If my guess was right, there were two reasons that “traffic light” wasn’t changing.

One: because inside the Horror Realm, the normal “concept” of time didn’t exist.

Two: because that traffic light was a “special” traffic light.

From behind me, I heard the sound of teeth grinding again. Either way, I didn’t have much time left.

[Exclusive Skill, ‘Agitation Lv.10’ activates!]

Fine—let’s just do something.

I shouted urgently at the traffic light.

"You can recognize ‘time’ from now on!"

If the green light wasn’t turning on because of the “concept of time,” I was sure this [Agitation] would work. But the traffic light didn’t change.

Good. Then how about this?

"You are a ‘traffic light with a green light on’!"

I thought this was a much more certain approach. One second, two seconds, three seconds. Still, the traffic light didn’t change.

Damn it. So it won’t work?

Is the plausibility of [Agitation] too low?

Because it’s an inanimate object with no ego?

Or do the beings inside this “Horror Realm” have some kind of immune system against my [Agitation]?

I was curious, but I didn’t have the luxury to dwell on it.

If the first method didn’t work, it was time to use the second.

「A traffic light whose signal doesn’t change.」

If that traffic light was a “special traffic light,” and that was why its signal wouldn’t change, then there had to be a rule. And I suspected the “rule” was this.

I slowly closed my eyes and sucked in a rough breath.

How many seconds passed like that?

Even with my eyes closed, it suddenly felt like my vision became crystal clear—and as if by magic, another traffic light appeared beside me.

It was a matching traffic light paired with the one across from me.

I walked slowly toward it and checked the pole, and the button I’d expected was there.

「Accessible Audible Signal for the Visually Impaired」

It’s here! It really was here!

Without hesitating, I pressed the button. Then a bizarre sound began to pour out of the traffic light.

【If your eyes are un com fort a ble, raise your right hand and cross】

The mechanical voice that came out was ominous as hell, but I felt a thrill anyway—I’d gotten it right.

The moment I raised my right hand and tried to take my first step—

[Exclusive Attribute, ‘Record Fixer’ warns you.]

The instinct I’d honed over long years of writing screamed at me. If I took that first step as I was, I would be torn apart and die horribly, just like those incarnations earlier.

「This is not an appropriate interpretation of this ‘fear.’」

I didn’t know why, but the feeling was overwhelming.

Then what had I missed?

My deliberation didn’t last long.

[Exclusive Skill, ‘Agitation Lv.10’ activates!]

The traffic light said: ‘People with uncomfortable eyes, raise your right hand and cross.’

I couldn’t inject a concept of time into the traffic light even with my [Agitation].

But what if the target was “me”?

「I can’t see.」

The moment [Agitation] triggered, my sight sank into darkness. In a thorough blackness where not a single ray of light could seep in, I began to move forward with my right hand raised, taking trembling steps.

Step, step, step.

My footsteps sounded louder than usual. Is this right? If I keep walking like this, can I really cross the crosswalk? What if a car charges in from somewhere and hits me?

The fear that maybe I was wrong. That inorganic, barren dread choked me.

After I walked a few more steps, hearing began to replace the place where vision had vanished, little by little. Another world made of sound existed there.

The tangled noises, in that sharp darkness, began to separate one by one.

The sound of my breathing. The sound of my steps. The dry rasp of fabric brushing. The sound of a shark head clacking its teeth.

And… and the sound of someone walking beside me.

【You’re doing well.】

Goosebumps exploded over my entire body.

Who… who was that?

I sprinted across the crosswalk in an instant, terrified. When I’d completed all the steps I’d decided on in my head and opened my eyes, I was already far past the crosswalk.

[Exclusive Skill, ‘Agitation Lv.10’ has been released.]

The one who’d spoken to me at my side wasn’t there.

What was that?

An auditory hallucination?

[Disaster-grade Fear — ‘Alien Traffic Light’ has been unlocked.]

[You have perfectly interpreted a disaster-grade fear.]

[Interpretation Success!]

[Interpretation Suggestion : Sometimes, just closing your eyes is enough to glimpse another world.]

[The Horror Realm is satisfied with your interpretation.]

*

[A special interpretation reward will be granted.]

This time, too, an interpretation reward was given.

But unlike before, this one was a “special interpretation reward.”

The story fragment I’d obtained after clearing the first gate was ‘Fictionalization.’ Honestly, it was so abstract from the name alone that I couldn’t even tell what it was for.

But the reward I got this time was different.

[Story Fragment, ‘Remote Signal Controller’ has been acquired.]

When I summoned the story, a small remote control appeared right in front of my eyes.

I gripped the remote in my hand. Somehow, I felt like I knew exactly how to use it.

In the distance, the shark head—charging while belching black smoke—was shaking its head side to side, looking around. It seemed like it had lost track of my location.

"Right here, you bastard!"

Hearing my voice, it started charging this way again.

Straight toward the direction of the traffic light I’d crossed.

I backed away slowly, checking the distance between us.

Just a little closer. Just a little more.

The moment it finally reached the crosswalk’s edge, the thing that had been charging like a maddened bull suddenly stopped.

Its two eyes were fixed precisely on the traffic light.

For a moment, I was dumbfounded.

Damn it. Even that “shark head” obeys the signal?

Yeah? Then fine.

「This is a story that lets me freely control the Horror Realm’s ‘traffic lights.’」

When I pressed the remote’s button, the traffic light’s glow switched to “green.”

As if it had been waiting, it started crossing the crosswalk. When it was about halfway across, I pressed the button again without hesitation. And the next moment—

Crunch.

What I’d expected happened right in front of my eyes. With a deafening blast, something flew in and slammed into it.

Crack. Thud. Krrraaaash.

A horrific series of rupture sounds bursting from its entire body.

【AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA】

With my hands over my ears, I didn’t look away from the site of the catastrophe. In real time, its true body was turning into rags. Holes opened all across the massive shark’s body, and spikes burst out. Broken fangs and molars flew through the air.

But.

【OOOOOOOOOOOOOO】

It didn’t die.

It wasn’t dead—and it was approaching me, step by step.

A tenacious, terrifying vitality.

Looks like this level of “fear” couldn’t hurt it enough.

【I’LLPULLYOURTEETHOUTI’LLPULLYOURTEETHOUTI’LLPULLYOURTEETHOUTI’LLPULLYOURTEETHOUTI’LLPULLYOURTEETHOUTI’LLPULLYOURTEETHOUTI’LLPULLYOURTEETHOUT】

Well, even “fear” isn’t omnipotent. No matter how frightening a fear is, in the end, fear manifests through its own “plausibility.”

If myth-grade constellations—terrifying existences like that—reveal their stature, then laws beneath the standard won’t be able to exert their full original power.

And that Outer God, no matter how I looked at it, seemed stronger than a story-grade constellation.

【MYTEETHHURTMYTEETHHURTMYTEETHHURTMYTEETHHURTMYTEETHHURTMYTEETHHURTMYTEETHHURTMYTEETHHURTMYTEETHHURTMYTEETHHURT】

No—if it hurts, then stop chasing me.

I started running with everything I had. While it was stuck at the traffic light, I had to get as far away as possible.

As I ran, I kept thinking of a way to harm that Outer God, but nothing plausible came to mind. For now, the best option was to use the fears hidden in the Horror Realm to shake it off.

「In the Horror Realm ‘Entrance Area,’ there are three fears I can use.」

I counted the number of forks in the road I’d passed so far.

「After passing ‘seven’ forks in the Entrance Area, ‘that place’ will appear.」

If my guess was right, the traffic light’s “fork” was exactly the “seventh.”

Sure enough, after I passed the last fork, it felt like the side path gradually widened.

How far had I run—several hundred meters?

[‘Nameless Fear’ looks at you.]

There was a tunnel lit by an ominous light.

A disaster-grade fear, 「Festival Tunnel」.

Just looking at it, it seemed like something I desperately didn’t want to enter. Even so, I had to go in there—because the “fear” I needed was inside that tunnel.

「There are a total of seven ‘fears’ hidden inside the ‘Festival Tunnel.’」

This tunnel was a “fear that hides fears.”

It only existed to hide other fears.

I immediately activated [Wind’s Path] and ran toward the tunnel. The moment I entered the tunnel entrance, the first fear greeted me.

[‘Nameless Fear’ is chasing you!]

Right after, small cracks began to spread across the floor.

A disaster-grade fear, 「Racing Crack」.

The moment someone entered the tunnel, this crack would occur. If you ran slower than the spreading crack, the tunnel floor would instantly collapse and swallow the target.

Of course, there was no way the crack could be faster than me with [Wind’s Path] active.

After I’d sprinted about a hundred steps, some of the ceiling lights embedded in the tunnel began to flicker.

[‘Nameless Fear’ is watching you!]

A calamity-grade fear, 「Lights That Turn Off the World」.

Calmly, I adjusted my running line and avoided the lights.

Under no circumstances could I approach an area with a flickering light.

What happens if you do?

You disappear.

What happens after you disappear wasn’t written in ‘Ways of Survival,’ either.

After that, I witnessed several more fears.

A woman in mourning clothes prowling along the tunnel’s edge.

Motorbikes surging in from the opposite direction of my run, with a time delay.

I ignored them and kept running.

【TEETH! TEETH! TEETH! TEETH! TEETH! TEETH! TEETH! TEETH! TEETH! TEETH! TEETH! TEETH!】

Before I knew it, the shark head had reached the tunnel entrance.

Turned into rags by the traffic light, it let out a shriek and charged in, half-destroying the whole tunnel as if gnawing it apart.

KRRRRAAAASH!

A chain of sounds rang out—the shark head’s teeth tearing, biting, swallowing something. But I didn’t have the time to look back and see what it was.

It’s around here. It has to be here. So why can’t I see it?

A calamity-grade fear, 「War Air-Raid Shelter」.

That was the fear I was looking for.

This fear was the only “safe fear” the Horror Realm expedition had found in the Entrance Area. As long as you were inside the shelter, you could receive absolute protection from external enemies.

However, the shelter’s usable time was 3 hours.

After 3 hours, the user would be forcibly expelled.

My plan was to get inside somehow, buy time, and figure out my next move.

But I couldn’t see the shelter.

Something was wrong. ‘Ways of Survival’ definitely said it was around here.

Then a piece # Nоvеlight # of information flashed through my mind.

「In the most recent three Horror Realm expeditions, the expedition team failed to return.」

What if, in this worldline, something had gone wrong with the “Horror Realm expedition”?

So the fears in the Horror Realm Entrance Area had been replaced in large numbers with ones I didn’t know?

And therefore—

「What if the ‘War Air-Raid Shelter’ no longer exists?」

The sound of teeth colliding came right behind me. The shark head’s hot breath tickled the back of my head.

A speed I couldn’t shake off even with [Wind’s Path].

Cold sweat ran down my spine.

I can’t die here.

I ran and ran. My breath climbed higher and higher, and my magic power was dropping. Maybe because I’d been running so desperately, my heart hurt with a sharp, stabbing pain.

Wait. My heart?

Bzzzzzz.

Since when? The smartphone I’d stuffed in my coat’s inner pocket was vibrating. It was a call.

Goosebumps rose again.

After I possessed this world, not a single person had ever called me.

So what kind of “nameless fear” is this now?

But the moment I checked the caller name on the screen, I thought it was fine even if it was fear.

「Second Kim Dokja」

I answered the call.