WETRIED TRANSLATIONS
The Legendary Newbie of the Ghost Story Labyrinth
[Translator – Aren]
Chapter 100 - Floor 23 (6)
Park Minho bit his lip. His forehead naturally grew damp with sweat, and a chill ran down his spine.
It was quite literally a hopeless situation.
Looking beside him, he saw Ivan obediently lowering the iron pipe he had been holding. Ivan looked at Park Minho and shook his head.
"......There’s no point in fighting.”
Honestly, Park Minho agreed. Even if they resisted with everything they had, they would only end up crippled or die for nothing.
Getting captured would be grim in its own way, but survival came first, didn’t it?
But then, Park Minho noticed something strange.
"Sniff, sniff!"
The three monster dogs, which had come close enough to open their lamprey-like mouths at any moment, were wandering around them and sniffing the air.
They seemed intensely curious.
'What?'
They circled around them, titling their heads as though puzzled by something.
"Grrrr..."
At a glance, they clearly looked confused. The Molting Church members noticed as well and began murmuring among themselves.
"What’s wrong? Why aren’t they biting?”
"Beats me. Looks like they’re checking something.”
Rachel shouted irritably.
"What are you doing?! Subdue them!”
But the monster dogs merely continued circling and refused to obey. Eventually, one of the subordinates beside Rachel cracked a whip.
“You mutts! What are you doing?!”
-Crack!
The monster dogs responded with extremely defiant growls.
The situation looked quite unstable.
Park Minho had no idea how the Molting Church had managed to tame the monster dogs, but handling wild beasts probably always came with this kind of precariousness.
-Crack!
The real mistake was when they went so far as to whip them again.
Eventually, one of the monster dogs bit down on a believer’s foot and violently shook its head from side to side.
"Aaaargh!”
Its bite force was so tremendous that, along with the man’s scream, everything below his knee was crushed completely.
"You damn beasts!”
The Molting Church members were visibly shocked by the sudden rebellion.
The creatures, on the other hand, showed no particular hostility toward Park Minho or Ivan. If anything, they behaved as though the two were members of the same pack.
It seemed to be the effect of the scent Old Yellow had rubbed onto them beforehand.
They couldn’t let this opportunity slip away.
Ivan grabbed his weapon again.
"Now."
Park Minho nodded as well. Ivan shot forward like an arrow and swung the iron pipe.
-Crack!
One cultist’s forehead caved in immediately. That became the signal for a brutal fight to erupt between the two sides.
"Those bastards!”
"Wipe them all out!”
No matter how strangely the monster dogs were behaving, the Molting Church still had an overwhelming advantage in numbers. Perhaps because of that, the cultists were brimming with confidence.
Park Minho joined the fight as well, swinging his wooden club.
-Thud!
The wooden club was certainly powerful. No matter how menacingly sharp the kitchen knives wielded by the Molting Church members were, they were useless against a long, heavy club.
They were helpless, getting beaten senseless before they could even get close.
However, there were too many of them. He couldn’t beat every last one down, and eventually one of them slipped inside his reach and drove a kitchen knife into Park Minho’s abdomen.
"Kgh!”
Something strangely both scorching hot like a ball of fire and freezing cold like ice pierced into his stomach.
Normally, this would have been the point where the strength left his legs and he collapsed.
But Park Minho gritted his teeth and endured it.
"Gnnngh!”
He tried to bring the end of his wooden club down on the back of the attacker’s head.
But the other cultists grabbed Park Minho’s arms and forcibly wrestled the club away from him.
"You bastard!”
"Stay still!”
However, Park Minho possessed the anomalous traits Damage Suppression and Adrenaline Pump.
Damage Suppression prevented bleeding. And when he was injured, Adrenaline Pump temporarily blocked the pain while granting him tremendous strength and stamina.
"Raaaaagh!”
Park Minho unleashed his superhuman strength and hurled away the Molting Church members clinging to him on either side. Then, using brute grip strength, he forcibly ripped the kitchen knife from the man in front of him and stabbed him with it instead.
-Stab!
"Aagh!”
The man collapsed with a short scream. Park Minho then planted his foot against the kitchen knife embedded in the fallen man’s chest.
-Thud!
Meanwhile, Ivan was subduing the Molting Church members with astonishing skill. Taking advantage of the opening, Park Minho quickly rushed over and seized Rachel.
"Let go of me!”
When lives were on the line, he wasn’t going to go easy on her just because she was a woman. Park MInho immediately twisted Rachel’s arm behind her back and snapped it.
-Crack! Snap!
"Aaaaargh!”
Once Rachel had been subdued, Ivan approached while wiping the blood splattered across his face. He had disposed of the men he was handling in no time at all.
When it came to combat, he was undeniably a professional.
"Are you alright?”
Park Minho frowned as he touched his stomach.
"We should hurry. My anomalous traits are keeping me going for now, but the backlash is severe.”
After a certain amount of time passed, the pain would come rushing back twice as strong. It was severe enough that, if things went badly, he could die from shock.
It felt as though a time bomb had been planted inside his abdomen.
"Understood."
Ivan immediately found the key to the sealing chamber inside Rachel’s clothes. Only Seol Suhyeok himself and Rachel, whom he trusted, carried this key.
"Let’s go."
They tied Rachel up and took her with them to the sealing chamber.
The sealing chamber was located inside a freezer used to store large quantities of meat.
"......!"
Park Minho flinched the moment he entered. It wasn’t easy to withstand temperatures below -20°C in nothing but a robe.
Anyway, he had to hurry.
In the middle of the freezer stood the enormous mass of flesh he had seen through the Remnants.
"This must be the seal.”
Rachel shouted almost hysterically.
"Stop it! You idiots! What the hell are you trying to do?! Do you even know what that is?!”
Park Minho replied.
"I know perfectly well. Including the fact that it’s something you desperately don’t want released.”
Just then he heard the same voice as before.
[……Hurry……! ……Hurry and help me…!]
There was no doubt it was the High Priest. Several rusted pieces of metal had been driven into the mass of flesh imprisoning him.
This was probably a method unique to the Molting Church. He had seen the exact same thing in the Entity Rift before.
"Ivan, pull them out.”
"Understood."
Wearing gloves, Ivan grabbed one of the metal pieces and pulled it free, causing the seal, made from several interlocking slabs of flesh, to begin coming apart.
-Thud!!
A frozen slab of flesh shaped like a shield fell to the floor with a hard thud.
"Stop!"
Rachel desperately tried to stop them, but now that Park MInho had already decided to throw the Moltinch Church into chaos, he had no intention of stopping.
-Fsssh!
Something like steam poured from the gaps between the slabs of flesh, and at last, a pale-white hand burst out from within.
However, it had no solid substance and was translucent, with fingertips sharpened like an animal’s claws. It looked exactly like the hand of a malevolent spirit.
[……It’s been a long time…. Rachel, you treacherous wretch…!]
The hand that emerged seized Rachel in an instant and dragged her into the mass of flesh.
"Let go! Let go of me!”
Rachel recoiled in terror and desperately tried to resist. But in moments, her body crumpled and was sucked inside. Then blood erupted from the gap like a fountain.
-Splaaaaash!
Ivan stepped back.
"We should get out of here. It looks like he can handle the rest himself.”
Park Minho nodded and left the freezer with Ivan. Then an eerie voice came from behind them.
[......I shall grant what you desire.….. If only for the sake of my revenge……]
That was enough. What Park Minho wanted from the High Priest was chaos within the Molting Church.
He had never trusted the bastard’s promise in the first place. Their interests simply happened to align.
In order to reclaim his power and resurrect, the High Priest would undoubtedly drag the Molting Church into the maelstrom of civil war.
"We accomplished our objective. Now focus on getting out.”
"Understood, Minho-nim."
The two stopped worrying about keeping a low profile and simply sprinted away.
"Hey! Who are you two?!”
One of the officers they encountered along the way shouted at them, but they ignored him completely. They escaped through the subway section and made their way above ground.
Surprisingly, Gu Bonjae was waiting there.
"You made it out!”
"Mister!”
"I figured it was about time, so I waited for you! Besides, keeping them occupied was starting to wear me out.”
Gu Bonjae and Old Yellow were both drenched in blood from how much fighting they had done.
"How did things go inside?!”
"It went well. I think all that’s left is to get out of Floor 23."
"Good! Then let’s get moving.”
They hurried away. Old Yellow followed diligently, making Park Minho feel a pang of regret.
'There’s no way we can take him with us……’
Normally, an entity could only remain on a single floor. There were exceptions, but most would go insane or die if they traveled to another floor.
For a monster dog, Old Yellow was surprisingly innocent, and he had helped them in all sorts of ways, yet they had no choice but to leave him behind.
"But are you alright? You look like you’re having trouble moving.”
"I got stabbed. I don’t think I can hold out much longer."
"You call that worth complaining about?!”
"If I pass out, please carry me, Mister.”
"Fine! Young people these days are so frail!”
It seemed like they would be able to escape at this rate.
There were several ways to leave Floor 23, and apparently finding a specific basement would lead to Floor 22.
But that didn’t matter much to Park Minho, since he could use Entity Rifts.
The group heeded toward the entrance they had originally come through. Once they escaped through there, they should regain their belongings and anomalous abilities.
‘Losing my abilities all of a sudden was seriously inconvenient.'
Park Minho realized anew just how much he had come to depend on anomalous powers. At this point, he couldn't imagine living without them.
-Vroooom!
Then, at that moment, they heard the sound of vehicles behind them.
"Damn it!”
Gu Bonjae clicked his tongue as he looked back.
"Trucks! And not just one, but several!”
The Molting Church was pursuing them in vehicles. Somehow, the cultists had managed to obtain and operate several functioning trucks.
Then gunshots rang out as well.
-Baang! Bang!
Park Minho was startled.
"They have guns too?!”
"Only a few. I took a couple rounds while fighting them! My guess is they raided a nearby police station or something!”
At this rate, they were obviously going to be caught quickly. And once that happened, they would be in for an extremely difficult fight.
According to Gu Bonjae, the monster dogs under Seol Suhyeok’s command, unlike the ones with Rachel, had been hostile toward Old Yellow.
"The other monster dogs didn’t want to hurt Old Yellow, but there was one alpha among them! Once that bastard started growling, the others had no choice but to attack him.”
Looking at Old Yellow now, he was covered in wounds. That meant they couldn’t expect the monster dogs to stay out of the fight like they had before.
"What do we do?! They’ll catch up with us soon!”
Park Minho couldn’t come up with an easy answer to Gu Bonjae’s question. But he had to think of something.
Just as he was racking his brain, an idea came to him. It was dangerous, but he decided to put it into action immediately.
"Ivan."
"Yes!"
"Fire the flare!”
"What? What do you mean?”
"Just do as I say! Hurry!”
In the end, Ivan fired the flare as Park Minho ordered.
-Fssshhhh!
The surroundings were gradually growing dark, making the flare’s light shine vividly.
It stood out even more in a place like this, where there was almost no artificial lighting.
-Vroooom.
At that moment, the trucks stopped nearby, and Molting Church members came pouring out with weapons in hand. They had brought several monster dogs with them as well, all snarling viciously.
There was no hope of escaping anymore. The man came walking steadily from behind them.
"So you had companions? How unusual. An entity I’ve never seen before, traveling with humans as comrades?”
It was Seol Suhyeok. He looked toward Park Minho’s group with obvious interest.
Three people carrying guns stood beside him.
Gu Bonjae might be able to withstand them, but one shot would be enough to finish Park Minho and Ivan.
"......!"
On top of that, the effects of Adrenaline Pump had worn off, and excruciating pain came surging back.
Park Minho’s face turned deathly pale, and he eventually dropped to one knee.
Seeing that, Seol Suhyeok raised a hand as though about to give an order.
"You may dispose of the entity. However, capture those two humans alive. We need to find out what exactly they’re plotting……”
But then a heavy sound cut him off.
-Fwopfwopfwopfwopfwip.
From the sky above came the sound of helicopter rotors.
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