The Ferryman of the Underworld (2)

"What the hell is this?!"

Ko Gyumin recoiled in horror at the unknown things crowding before his eyes. Figures with the texture of black slime were rising out of the water and swarming toward the boat.

Each time one tried to climb aboard and slipped, it stretched out its arm and tried again.

"Aaaagh—! I want to live!!"

People whose eyes, noses, and mouths had sloughed away and melted off were screaming.

Ko Gyumin and Jang Siwoon kicked them away in revulsion, shoving back anyone who tried to board.

I walked up to the Curator and seized him by the collar.

Ordinarily, earning a wish meant never crossing the Curator, but—

Panic had short-circuited my reason.

"Save those people! Failing a quest doesn't mean dying, does it?!"

[They are not dying. Have you forgotten?]

The robe in my fist dissolved like mist, slipping through my fingers. A heartbeat later, the Curator was standing a step behind me.

[The Acheron is the river that joins the world of the living to the world of the dead.]

[Those are the climbers who failed and became tangled in its waters.]

[Merely the visitors who will become parts, gathered in one place.]

"…!!"

They weren't dead—that was precisely why they were trapped in the Acheron.

So this is what becoming a part means…?

What could they possibly have done to deserve this?

"Save me! Save me!"

"Aaagh!!"

A black figure clinging to Jang Siwoon tipped the boat, and river water poured over the sides.

Maybe that was why—the ferryboat sat slightly lower in the water than before.

"You damned chunk of plaster! Keep this up and we'll end up in the river too!"

[It appears the boat will sink under the visitors' ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠weight.]

"It was fine a minute ago! What kind of nonsense is that?!"

No matter how loudly Ko Gyumin shouted, the Curator only shrugged. Then he raised a single finger and struck his signature theatrical pose.

[There is a way to drive off the parts and set the boat moving again.]

[Move me with music.]

"What is he even saying?!"

Ko Gyumin barked at the incomprehensible instruction.

I turned the Curator's words over in my mind, my brain working fast. In the end, the solution came down to art again.

…It's the story of Charon the ferryman and Orpheus.

[It appears the boat will sink under the visitors' weight.]

In Greek and Roman myth, the ferryman said almost exactly that to a mortal—Orpheus. And Orpheus played his lyre and moved the ferryman's heart.

And Charon, moved, set the boat afloat again and took up his oars.

Through the Acheron and its ferryman, the quiz had leapt from Dante's Divine Comedy back into Greek and Roman myth.

"An instrument—no, wait. If it's music, anything should do. What matters is moving the Curator!"

Strictly speaking, we ought to play a lyre. But the Curator had deliberately widened the requirement to 'music,' so anything should count.

Jang Siwoon glared at me like I'd lost my mind.

"Music? You're telling me to sing?!"

"A song that can move someone!"

"I'm tone-deaf!!"

Same here.

Watching Jang Siwoon claw at her head in anguish, I sank into despair alongside her. A memory surfaced—music class, singing period, everyone snickering at my voice.

I had finished the song, face burning, voice wobbling. My classmates laughed at me, and the embarrassment was crushing—but what hurt more was the shame of having no talent whatsoever for anything artistic or athletic.

"Kim, is literally any music fine?!"

Ko Gyumin's voice yanked me out of the past.

"The Curator said 'music' as a general category, so everything should qualify!"

"Even pansori?"

"Yes, pansori too… wait, what? Pansori?"

Not pop songs—pansori, out of nowhere?

I'd been about to agree, and then wondered if I'd misheard.

"It's going to sink!!"

Jang Siwoon scooped river water out of the boat with her bare hands. She knew it was pointless, but the boat kept growing heavier, and urgency was eating at her.

"Ghraaagh—!!"

"Goddamn it…."

Ko Gyumin kicked away another figure clawing at the hull and swore under his breath. Then he let out a long, deep breath and steadied himself.

"Shall I go—"

"?!"

The sound that came out of Ko Gyumin's mouth made Jang Siwoon's and my eyes go round.

This was no ordinary singing. Breath gathered from the core of his body, notes that bent and cracked in all the right places.

That's real pansori…?

And with his song, the boat began to rise slowly from the river.

When Ko Gyumin's song ended, the water that had flooded the boat dried up, and the vessel grew light again. The black figures clinging to the hull slowly sloughed apart and were swept away into the river.

"…Me too… me too… I want… to…."

The last one left croaked out a dying scream, words crumbling mid-breath. The hand it stretched toward us melted away almost at once, dissolving into droplets.

At long last, the Acheron lay still again.

"Hah…."

Every one of us slumped into the boat, strength gone. While I was wiping my soaked forehead, the Curator ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flailed his arms in glee.

[A passage from the Song of Chunhyang, echoing across the Acheron! Only the Museum of Wishes could make such a thing possible.]

"Shut up…."

Ko Gyumin glared at him, lips twisted into a scowl.

Put them through hell, then toss out praise dressed as mockery. But since the Curator had taken up the oars again, nobody resorted to violence.

"Mr. Ko, were you an artist? A sorikkun—a pansori singer?"

"What artist, what sorikkun. It didn't help solve the quest at all. I know ab~solutely nothing."

"But—"

"I just dabbled here and there in music, that's all."

At my question, Ko Gyumin's face twisted something fierce.

I was no expert, but that performance seemed a little beyond mere dabbling….

Mentioning the word 'artist' again felt like poking an open wound, so I held my tongue.

"Rusty from resting so long. A few years back I was still in my thirties, and I could really belt. Ah, how embarrassing."

The shock of hearing the Song of Chunhyang on the Acheron. Ko Gyumin's mastery of pansori.

But what stunned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me most was—

He's in his early forties?!

He spoke to us so casually that I'd assumed he was older. And his face aged him further on top of that.

"You're only in your forties? Considering how you acted at the start, I thought you were much older."

"Ahem. What a person does has nothing to do with their age. Sorry. Everyone was confused and on edge back then, remember?"

Jang Siwoon kept firing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠questions like fastballs, and Ko Gyumin answered them like they were nothing.

To think a professional artist had been sitting right beside us all along.

He seems limited to music, but still—this is something. And above all….

I clasped my hands together, eyes shining, and looked up at Ko Gyumin.

"Mr. Ko, that song was truly beautiful…! I've never heard pansori like that before."

"…Enough. You're making me blush. Quit it."

"Just once more, please—"

"No."

Unfortunately, he had no intention of singing again. That slightly hoarse, grieving voice had been so achingly persuasive, too.

I clung to him out of sheer longing, and he cut me off without mercy.

Why would anyone hide a voice like that?

If it were me, I'd have sung louder, drunk on the moment. I couldn't know his private reasons, but I simply envied him.

How precious must fate be, to be born carrying talent—

"……."

And only then did it hit me.

This was no time to be lazily envying anyone.

The joy of being safe made me forget the people who fell into the river.

Those who'd become parts would have envied us—and I'd forgotten them, indulged my own greed. No—by now, the mind that could even feel envy might have crumbled completely.

Thinking of the people who'd met such a gruesome end, feeling envy suddenly seemed like an insult.

"…Me too… me too… I want… to…."

The last words the sinking figure had stammered out at the end.

…Me too… me too… I want to go up….

When the shattered pieces of that voice finally snapped into a complete sentence, my chest grew heavy with a tangle of feelings.

Jang Siwoon's and Ko Gyumin's faces had gone dark too—they were clearly thinking the same thing.

[We've arrived.]

As if we had no time to spare for grief, the Curator lifted the oar and pointed ahead. At last, ground covered in hard, pale rock came into view.

The moment the boat touched the rocks, we scrambled out. The Curator followed us off, then tossed the oar back into the river without a trace of regret.

[Go on up.]

A stone staircase rose directly in front of us, climbing upward. Whatever lay at the top was completely invisible—only bright light spilled down, illuminating the steps themselves.

"Floor two…."

The words slipped out of me, thick with emotion. At that, the Curator spread both arms and blocked our path.

[Ah, ah.]

"?"

[Before you ascend to the second floor of the museum, I will grant the visitors their Perks.]

Perks?

A small Leaflet unfolded before my eyes.

Flutter—

A "docent" is the guide in a museum who explains the works to visitors. So a Perk was essentially a skill.

My brain is crammed full of everything from short-term to long-term memory—how am I supposed to browse that…?

Every piece of information I'd accumulated since childhood was being turned into data. Even for a tower where magical things happened, I couldn't imagine how all that data would be organized.

Well then… Dante? No—let me search for Rodin.

The instant the word left my mouth, "Auguste Rodin" appeared on the Leaflet.

Flutter—

Okay, okay, I get it. That's enough.

Lines of text stacked downward and downward, and the Leaflet stretched longer and longer. Just before it started dragging on the ground, I hastily folded the paper with my hands.

It had been a blind experiment, but the Leaflet responded to speech and gesture—just as the Curator's did.

The categories aren't sorted alphabetically. …I think it's in the order I acquired each memory.

Because it held all of my memories at once, the volume of information was overwhelming.

Let me gather only the authoritative data inside and organize it properly.

Time to put those years of overtime at a research firm—grinding until four in the morning—to good use.

I spread the Leaflet open again, dragged my finger across the text, and built my own folders.

"Much better."

Now retrieving data in a crisis would be far easier. Living the life of an adult, I'd long since forgotten most of the random knowledge I'd read as a kid.

An incredibly useful skill.

Ah, wait—what about Siwoon and Mr. Ko…?

The two of them were staring gravely into empty air. The Curator seemed to have blocked each of them from seeing the others' Perks.

"……."

"……."

My eyes met Jang Siwoon's.

For an instant, she seemed to be wrestling with whether or not to talk about her Perk. She always kept her face blank, so it was hard to read, but I caught a flicker of anxious glancing.

That expression says her skill is pretty decent, doesn't it.

I closed my eyes into a smile toward Jang Siwoon.

"Don't worry. I won't talk about mine either."

"Huh?"

"You know how it is. Can you fully trust someone you only just met in here?"

"Not really."

"Right. So we each keep what we need to keep, hidden."

"……."

"That's just my take."

I appended "just my take" at the end, so she wouldn't feel pressured.

Truthfully, I couldn't reveal my Perk, so I dressed it up in shiny words to cover it.

The tower's administrator was the Curator—and my skill was a Docent. Even if each Perk reflected its owner's own abilities, the name alone looked suspiciously suited to climbing this museum.

Telling anyone else that skill name right now was not a good choice. It could invite needless suspicion or wariness.

"You act like you'd hand over everything you own, but you've got a pretty sharp head on you, huh, Kim? Eh?"

"I'm not that nice."

I wanted to be good at heart, but… to keep friction from sprouting between us, this was the best move.

Still, I'm glad we shared at least what fields we specialized in.

Perks were clearly determined by each person's own abilities. Which meant Jang Siwoon had likely been granted something athletic, and Ko Gyumin something musical.

How lucky that I had reasons to keep moving with these people going forward.

Although… there is one thing that bothers me.

I turned my head toward the Curator.

"Then why are you giving us Perks?"

[…….]

"Visitors who receive Perks will have an easier time climbing the tower. That's no benefit to you, is it?"

[I do not weigh benefits.]

[I simply accompany the journeys of the visitors who climb this museum.]

[Because I am the Curator.]

In other words: 'I'm just an employee of the tower'?

It sat uneasily with me, but I had only a hunch and no evidence, so I decided not to press further.

"The stairs aren't even that tall, but you can't see the inside of the entrance~"

"Only one way to find out."

I swallowed hard, passed the Curator, and set my foot on the stone staircase. The Curator watched us without moving until we reached the upper reaches of the steps.

BOOM—!

Just as we nearly reached the top, a thunderous sound erupted behind us.

The riverbed of the Acheron below had sealed over completely with rock. There was only one way to go now. I turned forward again and climbed the last few steps.

"…?!!"

And then—

"Meow."