Chapter 32

The Regressor's Guide to Conquering the Urban Legend Tower

Chapter 32

The sound of something heavy being dragged echoed down the corridor.

"Let's hide."

"!"

The mascot nodded the moment it heard me.

We looked around together.

"...Here."

"!"

I found an empty room and quickly slipped inside with the mascot.

The dragging sound still echoed in my ears.

Right.

I'd known things wouldn't be this easy.

We hid in the corner of the room and stayed completely silent until whatever was making that sound passed by.

There was only one flickering incandescent bulb providing any light.

And in that dim room, there was only one thing I could see clearly.

Its shadow.

But seeing that shadow alone was enough to convince me.

We absolutely could not let it find us.

A shadow cast by light could give you a rough idea of how large the object making it was.

Of course, even someone from the liberal arts track like me knew that the size of a shadow changed depending on the object's position relative to the light.

But no one would look at a shadow stretched so impossibly long and think whatever cast it was the size of an ordinary human.

We waited until the dragging sound faded into the distance.

Only then did I cautiously lean out of the room.

"...Phew."

"..."

The mascot poked only its head out beside me.

"You'd lose if you fought something like that, right?"

"!"

It probably didn't remember, but this was the same mascot that had even fought a whale before.

Seeing it nod so naturally only strengthened my conviction.

We absolutely couldn't encounter that thing.

If things got really bad, I'd use the handgun.

With that thought, I stepped forward.

Splash!

"...?"

"?"

I felt something wet beneath my foot and looked down.

"...Yeah. We definitely can't run into that thing."

"!"

A long streak of blood stretched across the corridor floor.

As though something had been dragged along it.

"???"

Seeing it, the mascot pulled out the mannequin hand.

"No. It's not time to use that yet."

Using it would probably get the mascot killed, or leave it in a condition close enough to death that the difference wouldn't matter.

We should save it for when we truly needed it.

Besides, the call hadn't come yet.

I stopped the mascot from using the mannequin hand and looked ahead.

"Let's just keep moving without getting caught."

"!"

Our objective was to escape this place.

Not solve it.

With that in mind, we moved away from the bloodstain and continued down the corridor.

Walking with nothing but the faint, flickering incandescent bulbs to guide us was far from easy.

How long had we been moving?

"!!!!!"

"Oh."

I heard the rustle of paper.

The mascot picked up a yellowed sheet from the floor.

"Let me see."

"!"

It nodded and handed the paper over.

I quickly read what was written on it.

{Day 7}

{I spent the entire day hiding. How the hell am I supposed to move around with something like that wandering around? Isn't that basically the same as telling me to die?}

{Still, I have to see Mom. I have to keep going.}

{I've been walking through this corridor for a while, and I think it might be endless.}

{And something I can't identify keeps roaming around it.}

{I'm wondering if entering one of the rooms might be the right choice. I'm going to try going inside.}

{I don't know if anyone will ever read this...}

That was where this entry ended.

I turned toward the nearby rooms.

There was still blood on the floor.

"It says they thought they were walking in circles."

"...!"

It looked like the mascot had reached the same conclusion I had.

All right.

Then we had to try it.

I tightened my grip on the handgun hidden inside my clothes, then released it and approached one of the rooms.

[150. Something wanders the corridor dragging something behind it. Probably best not to encounter it.]

[150. The corridor doesn't seem to end, so I'm going to enter one of the rooms.]

After finishing my note, I cautiously stepped inside.

Cold air wrapped around my entire body.

And the moment I entered, I was hit by an overwhelming smell of disinfectant and formalin.

The odor was so strong it made my head ache.

"...What the hell."

It was too dark to see much of anything.

Yet the smell was unnecessarily intense.

Still, if anything, that gave me more confidence.

In my experience, the more ominous and unpleasant a place felt, the more likely it was that I was heading in the right direction.

The bigger problem was that it was so dark I could barely walk.

My smartphone had completely run out of battery after I left the sixth floor.

Fortunately, I still had one thing that could produce light.

I took out the old flip phone from my pocket and opened it.

A faint glow leaked from the screen, illuminating the surroundings.

"...It won't get angry, right?"

"!"

Well, I wasn't making a call or damaging the phone.

Surely using it as a makeshift flashlight was fine.

I raised the phone and illuminated the area around me.

"Ah. I wish I hadn't turned that on."

I regretted it immediately.

Square compartments roughly sixty centimeters across.

Cold-storage drawers with handles.

"So this is the morgue."

A chill ran down my spine.

I'd thought I'd become fairly accustomed to strange places by now.

But this place had a completely different kind of atmosphere.

"If anything jumps out, knock it down somehow."

"...!"

After a brief pause, the mascot forced itself to nod.

We continued through the morgue.

Occasionally, there were notes attached to the cold-storage compartments.

Could these contain information that might help us escape?

Thinking that, I leaned toward one of them.

[Morgue Compartment 3]

[Attempted escape by opening the board in Room 203. Failed.]

[Half of the body remaining after being used as food is currently stored.]

[The remaining half is to be used during the Great Famine.]

"..."

I suddenly had a good idea where the people who failed ended up.

If I had failed, I probably would have met the same fate.

Was it the same for the others?

I began checking the other notes.

[Morgue Compartment 7]

[Subdued by medical staff after violent resistance.]

[Shot self in the head with a concealed handgun during restraint and was transported here.]

[Several doctors were unable to endure their hunger and consumed portions during transport.]

[Remaining sections were successfully transplanted.]

[Morgue Compartment 19]

[Medical staff discovered subject hiding in extreme fear and transported them here.]

[Initially compliant, but after the first surgery, subject repeatedly self-harmed and attempted suicide. Restrained.]

[Second surgery involved severing tendons and tongue, followed by attachment of gills.]

[Subject died after the third surgery following several complications.]

[Morgue Compartment 29]

[Reduced dependence on water to study methods of surviving underwater while consuming less water.]

[Subject later complained of extreme thirst and pain before dying.]

I didn't open any of the compartments.

It would have been disrespectful to the people resting inside.

And I didn't particularly want to see what condition they were in either.

"Let's keep going."

"!"

We continued deeper inside.

Before long, I found another trace.

Thank goodness.

This was the only source of information in this place.

Without it, we'd truly be in trouble—

{Day 10}

{I came the wrong way.}

{I can't go back. Something is guarding the way behind me, and there are fish ahead.}

{I saw them and came back. No, I don't know if saying I "came back" is correct. I don't even know if those things should be called fish.}

{I still don't know what I saw. An aquarium? Does that even make sense? Why is there an aquarium in a place like this?}

{I should've just died in the isolation room.}

{I should've died without ever knowing any of this.}

{If someone reads this, I'm sorry. It feels like I've tricked you into coming here.}

{If you're capable of killing yourself, I hope you do. My body should be nearby, but you don't need to do anything with it.}

{I miss Mom.}

I quietly closed my eyes.

There was nothing I could do for them.

Besides...

"There's no body."

There wasn't even a corpse left.

The only thing I could do for someone who no longer existed here was pray that they rested in peace.

And now I had to face my own problem again.

"..."

According to the paper, this was the wrong path.

Meaning I'd also entered the wrong route.

"No."

I let out a deep breath and stepped forward.

Jumping through the window and surviving was certainly possible.

But after reading the notes in the morgue, I was convinced.

Jumping out of the window wasn't the proper escape route.

The medical staff knew about that route.

And if you failed the escape at the 70% chance, there was a high probability you'd be captured.

Then there was the monster roaming the corridor.

Something like that wouldn't simply wander around for no reason.

If it was guarding something, there had to be a reason.

So...

"Ugh. What's the point of thinking about this so much?"

The fact that I could return even if I died meant I could act with more confidence than anyone else.

Even if the process involved an enormous amount of pain.

The only thing I could do was move forward.

With that thought, I stepped ahead.

Scrrrape...

A dragging sound came from behind us.

No.

Calling it dragging wasn't quite right.

It was much rougher than that.

But it was more than enough to create a sense of urgency.

The mascot and I exchanged a quick glance, then immediately picked up our pace.

No.

It would be more accurate to say we started moving much faster.

"We need to go."

As always, the only thing we could do was run forward.

There was no going back.

Without wasting another moment thinking, the mascot and I ran.

As we raced through the cold morgue, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

The diary had mentioned fish.

And the notes in the morgue had said something similar.

Attaching gills.

Were they genuinely trying to build an aquarium?

I continued running with that thought in mind.

"..."

A strange fishy smell began entering my nose.

The peculiar odor you got around stagnant water.

The smell of water.

"..."

I kept running without letting my thoughts stop.

The isolation ward.

A lot of people misunderstood something about hospitals.

Patients weren't isolated because they were abnormal.

Isolation was used to protect the patient and prevent infection.

Of course, common sense might not apply in a place like this.

But according to ordinary medical knowledge, that was the reason.

If this hospital isolated its patients in order to protect them...

And attached gills to them for the same purpose...

Then what exactly was this hospital trying to protect its patients from?

The smell of stagnant water grew stronger.

I frowned deeply.

How long had we been running?

"Hah... Haaah..."

I breathed heavily and looked ahead.

"...It really exists."

The morgue hadn't even ended yet.

And yet, as though it naturally belonged there, an enormous glass tank stood before us.

Behind it was water glowing with a faint blue light.

And inside...

"..."

"..."

I think both the mascot and I were left speechless.

"People?"

People were swimming inside.

No.

I wasn't sure if I could even call them people anymore.

Some had human eyes, noses, and mouths attached to the bodies of fish.

Others had human bodies that breathed through gills, blindly smashing their heads against the glass again and again.

Could I really call those things human?

As I thought about that, I took a single step forward.

At once, countless people, or perhaps fish, turned to look at me.

As though they'd only just realized I was there.

Some began slamming their heads against the tank.

Others struck the glass walls with their fists.

Their mouths opened.

Streams of bubbles poured out.

I couldn't hear what they were saying.

But...

"..."

They were all repeating only one word.

Human.

Nothing else.