Necromancer Survival

as if he was bothered that I was still spaced out.
I stood at attention because the swordsman seemed to be in a hurry, but I still couldn’t answer.
I had no idea what he asked.
“What are you asking me about? The key’s shape?”

      “There was a jewel embedded in the head of the key.”

      “Ah…” I recalled the appearance of the key gripped by the monster’s mouth.
When I slowly thought about it, I did seem to have seen a red jewel on the round head of the key–just as Woo Ragi said.
It looked like a ruby that had been carved and tumbled into a round shape; it had an impressive black pattern in the middle.
At first glance, it looked a bit like a finely carved replica of a crocodile’s eye.

     “I saw it…what about it?” I asked.

     “It looked exactly like the Seo Dawon-impersonator’s peepers.” 1

     “What?” Even though I wracked my brain, that ‘Seo Dawon’s’ eyes didn’t come to mind.
Even after rifling through my memories, all I could recall was how the headless Woo Ragi had asked me to pick up his head.

     ​​Expression paling, I blocked my mouth to prevent myself from vomiting; at that sight, Woo Ragi folded his arms across his chest and shot me a contemptful expression.
Still, considering how the swordsman had refrained from making a large tantrum, it seemed that he understood my current physical and mental condition.

     Woo Ragi skipped past that topic and asked another question in a callous tone.
“Then, do you know where we are?”

     “W-Who knows…”

     “You really don’t know?”

     “No, how should I know where this is…” As I said that, I recalled how I’d found this place similar to Koo Hui-seo’s mansion, and my words trailed off.

     Woo Ragi wasn’t even surprised at my reaction and said, “You’re the one who made this space, so think quickly: Are there any places or rooms that might help us escape? Or other things like that?”

     However, I couldn’t agree with the swordsman’s conclusions.
I bluntly asked, “What do you mean?”

     “Huh?”

     “Why would I make this space?! Are you blaming me again?”

     It felt like the swordsman was pushing all the blame on me; however, Woo Ragi calmly answered back, “I meant that Koo Hui-seo contaminated your mind and dropped you into this space.
In any case, since this dungeon’s base was formed using the information inside your head, the dungeon’s map must be somewhere in your brain as well.”

      “What…?”

      “Now that we’ve been here for a while, I understand… All your fears have been gathered here.”

     I couldn’t keep up with the flow of conversation and looked dumbfounded.
Woo Ragi reached out.

     He pointed towards the area under the bed.
There was a small skull and a skeletal hand sticking out.
I covered my mouth with one hand–it all looked so familiar.

     No matter how I looked at it, the hand looked like Lackey’s.
The hand, though, was covered with dust as if it hadn’t moved for a long while.

     Woo Ragi followed my gaze and confirmed what I was looking at.
“While I was carrying around your blind self, I saw several things like that.”

     “……”

     “And all the paintings hanging in the hallway we ran through were all paintings of you.”

     I had nothing to say to that–after all, I hadn’t seen such things.
However, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the hand under the bed.

     Woo Ragi was about to say something else, but upon seeing my expression, he approached and dragged me into his embrace instead.
Then, he grabbed my head tightly with his hands and forced my eyes to meet his.
“Hey, did you think of something when you saw that?”

     “N-No….”

      “Don’t think about anything weird.
Got it?”

      “B-But… It just moved…” I said, with a tearful expression on my face.

      Woo Ragi’s expression was… he looked incredibly irritated–like he wanted to destroy everything.
However, he gritted his teeth and said, “…Turn around, don’t look back, and leave the room.”

“”

      I left the room without looking back despite the clacks I could hear behind me.
As soon as Woo Ragi slammed the door shut behind him, I could hear something hard crashing against the wall.

     Looking at the shaking door, I asked the swordsman who followed me out, “…What should we do now?”

     “Dunno.
How many times do I have to say I’m not an expert in this field.”

     “……”

     Woo Ragi’s reproach was rather blunt.
However, when he saw my tearful eyes, he reluctantly continued, “Can you recall anything about Koo Hui-seo?”

Footnotes

눈깔 (nun kkal) is an informal way to talk about someone’s eyes.
Though it might be archaic, I thought peepers might be an equivalent localization.