Bailonz Street 13-Chapter 238.1

Fear.

Terror.

Emotions once familiar to me were surfacing after hearing what the Happy Ending Sect twins just said.

Even though I can’t feel them now, I know what they’re like. And because of that, the shock of realization sinks through me, cooling me to the core…

‘They’re afraid of Ireum-nim.’

So this is all to cater to the wiki authors’ whims?

The entire Happy Ending Sect?

[Oh dear, but merely pandering to the audience’s whims is the work of amateurs! A true entertainer must have their own vision.]

Yet that only makes it feel more desperate.

The despair of forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to.

All the more so when that something is horrific.

Crushed under an uncertain, malevolent divine being, flailing just to escape its malice.

‘Whose fault… is this?’

If this whole world turned out like this because the wiki authors wrote it that way, then the answer is no. But then again, ghost story creators just wrote stories too.

Who on earth ever thinks the ghost story they wrote will actually exist?

How should I accept this? How should I act?

Splash, splash.

Even now, the sound doesn’t stop, those thuds of human bodies falling into alcoholic liquid.

The Happy Ending Sect’s converts, contaminated by ghost stories, lining up and diving into the liquor.

A mad spectacle.

“Come on, let’s brew some liquor!”

The girl playing the older twin’s part had already hidden her desperate air and was calling out cheerfully again.

“What fun do you think we’ll have with this drink? Excited? Aren’t you?”

My breath caught in my throat…

“Nope.”

…!

“Wow. A cult being a cult.”

I turned my head.

Assistant Manager Eun Haje was there, wearing that dry, unimpressed look.

‘Assistant Manager?’

“Deceiving the laypeople, wringing them dry to the bone, then going off and talking a different line themselves. Textbook cult, aren’t you?”

She stepped forward once.

“And the way you hand off the basis of your choices to someone else.”

……

“Roe. There’s always a reason behind a grave.”

The reporter who’d once succeeded in revenge stared at the cultists who’d just shown fear.

“Sure, you can feel pity thinking of them as victims brainwashed by a cult.”

Assistant Manager Eun Haje pointed.

To this underground bunker, the place where dozens had already died, where people were dying right now behind us.

“Don’t lose sight of the situation.”

I realized it.

Assistant Manager Eun Haje doesn’t know the deeper implications of the twins’ words, the details I’d pieced together.

She doesn’t know about the Happy Ending Sect’s relationship to Ireum-nim, or about the wiki.

But because she isn’t lost in details, she can strike closer to the essence.

The core.

“They’re killing people right now just because they want to.”

And I know there are people who, even under similar conditions, would never choose this path.

……

My head felt a little clearer.

But still…

‘Was there really a need to provoke them that openly…?’

I looked back at the twins.

Their smiling heads slowly turned toward Assistant Manager Eun Haje in her grandma disguise.

Creak.

“You’re not really Grandma, are you?”

……

Shit.

“Knew it all along, huh? Then you’ll be the first to taste the liquor! Let’s drink and know Ireum-nim, let’s see the Happy Ending.”

“Still pushing that after getting exposed? Ah, Roe. No need.”

I stepped between the twins and Assistant Manager Eun Haje, but she just shook her head.

“We’ve stalled long enough.”

Craaaaack.

The sound of something splitting.

And then.

BAM!

From the white body made of cheap plastic, not thick pottery, water spilled out with an explosive noise.

The liquor-brewing jar was shattered open.

‘…!’

Bodies and parasites inside tumbled out, spilling across the floor.

As more of the still-living threw themselves up into the air, I hastily caught them with my mist, sweeping them roughly aside while checking that Assistant Manager Eun Haje was unharmed.

She shot me a quick look, probably to make a run for it in the chaos, but…

“Wow. That went off nicely.”

Ho Yoowon walked out.

An empty vial dangled from his hand.

‘Explosion, D-grade.’

…A Daydream Inc. potion.

The company director smiled faintly.

“Even for the sake of entertainment, leaving suspicious people unattended in such a critical place… such a pity, that kind of judgment. Isn’t this what happens because of it?Seoyu-ssi, Seobin-ssi.”

The twin officials stared blankly.

At the half-shattered brewing vat, at the ones stricken with Nine Fox Disease.

“Ah, please don’t misunderstand. I wasn’t the one who did it, it was the grandma over here. I just happened to pick up this empty vial, that’s all.”

“Ha.”

“Anyway… judging by your actions, you seem to feel fear toward the unknown… Well then—”

Joy flashed in Ho Yoowon’s eyes as he looked at the twins.

The joy of someone who has figured something out.

“Your identity. You’re still human, aren’t you?”

The condition for the binding was set.

The plague drew near.

“Would you grant me just one promise?”

And the stunned twins…

Smiled brightly.

“Hey. How about we just turn this entire space into one big brewing vat?”

“That’s a good idea.”

What?

“You go gather the converts. I’ll go teach the dragon and the fox about Ireum-nim right here! Let’s brew them into the liquor too.”

“Yeah.”

[They’ve chosen a frontal assault. Oh, now we’re about to see a full-blown pandemonium of blood and terror…]

[If any converts manage to escape, this could spawn quite an entertaining ghost story! Liquor, a cult, and a fox plague, oh what a mix!]

Ho Yoowon was trying to bind the officials with a ban and turn them into puppets to extract intel, while the Happy Ending Sect’s officials were planning to throw us into the brewing liquor.

The problem was, I was caught right in the middle of this clash.

Ho Yoowon had naturally dragged me into his own mess.

“Then let’s start with the dragon!”

Lee Seoyu’s head flew off.

It traced a long red arc, rolling across the liquor-soaked floor, and strange flickers of red cloth-like space shimmered faintly around it…

‘Damn.’

And the sparks of this madness could fly anywhere.

Even toward Assistant Manager Eun Haje.

‘No.’

Then. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

…I lunged and snatched the rolling head first.

“Ohhh? Ohhhh?”

The head grinned wide, trying to swallow me whole.

I smothered it with smoke first.

And then I r…ead…

I endure.

‘Don’t erase. Just weigh the opponent down until they can’t hold themselves.’

Endure.

I hold on.

‘I’ve done this to Ho Yoowon too.’

Endure.

‘Withstand it.’

But… wait.

What was it to endure? Why was I supposed to endure, what does it feel like to question that, what was a feeling andwhyamI?doingthis Ineedtogobacktotheisolationroomand

“What is this, what, uh, familiar, uh, some kind of■■■■■■■■■.”

The voice faded out, leaving behind something like a final, dying scream.

“Ireum-nim?”

Salt Goblin

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