Chapter 6
The thin but firm wooden handle disappeared into the man's eye as if being sucked in, with a shocking lack of resistance.
Kang Ye-ra screamed, let go of the backscratcher, and slumped backward.
And the man's body, which had stopped moving, collapsed heavily on top of me.
The remaining part of the backscratcher that had been sticking out struck the floor next to my face and dug deeper into the inside of the man's head.
The man's limp body was horribly heavy.
When I grabbed his shoulders with both hands and pushed him off, the lifeless body rolled halfway and lay sprawled on the office floor.
I looked at the man with a sense of desolation.
The entire handle, except for the short head portion of the backscratcher, was buried inside the man's head.
Looking at that state, there was no possibility that he was alive.
In fact, he was someone who should have already lost his life just from the cutter knife stuck in his chest.
It was unbelievable that the man had been moving around perfectly alive until just moments ago.
Red blood was clotted on the yellow handle of the half-remaining cutter knife.
As I was examining the man's corpse, I heard Kang Ye-ra's terror-stricken voice.
“I... Is he dead?”
Kang Ye-ra, who was usually confident and calm, wiped away tears with trembling hands.
Her shaking pupils were fixed on the man's corpse.
“Yes. It seems so....”
I replied that way, but I didn't want to further provoke Kang Ye-ra, who was already in great shock.
I deliberately gestured only toward the cutter knife stuck in the corpse's chest.
However, Kang Ye-ra's gaze did not leave the man's face—specifically, the object stuck there.
“...I killed him, didn't I?”
“We... killed him together.”
It wasn't a lie meant to comfort her.
Because I actually thought that way, it was even harder to spit the words out.
To think that I killed a person.
I felt nauseous as if the sensation of stabbing the man still remained in my hands.
Perhaps Kang Ye-ra was thinking something similar, as she kept her head low and was silent for a while.
After a moment, Kang Ye-ra stood up staggering and trudged off somewhere.
“Ye-ra-nim, where are you going?”
I stood up, worried about her unstable-looking gait.
At that moment, I noticed something tucked into the waist of the fallen corpse.
The metallic object glistening with a black sheen wasn't something I was seeing for the first time.
However, it was an excessively unusual object that was hard to call familiar.
I reached out and picked up the handgun that was tucked into the man's waist.
The metal, catching the cold fluorescent light, emitted a chilly gleam.
I felt flustered by the unexpected item.
Just as I was about to examine it a little more closely, wondering if it might be a toy, Kang Ye-ra's voice suddenly spoke up.
“What are you doing?”
Startled, I haphazardly shoved the handgun I was holding into my back pocket and turned around.
Kang Ye-ra was holding the gray knee blanket she usually used at her desk.
In her other hand, she held a kitchen knife that she seemed to have grabbed from the pantry, and the hand holding the knife was trembling slightly.
“I took a look around just in case, and it doesn't seem like there are any more people like that inside the office.”
Is she planning to stab them again if there were?
I glanced at the kitchen knife in her hand in wonder, but Kang Ye-ra didn't seem to notice.
She seemed to have grabbed a weapon unconsciously out of anxiety.
Looking at her dazed face, the knife in her hand was quite unsettling.
I reached my hand forward and gestured with my eyes toward the knife in Kang Ye-ra's hand.
As expected, Kang Ye-ra, seemingly unaware of even what she had grabbed, flinched and trembled upon seeing the knife in her hand.
“Your hand is trembling. Give the knife to me.”
At my words, Kang Ye-ra handed over the kitchen knife without much resistance.
Then, with a face that had regained a bit of composure, she lightly moved her hand and gestured for me to step aside.
When I took a step back from the man’s side, Kang Ye-ra covered his body with the blanket.
His mangled face and the upper body with the cutter knife stuck in it disappeared beneath the gray blanket.
Kang Ye-ra then pulled a necklace out from between her shirt collars, held a small pendant, and closed her eyes.
After muttering a short prayer under her breath, Kang Ye-ra opened her eyes again and looked at me.
Tear stains still remained on her face, but her expression had stabilized to some extent.
“What do we do now? Should we turn ourselves in?”
I shook my head slightly.
“...To do that, we’d first need to be able to contact the police. For now, let’s focus on getting out of here, just as we originally planned.”
Kang Ye-ra nodded, then glanced toward the conference room with a reluctant expression.
Finally, after letting out a sigh, she walked over to the conference room and knocked on the door.
“…….”
There was no response.
Kang Ye-ra knocked on the door a bit harder.
However, the conference room door still didn't open.
Kang Ye-ra turned back to me with a puzzled look, showing her confusion.
I stepped up onto a nearby desk and looked inside the conference room.
I saw Manager Kim covering one ear with one hand while firmly gripping Deputy Head Jeong’s wrist with the other.
He was pressed against the wall opposite the door, his eyes squeezed shut.
Deputy Head Jeong, held by Manager Kim, was slumped on the floor, crying.
Neither of them seemed to be in any state to look outside.
I picked up an eraser from a nearby desk and threw it at the conference room.
Deputy Head Jeong raised her head, perhaps hearing the eraser hit the glass partition.
Her face brightened instantly upon seeing me.
“Jihyeok-ssi!”
Her voice was muffled by the glass, but it wasn't hard to understand.
I lightly raised my hand and nodded in response.
Then, when I pointed to the door, Deputy Head Jeong shook off Manager Kim’s hand and rushed toward it.
Coming out through the door, Deputy Head Jeong saw Kang Ye-ra and, overjoyed, pulled her into a sudden hug.
“All I could hear from inside was your scream, Ye-ra-ssi...! I really thought something terrible had happened.”
Deputy Head Jeong wept as she held Kang Ye-ra.
Manager Kim, who followed her out, scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, looking back and forth between me and Kang Ye-ra.
“The situation was so urgent.... You understand, right?”
“Yes.”
I answered briefly, feeling a bit sour.
Manager Kim smacked his lips dismissively and turned his gaze away.
Then, as if he just discovered the man’s corpse on the floor, he yelped in shock.
“Ack!”
“Is... is he dead?”
“…….”
I silently nodded.
Manager Kim’s face turned deathly pale.
He looked back and forth between Kang Ye-ra and me, then asked cautiously.
“...Did, did you two kill him?”
Kang Ye-ra’s face, still buried in Deputy Head Jeong’s embrace, darkened instantly.
Seeing her expression, Deputy Head Jeong spoke up quickly.
“It was self-defense! Manager Kim, you saw what those people were like, didn't you? Ye-ra-ssi, don't worry. I’ll definitely be a witness for you! You’ll do it too, won't you, Manager?”
At Deputy Head Jeong’s prodding, Manager Kim nodded hesitantly.
However, there was a hint of fear and repulsion in his eyes as he looked at Kang Ye-ra and me.
Putting the matter of the corpse aside for now, we decided to discuss how to escape the office.
Kang Ye-ra said she had checked the entire office, but the situation outside was unknown.
The man I had encountered in the restroom might still be roaming the hallway, and since Assistant Manager Seong and the others we saw from the conference room were no longer in the office, there was a high chance they were outside.
We hunkered down below the partitions so we wouldn't be seen from the hallway and formulated a plan.
“Even after coming out of the conference room, the situation hasn't changed. Intern Gu might have already made it down to the first floor.”
Manager Kim muttered with a gloomy face.
I replied while wiping away the man’s bloodstains that had dried on my hands with a wet wipe.
“I don't know what happened to Hyeon-woo-nim. Since I didn't hear anything like a scream, we should hope he made it down to the first floor, just as you said.”
The blood, already half-hardened, didn't come off easily.
As I rubbed the bloodstains with force, the wound on the back of my hand was scraped by the wipe, making me grimace.
Manager Kim stared intently at my face, then replied in a lifeless voice.
“...You’ve got quite the nerve. Or maybe I’m not one to talk?”
I focused on the remaining bloodstains, pretending not to hear Manager Kim’s last remark.
It wasn't that I wasn't angry at Manager Kim's actions.
But in a situation where we don't know how many of those strange people might be outside.
I didn't want to argue and pick a fight with Manager Kim right now.
Even dealing with one person required both me and Kang Ye-ra to join forces.
To escape safely, it would be better to have even one more person.
“Since I think you two should know, I’ll start by telling you how we ended up killing that man.”
At my words, Deputy Head Jeong looked toward the corpse with a hint of fear.
Although she said she trusted us, a bit of uneasiness remained.
It was understandable, considering she suddenly found herself with killers.
Manager Kim also seemed to be reminded of that fact, as he took half a step back from me and Kang Ye-ra.
However, seeing as he focused on my words with eyes full of curiosity, he seemed to be wondering about the details of the situation.
I pointed toward the area of the man's ribs covered by the blanket and explained where the cutter knife had been stabbed and the depth.
“Even after doing that, he didn't seem to be in any pain at all. It was the same reaction as the man I saw in the restroom.”
Having finished speaking, I looked toward Kang Ye-ra.
She gave a slight nod, barely noticeable.
“And Ye-ra-ssi accidentally stabbed that man in the eye while trying to stop him from biting me.”
At my words, Manager Kim asked with a slightly puzzled expression.
“You're saying you only stabbed the eye? Then didn't he just die because of the knife wound?”
“...At this depth.”
When I raised my hand to estimate the length of the backscratcher and pointed to the back of my head, Manager Kim's complexion turned pale.
“Then... you're saying they won't stop chasing us unless we kill them?”
“I don't know exactly.... But it's not like we can just go around killing people. I think the most important thing is to avoid getting caught as much as possible.”
After thinking for a moment, Deputy Head Jeong offered an opinion.
“What about tying them up?”
“That would be good, too. I don't want to get that close, but there might be cases where we have no choice.”
Following Deputy Head Jeong’s suggestion, we moved around the office and pulled out electrical cords.
While packing the cords into our respective bags, I tossed the handgun I had put in my pocket into my bag.
I didn't want to walk around carrying a gun, but I was also uneasy about leaving it rolling around on the office floor.
After finishing the preparations, I stood pressed tightly next to the exit door.
I poked my head out and scanned the hallway.
No one was visible in the hallway within my line of sight.
Neither Gu Hyeon-woo nor the strange people walking with dragging feet were there.
When I pressed the open button, the door opened slowly with a small sound.