The Red Button and the Soul-Crushing Room

Unbelievable. This was suffocating. People swallowed lies without a second thought, but the moment I told the truth, nobody believed a word of it. A sense of betrayal had me grinding my teeth, and I kept pleading my case in the comments, over and over — until the platform answered.

"Damn it. This is a crackdown on the press! That was one-hundred-percent pure, unadulterated truth!"

And so I hit the banned ending. I was just about to whip up a new IP and demand my un-banning when my fingertips, moving across the smartphone, turned blurry — meaning I could see the scenery on the other side of them right through my hand.

"...Huh?"

I rubbed my eyes. My finger kept vanishing and reappearing, over and over. There was only one possible explanation for this.

External terminal unsustainable. In other words... me.

An indescribable terror seized my entire body. I'd vaguely known something terrible would happen if my energy ran dry — but I never imagined the price would be my own life.

"Energy... I need energy to survive."

So energy was literally my lifespan. Who could have guessed?

Some experimenting told me the drain was one point every ten minutes. Which meant I had a little over five hours left. Fortunately, I wasn't about to drop dead this very second.

"Do I... put a person in there?"

In this moment of crisis, my conscience didn't lift its head. But my revulsion at murder shook my head for it instead. No. Absolutely not.

"Let's test it on an animal first. That way, if something goes wrong, I'll feel less guilty."

I left the jjimjilbang and wandered the streets until I found a stray cat basking in a warm patch of sunlight.

"Meow~"

"...I'm sorry. Charity begins at home, little guy."

I scooped the cat up. It didn't resist my touch. Even with lives hanging in the balance, guilt pressed down on my heart — and sighing, I still didn't stop.

This time, I kept it simple.

That was it. You couldn't do anything elaborate with a cat. The door would be open from the very start, and the rules were such that the cat could wander out any time it got bored — nothing strange about that at all.

And beside the door, I placed an object guaranteed to whip a cat's emotions into a frenzy. Catnip.

The cat's eyes flashed wide.

"MEOW~!"

It bolted for the catnip, sniffed it, rubbed its whole body against it, and rolled around in it. It wore the expression of a creature that was very, very happy indeed.

"So it works on animals too."

That said, compared to humans, it was the sun versus a firefly. Five minutes later, the total energy harvested from the cat came to a measly 3.

And then—

I stared blankly at the window. "Son of a—"

I'd gained 3 and lost 5. A flawless net loss.

"Animals are out, then."

The cat, knowing nothing of any of this, was wagging its tail atop the catnip it had received as a reward. Sure, kid. As long as you're happy.

I plopped down beside the cat and thought it through. The most important thing was the balance between cost and revenue. Easy rooms yielded little energy. But what if I made them hard? I looked at the cat. Locked in a room long enough, anything would eventually die — and I had no desire to kill anything, animal or person.

Too easy was bad. Too hard was bad, too. I had to torment my occupant just short of killing them, wring out as much emotion as possible — and then pay out a reward that cost less than the energy that emotion earned me.

And at that very moment, a rule came to mind — one that was easy, yet could hold a person captive by sheer force.

"...A button."

Tell a human not to press something, and they'll ache to press it. And if they happened to be South Korean, being made to wait was practically torture. Even if they did press it, all that would happen was their patience timer resetting.

"This one's worth a shot."

Smiling, I got to work on the renovation. Fifty centimeters square — a space so cramped a single occupant could barely move their body. One white door on the far wall. And dead center in that door, a single red button. Dim lighting drifted down from the ceiling, leaving the room gloomy overall. That was everything. No clock. No window. No chair. Just a button, a door... and time.

I gazed at one corner of the room.

That was the entire rule set. Then, staring at the red button, a delightfully nasty prank occurred to me.

Good. Nicely standard. But then, who was I? I was a modern human who loved the internet. I added one more line.

And a little later:

Erased that too. Then typed:

"Heh." Perfect.

No way of knowing how much time had passed. No way of knowing how much remained. And there, right in front of you, a single button tempting you to press it. This room didn't kill people. It merely made them wait.

"Now all I need is a person."

"Is that so? Then what about me?"

The sudden voice left me frozen. "Who's there...?"

"Kim Hyun-joong, of Meridian Holdings."

"Never heard of you."

"That's possible. Let's get straight to business. I would like to enter your room."

"...I'm sorry, what?"

My room? Was this man one of them too? But the vibe was different from everyone I'd met so far. He wasn't tiptoeing around like Manager Kim, nor wary like the men in hazmat suits.

"Aren't you scared?"

"I am. But if there's value in it, one must dare. For us, that is everything."

The man spread both arms wide and said something hard to wrap my head around. "I want to make money. Please, let me in."

So the world really did have lunatics like this. But then—

Here was a man volunteering to walk in himself. There was no reason to turn him down. I snapped my fingers and drew him into the room, and he was sucked down through the floor with an expression of pure, radiant joy.

The moment Kim Hyun-joong opened his eyes inside the containment space, he checked the rules first.

Then he surveyed the room. Fifty centimeters square. Too cramped to move comfortably. Faint lighting. No clock. His phone showed only a black screen. And the red button.

"Matches the intel," he murmured.

Alpha played with human emotions. But Kim Hyun-joong, for his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠part, was a man with plenty of mileage dealing with anomalous entities.

Ten minutes. Twenty. The clock's absence ticked on in silence. Unable to bear the boredom, he opened his eyes and looked at the button — and noticed lettering carved around it.

Forty minutes. Forty-three.

His curiosity barely holding out, Kim Hyun-joong dragged the hand that had already started to rise back down. He took a deep breath and coldly ran the numbers. "Roughly thirty minutes left. No — twenty, maybe...?"

He counted the seconds in his head, but with no way of knowing how much remained, a hollow laugh finally escaped him. So this was how meticulous Alpha was. "This is starting to feel less like a test and more like outright bullying."

And then — one hour. The door slid silently open and delivered its congratulations.

Stepping out, Kim Hyun-joong found Alpha grinning at him with childlike innocence. For an instant, their eyes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠met.

"I will be returning," Kim Hyun-joong said, smooth and unhurried.

"You're insane..."

Kim Hyun-joong left Alpha behind and headed back to the company, where he reported everything he'd recorded to his superior.

"Have you lost your mind? Didn't I expressly tell you to do nothing but verify the intel?"

"I verified it."

"And?"

"The reward was real."

"That's already in the report. What I'm asking about is why you needlessly raised Alpha's guard!"

"And did that result in a loss?"

"No. The gains outweighed it."

At his superior's words, Kim Hyun-joong smiled. "Then wouldn't that be reason enough for Meridian?"

"...Fine. Your contribution is acknowledged."

The moment the man fulfilled the escape condition, a set of choices materialized before my eyes.

As the man escaped my room, the options appeared before me — a choice of what reward to grant him. I fell into deep deliberation. Which option would burn the least energy? Cash looked cheapest; Ability and Other looked most expensive.

But if the abilities I handed out were garbage, wouldn't far fewer people volunteer to walk into my room? From everything I'd seen, the strange ones out there seemed to have my intel nailed down cold. So the reward absolutely had to be useful.

"Haah... I have to think about the future."

Scatter bait for the masses. Lure in ever more occupants. Gritting my teeth and feeling like I was coughing up blood, I chose Ability as the reward.

With a full day's survival secured, my mind finally had room to breathe. But a mayfly's life was no reason for optimism. I had to keep drawing people in.

Not long after the man departed, Manager Kim came looking for me.

"Been keeping well?"

"How did you even find me?"

"Well...?"

"Never mind. You've got some inside intel, obviously."

The unhinged man, and now Manager Kim — people were lining up to find me like sausages on a string. Just how cheap was personal information in this country?

"So, what can I do for you?"

"There's something I'd like to confirm."

"Which is?"

"Your room."

Manager Kim was smiling. But her eyes weren't. "I'm going in as well. I need to verify it for myself."

"Do you need a reward too, Manager Kim?"

At my question, she fell silent. But it wasn't really a question worth asking. If not for a reward, why would anyone set foot in a dangerous room? Still, it wasn't a loss for me, and I had no particular objection. I looked at her again. A refined ice queen — yet beneath the cold impression, something warm lingered in her atmosphere. Suddenly, I found myself curious about her past.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes. There's something I have to do."

Watching her, a very small, very mischievous thought took root in me. I spun a brand-new rule, made just for her.

"Very well. Come on in."

I gazed at the utterly unsuspecting Manager Kim, snapped my fingers, and watched her slowly get sucked down through the floor. And there, waiting for her inside the room, was the rule she would face.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

On the screen, Manager Kim's face went rigid.

The ice queen's cringe history. Oh, this was going to be a feast.