The One Cloaked in White (1)
Mrow?
A bell-like trill tickled at my ears.
The moment we set foot on the 2nd floor, a long river of black ink spread out beneath us, as though someone had unrolled a carpet of sumi ink across a sheet of calligraphy paper. And lining that inked road on either side, the cats applauded us.
Standing on their hind legs, no less.
“Congratulations to all of you who've reached the 2nd floor~!”
“Yaaay~!”
I stood there dumbfounded amid the cheers of so many cats. The slit pupils, the soft fur, even the perked-up ears — aside from the fact that they behaved like humans, they were utterly indistinguishable from real cats.
Though behaving like humans is precisely the strangest part.
“The cat's talking?!”
“This isn't some cartoon…”
Go Gyumin and Jang Siwoon gaped at the bipedal cats walking toward us.
Completely unmoved by those looks. Dry, emotionless people, the both of them.
“Welcome to the 2nd floor! We'll be escorting you, honored visitors!”
“To where?”
The cats gave no answer to Go Gyumin's question. Instead, every one of them turned in unison, lined up in a row, and launched into an enthusiastic dance.
Ah, congratulations!
Ah, congratulations!
Some of them were even beating drums, drawn from who knew where.
We followed slowly along the path the cats led us down. Every time they bounced and pranced through their dance, dirt burst up from the pale ground and trees sprouted in its wake.
“Kim, what is this?”
“It feels like a Japanese festival. I'd guess they're welcoming us?”
“Welcoming us?! Cats are walking upright AND talking!!”
Go Gyumin barked at me. For a while there he'd mellowed out, but his grumbling temper snapped right back into place.
“What now? A forest again?”
Jang Siwoon looked around with a bored expression. The scenery had transformed completely in step with the cats' footsteps — but it was nothing like the forest we'd walked on the 1st floor. Up there, the trees had mostly been firs, the kind you'd use for Christmas trees. Here on the 2nd floor, pines and bamboo gathered in deliberate, artful clusters.
Given the cats' whole vibe too… Eastern art this time?
“We've arrived!”
The cats came to an abrupt halt mid-stride while I was still mulling over what the 2nd floor's quest might be. The three of us scrambled to stop as well, afraid of barreling into them.
A cool wind stirred the leaves.
Hm, it's actually a little bleak out here…
“Nyaa-nyaa~!”
“Nyaa-nyaa~!”
“Nyaa-nyaa~!”
The cats suddenly began to cry out in chorus. Then the cat leading at the very front twisted its supple body around, and the rest followed suit, turning to face us.
“Visitors who have cleared Exhibition 1: Hell and Hope.”
The voice that had been ringing so cheerfully was now unnervingly clear. In the cats' razor-sharp pupils, I felt for an instant not cuteness but a creeping, crawly dread.
“Is this place a new hell? Nooo~”
“A hell? Nooo~”
The cats pressed both hands — no, both paws — to their cheeks and shook their heads side to side.
Just then, a small pebble rolling along the ground leapt into the air.
Thoom-! Thoom-! Thoom-!
“The ground's shaking!”
“An earthquake?! No — the vibrations aren't coming from underground!”
We all turned to look past the dense wall of trees. Startled by the din, the birds perched in the branches shot up into the sky.
Something was coming toward us.
The cats pricked up their ears, dropped to all fours, and scattered in every different direction.
“H-hey! Where are you going—?!”
“A beast bigger than us must come! A four-legged beast must come!”
Even as I stretched out my hand and shouted, the cat left only that cryptic remark behind and was gone. Anxious, we moved to run after them —
— and with a splintering crash, the trees concealing the something beyond all collapsed at once.
“RUN!!”
At Jang Siwoon's word, every one of us broke into a desperate sprint.
BANG-!!
“Gaaaaagh…!!”
A monstrous roar, and beneath it, a human scream. It was a man's voice, one I'd never heard before, and I turned my head as if spellbound.
That's a person?!
A man, filthy with dirt — he must have taken a fall — came charging toward us. And not just him. Three more were running close behind.
“People we've never seen before?!”
“Are those fakes the tower made too?”
Jang Siwoon and Go Gyumin also spiraled into confusion at the sight of runners approaching from the distance.
“Hahh, hkk…!!”
Dammit! Why couldn't one of my perks be better athletic ability?!
Just like on the 1st floor, I was falling behind Jang Siwoon and Go Gyumin again. No matter how fast I pumped my legs, I only wheezed for breath while my speed refused to rise.
“!!”
The man running behind me pitched forward, both arms outstretched, and snatched my ankle.
I had no desire to fall this time either — and so, ankle seized, I toppled over completely. I kicked and thrashed to break free of him. I accidentally smashed him right in the face, and still he would not let go.
“What do you think you're doing?! Let go of me!!”
“S-save me! A skeleton monster appeared!!”
“A skeleton… monster?”
A name chilling enough just to hear.
“Jisan! Why are you stopped there AGAIN?!!”
Far ahead, Jang Siwoon and Go Gyumin were looking back at me with expressions of sheer exasperation.
And this time, it wasn't just my stamina to blame.
Thoom-!!
“Hiihk…! It's coming!!”
The unidentified creature behind all that trembling finally revealed itself.
Can I even call that thing… a life form?
A colossal hand pushed through the shattered trees. And just as the man had said, it was no ordinary hand — it was a white, skeletal one. The hand came first, then the ribcage, then the skull, all dragging into view.
The skeletal monster hauled its body along the ground, crawling toward us. Its speed was slow, but it was simply so enormous that the distance between us shrank in no time.
“Ahhh… How wretched. How wretched it is.”
“Holy— wh-what IS that thing?”
At the sound of its voice, Jang Siwoon spat out a curse. Within a single sentence, a different voice rang out with every syllable — a layered sound of many humans mixed together, different sexes, different ages.
“All I did was set foot inside… chasing a desperate wish…”
“And in the end we became parts, a mass of gristle and bone.”
“How wretched. How wretched it is.”
It's like a Japanese yokai. Don't tell me it's made out of visitors…?
The words wish and parts sent my stomach plunging. And then, unprompted, the human arm grafted onto the Curator's shoulder drifted to the front of my mind.
Like that arm — is that skeleton also—
“Crush my bones. Please, crush my bones…”
“UWAAAH-!!”
The skeleton monster, closing in fast, snatched up the man beside me. Then, with its bony index finger and thumb, it picked him up and popped him into its mouth. The man wailed, tears streaming, from inside its jaws.
Crunch-
-!!
I squeezed my eyes shut. It was far too late to run now.
I was next. Just like that man.
No—
Thoom-! Thoom-! Thoom-!
…It passed me?
The skeleton monster swallowed the man whole and moved on. Naturally, I'd assumed I was next in line…
Why did it skip me?
Ah.
Jang Siwoon and Go Gyumin were standing directly in front of the halted monster.
Before either of them could even think of fleeing, the skeleton lifted Jang Siwoon clean off the ground.
“AAAAAH-!!”
“Siwoon!!”
Even as she screamed, Jang Siwoon thrashed wildly to wrench herself free of the bony fist gripping her hood. Then — the monster, jaws gaping wide, abruptly froze mid-motion.
“A scent lingers. I have erred.”
“Where is the rat…”
Glancing around, the skeleton monster dropped Jang Siwoon as if discarding her.
“Aagh!!”
“Siwoon!”
Go Gyumin threw his body forward to catch her. Holding her in his arms, he toppled over backward with her on top of him.
“Ah, ughk-! Dammit, my back….”
“Teacher Go!”
The skeleton monster thrust its hand deep into the grass near the spot where Jang Siwoon had been standing.
“KYAAAAH-!!”
It hauled out a woman who'd been hiding there and pressed her right up against its own face. Its teeth clacked together, as though in fury.
“Only those who have seen the setting sun three times shall become bone.”
“N-no! It's only been two days for me!!”
“…Liar.”
“Hiihk— gaaaaah…!!”
Crunch-!!
This time I shut my eyes and clamped my hands over my ears. And still, the sound of her breaking pried its way between my fingers and into my skull.
“Crush my bones. Please, crush my bones…”
“Only those who have seen the setting sun three times shall become bone…”
Thoom… Thoom… Thoom…
Having finished off everyone who'd come running, the skeleton monster turned its bulk around and vanished into the distance. And so the three of us were left alone in the ruined forest.
“Siwoon. You okay?”
“Y-yes. Thank you…”
Jang Siwoon forced her trembling lips to move. Her legs had apparently given out entirely; even with Go Gyumin helping her up, she couldn't stand properly.
[Now then, ladies and gentlemen.]
[How did you find your tour of the 2nd floor exhibition?]
“Curator!!”
A swirling robe materialized between us, and the torso of a headless statue rose up above it. The sight of the Curator's composure made my blood boil.
[I trust you've already exchanged greetings with the other visitors who ascended to the 2nd floor.]
“There were other people who cleared the quest besides us?!”
[Visitor Go Gyumin. Did you truly believe the Museum's doors opened only in that shabby little back alley, in that rundown commercial block?]
Go Gyumin had no answer. Neither did I. In the scramble to solve the quest, it had never even crossed our minds.
[The Museum of Wishes is connected to a great many spaces.]
[To accommodate its countless visitors, a great many dimensions are required, you see.]
[They gather, then scatter. Gather again, and find themselves alone.]
I understood the gist of the Curator's explanation. The Museum of Wishes linked itself to countless spaces to draw in an endless stream of visitors.
And even on the same floor, multiple dimensions exist inside it — so that we never cross paths on the same timeline?
But if that were true —
“Then by your own logic, those people back there were just visitors who joined for their wishes, like us.”
[…….]
“Did it really have to come to this?”
I strained to steady my shaking voice, but the emotion leaked through in the end.
“Becoming parts is horrifying enough on its own. Did the visitors who failed their quests really have to be disposed of so cruelly?”
[That is the path they chose.]
“Nobody could have expected it would lead to THIS!”
The shout tore out of me before I could stop it.
The more my emotions flared, the more I felt like the Curator was winning, so I'd meant to hold it in.
“And on top of that, you puppet the people who became parts, however you please—”
[Puppet them, you say?]
At my words, the Curator tilted its head, as though it understood nothing at all.
[Devouring visitors is what the parts themselves wished for.]
“That's impossible. They're people who failed their quests and became parts — why would they ever want to hurt anyone—”
[Visitor Kim Jisan. And how exactly are you so certain of that?]
“…….”
Nothing in this tower could truly be certain. And yet I wanted, somehow, to push back against the Curator's claim that the slaughter had been the parts' own desire.
“That skeleton monster was a system built before any parts ever existed, wasn't it?”
The skeleton monster had been part of the 2nd floor's map from before the first visitor ever failed and became a part. A machine designed in advance to greet whoever arrived first. If the beasts on the 1st floor had moved so mechanically, that too was simply this tower's system.
“A monster that grudges its own death, yet turns to kill the living — a monster with not one shred of humanity left in it.”
[…….]
“The visitors who became parts were merely absorbed into that system and assimilated by it.”
Because it was a creation — a work of fiction — it had simply congealed into a mass of grudges. Real humans might not be so cruel.
[Do you truly believe that?]
“…?”
[You believe humanity is a beautiful thing? You're proud that there is nothing the least bit ugly in your own heart?]
The moment I'd pressed my argument with maximum conviction, the Curator pounced — on me this time.
I'd walked straight into a perfect counter.
I did think there were more people with beautiful hearts than not. But could I honestly count myself among them?
How sordid my own heart was — I don't even want to remember it, and yet it comes back to me anyway.
“I have to believe it. Otherwise I couldn't hold on in a place like this.”
Whether that answered the first question or the second, I left deliberately vague.
There was no reason to bare my ugly insides to Go Gyumin and Jang Siwoon.
[Understood, perfectly.]
[Then do go on — see that beautiful heart of yours through to the end of the quest—]
Unexpectedly, the Curator dropped the argument and simply announced the quest. The conversation had been cut off so abruptly that I floundered for a moment, but the change of topic came as a secret relief.
A Leaflet shot out from the Curator's sleeve, floating up into the air and unfurling to its full length.
Shffff-
Aiyo, sightseers, ye have climbed the stone stair.
Monstrous beasts there be aplenty — aye, even a heap of bones.
But that bone-heap is no mere bones, mind ye — 'tis humans, turned!
Once the sun hath wheeled thrice overhead, this lifeline shall be severed, past all mercy.
How could mortal strength alone bear such a burden?
One way of escape there be, and only one.
Let the one cloaked in white pass by, and a beast big as a house shall come down.