MFCLE 10

Chapter 10

Please Go Home

“……W-what?”

Go home?

Just like that?

I couldn’t get a grasp on what exactly was happening.

That single command to go home kept circling around in my head like the whisper of a devil.

Creeeak—

I flinched.

The main entrance of the library suddenly opened as naturally as if nothing were wrong.

There were no white gloves in sight.

Was it simply the wind?

Flash.

Orange light filtered through the glass windows.

……It was the evening sunset.

The soft glow of the sunset shining beyond the main entrance made me feel as though I’d really returned to my original world.

But no.

It had to be another illusion created by that announcement guy.

And yet, for some reason, my gaze remained fixed blankly on the entrance.

The teddy bears that had been hiding inside my sleeves just moments ago were gone as well.

As though they had never existed in the first place.

Slide.

I slowly raised my hand toward my face.

The ‘Straight-A Student Glasses’ that should have been sitting around my eyes were gone.

……A dream?

Had all of that……just been a dream?

Really?

While I was trapped inside the horror story, I’d desperately wished that everything happening to me was only a dream.

But now that I’d actually reached this situation.

I was even more anxious.

I couldn’t make a proper judgment, consumed by the fear that perhaps I’d entered another horror story without realizing it.

Could I really.

Really walk out through that door?

‘……Ah! This is driving me crazy!’

With the main entrance right in front of me, I pointlessly walked around it in circles for what felt like forever.

Unable to make a definite decision as the sunset gradually faded away.

“……Ms. Jeong!”

“……Hmm?”

A voice came from somewhere.

I raised my head and looked toward the entrance.

Beyond it, a familiar woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses was running toward me.

“Ms. Park Yeon-jeong!”

“……Why are you here?”

I’d been too busy trying to survive to worry about where these people had gone.

‘……She made it out.’

Thank goodness.

The anxiety that had been weighing on me for so long briefly eased.

But only for a moment.

Another suspicion immediately crept in.

Could this also be an illusion created by that bastard?

Rather than immediately showing familiarity, I looked at the situation more coldly.

First, I should keep some distance from her……

Bang!

Before I could finish thinking, the woman with horn-rimmed glasses pushed open the library’s main entrance and rushed straight toward me.

‘W-wait!’

A surprise attack is cheating!

Before I had any chance to run, the woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly.

“Wait!……?”

Huh?

But if this was an attack, the pressure of her embrace wasn’t particularly strong.

It wasn’t an aggressive pressure.

Instead, I felt the faint trembling of someone’s body against mine.

And then I heard someone quietly sobbing.

“I-I really came back.”

“……I’m so glad you’re safe.”

……Ah.

I’d really come back.

After that, the two of us moved to a park bench not far from the library.

Night had already fallen, and two men and women sat quietly, looking down at the ground.

This silence……was somehow uncomfortable.

I was the first to speak.

“……I forgot to ask your name.”

“Oh, right. I guess you did. I’m Han Sol.”

“Nice to meet you. Han Sol……?”

Hmm?

For someone I’d only just met, her name didn’t feel particularly unfamiliar.

As I tried to recall where I’d heard the name Han Sol before—

“Excuse me! Ms. Park Yeon-jeong!”

“Yes?”

Her voice was filled with strength.

It was a firm tone, as though she were about to say something important.

I stopped my idle thoughts for a moment and focused on Han Sol’s voice.

“Yeon-jeong……please stay calm and listen carefully.”

“……Yes. I understand.”

Whatever she was about to say, she was certainly building up the atmosphere.

……Don’t tell me.

A possibility suddenly flashed through my mind.

Was she about to tell me the tragic news that the two remaining female students who had escaped together with Han Sol hadn’t made it back here?

I let my imagination run wild for a moment.

But.

What came out of Han Sol’s mouth was an even more shocking development.

“I don’t think the world we’re in right now……is our original world.”

“……What?”

“I don’t think we’ve escaped yet.”

“…….”

Clink.

Something fell from between my trouser pockets.

It was my employee ID card, complete with my identification photo.

……Ah.

That bastard.

No wonder he’d let me go so easily.

Han Sol began calmly explaining that this wasn’t the original Earth we knew.

It had all started.

Right after they’d escaped from the horror story.

The moment they stepped outside the entrance, they were confronted by a group of people dressed in black suits.

They immediately approached Han Sol and asked:

‘What did you see inside?’

“For a question from people who suddenly grabbed us, I thought it was incredibly out of the blue.”

Under normal circumstances, she would have simply dismissed them as ‘crazy people’ and ignored them.

But since they seemed to know about the strange things they’d experienced, Han Sol carefully explained everything that had happened in front of the library.

And their response was—

‘Thank you for your cooperation.’

They didn’t seem disturbed at all, nor did they take any particular action.

They reacted with complete indifference, as though they’d experienced strange phenomena like this countless times before.

While Han Sol was looking around at the strange atmosphere, she happened to see the moon reflected in the window of the vehicle the people in black suits had arrived in.

She couldn’t believe her eyes.

Han Sol described the strange moon she’d seen that day to me.

“There were two moons overlapping each other in the sky.”

“…….”

Men in black suits.

Their tone and behavior, as though this phenomenon were completely ordinary.

And then.

Two overlapping moons floating in the darkening sky after the sunset had already faded.

Ah.

Right.

Even if I wanted to deny it, there was such irrefutable evidence hanging blatantly in the sky.

There was no way around it.

Just as Han Sol said, this place was a world that looked exactly like the Earth we knew.

Another world.

Simply put, you could call it a parallel world.

Or, if I wanted to put it more bluntly.

We were inside the world of , the setting of the novel I’d read to death.

In other words.

We were completely and utterly screwed.

We had fallen into the worst possible world setting.

And to make matters worse, Han Sol and the two female students had already encountered the key organization that existed within the world of .

The ‘GRA.’

GRA was publicly known in this world as a facility researching ‘renewable energy.’

But in reality, it was a secret organization that secretly documented, investigated, contained, and, when necessary, even eliminated strange phenomena around the world.

It was exactly the kind of world-building setting that would make someone like me, who loved cosmic horror, lose their mind with excitement.

Under normal circumstances, GRA was one of the main organizations in .

If you could receive their protection, you could call it nothing short of incredible luck.

But the problem was……

This woman named Han Sol still remembered me.

Not only that.

She casually explained her encounter with the organization’s people to me.

Even though the GRA manual clearly stated:

‘Civilians who have come into contact with a horror story must have their memories erased after all statements have been recorded.’

The organization had simply forgotten to erase Han Sol’s memories?

And even allowed her to walk around freely like this?

……Yeah, right.

Even a passing dog would laugh at that.

The two surviving female students were probably in much the same situation as Han Sol.

The fact that their memories hadn’t been erased meant……

They had been designated as subjects under GRA’s management.

I could roughly understand why.

We……

We were outsiders to them.

If it was GRA, they’d probably already noticed that Han Sol and the two female students weren’t humans from their world.

They might even be watching us from somewhere right this very moment.

‘Damn it. Of all things, we ended up under GRA’s management…….’

In my original world, GRA was an organization I would have been obsessed with.

Now, however, they were treating me like an enemy.

With an organization like them, it was safe to assume that if necessary, they would consider us subjects to be eliminated.

“Yeon-jeong, are you okay?”

“……Yes. I’m fine.”

In reality, I wasn’t fine.

There was no way I could be fine.

I felt like I was going insane from anxiety.

I had no idea whether GRA was still watching us from somewhere.

“……Han Sol.”

“Yes?”

The one thing I could be grateful for was that Han Sol wasn’t openly hostile toward GRA yet.

If she didn’t show hostility toward the organization, they probably wouldn’t make the first move either.

“Please cooperate with whatever they ask as much as possible. If you cooperate properly, I’m sure they won’t hurt you.”

I hoped Han Sol wouldn’t question what I was saying.

“……Yes. I’ll do that.”

Thank goodness.

Han Sol accepted my suspicious request without questioning it too much.

Perhaps it was because she still trusted me to some degree.

Whoosh—

It had gotten quite late.

A cold chill seeped into my skin.

It was time to go.

I stood up first, and Han Sol followed suit.

“Please take care of yourself……and look after the two students for me.”

Just as I was about to leave alone—

“……Yeon-jeong!”

Han Sol stopped me again.

Honestly, I knew she would.

“It’s dangerous to go alone! You should receive protection from the organization too!”

“……You’re not wrong.”

“Then! Come with me……”

Yes.

She definitely wasn’t wrong, Ms. Han Sol.

Leaving the GRA facility and wandering through this world alone was basically the same as shouting, ‘I want to die!’ at the top of my lungs and announcing it to the entire neighborhood.

……But.

My situation was different.

Unlike Han Sol, I’d already become entangled with a horror story.

One of the other rules emphasized by GRA was as follows:

[5. Civilians entangled with horror stories are to be isolated and monitored. (Lethal force may be used if necessary.)]

Ms. Han Sol.

‘If I go there, I’ll die.’

Of course, that might not happen.

But if the odds were fifty-fifty……

The safest option was to stay away.

Gambling with your life was something reserved for overpowered protagonists in fictional stories.

……In other words, not me.

Right now, I needed something Han Sol could accept.

“……I think it’s better to have as many options as possible right now.”

At least if I wanted to survive.

“I’ll travel around the city and look for a way back to our original world. You should look for a way back through the organization, Ms. Han Sol.”

“…….”

“Just don’t push yourself too hard.”

Because if you pushed yourself too far and something went wrong, I’d feel like it was my fault.

“And if possible, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell the organization about me.”

“……May I ask why?”

“…….”

I wanted to say, Because they might kill me.

But Han Sol didn’t ask any further after my brief silence.

“……All right. I won’t tell the people from the organization about you.”

“Thank you.”

It was finally time for us to say our last goodbyes.

“……Please don’t push yourself too hard either, Yeon-jeong.”

“……Yes.”

With those words, we parted ways.

The night grew deeper.

I slowly began walking and slipped my hand into my pocket.

Tap.

My fingertips touched three objects.

One employee ID card with my photograph on it.

A smartphone with about 17% battery remaining.

And a wallet containing cash.

As the sun disappeared, the temperature dropped rapidly.

If I tried to sleep outside in this weather……

I’d be dead.

I checked the cash in my wallet.

‘120,100 won in cash.’

Hmm.

Looks like I won’t have to sleep on the streets tonight.

‘Tomorrow……’

Achoo!

I’ll think about tomorrow when it comes.