Chương 861: Chapter 857: Side Story - Island Survival (2)

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"Now, from this moment, we will start the 7th game."

Before long, the Cuttlefish game reaches the seventh game.

"Are you okay, kid?"

"Heheok... yes."

Kim Hae-seol worked together as a team with the person called Yang Ji-hwang, and he was able to keep winning and rising.

She is incredibly lucky.

For example, in the dice game, the number she rolled never drops below 4, and even in probability games like coin tosses, only the side she wanted always came up.

Yang Ji-hwang has always survived with a frightening momentum even without anything like that.

And in this Cuttlefish game, Kim Hae-sol has already discerned the normal survivors, and decided to save four or five people for sure.

"You look like you are trying to save those four or five people from before. Is there a reason?"

At Yang Ji-hwang's question, Kim Hae-sol nods.

"Yes. Actually, the vast majority of the game participants who came in here don't seem to be normal people. Most of them are addicted to drugs, or addicted to gambling... or they are people who used to work in some dark place... but the people I'm trying to save have lived diligently and got scammed, or they came in here because they truly have no choice... they are those kinds of people. So I think it would be good if people like that could live... so I'm helping as much as I can."

"Hmm, is that so?"

Yang Ji-hwang nods, then asks him a question.

"Then, you?"

"Pardon?"

"In your opinion... do you seem like someone who is worth making it out alive?"

"Uh..."

At those words, Kim Hae-seol feels a little awkward and speaks.

"Honestly, when I think about it, I don't think I have done anything really bad in my life..."

"Hmmm..."

Yang Ji-hwang nods at his words.

"Yeah, it seems that way to me too. All right, you make sure you get out alive."

"Hehe, you too, noona."

"Hm... Well, I don't really care whether I die or not."

"Pardon?"

"In your opinion, what do I seem like?"

Kim Hae-sol is flustered by Yang Ji-hwang suddenly leaning in close and meeting his eyes.

"Um... you're too close."

"Look into my eyes."

"Pardon...?"

And as Kim Hae-sol looks into her eyes, he feels an ominous premonition he can't put into words.

'What... is this? A murderer? No.'

Kim Hae-sol knows what kind of feeling comes from murderers or from people with jobs that stain their hands with blood.

A chilling, gloomy feeling.

'No, no...'

But what he feels from Yang Ji-hwang isn't that.

The texture is strangely similar, but it is far more unfathomable.

Not simply a level of getting blood on one's hands a few times, but humans who literally commit mass slaughter.

For example... it is similar to what he feels when he watches footage of dictators like Hitler or Stalin.

'No, it's not even that.'

In footage of Hitler or Stalin, he feels something like a pitch-black sea, but the karma he feels from her is, rather, something cosmic.

It is on such an enormous scale that it almost feels not like murder, but like a natural disaster.

"I, I..."

"I know your nature is kind. I like people like that quite a lot. So, to give you one piece of advice... if a situation comes where you have to save me, or where you have to agonize over something like that, choose to abandon me without hesitating. No matter what happens to me, don't worry about it."

"..."

"Your answer?"

"I, I will. But noona... from what I see, you seem really good at this game, so won't you probably win?"

"Of course I will win. But I'm talking about after the win. So..."

She forms an ominous smile that he can't understand.

"For example, after I win, something sudden could happen, right? In that case, if a situation comes up where you have to save me, and even if you feel like you want to save me, don't look back and run. I'm not something you can save."

"..."

"Answer."

"... I, I will."

Kim Hae-sol answers as if he is bewitched by that ominous smile.

She is beautiful.

But at the same time, she holds an unknown ominousness.

Thump, thump, thump...

Kim Hae-sol clutches his pounding chest and thinks about what, exactly, this ominousness he feels from her is.

"Then the seventh Cuttlefish game is... hide-and-seek!"

When the host claps, a hulking figure wearing a mask comes up onto the platform.

In the brute's hand is a huge chainsaw, and the way it buzzes menacingly... it looks like it stepped right out of a famous chainsaw slasher movie.

"From now on, you will all hide yourselves all over the island, and for two days, you must run away while avoiding this 'It'. If you succeed in surviving by running for two days, you win! But if you lose... who knows whether there will be a losers' revival match. You have to be alive first to even have a losers' revival match, after all."

At the host's words, all the remaining survivors swallow hard, and the five people Kim Hae-sol has kept alive so far crowd around Kim Hae-sol and stare at the chainsaw killer with anxious faces.

"Of course, since this game's penalty is not 'testing the reagent', and instead it's a penalty that stakes your life... you will also get a very special benefit. Are you curious?"

"... Yes..."

Because the survivors know it is disadvantageous not to respond to the host's words, they respond weakly, and the host claps and continues the explanation.

"The benefit is this: if you succeed in combining your strength, or hunting, or setting traps to neutralize this 'It'! The person who makes the greatest contribution to neutralizing it will become the winner of the Cuttlefish game, receives the prize money, and will be released immediately. And the rest of you won't be winners, but those of you who survive this round will be allowed to leave the island without receiving money.

Of course, if you want to remain on the island, we will let you participate in the next game, and we also intend to give special benefits. Sounds good?"

At the host's words, people murmur. Some people gather together and discuss something, as if they are trying to catch the It.

However, Kim Hae-sol shudders at the ominousness he feels from the 'It'.

'Everyone is crazy. That thing... it isn't human!'

The bizarre, twisted feeling he senses from the tagger.

It is the same kind of bizarre feeling he senses from the tentacle monsters the organizers make out of the people they 'punish'.

Kim Hae-sol decides that once the game starts, he will lead the survivor group he has to protect and hide themselves tightly.

"Everyone, first..."

As he tries to state his opinion like that, an opinion comes from the group Kim Hae-sol saved.

It is Mister Park, the man who said he was dragged here after being scammed.

"H-Hae-sol... In my opinion... that tagger looks threatening, but... if we have tools, it seems possible for several of us to catch him, what do you think? For example, if we can get ropes or nets... this is an island, so there should be a dock, and if we go toward the dock, it seems like we can get that kind of thing... how about it?"

"Mister, why are you doing this? We should only worry about getting out with all our limbs intact!"

"B-But, they say if we just catch that, they will give the winner's prize money... Let's all catch him and split it, Hae-sol. Even if we can get released... we came all the way here, so getting released with nothing and being empty-handed feels a bit of a waste, isn't it?"

"Mister! Are you crazy!?"

But not only Mister Park; the other survivors Kim Hae-sol saved all nod as well.

"Honestly... at that level, doesn't he really seem catchable...?"

"It's just one, Hae-sol. And is it really going to be some superhuman monster like in the movies? If several of us throw ropes or a net from far away... we can catch him."

"Wh-Why is everyone like this...?"

Kim Hae-sol realizes something is wrong.

They are certainly people who were dragged in unfairly.

But their eyes are gradually turning over from the greed the Cuttlefish Game gives them.

The feeling that, after surviving all the way to here, they cannot possibly leave without taking something becomes greed and boils in their eyes.

'Th-This... no. If we rush that tagger, we're all dead.'

It is when Kim Hae-sol trembles, sinking into an ominous premonition.

Yang Ji-hwang pats his shoulder and smiles.

"Don't worry too much. It looks easily catchable."

"N-Noona, why are you like this too!?"

"Ah, I'm saying this just in case, but... I'm not really going to do a team battle. I plan to catch it alone, so later, no asking me to share the prize money, okay?"

Yang Ji-hwang says it like a warning while looking around at the people who follow Kim Hae-sol, rather than at Kim Hae-sol.

At that warning, Mister Park snorts.

"Miss, don't go and hold us back for no reason. If you come to us later begging us to save you, that'll be a problem, got it?"

"Kekek."

As if something is funny, Yang Ji-hwang ignores him and takes out the ballpoint pen she received in the previous game, spinning it on her finger.

"Now then, ladies and gentlemen. The Cuttlefish game's the seventh act, the 'hide-and-seek' game begins! The 'It' will not move from this auditorium for twelve hours, so during that time, please hide yourselves tightly all over the island."

Wiiiing!

With those words, the tagger lifts the chainsaw with a vicious air and starts to approach the people.

For twelve hours, it cannot go outside the auditorium, but it can 'hunt' those inside the auditorium, and the people are also allowed to try hunting the tagger.

Of course, since most survivors have no weapons yet, they try to retreat for now and run outside the auditorium.

It is then, Vioooom, shwook!

Pukwak.

A sound like something tearing through the air rings out.

The next moment, the inside of the auditorium freezes.

A ballpoint pen that someone throws drills straight through the tagger's neck and rips open the carotid artery.

"Kkeuk, kkeureureureuk!"

After a while, The tagger spits up bloody phlegm from behind the mask and collapses on the spot.

They are dead.

"..."

"..."

Everyone, with faces gone cold and with looks that say they do not understand, looks toward the place the ballpoint pen came from.

There, Yang Ji-hwang wears a sneer and is crooking her finger.

"I caught the 'It', huh? Send the prize money to my account."

"... Ah, ahahaha... yes, congra... tulations."

It seems even the host is seeing something like for the first time, as their voice is a little flustered.

"Th, then, the winner of this installment of the Cuttlefish Game is Ms. Yang Ji-hwang, here!"

The host claps with a dazed expression, and the agents bring boxes in from outside the auditorium.

"Inside these boxes are your personal belongings. Phones, wallets, bags, and so on are all in here. Those who are leaving, please take your belongings from the boxes. However, this is a place where you can't get a signal to the outside anyway, so even if you turn your phone on, it won't do you any good. Now, those who will participate in the next game, receive the handout, read it, and follow the agent over there to line up. Those who are leaving, please come to the boxes."

At those words, Yang Ji-hwang goes to the boxes without hesitation, takes out her phone and handbag, and immediately turns on her phone and checks something.

"Hey, host. When do you pay the prize money?"

"Ah... the moment you are confirmed as the winner, the transfer to your account goes through immediately."

"Hm... oh, it's real."

She opens a mobile banking app, checks that the money came in, and smiles as if satisfied.

"You took out the taxes, right?"

"Yes, even the National Tax Service won't make an issue of it. The Cuttlefish Game proceeds by the will of those high-ranking people... wait. How is the banking app... hey, you didn't turn on the signal jammer?"

"The... the signal jammer is running without issues. Our phones don't work either."

"Huh? Then how..."

It is when the host approaches her with a puzzled face, trying to find out how Yang Ji-hwang is checking the transfer in her banking app.

Shukwak!

Yang Ji-hwang pulls something from her handbag and swings it at the host.

The next moment, a thin red line appears on the host's neck, and then the host's head drops away from his neck.

Cheolpeok— Hwiririk!

What Yang Ji-hwang pulled out is a small jackknife.

She swings the jackknife with a sneer and laughs.

"Ah... that feels refreshing. You pissed me off by grabbing people and making them do this game or whatever nonsense, but I endured it since you said you'd pay... Now that I got the money, there's no need to endure anymore, right?"

A thick killing intent settles in her eyes.

While the agents still cannot grasp the situation and just stare at her blankly, she snatches the host's microphone and opens her mouth.

"To all the surviving survivors. And to all you organizers who dared to kidnap me up and make me play this annoying game until now. And to the hosts who put on this bullshit moronic game, and to the high-ranking audience who watch the arena in comfort on this island.

"We are all people who are playing a death game. But honestly, since earlier, haven't you found it boring to play childish games like towel passing, tug-of-war, dice, coin tossing, and tag?"

She kicks the face of the chainsaw killer lying nearby, boots the faceless mask the chainsaw killer is wearing up into the air, catches it, and puts the mask on her own face.

The moment Kim Hae-sol sees that, goosebumps start rising over his whole body.

'We, we need to run:' What is standing there now is not something like the 'older-sister participant he got close to inside the game' that he knows.

In Kim Hae-sol's eyes, a strange divine spirit wearing a mask and dressed in a silver ritual crown and ceremonial robes is reflected.

It is a divine spirit that passes judgment.

With the blade of judgement it swings, whether he gets swept up in it or not is something anyone knows.

Just as Kim Hae-sol, by instinct, recognizes the masked Yang Ji-hwang as the divine spirit of judgement' and is about to run.

Tang, tadatang!

Only then do the agents come to their senses and start firing at her.

After a while, blood fountains from her entire body, but something strange also seems to be stuck in her.

"Hey, you bastard, how can you shoot that!?"

It is something like a small syringe.

"S-Sorry. The host died, so I panicked and fired..."

"Tch, if she mutates, we have to subdue her again!"

It is a small syringe ampoule fired from a tranquilliser gun.

And Kim Hae-sol can tell what it is.

'Th-That serum that mutates you into a monster?

When the host suddenly died, the flustered agent seemed to have fired the wrong one.

But Yang Ji-hwang, who is hit by the serum, does not mutate into tentacles.

Instead, she lets out an ominous laugh and continues speaking.

"Then from now on. For you audience members who have been bored, I will begin the 'real' death game. Since hide-and-seek is already over, let us continue it. The 'It' is me, and you all just have to run hard. The point when the game ends is... either everyone on this island disappears except me, or I disappear. Then... shall we now start hide-and-seek?"

Bo-oong!

Immediately after, she swings her hand.

Her hand mutates into a silver sword, and in an instant she slices the nearby agents in half.

"Wh-What... a compatible subject!? Damn it, run! She's a serum-compatible subject. Tell the compatible-subject response team to hurry and come..."

Pukwak!

The one who seems to be the agents' captain hurriedly gives an order to somewhere, but the next moment he is split in half and dies by the sword she swings.

Her slaughter does not end with killing the agents.

Another participant closest to her.

A participant who is an illegal gambling den operator, someone Kim Hae-sol did not particularly try to save, has his neck severed and dies.

Squirm, wriggle...

At the same time, from where her blood drips, other versions of her begin to grow, wrapped in silver bandages, with one hand transformed into a sword.

"Uh, uaaaaaaaah!"

"Run awayyyyyy!!!"

Kim Hae-sol and the survivors start desperately running away from the real death game.

"D-Damn it, all audience members! This is a real situation. Please proceed calmly to the Heliport according to the agents' guidance. A helicopter is on standing. We must evacuate right now!"

Kim Runi, the Anomalous Phenomena Management Bureau agent who infiltrates the organizers, evacuates the Cuttlefish Game organizers and the death game spectators, clenching his teeth.

'Damn it, this is an unexpected situation. Was it Kim Hae-sol...? I hope he is safe. Those damned Cuttlefish Game operators. They turn people into monsters with an unidentified serum, and they don't even make a way to control it?'

In Kim Runi's eyes, the woman named Yang Ji-hwang was just a woman from the underworld who fought a bit well and held a grudge against the organizers, enough to kill the host.

But the moment she put on the mask and got hit by the 'serum' the game organizers were developing, he realized the situation had gotten out of control.

The danger-detection artifact Kim Runi brought from the Bureau.

The 'Glasses That See Death' tells him the level of danger the monster Yang Ji-hwang has become.

'That... is a monster at least as dangerous as the Bureau Director, Kang Min-hee...'

Even at the minimum, the danger rating is J-class.

It's become a gruesome anomaly on the same level as the Bureau Director.

'If we stay like this, we'll all die!'

But even at Kim Runi's words, the high-ranking people laugh loudly and sit back in their seats with leisure.

"Don't worry too much. We've already set up a serum-compatible suppression team for a situation like this. She seems like a compatible subject with a pretty high serum-compatibility rate... If anything, I'm looking forward to it. The suppression team are all semi-compatible subjects who were fed diluted serum too, so it feels like we'll get a really splendid action scene, doesn't it?"

"Ahaha, you are right. It's not even a movie, it's real action, isn't it? I want to keep watching."

'You fucking morons with nothing but shit in your brains!'

Kim Runi hurls curses inwardly at the spectators who cannot grasp the situation.

And the next moment, inside the screen where the audience watches the game, the ones called the 'suppression team' appear.

They are people who ingested diluted serum made on this ghost island and gained transcendental bodies.

It seems like, if it's them, they can sufficiently subdue that 'variable'.

That is how it seems.

But the scene that follows is shocking.

There is no battle at all.

Pukwak!

When one of Yang Ji-hwang's split clones casually swings a blade, without even the process properly visible, the entire suppression team gets diced apart.

"..."

Only now, as if they finally grasp the situation a little, the spectators' expressions darken and they rise from their seats.

"Uh, ahem... all right, guide us. Let us evacuate first."

"... Yes, understood. Everyone, quickly to the Heliport..."

Kim Runi leads the audience toward the Heliport.

It is then.

The moment Kim Runi steps out to the Heliport, he sees something horrifying.

"... Huh?"

The Heliport is clearly far away from the Cuttlefish Game arena.

Since it is from one end of the island to the other, he thought it would take time to get there.

But there, a masked woman waits, her whole body wrapped in bandages and one hand transformed into a blade.

"Hey, what's going on? What are you doing at the front? Hurry..."

The spectators behind Kim Runi, who shove him aside and try to head for the Heliport, freeze.

At the middle of the Heliport, they stare at Yang Ji-hwang's clone, holding out in front of the helicopter.

The next moment, the bandage-wrapped woman charges in, and a storm of blood begins to whip through.

"Uaaaaaaaah!"

"Kyaaaaaaaak!"

Kim Runi immediately abandons the spectators and runs elsewhere, and some of the spectators run after him.

The bandage-wrapped monster glances toward Kim Runi, catches sight of the secret mark of the Anomalous Phenomena Management Bureau on his wrist, and then, without paying him any more attention, starts slaughtering the spectators.

Fleeing while avoiding that bandaged monster, Kim Runi looks toward the pier.

Sea fog blankets the island, so everything around seems washed in a pale whiteness, but...

Wearing the 'Glasses That See Death,' Kim Runi can see the island clearly.

And he realizes that at the pier as well, a bandaged monster has suddenly appeared, waiting for the victims who will flee that way.

"... Damn it, is there really no way to escape at all...? You stupid staff bastards. First I have to turn off the signal jammer... I need to contact the Director."

To live, he needs the Bureau Director.

"A-Agent. G-Go with us. Save us. Please save us!"

Kim Runi looks at the spectators' young children following him, and at a few spectators, and at the several male and female strippers who have been entertaining the spectators.

'At least save these people and find a way to contact the Director. Then hide out across the island and wait, and meet up with Kim Hae-sol and join together.'

The Cuttlefish Game, which at first was a death game for debtors, has become a real slaughter game forced on everyone gathered on this island.

'On this island... I have to survive. No matter what.'

A game far more intense and grotesque than the Cuttlefish Game begins.

The name of the game is 'Island Survival'.

The audience who until now sat high above, laughing as they watched the debtors suffer, the participants who felt relief because they barely survived, and the staff who ran the game as well...

A game of surviving from the unidentified monster that wears bandages and a mask and keeps splitting more and more—for all of them equally, a real slaughter game begins.