The Second Loop — Escape Routes
The further I drifted from humanity — body and mind alike — the higher the odds that I would be sealed forever inside this hell.
And yet, with every step of that grotesque transformation, my mind worked against itself: tirelessly auditing escape routes, expanding them, refining them, driving the probability of survival higher with every loop of thought.
I tore through the 666 Village Escape Rulebook, absorbing every object it named, every method of escape, every warning it spelled out, and sorted the information at speed. Speed-reading every line, I braided the paths together, twisted them, and grafted them onto the situation I was actually living through until I had forged an escape route that was mine alone.
Along the way, the riddles of the first loop finally unlocked themselves — including how I had managed to arrive in a second loop at all.
The Broken Silver Pocket Watch.
Matching the Rulebook's description against everything I had lived through, I could only conclude that I had been absurdly lucky to be thrown back into the past. Spatial relocation seemed to fling you to some point in the future; bodily severance preserved a future body's state; wound recovery rewound only the injured flesh to an earlier time. The abilities did not answer to will — they erupted at random. A broken pocket watch in the most literal sense.
I briefly considered hunting the watch down again, then discarded the idea at once. The randomness was too vicious. Carry it, and you had no idea when it would fire or what it would do. For all I knew, a leg could simply explode while I was walking the village or talking to Yeom Sang-hyeon.
I had also identified the single most dangerous presence of the first loop: the mad Club President.
An entity wearing a human face.
Last time it had barely bothered to act, doing whatever it pleased, because nearly every club member had already been claimed by the madness and no longer needed managing. This time I had put countermeasures in place. There was no telling how it would respond — whether it would appear as someone else entirely, or refuse to show itself at all.
And that final decision to head for the mansion: I had not known it then, but it had been a road with death already stamped on the ticket. That I had made it back this far was luck so outrageous it barely deserved the name.
With my thoughts in order, I registered the sound of footsteps in the corridor and weighed a new problem.
Do I tell the whole club how to escape?
The answer I settled on was no. Hide it.
The decision made, action followed at once. The Rulebook vanished into my backpack, and by the time the door opened I was already standing in front of the study bookshelf as if I had been there all along.
A club member stood in the doorway. Everyone was gathering on the first floor. I gave a vague answer and climbed down the ladder. Even that simple motion set my shoulder throbbing, but I shrugged it off with a deliberately cocky roll of the joint and headed downstairs.
On the first floor, the haul of looted goods was laid out for inspection — including things I had never expected to see.
...Was the oil can actually a real object?
For a heartbeat the half-buried idea of escaping by car flared back to life — and in the same instant the Rulebook's words rose to meet it, unbidden:
That... is a trap.
I turned away from the oil can and examined the rest of the haul.
...A broken candlestick.
I couldn't even guess what it was for. The Vice President who had brought it claimed it was for a weapon, but a kitchen knife with a razor edge was already sitting on the dining table. He seemed to realize it himself — his face flushed with embarrassment.
Unexpectedly, a few members had also brought letters and papers, saying they could interpret them. Having something concrete to focus on was a good sign — both as a buffer against the encroaching madness, and as fuel for the plan I was building.
Then came the kitchen knife.
The Club President raised his hand and claimed he had found it. I looked at his face.
It was pure white.
The last time I had seen him, nearly half of it had been blazing red with the print of my hand.
Don't tell me — while everyone was looting, the real President was dragged off somewhere and this fake took his place.
Ah... this is bad.
I forced my gaze back to the oil can. Sure enough, the President answered that he had brought that, too. The can was almost certainly a trap — and he had carried it in as if he wanted everyone to see.
Before I could process the implication or even gather my thoughts, he pressed me: had I brought anything at all? As if he already knew I had found the Rulebook.
I showed him the letter opener I had found — the one with a horse's head carved into the handle. A flicker of naked greed lit his eyes the moment he saw it.
...I knew it.
Whether he was too far gone to hide the hunger or it had simply slipped free for an instant, he looked ready to scheme for the blade. I cut him off and set my plan in motion.
First priority: get the plan to Yeom Sang-hyeon. But there was neither space nor time to deliver something that long without being overheard. So I pulled out a notebook, manufactured a natural excuse to start writing, and began pouring every detail of the plan onto the page.
I scrawled so hard the pen nearly snapped, all while keeping up a running conversation with the others so no one would grow suspicious. I handed out rough instructions, distributed the looted items, and recorded my private plan without a single omission. Needling the fake President and throwing him off balance along the way was simply good practice.
I casually entrusted the letter opener to the reliable Sang-hyeon and gifted the broken candlestick to the President. By then most of the plan was on paper. I stood and suggested, lightly, that we all scatter and search — and as expected, everyone rose. The moment attention shifted, I flicked the notebook under the table toward Sang-hyeon with nothing but a motion of my hand.
The sound of it hitting the floor drew every eye. I scolded Sang-hyeon for dropping his notebook. He started to protest that he had been careful with his own things, that this one wasn't his — but I cut him off and told him we should check the notebook regularly from now on.
That should be enough. Catch on already!
Fortunately, Sang-hyeon looked like he understood. He scooped up the notebook that held my plan.
We began searching the first floor for anywhere a car might be kept. In the middle of combing the rooms, I found a small flowerpot on the kitchen windowsill with a withered, twisted finger planted in the soil. On the finger sat a gold ring that glowed with an ominous light — the very one described in the Rulebook.
Nice.
I pocketed the ring as if nothing had happened and kept scanning the kitchen window, confirming both a likely place for a car and the dangers outside. In a way, it was a stroke of luck. Now there was a natural reason for the group that had been sticking together to split up.
Sang-hyeon, who had been studying the notebook and absorbing my plan, volunteered — with a painfully awkward excuse — to check the garage. The story about his uncle that he stammered out was so random it almost hurt. Luckily neither the Vice President nor the President suspected a thing, and I agreed.
Then I prepared to send him out alone.
When I moved against the plan we had just shared, Sang-hyeon looked at me as if he had been abandoned. But once I spoke as though I still had a design of my own, he answered — and his eyes dropped to my closed fist, which clearly held something. He tapped my knuckles with his thumb. We shook hands as if it were the most natural thing in the world and kept talking.
He's gotten sharp.
I tried to smile. Sang-hyeon was rigid — whether from the tension of going outside alone or from the feel of the ring in my hand, I couldn't tell. I whispered a few words only he could hear.
"You know how this ring works, right? I wrote it in the notebook — check it. Just don't put too much faith in it."
The handshake and the hug ended. Sang-hyeon casually slid a hand into his pocket, stowing the ring he had received in secret, then started for the back door — only to pause. To keep anyone from finding the handshake and hug strange, he went around and hugged the other members as well.
I called after him as he stood at the back door and told him to take the sack — the centerpiece of our plan.
Sang-hyeon nodded and waited for the signal.