The Illusion of Comfort
Comfort is truly a wonderful thing. Physical comfort gives you the breathing room to replenish your stamina, while mental comfort grants even more varied forms of leeway to a person. There's that old saying, after all. A strong mind dwells in a strong body… or was it the other way around?
“……What on earth was I doing?”
Han Gamin, who had been lost in self-admiration while staring into the mirror without realizing I had entered, buried her face deep into the bed after I destroyed the cursed statue. She kept muttering something in a voice so faint it was barely audible. Brainwashing and hallucinations, along with various other mental attacks, had still been active. It was no surprise she hadn't noticed the disconnect from her usual behavior.
“Uh… sorry…”
I apologized first. Whether her actions had been intentional or not, what she had shown wasn't exactly something to brag about to others.
「What did you eat to get so pretty?」
「Your voice is like a nightingale!」
「Haha! Kyahahahaha!!! Kyururuk! Kyururuk!」
Han Gamin, who had been half-crazed, spouting things that made you wonder what she normally thought about. Of course, the very person who had performed those unimaginable acts was now burrowing into the bed as if trying to be swallowed whole.
“Mmm… having high self-esteem is a really good thing.”
“……”
“Hey… Gamin? You still alive in there?”
When I called her name, she flinched and slowly lifted her head. A face that looked half-dead. Well… she wasn't actually dying, but it seemed like she was experiencing a kind of social death.
“Ah…… Maybe I should just die right now.”
Looking at Han Gamin's face, which seemed to have already reached nirvana, I started wondering if I should have visited Park Jocheol or Namgung Cheonho's rooms first. But the water was already spilled. I slapped both my cheeks hard enough to make a sound, then explained the situation to her.
“Gamin.”
“……What.”
“The situation here doesn't seem very good.”
“Yeah, yeah, it's not good. Because one person is dying right now.”
Han Gamin buried her face back into the bed and grumbled. But now was the time for a proper conversation.
“Do you remember the person named ‘Noya’ who was at the party hall right before we came here?”
“……Yes, that old man who was giving a sermon at the party hall?”
“Right. Then what about the staff he was holding?”
At my words, Han Gamin tilted her head and looked at me with a face that said, “What are you talking about?”
“There was a staff?”
“As expected, you didn't see it.”
I briefly explained the staff's appearance and the bluish gem embedded at its tip.
“……Now that I hear it, that gem on the staff… isn't it the same as the thing you're holding, Ahjussi?”
At her words, I nodded while holding up the remnants left after breaking the statue. Memorial Piece. An object that had stored the curse within the statue while filled with magical power. Of course, the curse's intensity hadn't been strong enough to do more than infest the lodging, but there was no telling how many more of these objects existed in this building.
“This seems like some kind of key……”
No matter how I thought about it, this mission was extremely unfriendly. We had been given seven days. The task was to find the door leading to the second floor within that time. With no special explanation, only the vague hint that “a path would be nearby,” forcing us to clear it left a frustrating feeling that wouldn't go away.
Hearing my muttering, Han Gamin—who had already forgotten her earlier embarrassing display—looked at me with an intrigued expression and offered her opinion.
“Can't we just ask?”
“……?”
“No, think about it. If we combine everything you've explained, it means everyone here has been brainwashed by that ‘Noya’ person. And right now, this room is completely free of the brainwashing, right?”
I stared at her, urging her to continue.
“Then we just bring one of the brainwashed people here and ask them.”
At Han Gamin's confident tone, I spoke with slight doubt.
“It's not like I haven't thought of that. Who would know the circumstances here better than the people living here? But here's the thing.”
I told her the one thing that had been bothering me the most until now.
“How can we trust them?”
Suppose we freed someone from the brainwashing. The most ideal scenario would be for that person to thank us the moment the brainwashing lifted and provide information about the first floor. It would be even better if we uncovered unexpected secrets or a definitive answer on how to reach the second floor. But the problem was the concern that the person might not actually have been brainwashed and could be deceiving us instead.
However.
“Why is that a problem?”
“If that person is actually on Noya's side and reports that we've escaped the brainwashing……”
“There's a way to solve that, you know?”
I frowned at her words and tilted my head. Before my question could even fade, she picked up the handbell that had been left in the room for calling for help and rang it exactly three times.
Ding— Ding— Ding—
“Watch this.”
Whether they had heard the bell or not, the sound of small, cute footsteps echoed from the hallway. Soon they stopped in front of the door, and that same emotionless child's voice came through the gap.
- May I come in?
Han Gamin responded in a bright voice and approached the door while I decided to simply observe her actions for now.
“Ahem!”
Before the child entered, Han Gamin lightly cleared her throat. Though I was a bit worried, I chose to trust that Han Gamin would handle things wisely in her own way. And the moment the door opened and the child stepped inside—
“Do you need any hel—mmph!”
Whoosh!
Han Gamin dragged the child into the room and began wrapping them tightly in a blanket.
“Mmph! Mmmph-mmmph!!!”
“Stay still! If you don't want to die!”
I blinked at the sudden turn of events. But soon, seeing the bewildered child who couldn't grasp what was happening and Han Gamin carrying out the kidnapping and imprisonment with a fierce glare, I could only nod.
So there really was a surefire method.
“Puhah!”
“How about it? Feeling like talking now?”
“Y-you didn't even ask anything…! Ah…gh……”
When the pillowcase tightly wrapped around their mouth was removed, the child tried to shout at Han Gamin but shrank back upon seeing her savage expression.
“Hng……”
The thoroughly intimidated child. But I didn't pay it much mind and decided to take over from Han Gamin's efforts.
“Kid. Are you feeling okay right now?”
“…………Yes?”
The child looked at me with an expression that seemed to say, “What kind of crazy person is this now?” A child with golden bobbed hair and red eyes. I had thought their voice sounded thin because they hadn't gone through puberty yet, but listening again, it seemed to be a girl.
“Not your body—mentally. Don't you feel dazed, or like your head is ringing and you're floating in the sky?”
“……Huh? Now that you mention it?”
At the child's words, I nodded and asked another question.
“What's your name?”
“……”
“You don't remember?”
“……No.”
“How old are you?”
“……”
“Then again… the child was nothing more than an ordinary ‘Kid 1’ who knew far less than I had hoped. The only useful information we got was that most of the chores around here were handled by children around the same age as this one. There were guards and knights residing in the castle, but their numbers didn't seem very large.”
“Doesn't seem like there's any particularly useful information.”
“You're telling me.”
At Han Gamin's sigh filled with regret, I stretched my stiff body and looked out the window. What could we do now? A week wasn't a short amount of time, so taking it slow and searching for clues one step at a time might not be a bad idea either. After all, these were people who had survived by stubbornly enduring at the edge of death… Resting for a day or so……
Rapid Comprehension (C-) has activated.
Resisting status ailment ‘Brainwashing (F-)’.
Tsk. Just as I was starting to feel at ease, the status window popped up again at the perfect moment. I looked around the room, slowly scanning for any other curse mediums besides the statue. The child's eyes had remained wide and alert ever since entering the room. And the same went for Han Gamin. So where exactly was this curse coming from right now?
Like a German Shepherd at an airport detecting drugs, I paced around the room searching for anything suspicious. After wandering for quite a while, the child cautiously raised their hand and spoke.
“Um… I don't really know why you're doing this, but could that be the problem?”
“That?”
The child's gaze was directed at my hand. The two fragments of the blue gem I was holding. I checked the gem's description once more.
Ding.
◈ Type: Gem
◈ Description: A gem with high magical conductivity that holds a small amount of magical power. Can fixate a single curse or spell. However, if the medium is destroyed after fixation, its function is lost.
◈ Note: All magical power has been depleted. Recycling impossible.
◈ Hidden Effect: When together with other Memorial Pieces, some lost functions are restored.
The line of description that had been marked as ‘???’ had naturally been added. So far, I had destroyed a total of two statues. Since I now held two fragments, the hidden function seemed to have activated. At best, it was only an awkward F- rank brainwashing, so it didn't feel particularly meaningful. However—
Your stat ‘Magic Power Lv.6’ is reacting with the ‘Memorial Piece’.
My vision gradually darkened. A dizzy sensation and the feeling of my body floating up washed over me. And a moment later, when I opened my eyes, I was already standing alone in the corridor of a castle that had become ruins.