FLIA 47

The next day, Yoon Seungryong returned looking even more battered than before and stared at the two of them with cold, lifeless eyes as he muttered:

“Why does it feel like I’m the only one doing a bunch of pointless busywork?”

Yohan, who had been packing snow into a rough snowman while collecting water from the broken ice, glanced over nervously and quietly set down the wooden stick he was about to use as a nose. Lee Hyunmook picked it up and stuck it straight into the snowman’s face, ignoring Seungryong entirely. Filthy from head to toe, Seungryong let out a sigh.

“Team leader, are you seriously not going to help me at all?”

“Then who’s going to protect Yohan?”

“Well, that’s… true, but…”

Admitting defeat, Seungryong trudged off again. And the next day, when he saw the two of them relaxing with their feet in a foot bath, a skewer of grilled sparrow in one hand and shaved ice in the other, he finally exploded.

“Oh come on, this is too much! Move over!”

Whatever battle he’d had with Ju Hoyoung, Seungryong was a complete wreck as he shoved his way between them. Yohan apologized as he purified Seungryong’s body, covered in filthy mud and bodily fluids. Seungryong viciously bit into a sparrow skewer and glared at Lee Hyunmook.

“So while I’m out there suffering, the team leader has been here having a relaxing foot bath with Yohan? And when the hell did you even make all this?”

“There was plenty of water left after we gathered drinking water…”

Yohan awkwardly offered Seungryong a bowl of shaved ice as he explained. Ju Hoyoung had left ice and slick patches of frozen ground all over the city, so much that it could last them a whole year. So they’d decided to indulge in a bit of… luxury.

It hadn’t been hard to set up. They found a marble tub, buried it in the ground, filled it with hot water, laid down some mats nearby, and sat down, simple as that. Though Seungryong grumbled that he could enjoy stuff like this too, Lee Hyunmook didn’t even acknowledge the complaint.

“Ah, it’s nice and warm.”

Seungryong’s expression melted as he dipped his feet into the hot water after days of hardship. He looked like he’d fully given up on catching Ju Hoyoung. After thoroughly enjoying their outdoor foot bath, they headed back, only for Yohan’s eyes to widen.

“Oh no, the snowman!”

The snowman that had been perfectly fine before the bath had been completely smashed. It was obviously Ju Hoyoung’s doing. Yohan, looking heartbroken, picked up the stick nose from the ground. Watching him in silence, Lee Hyunmook finally spoke.

“Then I guess it’s time we go catch Hoyoung.”

“…Just to be clear, I didn’t lose out to a snowman, right?”

Yoon Seungryong muttered in disbelief. Back when he’d been desperately asking for help, they hadn’t even flinched. But now that Yohan’s snowman had been destroyed, they were suddenly ready to go hunt Ju Hoyoung?

***

Since he was too fast to catch anyway, Lee Hyunmook suggested they head to Ju Hoyoung’s base instead. Upon hearing this, Seungryong made a face like he’d bitten into something sour.

“You knew where his base was this whole time? Then what the hell was all my suffering for?”

“Maybe just some completely meaningless, useless suffering?”

Lee Hyunmook said it in the gentlest voice possible, and a vein popped on Seungryong’s forehead. But in the end, he only let out a deep sigh. Ju Hoyoung was too afraid of Hyunmook to approach him, and Yohan stuck close to Hyunmook, which meant Seungryong had been the only one caught in the crossfire. Feeling guilty, Yohan focused on purifying him even more diligently.

“So where is his base?”

“I don’t actually know.”

Before Seungryong could commit full-blown insubordination over that casual answer, Hyunmook calmly added,

“But once we see it, we’ll know.”

And sure enough, he was right. They packed up their gear and followed the ice-covered areas around the city, searching for Ju Hoyoung’s hideout. And then they found it, a bizarre and grotesque structure. Just as Hyunmook said, it was impossible not to recognize it.

“Wait… is this a theme park?”

Centered around one building, a bunch of structures resembling amusement park rides were scattered around. But they were far from normal.

The first thing they noticed was what looked like a roller coaster, makeshift rails, seemingly ripped from somewhere, laid out one after another. A few shopping carts from a grocery store had been placed on the rails, angled steeply down from the rooftop. That dangerously high-speed contraption was actually the most normal of the attractions.

Elsewhere, monsters had been locked in cages like a zoo exhibit, but most of them were dried-up husks. A merry-go-round–like ride had monsters tied to it with leashes, turning in a jerky, irregular motion as it squealed hideously. There were also cable cars rigged up with wires and steel frames, rooftop swings that required a death wish to board, and even a concession stand, which, instead of snacks, displayed grotesque blobs of unidentifiable organic matter.

They were still taking in the deranged theme park that Ju Hoyoung had painstakingly assembled over what must have been years when Lee Hyunmook suddenly drew his spear and swung.

Kaang! With a sharp sound, an arrow that had flown silently toward them was knocked out of the air and slammed into the ground.

“Eek!”

Yohan belatedly jumped and looked around in a panic. He couldn’t even figure out where the arrow had come from, there was no sign of Ju Hoyoung anywhere. Sticking close to Lee Hyunmook, Yohan stayed on high alert. Only then did he remember: unlike Hyunmook or Seungryong, Ju Hoyoung used a bow as his weapon. And bows had overwhelming range.

“Looks like Hoyoung’s giving us a warm welcome, huh?”

Grinning, Yoon Seungryong stepped forward confidently. After getting nothing but grief from Ju Hoyoung over the past few days, he’d built up a serious grudge.

—GET OUT!

With Ju Hoyoung’s furious scream, a rain of arrows poured down from the sky. It was hard to believe it was the work of just one person. Only when he saw the arrowheads smeared in thick black filth did Yohan finally understand why Seungryong kept coming back looking like such a wreck.

“Cowardly bastard! You think you can accomplish anything with crap like this?!”

Batting arrows away, Seungryong charged forward. Furious that someone had dared to enter his domain, Ju Hoyoung focused his attacks entirely on him. Meanwhile, Yohan moved closer to the building under Lee Hyunmook’s protection. Only once they got that close did Ju Hoyoung start shooting at them too, but it was no use. Just as Seungryong had said, they couldn’t hit Ju Hoyoung from here, but he couldn’t touch them either.

“Wow! We made it inside!”

Yohan dashed into the building and exhaled the breath he’d been holding. While marveling at the way Hyunmook batted away each arrow with near-acrobatic spearwork, Seungryong entered behind him. He casually yanked out two arrows lodged in his shoulder and back, tossed them aside, and looked around.

“This lunatic. Looks like he’s been living like this the whole time.”

As light flickered on inside the building, Yohan flinched. Dozens of creepy eyes were staring right at him. Spooked, he took a step back, only to bump his head into a solid chest. Hyunmook gently wrapped his arms around Yohan’s shoulders and chest.

“Look closely, Yohan-ah. These are just statues.”

“S-Statues?”

Snapping out of it at Hyunmook’s words, Yohan looked again, and realized they weren’t alive. They were roughly humanoid, but warped and mutated into grotesque shapes from corruption. He let out a sigh of relief and frowned.

“They’re not just statues, though. What are they called again…? Not mannequins… something to do with comics…”

Seungryong swaggered over and tapped one of the little humanoid figures crouched on a shelf with his finger.

“Figurines?”

“Ah! That’s it, figurines!”

“Hoyoung’s always had a thing for these. He wasn’t into pervy stuff before, but I guess he developed some new tastes down here.”

At that moment, Yohan flinched again. He had the odd feeling that the figurines’ eyes were following him. Thinking it couldn’t be, he leaned in for a closer look, only for one of the eyeballs to suddenly roll and meet his gaze.

“Ahh! It moved!”

“Whoa, you’re right. There’s something inside this one. Looks like he carved out the eye sockets on purpose.”

When Seungryong picked one up and broke it, something pale and slug-like with bulging eyes wriggled out. Just watching it was enough to make Yohan feel like he’d faint. Shivering so hard he looked ready to cling, he edged up against Hyunmook, who gently patted his back.

“Yohan, you scare easily.”

His voice sounded oddly pleased. Yohan hesitated. He didn’t want to come across as a coward in front of Hyunmook, but at the same time, being this close felt nice. After a short moment of deliberation, he decided to just use fear as an excuse and cling to Hyunmook’s side as much as he wanted.

Though, honestly, it really was scary. From earlier, he’d felt like the gaze boring into him wasn’t from the figurines but from Ju Hoyoung himself…

Ju Hoyoung had filled the entire building with figurines. On top of that, there were rusting, decaying arcade machines, all kinds of toys, and piles of random junk. It looked like he’d scoured every building in the city and hoarded every toy he could find. The sight stirred something bitter in Yohan’s chest, like the pity he’d felt when he saw Seungryong, emaciated and sick with hunger, drinking from that filthy, reeking swamp.

“So we’ve found his base, great. But now what?”

Seungryong was turning over a figurine frozen in a screaming pose when the sound of grinding teeth echoed from somewhere. No, it wasn’t just in his head. It was real. Yohan hunched his shoulders and looked around.

“My guess is Hoyoung’s corrupted enhancement has manifested as an obsession with these things.”

As Hyunmook spoke, he flicked his fingers.

BZZZZZT! With a violent crackle, Ju Hoyoung’s terrifying, gloomy collection was instantly obliterated in a blast of sparks. And the moment it shattered, an eerie shriek rang out. Ju Hoyoung, who had been hiding and watching all along, finally appeared,.