The Price of the Contract (2)
The massive form seemed pleased with my answer. The black sand that filled the surroundings rippled in response.
I thought for a moment. In truth, there was nothing to deliberate.
At that answer, the black sand spun out slender thread-like strands that coiled once around the club members and me. The vast, ominous shape wavered as if taking our measure, then delivered its refusal.
It paused as if about to grumble, then continued.
I hesitated. In this condition, even if we returned to the real world, erupting madness would send us all straight to a psychiatric ward at best; at worst we would end up strapped to underground laboratory tables as experimental rats. A normal life was clearly gone forever. Yet choosing to be restored to our original state would mean we still had to escape this place by our own power. The process of getting out would only grow worse, never better.
Then...
As if delighted by my answer, the black sand vibrated and churned the air. Greedy eyes fixed upon me.
In that moment a half-familiar, itching sensation stirred through my mind. Something hidden inside this situation seemed about to surface; the itch seized my brain and squeezed. If I had gone just a little further, if I had drifted only a fraction more distant from humanity, if I had possessed even a sliver more of the forbidden wisdom—!
...
Clutching my head, I lowered my gaze without realizing it—and saw the fallen club members.
....And I stopped thinking.
Dangerous thoughts.
The vice president who had supported the members and stubbornly forced them forward. Yeom Sang-hyeon, who had shouted himself hoarse insisting we all return together. The members who had kept advancing even while trembling with fear.
I am human.
I carved the resolve deep into my heart. Holding to that vow, I opened my mouth.
The moment the vast being seemed to take my words as a refusal of apostleship, it radiated an infinitely dark aura. Then, at the words that followed, the pressure vanished in an instant and it spoke.
I did not answer with words. I simply nodded.
From the black sand that filled and surged through the corridor, various objects burst forth and drifted in the air. Every one of them was familiar.
I studied the objects floating in the air.
Hmm...
— The Broken Silver Pocket Watch. Used well, it was an extraordinarily powerful item... yet far too random.
— The strange and ominous ancient tome from the mansion at the village center... From the instant I resolved to remain human, this was something I need not even glance at.
— The letter opener carved with a horse’s head... Hmm.
— The black pearl... Hmm...
— The half-shattered, tattered candlestick...? That is... what... Wait, did they actually put that out for me to choose?
For a moment I was speechless, but I managed to wipe the absurd expression from my face and examined the remaining items one by one, weighing them carefully. After surveying everything that drifted around me, I made my decision and was about to speak—
...
—Clunk!
The bag I carried suddenly jerked. I swung it forward, unzipped it, and reached inside, drawing out something I had brought from within the village.
A notebook—or should I call it a book?
What rested in my hand was the 666 Village Survival Guidebook.
The black sand halted as if startled, then the sand that surrounded us on every side began to shake and rumble.
Is it... laughing?
Before I could react, a long tendril of black sand coiled around the book and dragged it in. The sand writhed for a moment, then spat the book back out and tucked it into my bag.
I nodded in silence. The black sand then rippled as if selecting among the floating objects. I waited quietly until, with a soft metallic clink, the Broken Silver Pocket Watch melted into a silver liquid and, before I could even think, fused itself to my shoulder.
Pain as if the entire shoulder had been torn clean off ripped through my body. It felt exactly like multiple syringes of hydrochloric acid had been driven into the joint and forced to circulate through every vessel. An endless, malevolent flame seemed to cling to the shoulder and burn without end.
A moment that felt like eternity finally passed, and a low humming dug into my mind.
I could not even open my mouth for the pain and remained kneeling. The black fog paid no heed and continued.
The black sand wavered as if considering, then spoke again.
As that unspeakable ominousness finished speaking, the black sand that had enclosed every direction thinned into threads and swam through the air. Before my eyes hundreds of black strands gathered and wove themselves into a single sheet of black paper.
The paper glowed with a strange light—not the ordinary black we know, but a darkness that seemed to embody an endless abyss. From somewhere the quill pen we had used when signing the escape-room contract now floated beside it.
Without hesitation I scrawled my name across the ominous sheet. The pen tip touched the darkness that seemed ready to swallow it, scraping the surface with a dry, scratchy sound.
The moment the signature was complete, the black sand—as if its work were finished—began to coil around us. The empty space was instantly filled by cascading black sand. Sand flew from every direction, pressing, crushing, flooding in until I could no longer keep my senses. Strange languages and sounds hummed and burrowed into my mind.
Before I knew it, my vision held nothing but pitch-black darkness; I could not see an inch ahead. I had no way of knowing whether my eyes were open or closed. Even when I waved my hand through the void I felt nothing. I could not even be certain I was truly moving my hand at all. Deaf and blind, I seemed to float in empty space. No sound. No form. Nothing at all.
How much time passed like that? Ten seconds? An hour?
In a state where I could no longer feel my own existence or the passage of time, where madness pressed closer with every moment, I simply waited—until, without warning, the pain began.
First my broken leg cracked with a wet crunch and a white flash of agony seared through my skull. Then my arms burned as if molten lava had been poured over them. My head—my jaw and eyes—felt as though they were being ground down by sandpaper; the fierce pain raced through my mind. Had it been only the outside of my body, perhaps I could have endured. But the torment dug inward as well. Organs and bones itched and stung without end. Where the sand had packed itself into my flesh, a grinding pain scraped each place clean; when human flesh filled those hollows again, a burning pain took its turn. The altered body, the altered mind, descended once more into the domain of humanity.
Horrible pain wrapped my entire body. From somewhere far away, faint overlapping screams of agony reached me; the club members, too, must have been returning to normal in that unseen place. How many times did I thrash under the torment, black out, then snap awake again to pain I never grew used to?
At last I lost consciousness in the darkness.
...To think that the ability to lose consciousness could feel so welcome. Relieved that this terrible pain had an end, I sank into the dark.