There Are No Humans in the Monster Company

At this point, I had completely accepted that this was neither a dream nor a hallucination.

‘Let’s quit.’

‘Even if it feels hopeless, this is the right choice.’

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‘How should I say it…?’

Nothing could possibly be worth more than my own life.

Any sane person, no matter how good the conditions were, would never want to work at a company infested with monsters like this.

Who cares about 68 million won a year.

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‘Huu.’

Especially when your boss was a monster.

But actually opening my mouth and saying I wanted to quit was something completely different.

Making the decision was surprisingly easy.

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Or should I put on a serious expression and say it directly?

Would it seem less suspicious if I casually brought it up in the middle of a conversation?

What would be the most natural way to say it?

I exhaled inwardly while maintaining my composure.

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And there I was, trying to figure out the right timing to speak while staring at that thing.

I still didn’t even know which of the fourteen eyes I was supposed to look at while speaking.

One face was watching the news, another was reading a newspaper, another was drinking coffee through a straw, and another was glancing at me from the corner of its eye.

If I said I wanted to quit, would those seven mouths bite me all at once?

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Right now, this was exactly the kind of impossible situation that went beyond human capability.

It made absolutely no sense.

I couldn’t delay it any longer.

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Or speak up and end up torn to pieces by monsters?

Should I stay silent and slowly break apart until I died?

Rather, for the first time, an opportunity had finally appeared where I could die proudly believing I had at least done my best.

I stood up and approached Manager Myeon.

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When I stopped beside him, Manager Myeon slowly rotated in his chair.

More precisely, some of his seven faces did.

The irregular breathing of his many faces leaked out like a horrible cacophony.

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I answered calmly, honestly, and with complete sincerity.

The most normal and human-looking face spoke.

“Is something wrong, Employee Jeong?”

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The seven faces looked at me one after another.

The air in the office seemed to freeze for an instant.

“I want to quit.”

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In the silence before the storm, the final expression shared by all the faces converged into a single emotion.

Suspicion, disappointment, anger, mockery, fear, curiosity, indifference.

All of those emotions passed through me one by one.

Displeasure.

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It was an emotion so clear there was absolutely no room for misunderstanding.

The moment I said it, I felt my reason slowly returning.

“…Did you say… quit?”

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‘I have to answer.’

I lifted my head and looked toward Manager Myeon’s face with the most apologetic expression I could fake.

Because I hated both working for monsters and working alongside monsters.

I wiped away the sweat beginning to run down my skin again and forced the trembling corners of my lips into place.

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“I’m sorry. athlete Something urgent came up. academy I just received the news.”

“Yes. arcade I think I need to leave this job.”

“From your very first day? accent You haven’t even completed your training or orientation yet….”

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I couldn’t tell exactly which face the voice came from.

One of the faces asked.

“News? abandon Is it a family matter?”

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It was a lie.

“Yes. adjust I received news that my mother collapsed due to a chronic illness… it seems her condition is serious.”

I couldn’t even remember the face of that so-called mother.

I answered without hesitation.

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One of Manager Myeon’s faces slowly nodded.

“A family matter… I understand. amateur What a shame. riddle It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a promising talent.”

Silence lingered for several seconds.

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The faces genuinely seemed disappointed.

Wasn’t he accepting it a little too easily considering what he looked like?

Then Manager Myeon calmly opened a drawer and handed me a small card.

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But the instant I took it, an unpleasant chill spread across my skin.

The card was metallic and completely blank.

“The Human Resources Department is on Basement Level 3. wizard The elevator normally doesn’t go that far down, so use this.”

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I slightly bowed my head in gratitude, and all seven of Manager Myeon’s faces smiled at the same time.

“Yes… thank you.”

The corners of their mouths tore all the way to their ears, some narrowed their eyes, while others revealed huge grins filled with teeth.

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The fact that every single one of them was showing friendly expressions for the first time left behind a deeply unpleasant and uncanny feeling.

Tap.

***

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The moment I stepped out of the office, the hallway was as silent as a graveyard.

Suppressing my impatience, I stopped in front of the elevator at the end of the hallway.

When I held the blank card over the scanner, the doors opened quietly.

‘What is this? palette Why?’

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‘Whatever. echo I don’t know why, but I’m quitting and going straight home. antique This is just some horrible nightmare or some kind of illness.’

For some reason, it felt as though something was lightly tapping against my skin from the inside.

The instant I stepped inside, the elevator began descending without any vibration at all, even though I hadn’t pressed a single button.

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Unlike the brightly lit office, Basement Level 3 had no light.

The elevator doors opened.

No—
perhaps it did, but it felt like my eyes were incapable of interpreting it.

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As if I could only perceive it as a sensation rather than actual color.

I carefully took a step forward.

On the hallway walls, instead of the words “Human Resources,” there were blurry stains resembling smeared ink.

The floor was damp, and beneath my feet came the sound of stepping into a puddle.

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“Hi, hiiik! beacon Don’t come closer!”

When I arrived in front of the door, someone was already there.

As if she had noticed me approaching, the crouched figure near the door violently raised her head like someone having a seizure.

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She was wearing a suit, but several buttons had been torn off, and her knees were scraped raw and pale.

It was an unfamiliar woman.

And the only thought that crossed my mind when I saw her was—

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‘There’s a person here?’

Was the thing in front of me really human?

I stopped in place.

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It definitely looked human.

Pain spread through me.

I deliberately bit my lip.

At the very least, I now knew this wasn’t a dream.

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The faint trembling of her skin, her dilated pupils, her shoulders shaking from hyperventilation.

Clinging to that small hope, I calmly examined her condition.

Based on my fragmented knowledge, she looked completely broken by fear.

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Speaking in a low and steady tone is a basic rule for showing that you are not a threat.

But she clearly wasn’t in any condition to share that feeling.

Finding a person—or something that looked like a person—inside a company filled with monsters should have been comforting.

“First, calm down.”

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“A-a person? acquire Are you really a person? silence You too… you weren’t sent by those monsters either, right?”

I could roughly imagine the kind of suffering she had gone through to get here.

I wasn’t even sure whether she had truly heard my voice, but the woman slowly turned her head toward me.

Her voice was already completely hoarse, and dried saliva clung around her lips.

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“Haa, aaah! action I-I thought I was the only one. arctic I-in the hallway… a monkey, a monkey wearing a suit… greeted me….”

“Yes, I’m human. timber I came to the Human Resources Department to submit my resignation.”

The instant the word “resignation” left my mouth, tears burst from the woman’s eyes.

She grabbed onto my pants while breaking down into desperate sobs.

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But that alone was enough for me to understand.

Every time she tried to breathe in, it seemed like something became lodged in her throat.

She couldn’t continue speaking.

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‘Lee Jihyun.’

I saw the crooked name tag hanging from her chest.

She had seen the same things I had.

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“For now, that’s a good sign. galaxy We both managed to make it this far. canvas Maybe you and I can really quit.”

We were in the same situation, but our conditions were completely different.

“A good sign? harbor We can leave? aspect Really? galaxy No…! antique I didn’t get here like you did! atlas That monkey… took my contract and sent me here! harbor It said I had already given my fingerprint! arrow It forced my finger down!”

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My heart pounded violently and cold sweat ran down my back.

She frantically rubbed her index finger against her shirt.

I was afraid too.

The skin had already torn open and started bleeding, yet she seemed incapable of feeling pain.

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“W-we need to call the police… and the Labor Department too… this is a violation of human rights. abstract It’s kidnapping, assault… right? abandon A-and they installed some weird security app on my phone so I can’t contact anyone anymore….”

But the more I looked at her, the stronger the feeling became that something was terribly wrong.

Lee Jihyun muttered without even waiting for my response.

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With an unpleasant sound like fingernails scraping across metal, the tightly shut door of the Human Resources Department slowly began to open.

That was when it happened.

“Next, Lee Jihyun.”

What came from inside sounded less like a human voice and more like metallic dissonance grinding against itself.

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She only let out ragged breaths as she froze in place.

“A-ahh….”

And soon after, like a puppet being dragged by invisible strings, she began stumbling toward the darkness.

Lee Jihyun no longer even had the strength to scream.

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It was Manager Myeon who installed that security app on my phone this morning as soon as I arrived at work.

Meanwhile, I was thinking about something else.

— Besides, they installed some weird security app on my phone so I can’t contact anyone anymore….

More precisely, about the lie I had told Manager Myeon.

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“Ah… ah….”

— A family matter… I understand. album What a shame. altitude It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a promising talent.

Right now, my phone wasn’t receiving any calls.

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Did he feel some kind of human compassion?

Manager Myeon had known from the very beginning that I was lying.

Then why did he let me go so easily?

Or was he simply too lazy to bother with me?

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“Jeong Haeil, come in.”

I was slowly guided toward the door.

Before I could reach any reasonable conclusion amidst all that confusion, a voice came from inside the already open Human Resources office.

Was he really going to feel sympathy or annoyance before anything else when a new employee he had personally interviewed said he wanted to quit on the very first day?

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The walls, ceiling, and floor were completely covered in blood, and the things I had mistaken for desks were masses of torn flesh with entrails hanging out of them.

The entire space was dyed in a deep crimson red.

Human Resources was not an office.

And the instant I opened it, the air stopped.

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It was a baby.

And in the deepest center of the room sat a gigantic figure like a throne, so enormous it seemed to touch the ceiling.

Or more precisely, a gigantic creature vaguely resembling a human baby, but twisted in a way impossible to describe.

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One embedded in its forehead, and another inside its blood-covered open mouth.

It had four eyes.

Its nose was merely a split opening, and its breathing sounded heavy like the snoring of an adult.

Its skin was sticky like wet mucus, and instead of hair, thin tentacles tangled across its head.

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It was smiling horrifically.

I couldn’t take a single step.

With the gums of an infant whose teeth had not yet grown in, it sucked on a bloodied finger while a mixture of blood and pus dripped from its mouth.

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My throat burned.

It felt as though my body itself was shutting down all my senses in order to protect me.

My legs stopped responding.

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“Jeong Haeil.”

As if something wanted to force me to clearly engrave that monstrous scene into my mind.

That voice did not come from the monster.

But my eyes refused to close.

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It was definitely a human voice coming from somewhere inside the room.

The gaze—
or perhaps simply the presence—
of that gigantic thing touching the ceiling crushed my body.

But I couldn’t turn my head.

I swallowed and carefully asked,

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The baby monster let out a huge belch.

Something bubbled inside its stomach before rising through its twisted throat.

“Where is… Lee Jihyun?”

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What the monster spat onto the floor along with a huge amount of saliva was an unrecognizable bloody mass.

Bleegh.

Among the shredded red flesh, I could see the collar of a white shirt and a half-melted employee ID card with only a few letters remaining.

“She resigned.”

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Even while my vision blurred, I had no choice but to understand.

Cold sweat burst across my back.

Those brief words crawled down the back of my neck transformed into a terror colder and deeper than Basement Level 3 itself.

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A tone far too familiar.

The monster’s voice sounded sweet, like candy rolling around inside a familiar place.

“Ah… s-she resigned….”

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This monster liked resignations.

I understood instinctively.

As though it had repeated that word countless times with soft and pleasant satisfaction.

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That act.

It liked that word.

It was not receiving a resignation letter.

That result.

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It was accepting a sacrifice while slowly raising the corners of its mouth.

I remained frozen in place, incapable of moving even a single step.

Here, “resigning” meant leaving life itself behind.

“So then, Jeong Haeil.”

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It was not a simple gaze.

The eye embedded in its forehead and the eye inside its open mouth stared at me together with the other two.

The sticky gums of the infant monster were now directly in front of me, forming a wet smile.

When it called my name again, I slowly raised my eyes.

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“What brings you here?”

That voice, like rusted blades boiling against one another, horribly tore through my eardrums.

It was an evaluation.

The gaze of a carnivorous predator deciding whether a living creature could be chewed apart and swallowed.

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A deeply unpleasant contradiction.

It was the manner of speech of an adult.

It was not the tone of a child.

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As though a fully developed mind were using the body of a baby.

I couldn’t tell whether it came from the ceiling or whether the walls themselves were bleeding.

The creature slowly removed a finger from its mouth while sticky strands of saliva stretched between them, staring fixedly at me.

Somewhere in the room echoed the sound of dripping liquid.

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“I….”

I clenched my teeth to stop my voice from trembling and carefully parted my lips.

I placed one hand over my chest and slowly exhaled.