Chapter 16

Under the flickering red emergency lights, the interior of the laboratory was utter desolation.

Steam occasionally hissed out from the tangled mess of metal pipes and wires on the ceiling, while broken monitors and cracked windows lay scattered here and there.

Gwak Dohyeong observed the protruding devices on the lab walls with fascination.

“These are really old pieces of equipment…? I think I saw something like this in our company’s history museum. These are from at least twenty years ago.”

Kim Lara tapped at the exposed wires with a cheeky grin.

“Look at these wires sticking out. One wrong move, and you could get electrocuted!”

“Isn’t it more likely that you’d electrocute the wires, Lara?”

“Mugyeol, want to shake hands?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…!”

As Kim Lara began playfully chasing Jin Mugyeol, Wi Seoyeon placed her hand on a rusted panel on the wall and muttered,

“For these machines to still be functioning intermittently like this… it seems like someone has been using this place.”

At that, Gwak Dohyeong frowned and dismissed the notion.

“That’s ridiculous. Keeping such old equipment running this long? The maintenance costs alone would be astronomical…”

“If this is a place where the laws of reality don’t apply, then it’s possible,” Wi Seoyeon countered.

She extended a magic circle from her fingertips and began analyzing the flow of mana in the space.

“This isn’t reality. This is a space distorted by some anomaly, like a part of the Tower.”

Wi Seoyeon’s gaze briefly rested on me as she finished speaking.

“If Joo-Yidam’s testimony about this place matches the truth, that is.”

Uh-oh.

Her gaze felt icy, like a sharp blade slicing through my skin, as if she was examining what lay beneath.

Well, it made sense.

Considering how many hundreds of thousands of times the simulation room must have been activated since the Academy’s founding, it was strange that a space like this had never even appeared in urban legends.

Now that I had abruptly uncovered the simulation room’s secret, my identity was bound to arouse curiosity.

Wi Seoyeon glanced around the eerie surroundings and whispered,

“I won’t press for answers now, but before we leave this place, you’ll need to provide an explanation that satisfies everyone.”

“Of course.”

At that moment, Kim Jinsu, who was leading the group, spoke.

“Shh, the environment changes from here. Monsters might appear.”

Everyone focused their attention forward at Kim Jinsu’s words.

After walking through the dilapidated hallway of the lab, we arrived at a strangely familiar place.

“This is…”

“The briefing room, isn’t it?”

It was unmistakable.

Except for the minor detail that the circuits and equipment were slightly outdated, the overall layout was identical to the briefing room we used to observe the simulation room.

But that was what made it even more suspicious.

“Something’s off.”

“This feels eerie.”

The briefing room, clean and well-preserved under the soft glow of fluorescent lights, felt jarring after the desolate hallway lit by red emergency lights.

Gwak Dohyeong tapped a panel with his fingertips and remarked,

“These devices look to be in better condition than the ones in the hallway earlier. But… this panel arrangement is exactly the same as the briefing room we use for training.”

Wi Seoyeon stood before a complex control panel, checking the monitor.

“Right. This isn’t just similar—it’s almost identical to the Academy’s briefing room. But the equipment is much older… How is it still functioning?”

Kim Jinsu and Kang Han muttered in disbelief.

“A briefing room inside a simulation room…”

“It feels like a dream. What’s the word for it… a dream within a dream?”

This space was the only part of the dungeon-like laboratory where the lighting remained stable.

The faint light from the old fluorescent lamps on the ceiling gently illuminated the room, contrasting with the red glow of the emergency lights outside.

This place seemed untouched by time, preserved in pristine condition.

The most striking feature was the multitude of monitors covering an entire wall.

Each screen displayed live footage of different corridors and rooms within the laboratory.

The dungeon scenes captured on camera were even more eerie—shadows flickered under the red lights, and movements were detected amidst the broken pipes and metal debris.

Below the monitors was a row of complex control panels filled with various buttons and dials, some corroded and inoperative.

However, a few buttons still blinked, signaling that certain functions were active. Labels indicated the names of zones and the status of connected devices.

“We can see the entire dungeon from here,” Wi Seoyeon said as she inspected each monitor.

“With this, we can switch CCTV feeds and even open or close doors in different zones if necessary.”

“Wow, Seoyeon, you’re amazing!”

“This is basic knowledge,” she replied nonchalantly to Kim Lara’s remark.

Just as Wi Seoyeon was about to continue, a noise crackled from the speakers installed around the briefing room.

Everyone froze, quickly turning their heads toward the nearest speaker.

In an instant, they formed a defensive stance, backs against one another to cover all angles.

The room’s tension was palpable, the air frozen as everyone held their breath.

Crackle. Ssssshhk.

Amidst the static-laden noise, a voice slowly emerged, as if it was tuning itself to our frequency in real time.

The voice, nearly free of noise, belonged to an unfamiliar woman.

[Can you hear me?]

[Survivors?]

Suddenly, all the lights in the briefing room went out, plunging us into complete darkness, only to return a second later as if the room had blinked.

In that brief moment, Jin Mugyeol muttered, as if his soul had left his body,

“This is insane… a ghost?”

Wi Seoyeon immediately snapped at him, her voice icy.

“Are you an idiot? Ghosts don’t exist.”

“Huh?”

“Even poltergeist phenomena are just illusions created by the human brain. It’s simply a misperception caused by false information.”

She rattled on like a machine gun.

“In extreme stress situations, sleep deprivation, or under subtle physical factors like electromagnetic fields, neurotransmitters are overly secreted, making you perceive things that aren’t there. Ghosts and supernatural phenomena are all illusions fabricated by the human brain. Scientifically speaking, you can’t irrationally overinterpret—”

At that moment, a loud burst of static erupted from the speaker near her.

ZZZZZ!

“—Eek!”

Wi Seoyeon screamed, covering her ears and crouching on the floor with her eyes tightly shut. Her reflexes were remarkable.

She clung to the hem of someone’s pants nearby, sobbing.

Unfortunately, that someone was me.

I sighed deeply and patted her gently.

“Seoyeon, didn’t you say ghosts don’t exist?”

“I-I-I know, I know that toooo…!”

“Pfft.”

Just as Jin Mugyeol was about to laugh at Wi Seoyeon, Kim Lara firmly clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Shh, Mugyeol. Now’s not the time for that.”

After the commotion subsided, Wi Seoyeon finally seemed to calm down, though her face was bright red as she turned away.

From the look of her, she wouldn’t be speaking much for a while.

In the awkward silence that followed, I tried to steer the conversation back on track.

“Well, shall we start investigating?”

“What’s there to investigate? I’ve already checked everything,” said Gwak Dohyeong nonchalantly.

Apparently, he had been quietly working while everyone else was caught up in the chaos. As expected of an engineer by trade, he was proving more resourceful than anticipated.

“Look here. This seems to be the only machine in the room that’s still functioning.”

He pointed to a half-destroyed terminal, something resembling an old computer.

“I poked around a bit and found something interesting. Want to see?”

“Let me take a look.”

I leaned in to examine the screen he indicated.

A text file.

Its title was blank, but the contents were chilling:

[She betrayed us.]

[Having taken control of the briefing room, she manipulated the laboratory’s opening and closing mechanisms to trap her teammates and force them to face monsters.]

[The number of comrades who’ve perished by her hand has already exceeded twenty.]

[I’m the only one left. I barely made it to the briefing room, but she’s nowhere to be found.]

[Where did she go? If I don’t stop her soon, disaster cannot be prevented—(The text devolves into meaningless gibberish.)]

Gwak Dohyeong smirked as he continued fiddling with the terminal.

“There’s another file.”

Click.

A new window appeared.

It was unclear how much time had passed since the first file was written, but this note was much more concise:

[Trusting the voice = Death.]

[Thinking for yourself = Survival.]

[If you want to live, never stop doubting the voice. Think for yourself. Act independently. Opening the panic room = Death.]

[Panic room.]

[Do not open it.]

[There’s bacteria inside.]

Fragmented words, yet the despair and urgency in them transcended time and space, seeping into us as we read.

The most crucial detail, however, was that the woman’s voice continued to flow from the speakers in real-time.

[Can you hear me clearly?]

[Survivors?]

[We must cooperate. Trust me.]

A chill ran down my spine as goosebumps spread across my neck. My mind raced to piece together the situation.

This wasn’t in the game storyline.