Chapter 92 – Masquerade Party (6)

Gyosu’s plan was simple.

For now, he was going to follow the scenario and guide Old Picture to the last stage.

In that process, even if they somehow seamlessly executed the scenario, because of the nature of the script, Old Picture was definitely going to explode at some point.

Gyosu’s group just had to be on the watch for when that was going to happen to find the right time to leave and watch the model garden and Executive Department fall into chaos and destruction together from afar. The only dangerous part about this plan was that there was the possibility the stage setup was poorly made and—

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Peeeeew!

“Was what I thought!”

“Gyosu! What the hell’s happening? Did they tell you that this was going to happen?!”

“Do you think they would have? Those damned motherf—ers! I know it’s for the realism of the play, but this is a little too much!”

The group had been crossing the street without much trouble with the massive monster and its puppets by repeatedly taking cover and moving forward, but with the sudden change of events, they had hidden in a nearby alleyway and raised their voices.

The opponent, which had been doing a good job with the play using blank shots, started to use actual bullets.

“Hepburn! We ended a little rough with the Executive Department back there; they might just be trying to kill us! The guy seemed to dislike the fact that you were alive based on that!”

“You’re right! Even I would rather kill a pawn that has a grudge against the allies—!”

Baanggg!

Cr-rumbleeee!

“S**t! Instead of keeping them alive! And they have a lot to take from us when we die too! Lots of weapons, and that key too!”

“Then what about the play? This project has the political life of the Executive Department on the line; it’s weird that they’d ruin the entire thing just to get rid of a few dangerous factors! Look! None of the bullets are going near that building-sized monster, so it means that they don’t plan to end the act just yet! It’s probably just a little overly realistic setting! They’re shooting at the buildings right now, but if we go out, they’ll try to avoid…”

Spt-pew!

Bang! C-c-clang—

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“This… is just an act? Huh!! Simo Häyhä would get up from his grave and applaud if it was! This is most definitely 58000% an aimed shot! Those guys are trying to kill us! It’s not the time to twiddle our thumbs and continue this play!”

Looking at a bullet piercing the helmet on the gun that Ian had carefully stretched out, Gyosu was unable to continue what he was saying.

‘They’re clearly trying to kill us. And the opponent is well-trained too. Their shots are pinpoint accurate, but they’re only using mortars to destroy the nearby buildings, probably because they don’t want to mess with Old Picture.’

They don’t plan to end the play. But they’re still trying to kill the main character.

“Ah.”

Suddenly remembering something, Gyosu immediately pulled out the ‘script’ from his uniform.

Flap… flap…

=====

#2 The main character’s squad jumps in front of the civilian family and saves them. The father of the family gains trust from the soldier’s actions.

#3 The group makes it through the shower of bullets and heads to the escape point. The soldiers comfort the family in the foreign situation and safely arrive at the escape point.

#4 End of act. Act accordingly to the situation.

=====

That was all that the directions said. The rest was an explanation of where the mortars were going to hit, locations for cover, and how to treat Old Picture.

‘Shake their hands. Jump in front of them to save them. Comfort… The overall flow of the play makes it look like the soldiers are willing to sacrifice themselves for their families. Making them feel trust with the sacrificial actions, then killing those people in front of it? That sort of simplistic and stupid method won’t make it willing to comply with orders at all. They couldn’t be dumb enough to not know that this plan will fail! I can’t understand. How exactly are they planning to tame….’

Thunk.

At that moment, a shiver passed through his entire body.

When one cannot understand one case in front of them, it is because of their carelessness. It means that they missed a clue somewhere. But if one cannot understand the entire situation and context, then one must return to the start. Because it means that the premise itself is wrong.

‘It’s a living organism, able to comprehend its surroundings, and is somewhat controllable….. Doesn’t that mean it’s possible to train it as well?’

‘Hahahah! This was all that the people in the Dome have been talking about. This is going to be the official occasion that brings that massive monster, Area 47’s celebrity, into the Dome’s control!’

“Hah, hahahahahah…”

When he thought about what they said, a laugh of despondence left his mouth.

Break down the assumptions built on top of the received information and look only at the facts placed in front of him.

‘The Executive Department is an ally, hostile, and is attempting to use or dispose of us.’

‘They are trying to do something using Old Picture.’

‘The Executive Department is one of the core organizations in the Dome. There’s no way they would be alive if they were dumb.’

‘And those people showed them an obviously dumb plan and a dumb director.’

‘As a result, the allies who judged that the simple plan was going to fail followed their guide and stood in front of Old Picture, who would go berserk if they went even 10 meters forward, with guns shooting at them without any weapon to defend themselves.’

Why didn’t he realize it? Even though he already knew that they were hostile opponents. Why did he judge the situation based on the information the enemy gave him?

“F—k. We got tricked.”

“Why? Did you figure something out?”

“Yeah. Roughly. These damned bastards. No wonder it was so loosely planned out.”

The information he believed was true disappeared into thin air like dust, and the truth hidden beneath was revealed. The actual real, massive plan where the dumb, big plan to tame Old Picture was merely a pawn.

To believe even a portion of what a man using an alias said. It was my mistake.

“Haaah—”

He couldn’t help but sigh, but he decided that it was at least a relief that he realized it now. They did stupidly lean their throat out to the knife, but the knife hasn’t dug into their skin just yet. They still had some time to act.

First, he needed to confirm if this new assumption was true.

“Do either of you have something that can be used to check outside? Looking at the situation, it looks like we’re going to get shot when we peek out the corner.”

“Nope.”

“Me too. The bayonets are non-reflective, so they can’t be used either.”

“Mmm… oh well then. Wait here for a moment.”

“What are you going to do this time….? Hey! Where are you going?”

Dodging Ian’s blocking hand and walking out of the alleyway, Gyosu used all of his strength to roll forward.

Pew!

P-p-p-p-pt!

The moment his body was exposed, bullets shot into the ground around him and caused dust to rise. But the shots that had once been aimed to kill Gyosu completely stopped the moment he ran about halfway through the road.

“I knew it. It wasn’t that they no longer needed to continue the act, but the characters’ death itself was part of the act.”

Old Picture had hidden the three mannequins inside the alleyway with them, but its main body was out in the middle of the street. And Gyosu, who was standing out in the open in front of the main body, looked up and saw the enemy lined up in the windows and roofs of buildings, almost as if they wanted him to see them. For some reason, the enemy was wearing the uniforms of the Dome’s army. They even brought a useless flag with the Dome’s mark on it, and behind that, he could also see something similar to the silvery Exosuits. Seeing that there wasn’t anyone in them, they must be some sort of model duplicate.

‘The three-way intersection with a five-story commercial building. They’re located exactly at the borderline, at the end of its walking route.’

He was familiar with the location they were positioned in. In the past, when he had participated in the play for his mistake, the Investigation Bureau who came out to direct the situation had drawn a big red line on the map, the critical point.

‘No matter what happens, you should not bring it past this place.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because its memories cut off here.’

‘What happens when its memory gets cut off?’

‘What happens to a sleepwalker when they wake up?’

“They open their eyes and will see themselves standing in this foreign area.”

Normally, Old Picture would suddenly become agitated once it got to the borderline but would calm down after seeing the street that was identical to its memories, then return to its home, the house that the host and his family lived in, to go to sleep. But when it woke up to see that the street looked different from its memory, then it went berserk and made its territory, the entire model garden, its kill zone.

‘That endpoint is where the past memories of the host and the current memories it has as Old Picture interchange. Since Type 3s are living creatures, they are bound to have memories that they accepted as Old Picture which are separate from their host.’

He corrected his judgment that this was a sloppy plan. It was pretty intricate. Old Picture was similar to a woman that has been broken after losing their child. A life of despair and denial, hugging its dead child in their arms, murmuring that this wasn’t real, that it didn’t happen.

The enemy’s objective was to give Old Picture a new goal instead of continuously wandering around in its memories and denying the truth.

Its memory getting cut off meant that the host’s life had also ended there. Since its family also met the same fate, they’re trying to recreate a similar situation and a person it trusts that will die in front of them in order to overlap the memory, then turn the mourning into anger and engrave the opponent it needs to pour that anger onto inside its head.

‘The head of the armed forces, the Executive Department, which has been fated for political doom. It’s obvious that they’re going to pay for all of the things they have done the moment they lose their power. In order to survive, it’s one way to reestablish their political position, but there’s an easier, clearer, and more beneficial way for them.’

At some point, the shower of bullets from the enemy stopped entirely. They also knew. That they couldn’t stay there all day. They would be exposed to the attacks if they came out, but if they stayed there, it would clash with Old Picture’s objective to get all the way to the end of the street and make it go berserk. If that happened, then they would need to come out onto the streets anyway.

Pa-pat!

“You crazy bastard! How, in your right mind, did you think it was a good idea to run out into an open field without any protection?”

“And you just stood there like a sitting duck! Right out in the open at that! I thought you got a panic attack and just ran out to die! You f—ing idiot! Retard!”

When he returned to the flower bed where his group was, his two friends warmly greeted him.

“No, they won’t shoot. According to their plan, we have to die a bit dramatically. We need to get shot in the head instead of the panicking Old Picture, or something along those lines.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Did the plot of the play change or something?”

“Nope, it just means things got a loooot more complicated and simpler.”

Gyosu pointed at the crowd of people in Dome uniforms, aiming at them.

“Those guys, I think they’re from Raptor.”

“What? Where did Raptor come from all of a sudden?”

“I mean that this clown show of trying to tame Old Picture was just a part of a massive play.”

Gyosu giggled as he spoke as if he had let go of something in his mind.

“They played us well, that’s for sure. This isn’t just some little show to get a few more votes. The Executive Department betrayed the Dome and is working together with the Raptors to completely overhaul Area 47!”

It felt like he was a small pebble caught up in a tsunami.

He did hear that the Raptors had been more active recently. The reason obviously had to do with the newly discovered underground bunker in Area 45. When the owner of the security key is decided, not long after, then Area 45 is going to become the Dome’s new city. Then that would mean that the Raptors would meet a complete wall when trying to approach surrounding areas near Area 45 from Areas 47, 43, and 45. From the perspective of the Raptors, who had to constantly go around looting, having this massive wall made it so they needed to go the long way around, and in a world where fuel went for a higher price than gold, that would lead to most lootings being losses unless it was a significantly good load. For the Raptors, who depend entirely on looting for survival, this was an incredible loss. That would naturally lead to the Raptors getting pushed back to the 30s Areas, so from the Raptor Society’s perspective, they needed to do everything they could to stop the Dome from conquering Area 43.

“The Executive Department was going to crash and fall if they didn’t do anything, and the Raptors were at risk of getting pushed to the Area 30s, where radioactive fog passes regularly. Their desperation must have made them get along.”

“But… it’s just a coincidence that we triggered that monster.”

“Did you forget? The Dome is in complete control of Area 47. Back then, you guys didn’t really wander around without a destination, right?”

“Mmm. Right. We were just planning to go on a drive and take a look around the place…”

Suddenly, the memories of that day passed through Ian’s mind. The scavenger group that had been blocking one side of a split road. Collapsed building debris blocking their way. An alleyway that had suspiciously dark lighting. To those who didn’t know the area, those were paths they wanted to avoid.

“…..We were directed? Me?”

“I told you. The guys from the Dome specialize in scamming. And this is especially their home ground. It wouldn’t have been even remotely difficult for the Executive Department’s troops to naturally lure a single car where they wanted.”

Since they could check my schedule just by looking at the stream, they probably targeted a time when I wasn’t there. They pulled BDSM, who has the key, in to trigger Old Picture. And when we came out to take responsibility, they threatened us into participating in a ridiculous plan. Because they planned to kill us anyway, there’s no need to think of the aftermath, so they used their strongest card for blackmail. And when all of the preparations were completed, they ‘killed the person that Old Picture comprehended as a close ally’ in order to make Old Picture think that the one that killed his precious people was the Dome. From then on, they would make Old Picture go completely out of control by attacking it, then it would flee to the Dome’s directions, and the Dome’s soldiers that came out to check what the commotion was about would be attacked by Old Picture.

‘Using that chaos as an opportunity, the Executive Property would attack from the inside, and Raptor’s special forces would come from the outside.’

It was, quite literally, all staged. A massive play with the entire Area 47 as the stage. They used the plan to tame Old Picture as a part of the play to trick everyone, including HIV, the Dome’s Investigation Bureau, and even the civilians.

“It means that Sanggook Lee and that Jack guy were all actors as well. They took a ridiculous hike around to hit everyone in the back of their head.”

He could say that they didn’t change at all. They were subtle, yet lethal. An operation with no way out once you’re in knee-deep.

Ziiiiiiing!

It was time. Looking at Old Picture’s main body gurgling again, the guy was going to go berserk if they dragged on the next action any longer.

“Damn it. They say that it’s the weak that suffer in a fight between powers. I wouldn’t have come to Area 47 if I knew this would happen.”

“Don’t act so innocent. In a way, we’re the ones that shoved a knife into their back in Area 45.”

“Well, I get the situation then. But what are we going to do now? Maybe if we run away while the monster is still in its illusion…”

“There’s no way those guys didn’t think of that possibility when the operation got this big. We’ll get riddled with bullets the moment we move. The reason we were kept alive until now is that Old Picture needs to see us die after it arrived at that critical point.”

“Then what are we supposed to do? You said that continuing with the story will just lead us to our deaths!”

“What do you mean what?”

Gyosu slowly raised his body and walked forward in order to get himself in a clear view of Old Picture.

“The play is still led by the actors. The key to this situation is this guy, right? Our show isn’t over just yet, and it says in the script that we’re supposed to finish up the ending.”

That reminded him, that Jack guy said something about how I could potentially use Old Picture to cause a terrorist attack or something. Oh, how much he would have been laughing at him internally. They were the ones that had actually been planning to do so. I must have looked ridiculously foolish to them, obediently following what they told me to do.

I would rather spit on my mother’s grave than let this pass. We’ve played along to them free of charge, so I want to make the finale go with my tastes.

“The Executive Department and Raptor buddies have done a good job making a relatively intricate plan, but just reading about the project that the others spent years on to create must have not been enough, because their understanding of the characters is a little too shallow.”

This plan was based on all of the behavior patterns of Old Picture. But there was one truth that didn’t get into the reports.

Why?

Why did he die? How, when, in what situation, and why exactly is it so sad? Why did the last memory the host held onto happen to be the image of him and his family walking down the street hand in hand?

Gyosu partially knew that reason. A few years ago, when the normal ‘play’ had just about ended, there was a single, small memory that the monster’s psycho-wave left as it returned home.

Gyosu tore off a small part of the t-shirt he wore inside the uniform, then handed it to the two others.

“Add some saliva to it and block your ears. Push them in deep enough to the point where it feels like it has reached your eardrums. I’m going to make an opening right now, and I’m probably going to faint doing it. So try and hold on somehow and carry me to our car.”

“What about the snipers?”

“They won’t be able to aim. Guys who learned it through words won’t be able to endure it. But just in case, Vex, you go clear up the alleyway towards 1 o’clock.”

“…..I’ll clear it up as best as possible.”

Within his playful tone, a certain tensity he couldn’t hide came out with it. After looking at Vex get further away, Ian grabbed onto Gyosu’s shoulder and quietly pushed the pieces of cloth into his ear.

“What percent?”

“…….About sixty percent.”

“And if you make it alive as well?”

“…Thirty percent.”

“F—ing bastard.”

Although his growling voice was clearly drowned in concern, Ian let go of his shoulder. He knew that Gyosu wasn’t going to tell him the plan or send someone instead of him even if he asked.

“I can’t guarantee that I can stop Vex if you die.”

“Try breaking his legs.”

“Nor do I plan to stop him.”

“…”

Tap.

As if he didn’t have anything more to say, Ian pushed Gyosu’s back.

“Go, you a gambler. I pray that the goddess back from the coin toss is still with you.”

“That’d definitely be reassuring.”

It was an odd feeling. Thirty percent. It meant that in seven out of ten chances, he was going to die. But looking at the bulky man who’s trying to light his cigarette while sniffling or the midget with the old face scanning the inside of the alleyway like a hawk made him have the weird thought that ‘This isn’t that bad.’

He really didn’t plan to die, but it was still an odd feeling.

“Oy, Mr. Dojin!”

That must have been why there was an odd confidence to Gyosu’s voice when he walked to the middle of the road and shouted to the monster.

There was a male mannequin that carefully peered out, tightly holding on to his family and the flesh that controlled them.

Gyosu smiled brightly at them and then pointed the gun’s muzzle to his chin.

“It’s been a fun ride, mister Dojin. I’ll let you go now, so make sure you don’t get lost!”

Creak… Creaaaak…

[What is that…]

Bang—!

At that moment, the trigger was pulled and fire shot out of the barrel.

The sound of the shot pierced through the bewildered question of the doll.

Thud.

Gyosu’s body collapsed like a stringless puppet in front of the mannequins.

[U…….h? Dead? Where did he…. ah… uh… aahhhhHHHH—!]

Gurgrgrgrle—

The doll’s body started shaking vigorously, and the mass of flesh bubbled up like boiling water.

Splt—!

It melted down into a formless liquid and seeped into the ground.

After confirming that the monster’s main body had disappeared, he slowly pulled his hands to his ears while maintaining his position. Even though it was just a blank, he still took the impact of the gunshot at point-blank distance. Although he did somewhat block the shot by pulling up the uniform collar, he couldn’t completely prevent his head from ringing.

Ziiiiiiiiing—

And a psycho-wave came up from the ground that shoved its way past that headache.

‘It looks like you guys wanted to increase the scale of the show… Well, let’s see if you’ll be smiling…. even after it gets too big to handle…’

Leaving a pile of shoes and the three mannequins behind, Old Picture completely submerged into the ground.

It wasn’t that he disappeared.

Rumbleeeeee—

Bang!

The convenience store behind them exploded, and the black, ash-like substance hidden within exposed itself.

Excluding this place, where Dojin Kim had died as a person, the entire street exploded as if a creature was breaking out of its shell, and from there, Old Picture’s hidden, real body revealed itself to the world.

‘Damn it… It’s gotten a lot bigger in the past few years…’

Once, when the Investigation Bureau triggered the monster in order to create this model garden. Once, when a dumb ‘actor’ continuously asked about its family and completely awoke it.

And, now…

The true body of Old Picture, which has only been out in the world three times since its creation, was the top half of a massive giant that was half melted down by the fire.

‘The monster’s Achilles’ heel isn’t just the fact that he lost his family. His trigger is a person ending their life in front of him, and the helplessness from his inability to stop them.’

“GRRRRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

K—voom!

A blood-curdling scream left the mouth of the monster that was the size of the model garden, and a massive psycho-wave shot through the entire region of Area 47.

‘Its trigger…… was my suicide…..! Argh! So its anger shouldn’t be…..direc—’

Thud!

Gyosu, who had been enduring the psycho-wave with every last bit of willpower he had failed to overcome the sound that was coming directly into his ear from the ground and lost consciousness.