The Desolate Dragon Palace (2)
The moment I opened the door and stepped inside, a massive table blocked my way.
It was a long banquet table, grand enough to fill the entire space.
"What is all this?"
Looking at the countless dishes spread across the table, I burst out laughing in sheer disbelief.
Okay, so the laugh had slipped out of me by accident, but I was genuinely at a loss—was it even okay to be laughing here?
Are we really allowed to have seafood cuisine in the Dragon Palace?
Grilled fish, clam stew, blanched vegetables—every single ingredient on the table was seafood.
And yet, seeing the dishes steaming hot and fresh, my mouth was honestly starting to water.
Well, I supposed there was no point in demanding narrative consistency from this museum anyway.
"Oh, hello there!"
While I was busy gawking at the food, someone spoke to me.
A man was seated at the very end of the long table.
I shuffled my way over toward him.
"You finally made it! I've been waiting for you, really."
"Um, are you a visitor?"
"Yep! I'll introduce myself properly in a bit, hehe. You're hungry, aren't you? Come, come, sit over here!"
The man, dressed in a running shirt and pajama pants, flashed a toothy grin.
His outfit was every bit as out of place here as mine was.
Before I knew it, I had plopped down into the seat beside him.
Who is this guy? Not an NPC, I don't think... Someone who cleared the first floor quest before we did?
Wary of the man whose identity I couldn't place, I looked him up and down.
Wait a second—was THAT what he meant by my outfit being similar to his?
I mean, at least I'd thrown a shirt over mine; my look was casual, not quite THAT relaxed.
Though I supposed to the fish-people of this era, we probably all looked equally bizarre.
"Go ahead and eat. It's safe, whatever it looks like."
"...?"
"I just ate some myself. No stamina boost, no penalty—nothing."
The man pointed at a crispy piece of grilled fish.
There were chopstick marks dug into the fish where he'd been picking at it.
I won't get struck down for eating the Dragon Palace's subjects... right?
The ministers had prepared it with their own hands, so it surely wasn't anything harmful.
And I was starving.
Just then, as if to reassure me, the man picked up his chopsticks and began eating again.
Truly, nothing happened.
But what if this food, too, came from a failed visitor—in other words, from a Component—
"Components are components, and a banquet is merely a banquet! So worry not, and eat your fill!"
As if it had heard the voice in my head, an unseen minister shouted to me from somewhere far down the hall.
Well then, maybe it really is fine...
After going back and forth, I finally picked up a piece of the grilled fish with my chopsticks and put it in my mouth.
The crispy skin, the tender, savory flesh—it was exquisite.
"It's delicious."
"Right?!"
The man beamed again, flashing his whole row of teeth.
Bits of the food he'd been eating were still stuck between them, though.
I didn't have the heart to point it out to the kindly man who'd invited me to share his meal.
I turned my attention away from him and buried my face in the clam stew instead.
"Are you, by any chance, a participant like me? A visitor?"
"That I am."
"Really? What a relief to run into a fellow visitor. To be honest, I'd been a little scared."
It wasn't even a lie.
The odds of the museum seating an NPC who was completely off-concept were slim.
"Oh, so you were scared. Your face didn't show it at all, so I assumed you were fine..."
"Anyone who isn't scared in a place like this would be the strange one, wouldn't they?"
"Fair enough."
The man pushed up his glasses and wrinkled his nose.
So I'm not showing it that much, huh?
"By the way, how long have you been staying here?"
"Oh, not long for me either."
"......"
That was a decidedly unhelpful answer.
The man's speech style was inherently spacey to begin with, but this wasn't a matter of tone.
He was being deliberately vague.
"Oh, right! What brought you into the tower, hyung-nim?"
Hyung-nim, of all things.
It was a little uncomfortable having a suspicious stranger close the distance on his own terms like that.
When Mr. Go calls me Kim-gun, it never feels like this.
"I just thought there was an art exhibition in a shabby building near my place, so I went in, and somehow I got swept up in all this."
"Ah, that explains your comfortable clothes, hyung-nim?"
You're not letting up, are you.
"I came here from a comic book café."
"A comic book café?"
"When you live alone there's nothing to do, so I scraped together some cash and went to a comic café, and then the bookshelf just went wham~, started turning. And, well, here I am. Haha."
Just as the Curator had said, as long as the conditions were met, it seemed visitors could enter through all manner of paths.
[That is correct.]
[Anyone who sincerely wishes may enter this museum, so long as they are a visitor making a heartfelt wish.]
Just then, an uninvited guest crashed the meal.
"There you are."
"Gah!"
Who knew when the Curator had appeared, but there he was, seated across from me.
The man was so startled by the Curator's abrupt entrance that he even dropped his chopsticks.
[Visitors, I trust you are enjoying the prepared banquet?]
[I shall take your silence as a resounding yes.]
Reading my lukewarm reaction, the Curator answered his own question for me.
[You have all worked so very hard conceiving countless works of art, have you not?]
"Hehe, yeah, I thought my brain was gonna burst."
The man flashed his trademark guileless smile even at the Curator.
Unlike me, he seemed to hold no particular grudge against the thing.
[For you weary visitors, this third floor comes with a wonderfully simple quest.]
A simple quest?
Every fiber of my being told me that was impossible.
Still, I decided to hear the Curator out for now.
[The visitor who sang Sugungga on the second floor.]
The Curator gestured toward me.
To be precise, I hadn't been the one who sang Sugungga—that had been Go Gyumin.
[And the visitor who summoned the tiger through a pop song, and thus never heard Sugungga at all.]
"...?"
This time, the Curator extended his remaining arm toward the man.
So it really had been possible with a pop song, even though he'd said any manner of singing was fine.
Even without knowing Sugungga, you could still bludgeon a beast the size of a house into submission. And you could link the magpie to the Jakhodo.
The man just tilted his head, not following the Curator's words at all.
[In any case, you have both arrived at the Dragon Palace of Sugungga—that is to say, of Byeoljubu-jeon, the Tale of the Rabbit.]
This time the Curator outright named the work.
Granted, I'd already suspected as much from the muttering of the ministers and the palace setting.
But to have it spoon-fed to us like this...
Maybe this quest really is meant to be straightforward.
I was starting to be swayed by the Curator's words.
[Are you familiar with the tale of the rabbit?]
"Uh... the rabbit and the turtle had a race, and—"
[Incorrect.]
The moment the man let out that shriveled, uncertain voice, the Curator cut him off without hesitation.
[The Dragon King fell gravely ill, and his life hangs by a thread.]
Kuung—
Suddenly, the palace shook violently.
Dust and splinters of wood rained down from the rotting pillars.
I shot to my feet, throwing both arms over my head.
For a split second, I wondered whether we needed to get out of here right now—
"Wh-what's happening?!"
[No cause for alarm. Please, be seated.]
The Curator, utterly unbothered, kept his body anchored to his seat and glanced pointedly down at the floor.
The tremor did settle quickly enough, but...
This place is old enough to collapse at any moment. Am I really supposed to trust the Curator's word?
But if I left now, it would just be the Curator and the man remaining.
The one in charge of the museum's quests was the Curator.
It rankled, but sitting off on my own away from this thing would gain me nothing.
Scowling, I sat back down without another word of complaint.
[The royal physician examined the Dragon King and declared that only the liver of a rabbit could cure his illness.]
[And so the minister Byeoljubu—a turtle—ascended to the land to capture a rabbit.]
"Oh, right! Now I remember."
The man pushed up his fogged glasses out of habit.
"So the turtle sweet-talked the rabbit into coming to the sea, but the rabbit tricked the Dragon King by saying he'd left his liver hidden in a rock on land!!"
KUGUUNG—!!
Once again, the ground shook hard enough to rock our bodies.
Dishes toppled from their bowls, staining the table.
[Indeed. The rabbit, having returned to land by that little trick, mocked the turtle and fled.]
[And so I ask you... did this folktale truly end happily?]
"?"
What kind of question was that?
The rabbit, nearly killed, had cleverly used his wits to escape danger. Wasn't that obviously a happy ending?
But the Curator shook his head with quiet finality.
[And what of the turtle's heart? He was a loyal servant who gave his all within the bonds of king and subject—yet in the end, he was reduced to a worthless, incompetent minister.]
The Curator was interpreting feelings I had never once thought to consider—the turtle's heart.
[And what of the Dragon King? In an age when one was expected to offer everything to a monarch of absolute power—what must it have felt like to be betrayed by the people of the land?]
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
[Dear visitors.]
Like an actor on a stage, the Curator clenched a hand and gestured toward the door.
[It is now your turn to help these pitiful people of the sea, and their Dragon King.]
[Off you go.]
Creeeeak—
The moment the door opened, the Curator vanished.
And the delicious food laid out on the table transformed into something else entirely in the blink of an eye.
...A reeking stench of rot billowed off the putrefied seafood.
"Uuurgh...!!"
Even the grilled fish I'd just been eating had turned into rotten fish.
If this had been on land, that blackened thing would have been crawling with flies.
Unable to hold it in, I vomited up everything I'd swallowed.
"Are you okay?!"
"Yeah... ugh—"
The man patted me on the back.
The nose-stinging stench set me off retching a second time.
"Hah... turns out I'm the only pathetic one here..."
"Aw, come on, it happens to anyone! I've got a strong stomach, that's all."
He had eaten the very same food, though.
Watching him take it all so much more calmly than I had, I could only admire him.
Feeling like any more groveling would just be a nuisance, I managed to haul myself upright.
"The door's open, so... shall we head out this way, then?"
"Yeah. Sounds good."
I nodded and followed the man's footsteps.
Just then, the fish carcasses sprawled across the table caught my eye again.
I can't believe I'm putting something like this into my item window... but it might come in handy someday.
Shwalak—
◈ Description: Long dead—it reeks to high heaven, but this, too, was once a life.
I slipped the rotten fish into my Leaflet.
Then I hurried after the man, who was already a good distance ahead.
He said we have to help the people of the sea and the Dragon King, didn't he? For all his talk of a "simple quest," he's still speaking in riddles.
We passed through the door and walked straight ahead.
I'd half expected us to loop back toward the staircase.
But no matter how far we walked, no stairs appeared.
"This place really does nothing but strange things, huh. Sugungga, the rabbit's tale—every bit of it is just so hard."
As I'd predicted earlier, the man wasn't exactly rich in artistic knowledge.
Though in a way, reading the room well enough to climb all the way to the third floor was its own kind of impressive.
"What's your exclusive Perk, hyung-nim?"
"My Perk...?"
Hold on.
An odd, off-putting feeling welled up out of nowhere, and I stopped mid-sentence, mouth shutting.
The man was still maintaining his benign attitude toward me.
"Climbing this tower is just so hard, you know. I was thinking it might be nice if we worked together..."
"...Ah, teamwork, sure."
"Sorry. I know I look unimpressive, but I'm not actually stupid."
"No, no—you've done nothing wrong, why are you apologizing?"
My lukewarm reaction must have been showing.
His self-deprecation flustered me even more, and I waved both hands in denial.
At that, the man gave an awkward laugh and scratched his head.
"I've tried talking to other participants before, but maybe because of how I look, how I'm dressed—they avoid me, don't really make room for me."
"......"
"Getting to the third floor was really, really hard."
It wasn't that I looked down on him, not at all...
But with his damp, slouchy running shirt and bare feet in rubber slippers, he did look thoroughly low on combat power.
Still, the reason I couldn't accept his offer of cooperation was something else entirely.
Something. Something was—
Ah.
At last, I put my finger on the source of this vague revulsion.
Everything that had prickled at me like thorns clicked into place, one piece after another.
Since he's supposed to be my fellow visitor on this floor, I'd hoped we could build a friendly relationship—like with Siwoon or Mr. Go.
"So how about it—what do you say we stick together from here on out, hyung-nim?"
The man broke into a bright smile, the kind you'd see on a public service poster.
And then he held out his hand to me, offering a handshake.
Matching his smile, I gave my reply, clear and crisp.
"No, thank you."