TFN C51

Chapter 51

“Take these with you.”

Wonhyo held out a bundle of talismans to the team members preparing to depart.

“They’re household protection charms. As long as there are walls, you can use them anywhere. Place one outside the door, and the other against the inner wall.”

“Oh! Thank you.”

He handed them more besides—handfuls of salt.

Though it was nothing more than store-bought sea salt, they accepted it gratefully.

“And wait, just a moment.”

Wonhyo pulled paper from his inventory and sketched hurriedly with a brush pen.

“Normally, this requires a proper ritual. Without it, the effect is weaker, but it should still block possession. If someone’s already possessed, apply it directly. Two times? Perhaps three at most, it will hold.”

Though the talisman resembled little more than scribbles on a notepad, the deputy chuckled and accepted it reverently.

“I’ll put this to good use.”

“Thank you.”

The others, too, bowed without complaint or doubt.

Wonhyo, his brow furrowed as though bracing for criticism even after giving, found himself awkwardly acknowledged instead.

Once they had received what they needed, the team wasted no more words and dashed off in their appointed direction.

“Then let’s set out as well.”

Cheongmun, after rechecking the updated quest window, extended his hand to Wonhyo.

Puzzled, Wonhyo tilted his head—until a cube formed under Cheongmun’s feet.

Standing upon its translucent surface, Cheongmun beckoned.

“Take hold.”

“Uh… must I?”

“If you don’t, the speed will throw you off.”

Though reluctant, Wonhyo had chosen to follow; he could hardly shrink back now.

Screwing his eyes shut, he gingerly grasped the gloved fingers offered him. The cube expanded slightly, lifted into the air.

“We go.”

At once, the wind howled. Wonhyo’s hair whipped forward, his body pressed back by sudden acceleration.

The cube soared, not merely upward, but forward and rising like a jet.

When his body threatened to pitch away, Cheongmun tightened his grip, drawing him closer.

Wonhyo hunched instinctively against the hold at his wrist, clamping his eyes shut against the dizzying flight.

Once, he had believed his ties to Cheongmun little more than a chance entanglement of fate. Yet here he was, swept into the dungeon itself by that same bond. Could there truly be any lower ground left for him to fall?

Cheongmun cut straight toward the dungeon’s core.

With the illusions shattered, no further ambushes had waylaid them; aerial movement was unchallenged, swift.

He drew a sniper rifle from his inventory and snapped in a magazine.

No ghosts lurked here; ordinary rounds would suffice.

Holding Wonhyo by the wrist with one hand, while the latter clung nervously to his leg with the other, Cheongmun gauged the movement of figures far below.

Without even a scope, he calculated the distance, then pulled the trigger.

The silenced round struck—and a cube blossomed from it, large enough to envelop the survivors below.

Though startled, those trapped within quickly realized it was safer that way.

Cheongmun tallied their numbers. In an S-rank dungeon, where even holy barriers were infiltrated and monster swarms endured without faltering, survival had been slim.

From the fractured signs—scrap metal shops, factories, trading houses—he gauged the devastation. Five hundred meters had been swallowed whole. Food wholesalers and shuttered shopping centers alike bore witness to what had been dragged inside.

Fortune, if it could be called such, was that within ten kilometers of the Tower, no residential buildings were permitted. Few dwelled here. Otherwise, it would not have been a hundred victims, but two to three thousand.

Past lonely signs left behind by departed tenants, Cheongmun fired again, cube after cube to shield those who remained.

Then he raised his head. A black torrent surged skyward once more.

“What—?”

Wonhyo, who had been pressed flat in terror, opened his eyes at last and cried out, pointing below.

“The malevolent spirit is there!”

Cheongmun followed his finger, gaze falling upon a building he knew—once the residence of a suspect he had investigated.

It stood intact, as though plucked whole from reality and planted here, incongruous and wrong.

Lowering altitude, Cheongmun shifted course. Before they touched down, he thrust Wonhyo within the cube, thickening its walls.

Wonhyo’s expression, pressed and resentful, was noted but ignored. It was safer this way.

The cube settled at last a short distance from the building. Wonhyo staggered upright, legs trembling like a newborn calf’s.

His eyes fell upon the old structure, a tattered banner clinging to its face: “Latest-Model One-Room Studio Housing.”

Orange bricks bleached pale with time made mockery of the word latest.

Still, no one would dare remodel a residence inside a danger zone.

From within that decrepit facade seethed a suffocating aura of ghostly energy.

Reflexively, Wonhyo drew forth his ritual tools. He pressed a precious talisman—one of his secret reserves—into Cheongmun’s hand.

“Keep this with you.”

Then he shoved another to his own chest, and drew forth the mask.

It bore little explanation save that it unlocked the dance of the lion, yet instinct told him it must be donned.

Placing it over his face, he read the new notice.

『Mask of Hoya equipped. The aura of Demon-Breaking has been bestowed.』

With those words, his clothes transformed: his white jacket unfurled into flowing robes, sleeves wide as wings.

Wonhyo swept his arm through the air.

The flutter was strange but not hindering. Once, he had bound his sleeves tightly for ritual garb; these free-flowing folds felt almost alien.

Yet it was surely the work of Oh-Ho Janggun—the perfect boon at the perfect time.

“I’m ready.”

With the charm in Cheongmun’s hands, at least two waves of the spirit’s eruption could be withstood.

He swallowed hard.

Cheongmun dismissed the cube, took him by the arm, and set them upon firm ground.

Unlike the soil outside, this was solid concrete, dragged here with the building intact.

Cheongmun advanced first, laying his hand upon the glass door.

Mists of ghostly energy seeped like breath into the air.

Beneath his mask, Wonhyo shook his head.

The presence was like what he had seen before—only heavier, stronger, leveled-up.

Why a spirit’s power grew needed little reason: deeper grudges, greater malice.

And what grudge could be deeper than one who lingered even after death, still brawling in comment sections with the living?

If he caught it, he would drive it straight into Hell without pause.

He followed Cheongmun cautiously through the door.

The mask mercifully hid his face, sparing him the effort of composure.

Cheongmun climbed a step, then extended his hand backward.

“The space is warped. Best we remain linked.”

Wonhyo tilted his head, then silently offered his hand.

The moment his foot touched the stair, something swept across his whole body.

Blinking, he looked again.

What had been a concrete stairwell now cascaded with viscous black liquid, like a waterfall. The twisted steps merged into one endless ascent, stretching impossibly high.

Wonhyo shook his bell.

Cling… clang.

The sound rebounded, dull, from unseen corners. He slashed toward it with his sleeve, white cloth unfurling.

Ker-rrrk!

A shadow writhing beneath the black torrent fell, its neck severed unseen.

“…I’ll take point.”

“Side by side,” Cheongmun answered, flicking his fingers to block creeping hands with cubes as they climbed.

Together they ascended: Wonhyo dispelling phantoms, Cheongmun shielding them from other assaults.

At length, they reached the top.

A corridor stretched before them, straight and long, its floor awash with black liquid.

In its midst stood a single door.

Cheongmun strode swiftly across, laying cubes like stepping stones, until he reached it.

His hand touched the knob—only for Wonhyo to intercept, urgent.

“Not yet. Don’t open it.”

Cheongmun tilted his head.

“Do you sense malevolence?”

“The aura is everywhere. That’s not it. It’s this: in places held by spirits, you never cross a threshold unbidden. Without the master’s leave, you give it cause to cast you out—and strengthen its grip.”

Cheongmun clicked his tongue.

“The true master of this place is another. I already obtained his permission.”

“You did?”

Wonhyo quickly tucked away his ritual tools, drawing out a scrap of paper and pen.

“Then write it down—state that with the master’s permission, the Special Bureau enters. That way, we won’t cede it any claim.”