Chapter 159.2

 

Agent Choi raised his suncatcher again and peered at the spot where the Daydream Inc. employees had been gushing.

He finally confirmed it.

“…!”

There really were twelve conch shells.

Agent Choi hurriedly asked one of the mer-children,

“Hey, kid, can you see that?”

“What? See what? What’s there?”

“I—”

“I see a cat,” the children answered with innocent cheer.

The agents realized.

This item is invisible only to children.

More precisely… they simply cannot perceive it.

‘Wait…’

Agent Bronze felt a chill run down his spine.

‘So… there was a critical item the Bureau never identified until now……’

They had always infiltrated the ghost story in child form. In that guise, they could not even sense the conch shells. Only by forced searching might they barely find them.

But at this moment, the Disaster Management Bureau agents had learned of the shells’ existence…

Agent Choi whipped his head toward the cat, but the cat calmly looked back and once again conveyed its will.

 

[This way]

 

“Agent—”

“Ah, no no, it’s fine.”

Agent Choi answered the call.

He reached into the safe to touch where the shells lay…

But he couldn’t.

“……”

He wasn’t allowed to.

The hallucination that underpins Twinkle Twinkle Ocean Palace—the root of this ghost story and its infection—was rejecting any attempt to touch the shells.

“Then…”

 

[This way]

 

“……”

Agent Choi fell silent.

As if its turn concluded, the cat moved on, its steps heading straight for Baek Saheon.

‘Why me again?!’

Baek Saheon yelped inwardly, yet in the next instant he realized.

“Oh… Shall I gather these conch shells, sir?”

Exactly.

‘It’s telling me to collect the items!’

Filled with a sudden thrill at obeying the cat’s command for the first time, Baek Saheon thrust his hand into the safe and grabbed the shells.

 

[10]

 

Even in his joy, his mind spun with calculations

‘How do I scoop up all twelve in this situation?’

Had the cat spoken only to him, he could’ve grabbed them all at once. But now, he’d have to hand a few to my nasty boss and money‑obsessed coworker to keep them satisfied.

‘Fuck.’

 

[9]

 

It must have assembled everyone here to create a more dramatic, sensational scene. That cat is that psychopathic bastard Kim Soleum…

‘Wait a minute…’

Baek Saheon paused.

That insane, strange, grotesque pressure he’d just felt—this presence—was beyond what any mere human psychopath could muster, right?

The red halo around Kim Soleum felt different, too.

Though Baek Saheon had seen danger halos on humans before, this one was… something else entirely.

 

[8]

 

It felt more like the anomalous phenomena described in ghost stories…

A sense of the uncanny.

‘No way.’

No way his old roommate was simply an inhuman psychopath…

 

[7]

 

‘He was never really human…’

A shiver ran down his spine.

But the boat had sailed. He had to gather the items.

‘Doesn’t matter.’

 

[6]

 

The countdown neared its end.

Baek Saheon gritted his teeth and swiftly collected the golden‑corded conch shells, ignoring Kang Yihak’s peeks and the intense gazes of his boss and the agents.

When he’d swept all twelve into his bag…

“Huh?”

He found one more shell hidden at the very bottom.

It lacked a golden cord, but it was indeed an Angel’s Sigh.

‘Bonus.’

As he wondered how to pocket it secretly and reached out—

 

[This way]

 

Something sprang out from inside.

“…!”

Baek Saheon almost tripped over the cat and fell.

The slimy infection spurting from inside the conch shell flew through the air but lost its target.

“Argh!”

Baek Saheon quickly threw the shell he’d been holding.

Agent Bronze, watching with the suncatcher in hand, dashed forward and struck the slime‑shooting shell with his glass handgun.

Bang! With a short crack, the shell shattered, and the tick‑like chunk of flesh twitched and crawled out like a bug, only to be hit by another round and flung against the floor.

Crunch.

Jin Nasol’s shoe crushed it into the ground.

“……”

In the bone‑chilling silence, everyone turned to look at the cat.

The ghost‑story entity that had forcibly guided them here.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Phew.

I did my best to avert my gaze from the others, feeling as though I’d break out in a cold sweat.

It wasn’t hard in a cat’s body.

‘I just wanted to verify this.’

That’s why I’d chosen this spot among all the places I could farm Angel’s Sigh shells.

 

The moment you grab the shell hidden at the very bottom of the safe, infective slime will spurt out.

 

That was the trap, the unique danger of this place.

Like a mimic, the biohazard had parasitized an apparently useful item, hiding within in a classic, creepy horror twist.

But when you combine that trope with what I learned from the tattooist…

‘It becomes an even clearer hint.’

A hint at the conch shells’ true nature.

 

■■.

 

From the tattooist’s overwhelming sensory insight at Moonlight Tattoo Shop, the shells—Angel’s Sigh—were tied to dark, catastrophic events.

Likely the insane infection and the city’s ruin.

Yet at the same time, the shells bore the opposite image of solace and healing.

Add the tattooist’s words—‘Even knowing rationally it’s not a threat, its very image feels filthy and horrific’—and reassemble the clues…

—Originally a cure, the conch shells triggered a catastrophic event, though that wasn’t their intended function.

…You arrive at this deduction.

So who contaminated the shells?

‘A very obvious suspect.’

—A biohazard ulcer burrowed into the shells, posing as Angel’s Sigh.

The biohazard‑merfolk’s tactic of creating the Twinkle Twinkle Ocean Palace hallucination to ensnare child hosts is identical.

‘It first hid in the shells, spreading infection.’

Thus the children became infected, this madness raced unchecked, and the city’s civilization distrusted the shells so much that they prevented timely treatment…

‘Everything fits.’

Kim Soleum had driven everyone here so he could convey this hint directly, without suspicion.

And…

“Aha.”

Here was someone who’d grasped the hint exactly.

“……”

As Agent Choi picked up a shard of the broken shell, goosebumps ran up his hand.

Almost a thrill.

The sharp and experienced spot clues quickly, drawing them closer to the answer.

“A cure?”

He looked back at the cat.

“This is a cure?”

“…!!”

“So you blocked the kids from seeing or touching the shells, mixed in blanks to mislead them—to keep them from being cured.”

The cat offered no reply, but Agent Choi was already certain.

In a voice so calm it hardly seemed directed at the presence that moments ago had exuded pure terror, he declared,

“Yes. This… is a cure.”

“……”

Tension began to thicken the air.

‘What…?’

To the Daydream Inc. employees, his words sounded only like mer-child giggles.

Unintelligible, yet the uncanny atmosphere prickled their instincts.

“But here’s the thing…”

Agent Choi glanced at the bag Baek Saheon clutched.

Baek Saheon’s hand tightened on the strap.

“There are twenty‑eight children out there.”

And they were all too infected to escape.

“But only twelve shells… and look whose hands they’re in.”

Agent Choi raised his hand, then readied his glass handgun…

 

[10]

 

“……”

 

[9]

 

The cat…

Before anyone knew it, it was now seated somewhere else.

 

[8]

 

At Jin Nasol’s shoes.

“What.”

 

[7]

 

“I don’t know what you want me to do.”

 

[6]

 

“‘Do what you were going to do,’ is that it?”

 

[5]

 

“Fine, go ahead then.”

 

[4]

 

And so Jin Nasol did as planned.

 

[3]

 

The Daydream Inc. elite team assistant manager flicked her attack wire from her nail…

Not at an agent, but at a mer-child.