new aunt said my mother was a very wicked person. She never listened to Grandfather and only did bad things.”
She had no idea that the shaman ghost wandering outside was her own mother. It seemed that way, at least. As I was thinking that, Yu Da-hui held something out to me.
“Yeong-won. Get out of here. You shouldn’t be in a place like this.”
It was a talisman. An escape talisman.
“You’re telling me to leave?”
Honestly, I was overjoyed. I wanted to cheer and breakdance on the spot. But if I left like this… what about Yu Da-hui? Last time she had been caught by Hong Miri and killed. According to the corridor’s rules, she would have gained a Quirk. And anyone with two Quirks would die. That meant if Yu Da-hui didn’t escape this time, her only option was death—and that death would be real even in reality.
Yu Da-hui said, “You helped me, Yeong-won. I’m just repaying the debt.”
“…Did Baek-seol find it for you? No, even so… Da-hui. I’m only saying this now, but last time you let me escape and then got eaten by the red mask and died.”
“…Did I?”
“If you die this time, it’ll be for real. Da-hui. I know. If you send me out like this, you’ll die. You’ll really die in reality too. Are you okay with that…?”
For once, I had told Yu Da-hui almost the entire truth. Because I felt like I could trust her if she was willingly handing over a talisman.
Yu Da-hui stayed quiet for a moment. After thinking for a long time, she finally spoke.
“It’s fine. Sometimes there’s an exit door on the first floor. It doesn’t open often, but if it’s open today, I might be able to leave through there.”
A door! An exit! There was something like that?! Come to think of it, when Yu Da-hui played the game Abyss Corridor, she always knew where the exit was. It wouldn’t be strange for this Nightmare Corridor—which was so similar to that game—to have one too.
“Where is that exit? Let’s go together.”
I’d go with her to the exit and then figure out the rest. That was my plan. I left 「1-4」 together with Yu Da-hui.
The corridor was quieter than I expected. Thanks to the map, finding the exit wasn’t difficult.
“Here. The big marked spot is the exit. Having a Map makes it so convenient.”
“Really?”
We headed toward the exit together. And then we discovered that the school entrance was tightly sealed with heavy chains.
“It’s blocked?”
“Then… we can’t get out.”
The moment of choice had finally arrived. In the end, one of us would have to stay behind. After thinking for a long time, I decided to be honest with Da-hui.
“Da-hui. I think I’ll use the talisman to escape after all.”
“…….”
Yu Da-hui held the talisman out to me. I pushed it back toward her.
“Not that one. Give me that origami crane instead. I’ll use a second-floor talisman to leave.”
If Yu Da-hui died because of me here, she might appear before me later as a female ghost. I decided to let her escape first. And I would head to the second floor! The second floor! I was going to open it now! No matter what was there, if I had Yu Da-hui’s paper crane, I should be able to find the sacred statues!