The promised three days.

The final day at the 'Horizon Mountain Lodge' had dawned.

"......"

The civil servant got out of bed.

It wasn’t a particularly pleasant morning.

That was because, at some point, he’d started to feel like things were going off track.

And considering that he hadn’t been thrilled about this job in the first place, it was only natural that his mood wasn’t great.

But since his duty wasn’t over yet, he put on his prepared uniform, strapped on his gear, grabbed his tools, and stepped out of the room.

Only to be greeted by a most unpleasant sight.

"...Phew."

The living room on the first floor was drenched in blood.

It looked as if someone had drawn a pentagram with blood, as if offering some kind of sacrificial ritual. Dismembered body parts were placed at each point of the star.

And on the only clean sofa lay an unconscious woman.

It was the wife of the couple.

"......"

The civil servant hesitated for a moment but ultimately decided to carry out his task as planned.

He knew all too well the danger of making arbitrary decisions.

And besides...

"Ugh... Huh, huh?!"

They weren’t exactly the kind of people worth saving anyway.

"AAAAAAH!"

The woman suddenly woke up on the sofa and screamed at the top of her lungs.

Standing before her was a man with a large build, dressed in a black, waterproof raincoat. In his hand was a butcher’s knife, easily over 35 cm long.

The man holding the slaughter knife suppressed a sigh.

‘Of all times.’

She just had to wake up now.

He was tired.

More so than usual.

I mean, how could things go so wrong, so far from the plan?

The civil servant instinctively thought back to the first day at the lodge.

His initial target had been one of the couple.

They were greedy, making them an easy target. Plus, according to the Disaster Management Bureau’s analysis, killing one member of a couple first would spread fear, making the rest of the operation smoother.

Following the impulses implanted in his brain, he planned to lure one of them to the kitchen and set up the foreshadowing hidden in a framed picture…

‘I’ll burn the target in the hearth.’

But someone had beaten him to it.

‘...!?’

There was already a body in the hearth.

And not just any body—it was arranged in a disturbingly avant-garde manner.

...??

His mind was a whirlpool of question marks.

The Disaster Management Bureau had carefully used their expertise to ensure he was designated as the serial killer for this mission, even securing the necessary cassette tape to assign the role.

So how could there suddenly be another killer?

At that point, he assumed it was just the unpredictable nature of supernatural disasters.

That is, until he found the shredded clothes of two college students in the backyard that afternoon.

‘......’

He had no choice but to return the large hammer he’d prepared to the closet.

By then, it was clear.

Some maniac already knew the entire setup and was killing ahead of him.

It was maddening.

And now, on the final day, that killer went so far as to preemptively stage a dismemberment murder. There was no way this wasn’t giving him a headache.

What kind of lunatic scenario was this?

But the task hadn’t changed. Even amidst this absurd chaos, he had to complete his final mission according to priority.

That was the Disaster Management Bureau's way.

"Hiik..."

The brief recollection ended there.

The civil servant looked down at his prey, who couldn’t even muster the strength to resist.

As he felt an overwhelming sense of fatigue about what was to come, he was just about to swing the knife.

"Agent 007."

"......"

He turned his head toward the voice.

There, leaning against the second-floor railing and looking down at the living room, was a man.

The company worker.

The seller he’d met through the salmon market.

"You don’t have to kill her."

Kim Sol-eum looked down.

The chosen individual would firmly believe they had become the sole inheritor of the legacy belonging to the place’s legendary murderer. They would experience mental and physical changes.

Indeed, the civil servant looked the part of a professional killer, dressed in his black raincoat and holding a gleaming butcher’s knife.

By all appearances, he was the serial killer chosen in this disaster.

But Kim Sol-eum knew better.

‘Even if he looks like that, he’s still rational.’

“– Are you sure about that, friend?”

I’m sure.

‘Disaster Management Bureau agents prepare countermeasures to match the disaster they face.’

For example, that holster barely visible near the civil servant’s chest, peeking out from under the raincoat.

-------------------------------

Chronicles of Darkness Exploration / Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau

/ Item

Restrainer

An equipment item shaped like a black holster.

When equipped, it provides resistance to supernatural mental interference of disasters belonging to “Void Form” and below.

Item Usage Requirement: Must be a Grade 8 or higher ranked civil servant of the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau.

-------------------------------

That was mental defense equipment.

The Bureau wouldn’t be foolish enough to send their agents into a ghost story capable of turning them into serial killers without proper protection.

‘There’s no way they’d send them in with a clear head.’

After all, these agents were deployed to the most dangerous ghost stories, where death was practically guaranteed.

‘What if they met an evil pharma company’s employee who uses charming items like smiley stickers for example.’

It would be disastrous.

Kim Sol-eum spoke to the civil servant standing expressionlessly.

"There’s no need to kill her. The foreshadowing has already been realized."

"......"

"I already took care of everything."

Silence.

"Did you kill them?"

Well.

This disaster wouldn’t end without murders taking place.

According to <Chronicles of Darkness Exploration>, if murders didn’t happen, the story would escalate until people started killing each other during the inheritance dispute, ending in catastrophe.

‘That’s why they designed this scenario to ensure the civil servant becomes the killer.’

To prevent the civil servant from dying by accident, they chose to designate him as the serial killer and manage him accordingly.

That was the rule.

Either he would commit serial murders—

"No."

“…!”

"I just made it look like I did."

—or make it seem as though he had, thus satisfying the criteria.

"But there were corpses."

"That’s true, but…"

Kim Sol-eum scratched the back of his neck.

"But that wasn’t my doing"

“…!”

"Did you know? This lodge has a basement."

Kim Sol-eum recalled it.

A part of the poem that had been inside the pure gold frame.

It wasn’t just a foreshadowing of the method of murder.

There was another hint, too.

Hop-hop Hopping and laughing sounds echo

Thud-thud Wooden floors thud beneath feet

The table is full of delights

A humming tune fills the air

This passage was a clue.

The thumping of wooden floors underfoot—

It meant there was an empty space beneath the floor, causing the sound to echo.

And then...

‘The verse linked murder to food…’

The table is full of delights.

Something related to the serial killings was abundant.

Sure enough.

“In the basement, preserved body parts and organs were on display”

“…!”

There was a workshop.

“As you said, it seems there were serial killings in this lodge even in the past… I nearly fainted when I saw it.”

For real.

They must be remnants from the serial murders that had occurred in previous cycles.

Anyway, Kim Sol-eum, who had steeled himself while muttering “ghosts don’t exist” at night, finally descended into the basement—only to see the horrifying display. His emotions at that moment? Let’s not talk about that.

What mattered was that he had invented a new way to utilize those horrifying props.

The civil servant realized it.

“…The bodies we’ve seen so far.”

“Yes.”

Kim Sol-eum spoke awkwardly.

“None of them were intact, right?”

Because the body parts in the basement were reused and staged to look like they had just been killed!

That’s why Baek Saheon had to be the first victim.

‘…I couldn’t have done it without an assistant.’

Handling preserved, dismembered corpses barehanded at night to recreate murder scenes?

Just imagining it made him want to quit life altogether...

Anyway, despite Baek Saheon being someone you’d want to curse out endlessly, he had surrendered to the ultimate binary choice: “This is the only way you can leave alive. Or would you rather die?”

In the end, he obediently became an excellent assistant for the murder trick.

The two diligently staged the murder scenes.

They threw firewood into the kitchen hearth and burned it in bursts, then stuck feet into the remains and put Baek Saheon’s sneakers on them.

The crushed bones and meat in the backyard? Those were actually frozen ingredients from the freezer behind the storage shed, scattered after stripping off some clothes.

Even the current state of the living room, strewn with dismembered body parts, was the same story.

Although, to be fair, Kim Sol-eum personally handled the abduction of victims by ambushing people.

‘It couldn’t be helped. I needed Braun’s abilities to make the ambushes easier.’

At any rate, Kim Sol-eum shrugged as he finished speaking.

“I hid the people secretly and staged the scenes to make it look like they’d been killed. Since I used real body parts, there wasn’t much suspicion.”

“……”

“I figured that would startle the killer into staying put.”

But here’s the thing—

“Even so… someone still went ahead and killed people.”

“……”

“The allergy and the landslide, I mean.”

Both deaths happened before Kim Sol-eum could intervene.

While the landslide could be chalked up to this supernatural phenomenon, the allergy wasn’t something that could occur by sheer coincidence.

No one, except maybe Sherlock Holmes, could observe someone they’d just met and deduce a fatal allergy from that alone.

‘Honestly, I wouldn’t have known either if we hadn’t talked by chance.’

Which meant there was no way someone could have foreseen this and brought an allergen, like peanuts, to the lodge in preparation for murder.

In other words…

The killer was someone who had prior knowledge of the profiles of everyone entering the lodge and prepared the murder accordingly.

“Was the anaphylactic shock your doing, Agent?”

“……”

The civil servant did not deny it.

And Kim Sol-eum…

‘Hah, as expected.’

…wasn’t shocked in the slightest!

Shouldn’t he have at least shown some sympathy for the loss of innocent civilians?

Well, they weren’t exactly innocent civilians.

‘The government doesn’t pick victims randomly like a Russian Roulette, after all.’

The Bureau selects the civilians using a method known as the “Scale of Evil.”

One side of the scale is set to ‘Motiveless Murder,’ and anyone with events or sins weighing higher than that is considered ‘recruitable.’

In other words, only those judged to have committed acts even more heinous than indiscriminate killings were chosen by the government to be thrown into ghost stories.

‘Since they absolutely must maintain these disaster cycles, they’re at least trying to maintain ethics.’

It was a logical decision befitting an official organization.

‘So, this time too… I guess the people here are all deemed irredeemable by government standards.’

And Kim Sol-eum’s guess was correct.

For example, the couple that appeared to be married was actually an adulterous pair. The real wife of the married man and their young son had committed family suicide due to shock and financial hardship.

The college students had escaped charges of group bullying that led to a classmate’s death. Due to insufficient evidence, they casually joined a hiking club after enrolling in college.

The chauffeur? He was another to-be-captured child predator.

Although Kim Sol-eum didn’t know the details, he could roughly infer it and nodded inwardly.

‘Hmm. I’m sure it’s a stellar lineup.’

It was obvious the government had ensured that the tape ended up in their hands.

‘And they always send a civil servant to manage and monitor everything.’

Meaning the person answering Kim Sol-eum’s questions now.

The civil servant, showing no signs of hesitation, finally spoke.

“They’re all criminals.”

“……”

“Everyone in this lodge is someone whose crimes would have warranted the death penalty in other countries, had the law worked properly.”

He paused briefly before adding.

“Except for you, who doesn’t have the tape.”

However, inwardly, the agent wasn’t sure how well this would go over.

Based on his experience with civilians during his duties, he was even less confident.

Feeling a deep sense of exhaustion, he looked up.

But then…

“Hmm… I see. That explains it. I had a vague guess.”

“…!”

To his surprise, the office worker on the second floor nodded without protest.

“Anyway, aside from those two, everyone else is alive and well.”

Kim Sol-eum, as if slightly embarrassed, spoke casually.

“Well, no matter how evil someone is, there’s still a psychological burden in directly killing them, so I suppose this isn’t a bad outcome.”

“……”

Finally, the civil servant asked.

“Who exactly are you?”

Worried that murders might occur, preemptively staging murder scenes, and even trusting someone as suspicious as himself through rational thought?

This was no ordinary person.

“Hmm.”

The man before him let out a deep sigh.

“I’m just… someone who has an unfortunate knack for getting caught up in these situations.”

“Are you affiliated with the Disaster Management Bureau?”

“Not at all. Though I’ve heard rumors. Meeting an agent in person is quite fascinating—oh.”

The office worker turned his head.

Creak.

The kitchen’s back door was opening.

Just like on the first day.

“It seems the lodge caretaker has returned.”

The ending scene of the disaster was drawing near.

[Note: For anyone who’s a bit confused, Sol-eum uses ‘Ghost Stories,’ Daydream Inc calls them Darkness/Urban Legends while the SDMB calls them ‘Disaster.’ The ‘Nameless Radiant Church,’ one of the other three powers will probably have a different name.]