“H-Help…”
All that remained now was to confirm it.
“Elder Sir.”
I knelt down in front of him, meeting his eye level. I leaned in just enough to whisper into his ear, making sure no one behind me could hear.
“You read the directive, didn’t you?”
“……!”
“The confidential government directive about ‘The Paradise Test’.”
The dull, vacant eyes that had been clouded with confusion suddenly regained a faint spark of awareness.
“H-How did you—!”
As expected.
‘So it’s true…’
After brief consideration, I took out a Happy Maker syringe from my pocket.
– Ah, preparing for another interview, are we?
‘…Yes.’
I needed to talk to this man, no matter what.
To secure the information I needed—and to subtly dispel the growing suspicion that I knew too much about this situation from the start.
I injected the potent painkiller into the back of the Silver Heart owner’s hand.
Phhk.
“Huuuuhk!”
With a loud gasp, his convulsing body immediately stilled, collapsing onto the floor with a soft thud.
And then—
“Hiiic! Hiiuuhk! Hiic, hicc…”
Tears streamed down his face as he drooled onto the ground.
“What the hell? What’s wrong with him?”
“…He’s fallen too many times into the altar.”
Judging by his condition, he had likely been thrown out at least five times.
Since Happy Maker was a painkiller, not a restorative, his shattered mind wasn’t going to recover fully.
But at least he could talk now.
“I can’t… I-I can’t do it anymore…!”
“……Yes.”
This man was the key.
Thankfully, he began providing valuable information right away.
The Silver Heart owner, tears streaming down his face, grabbed my shoulders as soon as we made eye contact. His grip was desperate.
“You! You know, don’t you?!”
His trembling hands tightened around my shoulders.
“Seven! Seven times is all it takes! W-We can do it!”
“What exactly do we need to endure?”
“The altars!!”
Then, with a pleading tone, he added,
“I know what this is. This, it’s. I know. It’s managed by the government! Over there, we, we have a department dedicated to these kinds of phenomena—this is part of it. I’ve seen it myself!” ℟𐌽ŐBΕＳ
“……”
“I read it! I-I worked in that place—”
Behind me, I could hear the elite team members murmuring.
“Ah, so he’s a retired employee of the Disaster Management Bureau?”
“Hmm… maybe he has some useful equipment.”
They were spot on.
I pressed forward with more questions.
“I understand, sir. Then, can you tell me—what exactly is this supernatural phenomenon?”
The retired lower-level office worker from the Disaster Management Bureau, still half-delirious, began spilling bits and pieces of classified knowledge.
“Uuhh, the thing is, this—this supernatural phenomenon. It’s, uh, if you survive seven altars. Just seven altars—it ends. Just a dream… oh, It’s all just a dream. And, and that’s why our photography club…”
He trailed off, his cloudy gaze shifting around the carriage.
He looked at the other members of the Blue Photography Club, lying on the floor, writhing in pain and madness.
I understood now why they had ended up like this.
‘The Silver Heart owner convinced them…’
He had persuaded them that they only needed to sacrifice themselves once to reach the seventh altar.
But not everyone had the same kindness and courage as the Silver Heart owner.
Some resisted. Others hesitated or panicked. Some were too afraid to jump when it was their turn. Amidst the chaos and arguments, the Silver Heart owner likely became the example—jumping out of the window repeatedly to encourage them.
And the more he fell, the more his mind broke, and the contamination from his Silver Heart spread to the entire car.
Trapped in a cycle of pain and contamination, everyone in Car 1 eventually lost their minds.
At some point, they all started jumping out of the window, their sanity fully shattered.
Eventually, they unlocked the door and spilled into the other cars, causing the chaos that followed.
‘That’s when things took an even darker turn.’
That was why we couldn’t forcibly open the door to Car 1 earlier.
If we had, we would have triggered a full-blown catastrophe with the half-crazed Silver Heart owner leading the charge.
‘That’s why we had to wait.’
Until the right timing presented itself.
Even the owner of the Silver Heart wasn’t a god.
At some point, amid the madness, confusion, and crumbling sense of self, that passenger must have desperately wanted help from others.
But by then, it was already too late.
The chaos unfolding in the other cars had reached a level that couldn’t be undone…
The moment they gave up and wrestled with accepting help from others—
There had to be peace outside Car 1, and the appearance of an alternative solution.
Something convincing enough for their shattered mind to reach out and unlock the door.
…But this was the 14th loop. By now, Car 1 was already hell.
“I-I’m sorry, e-everyone… It h-hurts so much… hiiiiiic…”
“……”
This is maddening.
The overwhelming tragedy of seeing this firsthand hit much harder than any prose I’d read in the wiki.
‘That’s why we need to escape quickly.’
I bit down on my lip and asked the critical question—the one that could give me the decisive clue.
“Elder, the train you saw in the directive… which train was it exactly? Was it this one?”
“Hiiic, yes. It’s this train, that’s right. The train to Iksan. The train bound for Iksan…”
Supervisor Dolphin tilted her head, puzzled.
“Iksan? That’s strange. This train is heading to Mokpo.”
Baek Saheon quickly chimed in.
“Um, actually, we do pass through Iksan Station, Supervisor.”
“Oh, really? So, Iksan is just a stop along the way?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
But instead of trusting Baek Saheon’s explanation, Dolphin decided to verify it herself.
She strolled through the filth-covered aisle of Car 1, ignoring the sobbing and chaos around her. Eventually, she pulled a booklet from a seat pocket and quickly flipped through it.
She nodded after confirming the details.
“Aha. Yup, that’s right!”
“Okay. Then, according to the retired Disaster Management Bureau employee, we just need to get through seven altars, correct?”
“Exactly. Seven altars… which means 28 sacrifices—oh, wait a second.”
She froze.
“Seven altars?”
“……”
Ah.
She caught on.
“Um, Supervisor Roe Deer.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know that train routes often get extensions over time?”
“That makes sense.”
“So, maybe this train used to have a shorter route. Maybe back when Iksan Station was the final stop.”
“……”
“That could be why it was originally called the Iksan Express.”
Bingo.
She nailed it.
Technically, the route had been extended in the mid-2010s—from Iksan to Mokpo.
“And one more thing.”
Dolphin’s finger stopped at a specific section in the guidebook.
“From Seoul to Iksan, if you’re on a local train, you pass through exactly seven stations.”
“……”
“So, those altars we’ve been passing through—those are the stations.”
Right.
“And if we follow that same logic…”
She flipped the page with a flick of her wrist.
“Unlike the old Iksan route, the current train to Mokpo passes through nine stations.”
She clapped the booklet shut.
“Which means the altars aren’t over at seven—we have to pass through nine altars.”
“……”
“And that means we need to offer sacrifices at nine altars, totaling 45 people.”
It was a chillingly accurate deduction.
‘As expected of an elite employee.’
And that truth explained why the passengers in Car 1 had completely lost their minds.
■■th Loop :
After passing the seventh altar, an eighth altar appeared.
The supposed ‘solution’ provided by the Silver Heart owner—their one thread of hope—was shattered.
With that hope gone, Car 1 fell into a spiral of rage, fear, and panic until everyone mentally collapsed.
‘…It’s a relief we didn’t get to that point.’
I wouldn’t have been able to handle it.
As I let out a silent sigh of relief—
“But, Supervisor.”
Dolphin turned toward me.
“You only have 11 doses of painkillers, right?”
“……”
“And you’ve already used one, which leaves 10. So…”
“We need 45 people to jump, but the painkillers will only cover 10 of them, right?”