I Became the Hidden Mastermind

026 – There’s Space Behind the Pillar #3

026 – There’s Space Behind the Pillar #3

“Is it okay?”

I asked Jung-seok as if I were a researcher conducting an experiment.

Jung-seok also nodded as he observed Yang Ju-hee inside the elevator.

“It seems okay for now. What are you going to do, Ha Young-won? Are you going to go into that elevator too? There’s no guarantee that the fourth-floor space where your mother is and this elevator are related.”

As expected.

There was no guarantee that the place where our mother disappeared and the fourth floor that this elevator would take us to were the same location, as Jeong-seok had said.

But I couldn’t just sit still.

“Seok-ah, you said it yourself. Even if we reduce the probability of this perfume being discovered by the anomalies from 99 percent to 1 percent, as long as it’s not zero percent, there is still a possibility.”

“That’s true, but…”

“There’s also no guarantee that the fourth floor this elevator is talking about is the same space where our mother disappeared. The opposite is also true.”

What are the chances that our mother disappeared into the space of this elevator?

90 percent?

1 percent?

The important thing was that, no matter what the percentage, I had to rely on that possibility.

Being called a fatherless child was already hard to adapt to, and if my mother disappeared too, I would truly be no different from an orphan.

“I’m going. Seok-ah, I won’t force you to come with me.”

Entering that elevator was like entering a lion’s den.

It might be even more dangerous and bizarre than that.

My life could be at risk.

That’s why I didn’t insist that Jeong-seok come with me.

“Hoo… Hoo… Hoo… Hoo…”

Jeong-seok took a few deep breaths.

He slapped his cheeks with both hands and said to me.

“Just tell me honestly. Ask for help. If you ask for help, I will help you. We made a promise. And to be honest, I’m also personally interested. I’m going too. Inside there.”

“F*ck, help me! I’m really scared!”

I was deeply moved as I watched Jungseok trying to face the crisis, and my true feelings burst out of my lips.

“I want to live too! Let’s go together! Together!”

Honestly, I didn’t want to go into that elevator.

But I had to save my mom.

If I had to go, then…

I wanted to go with my friends rather than going alone!

Even though it felt like being led to death by a water ghost, it was better to have others with me than to go alone!

Click-.

Jungseok and I entered the elevator.

Yang Ju-hee, who had been watching this drama inside, spoke to me and Jungseok.

“Ugh, cowards. You can barely get into the elevator, why are you talking so much?”

…No.

In this case, maybe Yang Ju-hee is actually too nonchalant and fearless.

Can a person be so brave?

For Yang Ju-hee to get scared, it might have to be something like “The Nightmare Corridor.”

“There’s really only the 4th floor. Just in case, let’s keep pressing the open button.”

Jungseok looked around and said.

Except for the open and close buttons, all the buttons in the elevator were covered with the number “4.”

There were about 100 of those switches.

On every floor from the 1st to the 100th, all the numbers were written as 4 on items that should have different numbers, making it eerie.

“What is this? What could it mean?”

I asked Yang Ju-hee and Jung-seok about the elevator covered with 4s before pressing the button.

Based on the experiences of bizarre incidents I had encountered so far, even the smallest details could be clues or hints to the solution.

Yang Ju-hee said, “I don’t know!”

She seemed genuinely clueless.

Despite being a top student, Yang Ju-hee excelled in academics, not in dealing with situations like this.

Then, what about Jung-seok?

“Seok-ah, do you think there’s any significance to this?”

“In East Asia, like Korea, there are times when the number 4 is omitted in elevators. It’s because the number 4, represented by the Chinese character for death (死), evokes thoughts of death.”

“Oh.”

“So sometimes, they represent the 4th floor as ‘F,’ or something similar. Although this tendency has diminished a bit now, it was quite common in the 90s and early 2000s.”

Jung-seok was staring at his phone.

He seemed to be reciting information he had searched for on his phone.

For now, it probably meant that the phone was working normally inside the elevator.

Swoosh-.

At that moment, someone entered the villa.

It was the manager of Taekwang Villa, the ajumma who lived in the front unit.

The ajumma expressed anger as she looked at the scattered papers and tape in front of the elevator.

“Ugh, what on earth is all this! Who would leave this trash here! Don’t take the elevator. Where even is the elevator? They should install CCTV! Seriously!”

“……”

I and Jungseok were bewildered by the situation.

Only Yang Joo-hee bravely voiced the current situation out loud.

“Can’t she see us? The elevator door is open. Hey, lady! Lady!”

The manager ajumma on the 4th floor acted as if she couldn’t see us, with the entrance wide open on the 1st floor and the elevator inside, even when Yang Joo-hee shouted loudly.

Soon, Jungseok muttered quietly.

“Maybe….”

Is there some clue to grasp onto!

When I wanted to ask what was going on, the guy explained in a whisper.

“Anyway, in the elevator, the 4th floor means death in Chinese characters. It means death for all the floors in this elevator. It’s a complete death elevator.”

The elevator of death.

We were currently inside it.

Guys, let’s just get off.

In less than 10 seconds, the words from above repeatedly rose up to the throat and came back down.

Swoosh-.

At that moment, Yang Joo-hee moved her hand and pressed the 4th floor.

I, Jungseok, and everyone were surprised by this bold and reckless action.

In Jungseok’s case, he even frowned, showing anger.

“Hey! You shouldn’t act so recklessly! If you behave so recklessly and carelessly, we might actually die!”

“Then what are we supposed to do? Are we just going to keep pressing the open button here forever? We won’t know exactly what’s inside until we go to the 4th floor!”

Both Jeongseok’s opinion and Yang Ju-hee’s opinion were correct.

In fact, Yang Ju-hee continued to assert her opinion.

“Mom has been trapped in a strange elevator. Is there a law that says our family members or even Mom shouldn’t become the elevator? What if the elevator keeps appearing to people around us and causing them to disappear?”

“That… There’s no guarantee that will happen… But there’s also no guarantee that it won’t…”

“I can’t bear to see even our mom and dad disappear again.”

Yang Ju-hee was a friend who personally experienced the collapse of her family due to the disappearance of her sister, Yang Do-hee. It seemed unbearable to think that the elevator that eats people might target her family.

“Maybe my sister is on the 4th floor. I’m going. If you’re scared, you guys can go down now. I’m going to press the close button in 5 seconds. Counting from now. 5-. 4-.”

Yang Ju-hee started a death countdown towards 4 (死), and Jeongseok and I looked at each other. We had a lot to say to each other, but Jeongseok was the first to move his hand.

Swish-.

He pressed the close button with his outstretched hand.

“f*ck. Let’s go. Let’s go.”

His voice was trembling.

Sure, he was the son of a market owner and smart enough to dream of becoming a prosecutor, but he was still a first-year high school student.

We all felt the same.

We weren’t children to rely solely on adults’ protection, but we weren’t adults either. We were friends of that ambiguous age.

Honestly, we were scared and frightened.

But even in such a situation, how much strength we gave each other by being together…!

# # #

Ding-dong-.

4th floor, arrived before we knew it.

“The door is opening.”

Swoosh-.

As the elevator door opened, there was nothing but pitch-black darkness beyond.

Jeongseok asked,

“Youngwon, what does the advice function say?”

Lately, I had been saving the advice function as much as possible.

I had preserved it for use only in crucial moments.

“Advice.”

『Advice from “Broken Clock”: Where there is an entrance, there is also an exit.』

It was a simple advice.

But the brightness of hope contained in the sentence was quite bright.

“It means that if there is an entrance, there must be a way out if we enter this place.”

“Hey, Hayoungwon, look at this.”

Yang Juhee pointed to the floor panel with her long finger.

Under the number “4,” the words “Exceeding Capacity” were visible.

It was the same composition as the photo Mom took.

“Other than the open and close buttons, nothing else works.”

I snapped back to attention at Jeongseok’s words as he surveyed the elevator.

Now, there were only two choices left for us.

“Our choices are two. To stay in this elevator or to go outside.”

“I’ll go first.”

Hoo-.

After taking a small deep breath, Yang Ju-hee stretched her legs into the darkness.

Na and Jung-seok cautiously observed Yang Ju-hee, and after confirming that there were no issues, they followed her slowly.

“The door is closing.”

The elevator door closed.

As the light emanating from the square box disappeared, “4th floor” was completely engulfed in darkness.

This darkness clung to the skin like sticky fluid.

When thinking that it felt somewhat familiar, a dazzling light struck the face.

It was Jung-seok who took out his phone.

“It’s out of the service area. Moreover, the phone screen is completely shattered. The time is strange, and the operation itself doesn’t work. How about your phones?”

Both Yang Ju-hee and I took out our phones.

Like Jung-seok’s, our phones were also out of the service area, and the text was shattered.

A feeling of being broken.

Uwaaah-.

Chichichichichik-.

At that moment, a dreadful noise came from our phones.

It sounded like a deliberately malfunctioning radio emitting an unpleasant buzzing.

Everyone was bewildered.

Clatter, clink. Clatter. Polygon-.

Beyond that dark corridor, something akin to a presence was felt.

A person?

Could it be Mom?

Jeongseok and Yang Ju-hee said,

“There seems to be something coming from there.”

“Isn’t it Youngwon’s mom? The sound, it’s like the click of high heels.”

As I considered shouting loudly, I felt a ominous premonition. Our mom wasn’t someone who wore high heels.

Our mom preferred sneakers and low-heeled shoes.

─ The phone was dead, and unsettling sounds kept coming out, so I threw it away.

It was a moment when the story of Jung So-jin I had heard in the nightmare corridor came to mind.

This darkness, and the sensed presence in the distance, were not unfamiliar to me.

“Hey. Let’s look for lockers or boxes around here. Quickly! It seems like something is coming! We should get out of here! We need to find a place to hide! There must be one! Like a box or locker! Drop the phone!”

I pushed Jeongseok and Yang Ju-hee forward.

And incredibly, we found a large trash can big enough for the three of us to enter.

It was a high-capacity trash can that seemed like it would be placed at a corner of a big street.

As we struggled to enter, we saw amulets attached inside.

When I thought my nose would twist due to the foul smell of trash-.

Clank, clink, clank-. Clatter. Clatter.

Making sounds as if joints and bones were unnaturally bending and colliding, something passed by outside the trash can where we were hiding.

“What… what is that?”

“Shh. Stay calm. Keep quiet.”

In that moment, I realized.

The death floor.

This place was a nightmare intertwined with reality.