Chapter 16
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Escape Route?
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[※ This guide consists of rules modified by the 'Management Bureau'. If there are any traces of alteration, this rulebook has been tampered with by another party.]
[※ To non-human entities, it is perceived as ordinary ■■.]
1. The hospital is a place for injured patients only. If no injury exists, forcibly inflict a wound.
ㄴ 1.1. If the falsehood is discovered, you will be forcibly relocated to the 'operating room' on the upper floor. That location is designated as inescapable. In the event of relocation, it is recommended that you take your own life.
2. Each floor contains entities modified by 'doctors'.
ㄴ 2.1. 【Nurses】 Unlike other entities, they are specialized in [surveillance], [examination], and [notification]. If treated with hostility, they will respond in kind.
ㄴ 2.2. 【Patients】 These are also entities modified by doctors. Some are human, while the rest have become monstrosities. They reside in random patient rooms, primarily on the upper floors. Never let them discover you are human. They will envy, berate, and resent you for it.
ㄴ 2.3. 【Doctors】 They form the backbone of this hospital and remain unidentified to date. Do not oppose them. Even the [Management Bureau]'s investigation teams have failed to comprehend them.
ㄴ 2.4. 【Hospital Director】 The central entity of this strange tale. Confirmed to reside on the top floor—the escape route—where it generates countless derivative strange tales (medicine).
【483S】 - This information was compiled by Investigator Lee Hyeong-woo. Written immediately before his death, it may be accessed at your discretion.
3. Inaccessible.
4. Inaccessible.
5. The rules below have not been documented.
Unlike the rules of [School Strange Tale].
Perhaps because there are so few humans here, the phrasing wasn't vague and roundabout, but distinctly 'human' in style.
Judging from the disrupted phrasing midway through, it felt like it had been scribbled down in a dire situation.
"Inaccessible?"
I had no idea why it was impossible, but...
The rules visible to the three of us stopped at number 3.
"Still, handing over this much is something. I had to spend decades rewriting rules from scratch, so even the basics are a godsend."
"Fair point. Mine was mostly bullshit anyway, so it sucked."
"W-Was it that bad? Makes my few years lounging around feel pretty pathetic..."
Han I-su seemed to feel guilty about sucking honey in her room all that time.
She fidgeted, twisting her side ponytail back and forth.
I mentally added a point for her thoughtfulness, then reviewed our next steps based on the rules.
"Primary objective: escape or resolution. Secondary objective: rescue or assassinate Jeong Byeong-ham on the third floor. Everyone clear?"
"Oppa, not assassinate—confirm."
"Oops, my bad."
My inner thoughts slipped out, thanks to getting too comfortable with the tough-guy roleplay.
No matter how I sliced it, dragging that guy with Jeong Byeong around seemed worse than creating a righteous slave candidate... er, sub-character.
Speaking of which.
"I-su, did you get some plastic surgery or something?"
"No? Aside from the initial surgery, I don't think I've had any."
"Huh."
Tsk, to think that face came out of a human womb.
Something about it...
A beauty intense enough to stir my long-pent-up frustrations after years of confusion and confinement. Yu-na was cute enough in her own way, sure.
'But she's on another level entirely. Feels like spotting an elf you couldn't see in real life? Like staring at a character that doesn't exist in reality.'
She had that much of a mystical aura.
A look and vibe that could shatter the wastrel roleplay I'd so carefully built.
I barely stuffed my wandering hand into my pocket, positioned Yu-na behind me, and slipped out of the patient room.
"I'll stick around here and try contacting the other patients. It's been a month since I last saw anyone, so I'll track them down somehow and gather intel..."
I-su said her goodbyes, heading off separately to collect information.
She'd mentioned writing down info from patients who hadn't undergone surgery like us, right?
Eh, she'll handle it fine.
"But is the reception desk really the only escape route?"
"...That's a fair point. Most strange tales base their escapes on human common sense, after all."
"And yet there was that toilet poop chute."
"........."
Even discounting that as an exception, having just one escape method felt downright unnatural.
[School Strange Tale] surely had alternatives.
"Shall we?"
"You're really going alone?"
"Wanna tag along? I won't say no."
"Pass."
"Tch..."
The escape plan devised by two brains combining for an IQ of 300.
It was none other than...
"The front entrance."
Every place has an entrance and an exit.
We'd been summoned here by some means or other, but surely there was a normal way in and out.
"Do you know where this hospital's entrance is?"
"Around the corner to the right..."
"Don't just answer—guide me there."
"...Understood."
A grinding noise came from between the scars of her surgery, but...
I ignored it and headed to the spot the nurse indicated.
There sat an entrance marked with the commonplace word [PULL]. A perfectly legitimate entrance that could only be seen as such.
"This concludes the guidance. If you require further assistance, please press the call bell..."
"Do you really need to say that? I'll call you when I need you. Now scram."
"...Understood."
"Whoa, I can hear your teeth grinding from here?"
The nurse turned on her heel without any real protest.
Now it was just me at the entrance.
But weren't strange tales supposed to hate letting humans leave? No way it'd reveal the escape this easily...
I swallowed my growing unease and approached the door.
"........."
Despite it being an utterly ordinary door, every cell in my body hesitated to open it.
Like a herbivore sensing a predator.
My body instinctively recognized the 'door' ahead as unmistakable danger.
'What's the worst—dying more?'
'Life's all or nothing, like the director always said.'
The director, who blew his stock market winnings on poker, had a favorite saying.
"Life? Pfft, whatever. I quit a big corp to open an orphanage and live normally—you orphans should roll the dice at least once."
Director!
Your unworthy son is rolling the dice clean this time!!
Clunk—!
I flung the door open, mentally hurling the dice.
Beyond it lay countless other doors, each with distinct escape-room concepts.
What the hell was this place? Curiosity drew me toward one at random.
"Fuck shiiiit!!!!"
A terror unlike any I'd felt before engulfed my entire body.
Inevitable death.
Ah, but I won't actually die anyway, right?
Still, this sensation was closer to the death of the 'mind' than the flesh.
I had no clue what lurked inside, but...
The other doors only gave off vague dread. None radiated death as profoundly as this one.
Damn it.
Even I knew this was a moronic move.
But somehow, it felt like the right answer.
Seek death and live; live carelessly and die.
Words from the revered Admiral Yi Sun-sin himself. The great general of Garasidae—doesn't embracing death lead to survival?
"That's not it, you iiiiot!!!!"
Some hallucinated scream? Whatever.
Here we gooooooo!!!!
Clunk!
I threw open the ominous door.
And there...
"■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■"
...only darkness filled the space.
An indescribable darkness.
An unavoidable darkness.
A phenomenon, a disaster, a death beyond human expression.
The infinite darkness regarded me with curiosity.
"Ooooooooh......!"
It seeped into my skin like oxygen replenishing the body.
The phenomenon-born darkness invaded every orifice.
"■■■ to ■ made ■■."
"■■■ escape ■■ no■■."
"■■ give■■."
Instinct made its intentions clear.
To strip away this imperfect human flesh and remake me into one of its kind—an act so horrific it bordered on repulsive.
I tried to bite my tongue right then...
"Mom!?"
But my head had long lost its form.
My body still clung to some shape, but that wouldn't last.
"What if you lose the gamble? Eh... (shows a photo of Pierrot grinning brightly) Just suicide then~~~!"
Director...
You really are a jack of all trades...
By the time most of my body had been overtaken...
The ability engraved in the soul awakens.
Detonates the soul based on the user's Mental Resistance.
Souls that can be affected are classified by rank.
...I felt power etched not into my body, but my 'soul'.
Searching my memories, that girl from the dream had said she invested in it, right?
Ziiing—!
I channeled power into my soul as if grasping its usage.
It swelled endlessly, like igniting a powder keg.
Before long...
"Art is an EXPLOSION!!!!!!!!!!!!"
...I unleashed an artistic explosion from my soul.