Chapter 59

How a Regressor Conquers the Tower of Urban Legends

Chapter 59

I carefully stared at the paper in front of me.

[Your role is the second child.]

[Wait. The eldest child will make a choice for you.]

[The eldest child trusted you!]

[You must now complete what they could not.]

[You must continue what your older sibling, Mother, and Father failed to accomplish.]

[The photographer has already taken the family portrait and is in the process of delivering it.]

[You may choose.]

[You may save the youngest child, risk yourself to survive, or risk yourself in an attempt to save the entire family.]

[If you wish to live, do not open the door.]

[The family portrait will arrive.]

[Take the family portrait and have your picture taken.]

[If, instead, you wish to save the others, open the door and go to the photo studio.]

[Find your family's photograph and destroy it.]

[To reach the photo studio, leave the house and go downstairs.]

[Find the correct photograph.]

[Only by destroying the photograph can your family be restored.]

[If you fail, the family portrait will arrive at the house, and the youngest child will take the final photograph.]

"..."

What a malicious setup.

It was deliberately encouraging people to abandon everyone else and choose their own survival.

Why force someone to make this kind of choice?

This was twisted.

I narrowed my eyes at the paper.

Something about it felt deeply wrong.

How many people would actually choose to save the others?

Probably not many.

Most would make the selfish choice and survive.

So why was this even necessary?

What did the photographer want?

What was it hoping to accomplish with something this insane?

It almost felt as though the photographer intentionally wanted at least one person to survive.

Or maybe it simply wanted to watch people make these choices.

"This feels like something made by a creature that understands people far too well."

Until now, I'd tried not to judge these things by human standards.

But this was different.

It was so deliberately human that it felt unnatural.

There was no harm in being cautious.

Anyway...

"..."

I had to go.

If I'd known this would happen, I would've asked the mascot to hand over its items beforehand.

It had several useful things.

Especially the camera.

With that thought, I opened the door.

Thud!

Something collapsed immediately.

A heavy mass fell over me.

I carefully looked down.

A large, soft mascot body filled my vision.

"...Damn it."

I slowly lowered the thing that had fallen against me.

The mascot's head was gone.

Black smoke leaked from the severed neck.

At the same moment—

THUD.

Several objects fell to the floor.

"..."

Objects?

I looked down.

"You stupid mascot..."

It must have been holding them tightly.

The Mannequin's Hand and the camera lay intact on the floor.

It could have used them itself.

Why bother preserving them like this?

"Haah..."

I let out a quiet sigh, hung the camera around my neck, and gripped the Mannequin's Hand in one hand.

"All right."

Let's go.

I carefully moved forward.

The narrow passage led toward the living room.

The moment I stepped inside, the metallic stench of blood hit me again.

"Ugh..."

I instinctively covered my nose and frowned.

I knew I had no choice but to pass through the living room if I wanted to reach the front door, but...

"..."

I really hadn't wanted to see this again.

Had everyone else seen the same sight?

Or...

I closed my eyes briefly, opened them again, and continued toward the entrance.

Clunk.

When I opened the door, bleak weather greeted me outside.

"...Haah."

I carefully looked toward the elevator.

As expected, its doors were closed.

Not that I planned on taking it.

I didn't even know what kind of elevator it was.

And more importantly...

"I need to be careful with checkpoints."

If I updated my checkpoint here, I'd only create more problems for myself.

I opened the stairwell door beside the elevator and slowly started descending.

The moment I entered, pitch-black darkness greeted me.

"..."

I carefully checked the floor number using the light from my smartphone.

I was currently on the eighth floor.

The warning beside the apartment had said people who jumped outside would fall endlessly.

So what kind of structure was this building supposed to have?

I kept descending carefully.

From here on, I had no information at all.

Something could kill me at any moment.

Or something far stranger than death could happen.

"..."

Nothing happened all the way down to the third floor.

"...This almost makes me more nervous."

I'd been bracing myself for some disaster.

Instead, I was just descending the stairs while ridiculously tense.

"...No. Not yet."

Right.

I still didn't know.

Something could happen at any moment.

There was no harm in staying cautious.

I continued downward even more carefully.

"..."

And nothing happened all the way to the first floor.

I was glad.

But somehow, I also felt strangely drained.

I exhaled deeply and opened the door.

A shabby corridor appeared.

A worn-out sign hung crookedly nearby, most of its letters peeling away.

—Apartment Building 1, Filled with Happiness and Love—

I cautiously stepped outside and looked around.

Nothing unusual.

Except for the thick fog.

Fog...

Or maybe...

"..."

Should I call it alive?

It was clearly fog.

Yet instead of thinking, The fog is thick, my first impression was that something living was wandering through this place.

"Haah."

I took a deep breath and carefully walked forward through the mist.

There was only one visible path anyway.

Almost as if I had no other choice.

Every other route was covered in such dense fog that I couldn't even see through it.

I could probably enter if I really wanted to...

But it would likely count as offstage.

So there was no reason to.

After visiting offstage areas several times, I'd learned one thing.

If I could avoid them, I should.

Offstage was full of things that could kill me.

I kept walking along the path.

After a while...

"..."

A photo studio appeared ahead.

Why was there suddenly a photo studio in the middle of a foggy path?

At this point, I'd seen too many strange things to question every detail.

I carefully looked up at the sign.

—Photo Studio Filled with Love and Happiness—

Why was everything here so obsessed with love and happiness?

I opened the door while staying tense enough to avoid dying to some hidden trap.

Ding-a-ling!

An old-fashioned bell rang overhead, the kind you'd hear in a shop from decades ago.

"..."

Stay calm.

Nothing had happened yet.

First, understand the location.

It was an ordinary photo studio.

Well...

"Ordinary" might not be the right word.

It looked like one of those old studios you only saw in dramas.

There were two main areas.

One was an open space for taking photographs.

Exactly what you'd expect.

A single camera.

An artificial backdrop positioned behind where customers would pose.

And then there was one tightly closed door marked as a workroom.

Let's inspect the open area first.

Countless photographs covered a large desk.

In the middle sat a camera that looked quite expensive.

I didn't know much about cameras.

Someone who did probably would've found it impressive.

Anyway.

"..."

I held my breath and started moving through the studio.

The photographer might be here.

Then my eyes landed on the family portraits hanging on the wall.

There were countless family photographs.

The problem was...

"Ugh..."

Nausea surged up again.

Every portrait showed headless corpses standing together like a happy family.

Only one person in each photo remained alive, posing with a forced smile.

So whenever a family portrait was completed, exactly one person survived.

And my job was to find the photograph belonging to my assigned family and destroy it.

"...Haah."

Honestly, finding it shouldn't be difficult.

Not for me.

"Mascot... mascot..."

There couldn't be many family photographs with the mascot in them.

The pictures hanging on the wall were already fully developed.

That meant they belonged to families where the survivor had already left.

So mine probably wasn't among them.

Which meant the place I needed to go was...

"Haah..."

I stared at the sign marked [Workroom] and swallowed another sigh.

Then I carefully approached.

I cracked the door open.

Fortunately, it wasn't locked.

I slipped inside.

This time, the interior resembled the darkroom from Floor 9.

The only real difference was that the lights were on.

"Photo... photo..."

I immediately started searching.

It didn't take long to find it.

Though this family photograph looked a little different from the one I'd seen earlier.

Maybe because it wasn't finished yet.

Two people were missing from the picture.

Probably me and whoever would become the youngest child.

I sighed internally and carefully started to leave.

Then—

Ding-a-ling!

The bell rang beyond the door.

Someone had entered.

"...!"

I immediately crouched and hid.

Who was it?

I should've been the only participant currently clearing this floor.

Had the youngest child arrived?

No.

The youngest child shouldn't be able to wake up unless I failed.

Then...

BZZZZZT...!

At the same moment, my phone began vibrating.

I answered immediately.

"Hel—"

<Quiet!>

The caller barked so sharply that I clamped my mouth shut.

He continued.

<Do not speak. The only reason that thing hasn't noticed you yet is because of what you ate in the cafeteria earlier.>

"..."

The buckwheat noodles?

They'd said the effect made me harder to find.

So without that, I would've already been discovered.

<Just listen to me.>

"..."

<If the thing outside notices you, kill yourself immediately. Remember that. If you fail to kill yourself, you will suffer so badly you'll end up begging to die.>

"..."

<First, the thing outside is the photographer.>

The caller spoke unusually fast.

He sounded genuinely tense.

<I don't know why it came here, but...>

"..."

While listening to his anxious voice, I looked down.

There was one possible way out of this situation.

I carefully raised the Mannequin's Hand.

Maybe this could work.

The Mannequin's Hand.

It granted wishes.

But always in some bizarre, dangerous way.

That was why I'd avoided using it unless necessary.

What should I wish for?

As I hesitated, the caller interrupted my thoughts.

<There's no other choice.>

What?

<Press the Mannequin's Hand against the phone.>

"?"

<I'll make the wish.>

"???"