Chapter 211
Chapter 211
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 211
Chapter Title: Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story, I Still Have to Go to Work
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The monster's finger, wrapped in a black glove, swept upward.
As it moved with that smooth motion, the lights for every basement floor button in the elevator lit up.
The new hires stared blankly at the sight.
Right now.
What just happened?
"Ca... cancel! Ca...!"
Too late.
The elevator moved just one floor in the blink of an eye.
The elevator doors opened defenselessly.
A scene from a few hours ago flashed through their minds like lightning.
-Ugh... huff.
-Wh-what is this...?
The elevator that had gone to Basement Level 12 for the 'mission' returned with not a single employee in sight, only the floor drenched in red blood...
And under the elevator's light, the dark hallway of 'that' Basement Level 12 dimly appeared. The new hires held their breath.
"......"
"......"
But there wasn't a drop of blood in the hallway. Unlike the elevator.
"Haa."
Before they could instinctively sigh in relief, something off caught their eye. Oily dirt-like clumps were piled on the floor and stuck in the elevator gap.
'Dirt...?'
They looked up to trace its origin.
Scattered lumps like strata in the hallway came into view.
Lumps that looked weathered.
But upon closer inspection, their darkness-adapted eyes distinguished the silhouettes.
An ankle near the peach bone, a chunk of ear and temple, right shoulder blade...
The bloodless, model-like remnants of body parts.
"Hiiik..."
Thud.
The new hire clamped their own mouth shut. To keep the groan from escaping.
They couldn't make a sound.
Because at the end of their gaze, they saw something enormous.
Standing blankly in the dark hallway.
It was even wearing a uniform.
The security team's uniform, just like the one worn by the horned monster riding this elevator. A perfect human silhouette, clean and undistorted. It almost looked like a bored security team employee standing around idly. However...
Its head was a scarecrow.
A crudely made empty face of straw, with fresh blood crudely drawn on for facial features.
......
A song drifted in from somewhere.
The hallway echoed faintly.
Drip.
Blood from the scarecrow's crudely drawn eyes dripped from the end of the straw.
But since when.
Was that head watching this place?
"......"
Gulp.
The new hires froze.
The scarecrow clearly hadn't moved. But...
Why had it changed?
Why was it now one iron door closer than before?
Why was it even closer now?
Why had it raised its straw-made left hand?
Why was it holding a sickle for cutting weeds in its grip?
Why was its face...
"Aaaah!"
At that moment, the doors of the adjacent elevator opened, spilling light and screams.
"...!"
Other people. Clearly those who had come to this hallway for a mission. Sounds of them tumbling out of their elevator reached their ears.
"Wh-what the hell is that!"
They screamed upon witnessing the scarecrow and the body parts on the hallway floor right before their eyes.
......
Why was the scarecrow turning its head to stand there?
"Hiiiaaak!"
"Close it! Close it!"
"Ah, no! Run...!"
Too late.
And the new hire, who had been staring blankly at it, realized.
Right. A chance to escape.
"Hik!"
They had to seize this gap. While it wasn't looking at them, quick, quick! The new hire desperately reached out to press the close button...
But it was blocked by the black glove.
"...!"
The gas mask with grotesque horns sprouting everywhere and yellow lantern-like eyes.
The security team employee from Basement Level 13, Room 666, who blocked the close button, didn't even turn to look at them.
From its gas mask, thick black smoke simply poured out, pooling at its feet as it stared blankly outside the elevator.
Fwoooo...
And it spread low like fog toward Basement Level 12.
Toward the scarecrow.
Whoosh.
The smoke surged up, enveloping the scarecrow from above.
"!!"
The sound was muffled thickly.
Smoke so heavy and dense it obscured even the scarecrow's shape. And beneath it...
A new sound.
C R U N C H
A grotesque noise echoed through the hallway.
The new hires held their breath, panting as they listened to it.
The bizarre scarecrow shape, now pitch black under the smoke, didn't even cast a shadow.
Only the sound.
Only merciless tearing sounds.
Crunch crunch crunch, like horns or bones breaking, or grinding, or being forcibly crammed or swallowed somewhere.
And pleas like screams mixed in.
Sounds of something begging and trying to flee amid the roar, soon vanishing with a final gurgle.
The moment silence fell.
"......"
"......"
Finally, the black smoke dispersed again.
The scarecrow hidden by the smoke reappeared in the hallway...
"......Huh?"
A corpse.
The new hires blinked.
But the bloodied corpse lying on the floor, its entire body crushed, didn't change.
Blood from its facial features dripped to the floor like the scarecrow's.
Drip.
"Aaaah!"
"Aaaack!!"
Screams filled the air. But the masked one inhaled the smoke back in with a single breath. The new hire scrambled in terror to the corner of the elevator.
In the meantime, the adjacent elevator's doors closed amid frantic button-mashing sounds, without even breathing.
"Th-there!"
The other new hires were escaping safely.
At the same time, the black smoke surging back from the Basement Level 12 hallway pooled neatly on this elevator's floor.
"Hiiik!"
"Wait!"
As he convulsed to avoid the smoke, someone grabbed his shoulder.
A fellow employee named Jang Heo-un. He whispered urgently.
"Don't needlessly provoke it."
"...!!"
"That smoke didn't cover our heads.... Calm down, calm down."
It was as he said.
The smoke pooled obediently on the elevator floor.
"Hoo, huuuuh...."
The new hire swallowed, steadying their breath, and gripped the elevator handrail.
Thus, they left the 12th floor.
He desperately averted his eyes from the corpse that would be beyond the elevator doors, but just before they fully closed, he thought he saw it staggering to its feet again...
Like the scarecrow.
"Huuuuh."
He groaned and swallowed.
But the vivid impression of what he'd just seen didn't fade.
A bizarre existence.
And the smoke that turned that bizarre existence into a corpse.
Suddenly, he realized the astonishing result.
'...We survived.'
Everyone survived.
Relief made his legs tremble.
At the same time, a thought crossed his mind.
'Wait a minute.'
Then, that bizarre horned 'security team employee' from Room 666 had actually... helped them escape to the elevator?
'Wait, if that's the case...'
Right. Maybe there was no need to be this scared. Maybe it was fine! Unable to endure being trapped in the elevator with something horrific, he rationalized and turned his head.
"Th-that..."
His eyes met the security team employee's.
But...
"Tha...nks......"
Was it originally... melting like this?
The security employee's arm was unnaturally long. Unnatural... There were too many legs. The melted lower body mixed with smoke bulged unevenly on the elevator floor.
And there were thirty-seven eyes.
The eyes stared at him without blinking.
"Uh, uuuuh..."
What?
What was that?
The external shock delayed the panic for a moment.
Another arrival.
"I'll remove the optic nerves."
"I'll connect my mouth to my navel."
"I wish I didn't have feet!"
On Basement Level 11, an employee in a doctor's gown was having a cheerful consultation for surgery in Room 910.
Whoosh.
This time too, the masked one sent smoke out while staring outside with its thirty-seven eyes.
Soon, the bizarre existence in the doctor's gown became a bloodless corpse with limbs sewn in the wrong places.
"Aaaah!"
Screams again. Escape.
The people who had been engrossed in the consultation fled Room 910 like mad, boarding another elevator, and this one's doors naturally closed.
"......"
The new hire looked down at their feet.
The elevator floor was invisible.
Because the security employee's melted lower body covered it.
Thump.
Something like a pulsing heartbeat came from the wall.
Because the security employee's upper left body was plastered broadly against the wall.
"......"
It repeated like that.
Every time the doors opened and closed on each floor, every time the smoke staged a bizarre scene, the shape of 'it' inside the elevator grew stranger.
Growing larger, more smeared.
The shape riding the elevator became increasingly grotesque and hard to look at, some strange ■■■■■■■■■■
Strange. Finally realizing. Now the entire elevator is made of sticky smoke and yellow lanterns and thorny crowns and bone mound-like curves of ■■. That's it! This is Basement Level 13! Being sucked into Basement Level 13.
Ding.
......
......
Light poured in.
"Huuuuh...."
The moment the familiar ground-level lobby appeared, the new hire collapsed.
Someone rushed over and patted their back.
"Slowly, slowly... Just breathe out."
The fellow new hire named Jang Heo-un? Grabbed another and panted hu hu hu hu dying the smoke tells us our ■■-nim...
■■-nim?
"Excuse me."
Addressing it.
He unwittingly turned his head.
Before he knew it, the ■■-nim? Security team employee's shape had returned to normal.
A man wearing a gas mask with horns and an eerie intimidating presence. Jang Heo-un was speaking to him...
"Did you just... help us?"
No.
The smoke moved.
"......"
Jang Heo-un, silent for a long time, finally spoke.
"Yes. Thank you..."
His voice sounded choked, or hoarse.
Then he turned and began supporting the other squad member trembling in the elevator corner.
Maybe their mind had snapped from fear.
'Crazy bastard.'
He had to get out of here now. The new hire snapped back to reason.
And hurriedly exited the elevator. Desperately ignoring his fellow employee.
In this insane situation, rashly trying to help others would likely get him killed. Saving himself, saving himself was the way to survive.... He gathered the reason he'd barely found amid terror and panic.
"Wh-what the hell is that?"
"Ughhh...."
Fortunately or unfortunately, the lobby was already a chaotic mess seized by all sorts of returning survivors and noises, so attention was scattered, and few had noticed the security staff inside that elevator.
The yellow lantern-like gaze of it turned toward the lobby while Jang Heo-un supported the other employee out of the elevator, then...
Suddenly, it stared directly at him.
And...
"...!"
The elevator departed again.
For Basement Level 13.
The new hire stared blankly at the floor indicator, then collapsed onto the lobby floor.
Drenched in cold sweat.
The elevator doors closed.
I was alone again.
"......"
I felt smoke rising, my smeared and distorted body slowly regaining its proper form to fit the security team uniform frame...
......
Something rippled.
I brought my finger to my chest, but felt no pulse. Because the me inside was formlessly crumbling, its location and existence unknown.
But the strange churning persisted for a moment.
And I savored it.
Like nostalgia.
Ding.
The doors opened on Basement Level 13.
The silent basement. Dark hallway, eerie iron doors flickering with red and blue lights.
But there were others too.
Guard team.
Employees in familiar uniforms emerged into the hallway, confronting me.
Apparently, someone had reported me for unprovoked actions.
It was a misunderstanding. I had properly maintained security in my zone without ever stepping foot on other floors or the surface even once.
However, instead of noting the words I formed, the guard team drew their specialized restraints and began transforming into contaminated forms...
"Whoa there, everyone's way too aggressive!"
A white hand suddenly popped out from behind.
"It's fine. Make way here a bit..."
A bright voice unfit for the situation rang out, and a research team employee walked out from the center of the guard team.
Their face still looked like a melting mosaic, unidentifiable, but identifiable by attire and employee ID.
Their identity.
"Hello."
Kwak Je-gang.
"Meeting you in person like this after so long... no, first time, huh. Haha!"
The bespectacled face seemed to wear a calm smile, but his excited voice couldn't be hidden as he spoke.
"I'm the handler for our security team's new special division employee! Also in charge of today's annex experiment, incidentally."
Undaunted by the guard team's gazes, the elated man pulled documents from his pocket, flipped through them, and grinned at me.
"I'd like to start with some light Q&A... haha, this is awkward. Shall we first introduce today's Basement Level 13 visitors? Seems these folks forgot to introduce themselves. Let's see, Lee Jeong-in, age 28, Park Yong-hae, age 25. And..."
His voice paused dramatically, then emphasized.
"Jang Heo-un, age 26."
......
......
Just now.
"Hm? Any familiar names among them? Haha."
What did he say?