The Door (5)
Clunk!
I pulled the lever down.
Kugugugu—
The press machine started moving right away. But—
Guguguk...
"Oh no, it's too old...!"
The press lurched as if something had caught it mid-descent, its speed suddenly grinding down.
Kkigik—
Thud! Thud!
The footsteps approaching in a straight line showed no hesitation whatsoever.
Thud! Thud! Thud!!
Kkiik— kkik—
It was coming. Probably. The printed footprints were right in front of me.
Guguk—
The upper press machine tilted slightly, angling itself toward me.
"..!"
Before I could even think, my body threw itself sideways on pure instinct.
And then—
KWAAAAANG—!!!!!!!
Kwajik!!
The press that had been slowing down accelerated in an instant and slammed into the floor.
The thing that had been chasing me went quiet, leaving behind nothing but splashes of bright red liquid raining down around the iron pillar.
"Kgh..!"
If I'd been unlucky, I could've ended up as pulp right alongside it.
It changed direction at the very last moment, right before moving?
No—honestly, it might have been aiming for me outright.
Kiging—
Chiik—!
As if my pulling the lever had been a signal, the machines inside the factory began to move with even greater noise.
Buuung—!
The cutter beside me suddenly spun into motion and swung its body at me.
Chak!
"Kgh!"
I barely managed to dodge it, but the container on the floor suddenly activated toward the cutter and sliced into my arm—deep.
Lucky it didn't cut through. A little deeper and it wouldn't have just been flesh—it would've hit bone..!
"Damn it, ending number 5!"
This is just straight-up death, isn't it? So this is how different 5 is from 3, where you only got a few burns?
Wung, wuung! Wung!
The conveyor belt on the floor kept running forward, then backward, then stopping, entirely on its own.
The long hooks trailing from the crane swayed left and right like pendulums, eagerly waiting to smash anything that crossed their path.
Blood seeped out between the fingers of the hand pressed over my wound.
"I have to go back."
I had to survive this factory that seemed to have a will of its own, and return through the door I'd come in from.
And then recover at the pond in 3I2, too.
Just as I leaned against an iron wall to catch my breath—
Wiiing—!
Kagagak—
"Kgh..!"
Something like a long bar spun around and punched straight through the iron wall behind me.
Thud thud thud!
The moment I moved to dodge it, massive steel bars came plummeting from the sky onto the spot I'd just left.
This factory itself was filled to the brim with killing intent.
I had to get out, fast.
At least the exit was definitely on the opposite side from where that thing had been approaching in a straight line, so I didn't have to wander aimlessly—small mercies.
Though looking at the state of the path I'd ducked down in the first place...
Wiiing!
Gagagagak!
Gururu!
Every machine was rotating in perfect coordination, sealing off the air with no gaps to slip through.
Should I be thanking those footsteps for crushing the machine that had been blocking the way?
After all, if I'd wandered in clueless and switched the factory on, I'd have been done for right then and there by a factory that never intended to let anything out.
Making my way toward the door, I ended up climbing up onto a wall of uneven, lumpy terrain.
This terrain definitely hadn't been here before.
A floor carved into strange shapes. Walls made of what looked like the same material as the floor. And above it all, one enormous, blackened vat.
"No way, this is..."
I'd definitely seen something like this before.
Isn't this what they use when casting metal sculptures and the like?
This place was a giant metal foundry.
The floor and walls formed a massive mold, and that blackened vat overhead—the mere sight of it shimmering with heat—would pour molten metal down to fill the mold and let it cool. That had to be it.
But this enormous terrain, which I definitely hadn't seen before, appearing in the blink of an eye...
"Did the machines move each other and rearrange their positions?"
The containers, the cranes—they'd all moved, hauling the mold and the machinery over to this spot.
Jururuk—
Molten metal like lava came pouring from the sky, filling the mold until it became a veritable lake of lava.
Heat surged up from ahead.
The kind of heat you'd only feel in the middle of a desert at high noon.
At this rate I was going to end up as a human dumpling.
If I waited for it to cool and harden, maybe I could cross over afterward.
Kiiing—
"Ha..."
As if it couldn't stand the sight of me standing still, the sound of machinery activating came from behind me immediately.
"So I have to cross this lake of molten metal?"
Is it insane? Absolutely not. I'm not crossing that.
Kiiiing—!
The metallic screech drew closer.
"Absolutely crossing it."
I'd rather die failing than die giving up.
Just then, my eye caught a pile of large iron plates and long rod-like things to the side.
Probably the wreckage of what those footsteps had crushed earlier.
"The question is whether this thing can float."
I threw in one iron plate as a test, and it sank without any resistance.
Made sense—molten metal is far denser than water.
I had no idea what substance had melted down to form this metal, but to get buoyancy, I'd need to float something less dense than the liquid itself.
Kiiing—!!
No time to choose.
I hurled every last iron plate onto the molten metal.
One sank. Another sank. And one—didn't.
"That's the one."
I grabbed a long rod, climbed onto the floating plate like a raft, and pushed off.
"Thank goodness my weight doesn't matter."
Naturally, because the molten metal was far heavier than I was.
Kiiing—!!
Chiik—
A cutter came at me from the direction of the metallic screeching and plunged straight into the molten metal.
Judging by its angle of approach, if I'd stayed put it would have sliced me up one way or another.
Leaning my body on the floating plate, I pushed against the floor with the long rod, inching forward slowly.
Chiik!
The moment the blood dripping from my wound touched the plate, it evaporated instantly, rising up in a thin wisp of smoke.
Scorching heat filled every direction.
"Whew... whew..."
The soles of my shoes were melting, trying to stick to the floor over and over, so I kept lifting and setting down my feet to keep them from adhering.
The metal rod, too, was already heated to the point of glowing.
Chiik!
"Ghaaah..!"
I pushed with one hand, then switched to the other, over and over—but switching hands didn't make the rod any cooler.
Agonizing pain crawled up my palms as I gripped the rod, but if I gave up pushing myself forward, I'd die anyway.
Kiiing!
The metal lid overhead began to descend slowly toward the mold.
"F-Faster..!"
When that thing finished closing, I'd be shoved into the molten metal along with the plate and turned into a metal man.
Chiik!
"Kgh..!"
Even as I felt my palms fusing to the rod, I churned both hands through the air, driving myself forward.
"Almost there..!"
I was nearly at the end of the mold.
Kkigik—
And the descending lid was almost upon me too.
There was no time left to wait here.
Tatak!
I jumped outward, determined not to be trapped inside the mold—
leaping over the red-hot molten metal below—
Thud!
and slipped out past the closing lid.
"Ughaaah!"
The lid slammed shut behind me, and droplets of molten metal spattered across my back.
Gurururuk...
Molten metal overflowed through the seams of the sealed mold.
"I have to get out of here..!"
Fast, before this whole area filled up with the stuff too.
Kugugugu...
The vibrations of the shredders operating around me sent the molten metal splashing this way and that.
"There it is."
A single yellow mold-door, punched open in the floor, leading outside.
I sprinted toward it in a daze.
But what I'd taken for a gap in the floor turned out to be a roller, turning slowly—and it snatched my shoe.
Before it could drag my whole body in and flatten me along with the shoe, I kicked it off immediately and dove through the door in the floor.
Udangtang!
"Agh.."
Passing through the yellow door, I crashed into a chair standing in the corridor, fell from ceiling to floor, and rolled for a good long while.
Lying flat on my back staring at the ceiling, I could see the machines beyond the yellow door punching at it with their various tools.
"Haha... looks like they can't get out..."
So, how should I put this.
"............Could you follow me here?"
Just as no noise escaped to the outside, those things couldn't hear my voice either.
A certain creature, falling and flying and falling again through the endless azure void.
No—calling it a creature might not even be quite right. A certain being.
"Interesting..?"
An angel.
Everyone who described their forms said the same: divinity and wonder all fused into one, leaving nothing but a grotesque shape.
This punished angel was no different—appearing as nothing more than a single enormous eyeball floating in the void.
A single leather door had suddenly appeared before its eyes—a door it could neither touch nor interfere with.
Beyond it: a long corridor, and one flustered human.
Even after the human closed it again, that narrow door did not vanish, leaving only a thin sliver of a gap.
And peering through that gap, it found the sight quite entertaining: a human entering another space where a factory lay, struggling through it, and finally escaping.
For that being, which harbored something akin to the authority of Sight—a power transcending life itself—anything it could see was within its grasp. Beyond barriers, beyond sealed places—if a path connected, it could see anywhere at all.
And so.
"Shall I keep watching a little longer?"
After a truly, truly long age, it would now accept the entertainment offered up by an intelligent being sharing its existence.