I Became a Professional Horror Story Cleaner

‘Wow, how did it do that? I didn’t know cleaning a horror story worked this way.’

I didn’t know why those words had crossed my mind, but I did understand what had just happened.

‘It disappeared because it was identified as waste produced during the cleaning process.’

It didn’t need to be that efficient.

But it was fine. I still had two other sinks full of water. The plan would have to change a little, but I just had to refill it in the meantime.

“Nooo!”

The teddy bear shrieked.

At the same time, the counters that had been ominously creaking for a while began sliding rapidly toward us, as if someone had pushed them.

Creak, bang!

“Ugh……!”

The marble and wooden counters slammed into us, crushing us as if they intended to snap us in half at the waist.

“I want to get out, but…… I can’t pull my body free……!”

The pressure was merciless.

It felt as though the bones of my pelvis were screaming as they were forcibly twisted.

But if I stopped now, I would end up as a piece of meat torn in half at the waist.

With trembling hands, I grabbed the teddy bear by the head and shoved it under the stream of cold water.

“Pour the detergent directly onto the teddy bear.”

We only needed enough water to soak it, so that wasn’t much of a problem, but.

Crack.

An ominous crunch of bone came from somewhere around my waist, crushed under the pressure.

“Hahaha! Right there! Isn’t it? It hurts, doesn’t it?!”

The teddy bear’s heavy limbs repeatedly struck the backs of my hands.

Every time its fists slammed directly against the metal staples, my vision flashed.

And that was nothing compared to the pressure on my lower abdomen.

But I gritted my teeth, ignored everything else, and focused solely on scrubbing the teddy bear as if I were washing it by hand.

It looked as though it had been bathing in sewage.

The more we washed it, the more its limbs and head, which until then had been a murky gray bordering on brown, regained their original color.

Surprisingly, its true color was cream.

However, absolutely no dirt came out of its abdomen, where the rice and fingernails were supposed to be.

No matter how much I scrubbed and rubbed it, it remained just as filthy.

‘Just as I thought, we need the salt water.’

I couldn’t wait forever for Team Leader Yong.

Should I pour on it even the small amount of salt water left at the bottom of the bottle?

Just as I was considering that possibility, I heard a familiar voice.

“Hey, I brought the salt!”

“Team Leader?”

Thud.

A heavy sack struck my back and fell onto the counter.

“I’ve got it!”

Myeong Haebin caught it and sliced it open with the box cutter she had taken from the teddy bear.

“I’m going to fill it with water again. Wait a moment.”

“Use this!”

Team Leader Yong made his way through the chaos of counters, opened the cabinet beneath the empty sink beside us, pulled out a stainless steel bowl, and slid it toward us.

Of course.

It would fill with water much faster that way.

The white salt, giving off a strong saline smell, fell into the bowl along with the water.

Team Leader Yong had seemed to pay no attention at all while I was cleaning this place, but apparently he had noticed everything.

“Should I dissolve more?”

“That’s enough.”

At the bottom of the stainless steel bowl, which had quickly filled with water, a small amount of undissolved salt still remained.

But considering how much we had poured in, it was already more than enough.

The three of us firmly grabbed the teddy bear, which wouldn’t stop struggling, and plunged it in headfirst.

“No, blub, glug!”

Splash.

The instant the teddy bear sank into the salt water, completely black contamination began pouring out of it in dense clouds, staining the water as though ink had been poured into it.

It was incomparable to anything we had seen until then.

“Ugh……!”

The price of putting my own wounded hands into salt water was terrible.

My consciousness began to fade from the pain, and I barely managed to cling to it.

Then, without hesitation, another pair of equally wounded hands came down over mine.

“Do I just squeeze this?”

“You can squeeze it with all your strength!”

“Boss, this thing is really strong! Don’t hold back, give it everything you’ve got!”

Team Leader Yong, who had just jumped over one of the counters, joined us.

Not only was the teddy bear completely submerged in the salt water, unable to move even an inch, but we also began pulling, bending, and crushing it as we washed it.

“Blub, stop, stop!”

We could see with our own eyes how the teddy bear’s abdomen, whose filth had refused to disappear no matter what we did, gradually began regaining its light color.

Ears.

Head.

Arms.

Legs.

Abdomen.

Even the tail.

Without leaving a single spot untouched, we scrubbed and rubbed it with our own hands, tearing away all the contamination trapped inside it.

I could feel the teddy bear’s strength gradually weakening.

Finally.

“The game…”

Was over.

That was what I was about to say.

But my tongue, pressed against the roof of my mouth to pronounce the words, went rigid.

An intense beam of light shone in from outside the practice room, whose entrance remained completely open, and swept from side to side as though it had just caught us in the act.

“What are you doing?”

The Professor patrolling the hallways had not overlooked all the commotion coming from the practice room.

After all the shouting and splashing we had done, had I really thought we could make it to the end without being discovered?

I had been too naive.

Because of the ‘Professor’s’ controlling power, our bodies became completely rigid.

There was only one step left.

No.

Just one more sentence.

My body, which had already surpassed its limits long ago, began screaming.

An obsessive siren echoed inside my head until it drowned out everything else.

‘All students must be diligent and responsible.’

‘All students must obey the Professors’ instructions.’

‘A student must never dare to defy a Professor.’

‘Activities unrelated to studying are subject to disciplinary action.’

One warning after another.

And another on top of that.

Grit.

I bit down hard on the inside of my mouth, tearing off a piece of flesh to force myself to remain conscious.

“Go to hell.”

I wasn’t a student at this school.

I never had been.

And I never would be.

Disciplinary action?

Let it try.

If this damn horror story could still come after me once it disappeared, then go ahead.

I squeezed the doll that was trying to escape from my hands even harder, wringing it out as though I intended to soak every last fiber of cotton inside it with salt.

“The game is over.”

For the briefest instant, I felt as though time had stopped.

I could no longer feel any resistance from the teddy bear in my hands.

The pressure crushing my body vanished all at once, and the space around us began to melt away.

It wasn’t breaking or collapsing.

It was as though a layer of paint that had been forcibly imposed over everything was peeling away, fading until it became transparent.

My heavy eyelids closed, and when I opened them again, what appeared before my eyes was no longer the practice room in the middle of the night.

It was the school field.

The clean cream-colored teddy bear in my hands hung limply, as though it had never struggled at all, while drops of salt water fell onto the dirt.

‘I still hadn’t rinsed it.’

Bzzz—

[Completion Condition: Wash the Hwaae High School One-Person Hide-and-Seek horror story.]

[Completed]

We survived.

And it was finally over.

I still couldn’t fully process it, and I didn’t even have the strength to move my feet, so I think I just stood there in a daze for a while.

Someone spoke.

I think it was Team Leader Yong.

“The sun is coming up.”

Beyond the main entrance of Hwaae High School, dawn was beginning to break over an uneven horizon, fractured by buildings of varying heights.

For the first time, I felt like I was beginning to understand Daecheonmyeong’s slogan a little.

How strange.

Since when had the horizon stopped being horizontal?

“Huh? Boss!”

After that, I don’t remember anything.

***

“Ugh…… Damn teddy bear…… Enough already…… Hah!”

I kicked off the blankets and shot upright.

It had been a dream.

The place where I woke up was my room, the one Daecheonmyeong had provided for me.

“Of all the dreams I could’ve had…… Hm?”

My gaze naturally fell on the hand I had been about to use to scratch my head.

The thick metal staples that had been deeply embedded in it had disappeared without a trace.

And that wasn’t all.

Every injury to my ribs, arms, and the rest of my body had completely healed.

I even felt perfectly rested, without a single ache.

“There aren’t even any scars.”

Just like when they had reattached my severed arm, I stared in amazement at my completely healed arm, without a single scar.

And it wasn’t only the external injuries.

My hearing had recovered as well.

You could practically say they had given me a brand-new body.

Rather than being amazed, I was starting to get scared.

‘When a company treats you this well, it usually means they plan to work you just as hard.’

Wait.

Then had the others received treatment too?

What had happened to Jeong Dohyeon?

And what about the teddy bear I had been holding?

Had Hwaae High School really disappeared for good?

I jumped to my feet and was about to run outside barefoot when I found myself standing in front of the full-length mirror hanging on the wall.

“……Ah.”

I looked awful.

My uniform was torn all over, I was still wearing my socks, my hair was matted and tangled like a bird’s nest, and dried blood covered my entire body.

Even so, my workplace was on the other side of that door.

I couldn’t go out looking like this.

***

A little while later, after showering, shaving, and even cleaning the bathroom a little, I was finally clean and presentable.

I changed into some fresh clothes I found in the closet.

Although there were only pants and a white T-shirt.

Didn’t they restock the jacket?

No one was rushing me.

Maybe that was precisely why I was the one growing more impatient.

“It took longer than I thought. I need to hurry……”

Just as I was about to head toward the entrance, my gaze stopped on the shared living room.

It was a mess.

Snack bags, crumbs, and empty drink bottles were scattered everywhere.

I assumed it was the work of the person occupying the room across from mine.

‘I’ll just clean that up before I leave.’

The name hanging on the door was……

‘Kang Dochae’?

“Excuse me.”

Knock, knock.

I knocked on the door, but the owner of the room didn’t appear.

Maybe he was asleep.

Or perhaps he had already gone to work and wasn’t there.

Just in case, I tried turning the doorknob, but the door was firmly locked.

‘You should at least keep the shared space clean.’

I hadn’t even seen his face yet, and I was already starting to dislike him.

***

In the end, I was only able to leave the dormitory after throwing away all the trash in the living room and cleaning up every last crumb and stain.

‘What time is it?’

Now that I thought about it, my room didn’t have any windows.

[7:12 AM]

([ ] Unread Notifications (1))

“Did I sleep for an entire day?”

The unread notification came from the app.

[2 responses are available.]

[You can check ??]

I decided to check the ?? that had never been unlocked first.

! Escaped the cafeteria after consuming lunch. (Completed)

Reward: Improved Digestive Function + Tool Upgrade: Trash Bag

[Tool Upgrade: Trash Bag]

You can now dispose of that which cannot be disposed of.

Scope: All trash bags used by Kim Hanmu.

Of all the possible things, it had to be a trash bag.

“And what exactly is something that can’t be disposed of?”

If you put it inside a bag, it becomes trash.

I didn’t understand what it meant.

Still, considering that the improvement to my digestive function had saved my life, that tool upgrade probably had some real effect too.

But the questions could wait.

First, I had to find the people I had lost sight of.

‘But…… where do I go?’

No one had told me what time I was supposed to report to work or where I was supposed to go.

I hadn’t even finished orientation, so there was no way I could know.

For the time being, I stopped a few employees passing by.

Black uniforms with blue lines.

They were from the Extraction Team.

“Excuse me. Do you know how I can get to the Cleaning Team’s office?”

“Cleaning Team? Was there something like that?”

“First time I’ve heard of it. Did our company hire new cleaners?”

Ah.

Right.

They had told me that the Cleaning Team had just been created.

It was only natural that they wouldn’t know about it.

‘I’d better find Team Leader Yong first.’

Inside that enormous company, the number of people I knew was fairly small.

I should be grateful that at least one of them held the rank of Team Leader.

“Then do you know where Team Leader Yong is?”

“Ah…… That Team Leader. He’s not part of our team.”

Team?

Now that I thought about it, they had told me that the Extraction Team was divided into three teams.

The uniforms these employees were wearing had a rat on them, not the dog I had seen on Team Leader Yong’s.

“We’re not in the business of finding lost children.”

“Hey, the guy from the Cleaning Team says he doesn’t know where to go. Help him out a little.”

These bastards…?

Being looked down on because of my profession was nothing new.

But that didn’t make it pleasant.

“If you don’t know, forget it.”

“Ask that dog. I think he should know.”

Just as I was about to turn around, the employees who had been mocking me seemed to notice something and gestured with their chins toward someone who had just entered the hallway.

A uniform with blue lines.

Brown hair.

A pale face and features that seemed far better suited to office work……

I hadn’t seen him in a long time.

But it was a face impossible to forget.

Jeong Dohyeon.

“Dohyeon.”

Hadn’t he died?

He was alive?

I had barely taken a few steps before my breathing became ragged.

It was because of the relief that had suddenly surged through me.

“Me?”

But Jeong Dohyeon’s reaction was strange.

As though he were seeing me for the first time, he pointed at himself with one finger, silently asking whether I was really talking to him.

What’s wrong with this guy now?