Chapter 54.1
The final day at the Horizon Mountain Lodge—
The promised three days had passed. The final morning at the ‘Horizon Mountain Lodge’ had arrived.
“……”
The civil servant woke up in his bed.
It wasn’t a pleasant morning.
Something about the situation had felt off for a while now, like a carefullyid n slowly unraveling.
To make matters worse, the assignment itself hadn’t been one he was eager to take on in the first ce.
Still, the job wasn’t done yet. He donned his prepared work uniform, strapped on his gear, picked up his tools, and stepped out of his room.
What awaited him outside wasn’t a wee sight. “…Huu.”
The first-floor living room was soaked in blood.
It looked as though someone had created a pentagram offering with blood, cing severed body parts at each point.
On the lone clean sofay a woman, unconscious.
It was the wife from the couple.
“……”
The agent hesitated briefly but ultimately resolved to carry out his duties as nned.
He knew all too well the risks of acting on personal judgment.
And besides…
“Uugh… wh-what?!”
They weren’t exactly the kind of people worth saving.
“AAAAAAHH!”
The woman woke abruptly and screamed at the sight before her.
A tall man, d in a ck, waterproof raincoat, stood before her, holding a butcher knife over 35 centimeters long!!
The man sighed deeply.
‘Of all times.’
She had to wake up now.
He was exhausted. More than usual.
How could things have gone so wildly off course?
The agent’s mind shed back to the first day at the lodge.
His initial target had been one of the couple.
Greedy and vulnerable, they were an easy mark. ording to the Disaster Management Bureau’s analysis, eliminating one half of a couple first would effectively sow fear, making the subsequent tasks easier.
Following the script embedded in his mind, he had nned to lure the target to the kitchen and bring the frame’s ominous prophecy to life.
‘I’ll burn that person in the stove.’
But someone had beaten him to it.
“……?!”
The stove already contained a corpse.
And not just any corpse—it had been left in a bizarrely grotesque state.
……??
His mind swam with confusion.
The Disaster Management Bureau had ensured that he would be assigned the role of the serial killer, pre-assigning him the cassette tape as part of the Disaster’s framework.
So how could there be another killer?
At the time, he had dismissed it as the unpredictable nature of supernatural catastrophes.
That was, until lunchtime, when he stumbled upon the shredded remains of two students in the backyard.
“……”
He had no choice but to quietly stow away therge hammer he had prepared in his wardrobe.
By then, he had realized the truth.
Someone else had been preemptively killing the victims.
It was maddening.
And now, on the final day, someone had even gone so far as to set up this borate dismemberment scene.
His head throbbed from the sheer absurdity of it all.
Still, his tasks hadn’t changed.
Despite the chaos, he had toplete his duties, step by step. That was the Bureau’s way.
<i>“Hiieek…”</i>
His recollections came to an end as he looked down at his next victim.
The woman’s eyes were wide with fear, but she was too paralyzed to resist.
He sighed, feeling the weight of his exhaustion, and raised the knife.
At that moment—
“Agent 007.”
“……”
A voice interrupted him.
He turned to see someone leaning casually against the second-floor railing, looking down at the living room.
It was the office worker.
The seller he had met through Salmon Market.
“You don’t have to kill her.”
Kim Soleum looked down at him.
<i>This individual will firmly believe that they are inheriting the legendary murderer’s legacy and undergo mental and physical transformation.</i>
In every way, the agent fit the description of a Disaster-appointed serial killer.
The ck raincoat, the gleaming butcher knife—his appearance screamed ‘killer’.
But Kim Soleum knew better.
‘Despite how he looks, he’s someone you could reason with.’
– Are you certain, <i>friend?</i>
Yes, he’s certain.
‘Agents from the Disaster Management Bureaue prepared for these kinds of scenarios.’
For instance, like the holster barely visible beneath that civil servant’s raincoat.
<b>========================</b>
Dark Exploration Records / Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau
/ Items
<b>Tether Handler</b>
<b>A ck holster-shaped equipment-type item.</b>
<b>When equipped, it grants resistance to supernatural mental disturbances of Hollow-sanctioned level or lower.</b>
<b>Usage Condition: Must be a Grade-8 or higher official of the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau.</b>
<b>========================</b>
It was mental defense equipment.
They wouldn’t send agents unarmed into a Disaster capable of transforming someone into a brainwashed serial killer.
‘No way they’d send them in with a clear head.’
Agents were regrly deployed into high-risk supernatural Disasters where death was often an assumed oue.
‘Imagine running into a devious pharmaceutical rep using items like smiley stickers for maniption.’
Kim Soleum observed the agent standing silently before him and spoke.
“You really don’t need to kill anyone. All the groundwork has already beenid.”
“……”
“I’ve already done everything.”
A moment of silence.
“Are you saying you’ve killed them?”
Well, it was true that this Disaster wouldn’t end without a series of murders.
ording to the <Dark Exploration Records>, if no killings urred even through external intervention, things would spiral into chaos during the inheritance fight, ending in mutual ughter.
‘That’s why the Disaster is designed for the agent to kill directly.’
To ensure the agent doesn’t die by ident, they’re designated as the serial killer and managed ordingly.
That was the rule. Commit serial murders, or…
“No.”
“……!”
“I just made it look like they died.”
…or convince everyone that they did.
“But there were corpses.”
“That’s true… but they weren’t my doing.”
“……!”
“Did you know this lodge has a basement?”
Kim Soleum recalled part of the poem inside the golden frame.
It wasn’t just foreshadowing murder methods.
There were other hints as well.
<i>Boing, boing, the sound of hopping withughter</i><i></i>
<i>The wooden floors beneath go bam, bam</i><i></i>
<i>The table, full</i><i></i>
<i>Humming, in the air</i>
This stanza hinted at something.
A sound beneath the wooden floor. An echo from a hollow space below.
And…
‘That verse alluding murder to food…’
The table is bountiful.
Something abundant, possibly rted to the serial killings.
Sure enough.
“In the basement, there’s a collection of preserved body parts and organs on disy.”
“……!”