Bailonz Street 13-Chapter 211.1
The monster’s fingers, wrapped in black gloves, moved as if sweeping upward.
With that smooth movement, all the basement buttons in the elevator lit up.
The new employees stared blankly at the sight.
Now.
What did it just do?
“Ca, cancel! Ca…”
Too late.
The elevator moved a single floor in the blink of an eye.
Ding.
[This is the Twelfth Basement Floor.]
The elevator doors opened, completely unguarded.
What had happened here just hours ago flashed through like a memory.
– Uuuuuh…… Huuhp.
– W-What is this…?
When the elevator had gone to Basement Floor 12 to complete a ‘mission’, it had returned without a single employee, only a pool of red blood spread across the floor…
[The doors are opening.]
And now, in the glow from the elevator, the dark hallway of Basement Floor 12 dimly revealed itself. The new employees held their breath.
“……”
“……”
But there was not a single drop of blood in the hallway. Unlike inside the elevator.
“Haah.”
Before they could instinctively feel relief, something odd caught their eyes. Oily dirt-like substances were piled up on the floor, stuck in the cracks of the elevator.
‘Dirt…?’
Looking for the source, they lifted their heads.
They saw lumps scattered through the corridor like landmarks.
Lumps that seemed weathered with time.
But on closer inspection, eyes accustomed to the darkness could distinguish their silhouettes.
An ankle near the ankle bone, an ear and part of a temple, a right shoulder blade…
Fragments of human bodies, left colorless like mannequins.
“Hiiiee…”
Mmpf.
The new employee clamped a hand over his mouth. To keep any sound from escaping.
He must not make any noise.
Because, at the end of his gaze, he saw something huge.
Something standing in the dark corridor.
It, too, was wearing a uniform.
A Security Team uniform, just like the horned monster in this elevator was wearing. Neat and unaltered, a perfectly human silhouette. As if a bored Security Team member was standing there absentmindedly. But…
Its head was a scarecrow’s.
A face, awkwardly drawn in fresh blood, on a roughly made, straw-stuffed, empty sack.
……
From somewhere, a song could be heard.
All day long, standing tall
Angry Mister Scarecrow
It faintly echoed through the hallway.
Chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp, the children are scared
The birds scatter away
Hahahahaha, be careful
The hat might fly off
Plop.
A drop of blood, caught in the scarecrow’s awkward eye, fell from the tip of a piece of straw.
All day long, standing tall
But since when…
Angry Mister Scarecrow
…Had its head been turned this way?
“……”
Gulp.
The new employees froze.
The scarecrow had certainly not moved. But…
Why had it changed?
Why was it now one door closer than before?
Why was it even closer again?
Why had it raised its left hand made of straw?
Why was there a grass-cutting sickle in its grasp?
Why was its face…
“AAAAAAAGH!”
At that moment, the doors of another elevator opened with a burst of light and screams.
“…!”
Other people. Clearly others, who were here for their own missions, could be heard stumbling out of the elevator into this hallway.
“W-What is that!”
Seeing the scarecrow and the body fragments on the corridor floor right in front of them, they screamed.
……
All day long, standing tall
Kind Mister Scarecrow
Why is the scarecrow standing with its head turned?
“Hiiiaaak!”
“Close it! Close it!”
“N-No! Run…”
Too late.
And as the new employee who had been watching in a daze realized—
Yes. The chance to escape.
“Hieek!”
This is the moment. While it’s not looking over here, quick, quick! The new employee desperately reached for the close button…
But, he was blocked by a black-gloved hand.
“……!”
Those bizarre horns sprouting everywhere, the yellow lamp-like eyes behind the gas mask.
The Security Team officer from Room 666 on Basement Floor 13, blocking the close button, didn’t even look at him.
It just stared blankly out of the elevator. From its gas mask, thick black smoke poured out and pooled at its feet.
Fwoooo…
Then, drifting low like a mist, the smoke crept toward Basement Floor 12.
Toward the scarecrow.
Hahahahaha, be careful
The hat might fly off
All day long, standing tall
Kind……
Whoosh.
The smoke surged up, covering the scarecrow.
“!!”
The sound was swallowed, thick and heavy.
The scarecrow’s figure was hidden by a shroud of dense, pitch-black smoke. And underneath…
A new sound.
Cr-cr-cr-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack
A bizarre noise echoed down the hallway.
The new employees held their breath, gasping, as they listened.
The scarecrow’s form, now blacked out by smoke, wasn’t even visible as a shadow.
Only the sound remained.
Only the ruthless, rending noise could be heard.
Crunchcrunchcrunch.
It sounded like horns or bones breaking, or like something being ground together, or forcibly crammed or swallowed somewhere.
And then a wailing, as if begging, could be heard.
The sound of someone pleading and trying to escape was mixed with the tremendous noise… And soon, with a final, strangled gasp, it disappeared.
The moment silence returned.
“……”
“……”
At last, the black smoke dispersed again.
The scarecrow, which had been hidden by the smoke, reappeared in the hallway—
“…Huh?”
A corpse.
The new employees blinked.
But what remained unchanged was the blood-soaked corpse, its entire body crushed and lying on the floor.
Blood dripped from the scarecrow’s makeshift features onto the ground.
Plop.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
“Aagh!!”
The space filled with screams. But the one in the gas mask inhaled all the smoke again with a single breath. One new employee recoiled in horror, crawling into a corner of the elevator.
[The doors are closing.]
Meanwhile, from the next elevator came the sound of someone frantically smashing buttons without even taking a breath, and the doors closed.
“O-Over there!”
The other new employees were escaping safely.
At the same time, the black smoke that had surged through the Basement Floor 12 hallway now cleanly pooled at the floor of this elevator.
“Hiieek!”
“Wait!”
As he tried desperately to avoid the smoke, someone grabbed his shoulder.
His coworker named Jang Heowoon. He whispered urgently.
“Don’t get on its bad side.”
“…!!”
“That smoke hasn’t covered our heads yet… Calm down, let’s calm down.”
He was right.
The smoke was quietly pooling on the elevator floor.
“Huff, huuuff…”
The new employee swallowed, catching his breath, and grabbed the elevator handrail.
[The doors are closing.]
And thus, they left 12BF.
He desperately looked away from the corpse that would be just beyond the elevator doors, but just before the doors closed, he thought he saw it staggering to its feet again…
Like a scarecrow.
“Huuuuh.”
He swallowed with a groan.
But the intense impression of what he had just seen didn’t leave him.
A bizarre being.
And the smoke that had turned that bizarre being into a corpse.
Suddenly, he realized something shocking.
‘…We survived.’
Everyone had survived.
His legs shook with relief.
At the same time, another thought crossed his mind.
‘Wait.’
Then maybe that strange, horned Security Team member from Room 666 was actually helping people escape via the elevator…?
‘Wait, if that’s true…’
Yes. Maybe there was nothing to be afraid of. Maybe it was fine! Unable to bear being trapped in an elevator with something so horrific, he tried to rationalize it, turning his head.
“Uh, excuse me…”
He made eye contact with the Security Team member.
However.
“Tha…nk……”
Had its arm always been that… melted?
The Security Team member’s arm was abnormally long. And strange… there were too many feet. Its melting lower half swelled and warped across the elevator floor, mixed with the smoke.
And it had thirty-seven eyes.
All the eyes stared at him, unblinking.
“Uh, uuuuuu…”
What is that?
That thing, what is it?
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Chapter 211.1
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