Bailonz Street 13-Chapter 217.2

I gathered the smoke spreading through the corridor, pooling it at my feet, then sent it upward until it filled and covered an entire stretch of hallway.

Thus, I isolated Research Team 1’s office.

With smoke.

……

Now, no one inside could escape.

Darkness and stillness pooled before the hallway.

Within it, I opened the door.

“Ah.”

There was only one person on night duty.

[Evacuation alert. High-grade Darkness containment failure. Evacuation alert. High-grade Darkness containment failure. Evacuation alert. High-grade Darkness containment failure…]

Amidst the blaring alarms, he was simply scanning CCTV footage with rapturous eyes.

From the isolation chamber to the corridor I had passed through, Kwak Jekang, who had been checking the monitors, lifted his head toward the open door.

The expression of one who realized something.

“You… Or rather.” [1]

“……”

“You were Kim Soleum, weren’t you?”

I advanced.

“It wasn’t the vessel. It’s always been you from the very start. From the ver—!”

I seized his throat.

His feet dangled in the air, the white lab coat hanging beneath him.

“Here to kill me? Out of anger? Hahaha…”

At first, fear and dread filled his eyes, but soon they brimmed with ecstasy and curiosity.

“But… aren’t you curious?”

……

“I truly cannot figure out what you are. How you harvested Dream Essence, how you crossed between Darkness and human…”

Through the lenses of his glasses, Kwak Jekang’s eyes fixed on me.

He was smiling.

“In fact… isn’t it that you don’t even know? ……What you really are.”

……

“You don’t want to remain bound to the company, do you? I can help you! Director Cheong Dallae? Who cares about that. A researcher should be true to research! To seek the origin! The truth! Understanding!”

His voice, frenzied, shouted. Conviction and fervor burst forth.

“If what you want is to know why you were summoned here, why you took that form, then I will cooperate fully! No, I earnestly beg you to let me cooperate!”

His eyes glinted with rapture.

“To die here like this wouldn’t be so bad…! But I can’t endure it, because there are things I must see…”

……

I released my grip.

The neck in my hand dropped to the floor.

“Ugh!”

But Kwak Jekang, without complaint, looked up at me with eyes gleaming with rapture.

“Yes! A wise choice—”

I bent my knees and crouched down before his face.

And meeting his eyes, I spoke in smoke.

Don’t want to, okay?

“…!!”

Can’t trust you, can I?

“Wait.”

The smoke traced letters.

Untrustworthy thing

: Subject for deletion

“…! W-Wait.”

His panting grew louder.

I gave a warning.

Warning 3

Reason : Insult directed toward employee

Cumulative warnings : 3 / Strikes left until disciplinary action : 0

From the black gas mask, smoke billowed out.

To encircle Kwak Jekang’s head.

“Wait, just—”

He stumbled backward.

I did not follow. But the smoke did.

It wrapped around his features…

The researcher, choking as his breath was gradually cut off, coughing, wheezing, straining in agony, finally squeezed out a desperate word.

“…Then!”

With his free hand still flailing behind him, his fingers slipped again and again until he barely managed to grasp his drawer.

A place where Twilight-class Darkness was kept in temporary storage.

From inside, fumbling, he pulled something out.

“If… if we use this, what do you think, sir?”

He barely managed to extend it toward me.

…A red thread.

Its form was strikingly similar to what I had just used.

The smoke writhed.

But then, recalling that it was not yarn, that it was thin and narrow, I stilled it…

And I realized it had a completely different purpose.

“If we make it so betrayal is impossible, so one must be reliable, isn’t that enough!”

There is only one Darkness that fits that description.

Red Finger

: A Darkness that literally fulfills the words of the children’s song, ‘Hook your pinky and promise, promise’.

When a single vow is sworn and a thread is looped around the tip joint of the pinky finger, that vow will come true without fail.

Because to break it is to die.

“The method is…”

Lips trembling, Kwak Jekang made a sound that was half laughter and half sobbing as I tore open its packaging and pulled at his pinky finger.

“You… know this Darkness, don’t you.”

There is nothing I do not know.

So long as it has been written.

I bound Kwak Jekang’s pinky finger with the red thread.

Sweat beaded on his forehead as he smiled.

“I swear. Um… I will not betray you.”

I looked at him.

Invalid.

Reason : Inaccuracy

“…Then— I will cooperate fully?”

Invalid.

Reason : Inaccuracy

Slowly, I reshaped the smoke.

Accumulated failures : 2

Remaining attempts : 1

Sweat dripped down Kwak Jekang’s face.

“…In that case, could you tell me exactly what vow you want? If I make something up again and look suspicious and die, that’ll be troublesome for both of us!”

……

The smoke traced a sentence.

Suggestion :

I will never go against your will henceforth.

Kwak Jekang’s eyes shook.

Because he understood the encompassing, absolute meaning in the words.

But his mouth opened.

For there was no other choice.

“I… will never go against your will henceforth…”

Snap.

I pulled the red thread.

The end joint of the researcher’s pinky finger was severed.

Blood splattered.

“Ahahahaha! Ahahahahahaha!!”

Clutching his left hand as blood spurted, watching the tip of his pinky roll across the floor, Kwak Jekang laughed.

“Thank you, sir… Thank you!”

Six minutes later.

I returned directly to the isolation chamber.

Noise was rising outside the door, but it did not matter.

Even if the two Security Team members were gone, it was fine… It only meant they had returned safely.

I simply thought about this new situation.

About what being bound by thread had returned to me.

About fear, and about the unbearable.

…And I reached a conclusion.

‘I must know.’

Why I exist here in this form.

Who exactly it was that summoned me.

To do that, first, I must uncover the secrets of this company.

What lies beneath the main building.

What exactly the Cheerful Research Institute was.

And if, even after learning all of this, there is no possible way…

……

Then I will give up.

It was at this moment that I made a decision.

[Now that’s an exciting plan, Friend!]

‘……!’

I got up.

…On the bed where I had been lying alone, something was there.

A fluffy body. Pink, endearing ears. Black eyes. And a bow tie hung around its neck.

And.

[Mr. Roe Deer.]

The call.

‘…Braun?’

[Ah, at last you speak my name, Friend. How delightful this is!]

The Good Friend was right there.

Note/s:

[1] ’You’ – Two different ways to say ‘you’ were used here, the first was somewhat more casual, while the second has a more respectful undertone depending on the context, but it can also sound condescending and meant to be demeaning. Language is weird and context is key as per usual OTL ↵

By the way, during the time that Soleum was being observed after his human form unraveled, Kwak Jekang had been talking to him kind of respectfully, teetering between -ㅂ니다 and -요 here and there. For most of his tirade in this chapter, he speaks informally, but then slips back into formal speech (-ㅂ니다) when he brings up the red finger.

Salt Goblin

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