Chapter 105
The day came to an end, and all the guides at Wind Cave had finished their work.
Just as everyone, worn out from the day’s labor, was waiting for the final report…
“Kim Sang-gyu! Kim Sang-gyu!”
“Haa, what’s got him so pissed off today?”
The booming voice of the PR department head—no, the Ulleungdo branch manager now—shouting from outside the dormitory irritated the guides.
But the moment the branch manager stepped inside, they all bowed their heads with bright smiles, as if they had never been annoyed in the first place.
“What can we do for you, sir?”
“Where’s Kim Sang-gyu!”
“Guide Kim isn’t here right now.”
“Kim Sang-gyu! Kim Sang-gyu!”
As if he had swallowed a train whistle, the branch manager’s thunderous bellow, a habit from his days as department head, instantly hardened the expressions of everyone who heard it.
Thump!
After searching the entire dormitory and still failing to find Guide Kim Sang-gyu, the branch manager’s irritated gaze landed on the guide nearest him.
“I asked where Kim Sang-gyu went!”
“Guide Kim isn’t here.”
“Well! You should’ve said that sooner!”
For a moment, such intense irritation surged through the guides that they had to fight to keep their expressions under control.
But none of them were foolish enough to show it.
“I’m sorry. But may I ask why you’re looking for him?”
“There were eight complaints this time! Eight!”
“Pardon…?”
One or two complaints could be dismissed as difficult customers, but eight was far more than anyone had expected.
The guides exchanged looks, then asked with startled expressions,
“How did he get that many?”
“I’m telling you! He was babbling about seeing ghosts during the tour, then just disappeared! Left the tourists right in front of Wind Cave!”
A guide’s job included not only finishing the tour but also escorting the tourists back to the bus.
Most tourists didn’t know the way back on their own.
So for him to vanish without doing his job.
Anyone could see that Kim Sang-gyu was in the wrong.
“Find Kim Sang-gyu right now!”
“I’m sorry, sir. We don’t know where he is either. We waited a full twenty minutes for him at the bus back to the dorms, but he never showed up, so we left without him.”
“What? He didn’t even get on the bus?”
“No, sir. He’s not the type to run away. Maybe something happened recently that really affected him mentally? Anyway, we’re still trying to call him.”
“I-Is that so? Ahem.”
As if his conscience had been pricked, the branch manager cleared his throat and avoided the guides’ eyes.
But this was still the branch manager.
His guilt lasted only a moment.
As if a good idea had suddenly come to him, his expression brightened, and he shouted at all the guides.
“Returning to the dormitory is part of the job too, isn’t it!”
“That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Forget returning to the dormitory, he abandoned the tourists and disappeared. From the company’s standpoint, this is a huge loss, and from the employee’s standpoint, this goes beyond negligence. It’s abandonment of duty, wouldn’t you say?”
Ever since becoming branch manager, even the way he talked had started to change.
But since what he was saying was true, all the guides nodded.
The branch manager paused for a moment, then spoke with a sigh, as if he had made a difficult decision.
“I’ve thought about it carefully… with all the complaints and now this incident, Kim Sang-gyu… I’ll have to fire him.”
“What!?”
It seemed no one had expected the word fired.
The startled guides shook their heads and spoke up.
“But still, he’s worked here a long time and worked hard. Firing him is a bit…”
“Enough! I’ve been patient enough! Anyway! Just pass on the message. It would’ve been nice to tell him in person, but since he’s not here, send him a text.”
“Come on, sir, let’s just wait a little longer. He’ll probably show up soon. Notifying him of termination by text of all things is…”
“Do you want to get fired too?”
At the branch manager’s sharp words, the guide immediately shut his mouth.
“Then it’s settled. Kim Sang-gyu’s guide schedule for tomorrow will be divided among everyone here. Understood!”
Slam!
The furious branch manager slammed the door shut and stormed out of the dormitory.
Once he was gone, the guides began venting their anger at the innocent floor and walls.
“Seriously, how can he just fire him like that?”
“Ah, we’re so screwed…”
“The good days are over. Shit, it’s gonna be hell starting tomorrow.”
“Of all people, why did he have to fire Guide Kim… Ah, we’re seriously screwed.”
“Should I just quit too? Fuck.”
Amid the guides’ outburst, a new guide who had been quietly watching the whole time asked with curiosity,
“Why? Was he good at his job?”
Silence fell all at once.
All the senior guides stared at the bewildered rookie.
“Good at his job, my ass. You’d better watch yourself too. If you get on the branch manager’s bad side, you’ll end up just like Guide Kim.”
“Huh?”
“Can’t you tell from how we avoid Guide Kim? The order to ostracize him came from that branch manager. He threatened to give us nothing but shitty clients if we stayed friendly with him.”
“What? Did he do something wrong to the branch manager? Why the hell…”
“He didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, he did too well. The truth is, Wind Cave’s success was all Guide Kim’s idea.”
All the guides nodded in agreement.
But soon anger flared again, and one of them ran a hand wildly through his hair and said,
“More importantly, ah, we’re really screwed. You’re screwed too.”
“Because the workload’s going to increase?”
“It’s not just that the workload increased, it’s… prepare to be mentally destroyed.”
“Pardon?”
“The hordes of middle-aged ladies and gents… all those shitty, difficult customers… they’re all getting dumped on us now.”
“Whaat? I came here because I heard it was all young people…”
“You actually believed that? It used to be all young people. Because Guide Kim took on everything else. Who here saw what happened to Guide Kim today?”
Most of the guides raised their hands.
“You saw it, right? Fucking hell, who could endure that? Married women with kids trying to sleep with a guide, grabbing his ass, grabbing his chest. Wow… I really don’t think I could put up with that…”
“Exactly. I honestly thought Guide Kim was a living Buddha. He even smiled through it all and matched their energy, even if he wasn’t actually playing along.”
“Guide Kim is a Buddha. He’s cleaned up all the customer shit by himself up to now without a single complaint. And that’s not all. The PR department head… no, the branch manager, stole all his ideas to get promoted, and look at him, not saying a word. He’s either the reincarnation of Buddha or a complete idiot.”
“Pfft!”
At the word idiot, the guides burst out laughing.
It was at that exact moment.
Click.
The dormitory door, which no one had expected to open, suddenly swung inward, and Kim Sang-gyu appeared.
“Guide Kim…? Oh! Guide Kim!”
Seeing Kim Sang-gyu drenched from head to toe even though it wasn’t raining, most of the guides shot to their feet in surprise and rushed over.
“Are you okay? What happened? What the hell is going on?”
Shivering with a blank expression, Kim Sang-gyu sniffled and bowed ninety degrees.
“I’m sorry. You must have been really worried.”
Seeing Kim Sang-gyu acting no differently from usual, many of the guides let out sighs of relief.
Then a few of them, unable to hold back, let out awkward laughs.
“Ah, don’t get us wrong. It’s not like we weren’t worried about you.”
“Right, right. What happened? Tell us.”
Kim Sang-gyu, who had been looking down, suddenly examined his own hands.
He simply stared at them in silence, making the others tilt their heads in confusion.
Then, a moment later,
“He said I could do anything….”
“Huh?”
“He said with this power… they wouldn’t bother me anymore….”
“I can’t hear you. Speak a little louder.”
“E-Everyone would be happy… and at ease… he said…”
It was then.
Kim Sang-gyu snapped his head up, and his eyes looked strange.
In the center of his pitch-black irises, his pupils were glowing blue, making all the guides recoil.
“G-Guide Kim? Wh-What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“I can’t live like this anymore. I’m going to try it. I want to see whether things really change.”
Kim Sang-gyu began walking toward the guides as they backed away.
The closer he got, the more some of them stumbled and fell to the floor.
Then he stretched out a hand toward them, and from his palm, a Blue-Glow Insect shot out and flew straight into the mouth of the guide standing closest.
“Ugh! Blech! Uwaaack!”
At the sudden chaos, all the guides froze in terror.
“Guide Kim! Wh-What was that!”
“W-Wasn’t that a Blue-Glow Insect just now?”
They could do nothing but tremble, their eyes darting back and forth between the strange Kim Sang-gyu and the guide who was vomiting and dry-heaving.
“Uwaaaack! Uwaaaack!”
The man, who had been vomiting nonstop, collapsed on the spot with a twisted expression of pain.
With anxious eyes and dark blue pupils, Kim Sang-gyu stared at the convulsing guide, his fists clenched tight.
“He said to stay still… that once the shaking stops… he’ll become someone who listens to me well…”
“G-Guide Kim…”
As they watched Kim Sang-gyu stare only at the collapsed guide, mumbling in a slurred voice like a man who had come loose at the screws, one of the guides began thinking quickly.
Very slowly and silently, he scanned his surroundings.
Then he grabbed a nearby baseball bat.
Seeing that, the other guides also started looking around for anything they could use as weapons to protect themselves.
One by one, the guides armed themselves.
With trembling eyes, they all glared at Kim Sang-gyu.
A deadly silence filled the room, broken only by the thrashing of the convulsing man.
Crack!
The sharp sound of the baseball bat smashing into Kim Sang-gyu’s head shattered that silence.
The blow, swung with lethal intent, snapped Kim Sang-gyu’s head backward and sent his body crashing to the floor.
“Get him! Kill him!”
Seizing the chance, the guides surrounded the fallen Kim Sang-gyu and began beating him with everything they had, using whatever weapons were in their hands.
Thwack! Thwack-thwack-thwack!
“Die! Die!!”
They beat him with the baseball bat, drove a chair into his stomach, and even used a heavy award plaque to crush his legs.
And finally, with a kitchen knife brought from the kitchen,
Stab-stab-stab-stab!
One of them seized the knife and stabbed Kim Sang-gyu’s body over and over like a madman, sending blood spurting everywhere.
And so…
as if possessed, they kept swinging their weapons again and again, not caring whether he died or not.
“You son of a bitch! We were nice to you, and you thought you could walk all over us, you fucker!?”
“You psycho bastard! Good thing you got fired! Die! Just die!”
It was only when they finally grew tired and began lowering their weapons one by one, panting raggedly, that it stopped.
Thud.
Kim Sang-gyu’s body was in such a state that it would have been stranger for him to be alive than dead.
Before long, he stopped moving completely.
And at the same time, the convulsions of the other guide came to a stop as well.
“Hoo… hoo… hoo…”
Inside the dormitory, now soaked in red blood,
“H-Hic!”
As if whatever had possessed them had finally left, they saw their blood-soaked hands and the state of the room and staggered backward one by one.
Only then did they realize what they had done.
“Hey… Hey! Kim Sang-gyu…”
One of them, his voice shaking, nudged Kim Sang-gyu’s collapsed body with his foot.
But Kim Sang-gyu really did seem dead, his body flopping limply like a puppet with its strings cut. The guides fell into complete panic.
“Ah, wh-what do we do…”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!! You son of a bitch!”
“Because of one fucking idiot… Ah… what do we do… Mom…”
The guilt of having killed someone pushed them all to the brink.
They frantically wiped the blood splattered across their faces and shrank from the pools of blood on the floor as if they were poison.
“I-I can’t. We… we have to report this.”
Thankfully, among them, the new guide seemed to have come to his senses first. He pulled out his phone, about to call the police.
At that very moment—
Jolt.
Kim Sang-gyu, whom they had all thought was dead, sat upright.
“Haa! Thank god! Thank god!”
“A-An ambulance! Call an ambulance! Not the police, an ambulance!”
Everyone let out sighs of relief, praying desperately to a god they didn’t even believe in.
It was at that exact moment.
“Was I fired?”
At Kim Sang-gyu’s question, the guides hurriedly patted him on the back.
“Are you okay? Is that what’s important right now! Are you okay?”
“It’s important. Was I… fired?”
No matter how many times he asked, the guides didn’t seem to hear him.
Overwhelmed by relief that they had not actually killed a man, some of them even started crying.
“So I was fired….”
As if being fired was the only thing that mattered in this situation, Kim Sang-gyu’s head drooped limply.
Sssk.
It was then.
A man rose behind the guides.
Startled by the sudden shadow, several of them glanced back.
And were met by another pair of dark blue eyes.
“Wh-What. Guide Jang, you… why are you…”
It was the guide whose convulsions had stopped. He had gotten back up, his eyes the same dark blue as Kim Sang-gyu’s.
“Ah, it was real. It’s real….”
At some point, Kim Sang-gyu had raised his head and was now looking at the standing Guide Jang.
Then, with an expression of pure joy, he spoke to Guide Jang.
“Are you alright?”
And then, in a voice so polite it was hard to believe it belonged to the always snappish and sharp-tongued Guide Jang, came the reply.
“I am fine. Those wounds… did those people do that to you?”
“Yes, they did, but they apologized to me. It’s all okay.”
“Just give the order. I… I will do anything for you.”
“Really? Just hearing you say that makes me happy.”
“You are my king. Just give the command. I will do anything you ask. My respected king.”
“King? Me? Th-Then… what that voice said was really true!”
The room was a hellscape of blood pooling across the floor.
But the two of them were carrying on a bizarre conversation as if the bloodstains didn’t exist.
A swelling dread and horror finally crept over the other guides as they realized that something had gone horribly wrong.
The twisted legs, the torso riddled with stab wounds.
And finally, the head, caved in and shattered.
Why hadn’t they noticed it before?
Kim Sang-gyu’s condition was one no one should have survived.
“Hk!”
Realizing the truth too late, the guides clamped their hands over their mouths and stared at Kim Sang-gyu and Guide Jang in terror.
“So I’m the king, right?”
“That is correct.”
Guide Jang, who had also begun acting strangely, suddenly turned to look at the trembling guides and spoke.
“I am so happy right now. I didn’t know it was possible to feel this happy. I have a request for my king.”
“A request? You have a favor to ask? I’m so happy right now. Ask for anything.”
“My king, could you make those guides like me?”
At those words, a smile brighter than ever spread across Kim Sang-gyu’s face.
Then, with a stiff creak of his neck, he turned to look at the trembling guides and said,
“Of course. Let’s all become friends.”
“H-Hiiieek!”
The Blue-Glow Insect, the insect with blue blood and Mana.
It was known for being so docile that people loved it, an insect that had never once attacked a human.
And yet dozens of Blue-Glow Insects burst out from all over Kim Sang-gyu’s body and flew at high speed into the mouths of every single guide.
“Ugh, uwaaack!”
“Gwaaaack!”
Without exception, every one of the once-docile Blue-Glow Insects went straight into their mouths.
The dormitory filled with the stench of blood and vomit.
“Hahahaha.”
For some reason, Kim Sang-gyu began dancing as he watched the people writhing in agony.
“Uwaaaack!”
“Save… save me… ugh!”
“Save me!!!!”
“Hahahahahaha.”
The seed of disaster.
The spark of war had begun to burn unnoticed inside the guides’ dormitory.
The contradictions of the world, all directed at one kind-hearted man, had become a tiny spark.
A spark of war, small and insignificant like a match flame…
But it began setting countless logs alight, slowly growing bigger.
“Let’s be friends~ Hahahahahaha.”
To burn down the mountain…
“Let’s be friends~ Hahahaha.”
To burn down the whole island…
“Hahahahahaha!!”
And beyond that, even to burn down the world as the night wore on.
Inside the dormitory, crooked logs of all different shapes had begun to burn.
All around one completely unexpected man—
Guide Kim Sang-gyu.