I Became a Professional Horror Story Cleaner

“Ugh……!”

Reflexively, I rolled to the side, and the box cutter’s blade stabbed directly into the tiles where I had been just a moment earlier.

My ribs, whose pain I had forgotten for a moment, began tormenting me again, but perhaps thanks to the painkiller, it was bearable.

“Eliminated! Eliminated!”

What do you mean, eliminated?

You mean dead.

As if annoyed that it had failed to stab me, the teddy bear began furiously swinging the knife through the air.

“Duck!”

Team Leader Yong must have sensed something, because he grabbed Myeong Haebin’s head and mine and forced us to duck.

At the same time, the desks and chairs I had worked so hard to stack perfectly began collapsing on top of us as though they intended to bury us alive.

The legs of the chairs struck the tiles.

The desks crashed down headfirst and flipped over.

And more chairs came crashing down on top of them.

Only after a long while did the practice room sink back into a heavy silence.

Clink, clack.

The shards of glass embedded in the teddy bear’s feet made a sound every time they touched the floor.

“…….”

“Hide well~.”

With a voice so excited that it sounded as though it might take flight, it hummed while hopping across the mountain of desks and chairs.

As it struck the knife in its hand here and there, it gradually made its way downward.

“Found you!”

Its black button eyes abruptly lowered to look beneath the counter.

And those eyes met mine.

“You’re the one who got caught.”

I knew it would come.

I aimed at the teddy bear and squeezed the plastic bottle I was holding as hard as I could.

The salt water shot out forcefully and completely soaked the teddy bear.

“Aaaaaaagh!!”

The teddy bear began writhing as it let out an agonized scream.

The salt water soaking its cotton body now dripped down stained black.

“The game is over.”

“No! No! Again! Let’s do it again!”

The teddy bear rubbed its body with its short limbs and against the legs of the desks.

Before we could catch it, it squeezed through the narrow gaps and ran away.

Team Leader Yong, who was beneath the counter on the opposite side, cautiously raised his head.

“What happened?”

“It left.”

The practice room door through which the teddy bear had escaped was shattered and had fallen out into the hallway.

“Do you think it’s over? That’s strange. We did exactly what the instructions said, so why is it still alive and moving?”

“We don’t usually dismantle horror stories this way, so I don’t know. Maybe we should’ve stuck a Disassembly Marker on it.”

I thought I knew the reason.

The condition for completing this horror story was to clean Hwaae High School’s one-person hide-and-seek game.

Where the teddy bear had been completely drenched in salt water, a puddle of black filth resembling soot remained.

Considering how violently it had writhed and how much it had hated it, it was clear that the salt water worked.

“Then let’s completely submerge it in salt water.”

Clean the teddy bear with salt water.

If it were up to me, I would have loved to spray it with a pressure washer filled to the brim with salt water, but there was no way equipment like that existed in this place.

Then there was only……

‘Wash it.’

Bzzz—

The application updated.

[Condition for completion: Wash the one-person hide-and-seek game of the Hwaae High School horror story.]

The final space that had remained hidden until now was filled in.

As if proving that the answer I had reached was correct.

But this application seems to have slightly more advanced functions than last time.

Is it just my imagination?

“Ah! Boss, are you thinking of washing it?”

Myeong Haebin understood my intentions a moment later and slapped her palm.

“Yes. I’m going to wash it.”

Of course, Team Leader Yong still seemed not to understand and pretended to clean out his ear.

“I think there’s something wrong with my ears.”

“Geez, I already told you to clean out your earwax.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

Team Leader Yong let out a deep sigh and lifted the empty salt-water bottle.

“Rookie, I know perfectly well that you’re incredibly good at cleaning. But this is too much.”

It was the serious remark of an older man who was genuinely worried about me.

Although perhaps he wasn’t worried about me, but about my head.

“You promised me. You said you’d give me a chance.”

“I think I also told you that if it looked like they’d have to drag you to the infirmary, we’d stop immediately. Look at yourself.”

I had lost a kidney, my sense of balance and hearing were both impaired, I had a cracked rib, and I still had staples embedded in both hands.

“How are we supposed to go to the infirmary? They must have finished for the day by now.”

“Do I look like I’m in the mood for jokes?”

Team Leader Yong looked genuinely angry.

But my goal was to convince him, not provoke him until he became furious.

“If this doesn’t work either, I’ll withdraw. I promise.”

Team Leader Yong bit his lip as though thinking it over, then raised his wrist and tapped his analog watch a couple of times.

“If you haven’t succeeded by then, we’ll wait quietly until nighttime study ends and go home.”

It was conditional approval, but it was still approval.

I immediately nodded.

“Do you trust me?”

“Why the hell would I trust a green rookie like you, idiot?”

Despite his words, Team Leader Yong moved a desk aside and crawled out from beneath the narrow counter.

What a strange man.

“And what exactly are you planning to do?”

“I’m going to pour all the salt we have left into this sink. Then we’ll mix it with water and……”

“There’s a problem!”

Myeong Haebin suddenly raised her hand.

“What is it?”

“We used all the salt. There’s none left.”

Myeong Haebin pulled the bag of salt out from under a desk and held it up to show us.

It really was completely empty and crumpled.

“You used all that salt in half a bottle?”

“Of course not! There was barely any left to begin with.”

Now that she mentioned it, I thought that was true.

I vaguely remembered thinking that bag had felt especially light when we cleaned this place.

I looked at Team Leader Yong.

“Go to the cafeteria.”

“The cafeteria? You almost died there and you can still say that?”

“It’s nighttime. There shouldn’t be anyone there.”

The kitchen had to have salt.

Of course, judging by the appearance of the food they had served, it was difficult to imagine that they had used human seasonings, but it was the last place where there might still be salt left.

“What if there isn’t any?”

“I’ll do whatever you say, Team Leader.”

One way or another, I could end up dead.

There was no Plan B.

I just had to wash the teddy bear with salt water.

“I’ll go!”

“Not you, Haebin. There’s something else I need you to do.”

“What?”

Myeong Haebin was more agile than Team Leader Yong and me.

All I had to do was remember how she had managed to evade the Professors’ surveillance on her own.

“The teddy bear must still be hiding somewhere in this school. We need to bring it here.”

“Why do both things at the same time? Let’s get the salt first, then lure it here.”

“Because I don’t think I can hold out that long.”

We had already lost too much blood.

Both Team Leader Yong and I.

The backs of my hands, where the staples were still embedded, were beginning to turn bluish, and because the hands were one of the parts of the body that moved the most, the bleeding wouldn’t stop.

I, in particular, was barely managing to remain conscious thanks to the painkiller.

I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out.

“Ah, shit. I don’t even know anymore. Neither of you do anything dangerously stupid.”

“You just need to come back quickly.”

Team Leader Yong looked like he wanted to punch me in the mouth if he could, but my condition must have been pitiful enough to make him give up on the idea.

He crossed through the shattered entrance of the practice room and went down the stairs.

“Can you really do it with those hands?”

“I’ll have to try. Besides, you’re going to help me, right? Sorry for not believing you earlier, Haebin.”

“Bah, you weren’t even in your right mind. It’s fine.”

Myeong Haebin could be disturbingly inhuman at times, but there was at least one thing I could trust.

She cared about me.

“I’ll be right back! Start filling the sink with water!”

It wasn’t as though I had ever washed a stuffed animal using only salt water.

Although there was a method that used only salt.

It involved putting the stuffed animal into a bag with coarse salt and shaking it. It was useful for light disinfection and removing dust.

‘Of course, I don’t think any bag could withstand that teddy bear. And besides, we need salt water, not just salt.’

Normally, you don’t use salt water for washing.

Salt can harden the fur and stuffing of a stuffed animal, make the colors fade, and, if done incorrectly, even cause mold to grow.

And that was exactly what I had to use.

“Let’s do this.”

There were three sinks in total inside the practice room.

I plugged the drains of all three and slightly opened the faucets.

I didn’t want the noise to unnecessarily attract a Professor.

If it were up to me, I would use sodium percarbonate.

Its strong alkalinity makes it especially effective for disinfecting and bleaching.

‘But it probably wouldn’t mix well with salt water. It might even neutralize the effect of the salt.’

Since I didn’t know exactly what effect salt had inside a horror story, I couldn’t risk it.

A neutral detergent, on the other hand, would be a good option.

It was the type of detergent mainly used for washing wool or as dishwashing liquid.

Since it was nonionic, it wouldn’t alter the properties of the sodium either.

It was perfect.

I poured a small amount of neutral detergent into the water that had already filled half of the first sink and stirred it.

When the water came into contact with my wounds, I felt a terrible burning sensation, but surely that would be nothing compared to what was coming next.

I had to endure it.

First, I would wash the teddy bear in sink number one with water and neutral detergent.

Then I would completely submerge it in the salt water in the second sink to draw out all that black filth.

Finally, I would rinse it in the third sink.

For now, the plan was perfect.

‘Why are those two taking so long?’

I knew I had to be careful, since the entrance was completely open and a Professor could come in at any moment.

Even so, I couldn’t stop myself from peeking into the hallway again and again.

Absolutely nothing was certain.

Maybe there was no salt in the cafeteria.

Perhaps the teddy bear had decided to hide forever.

Or perhaps the two of them had been caught on the way and taken back to the study hall.

Had waiting always been this agonizing?

A single minute felt like an eternity.

The blood seeping from my tightly clenched fist fell to the floor.

One drop.

Then another.

Until it formed a large stain.

I couldn’t keep waiting.

I would have to go out, even if it was just to look for Myeong Haebin.

Just as I thought that, she came running through the front door of the practice room.

Was it a hallucination caused by losing too much blood?

“Boss!”

Of course not.

Her bangs were completely soaked with sweat and stuck to her forehead, but it was definitely Myeong Haebin.

“I took a little while, didn’t I? Whew, you have no idea how well this guy had hidden himself. I stabbed him with the knife and told him it was his turn to seek, and only then…”

“Then where is it?”

“Right behind me!”

Behind her?

My body reacted before my mind did, and I threw myself toward her.

The teddy bear had leaped toward Myeong Haebin with the sharp blade of the box cutter aimed directly at her.

I caught it in midair and, because of the powerful impact, ended up rolling once across the floor.

“Weren’t you the one who ran away? We meet again, huh?”

“Eliminated! I won this time!”

“You stubborn little bastard.”

If we’re talking about that, I already won when I sprayed you with salt water.

But the force with which this thing struggled was no joke.

Every time it thrashed with strength greater than that of an adult man, my entire body shook.

“Ugh……!”

As if it had realized I could barely keep it away from my body, it began indiscriminately slashing my arm with the box cutter.

The thick blade pierced my skin, cut through the muscles, and came back out.

Blood gushed from the severed blood vessels.

Myeong Haebin joined the struggle to help me and managed to pull away the arm holding the box cutter.

“It’s completely tangled up……! Boss, I don’t think I can get the knife away from it right away. Can we put it in first?”

“Good idea.”

“No…… Blub!”

We plunged the entire teddy bear into the ice-cold water.

Every time it struggled underwater, huge splashes rose around us.

As the stuffing absorbed water, the blows from its arms became heavier, but I didn’t give an inch.

‘Tsk.’

The detergent water began turning red as it mixed with my blood.

The detergent seeped into the countless wounds on my arms, causing a stabbing pain that pierced even through the effects of the painkiller and went straight to my head.

Even so, I put even more strength into my arms.

“……!……!!”

Without the slightest consideration, I scrubbed its face with one hand while pressing down on its abdomen with the other, forcing the detergent water to penetrate inside.

Feeling threatened, the teddy bear began struggling even more violently.

Creak……

The counters in the practice room, which had remained motionless until then, began shaking as though they were trying to move.

I squeezed and scrubbed its ears, face, and arms hard so the detergent would penetrate every last corner.

Little by little, a black substance resembling soot began mixing with the water.

The amount coming out was far smaller than when we had soaked it with salt water.

But it meant we really were washing it.

“Haebin, I’m taking it out.”

“Yes! I have the knife here! And I left the brush to the side!”

Myeong Haebin had finally managed to wrench away the box cutter, which had practically been attached to its hand because of the red thread wrapped around it.

She proudly showed it to me and then put it into her own pocket to make sure the teddy bear couldn’t reach it again.

“No!”

I pulled the teddy bear out of the soapy water, placed it on the counter, and pressed my elbow firmly against its abdomen to immobilize it.

Using the soft-bristled brush Myeong Haebin had prepared, I began vigorously scrubbing the soles of its feet, which were especially dirty, until they foamed.

I also removed the shards of glass embedded in them.

Now this thing was nothing more than a conscious teddy bear with slightly more strength than normal.

Now I only had to submerge it once more in the detergent water and……

“Haebin, did you happen to drain the water?”

“Huh……? Me? Of course not!”

The sink I was about to submerge the teddy bear in again was completely empty.

All the water that had filled it to the brim had disappeared without a trace.