Chapter 12
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: Punishment
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Han Ye-rim opened her eyes inside a narrow iron cage, her hands and feet bound.
It had clearly been on her way home.
How on earth had she ended up trapped in this iron cage?
"H-hello...? Is anyone there? Please, someone help me...!"
Han Ye-rim screamed for help with all her might, but there was no response.
'Where is this place? Why am I here...?'
Han Ye-rim quickly scanned her surroundings.
This seemed like a factory mass-producing something unknown.
Like one of those drug labs from American TV dramas.
The air reeked of unpleasant chemicals and the stench of unwashed animal hide.
'What... is that?'
As she took in the surroundings in search of an escape, a grotesquely tall man with a hunched back—like a human heron—approached the cage.
His arms were abnormally long, his legs short. His belly protruded enormously, and his movements were unnaturally jerky, like a wooden puppet.
Han Ye-rim instinctively knew it wasn't human.
It wore human skin, but the facial features were all wrong, with patches sewn on forcibly here and there.
"------"
"Eek!"
The man came right up to the cage, bent at the waist, and peered down at Han Ye-rim through hollow eye sockets as he spoke.
Where a mouth should be, it blinked like an eye, while the empty sockets scraped like chalk on a blackboard. Han Ye-rim grimaced, holding back tears, and begged for her life.
Her spiritual aptitude wasn't high enough to understand the monster's words.
But she could easily tell the creature in front of her intended something evil.
Just encountering something that shouldn't exist had drained her mental strength to rock bottom. Cracks formed in her mind, and whispers began echoing in her ears.
-Save me. Save meee. Aaaahhh
-Mommm! Mommm!!! Can you hear me, Mom?!
-N-No, I hate it. It hurts, hurts hurts hurts
-Is anyone there? I'm here. Please let me out.
The voices of little girls who had died here reached her.
Screams poured from the monster's eye sockets.
They seemed trapped inside its body.
Unable to escape, they writhed in agony together.
The sorrow, rage, pain, and terror of innocent victims washed over her.
Their grief-stricken cries lingered in Han Ye-rim's ears.
Even in death, they couldn't find peace, still imprisoned within this monster?
"----"
The grotesque being smiled at the terrified Han Ye-rim and stroked her head.
Then it lifted the cage she was in and dragged it toward a hydraulic press.
Around the press lay countless crumpled iron cages.
Children like Han Ye-rim had surely been inside them.
"N-Nooo!!!!"
Han Ye-rim sensed she would die here like the others.
Realizing the horrific pain that would crush her body and flatten her completely, she thrashed in terror.
"-----"
The monster hummed a tune as it looked down at the struggling workpiece.
Too much thrashing would disrupt the process, so it pulled out a syringe and sedated the girl.
Young and fresh now, but soon wrinkles would come with time, and she'd age.
He couldn't bear that.
So he had to preserve her like this.
Because she would wither from the moment of full bloom.
That's why he chose 19-year-old girls.
Targeting girls on the verge of spoiling.
To preserve their beauty eternally, compress them into LP records before they wilted.
Music endures through changing eras.
Turn them all into LPs and swallow them—he could keep them forever.
This was his act of collecting youth eternally.
The Fixer ran down the corridor with the White-Faced Bride, searching for where the children were held.
Dark abyss blocked their path, but the flashlight lit the way.
"Over there...! It's over there!"
Soon, the White-Faced Bride caught the monster's scent.
Following her led to a firmly shut steel door, with children inside.
The clamor of vengeful spirits echoed even outside the door.
"They said there'd be a lot of kids. Just how many is 'a lot'?"
No time to waste at the entrance—the Fixer kicked the steel door with all his might.
Bang!
A cannon-like boom rang out, blasting the blocked entrance open. The fire door crumpled completely, hinges and all.
Door-picking skills or unlocking spells meant nothing against overwhelming power.
With pure physical stats at 50, the Fixer smashed through. He stepped inside past the debris and faced what looked like a record manufacturing plant.
Far off loomed an abnormally large hydraulic press.
Seeing it stained with blood, the Fixer felt it in his skin.
As the elevator woman said, countless girls had been brought here.
Innumerable girls had surely been crushed to death in that press.
The grudge of the dead children permeated the space, spilling sorrow and rage.
Why didn't you come sooner?
Why so late?
Vengeful spirits cried to be freed, thrashing to escape.
You have witnessed an utterly horrific scene.
Mental Strength decreases by 4.
"...."
The children who died here couldn't even die properly, trapped in this place.
It was hell itself.
Unless the cause was eliminated, this hell would continue forever.
"Darling. There's someone over there."
The Fixer finally noticed the person by the hydraulic press.
Maybe Han Ye-rim was still alive.
He rushed toward the press to rescue the client's daughter.
-Who dares enter my workshop uninvited...
At that moment, a middle-aged man with a hunchback crawled out from an inner room of the factory, roaring in fury.
As he emerged, the children's screams grew louder, scraping the eardrums, accompanied by the foul smell of chemicals and rotting flesh.
"You're the culprit."
Female anomalies got appearance buffs, but this male one was raw game grotesque—no corrections.
Its revolting form gave the Fixer chills like seeing a centipede, pure physiological disgust.
No fear or terror.
Just a desire to kill it quickly and leave.
📛 Name:Melody Recorder
⚠️ Danger Level:Accident-Class → Disaster-Class
🏷️ Classification:Living Being, Intelligent, Missing Anomaly
📖 Basis:Once a human who fell into the Backside World; anomaly that kidnaps children and turns them into LP records
🗡️ Extermination Method:Destroy the hydraulic press or kill via physical means
Information on the anomaly surfaced.
Originally Accident-Class and quite strong, but after gaining victims via sub-sound, its rank was climbing.
On the verge of Disaster-Class.
Han Ye-rim was probably the final sacrifice for the next threshold.
"Take care of that girl."
"Yes..."
The White-Faced Bride rushed past the Fixer to rescue the unconscious Han Ye-rim.
"Where do you think you're going!!!"
The Recorder swung at the White-Faced Bride, but the Fixer dashed in and blocked it.
You have taken significant impact.
HP decreases by 6.
The anomaly's power was immense.
The Fixer's body flew up from the direct hit and slammed into the left wall.
Crash-!
Shelves on the wall shattered entirely, burying the Fixer in rubble.
This would kill anyone—bones pulverized, instant death.
Having dispatched one intruder in a flash, the anomaly tried to rush the White-Faced Bride—who was carrying Han Ye-rim and fleeing—but...
It was grabbed by the Fixer, who had snuck up behind, and hurled backward.
"!?"
An overwhelming power gap unlike anything it had felt before.
Clearly smashed into the wall hard enough to kill.
Why was this man unscathed?
"Dust on my clothes. Just had them dry-cleaned. Annoying."
The Melody Recorder felt not just puzzlement, but outright eeriness.
Clearly human.
How could he be so durable?
"You bastard. How many innocent kids have you eaten? You the one spreading sub-sound too?"
The man was furious.
For a moment, the Melody Recorder was overwhelmed by his gaze.
Something unknowable writhed in the Fixer's eyes.
Stay still, and it'd be torn apart by this man.
"Ah, uwaa. Aaaah!!!"
The Melody Recorder swung whatever blades it could grab to shred the man.
The blades plunged into the Fixer's chest at blinding speed, ripping his gut.
You have taken serious damage.
HP decreases by 7.
HP decreases by 6.
HP decreases by 4.
•
•
•
HP: 167/190
"H-How..."
No human survives blades in their body.
Only then did the Melody Recorder realize.
The thing before it wasn't human.
Perhaps a human turned anomaly like itself, stepping into this world.
"I was talking, and you stab first? It hurts."
Toward the deluded anomaly, the Fixer clenched his fist and swung with full sincerity.
Boom-!
Like a balloon popping, half the anomaly's face exploded.
"Guhk..?"
Black liquid gushed from the blasted area.
The Melody Recorder, unable to comprehend, took a gut punch.
-Spluuurt!
With the sound of its belly skin bursting, the LP records it had swallowed spilled out.
Over a hundred, by rough count—an enormous number.
The Fixer recalled the description.
[Basis: Once a human who fell into the Backside World; anomaly that kidnaps children and turns them into LP records]
"Hey, you were human once too. How could you do this...? You're beyond redemption."
The Melody Recorder was grabbed by the head and dragged to the hydraulic press.
"A, ahh. Let gooo!"
The Fixer forced both the anomaly's arms into the press jaws, ignoring its screams and struggles.
Simple extermination wasn't enough.
The heinous methods, targeting high school seniors—no mitigating factors.
Once in the Fixer's grasp, the Melody Recorder wouldn't die easily.
"A, aaaah!!!"
"Behave."
He pulled the lever.
The massive press that had turned girls into LPs descended slowly, pulverizing the Recorder's arms completely.
"Uwaaa-!"
To perfectly resolve an incident, grasp and eliminate its root.
But this wasn't mere elimination.
This was punishment.
The punishment dealt by humanity
to the monster that hid in the dark Backside World,
thinking it would never be caught,
and kidnapped and devoured children at will.