When Na-yoon and Seo Na-ri arrived at the parade plaza, the once vibrant square where a dazzling light show had unfolded was now steeped in quiet darkness.
Park Seo-joon and Han Min-ho had already arrived, and entrance ticket bracelets were also secured on their wrists.
Park Seo-joon greeted them in an enthusiastic voice.
“Hey, rookie, you made it too. That was the mirror maze, right?”
“Oh, yes. I’m glad you both succeeded as well, senior.”
“It was pure luck. We had to escape a zombie scene, but we just shot and slashed everything in sight. Felt like we were shooting a real splatter film.”
Like he said, Park Seo-joon and Han Min-ho were absolutely covered in blood.
Honestly, the sight was so scary that Na-yoon instinctively took a step back.
Park Seo-joon turned to Seo Na-ri with a cheerful smile and approached her.
“Na-ri-ah! You’re safe too. Nothing too crazy happened over there?”
“Don’t come closer. You’ll get blood on me.”
“Haha, isn’t it usually the other way around?”
Looking a bit embarrassed, Park Seo-joon scratched his head and took a step back.
Na-yoon glanced around suddenly and asked,
“Huh? Where’s the Team Leader’s group? It seems like they haven’t arrived yet…”
“Our group arrived first. Up until now, we were just waiting, thinking maybe we were naturally quicker than the others…”
Park Seo-joon scratched the back of his neck with a perplexed expression.
“With all four of us here and no sign of them, something must’ve happened. It looks like we’ll have to go and find them.”
“Ugh.”
Going to look for the Team Leader meant they would have to head back into the mirror maze or something similar.
Honestly, Na-yoon had zero desire to go back in.
“Isn’t it just that it’s taking a bit more time? If we wait a little longer…”
“Do you think they would be stopped by something like a card game? They are both experts. If everything went as planned, they’d be here long before us.
Park Seo-joon furrowed his eyebrows and continued.
“Of course, that’s if everything’s been going normally.”
The entertainment devil didn’t say they just had to go through the attractions and come back.
The time limit for the game was 120 minutes.
More than half of it had already slipped by, leaving only 30 minutes left.
Could the Team Leader’s group make it here within the remaining time?
Even if they set out to help right away, could they really make it in time?
Na-yoon’s heart sank with growing anxiety.
***
[Hmm? Another team has managed to escape? That’s unexpected.]
The entertainment devil stroked its chin with interest as it gazed at the crowded TV screens before him.
The screens showed Shin Na-yoon and Seo Na-ri as they emerged from the mirror maze.
Seeing the devil in a giant mouse costume, making an exaggeratedly curious face like a comic character, would have looked surreal in any other setting.
But there was no one around to point this out. Only the entertainment devil occupied this place.
[I put quite a bit of effort into preparing this one. To think they’d escape without a single casualty. And, look at that, the internal recording is cut off by about five seconds.]
The devil had divided the three attractions by difficulty level.
In human terms, they ranged from easy to normal to hard.
So that things wouldn’t be too dull if no team made it through, he had intentionally placed the two male contestants in the easy level.
However, starting from the normal level, he fully expected that escaping would be nearly impossible.
At the very least, he had expected there to be at least one casualty.
The entertainment devil couldn’t hide its surprise at the unexpected result.
[Hmm… as expected of the Security Bureau. Since they’re special guests, they must have some ability, right? Fufu, this will make the show much more interesting. But…]
The devil turned to watch another screen.
On this screen, In Ha-young and Song Ji-hye were in the middle of a game.
[This game, the one I’ve personally put extra effort into. They won’t escape it so easily.]
The entertainment devil watched the screen with a pleased smile.
At that moment, the two were facing an unavoidable disaster.
***
In Ha-young and Song Ji-hye walked side by side through the haunted house.
Both were elite agents from the Security Bureau who had faced all sorts of trials.
Ghosts leaping out from every direction posed no threat to them at all.
If they were weak enough to be affected by such low-level spirits, they wouldn’t have survived in the Security Bureau until now.
But what truly made this game difficult was something else.
“This again…”
“Haa…”
At the end of the hallway stood two iron doors.
In Ha-young already recognized this setup. She had encountered it multiple times before.
Each door allowed only one person to enter, and inside there were two buttons.
One was labeled “Cooperate” and the other “Betray”.
If both pressed “Cooperate”, they would play a moderately difficult game together.
If both chose “Betray”, they would have to play a much harder game together.
If they chose different buttons, the one who selected “Cooperate” would face an extremely difficult game, while the one who selected “Betray” would pass through without facing a game at all.
It was no different from the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma.
With one key difference: if one person was eliminated during the game, the surviving player would immediately receive a treasure.
In essence, it was a game designed to blatantly encourage betrayal.
Betrayal was the easiest way to secure a reward.
In contrast, cooperation could end up being the choice that puts one’s life at risk.
Even moderately difficult games held no guarantee of safety.
Surviving five minutes against hundreds of attacking ghosts or climbing out of a pit slowly filling with lava—
They had made it through countless deadly games where a single misstep could mean death.
They had no way of knowing what dangers awaited them in the next game or when this ordeal would finally end.
But there was a greater problem lurking beneath the surface.
Are these games I’ve been playing … really at the normal level?
Perhaps Song Ji-hye had been breezing through and resting comfortably without facing any real hardship.
Perhaps only In Ha-young had been fighting alone and struggling through games of extreme difficulty.
There was no way to confirm it.
And so suspicion began to take root.
In Ha-young quietly spoke up.
“The last game was about finding an exit. Swords and spears flew at me from every direction, like poltergeists; it was pretty tough. Lots of traps, too.”
“My game was exorcism. As time went by, ghosts began to attach themselves to my body, and I had to find the real culprit and exorcise it.”
“We each have our areas of expertise. If we played the same game, one of us might have been at a disadvantage… or maybe, one of us is lying.”
“What? Are you saying I’m lying?”
Their games were different.
And because of that, there was no way to verify if they had shared the same experience.
“Don’t you think it feels like each round is getting harder compared to the last?”
“Really? Actually, I thought the same. Made me wonder if someone might’ve chosen betrayal.”
“…Who the hell would do that?”
Their gazes crossed coldly in the air.
In Ha-young read the distrust in Song Ji-hye’s eyes instantly.
Then she realized she wore the exact same expression.
The rules of this game were brutal.
If both of them tried to cooperate and failed, they might both end up dead.
If just one of them died first, the survivor would easily claim the treasure.
Even if I manage to get the treasure here, we won’t secure all three unless the other groups succeed, too.
In Ha-young was already worn to the bone from making it this far through the games.
She couldn’t even be sure she would make it through the next round in her current state.
The thought that in the worst-case scenario, she would have to fight the entertainment devil in this state never left In Ha-young’s mind.
No, the worst case isn’t even that.
The real worst case would be if every other team managed to obtain the treasure and only her team was left empty-handed.
They had been given a chance to defeat a high-ranking devil, who was nearly an archdevil, with minimal sacrifice.
Would they let that slip away? In a situation where only one person had to be sacrificed?
Could Song Ji-hye know this, too? Maybe she’s been choosing betrayal all along, hoping I’d be the one to die first.
If both of them had already decided that escape was impossible, it might actually be more rational for one to conserve their strength while the other perished.
It was exactly the kind of reasoning Song Ji-hye would have.
In Ha-young’s mind grew increasingly filled with what she could only call rational suspicion.
Rational suspicion? What’s supposed to be rational about this, damn it…!
This had to be the devil’s trap.
The devil was surely hoping they would start to doubt each other and eventually betray one another.
But knowing that didn’t make the suspicion go away so easily.
In Ha-young realized she was more emotional than usual.
She wasn’t sure if it was because of her strained relationship with Song Ji-hye or if it was simply the extreme nature of their current situation.
Or maybe it was the unsettling magical power saturating this place, which made it harder than usual to suppress her emotions.
“Let’s go in.”
“Yes.”
The two of them stopped talking and stepped through the iron door separately.
They both knew that saying anything more would only worsen their feelings toward each other.
Or perhaps it was because they had already decided in their hearts which button they would press, making further conversation feel pointless.
“Stop it, stop suspecting her already, In Ha-young!”
But it wasn’t easy to shake off the thoughts that clung so persistently to her mind.
Even now, wasn’t pressing the betrayal button the more reasonable choice?
If all the games she had played up until now were set to the highest difficulty, then it might be better to press betrayal to lower the difficulty of the next game rather than hoping Song Ji-hye would press the cooperation button.
If they wanted to escape together, this might actually be the better approach.
After all, with her stamina like this, she wouldn’t last much longer anyway.
The moment such self-justifying thoughts took over In Ha-young’s mind—
“Ah…!”
Without even realizing it, In Ha-young had placed her hand over the betrayal button.
And as the button was pressed down, the surrounding scenery began to shift.
Both sides had pressed their buttons and the mission had begun.
At that moment, In Ha-young understood.
The mission she had been assigned was harsher and more hopeless than anything before.
If things had gone the way she predicted, with her being the one to be betrayed, the game’s difficulty would have been lowered by now.
But the fact that it had only grown harder …
It meant that, until now, the two of them had been pressing cooperation each time,
And this time, both of them had pressed betrayal at the same time.
[Uhahahahaha! Uhihihihihi! Ahahahahaha! Kuhuhihi!]
Somewhere, a crafty and malicious devil’s laughter echoed through the air.
When Na Yoon and her group arrived at the haunted house in a hurry,
What they encountered was In Ha-young and Song Ji-hye completely out of their minds.
The time remaining until the limit—
Only ten minutes left.
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