Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Custom Gear
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Day three inside the nightmare factory known as Daydream Corporation.
"Phew."
Go Yeongeun exhaled a shaky breath, cautiously sinking into her desk chair as the lunch hour ticked away.
As an unlicensed medical student who hadn't even sat for her national boards, she figured she was adapting to this blood-soaked reality rather well, all things considered...
Her superiors in R Squad weren't exactly oozing with warmth, but they didn't subject her to hazing, nor did they use her as cannon fodder in the anomaly zones.
More importantly, she had already successfully cleared two F-grade ghost stories...!
'Didn't they say the average newbie clears about one or two a week?'
Two clears in three days? Even if they were the absolute lowest classification of darkness, that was a phenomenal track record for a rookie!
She was pouring every ounce of her willpower into surviving this deranged company...
Even if she had nearly blacked out from despair upon checking the Wish Grant requirements.
'Two clears, and my payout was a pathetic 66 points... How many lifetimes of this hell will it take to amass five hundred thousand...'
"......"
But despair wasn't an option.
'I have to do this. I have to survive.'
Go Yeongeun ruthlessly steeled her resolve.
'...I wonder how the other rookies are holding up.'
She absentmindedly tapped the screen of her smartphone.
Pinned to the very top of her messenger app was a single, highly active group chat.
It was a localized sanctuary for the surviving recruits.
However, there was one glaring omission from the roster.
It wasn't an intentional exclusion; they simply hadn't been able to track down his contact information.
The top-ranked rookie: Kim Sol-eum.
'We really need to send him an invite.'
Even the notoriously abrasive Baek Saheon was lurking in the chat, but strangely, not a single person had crossed paths with Kim Sol-eum in the office to pass along the link.
To the recruits, who were blissfully ignorant of the sheer, unadulterated hell he had endured over his first forty-eight hours, his absence was breeding wild speculation!
'Should I try pinging him through the company intranet?'
She logged into the corporate portal, typed his name into the directory, and was just about to draft a message when—
Beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep-beep!
The group chat abruptly erupted into a frenzy of notifications.
"...?!"
"Whoa, Deer. Word upstairs is that command wants to fast-track you to assistant manager right this second."
"Kuhk—!"
I violently choked on the bitter sludge I was swallowing.
"But apparently, the other departments are foaming at the mouth, screaming that it breaks every precedent in company history, so the motion was instantly killed."
"...Ah, I see."
Was I supposed to act devastated? Because I didn't feel a shred of disappointment. My muted response was the absolute limit of my acting abilities.
I set the empty, clinical glass down on the tray and absentmindedly rubbed my stomach.
We had just narrowly escaped the 'Tuesday Quiz Show'—a supposedly low-level mission that had abruptly mutated into an apocalyptic A-grade ghost story. The moment we materialized back at HQ, we were hauled straight to the infirmary and forced to chug emergency-grade medication.
Which was necessary, considering we had spent the last hour bleeding profusely from every facial orifice.
"Your stomach settling down?"
"Yeah."
The chemical concoction was doing its job.
Daydream Corporation's pharmaceuticals were always highly suspect, but their standard trauma meds were borderline miraculous.
In short, ghost story health potions.
'I'm fairly certain this is the exact same cherry-ade flavoring they use at that collaboration cafe near the pop-up store...'
Though the aftertaste was pure, industrial cough syrup.
'Whatever. The fact that I'm sitting in a sterile room drinking a health potion feels like a fever dream.'
Just being out of that blood-soaked studio made the air taste like honey.
Basking in the mundane, fluorescent lighting of the infirmary was a luxury I would never take for granted again...
But my superiors were entirely focused on the bureaucratic fallout rather than our miraculous survival.
How the hell had a D-grade assignment escalated into a massacre, and how was command processing the anomaly?
They were currently pulling every string and leveraging every contact they had to find out.
"Honestly, this was a totally unprecedented clusterfuck. I wish the squad leader had slammed his fist on a desk and demanded answers, but that's just not his style..."
"Deputy Manager, you can raise hell when you get promoted to his seat."
"I'll throw myself off the roof before I accept that promotion."
"Same here."
I silently agreed. I'd rather quit than climb this cursed corporate ladder.
Bound by the strange, trauma-forged camaraderie of survivors, we lay sprawled across the starched sheets of the infirmary beds.
Assistant Manager Park Minseong stretched his bruised limbs and let out a long, shuddering sigh.
A sigh carrying the profound weight of a man who had accepted his own death, only to be given a second chance.
"...I really thought we were dead meat in there. Being alive is fantastic! Thanks, Deer. Seriously."
"Don't mention it. I just did what I had to do."
Truthfully, the encyclopedic knowledge of the [Darkness Exploration Records] wiki had carried us entirely.
If I tried to deflect any harder, it would veer into an awkward, 'We were all dying, but your sheer genius saved us' territory. So, I opted for stoic silence.
"We aren't completely incompetent, I swear. We just got insanely cocky because the system flagged it as a D-grade."
"Deputy Manager, as an excuse, that sounds pathetic."
"Fine, then we'll prove our worth in the next darkness."
'Please, God, let there never be a next time...'
Unfortunately, our peaceful, paid medical leave was abruptly cut short.
"The Section Chief just got out of his briefing."
"...!"
"He's heading to the infirmary right now."
The Deputy Manager shot up, clutching her smartphone like a lifeline. The Assistant Manager scrambled out of bed, and instinct forced me to my feet as well.
'Finally, the man himself.'
Section Chief Lee Jaheon.
Employee D. Infamously known to the fandom as 'Lizard'!
He was one of the most legendary figures within the lore of [Darkness Exploration Records]. Rumor had it that his popularity was so massive, the creators were in the process of finalizing official character merchandise for him.
Honestly, I was burning with curiosity.
What kind of man was he?
'Judging by our brief exchange over the emergency button, his personality isn't exactly... standard.'
But recalling his clutch, hyper-lethal superplay with the AAA battery cast him in an overwhelmingly heroic light.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Door's unlocked. Come on in, Squad Leader!"
The heavy infirmary door clicked open.
Stepping into the sterile light was an imposingly tall figure.
He wore an impeccably tailored black suit, his crisp employee ID clipped neatly to his lapel—a textbook, flawless manifestation of corporate professionalism that suited his frame perfectly.
The long-awaited Section Chief Lee Jaheon. The legendary Employee D...
"Hello."
"...!? ...!!"
Liz... Lizard.
No, it wasn't a latex mask. It wasn't a prosthetic...
'It's a literal, flesh-and-blood reptile head.'
"......"
Wait a damn second.
This is impossible.
Am I suffering from acute hallucinatory PTSD? Did the trauma of staring at that TV-headed host finally snap my brain? That had to be it.
My shattered psyche was just superimposing a hallucination over a guy wearing a mask...
'But looking closely... the human mask is hanging from his belt.'
"......"
I am losing my fucking mind.
"Sir! I am so happy to see you, I could actually cry."
"Come in, Squad Leader! Have a seat!"
Why is everyone acting so painfully normal?!
If a giant, bipedal lizard in an Armani suit is about to walk into the room, shouldn't someone at least warn the rookie? A simple 'Hey, try not to scream' would have sufficed!
Don't just casually initiate introductions!
"Ah, this right here is Deer. Deer, this is Section Chief Lee Jaheon. Say hello."
"Whoa, look at Deer! He's absolutely paralyzed by how handsome the Section Chief is! Haha! Can't blame him, the boss doesn't even look like he belongs to our species!"
If this is some elaborate hazing ritual or a cryptic test of my social survival skills, please just spell it out...
The pale white lizard head rotated smoothly toward me. His expression was utterly unreadable.
His crimson, vertically-slitted reptilian pupils gleamed under the fluorescent lights.
"Mr. Deer."
"......"
"Can you see?"
Fuck. Fuck, fuck.
"What do you... Ah, my eyes? No, my eyes are perfectly fine. My vision is 20/20."
I was genuinely impressed by my own ability to lie under cosmic duress.
"......"
Hello?
"I see."
The reptilian head swiveled away, accompanied by a low, guttural hiss.
My soul nearly left my body.
'Please, for the love of God, stop.'
The universe is a cruel joke if I have to endure this level of psychological torture outside of the anomaly zones.
'What the hell is going on?'
But I refused to utter a single word of complaint.
The atmosphere in the room practically screamed a singular, unspoken rule: Do not acknowledge the lizard head!
'As far as the rest of them are concerned, he has a totally normal human face.'
Blend in. Do not become an outlier.
I would project absolutely zero suspicion toward this walking, talking reptilian wrecking ball.
I forced my facial muscles into a mask of placid professionalism. Luckily, my squadmates smoothly took over the conversation, steering us away from the brink.
Then, we finally got to the meat of the issue.
"Section Chief, did command explain why that D-grade turned into a bloodbath?"
"Yes."
The white reptile—no, Section Chief Lee Jaheon—offered a stiff nod.
First, he outlined the catalyst.
The reason those other employees had randomly barged into our mission...
"Are you kidding me."
"Ugh..."
No wonder the deployment orders had felt so rushed. It was a catastrophic clerical failure.
The Section Chief continued his sterile briefing.
"They probably went out to buy overpriced coffee for their rookie."
"L Squad was notorious for their team-building nonsense."
The realization that a simple coffee run had gotten an entire squad butchered cast a bitter, nauseating shadow over my squadmates' faces. But they quickly masked their grief.
"Anyway, because of the delay, their entry was processed at a weird overlap. And we had already initiated entry first."
"Correct."
Lee Jaheon confirmed curtly. Then, he dropped the real bombshell.
"Furthermore, the petition to officially reclassify the 'Tuesday Quiz Show' to an A-grade anomaly was denied."
"...?!"
"E-Excuse me?"
"L Squad was completely wiped off the map! What kind of bureaucratic bullshit is this?!"
"What about the Dream Essence Collector?! The solution we extracted was pure gold! We've been told a thousand times that gold signifies an A-grade..."
"Therefore, per official Daydream Corporation logs, the 'Tuesday Quiz Show' remains a D-grade. No exceptions will be entertained."
"......"
So, the company's official stance was clear.
'We made a fatal error, we refuse to let it become a scandal, so we are burying it.'
Yeah. Typical corporate sociopathy.
The exact kind of bloodless management that drives employees to insanity.
"This is unacceptable. We need to march upstairs and demand a hearing..."
"Deputy Manager, hold your fire for a second."
The Assistant Manager stared at the Section Chief, incredulous.
"They confiscated all of the A-grade solution. And they expect us to just eat a D-grade performance review?"
"No."
"...!"
"A separate compensation package has been authorized."
Honestly, I wasn't surprised.
'They're going to shove a wad of cash in our mouths to buy our silence...'
No corporation worth its salt skips the hush-money phase.
The only question was how heavy the payout would be.
I deliberately avoided the lizard's slitted eyes, focusing intensely on Section Chief Lee Jaheon's... maw... no, mouth.
"Given the unique volatility of the situation and the verified color of the Dream Essence, command acknowledges that your operation was functionally comparable to an A-grade exploration."
"And...?"
"Additional points have been awarded."
The total amount...
"30,000 points per surviving employee."
"...!!"
The Assistant and Deputy Managers froze as if struck by a high-voltage current.
"Thirty... thousand??"
"Yes."
"Wooooah!"
The baseline reward for an A-grade was 100,000 points. If that pool had been divided strictly by the number of original entrants across both squads, the payout would have capped at under 17,000 per person.
'But they just handed us nearly double that.'
And he wasn't finished.
"Furthermore, a separate incentive has been allocated for the employee deemed to have made the decisive tactical contribution."
The massive reptilian head turned to lock onto me.
"Mr. Kim Sol-eum."
"A total of 40,000 points will be deposited into your account."
"......"
I had just secured 8% of my Wish Grant in a single, bloody afternoon.
'Whoa.'
I was practically dizzy.
Was I upset that the A-grade clear wouldn't go on my official record? Hell no, this was the optimal outcome!
'Standing out and getting fast-tracked for promotion in this hellscape is a death sentence.'
If management's expectations skyrocketed, I'd be hurled into the most lethal meat grinders they could find. Plus, having a spotlight on me would make covertly utilizing my 'goods' infinitely harder.
Sure, promotions unlocked access to high-tier sectors and premium items, but I couldn't afford to lose sight of my priorities.
One minor miscalculation here, and you die.
'Especially after feeling the reaper breathing down my neck today... I never want to brush up against an A-grade again.'
But this massive point injection made the trauma entirely worth it.
My squadmates clearly shared the sentiment.
"...I swear to God, I just heard my retirement date jump forward by three years."
"Same."
But snapping out of their euphoria, they turned to me with sheepish expressions.
"Points are strictly non-transferable... This feels incredibly awkward."
"Yeah. You essentially soloed that entire nightmare, Deer."
"No, please. It's completely fine."
Even if the system allowed point transfers, I would have fabricated an excuse to decline.
It wasn't a matter of modesty or good character.
'These are people who willingly took jobs in a supernatural slaughterhouse just to save up for a Wish Grant.'
To the veterans of the Field Exploration Team, their points were their literal lifeblood.
I made a mental note to never mess with their ledger.
"Wooooah!"
"I can't believe it's actually real."
We practically sprinted back to the office to verify our accounts.
'Whoa.'
I stared blankly at the glowing monitor.
Five figures.
Honestly, a wave of profound, exhausted emotion washed over me.
"Whew... we survived hell, and we're filthy rich..."
The Deputy Manager flashed a predatory grin.
"Tonight, we abuse the company card. Meat is on the menu!"
"Ooooh!"
"Let's ride, Deer!"
I didn't hesitate for a second.
"Absolutely!"
And so, here we were.
I was currently bearing witness to the majestically surreal sight of a giant lizard consuming premium Hanwoo beef...
Sizzle.
I tried my absolute best to maintain a natural, nonchalant expression as the perfectly marbled meat vanished into the lizard's terrifying jaws.
"The Squad Leader's personality is definitely... eccentric, but his combat skills are unmatched."
"Yeah. You lucked out landing in our squad, Deer."
"...Yeah. I did."
I was entirely convinced I was the only person at the table seeing a literal reptile.
But if I had personally witnessed him physically demolish ghost stories with nothing but a battery and raw violence, I probably would have developed the same fierce loyalty the rest of the squad shared.
Regardless, whether I was dining with monsters or men, the beef was spectacular. I found myself genuinely enjoying the dinner.
'It's surprisingly comfortable.'
I also realized that downing a few glasses of alcohol worked wonders for suppressing cosmic terror.
'When I get back to my room, I'm going to binge ten episodes of the most aggressively cheerful children's cartoons I can find, and sleep with every single light on.'
As I meticulously planned my extreme coping mechanisms, Section Chief Lee Jaheon—who was currently chewing thoughtfully on a mouthful of seasoned scallions—abruptly addressed me.
"Are you intending to hoard the full 40,000 points?"
"Huh?"
It was a perfectly logical question.
"Ah, yes. I need to stockpile them for the Wish Grant."
"I see."
"......"
Wait a minute. The cadence of this conversation felt eerily familiar.
I rapidly replayed my previous interactions with him in my head.
So...
"Is there, perhaps, an alternative, highly beneficial way to invest those points?"
"Yes."
"......"
Ah. So that was the conversational rhythm required to extract information from the Lizard Squad Leader. It was actually quite refreshing in its efficiency.
Feeling much more relaxed, I leaned in and asked,
"What would that be?"
"Custom equipment."
"...!"
I hadn't expected him to drop that lore here...
'It's finally happening.'
The ultimate, defining perk of surviving as an employee at Daydream Corporation.
'Personalized gear!'