HACKED 62

If it had been his usual temperament, a sharp retort laced with irritation would have already returned and then some, but San Gun was strangely quiet. I was fed up with this power struggle happening while excluding me. I wanted to stop being the only one who didn’t know something that everyone else knew, and stop being tossed around like a fool.

‘If you’re not going to tell me, just talk amongst yourselves and leave me out of it. Don’t stick me in the middle like a borrowed sack of barley.’

“Fine. Stop it.”

“Boss.”

“Myeong.”

The two men called me at the same time. Two pairs of eyes, different in color and texture, looked at me. The two of them were polar opposites in appearance as well. But they did have one thing in common. Anxiety. One guy was openly anxious, and the other was hiding his anxiety by pretending not to be.

“I’ve heard enough from both sides, and I don’t want to hear anymore. Shut up. I’m going to do what I want.”

“Boss, it’s not that. Just a moment.”

“And anyway, I think I’ve roughly figured it out.”

“Pardon?”

I don’t know how much of an idiot they take me for, but even with the hints given sporadically so far, I had a general idea of the truth.

‘When the detective gives up, the case falls into a labyrinth.’

I wanted to toss out this line at least once in my life. I held it back because I felt like I would truly become a pathetic, overly immersed otaku if I actually said it out loud. Even if I said it, I didn’t think these guys, who were textbook muggles despite being game characters, would understand.

‘The clues are three.’

First. There is no living being in this Pantheon except for us. Because that was the winning condition in the dimensional merger. That No-an whatever guy, who was the only human here, was alive at the point right after the battle but is now dead. So it’s certain that no one is here.

Second. Hwarang’s oversensitive reaction. He is worried that I will again be in a state of ‘witnessing the death of another before my eyes’.

Third. San Gun has a prior record of murder. I’m not sure exactly what this means. Is he talking about when he tried to kill me last time? Wasn’t that attempted murder, not murder? No. Since I didn’t ‘not die’ but ‘died and came back to life’, strictly speaking, it is murder.

‘And the truth is one.’

Ugh, I really seem like a hopeless otaku. It’s a good thing I didn’t say that line.

“There’s a human corpse in there, right? I don’t know how you found out, but you guys know that fact.”

“…”

“Incarnations only return to ‘fragments of narrative’ when they die and don’t leave a corpse… so that corpse must be a human like me. If it’s a human, it would be a Compiler. Is there a pile of Compiler corpses behind that bookshelf?”

“Eeeek!”

Chirpy was terrified. Conversely, San Gun and Hwarang were as quiet as dead mice. The expressions on both their faces were quite a sight to see. I let out a smirk.

“Did you go through all that fuss just to hide this?”

Then I walked a few steps toward the bookshelf.

I didn’t notice when I was far away, but as I approached, it was exceptionally cold only around here. Abnormally cold air brushed against my cheeks. Like standing in front of an air conditioner or a freezer. The bookshelf, which just a moment ago looked like the interior of a Room Escape Cafe, felt extremely unpleasant.

And I became anxious and relieved at the same time. I was anxious because this strangely low temperature seemed to be for the purpose of preserving something so it wouldn’t rot, and I was relieved because there was no stench of the dead.

“I told you not to go.”

A low warning was heard from behind. A voice packed with suppressed anger, as if he would pounce from behind and snatch my arm at any moment.

I ignored that warning. Since I don’t know how to open the hidden space anyway, there’s nothing I can do even if I go close. My steps stopped exactly about 1m in front of the bookshelf.

“So… why did No-an whatever commit murder? Even if you don’t kill the opposing Compiler, you can win if you just get them to surrender. Even if there was a reason he absolutely had to kill them, is there a need to create a secret place and keep the corpses preserved so carefully? It’s more creepy than necessary.”

“…”

“Destruction of evidence? A personal grudge? Before that, how many corpses in total are in there?”

Instead of Hwarang, who was just glaring at me as if he would kill me from his spot, San Gun resolved my question.

“Sixteen, no, seventeen…. Eighteen? It’s not like they’re some Changgwi: Gulgak bastards, but every single one of them has only a severed head.”

‘Look at him answering promptly after ignoring everything until now. That means he admits to all the preceding content.’

I was appalled by his brazen behavior. But I couldn’t get angry. It was because an instinctive feeling of revulsion surged up as soon as I heard the following words.

That No-an whatever guy was strangely obsessed with helping newbie Compilers. To the point where it was burdensome even for me. And then he stabbed them in the back as if he had been waiting…. Though it didn’t work on me.

There’s no special reason why I was able to win against him. That jerk was level 427 while I was 500, and I just had a 5-star that he didn’t have. To put it in three words, it’s ‘winning with raw damage’.

There was no strategy to speak of. Taking advantage of the fact that the Gumiho was completely out of my control due to the pollution level, I just let her loose like a mad dog and let her kill to her heart’s content, whether they were allies or enemies. Luckily, that method worked. If the Gumiho had come up to the higher floors instead of the 1st floor, it could have been the Incarnations on our side who died.

So… there could very well be, quite very well be, Compilers who were sacrificed because their level was lower than that guy’s, or their deck was poor, or they were off guard, or the compatibility was bad, or they were unlucky….

“Is he a serial killer who only targeted newbies? And he’s collecting the corpses as trophies.”

The eyes of the two Incarnations followed me. They had expressions full of many things they wanted to say, with numerous emotions intertwined. But no one opened their mouth. A silence that was almost eerie.

“A-a-a serial killer? A killer!”

Only Chirpy bristled all his feathers and made a fuss.

What would have happened if I were even slightly less of an oldbie? If I had suddenly been possessed by this game in a state where I hadn’t reached the account max level and had grown my deck less. If I didn’t have high-spec Incarnations like San Gun, the Gumiho, or Hwarang. Among those corpses ‘with only severed heads’, if my head….

“Ugh…”

My vision wavered. I wondered if I had tripped on the bare floor where there was nothing.

Thud.

I only realized after staggering and slamming my forehead into San Gun’s chest. It seems I had briefly lost consciousness. From the top of my head to the tips of my toes, I felt a sensation as if the blood was being drained from the veins of my entire body. During that short time, a cold sweat broke out over my whole body, making my back damp.

“Are you okay? Myeong.”

“It’s nothing.”

“How is it nothing when you suddenly collapsed?”

He supported my body with his arm, then as if that wasn’t enough to reassure him, he picked me up in his arms. He even held me close to his shoulder area so that my head wouldn’t wobble.

Dizziness and nausea that hadn’t yet subsided, and blurred vision. In the midst of that, the fact that I was being carried by him like a child was extremely embarrassing. I babbled whatever came out.

“It’s something called vasovagal syncope. It’s really nothing. It’s sad, but it’s a very common symptom for modern people, and I’ve originally been like this often. When commuting, when getting chewed out by my boss, when getting punished, when I went to my younger sibling’s funeral….”

While blathering anything to escape the situation, the thought suddenly occurred that I had said something unnecessary. But it was already too late. Words once uttered could not be taken back.

‘What kind of nonsense are you talking in this situation, you idiot.’

I didn’t have the courage to face San Gun’s gaze, which would be looking down at me. I tried to breathe regularly while burying my head in his sturdy neck. But it didn’t work as I wanted. It felt like I was carrying a huge boulder on top of my lungs.

“Ugh…. Heave, gasp…. Pant.”

“Stop scratching your neck. You’ll bleed.”

San Gun grabbed my hand and pulled it down. This time I tried to tear at the fabric of the clothes on my chest. That movement was also restrained. I felt him let out a short sigh. The next moment, a large hand covered half of my face. My nose and mouth were blocked at once.

“Mmph…!”

He buried his lips deeply against the back of his own hand. To the point where even the bridge of his high nose was pressed, to the point where our eyes met directly. As if kissing with a single hand between us.

“…”

The prescription was immediate. Even if it was by force, resetting my pace made my breathing return somewhat. It was to the point where I could at least speak while roughly pretending to be fine.

“Get…. Get out of here. Right now.”

This library felt extremely stifling. I was fine until a moment ago, but suddenly.

I don’t know how many dimensional mergers it has gone through, but in terms of area alone, it’s several, dozens of times larger than our Pantheon…. This place, where we are the only living beings, a space where all those who once lived here have died, felt like a giant coffin and an ossuary.

“Okay.”

“Let’s just burn that place down entirely. I’m sorry to those people, but I’m a guy whose own situation is urgent, so I can’t give them a funeral, but I don’t think I can leave it like that…. Can you burn it right now?”

“Of course I should. Whose Myeong is it.”

It was an ambiguous expression. I don’t know if he was calling my name or if it meant a Myeong-ryeong (command).

While Hwarang and Chirpy looked for something to start a fire, San Gun and I stepped out of the head librarian’s office a step ahead. It was very shameful, but I was still held in his arms.

While blankly watching the scenery receding behind with the regular footsteps, a realization like a sudden flash of lightning brushed through my head.

‘Incarnations only return to ‘fragments of narrative’ when they die and don’t leave a corpse….’

The central command room on the 10th floor of our Pantheon, which is currently closed off.

What about the corpse inside there?