I Became a Professional Horror Story Cleaner

“I thought you wouldn’t want to go because it seemed suspicious.”

“We can’t walk forever without drinking a single sip of water. We at least have to try.”

The refrigerator had no electricity, so the drinks were lukewarm.

However, the 500 ml bottles of water and the soft drinks didn’t seem to have anything strange about them. The same went for the cookies and bread.

Besides food, there were also a few miscellaneous items, such as lighters, adhesive tape, and newspapers. They probably didn’t sell very often, because they had a thick layer of dust on them.

‘Do we have to ask for the price directly?’

As a test, I picked up a bottle of water and a chocolate-filled bun and tapped the glass behind the bars a couple of times.

What would the store owner ask for in exchange?

“…….”

Clatter!

The window opened with a sharp noise, and from the darkness inside, those glowing eyes silently stared at me.

A sense of terror slowly began to boil beneath my heart, as though whatever was hiding in the darkness could seize me at any moment.

“I want to buy these.”

He probably wouldn’t accept a card.

What would he ask for?

“■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■?”

It didn’t even sound like a comprehensible language.

I looked at Myeong Haebin, but she also seemed confused and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“One moment. Could you repeat that?”

“■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■?”

“Huh? Yes?”

What the hell had he said to make her react like that?

“What is he saying?”

“Uh……. What was it? Reungmeung…… gwongun…… gah…… I don’t know. I’m not joking!”

Myeong Haebin tried to haltingly pronounce a few words that seemed difficult even to articulate before lowering her brows and looking at me with a genuinely aggrieved expression.

“You can’t understand him?”

“No! He’s just saying something that sounds like an alien language……”

I kept my eyes on those red eyes for a few moments before dropping the products onto the counter in front of the bars.

“Forget it. We won’t buy anything.”

“I’m sorry. I’d like to figure it out too, but the more I listen, the less I understand……”

“It’s not your fault, Haebin. It’s fine. Let’s go.”

If the store had gone to the trouble of opening, surely that meant there was something we were supposed to do there.

And now it pulled this?

Fine.

If you’re thirsty, dig your own well.

After moving a short distance away from the store, I checked the container again and stopped.

“Haebin. Wait a moment.”

I lowered the zipper of my jumpsuit and pulled out a small bottle of sports drink that I had precariously hidden against my back.

“Huh? Boss! Don’t tell me……?!”

“Why? Did you think I was such an exemplary citizen that I could live without needing laws?”

“Yes!”

“You still don’t know me very well.”

Yes.

I had stolen it.

My heart had been pounding like crazy while I did it.

Had the owner not noticed?

Or had he noticed and simply let me do it?

I hoped it was the former.

I twisted the cap.

Click.

I felt the characteristic resistance of a new bottle’s seal breaking.

‘So far, so good.’

I tilted the bottle and poured the contents into my mouth.

The cloudy, lukewarm liquid turned into mud with an intense stench of stagnant water the moment it entered my mouth.

“Damn it. As expected, this doesn’t work either.”

My last hope shattered.

No wonder he hadn’t tried to stop me.

Was it because he knew stealing it wouldn’t do any good?

I thought about spitting it out, but ended up forcing myself to swallow the moisture-laden mud.

I could only hope my improved stomach would be able to digest at least some of it.

“Why did you swallow that?!”

“Sorry. I did it without thinking.”

I ignored Myeong Haebin’s scolding as I wiped my mouth.

I didn’t feel refreshed at all.

If we could freely consume stolen goods, it would have been far too easy.

“Let’s go back to the store. We have to figure out what the hell he’s saying―.”

As I spoke, my gaze became fixed on something and slowly followed it.

“……….”

“…….”

Two people dressed in sportswear slowly jogged past us.

“……They’re an anomalous phenomenon, right?”

“They’re paranormal runners. I told you about them earlier. They’re one of the classics in parks.”

“Ah, those.”

After so many strange things had appeared, seeing people running had made me think I was hallucinating.

I wiped my face with the part of my sleeve that wasn’t completely soaked yet.

“Okay. Let’s go back to the store first.”

I was about to turn around when a fading voice reached my ears.

“Weren’t those people just now real people?”

“See? I told you I was just doing another lap.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say is right~.”

Myeong Haebin and I looked at each other at the same time.

“They’re real people!”

“They’re people!”

The store didn’t matter anymore.

There were people inside the horror story!

“Excuse me! You two up ahead!”

I forced my voice out through my parched throat, but those two people, who seemed to have energy to spare, were moving too quickly.

They had already disappeared behind the thick vegetation and didn’t come back.

“Ah, damn it. Haebin, let’s go. Quickly. We have to catch up to them.”

We were in front of the store.

A little farther ahead was the fork between the West Gate and Gomyut.

If they were ordinary civilians who knew nothing about anomalous phenomena, it didn’t matter which of the two paths they took.

It would be a disaster!

Adrenaline forced my heavy legs to move.

But by the time we managed to run to the fork, there was no one there.

“They should’ve stopped to think about it. A fork that wasn’t there before suddenly appeared. And they just kept walking?”

“I hate civilians. Seriously. Seriously!”

Either way, we had to go through Gomyut.

We tried to at least properly record the anomalous phenomena in the Citizen Voice Box, but the little wooden house that should have been there had disappeared without a trace.

Instead, we returned.

[Chodam Park — Gomyut]

“Ah, come on. We’ve already been here before. I think it’s gotten even stranger.”

“See! I told you it was weird! Ah, shit.”

“Don’t swear in public. Besides, I was the one who said it was weird first.”

[The current level of our pond is]

[Dry]…[Insufficient]…[Average]…[High]…[Abundant]…[Perfect]

[Notice]

[Notice]

In front of the map, now covered in notices, and the water-level indicator, which had risen to [High], those two people were arguing without even realizing we were there.

The water level wasn’t the only thing that had risen.

So had my blood pressure.

Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked myself walking just to keep that damn level from rising……?

Ah, the back of my neck.

“B-Boss. Don’t get worked up. Come on, inhale slowly…… and exhale.”

“I’m not that angry.”

“No. You’re very angry right now.”

While I had a small struggle with Myeong Haebin, who was trying to make me breathe slowly to calm down, one of those two guys who were completely incapable of reading the room approached us.

He was the one wearing a headband.

“Excuse me, are you two trapped here too? I’m Woo Minhyeong, and he’s Park Hyeonho.”

Then he abruptly pulled down the balaclava covering his face.

He had a completely ordinary face, that of a man somewhere between his twenties and thirties whom you could run into anywhere.

‘How the hell am I supposed to explain this?’

Do I tell them that this place is a horror story, that horror stories have rules, and that from now on, they have to follow them too?

I don’t have any proof, but just trust me.

Something like that?

And how would they react?

Would they say, “Ah! I understand. We didn’t know. We’ll follow your instructions from now on”?

Of course not.

We’d be lucky if they didn’t respond, “What the fuck are you talking about?” and start doing whatever they wanted.

My head began to throb.

Bzzzt―.

As if it had perfectly understood the situation, I received a notification informing me that a new achievement had appeared.

[ ] Notification

! Get rid of the two civilians. (Not Achieved)

‘You fucking bastard.’

Now you too?

I swallowed the curse that had risen to my throat as soon as I read the new achievement.

‘It’s basically telling me to abandon them.’

But civilians or not, as long as those two were here, if they made any mistakes, we would suffer the consequences too.

The disappearance of the Citizen Voice Box and that pond were proof enough.

The pond level had risen another stage, and now the water was even higher.

Even from here, some distance away from the pond, I could see the trash fish, which had multiplied so much they seemed to form schools, casting black shadows as they prowled beneath the surface.

At the same time, the trees and plants in the park had grown thickly, as though feeding on the moisture from the pond, their branches heavy with leaves drooping downward.

What would happen if those two, knowing absolutely nothing, started messing around with this entire horror story and caused the level, which only had two stages left, to reach the maximum?

Why the hell had the application shown me that achievement?

Did it really think I was going to say, ‘How convenient!’ and abandon them?

“Excuse me!”

Perhaps unable to endure the unnatural silence as I looked at my phone instead of answering him, the man who had introduced himself as Woo Minhyeong called out to me again.

“Boss, Boss. He’s talking to you.”

“My ears work.”

“Hehe. It looked like you hadn’t heard him.”

I didn’t know whether she hadn’t seen it, had decided to ignore it, or had seen it and was pretending she hadn’t.

But I had already decided what to say.

“No. I was just organizing my thoughts.”

Even if I had to give up the achievement reward, I couldn’t get rid of them.

I looked at the man staring at me with obvious displeasure.

“So……”

I had two options here.

▷ Pretend we had run into each other by chance.

▷ Reveal that we belonged to Daecheonmyeong.

I remembered the circumstances under which I had been recruited.

Even though that man had still been alive, Myeong Haebin hadn’t hesitated to offer me a position at the company. If that was the case, there probably wouldn’t be a problem with revealing our identities in front of civilians.

But there was something much more important.

‘I don’t know how to get out of this horror story.’

If I pretended to know what I was doing, it would be easier to get them to follow my instructions.

But the moment they discovered that my knowledge was incomplete, even the little trust we had managed to gain would collapse.

Fine.

“We’re trapped too.”

‘Boss?’

Myeong Haebin seemed surprised by my decision and glanced sideways at me, but when she saw that I remained still, looking only at the two men, it didn’t take her long to play along.

“That’s right. We’re, uh―. Employees of a cleaning company nearby. We stepped out for a bit and ended up trapped like this.”

“And how long have you been……”

“Ten―.”

“A little less than ten laps.”

I immediately cut Myeong Haebin off before she could answer honestly.

There was no point in telling them we had gone around so many times.

It would only make them panic.

“T-That many? Wait, why? This place really is a little strange, right?”

“We thought the same thing, and we’ve figured out a few rules.”

Good.

It seemed they believed we were just ordinary civilians.

I calmly shared the information with them.

I explained that we had to find the anomalous phenomena and exit through Gomyut or the West Gate, and that those anomalous phenomena generally didn’t directly cause fatal harm.

However, the man wearing a windbreaker, Park Hyeonho, crossed his arms and looked at me with displeasure.

“Then what happens if that water-level meter or whatever keeps rising?”

“Don’t you think it’s unlikely anything good will happen?”

“We’re just trapped in a park and you’re already exaggerating. This is a hidden-camera prank, right? You guys are actors too. Where are the cameras? I don’t know how the hell you pulled all this off, but……”

Ah…….

This was going to be a headache.

Yeah.

Expecting anyone who suddenly appeared in a place like this to immediately understand the situation was far too optimistic.

“Can’t we just leave through this road? It looks like we’re just going around in circles inside the park. Then all we have to do is this.”

“That’s right! We can do that!”

If I hit someone inside a horror story, could they report me?

I didn’t even know if this was still South Korea.

Couldn’t I just punch him?

“Haah……”

“What’s wrong? Why don’t you just tell them to leave?”

Myeong Haebin, who seemed to have even less love for humanity than I did, pouted as though she couldn’t care less.

“Yeah. Leave. Go ahead. Get the hell out.”

As I said that, I threw the bottle of sports drink filled with mud out of the park.

CRACK!

The moment the plastic bottle struck the boundary, it disappeared, shredded as though it had been thrown into an invisible grinder, while mud splattered in every direction.

It was such a brutal sight that it could never have been reproduced with some trick or hidden camera.

“W-What? Wait, fuck, what?”

Park Hyeonho, who had been skeptical just a moment ago, was stunned.

But I didn’t back down.

“Go ahead. Leave.”

“Come on, come on. It’s this way. You two, over here.”

If they left, all the better for me.

Much better.

I’d even complete the achievement and everything.

Myeong Haebin, who also seemed annoyed with them, was even willing to personally escort them out.

Huh?

Perfect!

Perhaps they sensed a certain madness gleaming in my eyes, because both of them began nervously shifting their gazes around.

“Ah, fuck……. I’m not leaving. I’m just not going out, okay!”

“Ah……. We’ll believe you. Sorry.”

It seemed they had finally gotten properly scared.

Good.

It would have been much better if they had reacted like this from the start.

At that moment, something bumped into Woo Minhyeong’s heel as he hesitantly stepped backward.

— Quack.

It was an oddly hoarse and wet quack, as though it had a piece of rusty metal lodged in its throat.

— Quack, quack.

I tore my glare away from Park Hyeonho and saw a duck awkwardly waddling toward us.

Its eyes, like glass marbles embedded in its face, stared at us with an artificial gleam.

“……A duck?”

That thing looked more like a sculpture made from compacted garbage than a living creature.

Beneath its feathers, which looked as though they had been shredded with scissors, pieces of red, ulcerated, ruptured flesh were visible. Its legs resembled tubes joined together, and instead of webbing, taut black plastic bags stretched between their ends.

“A-A monster. There’s a monster……”

“Hup……!”

The two men, seeing an anomaly for the first time, turned pale.

‘Why did it come all the way out here?’

I had seen that thing before.

It was always floating in the pond, and although it occasionally dove underwater and snapped its beak as though feeding, it had never come out of the water.

The duck tilted its head from side to side, as though observing us.

Woo Minhyeong, apparently desperate to get away from that strange thing, began slowly sidestepping toward the edge of the path.

“That’s a decoration. It’s just a decoration……”

That was when the duck spread both wings wide.

A bird with its wings spread?

The sign beside the pond.

[Do Not Feed Wild Birds]

Then what exactly did “food” mean on that sign?

“Woo Minhyeong, watch out―!”

But that thing was a little faster than I was.

Crunch.

With a single bite, it caught Woo Minhyeong’s left calf in its beak.

An impossible amount of blood for a mere duck bite sprayed out, splattering all the way onto our faces and soaking our cheeks.

Click.

[The current level of our pond is]

[Dry]…[Insufficient]…[Average]…[High]…[Abundant]…[Perfect]

Behind the grotesque duck came the sound of the water-level indicator’s rusty mechanism moving.

It had risen to [Abundant].

“Damn it.”

So it could rise even without us making a mistake when recording the anomalous phenomena.