Empty hospitals have been a staple of horror urban legends since time immemorial.
And in a world where negative human emotions coalesce into physical Cursed Spirits? It's even worse.
At this point, it wouldn't even be weird if some grotesque monster lunged out from the next corner.
"Put the receiver down. I'll call you back on my personal cell and put it on speaker."
I hung up the desk's landline and redialed Kanao on my smartphone.
— Got it. I'll just listen quietly, so tell me whenever you need something.
"Roger that."
I switched the phone to speaker mode and tucked it firmly into my chest pocket so she could hear clearly.
With both hands free, I began a cautious sweep of the first-floor hallway.
After a short walk, I spotted a consultation room with a small sign that read [Ophthalmology].
Cre-e-e-eak...
The door swung open with the high-pitched protest of rusted hinges.
But contrary to my heightened tension, the room was empty of threats.
Two powered-off monitors sat on the desk, and beside them stood a lone eye exam chair, its chin rest waiting for a patient that wasn't there.
"...."
The other wards and consultation rooms were the same story.
It was as if the people had simply evaporated into thin air. The interior was almost disturbingly ordinary.
There were no bloodstains, no Cursed Residue, and not even a single overturned chair to suggest a struggle. It looked exactly like a clean office after everyone had finished their shifts and gone home for the day.
I crouched in a corner of the hallway and whispered toward the phone in my pocket, knowing Kanao was listening.
"It's me. Search of the first floor is complete. Not a single survivor or Cursed Spirit in sight. The second floor, where the survivors are supposedly gathered, likely has the most variables. I'll clear the third floor first to make sure my path is open before heading back down to the second."
— Roger.
I climbed the emergency stairs silently to the third floor.
However, the patient rooms and lounges on the third floor were identical.
It was just a dark, chilly medical ward with zero abnormalities.
"Damn it, I should've just brought Kanao. I'm not even getting the ominous vibe of an Innate Domain."
Grumbling about chasing ghosts, I finally moved toward the second floor—the designated hideout for the survivors, according to the police.
The moment I rounded the corner...
"...Ah!"
At the end of the second-floor hallway, bright light was leaking out from the physical therapy and rehabilitation room—the exact spot the commander had pointed out on the map.
'The lights are on. That means people are in there!'
I immediately killed my footsteps and lowered my center of gravity.
Approaching like a tiger stalking its prey, I pressed myself against the wall and moved toward the rehabilitation room, preparing to peek inside.
The second I cracked the door open and glanced within—
'...!!'
I gasped, my entire body freezing in place.
What... what the hell is that?
In the center of the brightly lit physical therapy room, a massive, house-sized mound of flesh was coiled up.
It was a nauseating lump of meat that looked as if hundreds of people had been thrown into a giant blender alive and then kneaded together like dumpling filling.
How was I so sure they were people? Because I could see them clearly.
From a distance, it looked like a single mass, but upon closer inspection, the skin tones and textures were a hideous gradient of stitched-together parts.
Fair skin, dark skin, the wrinkled, liver-spotted hide of the elderly, and the supple flesh of the young—all fused into one.
'Don't tell me... all 200 people in this hospital were merged into that single thing?'
My hand shook as it gripped my weapon, the truth settling in like lead.
'No, no. Stay calm! Fact-check first!'
I suppressed my footsteps and retreated into the hallway, away from the door.
I whispered urgently into the phone in my chest pocket.
"Kanao! Kanao, do you hear me?!"
— Yeah! I'm here. What's going on? You sound panicked.
"No time to explain. Tell that commander uncle next to you to call the hospital director's cell phone! Now! In exactly 30 seconds!"
— Huh? Uh, okay!
I swallowed hard and counted down thirty seconds in my head.
As the timer hit zero, I approached the gap in the door again.
'...27, 28, 29, 30.'
Riiiiiing—! Riiiiiing—!
A shrill ringtone shattered the silence.
The source of the sound was none other than the inside of that meat-filling monster.
'Ha... So there's no coming back from this.'
My last sliver of hope evaporated. The hostages were already dead.
I gritted my teeth and reached for the handle of Muramasa at my waist. Right at that moment—
Click.
The ringing stopped.
I couldn't fathom how that limb-less lump had answered the call, but the ringing died, and the connection to the command center outside was established.
Suddenly, a section of the mass bulged outward, and the face of a middle-aged man sprouted from the surface.
"Ah, yes... This is the Hospital Director... Has the Public Security support arrived yet...?"
He was using the exact words the survivor representative had used during the briefing.
And before the chills could even settle, a wrinkled grandmother's face erupted from the skin right next to his, wailing desperately.
"Son! When did Public Security say they'd be here! I'm so scared! Get me out of here right now!"
The hair on my arms stood on end.
'That thing... No, that colony... is mimicking the survivors!!'
There was no more room for hesitation.
Zing—!
I kicked the door open, letting my Cursed Energy explode throughout my body.
The Dharma Wheel of Mahoraga materialized above my head as I lunged forward, feet pounding against the linoleum.
"Die, you freak!"
Schlick!
I swung Muramasa, the blade burying itself deep into the meat composed of hundreds of victims.
But the mass didn't split in two.
Part of it was because the sheer volume of the thing was too great for the blade's length, but the real reason I froze in shock was different.
'Wait...?'
My blade was coated in Positive Energy—an absolute poison for Cursed Spirits.
On contact, that thing's flesh should have crumbled and evaporated into smoke.
Yet, what sprayed from the wound I carved was hot, steaming red blood!
'Red blood? It's not a Cursed Spirit?! Even looking like that?!'
My senses—honed to a level rivaling a Grade 1 Sorcerer—screamed that this was a Cursed Spirit, yet it survived a direct hit from Positive Energy. Just what the hell is...!
Amidst my confusion, I desperately tried to yank the blade out and retreat.
"Today's hospital meal is~"
A pale face popped up from the meat mass right in front of my nose.
Its jaw unhinged to an impossible degree, and from within its esophagus, a massive, muscular fist shot out, slamming into my face with merciless force.
WHAM—!!
"Gugh!"
The recoil was immense. I was sent flying through the remains of the therapy room door and smashed into the hallway wall before I could even process the hit.
— Hey!! I hear a huge commotion up there! What's happening?!
Kanao's urgent voice blared through the speakerphone in my pocket.
I spat out a mouthful of blood and screamed back.
"Kanao! Get inside the hospital right now! This thing is at least a Special Grade class! Use the computers at the reception desk! Siphon all the Internet Malice you can find and get ready to fire!"
— Got it!!
Click!
As soon as our short exchange ended, I turned and sprinted toward the emergency stairs like a madman.
Behind me, the meatball sprouted several oversized limbs from its surface and began to scuttle down the hallway like a grotesque spider, pursuing me with savage speed.
Thump! Thump! Thump! CRASH—!
I vaulted over the staircase railing, throwing myself down toward the first-floor lobby.
The first thing I saw was Kanao standing in front of the information desk, her Cursed Energy erupting in a violent surge.
A massive amount of energy gathered at her fingertip, glowing with a condensed light.
"Get down!!"
Kanao screamed, and I instinctively hugged the floor.
Fwaaaaa-!!
A massive sphere of Cursed Energy tore through the air, screaming toward the monster lunging down the stairs.
Skreeeeech!
At that exact moment, hundreds of lips sprouted across the monster's surface.
Those countless mouths distorted and fused into a single, cavernous maw, and then...
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH—!!!"
Accompanied by a horrific screech of a thousand overlapping voices, a beam of concentrated Cursed Energy erupted from its mouth to meet Kanao's blast!