The Horror of the Backroom (3)
During regular maintenance hours, do not enter the Backroom.
One valuable rule has been learned.
But I never wanted to learn it the hard way.
Anyway, the notes are written right before each section, right?
“Haah…”
After the piercing beeping sound that slammed against my ears and the red warning lights all went dark, only the main light remained lit in the Backroom, casting a dim glow across the sector.
Through the dark edge, other sectors briefly paused before vanishing completely for several minutes.
Accordingly, the compass on my cart spun like crazy.
“…The sorting must be done.”
Seeing the compass point in one direction again, I let out a sigh of relief.
At least I wouldn’t have to imagine getting horribly killed by being trapped between moving sectors anymore.
So where exactly was I right now?
Back under the main light of the sector I started in, searching for an escape route.
Sure, it sounded like a method, but in reality it was just a desperate bid for survival.
For the past while I had been scouring the Backroom manual, but nowhere in the [Convenience Store Backroom Usage Manual] was there any record of how a worker who entered during regular maintenance time got out or survived.
The only helpful snippet was from the [Getting Lost in the Backroom] section.
One. Find a bell attached to a specific pillar and press it firmly.
Two. Follow the compass on the cart to find your way.
And three. Find the Task Manager.
I considered each one.
First, I scanned the surroundings but couldn’t spot any pillars with bells attached. As Kim Gichan had said, if it didn’t summon help right away even after pressing the bell, that was a problem too.
I knew even less about the Task Manager. I had no idea what it was here or how to find it. And from everything I’d seen so far… it definitely wasn’t human.
“Fine, then I have no choice but to move.”
So the safest-looking option was the second one. I looked at the cart.
Just moments ago the compass had been spinning, but now it pointed steadily in the diagonal direction of the sector and stayed fixed.
Who was going to come rescue me if I just stood here?
I didn’t expect Kim Gichan to bother since he was technically a human too.
The manager had no idea when he’d drop by the store again.
The one thing I was sure of was that survival odds went up the closer I got to the entrance.
It felt absurd that I had to fight for my life locked in the stock warehouse of a convenience store, but this was Sanctum City.
Weaker people just had to accept it…
I stood up. Before following the compass, I had swept the shelves of the current sector and found one useful item.
<__STRONG__Dwarf-Hair Shaver (for Elves)__>
I hadn’t expected to find a flashlight, but among the options this was the closest thing.
I had no idea how luxurious an elf’s beard had to be for a shaver to need to shine light while shaving, but in the current situation it was blessedly fortunate.
The one flaw was that lifting the switch to turn it on made the internal motor spin wildly with an eerie “eeeiing” sound.
It practically invited total aggro.
“…I’ll have to swap it in the next sector.”
Thinking I’d ditch it the moment something better came along, I pulled the cart and headed in the direction the compass pointed.
***
eeeiing
Walking by the light of one glowing orb.
The sound of footsteps mixed with the cart wheels rolling across the floor, all of it drowned out by the dwarf-hair shaver’s light and motor noise.
“……”
I had no idea how many sectors we had passed.
I kept walking and walking, but the compass kept pointing the same direction it had since maintenance started.
At this point I could’ve suspected the compass had broken, but when I turned the cart it kept pointing steadily in the same direction, so it couldn’t be broken.
How huge was this Backroom, really?
Plus, I had checked the pillars now and then while passing sectors but still hadn’t found anything that could possibly be a bell.
The manual clearly said to find a bell attached to a specific pillar and press it hard, but the problem was that it never told me what the specific pillar was or what the bell even looked like.
“At this rate, nothing’s going to pop up before I reach the exit…”
Dragging the cart endlessly across sectors, I noticed the products on the shelves slowly coming into view.
It was a shame I couldn’t find anything to replace the eerie-shining shaver, but most things that had flashed by were just ordinary packaged goods.
For example, tea leaf sets that existed on Earth, stickers, soap, and the like… the raw materials were slightly different, but the familiar formats dominated the shelves.
Yet the real question was, how had I never seen all these products in the actual store? No matter how vast the Backroom was, the outer store should’ve been able to stock everything, right?
Selling unsellable goods.
“How am I supposed to know which products can’t be sold?”
Was there an online catalog?
The more I thought about the convenience store, the more questions piled up. Whatever it was, these were problems I couldn’t solve right now.
***
After what felt like tens of minutes, I had passed roughly thirty more sectors by count and finally spotted what I had been hoping for.
Looking straight across the dark zone at the sector whose main light appeared to be off. On the wall I could see a blue glow and a faint white light beside it. I didn’t even need to look closely—the feeling hit me instantly.
“We made it…”
The light of the Backroom entrance.
But there was one last hurdle: the darkness that had settled over the final main sector I had to pass through.
Unlike other areas, not even the main light was on.
Still, the moment I raised my head the entrance was right in front of me.
“……”
I turned off the shaver. Then I folded the cart and tucked it under one arm.
Just one more sector and the entrance would be right ahead.
Thinking I could’ve skipped all this trouble if I hadn’t had this experience made me angry.
Yeah. Fine, get mad.
Right now the only thing I could do was walk forward, heart pounding, in case of any sudden danger.
I stepped into the next sector, which was nothing but darkness.
The sector without any other lights felt like pure black.
Plus, with my nerves already shot, each step dragged on forever.
Once my eyes adjusted to the total darkness, I could see my surroundings too. But something felt off.
All the sectors I had passed so far had been neat and tidy with products and stock properly organized. The clean shelves had genuinely made me emotional.
But the place I had just stepped into was completely different.
“What… what is this?”
The whole area was a complete mess.
Stacks of half-unopened boxes formed mountains at the edge of the corridor.
Some even taller than my height.
At that moment I swallowed hard.
There was a similar note in the manual.
Not the official manual, but one of Kim Gichan’s tips.
[Do Not Do This]
When sorting stock, there are areas without lights on, especially dark spaces. It might be the whole sector or just one section of it, but those are cleaning zones so stay away.
Mountains of unorganized stock.
Darkness.
Was that what he meant by cleaning zones?
Yeah, the stock definitely wasn’t sorted yet.
I swallowed again and forced myself to keep walking.
Slurp.
At that instant a strange feeling seeped into my right foot.
Startled, I yanked my foot up quickly.
Something had just stepped on it. There was no way what I had just stepped on—the soft, unidentifiable thing between my foot and the floor—was a product.
“Wh-what…?”
I had never stepped on anything in my life, but coming this far and choosing to turn on the glowing shaver in the middle of complete darkness had been an incredibly stupid move.
And then I saw it.
Even without colors I could make out a long, thin line that stood out against the dark and then vanished back into shadow.
What the hell was that?
Thud.
And suddenly something rolled right toward me.
I quickly ducked and picked it up—a round can without any label.
…Why did it roll?
Plop. Plop.
More things were dropping.
I looked up.
No matter how dark it was, my eyes had adjusted enough to see the mountain of boxes higher than my height.
Something was moving inside it.
“…Shit.”
From the moving box mountain, one by one the products started falling, losing balance… then suddenly the top exploded upward.
“U-Whoaah…!?”
With a loud crash the boxes came crashing down on me.
Even though I hit something hard and it throbbed, I wasn’t hurt.
That wasn’t the important part.
“……”
I held my breath.
A massive something pushed through the boxes. Glowing outlines, boiling breathing sounds.
I didn’t want to believe it, but it was clearly alive.
By now I didn’t care about noise. I pulled out the shaver, held it in my hand, and flicked the switch.
eeeiing—
The light from the <__STRONG__Dwarf-Hair Shaver (for Elves)__> revealed what had come out of the stock boxes.
If I compared it to what I remembered… it was a rat.
But this one was over three meters long and had the strangest, twisted body I had ever seen, even on Earth.
…And its red eyes were staring straight at me.
eeeiing
—Creak. Creak creak
I unconsciously squeezed my eyes shut.
Please.
Just let it be something I’ve never seen before.
But the rat didn’t seem to care about my wish.
“Why… why the hell are there things like this in the Convenience Store Backroom!”
Kim Gichan.
When you get back out, you’re dead for real.