Chapter 31

Chapter 31, The Company (3)

We walked through the newly opened door and entered the corridor.

The entire corridor was covered in blue light.

“Hwa-ryeon. Can you sense anything?”

“Hmm... no. Nothing at all. I can't sense even a single moving object.”

At first, we were certain it was a trap, so we slowly walked down the corridor while staying alert to our surroundings.

However, the corridor was extremely long.

The blue light filling that endless corridor was so bright that it almost filled me with awe.

We didn't have much time, and at this pace, we would never get anywhere.

So we decided to move faster.

There didn't seem to be anything especially dangerous, so we thought it would be fine.

That was our mistake.

After we had crossed roughly one quarter of the corridor, we began to feel something strange from the blue light.

“...Something...”

“Something feels strange.”

“I'm... not the only one feeling this, right?”

The farther we walked, the stronger the blue light illuminating the corridor became.

I looked toward the end of the corridor, where the source of the blue light should have been.

There was a brilliant blue radiance, so dazzling that I wondered if this was what the sun would look like if it were blue.

The blue light pouring toward us from beyond the corridor was incredibly beautiful, almost as though it were embracing us.

Its pull was so strong that, for a moment, I mistook it for some kind of charm-type Mystery.

But Lucy, which I checked every minute, showed nothing.

That meant this was not a Mystery.

At first, I had only thought the light was beautiful.

Now, it felt intoxicating.

If I followed my heart, I wanted to throw myself into that blue light right now, like a moth diving into a flame.

I was feeling this much just from seeing some light, yet it wasn't a Mystery?

I barely restrained myself as I continued walking.

The others seemed to feel the same way.

I could see just how much self-control they were using from the stiffness of their movements.

“Could this actually be a Mystery?”

“No. I checked Lucy. I'm certain it isn't a Mystery.”

“Then this is...”

“...It is probably related to the future technology the Company is so proud of.”

Fortunately, when I stopped staring at the end of the corridor, I felt a little better.

Unfortunately, the farther we walked, the stronger the attraction became.

“Aaaaaagh!”

When we were about halfway through the corridor, someone finally lost control and ran toward the light.

Kim Hyunwoo.

The man we had brought along as a hostage threw himself toward the brilliant glow.

For that brief moment, everyone in the group, including me, simply watched him.

Curiosity about what would happen captured all of our attention.

What happened next was enough to turn that curiosity into fear.

His body became blurry as he was buried in the light.

It looked as though the brilliant radiance was swallowing him.

His body gradually became impossible to see.

Then...

He disappeared.

There wasn't even the smallest sound.

When I blinked, he was simply gone, as though he had evaporated.

There had been no visible process.

Only the result remained.

Hwa-ryeon stared blankly at the place where Kim Hyunwoo had disappeared.

Then she spoke in a voice that sounded as though she had just awakened from sleep.

“His presence... is gone.”

“What?”

“Huh?”

“The Company employee's presence disappeared. He was definitely within the range of my senses... but then, all of a sudden, he vanished.”

Hwa-ryeon blinked in disbelief.

Thanks to her, I was able to confirm that my fear had been correct.

This room was a trap.

If we kept walking toward the blue light at the end of the corridor, the members of our group would eventually lose control one after another and die.

Even so, we couldn't turn around and return to where we came from.

We've already come almost halfway. Going back would just waste time.

There is a good chance we need to reach the source of that blue light if we want to clear the Company.

And if everything goes wrong, I can just regress anyway.

Those thoughts passed through my mind.

But they were all excuses.

There was only one real reason we weren't turning back.

I wanted to reach the end of the light.

I simply wanted to see the source of this beautiful light with my own eyes.

Curiosity killed the cat.

That tired old saying came to mind, but the thought of turning back had already disappeared completely.

This was the Company's trap.

This was why they had opened the door at exactly the moment we reached the 500th floor and killed the robot.

They had driven us into a trap that would make us kill ourselves.

It was the worst kind of trap, one that pulled you closer even when you already knew it was a trap.

The only variable they hadn't expected was probably my ability to regress.

Once I realized that, we began running forward almost mindlessly.

We were like Icarus flying toward the sun.

What happened to Icarus when he flew toward a sun he could never reach?

His wings burned away, and he fell.

We were much the same.

The first one swallowed by the overwhelming light was Lee Yeonhee.

She had the weakest mental strength among us, and she threw herself toward the light.

In the next instant, she no longer existed in this world.

Even while feeling a deep sadness over that fact, I kept walking.

Next were Arlin and Hwa-ryeon.

“The truth...!”

“The end of the sword...!”

They shouted their desires and threw themselves forward at the same time.

The book that always followed Arlin and Hwa-ryeon's treasured sword fell onto the floor.

I picked up the things they had left behind, then continued walking toward the end of the light.

What surprised me was that Lee Jinsung was still beside me.

Like me, he was being shaken by the desire to see an even stronger light.

But he had not yet been consumed by the desire to throw himself into it.

Even he reached his limit when we passed about eighty percent of the corridor.

With trembling hands, Lee Jinsung handed me the Invisibility Cloak.

Then, while crying, he threw himself into the light.

I was alone.

“...”

After a brief moment of mourning, I pressed my lips together and silently continued forward.

With every step, the weight of my desire grew heavier, while the weight of my self-control became lighter.

It was as if the firewood that had once fed the flame called patience was slowly being moved over to feed the flame called desire.

As my self-control weakened, my desire grew stronger.

I endured that swelling urge and continued walking.

Was my mental strength always this good?

My patience and self-control flickered unsteadily like the flame of a candle.

But they did not go out.

In the end, I managed to reach the end.

“...This is...”

It was close enough that I could reach it by extending my hand.

There was a round, translucent blue barrier there.

It looked almost like a giant drop of water.

Inside it was an enormous flame.

A blue flame.

A fire that burned by itself without any fuel.

The flame was so beautiful.

It burned alone, trapped inside that round barrier, unable to escape.

That didn't mean the flame couldn't affect the outside world.

An overwhelming amount of light surged from the flame and spilled through the barrier.

That was the blue light that had bewitched me and the others.

My companions had died because of nothing more than the flame's byproduct.

For a moment, sadness and frustration rose inside me.

But this was something I had accepted the moment I decided to oppose the Company.

I quickly suppressed my emotions and stared quietly at the flame.

Then I spoke.

“Strange.”

That was the first thing I said after seeing the flame itself.

It was strange.

Of course, it was strange that the unnatural attraction had suddenly disappeared the moment I saw the actual flame.

But that wasn't what I meant.

I had imagined that there would be some machine at the end of the corridor.

Maybe a round technological core containing the Company's advanced technology.

Of course, that had only been my own imagination, so there was no reason reality had to match it.

Still...

A flame?

It was incredibly beautiful and mysterious, but it didn't suit a Company that supposedly used future technology.

I had only known about the Company for a day, but this was completely outside the image I had formed of them.

That question was answered the moment I saw the nameplate beneath the flame.

[Imitation Mystery: Scq912, Flame of Human Sacrifice]

Imitation.

Something made by copying something else.

These Company bastards are insane.

Did they use technology to reproduce a Mystery?

That had to be it.

There was no doubt.

The blue light in the corridor had been abnormal in several ways.

If you approached slowly while suppressing your desire, you remained fine.

But if you gave up control and threw yourself into the light, you died.

Then there was that attraction, something that seemed to pull at something even deeper than the mind, almost like it was dragging on the human soul.

Several things had happened in that corridor that seemed completely outside the theme of technology.

They had felt far closer to a Mystery.

That had bothered me.

But now everything made sense.

Lucy hadn't changed at all, so I had assumed it couldn't be related to a Mystery.

And yet the Company had managed to fool me like this.

I stared blankly at the Imitation Mystery.

From the moment I had seen the flame itself, I hadn't felt even the slightest attraction.

That allowed me to examine it without interference.

This effect would probably remain even if I regressed.

I glared at the Imitation Mystery until my eyes hurt and became bloodshot.

Then I pulled a handgun from my clothes.

I pointed the barrel at my head.

The cold weight of the metal rested against my skin.

I closed my eyes.

I pulled the trigger.

I didn't hear the gunshot.

I only felt my consciousness moving farther away from my body.

It felt like a machine losing power.

That was how death felt to me.

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[Today wasn't a very satisfying day.]

[That's all right. You have many opportunities.]

[Let's repeat this day until you finally experience the most satisfying version of it.]

[For now, shall we begin from the last time you read the book today and change things from there?]

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I opened my eyes.