The Mission Begins
The flames that had helped summon and dismiss the rabbit earlier began to flicker unsteadily. They swelled in size, shifting from orange to a deep violet that seemed ready to devour everything around them. If hellfire existed, this must be what it looked like.
Mission Start
Time Remaining — 24:00:00
Current Participants — 401/401
“W-what the…?”
The people who had already fallen into panic scrambled to get away from the flames. Director Park Dongcheol’s voice boomed louder from the stage as he tried to regain control.
Realizing the situation was slipping out of hand, he pointed at one of the employees beside him and shouted, “Assistant Manager Oh! Grab a fire extinguisher and put that out!”
“Me? Director, that’s…”
“Hurry up!”
It seemed he had decided the source of the chaos needed to be eliminated. Moments later, Assistant Manager Oh Geumseok—pushed forward by Director Park—stepped down from the stage. He glared at the extinguisher lying near the flames and spat out a curse.
“Fuck… just put it out! Put the damn thing out!”
While everyone else backed away, he was the only one forced to approach. The crowd watched him with pitying eyes, but no one offered to help.
“Ugh…”
Perhaps from the heat, Oh Geumseok’s face flushed red as he picked up the extinguisher. He crouched low, inching forward, and the moment his hand closed around it—
“Got it—”
A massive wave of flame swallowed him whole.
Whoosh!
Or at least, it looked that way.
Crack!
A dull, bone-shattering impact rang out as Oh Geumseok’s body was hurled through the air. The sound of his landing followed immediately.
Boom!
“……Huh?”
The people where he landed stared at him in stunned disbelief, their minds struggling to process the sight. His arms and legs were twisted at unnatural angles, clearly broken. His neck was bent in a direction necks were never meant to go, as if he had slammed his head during the flight.
“Kyaaaah!!”
“U-ughhh!!”
The vivid death they had just witnessed made the screams even louder. As if it had been waiting for this moment, a grotesque creature began crawling out from within the flames.
Its body was desiccated. Dozens of jagged fangs protruded from rotting, pus-filled flesh. The quadrupedal skeleton that emerged from the fire, reeking of something foul, stood taller than any adult man.
-Krrrk.
The monster’s short growl echoed through the auditorium. Everyone who heard it froze, faces drained of all color. But the pause was brief.
The single leap the creature made was more than enough to turn the entire place into a slaughterhouse.
Boooom!
A second victim was sent flying by a swipe of its claw. What followed was pure pandemonium, a scene straight out of hell.
“Kyaaaah!!”
“S-save me…”
How many times in a normal life does a person witness someone die? And what if that death was meant for you?
I spun around and bolted for the exit. People who realized what was happening a moment later also tried to flee the auditorium, but the ordinary doors they had used to enter weren’t nearly wide enough for everyone to escape at once.
“M-move…! Aaaagh!!”
A desperate scream came from the man behind me who had been urging me to hurry.
-Kiiiieeeeee!!!
The monster’s piercing roar tore through the air. In that extreme terror, only one instinct remained in everyone’s minds: survive.
I immediately headed for the emergency stairs and descended to the first floor. But it seemed this nightmare wasn’t limited to the twentieth floor—hundreds of people had already flooded the lobby.
“What do we do?” Park Jocheol muttered after seeing what we had witnessed.
“Open the door!”
“Hic… please, let us out!”
“Uwaaaah… Mom…”
The lobby that had seemed so spacious when we first arrived was now packed shoulder-to-shoulder with the remaining survivors. There wasn’t even room to stand properly.
“The door won’t open!”
“What do you mean it won’t open? Get out of the way!”
A pot-bellied middle-aged man who had been yelling grabbed a fire extinguisher from somewhere and began smashing it against the glass door.
Bang! Bang! Craaash—!!
“Ow!”
“Are you alright?”
The frenzied man had apparently smashed his own fingers. He dropped the extinguisher, groaning in pain. But that was all. Not even a scratch appeared on the glass.
Despair followed.
“Why! Why won’t it break?! Whyyyyy!!”
The brief spark of hope had been crushed, and people began to lose their minds. They kicked at the glass walls and threw their bodies against them. Their eyes, consumed by fear, no longer held any trace of reason.
“Kiaaaaa!”
“Kraaaaa!”
The distant cries of monsters echoed through the first-floor lobby. The screams of people trapped in panic blended with the approaching shadow of death.
“They’re here! They’re coming!!”
“Kyaaaah!!!”
“S-stop… please…”
Countless screams rang out, sounding as if their souls had already left their bodies.
‘Damn it.’
I couldn’t think of anything I could do right now. The building exits—the only escape routes we thought we had—were blocked for some unknown reason. And with so many people rushing toward the emergency stairs after hearing the monsters’ roars, going back up seemed just as dangerous.
“Hoo…”
I steadied my breathing.
Stay calm. I have to stay calm.
If we couldn’t leave this place, our options were limited. The stairs where monsters might descend at any moment were too much of a gamble. If possible, securing another escape route would be…
“Above…! Up there!”
But my calculations didn’t last long. A sharp cry drew everyone’s attention upward.
-Grrrrr…
A dozen or so monsters were already perched on the upper railings, staring down at the first floor. An eerie silence fell over the crowd. The prey’s instinct not to make noise and draw the predators’ attention had taken over everyone’s minds.
But—
-Kyaaaaah!!
Despite their efforts, the monsters’ roars shook the lobby, led by one particularly loud cry. People frantically searched for any way out. But by then, one of the creatures was already plummeting straight down toward the first floor.
“R-run…!”
Swoooosh!
Boooom!
A short whistle of air was followed by the sickening sound of something being crushed. A man who had been staring upward in a daze failed to escape the landing zone and was stomped to death instantly.
Yet the monster’s descent had been closer to a fall than a controlled landing. It seemed to have taken some damage itself; I saw it stagger as it tried to stand.
‘We have to get out of here now.’
But where? I looked at the first-floor entrance. The doors still wouldn’t open, and the people in front of them were half-mad. When I turned again, the situation at the emergency stairs looked no better.
Then—
“Everyone, run!”
A sharp, rational voice cut through the chaos. It belonged to Seo Seyeong, the information desk receptionist.
“R-run!”
“Aaaagh!”
Her shout jolted several frozen people into motion. They began sprinting away like they had been launched from their spots.
-Krrrk?
But of course, she wasn’t the only one who heard her voice. The monster that had just landed slowly turned its head toward her.
“Oh no…”
A soft, regretful murmur escaped her lips. The stairs were too far to reach by simply running. But there was no time to hesitate. The monster had already lowered its stance, ready to charge.
“Ah…”
When lives were on the line, people’s consciences held no value. The very people she had helped snap out of their panic now looked relieved the moment they realized she had become the monster’s target.
A decoy. Even if it meant abandoning their humanity, no one could blame them. After all, it was better than everyone here being torn apart. Or perhaps they weren’t even thinking that clearly anymore.
-Kiiiieeeeee!!
The monster bared its rotting fangs and lunged at Seo Seyeong.
“Kyaaaah!”
Her scream echoed. As if that sound were a signal, everyone who had been watching with wide eyes began sprinting toward the emergency stairs like cockroaches fleeing for their lives.
Everyone except me.
“Get out of the way!”
I quickly stripped off my suit jacket and hurled it at the charging monster. A single idea—the only way to escape this place—flashed through my mind.
Seo Seyeong was the receptionist who guided visitors. In other words, she was a half-master key capable of opening doors with high-level security clearance.
My heart pounded violently. This was a life-or-death gamble.
My flying jacket seemed to move in slow motion through the air as the monster’s foreleg drew dangerously close. The jacket was only a temporary distraction to block its vision. But that fleeting moment created a golden opportunity that would decide whether we lived or died.
-Kwuok?
Thud!
Whether by luck or skill, the hastily thrown jacket wrapped perfectly around the leaping monster’s face. Blinded for a brief instant, it flailed its arms wildly and tumbled across the hard marble floor.
“Siin! Come on!”
At that moment, Park Jocheol—who had picked up the extinguisher the middle-aged man dropped—unleashed a blast of powder straight at the creature without hesitation.
Shaaaaaaa—!
-Kiiiieeeee!!!
I never expected a simple fire extinguisher to actually harm a monster like that. The important thing was to block its sight. While the creature roared in frustration at losing its target, I supported Seo Seyeong, who was staggering as if her legs had given out.
“Th-thank…”
“Where’s your security key card?!”
“Huh?”
I pointed at the small door behind the information desk.
“That door! Can you open it, Seyeong?!”
“Y-yes… I think so!”
The escape route with the highest chance of survival I could see was the secure emergency stairwell reserved for VIPs. I glanced back at the staircase we had come down, now swarming with people.
“Get the hell out of the way!”
“W-wait!”
-Kiaaaaaaaa!
“Aaaagh! Uwaaaah!”
Even if we forced our way through that mess, could we actually use the stairs we had just descended? A quick mental simulation told me the answer was a firm no.
“Lead the way.”
“Y-yes… ugh!”
Seo Seyeong tried to stand but nearly collapsed again as her legs buckled. I caught her immediately. Park Jocheol looked at her with concern and asked, “Are you sure you can open it?”
“H-here. If you hold this against the reader, it should open.”
Seo Seyeong swallowed the words ‘I think…’ and stood up. Of course she had never actually used that door before. VIP visits were rare, and in my year working here, there had never been a single emergency.
Still, it was better than nothing. We had no other choices left.
Park Jocheol, having made up his mind, raised the extinguisher and created a barrier of powder between us and the monster.
Psssssh—
-Grrrr…
-Krrk?!
Our vision gradually blurred. Harsh growls echoed from within the thick cloud of fire-suppressant powder. We kept our eyes fixed on the direction of the sounds and slowly backed away.
Just as Park Jocheol’s extinguisher was about to run out—
-Beep.
The mechanical sound of a card reader came from right behind us. We had finally reached the door.
Unregistered Card.
Please check again.
“Ah…!”
“You’ve got to be kidding…!”
When I turned around, Seo Seyeong’s face had gone deathly pale. She was in full panic. The terror of having lost her ability to think clearly, combined with the guilt of leading her saviors into a dead end, crushed her.
One by one, the shadows of people running through the fog began to fall. The atmosphere around us grew heavier. The loud screams that had filled the lobby, the constant roars of the monsters—everything was fading.
Thump…!
Thump…!
Yet the quieter the external noise became, the louder our own heartbeats grew.