Exchange (3)
So that was the Hungry Fang Dagger’s ability? Eat-and-be-eaten, huh?
The tooth fairy, unable to regenerate the wound where the dagger had driven into and devoured it, simply melted down into a heap of sludge.
Before the flustered little fairies could scatter, I gave each of them a nice, friendly stab. Come on, try this on for size.
“Eek! Kkik-kkik!”
“Kiiieeek-!”
One clean thrust to the shrieking nurse’s temple, too.
Still feeling like it wasn’t enough, I pulled out the remaining dagger and rammed it into her chest.
“Kik......”
As the nurse, with half her right eye and the center of her chest sliced and eaten away, collapsed, the fat doctor monster buzzed his tiny wings and struggled to rise from his chair.
Trying to run?
“You gave me two teeth as treatment fees. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t just leave, Doctor.”
“Kiiiiiik!”
“So? Any cavities? Or are we doing scaling?”
“Kik, kik-! Kiiik!”
I kicked him over, chair and all, then stabbed his right arm with the dagger and bared my teeth.
How about it? I’m pretty proud of my teeth myself.
But even after seeing them, the doctor just kept flailing to get away.
“Now, now. You do have to pay for treatment.”
“Kiiik!”
“Oh, the nurse ate it? Shit, wasn’t the nurse your employee? Then you’re the one responsible.”
“Kik, kiik!”
“If you don’t want to die, you’d better pay up properly.”
“Kiiiiiik!”
When I lightly jabbed the huge, squirming mass of him with the dagger over and over, he let out a shriek and pointed toward the director’s office.
Oh, so there was something in there to make up for it?
With the doctor’s slender neck held against my dagger, I shoved the chair forward and rolled him along.
“This? You want me to open this drawer? If it’s a trap, you’re dead.”
“Kik, kiiik......”
The doctor, now missing an arm, pointed with his twisted voice at the drawer in the office bookshelf.
“Oh! Another ticket? Is this... like a train ticket?”
It looked like a subway paper ticket, or maybe a train ticket, but unlike the movie ticket from before, it didn’t list a destination or time.
This had to be good.
After experiencing a One Coin once, I’d naturally come to expect that these ticket-type items would be pretty damn useful.
Could this one save my life once?
Or, since unlike the movie ticket it didn’t have a time printed on it, maybe it was for time travel to the past or future.
Maybe it was an emergency getaway like a call taxi for when you got trapped somewhere.
“Kik... kiik......”
“Hm? Oh, now you want me to leave?”
I was just lost in fantasy, ticket in hand, when the doctor called me in a crawling voice.
Then, with his remaining left arm, he pointed at the dental chair at the far end of the treatment room, as if that was the no-clip spot.
“That’s awfully kind of you. I’ll be leaving a five-star rating and a review.”
“GEEEEEAAAK—!”
The doctor, stabbed through the shoulder and under the jaw, screamed bloody murder.
Maybe because his head was too big, the doctor, with only the flesh beneath his chin torn away, staggered on his intact legs and fell over.
“Geeeaaak!”
“You were the one who brushed me off, saying I hadn’t paid enough for treatment. Same here. I did get paid for treatment, but it still wasn’t enough. Especially compared to the mental damage compensation I deserve for how fucking disgusting you all look.”
“Gehk!”
The giant tooth fairy, with the dagger sunk into the crown of his head, let out one last scream and was crushed to death.
What, you really thought I’d let you off?
Let me say it again: the only good monster is a dead monster.
Keeping a future problem alive just because you feel generous is stupid.
This Backrooms run had been pretty fruitful. No materials, but there were items everywhere.
The haul from this place was a Zippo lighter, sunscreen, a key, a hand mirror, VR goggles, and a train ticket.
I didn’t know how to use half of it, but for some reason I felt absurdly reassured.
The more materials and items, the better.
A fat pocket was basically survival insurance.
“Explore.”
▶ Jack O’ Lantern (B)
- Current area: Dental Clinic
- Explored paths: Banquet Hall, ■■■ ■■■
+ Destination: Undecided
“Huh?”
After the interference ended, something new had been added to the lantern.
Destination?
Was this because of the ticket?
Did it mean I could go wherever I wanted?
The exit leading back to the real world.
I thought of the place I wanted most, but the destination didn’t change at all.
So they weren’t going to let me game the system that easily.
That left me with very few choices.
Honestly, the Backrooms I knew were only the few places I’d already passed through, and if anything, the most plausible option was somewhere the forum guys were.
Even that wasn’t certain, and once I chose, I might not be able to undo it, so I couldn’t just try it lightly.
Could I even come back?
If it was one-way, I’d end up losing the restaurant I’d finally gotten, and then the rest would just be... well, whatever, probably survive on their own and roll credits.
That’s annoying. If I ask about it, HotelGuy’s definitely going to start nagging me to come that way.
Round trip and I’d have a chance to pull a forum guy into the fight for real. One way, and I’d be ditching Namgogoedam and starting fresh.
Honestly, leaving him behind wouldn’t exactly be a disaster... but still, he had only been with me a little while, and while he was kind of a disaster, he wasn’t completely useless either.
Either way, asking about this was going to be a pain.
“Ah, screw it. I’ll head back first and think about it then.”
* * *
Riiiiing-
When the lunch break ended and the phone rang to announce the start of work, Yuina, as always, jumped in surprise.
That sound she still couldn’t get used to, and the horror that always followed right after.
But she had to answer.
Under the gaze watching her from behind, Yuina squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the call button.
“Thank you for calling. This is customer service representative Internal Rupture.”
The rule of this customer service call center.
Instead of a real name, you had to introduce yourself with a nickname related to your cause of death.
The cause assigned to Yuina was internal rupture.
As Yuina introduced herself with that grotesque nickname, a voice like nails dragged across a blackboard poured out of the in-ear headset lodged in her ear.
“I split a human’s belly open. I wanted to neatly gather the organs up and show them off, but they won’t move. Too weak. Defective? I want to play with them longer, but they die too fast.”
“I-I see. Well, sir or madam. Unfortunately, the human body has rather poor durability. The torso and head especially can suffer fatal injuries close to instant death, so I’d recommend enjoying the arms and legs first, if possible, for safety.”
“No, internal organs! I want to show the beautiful squiggles, red and pulsing. Why? Not okay? Slippery, squishy, satisfyingly soft little toy-play!”
“I-I see. If you absolutely must remove the organs, it would be best to keep the wounds as small as possible and pull them out gradually and gently, so you can delay shock and massive blood loss.”
“Then can I just pull out the organs and wrap them around their neck to strangle them? Is it possible to have the joy of being killed by your own organs?”
“I-it is. But as I mentioned, it’s best to do it slowly, after making sure the human can’t move.”
“Thank you for the advice help. Satisfied, satisfied.”
It was probably a call from a monster.
By the time these bizarre consultations were over, she felt wrung dry all the way through.
A counseling hotline for finding out how to kill people horribly.
But she couldn’t just lose her temper and hang up.
If her satisfaction rating dropped too low, she’d get kicked out of the customer center.
1. A weird phone called, so I just hung up and now they’re making me write this. What kind of shitty prank is this?
2. Maybe you can’t just hang up on the call...... I’m scared. What am I supposed to hand over? Manager, come here.
3. If you’re reading this, answer the phone sincerely. No matter what it is, respond actively. If you don’t, they’ll drag you to the sorting area with the shredder. Anyway, bye.
4. Fuck, I can’t do this. I feel like I’m losing my mind. It keeps echoing in my ears. I’m gone. Oh, killing the manager won’t help. He doesn’t die.
5. I was right on the verge of becoming an outstanding employee... How did it know my little brother’s name? I’m done, I don’t get it, leaving this place is impossible......
According to the hand-over notes, Gang Isseo was the sixth newbie.
The handover packet she received the moment she landed in this bizarre call center contained messages left by her predecessors.
From note number 3, she’d figured out what she was supposed to do, and thanks to numbers 4 and 5, she’d learned a few of the rules.
First, survival was determined by the phone consultation rating.
Second, the huge, flapping-ear thing they called the manager couldn’t be killed, no matter how many times you tried.
Third, if you became an outstanding employee, you could get out of here.
I’m not a doctor, so how the hell am I supposed to know the best way to kill something... is it even possible to become an outstanding employee?
Yuina’s performance rating was dead middle.
She was told it was best to avoid the vital points and handle them with some discretion, but every now and then, when something even worse than the organ-obsessed monster from before started calmly explaining the situation in a voice that made your skin crawl, her mind would go blank.
How hot should the water be if you wanted to cook someone alive as long as possible under sous-vide? She’d once been given a dissatisfaction rating for answering with a middle-of-the-road temperature.
No matter how many times she heard things like that, they didn’t become familiar. They just kept grinding at her, a mixture of screaming and counseling that fused into something like tinnitus.
...Would it be easier if I just gave up?
Wouldn’t it be better to be chased simply, the way the other forum members were?
Whenever she thought about her own consultations being applied to other people, she couldn’t bear it, so she deliberately tried to ignore it.
But emotional wear and tear was still wear and tear.
The only reason she was holding on at all was the gallery she could check during breaks and after work.
- KimDaejang: By the way, is there anyone here who actually fights a bit?
- Jemmin: Why are you asking? You planning to train or something?
- KimDaejang: Something like that.
- Jemmin: The legendary one and the countryside farmer are probably the strongest.
At the mention of the chapter’s meteoric new troublemaker, the one who’d shaken up the gallery, Yuina smiled faintly.
What kind of person was Kim Daejang, anyway?
Among a gallery full of people desperately trying to maintain the status quo, Kim Daejang was off somewhere doing one-man massacre runs, and that alone was bizarre enough to make her stare.
Fighting... if I had a weapon, I’m pretty sure I’d be good at it too.
Before coming to Korea to study, her hobbies in Japan had been weapon arts of every kind, starting with kendo and going all the way to archery and shooting.
She’d even been offered spots on national teams in every one of those events, but she’d gotten so hooked on Korean culture that she’d come to study theater and film, and practical music instead. Then one day, she’d been dragged into the Backrooms.
- CustomerServiceOut: I’m good at fighting too! Especially if I have a weapon, I can smash everything apart with the power I got on top of that!
Thinking it might be fun, Yuina boldly stepped into the debate over whether Legendary or Countryside Farmer was stronger.
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