Magic on the Dead Chapter 4

Just a moment ago he was making a charming appearance, but now the magician’s nape was stained the color of red ink paste. After putting on the blindfold like a coward, his chest even heaved as if he had stopped breathing. He seemed just like a person in the throes of a panic attack.

Eden, sitting in the very front row, was staring intently at the nervous Do Hajin on stage. A short groan escaped his lips. He had brought him to the magic show to satisfy his niece’s peculiar fandom, but the host’s guts were not worth the money at all. The audience, their gazes captured by the dazzling sleight of hand and the blindfold, did not seem to have noticed his tension.

Just as Eden, who had defensively crossed his arms, creased his brow, a vibration buzzed in his pocket. He quietly took out his phone to check the caller, and Jeong Byeol, who was sitting in the next seat, whispered with a stern face.

“Unc-cle.”

Byeol’s voice, with her bottom teeth missing, was not threatening at all. Eden simply raised the corners of his mouth in a smile, as if asking for her understanding. Then, a hand as small as a bracken fern snatched the phone away. At the same time, the vibration that had been ringing intensely stopped.

“Jeong Byeol.”

When he muttered in a low voice, Byeol’s lips jutted out.

“Bad manners.”

“I’ll just check it, so give it here.”

Eden, who retrieved the phone without difficulty, immediately checked the missed call. It was a call from the war room of ‘Blue Works,’ the defense industry company Eden was a part of. To be precise, it was a call from the personal number of Hugo, the person in charge.

Eden creased his brow. He had a bad feeling about this. Eden quickly ended the call that was coming in repeatedly and typed a message with one hand.

What is it. Tell me via message.

Jeffrey, who was sitting next to him, leaned in and whispered.

【What’s going on?】

【The situation room. Did you get a call?】

【I turned mine off as soon as the show started.】

It was when Eden, after a moment of contemplation, was about to get up from his seat. Suddenly, a bright light streamed into the dark small theater. Someone had thrown open the atrium’s entrance door. Eden’s head reflexively turned.

“Uwaaaaah! Sa, save me—!! Gurgle!”

A man burst into the small theater, letting out a heavy shout. Following him, a woman with her neck hanging limp trespassed into the performance hall.

The man who opened the door clutched his neck and rolled down the stairs. Startled children let out sharp screams. It was too far to see clearly, but something unusual was undoubtedly happening up there.

All the audience members who had been sitting in their seats turned to look back with bewildered faces.

“What is it? Is this part of the show too?”

Park Chunbeom, who was sitting to Byeol’s right, muttered to himself. The guides could be seen running toward the entrance, looking flustered. Everything happened in an instant. Unidentified people began to pour in through the open entrance door.

“Kyaaaah! Don’t push!”

“Get away—! Let go of me!!”

“Cra, crazy, why is that person’s face…! Ugh! Run, run! Get out!!”

The people sitting closest to the entrance began to scream one by one and make their way down. Eden, sensing the danger, quickly picked up Jeong Byeol.

“Un, uncle. What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t look.”

Eden rather roughly pushed Byeol’s head into his chest. He left his seat, picturing in his mind the emergency evacuation map he had habitually and carefully looked at before the show started. Jeffrey and Park Chunbeom, who were next to him, also followed behind him in a flurry.

Eden, holding his niece in one arm, tapped his phone screen. A reply had arrived from Hugo.

Hugo: Eden, I’ll send a transport plane, so give me your exact location.

A transport plane does not move unless it is a wartime situation. It meant it was a manual that was only possible in a Grade 1 Code Red situation.

“Fuck.”

Eden, who grasped the situation, started to run toward the side door right next to the screen, pushing through the panicking people.

“Do Hajin!! Get away!!”

In the meantime, Miso’s desperate scream rang in the ears of Hajin, who had been frozen with the blindfold on. Hajin, who had been in a state of panic, slowly lowered the blindfold. His muffled ears quickly cleared, and a bombardment of noise poured into his eardrums.

“Uwaaaaaaaaaak! Mommm!! Let go of me!”

“Fuck, my arm! Aaack!!!”

Hajin stared blankly with his mouth agape at the audience seats that had been instantly devastated.

“What… is this….”

Is this a hallucination? Or did I faint in the middle of the performance? In his dizzying delusions, there were always loud roars, and all the people who had come to see his performance turned into monsters and rushed the stage. It was not as if he had only dreamt that kind of chase dream once or twice, but today, the sense of reality was particularly over the top.

The distorted faces of the people and their desperate voices were horrifying. Especially, the sight of that zombie-like fiend who was biting a person’s nape and making blood gush out….

“Do Hajin!! Get a grip, please!! Go to the warehouse!! Hurry!!!”

Then, Miso’s shrill scream was heard again. At the same time, a strong impact struck Hajin’s shoulder. As he fell helplessly onto the platform, his mind snapped back to attention as if he had been hit on the back of the head. An audience member trying to avoid the monstrous creature had pushed him hard.

“Kaaaaaa—ak!”

A monster reeking of blood rushed toward Hajin. The approaching monster’s movements replayed slowly like a scene from a movie. Instead of applause and cheers, the tearing screams of the audience filled the small theater.

Hajin reflexively picked up the hard brown stick that had fallen on the floor. He was so surprised that he could not make any sound. He just instinctively thrust the stick vertically into the air to survive.

“Keok!”

The thin monster, struck in the neck, slid under the stage. Hajin’s eyes widened as he looked at the falling monster’s leg. On the leg where flesh should have been attached, only a blood-stained bone was dangling.

“Cra, crazy…!”

Hajin scrambled backward on all fours and turned his head. This was not a dream. There was no way he could have imagined such a vivid and grotesque nightmare. Hajin, shaking his head, belatedly let out a cry.

“Yoon Miso!! Jinwoo-ya!!”

In the pandemonium, no backs that resembled them could be seen anywhere. The side door where Miso had been standing was already completely blocked by people trying to escape. His ears were deafened by the tearing screams.

“Hah, ha….”

Please, please! He stood up, swinging the stick spasmodically. Just then, a blood-stained hand shot out from under the stage and grabbed Hajin’s ankle. Ack! Startled, he fell on his butt.

“Grrrrr….”

It was the same monster whose neck Hajin had struck earlier. The monster that had climbed up, grabbing his ankle, was about to open its mouth wide toward Hajin.

Hajin once again moved his hands spasmodically. The figurine and dinosaur doll he had used as stage props instantly popped out onto his palm. The dolls were shoved straight into the monster’s wide-open mouth.

“Qwock!”

The milky-white eyes met Hajin’s gaze directly. The monster, which looked like a corpse, rolled its milky-white eyes. Dark red blood flowing from the monster’s nose began to soak the back of the doll’s neck.

The monster bobbed its head, trying to chew the dolls in its mouth. It seemed it could not even think of taking them out. Hajin, taking in every single one of those bizarre moments, quickly got up from his spot.

Even as he ran at full speed to survive, corpses began to follow him one by one. He moved his hand and quickly brandished the cards he had in his bosom.

“Heok, sh, cra, zy, what the hell is this!”

He threw the cards one by one, bringing the back of his hand down as if skipping stones.

“Kue-ek!!!”

A card lodged itself in the eye of a pursuing monster. Hajin, who confirmed the card was stuck, swallowed a horrified groan. He was so scared and disgusted by what he had done that he felt like he would die. The corpse, its vision blocked, flailed its body and rushed in a wrong direction.

“Hah, hah…!”

In the small theater, which had by now become a scene of utter chaos, there seemed to be no place to escape. He hurriedly looked for the secret passage installed under the stage, but there, a crowd of monsters was gathered, tearing at a woman’s waist.

Think, think. Please, please. Hajin, who muttered as if repeating a mantra, soon spotted the transparent carriage and ran straight toward it. Inside the carriage, there was no one else besides the teddy bear. He jumped in and had barely locked the door when KUNG! The carriage shook with a creaking sound.

“Heok, heok….”

Hajin, who caught his breath while trembling, slowly turned his head. A monster was crazily ramming its head against the top of the carriage entrance. It seemed it had failed to follow him in by a hair’s breadth, as it continued to threaten Hajin, ramming its bloody forehead, KUNG, KUNG!

Hajin, clutching his painfully tight heart, faced the monster.

“Grrrrr…. Gnash.”

The monster, probably a corpse that would be called a zombie, ground its teeth and glared at Hajin inside the transparent carriage. The pupils, where the irises should have been, were a cloudy, milky white. It was the same eyes as the monster he had encountered earlier. On top of that, there was the black blood flowing from under its nose….

“Kim… Cheolhee….”

Hajin, holding his breath, covered his mouth. A silver name tag that read ‘Trainee Kim Cheolhee’ was attached to the monster’s chest. He wanted to deny it, but on the left ear of the zombie, whose neck was half torn off, there was a heart-shaped piercing.

‘Um… Magician-nim. If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition, could I possibly shake your hand? I’ve been a huge fan who subscribed to your channel back when you had 10,000 subscribers.’

…It’s him, that person from before.