ROA 14

Though he’d expected it, he didn’t know it could actually create fire. Was it even allowed for an evil spirit to manipulate natural phenomena like this in the first place? It was absurd.

Shim Seo-woo deeply realized that the ‘balance of worlds’ the Heun members spoke of was very important. Honestly, when he heard that story, he thought it was quite an abstract goal, but they were clearly doing truly great work.

Flames flickering could be seen between his fingers. Though the red light stabbed his eyes painfully, it was difficult to lower his gaze.

‘Hot! Hot! Hot!’

‘Save me! Save me!’

‘Big brotheeer….’

At voices from a certain day that suddenly came to mind, Shim Seo-woo’s breathing became disordered. Something surged up like vomit, and he barely swallowed it by biting his lips tightly.

“Th-the fire is gradually spreading…!”

Just then his friends screamed. The flames caused by the Evil spirit were slowly expanding, seeming about to cover the entire hallway soon.

At the sight of them hesitantly stepping back, Shim Seo-woo shook his head. Having barely caught hold of reason, he said,

“I’m sorry, but right now, the only way is to run to the stairs across from us. I’ll try to clear a path, so stick as close as you can and follow me.”

He didn’t know if this method would work, but they had to try. Although the path ahead was full of ghosts, the fire hadn’t spread there, so that was the only way. He felt responsible for his friends being stuck playing tag with ghosts and now being trapped by the fire because of him.

When Shim Seo-woo proposed firmly, his friends looked at him bewilderedly.

It seemed like they were encountering many expressions they’d never seen from him since a while ago. To the extent that the Shim Seo-woo they’d seen at university felt like an illusion.

No, perhaps that was the appearance of Shim Seo-woo trying to look ‘ordinary.’

“……”

The three exchanged glances. In fact, they were very surprised by the story the evil spirit spat out just before, but now wasn’t the time to think about that.

“Okay, let’s go!”

“Colliding with ghosts seems better than burning!”

“I’ll follow right away…!”

Shim Seo-woo felt grateful for their compliance and moved ahead. His steps toward the hallway full of ghosts had no hesitation to the point of being very aggressive.

Fortunately, Shim Seo-woo’s prediction was correct.

[Wh-what the hell is this bastard!]

[It hurts! I said it huuurts!]

Blue sparks burst from the puppy doll again, driving away the ghosts. At Shim Seo-woo’s action of recklessly pushing in, the ghosts rather withdrew in shock.

The ghosts filling the hallway parted like the Red Sea.

“This method really works?”

“From now on, trust only Meongseo. He’s definitely right.”

Park Dong-ju looked at the ghosts stuck to the walls with a shocked face, and So Da-hyun followed Shim Seo-woo, constantly feeling moved. They had to stick close to avoid getting out of the range of the blue spark. It seemed like they could get away from the ghosts and the fire if they went a little further.

However, Yang Ga-young who’d been relieved together with them soon looked back and was horrified.

“Th-they’re chasing us…!”

[Haha, how long do you think that will protect hyung?]

The boy had started chasing them.

The boy evil spirit had been absent when they were playing tag with the ghosts earlier. He had created the trap of the elevator, waiting for the four of them to enter voluntarily, but now he was chasing them directly. Crackle―! The blue spark burst, but the evil spirit stubbornly followed.

The more it collided with the sparks, the boy’s appearance gradually changed. As if the mask the evil spirit wore was breaking, his face fell off piece by piece revealing jet-black fog underneath, but the evil spirit didn’t stop colliding.

Whoosh!

In addition, the flames in the hallway were steadily chasing them, so Shim Seo-woo hurriedly looked around. Since they’d just escaped from the ghost horde, it seemed they should change formation.

“I’ll follow from behind now. You guys go first and open the stairway door.”

Until now they had to move slowly since the four needed to stick together, but now there was no need since the path ahead was empty. At the proposal to follow while blocking ghosts from behind, the three looked back at him anxiously, then soon met his firm gaze and nodded.

Shim Seo-woo was relieved confirming his friends advancing first, but in fact it wasn’t a positive situation where he could feel at ease.

[Ah, truly tearful friendship! Such a sacrificial attitude, are there kids you were trapped in fire with back then? You couldn’t save them?]

The doll’s power was weakening.

Shim Seo-woo had noticed early on that the blue sparks were weakening but didn’t tell his friends. The boy giggled while chasing him, and other ghosts also seemed to grasp that change, gradually gathering behind the boy.

Dark red eyes glinted as if they’d pounce on the human as soon as the sparks subsided.

[Keehee, keehik, soon now! Soon!]

[I’ll definitely destroy that damn doll!]

The ghosts cheered on the evil spirit and followed behind him. Shim Seo-woo was first of all uncomfortable with the fact that the adult ghosts were cheering for a child doing a body slam, even if it was virtual, and secondly, he wanted to correct them that it was a stuffed doll and couldn’t break.

These sudden, absurd thoughts were like a habit to him.

There were so many moments when he could only endure by having such absurd thoughts that were detached from reality. Because if he didn’t, terrible things kept happening that might drive him crazy and collapse in that terrible situation.

[Ahaha! I’ll definitely make hyung tremble in fear! So scared that he cries, so much that he lose his mind!]

As the chasing boy giggled and spoke, Shim Seo-woo answered inwardly that he’d already half-lost his mind, so there was no need to take the trouble. Perhaps more than half?

He wondered if they could make it to the stairs…

Before long the blue light of the sparks had dimmed and its range narrowed. Just when he thought it would be quite close, Park Dong-ju who’d been running in the lead arrived in front of the stairs.

“Finally!”

He cheered while hurriedly grabbing and turning the doorknob, but—

Rattle—!

“Door, the door won’t open!”

Rattle rattle! No matter how hard Park Dong-ju pulled, the door wouldn’t budge. So Da-hyun and Yang Ga-young who arrived next also hung on the door, but no change occurred.

[Kyahaha! It became my domain long ago, did you think you could escape from here?]

The boy burst into laughter. As if the humans’ meaningless efforts were so funny, he stopped chasing and giggled bending backward.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen anyone else at all while running noisily through the hallway. Even if all the movies were being shown in the other theaters, at least an employee should have come, and even now that a fire had broken out, no one came out. In the first place, not even an alarm had gone off.

Suddenly Shim Seo-woo recalled that a strong wind had blown through the area the moment the boy pointed at the four in the bathroom. Perhaps that was the signal that it was becoming the evil spirit’s domain.

[Now it’s time to devour everyone.]

The boy grinned tearing the corners of his mouth wide. Now, more than half of his face was broken, and only the wriggling black mist could be seen, but he could fully feel how much the evil spirit was enjoying this.

Screech!

The evil spirit who noticed the blue sparks would block ghost energy just one last time flew at Shim Seo-woo with flames at his back. It was a charge that felt like it was going to break the doll’s barrier and pounce on him at the same time.

“Waaah, Shim Seo-woo!”

“Dodge!”

Shim Seo-woo blankly faced the evil spirit while hearing his friends’ screams. More than the countless ghosts following it, all his nerves were focused on the red flames.

Once the blue sparks went out, those flames would ultimately engulf even his friends.

‘…Ah, am I unable to save anyone again this time either?’

Shim Seo-woo couldn’t move, bound by blank thoughts. The silhouettes of three small children faintly overlapped above the three friends gathered in front of the stairs, suddenly make it terrifying.

Though death approached right before his nose, only voices from a certain day came to mind.

‘Let’s all promise to live ordinarily together!’

He’d tried to keep that promise, but it seemed a bit difficult. He’d ended up seeing ghosts at the end, becoming far from an ordinary death, but since this wasn’t his will, couldn’t they overlook it…

[Hyuuung!]

The moment Shim Seo-woo smirked while facing the evil spirit’s grotesque face filling his vision—

“Who the fuck are you shoving your face at, asshole.”

A hand full of rings appeared before his eyes.

An existence that appeared by opening the stairway door with force enough to break it roughly grabbed the evil spirit’s face and threw it to the other side. The evil spirit flew all the way to the opposite elevator from how strongly he threw it and, crash!—got slammed in.

The veins raised on the back of the hand that entered his vision were ferocious.