Chapter 210
Chapter 210
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 210
Chapter Title: Even If I Fall into a Horror Tale, I Have to Go to Work
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After drinking the Wish Grant and realizing the "truth."
My body had collapsed, and the security team uniform of Director Ho that I'd desperately crammed myself into only backfired, rotting me away.
And so, on the brink of death, I made an inevitable choice.
I signed the employment contract that Director Cheong held out.
Immediately after, I lost consciousness... and when I regained my senses, I'd already been transported somewhere.
A stark little room.
The first thing I saw was a number.
A nameplate on the steel door.
The space, consisting of an iron bed and a sink, was utterly classical and silent.
The light source was a single fluorescent bulb, and it was dead quiet, like a tomb.
However, during work hours, I could go outside as much as I wanted. Because my assignment, unchanged from day one until now...
Basement level 13.
Guarding this corridor was my job.
But it was meaningless.
No one came.
This place had no windows or emergency exits—just a corridor lined with steel doors—and I wandered it pointlessly.
I patrolled the corridor.
Red and blue lights flickered.
An elevator came into view. The floor indicator blinked, showing numbers.
But I couldn't ride it.
There were no buttons.
They weren't visible.
I couldn't leave.
Hiss...
Thick black smoke.
The pale corridor's fluorescent lights flickered, the smoke swirling and rising.
It was coming from my breath, filtering through the gas mask.
I walked in silence.
Staring at the only thing moving—the smoke spreading and undulating across the corridor...
It ended.
I returned to room 666, as per the contract.
Click.
The door locked, and I sat on the bed.
Silence again.
Would a normal person feel terror?
Claustrophobia, fear of isolation, horror at existing unnoticed in the depths of some horrific company's basement...
Probably.
But I couldn't remember what that felt like exactly.
Still, not remembering wasn't so bad.
I just mulled it over for a bit.
My job.
Security officer for the separate building's basement level 13.
Do not question what's behind the steel doors, do not leave the designated basement level 13 corridor, perform security duties.
Anomalies upon contact: Unknown to date.
Those shapes flickering faintly in my mind before being crushed.
If described in Darkness Exploration Records wiki style, it'd be something like that.
Yeah. Probably...
But even that faint, censored imagining didn't last long.
Static—crackle—
The silence broke.
The black-and-white screen's light cast shadows on the iron bed.
The low-quality digital recording echoed through the confined space.
The bizarrely bright and cheerful video's glow wavered in the tiny cell.
Then...
It cut off.
"......"
The day's routine was over.
With all light sources gone, only faint red and blue light seeped in from beyond the steel door of the small space.
Bedtime.
Of course, I couldn't sleep.
But as the training video said, bedtime couldn't be broken. That was the rule.
I lay on the bed and closed my eyes.
As if sleeping.
And so, learning about "company work," I continued my labor on basement level 13 of the separate building.
......
......
How many days had I worked?
A week?
Half a month?
A month?
7 years?
■■■?
Impossible to know or calculate. But no problem. The contract didn't specify a term, so this was fine.
Work hours would come again.
Then, in the silence, I'd...
Knock... knock.
......
Knock knock knock.
A sound.
A sound was heard.
The careful tap of hard joints covered in soft flesh against steel.
A knock on the steel door.
......
A knock.
A person.
I pulled open the door.
"Eek!"
"Eeeeek!"
The steel door to room 666 opened.
Those gripping the handle jumped back in terror, tumbling into the corridor and pointing at me before...
"Aaa... Mmph."
Covering their mouths.
And bowing their heads.
"H-Hello, hello sir."
"We're new hires. Pleased to meet you."
They spoke.
Stiff voices, as if rehearsed, but real.
I realized it was the first living human voice I'd heard in ages.
No...
Living?
"If it's alright, could we visit for just a moment...?"
No. Dead voices.
All those voices reaching my ears sounded like static-ridden old training footage.
Filtered, recorded—as if everything I saw and heard through the gas mask blurred the individuals.
And...
"......Me."
No faces on their suits.
Or rather, unidentifiable faces.
The face areas were like melted mosaics.
Distorted red and black, like damaged film pieced together desperately.
'Why.'
Whether because the contract meant I didn't need to see them, or my collapsed body had ruined my perception too, I didn't know.
But no problem.
Clothing, build, speech patterns—identifying individuals was fine.
Grasping the situation was fine.
New hires, suits, group of three, panic and fluster, no masks.
And one more thing.
"......"
I turned to the first one who'd spoken.
Hearing their ragged breathing, I extended my black-gloved hand.
"Huuuuh!"
I pulled something from the front pocket of their suit.
A note.
This was...
I see.
Experiment Name: New Hire Orientation 21st Attempt
📍 Method: Assign missions using Lottery Box (Qterw-E-382). Explore separate building basement and encounter security team ■■■■ in charge of the area.
Memories sparked like flames from a mutated head, surfacing then lingering as I savored them.
I "knew" what this situation was.
"Eek!"
I tucked the note back into his front pocket. The one touching my black-gloved fingers convulsed.
The large-built one behind stepped forward as if to calm him, pushing the other new hire behind while speaking calmly.
"...This was an assignment from the company."
"......"
"We're in the middle of our duties."
Right.
If you could call orientation a duty.
I looked at the three pitiful new hires who'd just participated in "New Hire Orientation."
And...
I stepped back behind the door.
As if inviting them in.
"......"
"......"
"C-Can... we come in...?"
Visitor access didn't violate regulations.
"Th-Thank... thank you......"
Trembling, glancing around, their stiff bodies stepped into room 666 to fulfill the note's instructions.
Then they bolted back out like they'd stepped into a fire pit.
...No need to go that far.
"Hiiiik!"
I reached out to help the two employees who'd tangled limbs trying to shove past each other to escape, but they were already scrambling away on all fours.
Yes.
They were fleeing.
There was an escape route.
The elevator.
"Eek, eek!"
"Wait, stay calm..."
The large one seemed to be trying to stop them, but they mashed something.
The elevator buttons.
The buttons were there.
Just invisible to the security officer.
Soon, with a cheerful ding, the elevator doors opened, flooding the corridor with light.
The bright elevator interior.
"C-Close it! Close...!"
I followed them in. Smoke billowed from my gas mask with each step.
The moment black smoke entered the elevator...
......
No.
This wasn't leaving the work area.
The elevator was currently at basement level 13, and I was just entering a connected space that's part of level 13.
Nothing specified the elevator was excluded from basement level 13 work space.
......
......
It went quiet again.
"Agh! W-Wait a sec..."
I boarded the elevator naturally again.
The doors closed.
Thud.
Black smoke filled the elevator interior.
"A, aaaa■■."
"Ooo, o, ■■ sir, th-that■"
Groans and mutters from the employees beside me. Did inhaling the smoke hurt? I held my breath and sucked the black smoke into my gas mask.
Transparency glazed the mosaic human faces emerging in the smoke.
Like fluids leaking from eyes, nose, mouth. But their breathing seemed steady...
I tried to pin the smoke to the walls as much as possible, but one catching my gaze spoke while trembling.
"D-Do... you mean be quiet?"
Meaning?
My smoke-shaping actions had meaning...?
Ah.
"......"
Hangul
Meaningless expression
The letters I'd formed with smoke made the mosaics shake in shock.
Even through the noise, a strange familiarity or relief was discernible.
"Um... are you going to, attack us...?"
"Ah...!"
Their voices brightened. Relief from familiarity, strange empathy when the unknown showed comprehensible sides.
Familiar emotions.
A sigh brushed my ears in dull audio quality.
Another question.
"Then, where are you... g-going...?"
"......"
I looked at the elevator buttons.
Invisible from the basement level 13 corridor.
Among them, the one the new hires eyed nervously, reaching out for.
1F.
"......"
No.
I couldn't set foot on the surface. Leaving the elevator would be complete abandonment of the work area—the end of any loopholes I could exploit. Cannot leave.
So why did I board the elevator?
"......"
Because there were things I could do without getting off.
I reached out my hand.
Frozen in the elevator, the new hire who'd been acting tough gasped for breath.
What the hell was this? What the hell?
The thick black smoke filling the elevator, and visible through it...
Gas lamp-like yellow eyes.
'Fuck, fuck...!'
Huge antler-like branches or ribs protruded over the gas mask. The pitch-black full-body uniform hiding every inch of flesh looked like a nightmare crammed into a human silhouette.
The "Security Team" badge on their chest was like a creepy joke.
The thing from basement level 13, room 666.
'If, if we act politely, survival chances are high, right...!'
He inwardly cursed and blamed his teammate who'd introduced himself as Jang Heo-un.
Jang Heo-un wouldn't even meet his eyes, just staring piercingly at the monster.
'Still pretending to be calm!'
Of course, he conveniently forgot that they were still alive and Jang hadn't dragged him here.
At the same time, he absentmindedly realized why people had died in the elevator.
'It chased them all into the elevator...!'
But nothing had boarded with them.
He swallowed.
Did it kill them out of spite for not boarding?
'Then how... how did it board this time?'
The silver lining: Communication seemed possible. But damn.
'Bringing that back to the 1F lobby... is that okay?'
In horror movies, that'd kill everyone in the lobby too. Cold sweat beaded on his chin and dripped.
But survival instinct came first.
I want to go back. I will go back. Escape this insane underground hell!
'Yeah, yeah!'
Being alive is win enough!
The lobby guys can fend for themselves! I won't die here!
Half-mad, he reached to press 1F...
Their eyes met.
"Ah."
Yellow eyes gazed at him through the smoke.
The new hire froze again.
But the lantern-eyed horror didn't stop him from pressing 1F.
Instead, it extended a black hand.
And tap—pressed B12.
"Wh...?"
B11, B10, B9, B8... up to 1F.
All the buttons.
Like playing piano keys, sweeping them fluently.