Chapter 19
C-XX The Sooted Violinist (1)
Extraction Room C Zone, in front of the second door.
Our Extraction Team 1 had just arrived and was looking through the glass window.
Inside was dark.
A space where light had been deliberately removed.
In the stillness where faint red embers floated, it stood there.
A sooted suit.
A sooted violin.
A sooted body.
Everything looked as if it had passed through a fire pit—twisted, shriveled, burned.
It simply existed there.
Ash fell on its shoulders, and embers dripped from the tip of the bow in its hand.
No gender, no age, no expression—nothing could be identified.
“It’s not moving.”
Team Leader Mok muttered as he pressed close to the glass.
A single thick root slowly sprouted from his knotted body, probing the air beyond the isolation room.
“The presence is clear,” Assistant Hand said, tilting his head back and tapping the glass.
The atmosphere was completely different from the white, fat fur mass from earlier.
A distinctly unfamiliar fear.
“Associate Jung.”
Section Chief Myeon called me.
One of his faces slowly turned toward me.
“Don’t be afraid yet. This one is… relatively mild.”
Relatively.
My lips trembled slightly at that word.
And then it happened.
—KANG.
From beyond the glass, the bow snapped into motion.
The sooted violinist moved.
Its blackened fingers slowly lifted the bow.
—Kiiiiiing.
At first, it sounded like a scream.
A sound like scraping metal, tearing cloth, and blood gushing all mixed together.
A sharp melody that contained all of it.
And soon—music.
A haunting, pulsing violin sound filled the isolation room.
Embers flickered from the floor, ash scattered, and the temperature inside rose.
My breath grew short.
A ringing sound filled my ears.
It felt like that grotesque melody was being drilled into my brain.
“It seems to be a mental intrusion type,” Team Leader Mok muttered.
“If you listen to the performance, it looks like it overheats the semicircular canals and lymph system first. A very dangerous frequency.”
“We can reclassify it to B-rank. The tuning department only assigns temporary capture difficulty grades anyway.”
At Section Chief Myeon’s words, Deputy Batori smiled faintly, as if amused.
“Something is being extracted right now.”
Assistant Hand tapped his fingers against his head.
“I’m not sure of the exact mechanism yet… but it clearly reacts to hearing.”
But you don’t even have ears.
I swallowed, half joking.
The sooted violinist just stood there.
Sometimes, whenever it played the violin, something seemed to melt into the air.
Through the ears, through the head, deep into the brain.
“We should observe a bit more… then go in,” Myeon said calmly.
“Associate Jung, are you alright now?”
“…Yes.”
I answered quietly, stepping slightly back from the window.
Just one step behind the front line.
At that moment, embers stuck to the glass, then scattered away.
The sooted violinist slightly—very slightly—turned its head toward me.
It was a gaze of expectation.
A hollow where eyes should be, filled with ash.
That emptiness was looking at me.
I took another step back.
Tap. Tap.
And then silence.
As if something burning had suddenly stopped.
Its gaze turned into something like disgust, and the performance resumed.
—Kiiing! Kang!
The music of the sooted violinist was not something to “hear.”
It was something to “feel.”
Every scrape of the bow dragged something into my ears and deeper inside.
My chest tightened again, and my heart skipped a beat.
“Why is my head….”
Strange characters flickered before my eyes.
An alien vibration, like wind blowing from somewhere unknown.
Something inside my ears snapped with a click.
I instinctively touched my forehead—and my palm came away wet.
I looked down.
Red.
Blood.
Confused, I wiped my eyes with my sleeve.
But the sleeve also became wet.
Blood tears.
And a nosebleed.
Even after stepping away from the glass, the fluid kept flowing.
I couldn’t turn my head properly.
Somewhere, I heard someone swallowing.
“Hm.”
Deputy Batori licked his lips.
It sounded like a joke, but also like real desire.
“Basically, all dimensional entities are harmful to humans.”
Team Leader Mok’s voice followed.
Then—
Something like green vines shot toward my face.
I reflexively opened my mouth.
You can survive if you take this.
Just as I was about to—
“No, hold on.”
Section Chief Myeon’s voice cut through the corridor like ice.
“Eek?”
The vines stopped right in front of me.
“Understood.”
Then they quietly withdrew.
Even then, my bodily fluids did not stop.
“Gghk… ugh…”
My lungs shrank, and my heart thrashed weakly.
The violinist beyond the glass looked like it was mocking me.
“Shall we… no, let’s observe a little more,” Myeon said.
His eyes were no longer kind.
They were cold, like a researcher observing an experiment.
He had no intention of helping me.
Why?
Was this punishment for an employee who became arrogant after brief recognition?
“Myeon… Chief…”
I raised my head in despair.
He was walking toward me.
I instinctively stepped back, even though I had called him.
The chief didn’t mind and slowly raised his hand.
His left hand.
No—his left hand holding the rightmost face of his many faces.
That small, pale, gentle face that always smiled.
And he—
CRACK.
Tore it off.
No blood. No scream.
Like a mechanical part detaching.
The face wriggled in his hand, still alive, still maintaining form.
And then Myeon slapped it onto my face.
“UAAAAAAHHH!!”
A scream burst out immediately.
Not mine—but coming from my face.
The face on my cheek, eyes, forehead—Myeon’s face stuck and screamed.
Hot, wet, like flesh merging—
No.
Like my face was being swallowed.
I flailed wildly.
Kicking the floor, hitting the wall, shaking my head.
“Assi… stant… Hand!!”
A clear plea for help.
But—
“Oh? Looks like it hurts. Associate Jung, you’re supposed to say thank you here.”
“Calm down, Associate Jung.”
“Adaptation is faster than expected.”
“Hehe, how cute.”
“Grrk… gurgle…”
Their voices were calm.
No concern. No shock.
I kept struggling violently against the wall.
Cold…
Then the heat faded.
The sensation of attachment began to integrate.
Through tongue, eyes, brain.
Myeon’s face seeped into my senses.
And then—
The violin stopped.
A clean cut.
The sooted violinist lowered its bow.
Its hollow face was still looking at me.
Something was there.
‘…interest…?’
No.
‘…anger…?’
No.
Just resonance.
Like we briefly shared the same frequency.
I slowly breathed in.
A faint residue of Myeon’s skin clung to my lips.
It no longer moved.
But it remained—fused, paused.
I looked at the violinist again.
Then at my reflection in the glass.
On my blood-soaked, sweat-drenched face—
Something unfamiliar was attached.
The small face torn from Myeon.
It was stuck to me.
No—becoming me.
It twitched, then slowly flattened like a mask.
It adjusted itself to my features.
Unwanted muscles moved across my cheekbones, pressing into my identity.
Tiny roots slipped into my pores, sending alien pulses into my brain.
Thump. Thump.
A stranger’s heartbeat on my face.
“……”
I inhaled slowly.
But the unbearable sound of the violin—
That distorted, sticky noise—
Was now just noise.
The bow moved. Embers scattered. The burned figure played on.
I could watch it calmly.
I was fine.
“How is it? You’re fine now, right?”
Assistant Hand’s voice echoed.
“…Assistant Hand.”
I answered.
His voice no longer felt strange.
The distortion in my ears had faded.
It was still eerie—but tolerable.
“Right now… I’m fine.”
“Heh.”
Myeon, standing beside me again, gave a small smile.
But something was different.
From where the face had been torn off, something new was already forming.
Flesh wriggled, rebuilding.
A new small face formed within seconds.
As if nothing had happened.
I could only stare.
“During this extraction, you’re wearing it like a mask. It will protect an inexperienced associate for now. But I don’t recommend keeping it permanently. And Team Leader Mok?”
“Ugh!”
A vine shot into his mouth.
A fresh, plant-like scent.
A sticky, sweet liquid.
“It’s a sedative and recovery fluid. It will reduce mental contamination when swallowed.”
I swallowed repeatedly without thinking.
My breathing gradually returned.
My heart stabilized.
I had almost died a moment ago—and I could clearly say why.
But still, I bowed my head.
“…Thank you, sir.”
Always polite and composed Myeon.
He had not helped, had tested me, had let me break—
and then, finally, shown something.
Like others: clawed hands, vine limbs, weaponized bodies.
He had given me his face.
Calmly. Indifferently.
Like a white, expressionless mask.
“Ha… I’m starting to miss that fur ball already.”
I let out a breath.
Now that I had a face-mask on, expression came more easily.
Assistant Hand chuckled quietly behind me.
“You can’t face only what you like. This is still mild.”
I touched the mask lightly.
It was warm.
Strangely alive.
Something subtly wriggled beneath it.
‘Disgusting.’
I thought, but said nothing.
“I think this entity has stopped any special activity. We can stop playing around now,” Deputy Batori said.
Myeon nodded.
“Then let’s go in.”
He pressed the door button.
Click—
The heavy metal door slowly opened.
Air rushed out in uneven currents.
I followed behind my superiors into the isolation room.
A foul smell hit my nose.
Burnt flesh.
The air was hot.
And ahead—
The presence of the sooted violinist began to grow clearer
