The shock was enough to make even his tears stop, but he kept up the act of crying, slowly lowering his head to check the other side.
Just as he had suspected, three young children were gathered there.
“……Are there kids here too?”
Sim Seowoo desperately wished that the thought that had sprung into his mind was wrong. But when he asked, his parents simply exchanged bewildered glances with one another.
They seemed confused as to why their son, who had been crying just moments ago, was suddenly asking something like this — but soon, it seemed they took it as a sign that he was willing to talk, and they nodded, answering readily.
“Ah, they’re children who help with our ritual.”
“It’s a very important and meaningful thing — to be together with pure souls.”
It felt as though his blood ran cold.
Sim Seowoo pressed both hands tightly over his face. Even as his mind told him that he had no room to worry about others when he himself was trapped, that he needed to focus on his own escape first, he couldn’t get the flash of blue he had glimpsed through the small opening out of his head.
Those blue marks were unmistakably bruises.
“……Okay, I’ll do it. The prayers. I just have to prepare for 100 days, right?”
In the end, Sim Seowoo decided to play along. The escape plans he had come up with were not realistically achievable right away, and even if he thrashed and fought his way out of this room, it was obvious he would only be caught by the other adults in the hallway. He hadn’t gone so far as to form a grand plan to take the children with him and flee — but for now, he decided to appear compliant.
After all, the standard protocol when kidnapped was not to cause a scene recklessly, but to first get a grasp of the surroundings. He forced his foggy, sleep-medication-addled mind to focus and made himself a promise.
He would put every last one of these insane people behind bars.
***
The name of the cult was Seak Akjin Lireugyo.
A bizarre religion built on the belief that malice had spread throughout the world and infected society, and that in order to survive in it, one had to learn to wield that malice. They had even taken it a step further — the illness rotting society had reached an uncontrollable degree, and so, as a countermeasure, they resolved to summon an “evil god.” To inject an antidote into the world, they said.
Sim Seowoo learned the true nature of the Circulation Rite his parents had kept harping on about, and was left speechless. It had been absurd the first time he heard it, but the more he learned, the more it beggared belief. It was hard to shake the feeling that it was nothing more than a show put on by people who had lost themselves in some sort of roleplay.
Shockingly, however, this group was quite old, and the number of its followers was no small thing. The hopeful assumption he had made on his first night here — that he could simply run away — was quickly proven to be naïve optimism.
Hundreds of people lived together in a building that had once been used as a training facility. Every morning and evening, they were all required to gather in the assembly hall to pray together, and in between, they tended to vegetable gardens that had been set up around the training facility. It was a self-sustaining way of life.
At a glance it appeared peaceful, but the reality was anything but. Watchers were always stationed around the building to prevent anyone from escaping, and all forms of communication — phones and the like — were completely cut off. The doors, too, were all the kind that locked from the outside.
Horrifying as it was, Sim Seowoo adapted to the place surprisingly quickly. He had always been the type to earn people’s favor easily with his neat appearance and polite demeanor, and that was no different here, in this grotesque facility.
At first, they looked on him with disapproval for having rejected the faith — but soon they came to understand, saying he’s young, so of course he was confused, and even went so far as to pat him on the back and tell him he just had to do well going forward. Sim Seowoo swallowed, with great effort, the correction that he wasn’t confused because he was young — he was simply a person with common sense.
“Seowoo-ya. Can’t you see it too? The movements of all the spirits wandering around this mountain.”
“Those who suffered and cried out in the secular world — they’ve come here and are finally at peace. They must know that we’re trying to awaken god and save the world.”
“If you can’t see them, close your eyes and try to feel it with your heart!”
Crazy people……
Sim Seowoo sat quietly and closed his eyes among the adults who kept pestering him to see and feel something. Doing as he was told, he pressed his hands together and wished, from the bottom of his heart, that they would close their own eyes forever.
The Cult Leader was a middle-aged man who wore a white plain-cloth hanbok and a gat — a man who had reached the very peak of his own concept. His outfit seemed deliberately tailored to the idea of a doctor saving a sick world, and because he enjoyed being called “의원님” — Doctor — by his followers, Sim Seowoo had given up on rational thought entirely while in this place.
The Cult Leader said he had come across Sim Seowoo by chance. The followers who had gone to recruit the couple had visited their home and taken notice of their son, and had grown fond of him — and when the Cult Leader heard, he kept wanting to see the boy, visiting again and again, until he came to the conclusion that the child must possess something special.
“Hohoho, I felt a fateful pull — that I simply had to be together with Seowoo-ssi for this ritual.”
And so, upon hearing that he had been summoned by force if necessary, Sim Seowoo was truly fed up. To him, the way people gravitated toward him was nothing more than coincidence — but if he truly did possess such an ability, he desperately wished he could shake it off. The power that his parents had once described as bringing good fortune was absolutely not good fortune to him. Though, ironically, it seemed that his parents had even secured themselves a senior position within the cult by the very act of kidnapping their own son and bringing him here.
Sim Seowoo found all of it horrifying, but he suppressed his revulsion and behaved obediently toward the Cult Leader. When he bowed with a polite tone — “It is an honor to be given the chance to be part of the greater cause, Doctor” — the Cult Leader was very pleased, and as Sim Seowoo continued to consistently play along with the roleplay, little by little, they began to afford him certain privileges.
Thanks to that, Sim Seowoo was finally able to confirm the situation with the children.
All three children were orphans, and they had been locked away here for quite some time. They were all around eight or nine years old and had not yet even entered elementary school.
Having been brainwashed over a long period, the children were terrified of the malice that was supposedly spread throughout the world. The mere mention of going outside caused them to react as though having a seizure, refusing violently, insisting they would become contaminated. Sim Seowoo resolved that the moment he got out of this place, he would report all of it as child abuse.
“The kids seem to follow Seowoo well. Would you mind teaching them a bit, Seowoo?”
And so, having earned the adults’ trust, he was also given an unexpected opportunity. Since he was just beginning to study the teachings himself, they suggested he might as well guide the children along the way.
It was obvious they were dumping the task on him because it was a nuisance to look after young children who could barely read — but Sim Seowoo accepted without hesitation.
Every day, spending time with the children, he taught them not only the teachings but also, little by little on the sly, other lessons as well. It wasn’t born out of any grand intention to enlighten them. It was simply that the children lacked even the most basic education, and he wanted it to at least help them a little when they eventually got out of here and had to adjust to the outside world.
The children refused the outside world, but they showed interest in Sim Seowoo’s stories. In fact, they followed him far more readily than they did any of the other adults.
There were also a few university students at the facility. Sim Seowoo had long since discarded any admiration he once held for university students, and in fact found it strange that they had gone on leave from their studies just to live here. Being in university didn’t mean you had a head on your shoulders, it seemed.
One of them was the hyung he had run into at the library in the past. Toward him alone, Sim Seowoo greeted with nothing but mechanical politeness. He wanted to ignore him entirely, but doing so would only raise suspicion, so he bit his tongue and held back.
Little by little, Sim Seowoo began searching for a way to escape.
It was a tightly watched space, but by appeasing the adults, he gathered information bit by bit. Where the keys were kept, when the outside patrol shifts rotated, and so on. He also quietly expanded the range of his walks, and gradually mapped out a rough escape route.
First, I should escape on my own and report it. The plan that made the most sense was for him to get down the mountain as quickly as possible, alert the police to the existence of the cult, and have them rescue the children.
At one point, Sim Seowoo found himself wondering why there were children here at all. He was studying the teachings, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t figure out why they had brought children — orphans, no less. But this was a group that defied understanding from the start, so he gave up trying to guess. It was better to use that mental energy to refine his escape plan.
However, Sim Seowoo, who had been growing increasingly anxious to return to his normal life, was forced to confront a truly horrifying truth. It was on the day the Cult Leader suddenly declared that all preparations had been completed and that the Circulation Rite could be performed ahead of schedule.
“The offerings — are they well prepared?”
“Yes. Thanks to Seowoo-ssi teaching the children so well, they’ve now memorized all the important teachings.”
The Circulation Rite required offerings.
In the final stage of the ritual meant to awaken the god who would rule over malice, they had to perform an act befitting the god’s might, they said. And that act was……
Killing the young children who had been raised in captivity within the facility and offering them as sacrifice.
“Seowoo-ya. Do you understand how important this ritual is?”
“If you do well this time, Dad, Mom will……”
Sim Seowoo felt his mind go numb. His parents’ voices didn’t reach him at all.
He had worked hard to teach the children the teachings in order to put the group at ease. He had even tested them after his lessons were done, all in an effort to earn the adults’ trust——
And that had been pushing the children toward their deaths.
No — the ones who want to kill them are the crazy ones. Why should I be the one feeling guilty.
Sim Seowoo quickly corrected his own thinking and revised his plan entirely. He had to take the children and run. It was dangerous, but he couldn’t leave them behind in this place — this utterly deranged place where there wasn’t a single sane person.
