Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Company Dormitory
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'New goods?'
If the usage rights had been unlocked, it meant I could finally pull another item from the merchandise pool I'd purchased.
'But what was the trigger?'
I wanted to tap the surreal, glowing memo pad hovering in the air right then and there, but reality grounded me. I was still sitting dead center in the lecture hall. Worse, the moderator had just singled me out as the top scorer, drawing a barrage of unwanted stares my way.
'I’ll have to retreat and check it later.'
The event seemed to be winding down, meaning I could finally head home... wait.
A chilling realization suddenly paralyzed me.
"......"
Did I even have a home in this world?
I frantically unlocked my smartphone, scouring my digital footprint. It was as if my entire adult life had been surgically excised. My job history, my employment records, even the contact numbers for my family—all completely wiped.
'Please, no.'
Only my college records remained, matching my memories just enough to offer a hollow sense of relief.
But there was a massive catch: I’d lived in the university dorms back then.
'That’s exactly why it was such a nightmare finding a place after graduation.'
Sure enough, my most recent messages were panicked texts to a realtor and miserable KakaoTalk complaints to a friend about crashing in a cheap motel after a studio lease fell through...
"......"
My gaze drifted absentmindedly back to the massive screen suspended at the front of the hall.
Specifically, to one line of text magnified at the very bottom.
Welfare... surely the company would take excellent care of its assets, right?
The processing speed of this 'company dormitory support' was nothing short of terrifying.
"Oh, hello!"
"Hello."
Within a single hour of inquiring at the front desk, I was handed a room number, a set of keys, and an address, and told to move in immediately. The location was prime real estate.
Obviously, this wasn't an act of corporate benevolence.
'If they plan to bleed us dry working twenty-four-hour shifts, it makes sense they’d want their disposable wage slaves chained close to the office...'
Still, the building was a remarkably upscale officetel. It looked recently remodeled—impeccably clean and boasting heavy security.
Considering company dorms were typically a meager perk reserved for miserable rural postings, this was absurdly lavish...
'They just dragged us through a death-game meat grinder, and now they're handing me a luxury apartment.'
But that cynical thought quickly materialized into a grim reality.
When I bumped into Go Yeongeun outside the officetel's entrance, she delivered the punchline.
"Did you hear? Seven of the new hires got company housing."
"......?"
That was over half the surviving roster.
It seemed she was moving in here as well.
Noticing my heavy stare, she offered a sheepish, awkward smile.
"It's terrifying, honestly. But since we're already trapped in this job... passing up free rent right next to a subway station just feels..."
"......Right."
Exactly. In the grip of capitalism, poverty is often scarier than monsters.
'Saving 1.2 million won a month? I'd pretend to be a lunatic for that kind of discount.'
Of course, there was a far more sinister implication behind the swift housing assignments.
"It seems like the out-of-town hires jumped on the housing offer the second they passed the exam," she noted quietly.
"I see."
The pieces clicked into place. The eager rookies who had cheered their acceptance had inadvertently sealed their own fates.
I had wondered how the company secured a room for me so instantaneously. Now I knew.
'I'm moving into the room of a new hire who just died in the survival exam...'
A cold shiver snaked down my spine, accompanied by a wave of pathetic self-loathing.
Regardless, I parted ways with Go Yeongeun and rode the elevator up to my unit on the 12th floor.
The location was flawless.
The problem? The officetel was a two-room suite.
And my mandated roommate was Baek Saheon.
"......"
"......"
Baek Saheon was already lounging in the living room.
A thick medical patch covered one of his eyes—evidence of a swift, company-mandated surgery rather than a standard hospital visit, given the rapid timing.
I offered a curt, silent nod and moved toward my designated room...
"Hey."
What?
"Hey?"
I stopped in my tracks.
Baek Saheon flinched at my sudden halt, but his erratic, rolling gaze fueled a burst of misplaced rage.
"You must've had a grand old time," he snarled, "watching me gouge out a perfectly good eye just to fetch your damn lost item, huh?"
He had genuinely convinced himself that I knew about the item's location all along and had sadistically set him up to be maimed.
'You sprinted off on your own accord, and now it's my fault?'
The sheer audacity of blinding someone else and then demanding pity for his own lost eye was staggering.
But in that same moment, a strategic realization hit me.
If I responded defensively—saying, 'Well, you suddenly ran out...' or 'Why are you speaking to me informally?'—it would only validate his delusion and provoke more unhinged nonsense.
In the grueling years of dealing with toxic clients, I had learned exactly what archetype Baek Saheon fell into.
The 'Creationist Complainer'.
The type who fabricates an entire narrative in his head and clings to it like gospel.
Rational explanations do not work on them.
It was better to...
"Oh, yeah. It was hilarious."
"...!"
Go entirely on the offensive.
I closed the distance between us in three long strides and clamped a heavy hand down on his shoulder. My grip was unyielding.
"Thanks for the show. Really made my day. Is this what they call a dopamine rush?"
"Wh—what..."
"Keep the good news coming. Honestly, I'm praying we get assigned to work together."
"......"
"Company life is going to be an absolute blast."
Done.
'That should cement my status as a complete psychopath.'
Combining my erratic behavior now with my ruthless track record in the Darkness Exploration Records survival exam...
'Baek Saheon is a predator. The moment he smells fear, he’ll push you into the meat grinder.'
Therefore, it was infinitely safer to brand his brain with the warning: 'Do not tangle with this lunatic!'
'Kill two birds with one bluff.'
I patted his tense shoulder twice, leaving him utterly paralyzed, and casually strolled into my room without a backward glance.
'As long as he doesn't stab me in my sleep, I'll be fine.'
Truth be told, it was a massive bluff.
At this stage, the probability of two rookies being dumped into the exact same squad was statistically zero.
What corporation clusters all its fresh hires together? They scatter them.
Much like a ninja manga, corporate protocol dictates balancing squads by performance scores, distributing the talent evenly.
And I was drafted first; Baek Saheon was drafted second.
'He scored near the top too, meaning there’s even less chance we end up on the same team.'
We wouldn't be working together anytime soon.
Let's just treat each other as if we don't exist.
Click.
The sound of my bedroom door locking felt like heaven.
"Phew."
The space was immaculate—crisp bedding, a solid desk, and an en-suite bathroom.
A glossy brochure hung from the doorknob.
"Pay 100,000 won a month and get weekly maid service and fresh linens?"
Seeing these insane perks, the company's psychological strategy was transparent. They were aggressively dangling carrots to blind us to the stick.
Many rookies would be thoroughly disoriented by this pristine, hospitable reality, tricked into thinking the horrors of the death survival had just been a feverish nightmare.
I knew exactly why they were doing it...
'Yeah. It’s nearly impossible to fill the Field Exploration Team with useful bodies.'
They had deemed us capable of the 'work', so they were taking extreme measures to prevent desertion.
'Well, if they're offering, I might as well take it.'
I had already resolved to stick around.
A sleek welcome package sat on the desk, brimming with premium snacks and branded stationery.
I slid open a half-shut drawer and found a leather-bound diary inside.
It bore the company logo on the cover, clearly standard issue.
'But it's dated for last year.'
A remnant left behind by the previous occupant? I flipped it open.
Smeared across the very first page in massive, frantic strokes was a single warning...
'Aigoo.'
I appreciated the grim, blood-soaked advice from my predecessor, but I was already chained to this sinking ship.
Honestly, it wasn't even that terrifying anymore.
'Just another flavor of corporate horror.'
A faint twinge of grim solidarity washed over me. I closed the diary and shoved it back into the dark.
I had seen everything worth seeing. Now, it was time for business.
Now that I was fully isolated, I could safely review my loot!
'Whew.'
I sank onto the mattress, stretched the tension from my spine, and reached out to tap the glowing memo pad hovering in the air.
Pok.
Just like with the GripTok, the interface parted, and a physical object dropped into my lap.
It was a cheap, transparent OPP plastic bag.
The kind you'd find in a bargain-bin stationery store, stuffed with a sheet of stickers.
"This is..."
I held the bag up to the light.
A sheet of yellow circles, each bearing a classic, retro smiley-face emoticon.
The infamous bribery item.
"Heh."
Despite its shoddy, dollar-store packaging, this innocuous sticker was a legendary artifact within several Darkness Exploration Records entries.
Induces affinity? It was a literal favorability-manipulation cheat code.
'Perfect for coercing rival factions into collaborating, right?'
And the reason it unlocked now was blatantly obvious.
Item use condition: Daydream Corporation full-time employee or higher.
"It unlocked because I officially signed the contract as a full-timer."
Items manufactured by organizations in the Darkness Exploration Records universe were strictly level-locked by rank or affiliation.
From a worldbuilding perspective, it prevented rampant embezzlement.
'And from a meta-narrative perspective, it stopped eager rookie Mary Sues from barging into every horror scenario armed with overpowered tools.'
Regardless, fulfilling the condition meant...
'Every time I climb the corporate ladder or shift departments, the Goods Box is going to vomit out new gear?'
It was a massive survival advantage.
But it was a bitter pill to swallow. I would have vastly preferred never being dragged into this nightmare to begin with. The fact that my very survival depended on game mechanics made this reality feel even more horrifying.
'Ugh.'
Feeling a wave of nausea, I glared at the glowing memo pad before shaking the dread from my head.
"Well, at least I got something useful out of it."
The Smile Sticker. Sticking it directly onto someone's forehead would be incredibly awkward, but possessing the ability to buy favor in an emergency was a phenomenal tactical advantage.
There was just one issue.
'...This item was used a handful of times before being permanently discontinued.'
The original authors had waged bloody, comment-section civil wars over its overpowered utility, ultimately retconning it out of existence...
I wasn't sure exactly when it vanished from the lore, but this single sheet in my hands might very well be the last existing set in the entire universe.
I stared intently at the packaged Smile Stickers.
Hmm.
I couldn't risk exposing it.
Just in case, I carefully peeled off five stickers and concealed them deep within the breast pocket of my suit jacket.
This way, I wouldn't be caught unarmed on my first day.
'......First day.'
My mood instantly plummeted, but I needed sleep.
After the gruesome spectacle I'd survived, my body and mind were completely wrecked.
'I need to recover.'
I swapped my clothes for the plush company robe, triple-locked the door, and crashed into bed.
It was my first true rest since being ripped into this ghost story.
Predictably, I slept like garbage.
Gory, high-definition visions of raw flesh and bursting bodies in that subway station looped in my brain like a surround-sound horror theater.
I might as well have bought premium speakers for my nightmares.
But after a few grueling days, the night terrors dulled to a manageable ache. I considered myself lucky.
The weekend slipped by in a blur of mundane survival.
I checked my meager bank balance, scrounged for basic clothes and essentials, and organized my new life.
But my primary focus never wavered.
'Memorize everything.'
Through the Memorial GripTok, I glued my eyes to every Darkness Exploration Records wiki page, burning the lore into my cerebral cortex until I could recite it on command.
It was my only lifeline.
And then, Monday arrived.
Day one at Daydream Corporation.
"......"
Monday morning.
I marched toward the towering Daydream Corporation HQ with an expression that likely screamed murder.
Go Yeongeun, waiting outside the officetel, visibly recoiled when she saw me.
"Oh, Sol-eum, are you okay? Y-You look like you haven't slept in a year."
"...I'm managing. I'll be fine."
"Aigoo..."
The two rookies walked the fifteen minutes to the office in a tense, anxious silence.
The lobby was dotted with other pale, terrified newbies assigned to the Field Exploration Team. We exchanged nothing but grim nods.
We badged in and crammed into the elevator.
"The Field Exploration Team operates from the 10th to the 15th floor... Ah, this is me," Go Yeongeun murmured as the doors chimed. "Let's survive this, Sol-eum."
"Yeah. Fighting."
I waved her off at the 10th floor, then stared blankly at the glowing button I had pressed.
13th floor.
'Even the damn floor number is a death flag...'
I prayed I was just being paranoid.
I pulled up my digital assignment PDF one last time to confirm.
Ding.
The doors slid open on the 13th floor, revealing a labyrinth of alphabetized corridors.
I tracked down the heavy, automatic door stenciled with a massive 'D' and hit the release button.
I was greeted immediately.
"Hello."
"Oh!"
"Look, he's here, he's here."
A handful of weathered, exhausted adults scattered across the sprawling office looked up to welcome me.
A rugged man stood and extended a hand.
"Welcome to the 15th batch, D Squad."
Behind him, a woman with a sharp bob cut and dead eyes gave a curt nod.
"Just a heads-up, we're called D Squad because all the newbies Die."
"......"
"Kidding."
Is it too late to submit my resignation?