After finally sending the closet monster off, a pair of eyeballs with every capillary burst from waiting glared at me. So it wasn't that it had no eyes, they were just hidden. Now they'd popped out because it was furious. Please, I just want to see a normal human with two eyes, two ears, and two nostrils... well, one nostril.

***

"Your wages."

"Wow...! Thank you!"

Thank you my foot, this is what I earned through my suffering! Still, the pouch I took was fairly heavy and that made me happy.

Because I received my labor's compensation in the currency used in this world, and any losses caused by my mistakes at the hospital were covered with emotions, there was no monetary loss on my end.

For the first time, I thought paying with emotions was a good thing, and I stomped my feet with joy. On top of that, today was the hospital's day off, which came once a week!

"Are you that happy?"

"Yes!"

What kind of question is that? I thought, wouldn't you be happy too? Then immediately realized that the doctor might genuinely not be happy. In fact, he was looking at me longer than usual, as if I were something curious.

"What are you planning to do?"

He must have found it quite curious. The fact that he felt "curiosity" toward me at all was itself surprising. Watching the doctor, uncharacteristically, continue asking questions, I suddenly thought that compared to when we first met, the number of times he spoke to me had increased.

"I'm going to go outside! I think it would be good to buy things if there's anything I need!"

The doctor hadn't confined me to this hospital. But even if he looked like a human who simply lacked emotions, he was still a monster.

Because monsters were things that could change their minds on a whim, I showed only an excited expression with no hint of trying to escape. I genuinely couldn't run away right this moment either. First, gather information and then...

"I see. It seems we can go out together. Get ready."

"Sure! Together... what?"

"If you have nothing to prepare, let's go as we are."

"What? Where, where to?"

"We're going to Mangridangil."

What street? What's with that blatantly ominous name? Why are we going there together?

"No, I have things to prepare! Let me change my clothes!"

"Are you going out in your pajamas?"

"...No. Come to think of it, I guess it's better to just go in what I'm wearing now."

Why had this suddenly turned into going out together to some suspicious place? I tried to buy time in my confusion but failed. I was a one-outfit person with nothing but pajamas and a uniform.

"If you're wearing your uniform, put this necklace on so it shows over your clothes."

"What is this?"

There would be human clothes at Mangridangil too, I'd need clothes other than the uniform for future information gathering. I was swallowing tears over my pitiful wardrobe when a white necklace... no, a choker was handed to me.

I have no clothes and you're giving me jewelry? But I won't refuse if it's being offered. It's a bit out of nowhere, but the design isn't bad.

"It's a mark that you belong to me."

Oh for crying out loud.

A curse shot up to the tip of my tongue and I barely managed not to spit it out. I must have made a sour face without realizing it, because the doctor added a supplementary explanation that it would prevent troublesome incidents outside.

"Troublesome incidents?"

"You need to open the hospital doors tomorrow as well, and it would be inconvenient if you were inside someone else's stomach."

"..."

Mangridangil, road of the dead, did I really have to go there? But I did need to learn more about this world. I can't live only inside the hospital.

If I was going out anyway, going with the doctor while wearing a dog collar might actually be safer. I obediently put on the dog collar that was pretty in design alone.

"I'm ready."

It might even be good if the hospital's address and phone number were written on it. Then no matter what happened, someone would bring me back here.

***

"What's sold in each shop isn't very different. Buy the things you need at a reasonably close one."

"G, gah. Gaga. Gah..."

"I can't make sense of that."

Gaga... the only sound coming from my throat was something like a monster being shredded. It was because I was so scared. Come with me. Don't go. Hold my hand no matter what.

Suddenly,

"...!!"

Even so, a tentacle shot out from somewhere and blocked my path, making eye contact with me. Even if those eyes were located inside the split-open teeth of a tentacle.

It said nothing, but I could tell that its sharp pupils, which had slid downward, looked at my necklace and turned away with a disappointed expression. Aaagh.

"Are you hot? You're sweating."

Look, this is my dog collar! Worried that the monsters might not be able to see my necklace, I undid two or three of the top buttons of my uniform entirely. I thought maybe it wouldn't be visible from behind, so I also twisted my hair up with a desk pen.

What I'm sweating isn't sweat from the heat. It's a cold sweat.

"Miss! Miss, if you're hot, how about one of these? It's cool and crunchy~."

Please put that away. I turned my head away from the merchant who looked like a kind ahjumma but was holding out a red drink with crushed human fingers and fingernails crammed into it like croutons.

Could those ingredients be human? But the doctor and that merchant herself both look exactly like humans on the outside. I still can't tell what's what.

This world is bigger and more complicated than I thought.

"Didn't you need clothes?"

"Yes. Yes, I do."

When they said Mangridangil I'd imagined something like a narrow, gloomy alley haunted by ghosts. But even in the monster world, there was a reason it had that kind of name. It was far more bustling than I'd imagined.

If I had come out alone, I would have been torn apart and swallowed by various monsters without leaving so much as a single strand of hair.

I followed the doctor almost pressed right up against his back and walked as if in a trance into a shop.

"Welcome, Erebos-nim. Has your coat worn out already?"

The shop seemed to know the doctor. Erebos? Come to think of it, I'd never heard the doctor's name before. Erebos, the doctor. doctor Erebos, shopping for a coat on Mangridangil.

The names, which seemed to mix all kinds of languages, were an absolute mess. Just like this rootless monster world.

I suddenly wondered which had existed first in this world, people or monsters. Could it be that people existed first, and this kind of space was created by clumsily imitating them?

"Ah, you're looking for clothes for this one. Please look over here. What color would you like?"

"What color do you want?"

"Black."

Being referred to as "this one" or "that thing" didn't bother me anymore. I'd been scared I might have to go into a shop alone and deal with a monster, but since the doctor was helping, I needed to choose quickly.

Black, of course, for not standing out and being okay if it got dirty. Koreans and neutral colors, naturally.

"Have this one change into that yellow outfit."

"What?"

No, you asked what color I wanted. I see, you wanted black. Got it. But instead, go ahead and wear that yellow dress that stands out like a butterfly caught in a spiderweb. What is this, asking a question with the answer already decided?

"...Hmm?"

Naturally, the shop owner listened to the doctor's words over mine, which were nothing more than a common pronoun. The doctor looked at the yellow dress being taken down from a perfectly normal hanger and made an indecipherable sound, then slowly looked back and forth between me and the dress.

As if surprised by his own decision, as if realizing it belatedly, that expression was infuriating. In the meantime, a staff member who had brought the dress held it out to me and pointed to the space in front of the sofa in the center of the shop.

"Wait just a moment."

"Normally humans can't wear things here, but since Erebos-nim brought you, I'll let it slide. You're a human with a faint scent."

A fitting room? Is there no fitting room?

Was this a plan to give me a bigger grievance so I couldn't voice my complaints about the clothes? The doctor was served some unidentifiable tea while I was left standing there flustered with the yellow dress.

It was obvious to anyone that I was meant to just change right there.

Right, come to think of it, there's no such thing as a dog's fitting room!

I repented for the days when I'd dressed my beloved dog Jadu, who I missed so desperately, in a strawberry hoodie at the store and showered her with "oh how cute~" while ignoring her growling.

"You're moving a little slowly. If you're busy, shall I lend a hand?"

"Staff Kang."

"Yes! I'll put it on right away!"

So this is how the sins of those days come back to me. The shop owner, who had looked human, had fingernails that were slowly growing longer. Looking at those sharp fingernail tips and the doctor's subtly urging manner, my sense of shame disappeared.

Feeling that I could no longer cover my shame losses with something like a striptease, I quickly threw my uniform to the floor and pulled on the yellow dress.

At least it's a dress I can put on quickly, thank goodness...

"Ugh."

I pulled my head out of the dress I'd yanked over myself and tugged the hem down, and came face to face with the shop owner who had moved right in front of me. The pupils that had been round were now slit into thin, long vertical lines.

"Your interest is excessive."

"Ah. I'm sorry. I thought the scent was faint, but... this, the smell of flesh is..."

The owner was getting closer. The hand reaching out came toward me as if to grab and tear off my white necklace.

But a hand reached me first and pulled my wrist, exposed by the short sleeve. That hard, plaster-like sensation was something I'd felt once before.

"doctor! I haven't paid yet!"

"I paid. Let's go."

You thief. I was scared that they'd come chasing after us shouting they'd cut off that wicked hand and eat it, so I struggled, but at the explanation that followed I went limp and let myself be led out.