Chapter 211: Ch 211: Familiar names ^^
The monster’s fingers, wrapped in black gloves, moved as if sweeping
upward.
With that smooth movement, all the basement buttons in the elevator lit up.
The new employees stared blankly at the sight.
Now.
What did it just do?
"Ca, cancel! Ca..."
Too late.
The elevator moved a single floor in the blink of an eye.
Ding.
[This is the Twelfth Basement Floor.]
The elevator doors opened, completely unguarded.
What had happened here just hours ago flashed through like a memory.
When the elevator had gone to Basement Floor 12 to complete a ’mission’,
it had returned without a single employee, only a pool of red blood spread
across the floor...
[The doors are opening.]
And now, in the glow from the elevator, the dark hallway of Basement
Floor 12 dimly revealed itself. The new employees held their breath.
"..."
"..."
But there was not a single drop of blood in the hallway. Unlike inside the
elevator.
"Haah."
Before they could instinctively feel relief, something odd caught their eyes.
Oily dirt-like substances were piled up on the floor, stuck in the cracks of
the elevator.
’Dirt...?’
Looking for the source, they lifted their heads.
They saw lumps scattered through the corridor like landmarks.
Lumps that seemed weathered with time.
– Uuuuuh... Huuhp. – W-What is this...?
But on closer inspection, eyes accustomed to the darkness could distinguish
their silhouettes.
An ankle near the ankle bone, an ear and part of a temple, a right shoulder
blade...
Fragments of human bodies, left colorless like mannequins.
"Hiiiee..."
Mmpf.
The new employee clamped a hand over his mouth. To keep any sound
from escaping.
He must not make any noise.
Because, at the end of his gaze, he saw something huge.
Something standing in the dark corridor.
It, too, was wearing a uniform.
A Security Team uniform, just like the horned monster in this elevator was
wearing. Neat and unaltered, a perfectly human silhouette. As if a bored
Security Team member was standing there absentmindedly. But...
Its head was a scarecrow’s.
A face, awkwardly drawn in fresh blood, on a roughly made, straw-stuffed,
empty sack.
...
From somewhere, a song could be heard.
All day long, standing tall
Angry Mister Scarecrow
It faintly echoed through the hallway.
Chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp, the children are scared
The birds scatter away
Hahahahaha, be careful
The hat might fly off
Plop.
A drop of blood, caught in the scarecrow’s awkward eye, fell from the tip of
a piece of straw.
All day long, standing tall
But since when...
Angry Mister Scarecrow
...Had its head been turned this way?
"..."
Gulp.
The new employees froze.
The scarecrow had certainly not moved. But...
Why had it changed?
Why was it now one door closer than before?
Why was it even closer again?
Why had it raised its left hand made of straw?
Why was there a grass-cutting sickle in its grasp?
Why was its face...
"AAAAAAAGH!"
At that moment, the doors of another elevator opened with a burst of light
and screams.
"...!"
Other people. Clearly others, who were here for their own missions, could
be heard stumbling out of the elevator into this hallway.
"W-What is that!"
Seeing the scarecrow and the body fragments on the corridor floor right in
front of them, they screamed.
...
All day long, standing tall
Kind Mister Scarecrow
Why is the scarecrow standing with its head turned?
"Hiiiaaak!"
"Close it! Close it!"
"N-No! Run..."
Too late.
And as the new employee who had been watching in a daze realized—
Yes. The chance to escape.
"Hieek!"
This is the moment. While it’s not looking over here, quick, quick! The new
employee desperately reached for the close button...
But, he was blocked by a black-gloved hand.
"...!"
Those bizarre horns sprouting everywhere, the yellow lamp-like eyes
behind the gas mask.
The Security Team officer from Room 666 on Basement Floor 13, blocking
the close button, didn’t even look at him.
It just stared blankly out of the elevator. From its gas mask, thick black
smoke poured out and pooled at its feet.
Fwoooo...
Then, drifting low like a mist, the smoke crept toward Basement Floor 12.
Toward the scarecrow.
Hahahahaha, be careful
The hat might fly off
All day long, standing tall
Kind...
Whoosh.
The smoke surged up, covering the scarecrow.
"!!"
The sound was swallowed, thick and heavy.
The scarecrow’s figure was hidden by a shroud of dense, pitch-black
smoke. And underneath...
A new sound.
Cr-cr-cr-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack
A bizarre noise echoed down the hallway.
The new employees held their breath, gasping, as they listened.
The scarecrow’s form, now blacked out by smoke, wasn’t even visible as a
shadow.
Only the sound remained.
Only the ruthless, rending noise could be heard.
Crunchcrunchcrunch. It sounded like horns or bones breaking, or like
something being ground together, or forcibly crammed or swallowed
somewhere.
And then a wailing, as if begging, could be heard.
The sound of someone pleading and trying to escape was mixed with the
tremendous noise... And soon, with a final, strangled gasp, it disappeared.
The moment silence returned.
"..."
"..."
At last, the black smoke dispersed again.
The scarecrow, which had been hidden by the smoke, reappeared in the
hallway—
"...Huh?"
A corpse.
The new employees blinked.
But what remained unchanged was the blood-soaked corpse, its entire body
crushed and lying on the floor.
Blood dripped from the scarecrow’s makeshift features onto the ground.
Plop.
"Aaaaaaaah!"
"Aagh!!"
The space filled with screams. But the one in the gas mask inhaled all the
smoke again with a single breath. One new employee recoiled in horror,
crawling into a corner of the elevator.
[The doors are closing.]
Meanwhile, from the next elevator came the sound of someone frantically
smashing buttons without even taking a breath, and the doors closed.
"O-Over there!"
The other new employees were escaping safely.
At the same time, the black smoke that had surged through the Basement
Floor 12 hallway now cleanly pooled at the floor of this elevator.
"Hiieek!"
"Wait!"
As he tried desperately to avoid the smoke, someone grabbed his shoulder.
His coworker named Jang Heowoon. He whispered urgently.
"Don’t get on its bad side."
"...!!"
"That smoke hasn’t covered our heads yet... Calm down, let’s calm down."
He was right.
The smoke was quietly pooling on the elevator floor.
"Huff, huuuff..."
The new employee swallowed, catching his breath, and grabbed the
elevator handrail.
[The doors are closing.]
And thus, they left 12BF.
He desperately looked away from the corpse that would be just beyond the
elevator doors, but just before the doors closed, he thought he saw it
staggering to its feet again...
Like a scarecrow.
"Huuuuh."
He swallowed with a groan.
But the intense impression of what he had just seen didn’t leave him.
A bizarre being.
And the smoke that had turned that bizarre being into a corpse.
Suddenly, he realized something shocking.
’...We survived.’
Everyone had survived.
His legs shook with relief.
At the same time, another thought crossed his mind.
’Wait.’
Then maybe that strange, horned Security Team member from Room 666
was actually helping people escape via the elevator...?
’Wait, if that’s true...’
Yes. Maybe there was nothing to be afraid of. Maybe it was fine! Unable to
bear being trapped in an elevator with something so horrific, he tried to
rationalize it, turning his head.
"Uh, excuse me..."
He made eye contact with the Security Team member.
However.
"Tha...nk..."
Had its arm always been that... melted?
The Security Team member’s arm was abnormally long. And strange...
there were too many feet. Its melting lower half swelled and warped across
the elevator floor, mixed with the smoke.
And it had thirty-seven eyes.
All the eyes stared at him, unblinking.
"Uh, uuuuuu..."
What is that?
That thing, what is it?
[This is the Eleventh Basement Floor.]
An external shock briefly interrupted his panic.
Another stop.
[The doors are opening.]
"I shall now proceed with the extraction of optic nerves."
"I will now be connecting the mouth to the navel."
"Would be great to have no feet, too!"
On Basement Floor 11, an employee in a doctor’s coat was conducting a
cheerful consultation for surgery in room 910.
Whoosh.
Once again, the one in the gas mask looked out with its thirty-seven eyes
and sent forth smoke.
Soon, the strange being in the doctor’s coat became a bloodless corpse with
its limbs stitched together in the wrong places.
"Aaagh!"
Again, screams. Escape.
The people who had been holding their consultation as if hypnotized fled
room 910 and boarded another elevator, and this elevator’s doors naturally
closed as well.
[The doors are closing.]
"..."
The new employee looked down at his feet.
He couldn’t see the floor of the elevator.
Because the Security Team member’s melted lower half was covering it.
Ba-thump.
He heard a heartbeat-like sound from the wall.
Because the upper left part of the Security Team member’s torso was spread
wide, stuck to the wall.
"..."
And so it continued.
[This is the Tenth Basement Floor.]
[This is the Ninth Basement Floor.]
[This is the Eighth Basement Floor.]
With every floor the doors opened and closed, with every strange event the
smoke caused, the figure inside the elevator grew stranger.
It got bigger and more distorted.
[This is the Sixth Basement Floor.]
[This is the Fifth Basement Floor.]
The shape of the thing riding the elevator is getting more and more
grotesque. It’s so bizarre and impossible to even look at. It’s a strange
■■■■■■■■■■ it’s just strange strange stra
[This is the Fourth Basement Floor.]
[This is the Third Basement Floor.]
[This basement is an endless basement.]
At last, he realized what was strange. Now the entire elevator was made of
sticky smoke and yellow lights and a crown of thorns and bone-grave
curves of ■ ■ .That’sit!ThisisBasementFloor13!He’sbeingsuckedbackto
BasementFloor13andnow
Ding.
...
...
[This is the First Floor.]
[The doors are opening.]
Light pours in.
"Haaahhh..."
The moment the familiar ground-floor lobby comes into view, the new
employee collapses.
Someone rushes over and pats him on the back.
"Slowly, slowly... just breathe out."
The fellow new hire named Jang Heowoon or whatever his name is?Him?
That fellow new hire JangHeowoonorwhateverhisnamewas?Him?or
someoneelse?grabshisarm,andhebreathesinandoutinandoutinandoutinandout
inandoutdyingandthesmoketellsusaboutour■■-nim...
■■-nim?
"...Excuse me."
Someone speaks.
He unconsciously turned his head.
At some point, the figure of ■■-nim?theSecurityTeam staff had returned to
normal.
A man with a horned gas mask, radiating an odd sense of authority. Jang
Heowoon was speaking to him...
"Did you... just help us?"
No.
The smoke moves.
"Eek!"
But instead of covering over his head, the smoke forms letters.
Duty of an employee
"..."
After a long silence, Jang Heowoon finally managed to speak.
"Yes. Thank you..."
His voice was hoarse, almost as if he was choking up.
Then he turned and began to help another teammate, who was trembling in
the corner of the elevator.
Maybe he’d lost his mind from the terror.
’Crazy bastard.’
He needs to get out of here now. The new employee snapped back to his
senses.
He hurriedly got off the elevator, desperately avoiding his coworker.
In a situation this insane, trying to help someone else recklessly was a sure
way to die. Self-preservation—self-preservation was the only way to
survive... He barely pulled himself together, still shivering in fear and
panic.
"W-What’s that?"
"Uuuhh..."
Fortunately or unfortunately, the chaos and all the various survivors who
had returned meant the lobby was full of noise and distraction, so not many
people actually saw the Security Team member inside the elevator.
The yellow lantern-like eyes briefly turned to the lobby as ’Jang Heowoon’
helped his coworker out of the elevator, then suddenly stared straight at
him.
And then...
Be grateful for your luck
"...!"
[The doors are closing.]
The elevator started moving again.
To Basement Floor 13.
[13BF]
The new employee stared blankly at the floor indicator, then collapsed onto
the lobby floor.
He was drenched in cold sweat.
* * *
The elevator doors closed.
I am alone again.
"..."
Smoke rises, and I can feel my body, which had been warped and distorted,
slowly returning to its proper shape within the framework of the Security
Team uniform...
...
Something stirs.
I brought my hand to my chest, but felt no heartbeat. My insides were so
completely destroyed that I couldn’t even tell if I existed, or where I was.
But the strange pulsing sensation lingered for a moment.
And I savored it.
Like a bottle of nostalgia.
Ding.
The doors opened on Basement Floor 13.
A silence flowed through the basement. In the dark hallway, I saw gloomy
iron doors, flickering with red and blue lights.
But there was something else, too.
– Target confirmed.
Guard Teams.
Employees in familiar uniforms emerged from the hallway, facing me.
It seemed someone must have reported that I’d acted out of protocol.
It was a misunderstanding. I had never once set foot on another floor, or
aboveground. I had properly carried out the security of my assigned area.
Question
But instead of paying attention to the letters I had made, the Guard Team
each drew their own special restraint devices, mutating into contaminated
forms...
"Aigoo, everyone’s so tense!"
A white hand suddenly shot out from behind.
"It’s fine. Please, give us a little space..."
A bright, inappropriately cheerful voice rang out, and a Research Team
employee walked out from the center of the security team.
I still couldn’t make out his face, which looked like a melting mosaic, but I
could tell from his outfit and employee badge who he was.
His identity.
"Hello."
Kwak Jekang.
"It’s been a while since I’ve met you in person... No, it’s the first time, isn’t
it? Hahaha!"
His face, behind glasses, wore what seemed to be a calm smile, but his
voice betrayed a barely contained excitement.
"I’m the manager in charge of our Security Team’s new Special Division
employee! And today I’m also in charge of the annex experiment."
He didn’t seem at all afraid of the stares from the Guard Team, and as he
took out documents from his jacket, he grinned at me.
"I’d like to start with a few simple questions... Haha, goodness me. Why
don’t we begin by introducing today’s visitors of Basement Floor 13?
Seems these folks forgot to introduce themselves. Let’s see. Lee Jeongin,
age 28. Park Yonghae, age 25. And..."
His voice paused, as if to build suspense, then emphasized:
"Jang Heowoon, age 26."
...
...
Just now.
"Hmm? Do any of these names sound familiar? Hahaha."
What did he just say?
goblin notes:
A bit stupid to realize this 200+ Chapters in, but... The spelling of Kwak
Jaekang’s name is more accurate with ’e’ instead of ’ae’, so I’ll be using
’Jekang’ from now on.
I’ll try to edit all past Chapters (alongside the font changes) little by little...
once I have extra time on my hands... ;-;