Thudding footsteps shook heaven and earth. Ian gripped his grimoire tighter as an inexplicable eeriness ran down his spine.
The presence was ominous. He possessed no detection magic that would let him perfectly perceive another’s aura, but just as one could sense a predator upon seeing a bear or a tiger, he could tell that whatever was descending from above was no ordinary aberration.
“……Fuck.”
Staying still meant annihilation. The Watcher’s tentacles were still tearing through the stairwell and slaughtering aberrations, but something massive was descending the stairs toward the underground parking lot, as if it couldn’t care less about such things.
That meant only one thing.
That aberration possessed strength rivaling the Watcher, at the very least.
“Find the cars quickly, you dumb bastard!”
The Bureau agents sweated bullets as they pressed the parking lot guard. They too seemed to have guessed the identity of whatever was slowly coming down from above. No, rather, it was probably more accurate to say they had known from the start.
‘A method close to suicide. An escape not permitted by the space. An error……’
Piecing together the fragmented knowledge he had gained, he surveyed the current situation. An overwhelming murderous intent pricked at his back, but he forced his head to stay calm.
Originally, the proper way to escape this hospital was not to strong-arm the guard. The standard method was to receive discharge procedures from a doctor and leave through the main gate as a group of guardian and patient. Strictly speaking, what they were doing now was nothing short of an error.
But there was no way the Mystery would permit that error.
‘Anyone who does not belong to the hospital is essentially nothing more than an impurity.’
And impurites were meant to be removed. There was no reason to leave a useless virus alone.
Then who exactly removed the impurities, the viruses? A vaccine? Immune cells?
No. The doctors and nurses were already filling those roles. Even if they were ineffective, they were desperately pouring out their numbers to wipe away the impurities. But they were useful yet ineffective, and the impurities were still running rampant, trying to leave this place alive.
To kill such viruses, a higher authority was needed. The master who administered the vaccine, the owner of the body who handled each individual cell with care, had to step forward personally.
In other words, the master of this space.
To be exact.
“The Director.”
*Thud!*
The moment Ian muttered, the footsteps drew closer.
It was directly overhead now. A faint, bubbling gurgle could be heard.
“Guard, you son of a bitch! Find the cars, now!!”
Bak Huisu shouted, staggering as the earth shook. The guard stammered, then suddenly his eyes gleamed as he replied.
“I found them! One car and two motorcycles! Is that correct?”
“……! Y-yeah, that’s right, so hand them over!”
“Then I shall verify the license plate numbers. Do you know the numbe—”
*BANG!*
Before the guard could finish, Ian rammed a bullet between the creature’s eyes. The round precisely crushed the aberration’s head, scattering blood and brain matter in every direction.
With a dull thud, the guard’s corpse collapsed facedown. Bak Huisu, who had flinched as the bullet whistled past his ear, turned to Ian with trembling lips.
“Hey, you crazy…… shoot a little more carefully……!”
“That didn’t seem like the situation for it. Hurry. The vehicles have been summoned over there.”
Ian jerked his chin toward the vehicles that had suddenly appeared at the far end of the parking lot.
One ordinary sedan and two replica bikes.
The group dashed toward the vehicles without a word of dissent. The Bureau agents climbed into the sedan with practiced ease, while Ian and Cecilia each mounted a bike.
“You know how to drive?”
“Yes. Fine mode of transportation.”
*Vroom!*
Cecilia skillfully started her bike. Ian also turned the key in the ignition, released the stand, and stepped on the accelerator. He didn’t forget to work the clutch either.
The bike surged forward with a brutal roar. He had gotten his license back in high school, so the controls weren’t difficult.
Taking the lead, he shot through the wide-open parking lot and barreled toward the exit drenched in blood.
Thanks to the Watcher having already cleared the way, there were no obstacles. Ian glanced in his rearview mirror at those following him, then increased his speed and completely exited the parking lot.
*VROOOOM!!*
The moment they surfaced with a thunderous roar, the sight that greeted them was nothing but corpses strewn everywhere and the Watcher flying through the sky. Hundreds, thousands of tentacles were still impaled in the hospital’s outer walls, yet perhaps it had energy to spare, as several tentacles hung down limply under gravity.
It didn’t seem particularly hungry. Its eyes were still savage, but no hunger could be felt within them. A small mercy.
“Drive, damn it! Drive to the boundary of this space!”
Bak Huisu, riding in the back seat of the sedan, leaned his upper body out the window and fired his shotgun wildly. Ian too stopped observing the Watcher and pulled the accelerator. Cecilia shot past him.
*CRACKLE!*
Every time the tentacles writhed, corpses rained down from inside the hospital. The stench of blood was overwhelming, and the air contaminated by corpse poison carried a nauseating smell. It felt as if his nasal cavity would go completely numb just breathing it.
It was a clear indication of just how many aberrations were dying here.
To think simply unleashing a single Watcher could crush an entire horror story.
He had known it was strong from the descriptions, but this was on another level. If this place had been reality instead of a spatial-type Mystery, a true catastrophe would have unfolded.
‘I should pick weaker ones in reality if possible. It would be better not to use them in the city at al—’
The moment he thought that.
*KWA-AAAAAANG!!!*
The parking lot entrance shattered as a massive shockwave erupted. Ian swayed precariously with his bike, gritting his teeth as he barely regained his balance.
“Waaah!”
“Hold the wheel tight, you bastard!”
“Y-yes, I am!”
The car carrying the Bureau agents drifted left and right, and Cecilia pulled up beside Ian, shouting loudly.
“The Director!”
“……!”
Ian turned his head to confirm the shattered parking lot entrance.
[……]
Amidst the collapsed building, a long brain walked out.
It was literally a “brain.” All it had were four long arms, slightly unfurled brain wrinkles that writhed about, and cerebrospinal fluid trickling out. The chunk of brain throbbed like a heart as it sprayed transparent fluid all around and surveyed its surroundings.
It had no eyes, yet it had optic nerves; it had no ears, yet it had an auditory cortex. Having acquired all five senses without any intermediate process, that thing fixed its gaze on Ian and the rest of the party and began rushing forward at high speed.
*KWA-GA-GA-GAK!!!*
Its four arms pressed against the ground like a quadrupedal beast. A blue name tag pinned to its occipital lobe glinted under the crimson light of the sky.
[Psychiatrist]
[Director]
[Yohan]
As Ian had predicted, it was the Director. He cursed internally and pushed his speed even higher.
Bak Huisu was not the type to curse only internally.
“You son of a bitch!!!”
His face a mixture of fear and excitement, he aimed his shotgun and laughed loudly. His brain, boiling in the extreme situation, was pumping out adrenaline and dopamine. He saw no reason to fight his own hormones.
“It’s so fucking creeeepy!”
*RAT-A-TAT!!*
The shotgun spat fire, attacking the Director’s cerebral cortex. But the moment the bullets touched the cerebrospinal fluid, they transformed into tiny newborns and pattered to the ground.
“Waaah! Waaah! Waa—”
*SPLAT!*
The Director snatched up the fallen newborns and crushed them in its hand, pouring their blood over its brain. Yeoul let out a hollow laugh at the absurd sight.
“Changing inorganic matter into organic matter, what kind of nonsensical……!”
“It’s nonsensical because it’s a Mystery! Uwaaah, it’s getting closer! Take your foot off the brake and floor the accelerator, sir!!”
“I’m doing it!”
*VROOOOM!!*
Two bikes, one sedan, and a massive brain raced down the open road. Their speed had already exceeded 140 km/h, yet the Director sprinted as if it were doing 200 km/h.
A speed ill-suited to its bulky frame. Kim Yiseo was responding with a sniper rifle she had brought in a gun case, but the rounds either failed to penetrate the cerebrospinal fluid and glanced off or turned into newborns and fell to the ground.
This meant the thing was completely immune to physical attacks. It was likely vulnerable to mental attacks due to its brain form, but the current party had absolutely no means of mental attack.
Checkmate.
Just as Ian thought that and searched through his grimoire for a response, a massive shadow fell over his head.
When he looked up without thinking, his eyes met the Watcher’s, which had swum through the sky at some point.
As if that gaze were asking, ‘Help me?’ Ian snapped his grimoire shut without a moment’s hesitation and twisted his lips.
“Devour it.”
[……Heh.]
The corners of the Watcher’s eyes curved into arcs. It immediately spun its body and sent nearly a hundred million tentacles flying toward the Director all at once.
*THUD-THUD-THUD!*
The tentacles poured down like shells, piercing through the Director’s cerebrospinal fluid and bursting blood in every direction.
In an instant, the Director’s body was torn into meaty chunks and scattered, and the Watcher let out a bizarre laugh through the countless mouths attached to its tentacles. Even if physical attacks were ineffective, it seemed that law did not apply to creatures of the Outer God.
Bak Huisu shouted as he saw the Director torn apart in every direction.
“Did we get it?!”
“Ah, you crazy bastard! Don’t you know that word is forbidden in the Bureau?!”
The moment Bak Mina shrieked and smacked the back of his head, the crushed brains clumped back together and regenerated.
“See!”
*CRUNCH!*
The Director slid across the ground and quickly swung its two pairs of arms. Moving at a speed beyond cognition, the arms seized all of the Watcher’s tentacles and ripped them clean off.
[KHAK!]
Blue blood gushed from the torn tentacles. Ian’s head, already drenched in blood, was dyed blue, and the Watcher regenerated its tentacles into a net-like form and slammed it down.
The Director was finely shredded into the shape of a net before merging back together. Then it used its loose brain wrinkles like harpoons, piercing through the Watcher’s body and swinging it down toward the ground like a hammer.
*KWA-AAAAAANG!!*
Blue blood exploded from the crushed Watcher’s body like a bomb. Ian was drenched in that blood, his mouth hanging wide open.
To think there existed an aberration that could fight on equal terms with a creature of the Outer Sea.
Though the Watcher was not being overwhelmed or defeated helplessly, the very fact that a battle was taking place was astounding. The shock that an existence he had thought invincible was not so struck his brain.
‘It’s not that the Watcher is weak. The Director is abnormally strong.’
He had known it wasn’t an ordinary space, but he hadn’t expected it to be to this extent.
If he had summoned a creature even slightly weaker than the Watcher…… he wouldn’t be driving down the road intact right now.
The more he thought about it, the more fortunate it seemed. Ian spat out the blood that had seeped into his mouth and turned his gaze away from the Watcher, which had begun regenerating and fighting again.
Whether it had intended to or not, it was buying them time, and there was no reason to waste this opportunity. Ian lowered his body and floored the accelerator.
“Cecilia!”
“Yes!”
Cecilia raced down the road in the exact same posture. The wind and exhaust roar loud enough to deafen him, the rattling vibration of the engine, all shook along with his heart. Ian wiped the blood from his face with his left hand and gritted his teeth.
Meanwhile, Bak Huisu, who was not holding the wheel, watched the two monsters fighting tooth and nail with sparkling eyes.
“It’s a super monster battle…….”
“It’s freaking awesome!”
The rookie floored the accelerator in agreement. Yeoul, sitting in the passenger seat, smacked him on the head.