I Became a Professional Horror Story Cleaner

“I’m surprised you managed to make it here alive.”

Team Leader Jo’s hair, which had undoubtedly been perfectly slicked back before coming here, was completely disheveled, as were his shirt, glasses, and uniform.

On top of that, he had an ID badge hanging around his neck that read [STAFF].

“If it weren’t for you, we would’ve gotten here much sooner.”

“Ha.”

Team Leader Jo looked at us with a mocking smile before fixing his gaze on Jeong Dohan.

“Looks like the docent demanded a tooth from you or something.”

“How about we add the cause-and-effect relationship that it happened because you took all the audio guides?”

He seemed to know perfectly well what the docent had done to Jeong Dohan.

Well, of course he knew.

Damn it.

But for someone so arrogant, his physical condition didn’t exactly look good.

“Thanks to abandoning us, it looks like you’re dying.”

“Cleaner, well said. Jeong Dohan. Since we’re on the subject, how about you make a deal with me?”

That was definitely not the response I had expected.

But had this man just ignored me again?

Jeong Dohan tilted his head as though he had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

Team Leader Jo slipped his remaining arm inside his clothes and partially pulled out a stack of documents to show us.

[Manual for Human Exhibition: On the Infinity of the Human Body]

“That’s……!”

Jeong Dohyeon’s pupils visibly trembled.

Of course.

There was no way something like that didn’t exist.

Practically every work we had encountered along the way had dismantling markers attached to it.

They couldn’t have accumulated all that information only to memorize it and then come in here blind.

Damn it.

“Aren’t you going to answer? If you made it through [Life and Death], you should know how valuable this is.”

Team Leader Jo seemed displeased that Jeong Dohan hadn’t answered immediately and adopted a threatening tone, but Jeong Dohan simply stood there staring at him.

What’s wrong with this guy now?

In the end, I was the one who answered.

“What do you want in return?”

“Ha, that’s funny. Jeong Dohan. Is this guy the boss? I made the offer to you. Not this filthy rookie.”

So I wasn’t imagining it.

He really was ignoring me.

As if making it clear that he had no intention of answering, Jeong Dohan leaned against the wall of the exhibition hall and crossed his arms.

“Are you going to give me a sticker, Team Leader? No. Hanmu said he’d give me one.”

“Idiot. Jeong Dohyeon. What about you?”

“I’m in the same position as my brother……. Hmm.”

When the twins jointly refused the conversation, Team Leader Jo’s piercing gaze finally snapped toward me.

“Hey, cleaner. Who the hell are you?”

Who am I?

“That method for getting through [Life and Death]……. Does it involve avoiding its operating hours and being careful of the threads scattered across the floor?”

“What do you mean?”

“From what I experienced, if you get caught in the threads, the machine drags you away.”

“So you know that much. Wait……. You got caught?”

Team Leader Jo’s eyes, which until then seemed to be wondering what nonsense I was talking about, widened slightly.

Was he thinking that was impossible?

“How…… are all of you here? You should…… be dead.”

“Because I cleaned that thing and destroyed it.”

“Destroyed it? Ha, don’t talk nonsense! That isn’t something people like us can destroy.”

“Well, you can take it as a reference. After all, you asked who the hell I was.”

Team Leader Jo didn’t seem to believe my words very much, but at least he seemed to have accepted that I was the only one here willing to accept his deal.

“All of you bastards are insane. Fine. I guess it doesn’t matter. Are you doing it or not?”

It seemed to me that his way of speaking had become considerably more aggressive than when he had made the offer to Jeong Dohan, but…… whatever.

“What do you want?”

“I dropped a whistle near the central exhibition platform. If you find it, I’ll give you this manual.”

Upon hearing that, Jeong Dohyeon’s expression visibly twisted.

“Team Leader, what are you thinking?”

“Has it not occurred to you that we could simply take it from you?”

However, Team Leader Jo remained completely calm and deliberately placed the manual on his knees, where all of us could see it.

“Really? I know you well enough to know that you’re not ruthless enough to deliberately kill someone.”

Jeong Dohan, who had stayed out of it until then, seemed quite irritated by those words and strode toward him.

“Do you think I’m like our Team Leader?”

“Then aren’t you? Cough. If you don’t want to do it, forget it.”

That bastard……

If we didn’t complete this Horror Story, he would also be trapped here and inevitably die, yet he still had the nerve to act like this.

But the same applied to me.

I didn’t want to unnecessarily increase the number of people who would die.

“I’ll do it.”

The moment I answered, the rapid sound of footsteps came from deep within Exhibition Hall 3.

Tap tap tap!

“!”

We instinctively hid.

When I cautiously looked over there, what I saw was a foot.

A ‘black foot’ formed from feet, feet, and even more feet attached to one another ran past and disappeared before we could get a better look at it.

“What…… is that?”

“To celebrate us closing the deal, I’ll tell you one thing. What you just saw is the guy that’ll tear off your feet.”

“Then is there also one that tears off arms?”

I gestured with my chin toward the place where Team Leader Jo’s arm should have been.

He seemed to have managed to stop the bleeding somehow, but I could already imagine what had happened.

Then he gave a mocking smile.

“For a mere cleaner, you know how to use your head pretty well. I guess I don’t need to tell you where the central exhibition platform is either.”

It didn’t seem like he would answer even if I asked.

His attitude was difficult to believe coming from someone who had just proposed something that resembled asking us for a favor more than making an actual deal, but there was no other choice.

We would have to find it ourselves.

“When you see it, you’ll know immediately. It’s impossible not to recognize it…….”

Hiss.

Leaving behind the sound of Team Leader Jo lighting the cigarette held between his lips, we headed fully into Exhibition Hall 3.

“If there are ‘feet’ and ‘arms,’ there are probably other parts too.”

“Considering he told us to keep quiet earlier, there’s a good chance there’s also a ‘face’ or ears.”

“What do you think, Hyung?”

“Uh, well. You two are only saying things that make sense.”

The exhibition hall was larger than I had imagined, but there wasn’t a single work on display.

The platforms, which didn’t even have glass display cases, were completely empty and lacked even name plaques.

Instead, there were things wandering around that enormous white space.

“……How many damn pieces did they divide people into?”

“Hanmu, lower your voice.”

Jeong Dohan grabbed my arm tightly and whispered.

Everywhere we looked, grotesque yet disturbingly refined sculptures moved like living creatures.

They were completely dry and immaculate ‘colonies,’ painted exclusively in a dark, matte black.

Tap tap tap, thud, thud.

A column-like form composed of countless calves rolled across the floor of the exhibition hall.

Farther away, a colony of shoulders wandered around, producing dry sounds with every movement, while suspended in the air, a colony of hair coiled like snakes swept the floor like a broom and glided smoothly through the space as though swimming.

It was as if they had meticulously classified humans according to each part of their bodies, grouped those parts together, and then turned each collection into an independent work of art endowed with life.

Jeong Dohyeon whispered.

‘From this angle, there’s no way the ‘Hair’ hasn’t seen us. Don’t you think it simply can’t see us?’

‘If that’s the case, assuming they don’t touch us directly, we’ll only have to be careful of the Eyes and Ears.’

‘Don’t get too confident. You already saw how Team Leader Jo ended up.’

Right.

If one of those things caught us even once, it would be over.

The colony corresponding to each body part would probably tear off that same part from us and incorporate it into itself.

How far had we gone while paying special attention to the ‘Ears’ and ‘Eyes’?

Jeong Dohan pointed ahead.

‘There’s light coming in over there. I think that’s probably the central exhibition platform.’

Team Leader Jo was right.

It was impossible not to know which one was the central exhibition platform.

There was an enormous circular space that was completely clear.

Beneath a single beam of light descending from the ceiling stood a circular platform of white marble.

If that wasn’t the central exhibition platform, what else could possibly be called that?

However, the platform had been cleanly split in half, as though it had been struck by lightning.

“Hanmu, I found the whistle.”

“Are you sure that’s it?”

“Completely.”

The black whistle, with a cord of the same color hanging from it, looked so ordinary that it seemed like something you could buy at any nearby stationery store.

“That was easier to find than I expected…….”

Was saying something like that forbidden too?

My gaze met a cluster of ‘Eyeballs.’

All of them had their sclera painted black, with only their pupils glowing white.

“It’s just an eye! Let’s get out of here!”

“It’s dangerous, Dohyeon!”

Bam!

Something moved faster than my warning.

It was the colony of ‘Black Arms’ that I was sure we had left far behind.

An enormous blunt mass formed from dozens of intertwined arms caught Jeong Dohyeon’s arm and began absorbing it.

“Aaaaaagh!”

“Hey! Get the hell off him!”

Jeong Dohan immediately threw himself at the ‘Black Arms’ and kicked them while simultaneously grabbing Jeong Dohyeon by the shoulder and pulling him free.

Crack, snap…….

Although his arm had only been trapped for an instant, it was twisted so badly that even his skin appeared to have torn, and blood began seeping through his uniform.

‘When the hell did these things get here?’

We didn’t have time to understand the situation.

From the blind spots around the exhibition platforms, behind the columns, and even from the darkness of the ceiling, which until then we had believed was empty, completely black body fragments began emerging en masse.

Jeong Dohan took the whistle Jeong Dohyeon had handed him and slipped it into his pocket.

“Looks like they share consciousness with one another. Dohyeon, are you okay?”

“……Do I look okay to you?”

“Fight later. We need to escape, now! We can’t go back toward Team Leader Jo!”

If we reunited with Team Leader Jo under these circumstances, it would be like bringing that calamity directly to someone who couldn’t even move properly.

Of course, he had abandoned us as though he didn’t care at all whether we died.

But I didn’t want to become someone like him.

We began fleeing desperately, although our escape was far from simple.

“They’re coming from above too!”

At some point, a pair of ‘Black Ear’ colonies had appeared flying through the air and were fluttering above our heads like a pair of grotesque black butterflies.

Were they trying to relay the sound of our footsteps and breathing in real time?

— Aaaaaaaah―!

A colony of ‘Black Mouths’ emerged from behind a column in front of us and let out a scream so violent that it sounded as though its vocal cords were about to tear apart.

Its target was my neck.

Just as I pulled the folding mop out of my bag to stop it from catching me……

‘Shit, my ankle!’

The ankle I had strained by wedging it between the pieces of the loom in [Life and Death] gave way, and I lost my balance.

However, that was precisely what saved my life.

Crack!

With a loud impact, the handle, which should have been made of stainless steel, snapped as though it were a child’s toy.

‘If I’d been there……. Urgh!’

One of the fragments of the broken mop cut my cheek, and immediately afterward, a colony of ‘Black Shoulders’ rammed into me.

But I couldn’t stop because of that.

‘Losing a body part in this situation would be far too much of a disadvantage!’

I didn’t know how long we had been running with everything we had.

After circling around and around the exhibition hall, when the hallway near the entrance finally appeared in front of us, the sounds of our pursuers began noticeably fading.

“Haah, haah……. Why did they stop chasing us?”

Jeong Dohan, bent forward with his hands on his waist, turned to look behind us.

I was completely out of breath as well and turned around uneasily.

Then I witnessed a grotesque sight.

The colonies that had lunged at us too aggressively in their attempt to catch us had ended up becoming tangled with one another.

Hair, arms, legs, waists, and chests were intertwined without any order, writhing as though they had formed a single mass.

“No wonder I thought there were too many of them. Serves them right. Agh, my back…….”

“Hyung. Don’t accumulate karma.”

“I agree.”

None of us had completely lost a body part, but we looked as though we had been beaten by a mob.

In exchange, after practically dragging all the monsters along with us during that chase, we didn’t encounter a single colony wandering around on the way back.

Team Leader Jo was still waiting in exactly the same place where we had left him.

“I’m surprised you managed to make it back alive.”

“Dohan, give me the whistle.”

I ignored Team Leader Jo’s mockery, took the whistle from Jeong Dohan, and tossed it at his feet.

“It’s time to keep your promise.”

“Yes. I’ll keep it.”

Then Team Leader Jo picked up the whistle without the slightest hesitation.

“Hanmu, we have to stop the Team Leader!”

“What?!”

But it was already too late.

Team Leader Jo puffed out his cheeks and blew the whistle.

I expected to hear a sharp, wind-like sound, but there was absolutely no sound at all.

‘Is it broken?’

At that moment, Team Leader Jo threw the whistle against the wall in front of the exhibition platform.

The instant the plastic object touched the white marble wall, the surface began to ripple and melt like a rotten swamp.

Then it transformed into a completely black door, beyond which absolutely nothing could be seen.

“Hey. Wake up.”

“……Team Leader.”

I hadn’t noticed because he had been hidden among the shadows, but beside Team Leader Jo was a human-shaped mass of flesh.

However, it was practically impossible to see him as a person.

To the point that Team Leader Jo seemed lucky to have lost only one arm.

“Don’t tell me that’s Seo Gitae?”

“Urgh, haah…… Team Leader, save me, please. I…… still…… have something I have to…… do…… Gurg, please…….”

It was obvious that, before our arrival, the anomalies wandering around the hall made from body parts had caught him.

He had lost both eyes and both ears.

A large section of his scalp had been torn away, and among the limbs that were still attached to his body, the joints he still had could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

He was in a horrifying state.

“Get lost.”

Team Leader Jo lifted Seo Gitae in that condition and threw him through the door.