Second Loop Story (3)
In truth, I didn't have to take the risk. But I judged that here, of all places, I needed to demonstrate that I was far stronger than anyone could imagine.
At the same time, I decided it would be better if no one discovered the ring Yeom Sang-hyeon carried.
More than anything, if I simply dodged the situation the ordinary way or surrendered the initiative, I would end up dancing on the strings of the fake president.
So I faced the murderer head-on. The fake president, pretending it was an accident, tried to check me and kill me in the same motion—but I already knew, and my attention had never left him. I slipped free.
What I learned while confronting the murderer was this: his raw power was not particularly overwhelming. The true danger was that merely approaching him, or even looking at him, contaminated you with madness.
Fortunately, I was already transforming again—rapidly.
Because of that very transformation, my immunity to the madness was climbing by the second.
Yet at the same time I felt it in my skin and in the marrow of my skull: once the Change finished, no escape method I used would ever let me leave this place.
To keep any hostages out of the president's reach once he began showing his true colors, I sent the vice-president upstairs to the second floor and stayed on the first floor with the president himself.
From time to time the fake president tossed me questions, slyly fishing for information about me and the other members. I answered in the shortest possible replies and killed time.
As the minutes crawled by and the Change advanced, I kneaded a shoulder that had grown too uncomfortable to hide, watching the fake president's reflection in the window with cold vigilance. Then, for a single instant, a chilling light flashed in his eyes and his hand stretched toward the glass.
Calling another murderer?
Or some other dangerous entity?
Or an entirely different scheme?
Whatever it was, I could not leave it alone.
I began to gather strength into my limbs—when the study door on the second floor burst open and a shout announced that the interpretation was finished.
I turned as if I had noticed nothing, matching the timing of that cry.
If the fake president had simply bolted, I was ready to overhaul the entire escape plan on the spot. But he still seemed content to keep acting; he looked at me with the same blank innocence.
So toying with us really is his top priority.
He did the same thing in the first loop—and that was how it ended for him.
I carefully folded away the cold stillness in my eyes and waited, listening to the heavy thud of footsteps descending the stairs, for the members to come down.
As they recounted what they had found, I sorted the information and locked it into my head.
Some instinct whispered that these were details I absolutely needed to remember.
Perhaps a single fragment of the enlightenment I had gained in the first loop—while I was becoming something no longer human—had lodged deep in my mind and was now hovering just out of reach.
If the Change progressed a little further, that fragment of forbidden knowledge might finally become comprehensible.
But dwelling on it now was a waste of time. I summarized the translated background of the incident and filed it away.
The half-remembered sensation kept tickling the edges of my thoughts, dulling the sharpened senses I should have been using. Then a sudden rattle at the back door snapped my head around. Through the frosted stained glass I saw the murderer's silhouette pacing ominously outside.
No silhouette showed at the living-room windows—which only made me more suspicious.
This is the board the fake president set up.
If I let myself be dragged along, I die.
The only reason I was still alive was that I had kept playing the mind games and forcing the board to move my way.
Inside my transforming mind, wisdom and questions and answers whirled together in a storm—until a new doubt suddenly surfaced.
Why hasn't Yeom Sang-hyeon come back yet?
I had clearly written into the plan that he would harvest the fruits to trade with the crow merchant.
It should never have taken this long.
I had already cleared the most dangerous obstacles myself, and the ring was supposed to block any unexpected threats.
The person the crow merchant would take out as the escapee was meant to be the president. Even I—who still could not be certain whether the one standing here was the fake or our real president driven completely mad by the contamination—would finally have a definitive way to tell them apart.
From every action and mannerism I could see, the president in front of me was ninety-nine percent fake.
But that remaining one percent—if he was the real president soaked to the core in madness?
That single doubt was why I had kept him in check without finishing him off.
If the crow merchant pointed to the president as the escapee and simply carried him out, I could take the rest of the members and proceed with the original plan.
If the president was confirmed fake, I would eliminate him on the spot, find the real one, and escape with him.
There was zero chance the crow merchant would carry a fake president out.
Any being that belonged to this place—anything no longer human—could not leave this space.
Even I, changing second by second, felt the truth tightening around me like chains: if I did not hurry, I might never escape either.
I needed a moment to decide what to do.
My accelerated thoughts raced to assist me.
Something had clearly gone wrong, or something was simply taking longer than expected.
He wasn't dead… that much was certain.
The entities here were sensitive to blood.
If Yeom Sang-hyeon had been on the verge of dying, a swarm of insanely dangerous things would already have flooded this house.
So what should I do?
Buy more time.
Even if the plan collapsed and everyone else died, I could still get Sang-hyeon out.
If necessary, I would sacrifice the other members to do it.
The moment that cold, wicked idea surfaced after my decision, I shook my head hard and swallowed the thought, rising to my feet.
The side effects of the Change were worse than I had expected.
The president was already leaning toward the living-room window.
If I just knew for certain whether he was truly mad with contamination or a madness-born entity that simply loved to toy with people, I could finish him. Or should I just do it anyway?
I buried the rising malice deep again and sprinted for the front door.
Whatever state the president was in, going that way meant everyone died.
I herded the members out through the front entrance and we began to run.
Even as we fled together, the president never followed.
Perhaps he simply couldn't.
I drove the members to their absolute limit.
Of course I drove myself to the same edge.
They were pushed physically.
I was pushed mentally.
In my case the body could still endure.
But I was burning through my mental strength, endlessly calculating the paths of dangerous entities with those grotesquely expanding senses. The longer it went on, the more the darkening corners of my mind whispered wicked plans into my ear.
Yet refusing to use the transforming mind would guarantee a moment when I could no longer protect the members. That much was obvious.
When the vice-president entered the edge of my vision—moving on pure reflex, cutting down murderers while pouring out every scrap of malice he possessed just to endure the madness-soaked air—my head cleared, if only a little.
Right. I'm still human.
I repeated it to myself as we ran. Then came a heavy flapping of wings, followed by the sharp screech of tires biting asphalt.
Instinct slammed the realization into my skull.
That crazy bastard actually did it.
When I saw the state Yeom Sang-hyeon was in as the car drew near, I could only stare in pure shock.
…Holy shit. This absolute maniac.
His body looked like half of it had been scraped raw against the asphalt—reduced to bloody rags—yet he still flashed that crooked grin and cheerfully yelled for us to get in.
While the members and I piled into the car, something above us descended with a great rustling of wings.
In the distance I saw the vice-president staggering forward, supporting the others.
One look at the three of them told me that, aside from the vice-president himself, the other two members were in critical condition.
They might lose their minds from the sheer density of madness, or the murderers closing in from behind might simply catch them.
If even one member disappears, I can still bring two people back with this car.
…Probably.
I ran the numbers in my head and kicked the door open, leaping out.
I told Yeom Sang-hyeon, still gripping the wheel, to choose the members the vice-president was supporting as the crow merchant's escapees.
Sang-hyeon immediately pointed at both of them.
A bizarre figure with enormous crow wings appeared in a blink, seized the two members, and vanished into the sky just as fast as it had arrived.
Only then, seeing that the crow merchant's escape quota had increased, did I understand why it had taken so long.
This insane bastard filled two whole bags of fruit!
I reached the vice-president a split second before he could look up at the sky, covered his eyes, and dragged him back to the car.
Even while driving on a razor's edge, Sang-hyeon asked whether it was still possible to save everyone. I mixed in a few curses and told him yes.
The mad dash ended with the fence shattering under the tires. The moment of escape had arrived—yet just as I was about to lead everyone out with the knife, a sudden doubt froze me in place.
Will the escape tool even respond properly to a body that's already this far into the Change?
I thought for a heartbeat, then swung the knife at Yeom Sang-hyeon.
His bright red blood flowed, was absorbed into the blade, and the knife transformed into an incense burner. In that same instant, my transforming mind finally crossed its limit.
And the contents of the translated contract—something I had completely forgotten—rose into my consciousness.
I revised the plan.
We would save the president as well.
I shoved Yeom Sang-hyeon, the remaining member, and the vice-president into the ominous fog-shrouded forest.
I had already drawn enough blood for three people so the incense burner would produce the proper amount of smoke; holding out for a short while would not be a serious problem.
I told Sang-hyeon to keep swinging the burner no matter what, then spun and sprinted back toward Envy's House.
When I arrived, my nearly completed body, vision, and mind pierced straight through the setup: the entity that loved to toy with people was hiding behind the door, while the real president had been placed right beside it.
I had already known, before even entering, that it had torn off one of its own arms and hidden it behind the real president.
I opened the door and walked in, answering lightly.
Every contingency it had prepared—reacting to the arm I swung the knife with, killing the real president on reflex, plunging into madness, or simply arranging the scene so it could mock my appearance—I felt them all, one by one.
I dismantled every single move with ease and set the plan in motion: use the Black Goat to finish even the fake.
The original plan had been to escape with the president. But inside the collapsing house, my vision—pushed to its absolute limit—caught a pearl streaking through empty air.
On the spot I revised the plan again and used the pearl to send the president out first.
…To be honest, the Black Goat was not an opponent you wanted to fight while also protecting someone.
In that desperate moment I saved the president, sacrificed one of my own arms, and finally tore free from the Black Goat, fleeing toward the forest.