The Abandoned House (3)
CLATTER-CRASH-BANG—BOOM!!
Okay. That takes care of the last job on the list.
I'd pulled off the scare exactly as the script had called for — and judging by those people's reactions, it might not have been a mere success. It might have been a triumph. On top of that, I was genuinely convinced the finale had been perfect. Originally I was supposed to hide in the hollows along the walls so I could shove objects over one at a time, but that method was obsolete now. Knocking everything down at once from a distance with Psychokinesis was far more effective, wasn't it?
If I'd had an ability like this back when I was alive, I probably would have ended up the protagonist of novels like I Became a Provincial S-Rank Day Laborer or The Construction Foreman Is Obsessed With Me.
I, Sang-hyun, have finally acquired an independent Essence-farming ability that doesn't even need a Poltergeist's help. Has my era arrived...?
And according to what I'd been told beforehand, the Essence that came in didn't all go to the owner first to be doled out later as wages. It was automatically distributed according to contribution. How beautifully equal was that? It didn't look like the Red Tide or Radioactive Black Tea would ever set foot in this mansion.
Anyway, where is Noona?
From what I'd seen earlier, her role was to make a stealth appearance in the mirror. The humans had already run for it, so she ought to be coming out any minute now.
Don't tell me the other anomalies are picking on her?
She had joined later than the rest of them, that much was certain. Maybe the ones who'd gotten here first were giving her the cold shoulder.
Then... don't tell me that stutter of hers was something she picked up here...?!
A research finding floated into my head — that people who are bullied over a long period of time suffer a drop in social skills — and I took off at a run to find her.
...
From the other side of a door, women's voices were making a considerable racket.
But what right do I even have to walk in there and tell them to knock it off?
That was the thing. Noona and I were close — older-sister-and-little-brother close — but we weren't a couple or anything like that. Besides, I might just be stirring up a hornet's nest for no reason. For all I knew, it wasn't even bullying. I turned it over in my head, but I couldn't land on a clear answer.
Ah, whatever. I'll just go in, say I came looking for her, and take her with me.
I raised my foot to kick the door in... and then I didn't. I eased it open instead, just in case it really wasn't bullying after all.
Creeeak—
"Eek!..."
"......Huh?! Right?"
Was that the gang-up hazing I'd only ever heard about? I needed to get in there right now and pull her out—
"Eek! Your makeup looks amazing today! How'd you even do that? Huh?"
"I know, right? And your hair is so soft~"
"U-um... o-o-o-one at a time..."
Ah.
The capital E's of this world will never understand an I's heart. For extroverts, hanging out with people is rest. For introverts, rest is time spent alone. On top of that, she had just achieved a four-combo stutter. If you really thought about it, maybe this counted as a form of bullying too.
Ugh. I should just mind my own business. I'll go back and kill time browsing the gallery.
I eased the door shut again before any of the anomalies inside could notice. Through the sliver of the opening, Noona had clearly caught me watching — she shot me a look that said please get me out of here.
Sorry, Noona.
There was no reason for me to get my soul wrung out in the middle of all that. And besides, why do you think I never went outside and just stayed locked in my room even before I died?
That's right.
I had been an introvert too.
Ah, 800 points. Beautiful.
What actually filled my belly was Essence, of course — but watching those points pile up made me feel full anyway. And today's gallery regen was a heaping bowl of rice. Posts were popping up faster than usual, and the titles were written so that you wanted to smash the click button, as if Korea University's Department of Korean Literature had been hit by a terrorist attack. Or wait — was naming things the philosophy department's job? Anyway.
Come to think of it, the convenience store's Store Manager still hasn't filled the hole I left. Does that mean he's working those hours himself until a new part-timer shows up?
I hadn't done anything wrong, but something about it sat uneasily with me, so I decided I should find out the Store Manager's working hours in advance. If I ever had reason to stop by the Happy Convenience Store, I would absolutely avoid that window.
Alright. Time to go exploring. I'll start with the regulars.
Wondering how the clown would be raging today, or what pose the little green frog would be striking, I started tapping through the posts.
I couldn't even speak. I just sat there cackling like a lunatic for a solid three minutes. How did this guy keep setting new all-time highs with every single post? Before he died, he must have been a full-time trader and the resident haunt of a stock gallery. That was the only explanation.
And what kind of place is a stock gallery, you ask? Every night around eleven, heroes and great men appear. Every morning at five, the dogs show up. And just as troubled times produce heroes, a bear market produces writers.
Why do I know this so well?
Because a certain taco-loving president of some country caused a purple-haired monster to finger-snap my account — not once, but twice in a row. I still remember it.
If only I'd gone short back then...
I had just laughed myself sick, and now I was getting sad. My digestive system, which had been failing spectacularly at its actual job, decided to prove it wasn't a vestigial organ by setting my stomach on fire. The only way to soothe this stomachache and this grief was to administer another dose of the gallery, that most potent of medicines.
I scrolled past posts that looked like they'd been written by some round-faced vampire and others that were clearly the work of newbie anomalies, and then I found it — a write-up of something I'd been curious about anyway. The first day I'd ever opened this gallery flashed back at me, complete with the tactical nuke I'd seen, and I flinched before clicking. But there was a recommended-post mark sitting right there on the title, so I decided to trust it and go in.
Ahh. So that's what a Rulebook is.
Back when I used to bounce around places like the Napolitan Gallery and read rule-based horror stories, I'd think things like, I'd be so screwed if I ever fell into one of those. One mistake and you were dead, after all. But looking at it from an anomaly's side of the fence, it felt like something of a white elephant. You couldn't even set that enormous a restriction — and the moment the humans figured it out, you just became a young man who spent a lot of Essence.
Still, thanks to that post, rule-based horror stories didn't scare me anymore. Yeah. The Noona staring at me with those resentful eyes was way more—
Huh?
...Houses that used to belong to well-off families were bigger than I'd thought. I'd been on the run for close to an hour, and I was still ending up in places I'd never seen before.
One week later.
"Is anyone home~?"
A voice drifted in, and I peeked out at the front gate in my soul state. Someone was standing there with colorful, flamboyant clothes fluttering around them.
What the hell is that lunatic.
Common sense. Would there be anyone in an abandoned house? Was this guy an idiot?