Chapter 83.
I’m screwed.
I don’t know who it was, but someone let out a voice so refreshing it felt like my insides were completely cleared out.
Now that my insides have been thoroughly cleared out…
The vivid image of living, murderous toys tearing off our limbs and swinging them around like playthings flashed before my eyes.
‘Those bastards from the Agency… They’re nothing but trouble till the end.’
But…
From here on out, it’s their own damn fault.
I have no reason to help them.
Now that I’ve found the sleepy owner of this ghost story, my business here is done.
My gaze turned toward our first teddy bear.
“Go to the third one and tell him it’s okay to come back now… And as for the other guys there, can you just scare them a little and then come back?”
Thud!
With a crisp salute from the first teddy bear, made entirely of sharp edges.
Pat-pat-pat-pat!
The first teddy bear trotted off toward the direction of the Agency bastards, its tiny footsteps adorable.
‘This should be enough.’
If they’re just scared enough, they’ll probably return to the Agency on their own.
This settles it.
I’ve done all I can.
Now, the only thing left…
Is climbing this enormous tower.
Left alone atop the massive pile of bedding, I roughly estimated the tower’s height with my eyes.
‘…It’s tall.’
Unbelievably so.
At this height, there’s no way an ordinary person could climb it on their own.
Under normal circumstances, it might’ve been better to wait for our three teddy bears to return.
But.
Screeeak!
The sharp sound of rusted metal scraped against my eardrums.
‘No way those bastards are gonna wait.’
Screeeeak!
Screeeeeak!
Screeeak!
The dissonant, unpleasant metallic noises didn’t seem to come from just one source.
From where Park Yeon-jeong stood, the screeching echoed from all directions.
Screeeak.
It sounded like it was getting closer.
The source of that sharp noise…
Was the sound of the murderous toy army moving.
And the reason they woke up… Well, duh.
It’s all because of those Agency bastards.
Originally, I planned to wait leisurely for the teddy bears to return.
But given the situation…
I couldn’t just sit around anymore.
If I idly waited for the three teddy bears to come back…
I might end up with a limbs-severed ending.
Those murderous toys might just decide to use my arms and legs for playtime.
There’s already a precedent for that.
———
/The Dream of Toys
Employee Lee Nak-hyun searched everywhere for the rookie employee who had been deployed with him but had gone missing.
Screeeeak!
Following the strange metallic noise, he eventually found the rookie.
Screeeak!
Screek!
His limbs had been torn off by the murderous toys.
The toys were holding his arms and legs… playing a game that resembled sword fighting.
———
When I was a kid,
I used to pick up fallen branches from the ground and play around with them.
But…
No sane person would ever want someone else to pick up their arms and legs and swing them around like toys.
Rustle!
I immediately rummaged through my employee’s ID case.
The moment my fingers brushed against a particular texture inside.
I pulled it out.
What emerged into the world was…
A plain white mask with a rather dumb-looking expression.
The item’s name was as follows:
-Mass-Produced Hero.
I never thought I’d have to use this item so soon.
Of course, I wanted to test its performance as quickly as possible, but…
I didn’t expect that day to come this fast.
———=
/Item List
Mass-Produced Hero
(A hope that will break someday.)
Haven’t you ever had that thought?
“I want to be a hero who saves everyone!”
A useless, childish…
Foolish delusion.
That childish fantasy.
I’ll make it come true.
So, become our hero.
[Become my… ‘little hero’.]
When used: You become a hero. / Prolonged wear causes extreme hunger.
An item imbued with a child’s deep wish from a war-torn country.
(But they say the line between a hero and a villain is razor-thin.)
———=
As the description states,
Prolonged use is marked as causing ‘extreme hunger’.
And I know exactly what ‘extreme hunger’ entails.
To sate that hunger…
The atrocities committed by those who wore this item.
How dangerous this item truly is.
That’s why.
You must never wear it for more than a minute.
The fastest recorded case of abnormal symptoms appearing was exactly one minute after wearing it.
So, as long as you don’t wear this mask for more than a minute, you’re safe.
With a tower of bedding this tall, I was confident I could reach the top in a single leap—no more than ten seconds needed.
This mask was that powerful.
It all depends on how you use it.
My gaze fell on the white mask.
After a short breath, I gently pressed it against my face, the part where my glasses rested.
Fsssh!
With a scattering of golden dust, the mask lost its form and vanished into thin air.
[You have been designated as ‘Little Hero’.]
A stiff, robotic voice brushed past my ears, and the dumb expression from the white mask was now etched onto my cheeks.
This should do it.
But even so, I didn’t feel any special physical changes.
The only thing I noticed was…
My body felt a little lighter.
After a brief stretch, I tried a small jump in place.
Boing.
…Huh?
A sensation of momentarily defying gravity enveloped me, as if the wind itself was caressing my entire body.
The texture of the air against my skin changed, and as all the giant toys before me seemed to shrink.
I realized…
I had just jumped high enough to see the very top of the bedding pile in a straight vertical line.
This mask…
Is insane!!
For a moment, I couldn’t even comprehend where I was.
With just a single light jump, I had already glimpsed the peak of the tower I needed to reach.
But what followed after my brief experience of weightlessness…
Was the inevitable law of physics.
Whoosh!
!
Right now, I.
I was falling toward the ground at a considerably fast speed.
“W-wait a minute!”
Jumping powerfully in place was fine, but…
‘What about landing?!’
Flailing my arms and feeling the rapid pull of gravity bringing me closer to the ground, I had no choice but to trust my legs.
‘Please, just don’t let me die!’
The moment the soles of my feet touched the ground.
Lightly.
…Huh?
There was no intense impact transmitted through my feet.
Contrary to my worries, there was absolutely no damage from landing at such a high altitude.
My legs were perfectly fine, so much so that it was almost unbelievable.
In fact, it was so unbelievable that I began to question whether I had really just landed from that height.
While I was still dazed by what had just happened.
…Oh no.
‘Time!’
I don’t have time to stand here marveling.
I don’t have much time left.
It must have already been well over 10 seconds since I put on this ‘Mass-Produced Hero’ mask.
I’ve confirmed its performance, so now I just need to reach the target point, the top of the bedding tower in one go.
Taking another short, deep breath like before, I steadied myself and prepared to jump.
Flash!
…Light?
‘What’s with that light?’
A flickering glint caught my eye from a considerable distance away.
When I saw a handful of light streaks soaring high into the sky, I initially thought it was a distress signal sent by the Agency’s guys.
That’s exactly what it looked like, at least until that handful of light split apart in all directions.
The scattered beams rapidly extended in every direction, cutting through the air in bizarre trajectories as if targeting something specific.
And then.
Boom!
A deafening explosion tore through my eardrums.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
In an instant, countless explosions pierced the air, reverberating throughout the entire space.
I didn’t see it with my own eyes, but I could roughly guess that those countless light beams had flown toward something.
The explosions sounded like something massive,like a giant machine being shattered.
So those light streaks must have annihilated every murderous toy in this place in an instant.
And then.
Flash!
A streak of light grazed past the cheek of a man who had been standing dumbfounded amid the chaos.
Crash!
Accompanied by an ear-splitting roar, a single phrase appeared before his eyes:
『Lucky Day』
!!
‘Lucky Day’
The black text appeared right in front of me.
And suddenly, too.
“…….”
My stiffened gaze slowly turned toward the impact point where the light had grazed past my cheek.
Even though it had only been a small glimmer, the spot where the light had passed was now marked by a bottomless black pit.
…….
The sudden activation of ‘Lucky Day.’
And the light that had just brushed past my cheek.
No further explanation was needed, the current situation said it all.
If that light hadn’t hit the ground…
It would’ve been my head.
A loud voice echoed throughout the space.
“Huh? H-how did you dodge that?”
The voice was distant.
A woman’s voice, sounding slightly annoyed, brushed past my ears.
I swallowed dryly, dozens of times over.
Even though I didn’t want to believe it, I couldn’t deny what I had just witnessed.
A dazzling flash of light,
And the overwhelming firepower capable of annihilating every murderous toy in this place in an instant.
The only possibility that came to mind was…
That the Agency had deployed a new combatant, due to the current ghost story.
And not just any combatant
One of the Agency’s strongest forces.
A Department Head.
And I knew exactly who this was, someone wielding an absurdly powerful mass-destruction item.
Among the Department Head operatives, only a few possessed such overwhelming firepower.
—Team Z’s Seo Eun-bom, Department head.
That woman was here… right now.
There was no need to ask why.
The reason a Department head had been deployed to a place like this, where only C-grade threats existed,was painfully simple.
The ‘permanent elimination’ of a ghost, a disaster in human form.
To kill me, who had recently been designated as an S-grade.
Seo Eun-Bom was sent here.
And she was making it blatantly obvious.
She was trying to kill me.
Now, more than ever, I had no time to waste.
If I hesitated, a neat hole would be blown straight through my head.
‘Damn it!’
I immediately steadied myself and leaped toward the summit of the tower.
The moment I landed at my target point.
Flash!
‘Let me catch my breath!’
Another bright streak of light shot up beyond the ceiling.
At the same time, my eyes caught sight of a child with sheep-like horns, fast asleep atop the tower of bedding, completely unfazed by the chaos.
Looking at the kid, who remained asleep despite all the noise, I wasted no time pulling out my quill pen.
『Valid material identified.』
Got it!
Was it because the target was in a defenseless sleeping state?
What a relief.
Because of that, the process of sealing this ghost into the quill pen went smoothly.
But,
The real problem… starts now.
Earlier, the scattered beams of light had targeted every murderous toy in this space.
Now, they were converging into a single attack, speeding straight toward me.
If I took that hit head-on…
I’d die on the spot.
I’d be erased without a trace.
So please.
Just this once…
‘Just this once, work properly!’
I thrust the quill pen I had just used forward.
Drip.
Black ink weakly dripped from its tip, and a single phrase appeared before my eyes:
【The child… just loved toys, that’s all.】
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