The Legendary Newbie of the Ghost Story Labyrinth - Chapter 13

WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

The Legendary Newbie of the Ghost Story Labyrinth

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 13 - Time Left to Remain Human (4)

"Uh...?"

The guy standing right behind the one whose head had just exploded wiped something sticky off his face and let out a dumb, confused sound.

What clung to his hand was a wrinkled chunk of human brain.

"Uwaaaah, aaaaah!”

He stumbled back in horror, and Unit 2 immediately brought the metal pipe down on him.

-Thuuud! Thud!

-Crack!

The second man died a far more painful death. The first one hadn’t even had time to register what was happening, but this one had to desperately block the blow until both his arms snapped and dangled uselessly.

"Aaaaaaargh! Agh! Stop!”

Unable to raise his arms anymore, the man’s head exploded as well in the end. In that same moment, Unit 1 took down another man. And just like that only one remained. The one who had been the leader and the largest of the four.

He darted left and right, trying to escape somehow, but the exit was sealed, and mannequins swarmed in from every direction.

"Come on, Hyung-nim. Where do you think you’re going? If you’ve entered this floor, you should at least pay the admission fee before you leave."

Park Minho tilted his head slightly.

"H-hey, little bro! Let’s not do this! Th-that admission fee…How much is it?! Just name it! I’m Han Oseok! Han Oseok of Yeoksam in Gangnam!”

"Oh, so your name is Oseok-hyung?”

"Yeah! Once we’re out of here, there’s nobody who doesn’t know I’ve got a lot of money!”

"That’s fine. You can just follow their example.”

Park Minho gestured toward the corpses on the ground.

"The underlings already paid their due. Wouldn’t it be a bad look if the boss dragged his feet?”

Han Oseok exploded in anger.

"He, you little shit! What did you say? Dragging my feet? The hell are you, trying to lecture me?!”

"I think it’s only right we send you off while you still look human.”

Park Minho flicked his hand forward.

"Finish it.”

At the command, the mannequins surged in all at once. Han Oseok was about to be torn apart when something unexpected happened.

"KuooOOOOOH!”

Even as one of his arms was ripped off, he let out a monstrous roar and began to change.

Like an experiment pushed past its breaking point, his flesh ruptured outward, swelling grotesquely as layers of fat bulged and distorted beneath the skin.

"Kiiik!”

"Kikiki!”

The mannequins recoiled in alarm. A few weren’t fast enough and were swallowed into the expanding mass of flesh, crushed under the pressure.

-Crunch! Snap!

Park Minho stared, eyes widened in astonishment.

"What the hell? What is this?!”

Han Oseok’s form finished mutating.

His upper body remained vaguely humanoid but was grotesquely swollen, made of dark red, bloated flesh. Below a writhing mass of dozens of tentacles twisted and lashed out.

He had become a full-fledged entity.

In truth, the leader had eaten the most human flesh cubes out of the group. His mutation had already progressed far further than the others. Then, triggered by external shock, he completely lost his sense of self and transformed.

Now, driven purely by instinct and hunger, he roared.

[Hungry…! I’m hungry! I said I’M HUNGRYYYYY!]

Han Oseok, now nothing more than a mass of flesh, screamed like a monstrous beast. The sound was so piercing Park Minho staggered back, clamping his hands over his ears.

In that moment, Han Oseok’s lower body lashed out with its tentacles, grabbing the corpses of his former subordinates from the ground and devouring them.

-Crunch! Crrraaack!

-Slurp!

Bones shattered and flesh merged, resulting in a grotesque symphony.

"Don’t just stand there, attack!”

At Park Minho’s command, the mannequins charged again. They clawed and tore at the writhing mass of flesh.

[RaaaaaAAAGH!]

The creature whipped its tentacles wildly in its agony.

-Whooosh!

-Crack!

Mannequins shattered and were flung into the air.

Then, Unit 2, which possessed exceptional martial prowess, rushed in, swinging its metal pipe.

-Thud!

The creature’s durability itself didn’t seem that high, so the pipe managed to punch into its flesh like bursting jelly. Blood and pus exploded outward.

-Splaaaaash!

But in the next instant a bundle of tentacles lashed back, knocking the pipe away, which forced Unit 2 to retreat.

The real problem came right after.

-Squirm, squirm.

Foamy blood bubbled up from the wound, and the damage rapidly regenerated.

Park Minho shouted urgently.

"Keep going! Don’t let it regenerate at all!”

The mannequins surged forward again, throwing themselves at it. But the situation was turning desperate.

They were definitely dealing damage, but the flesh monster just kept regenerating.

Meanwhile, more and more mannequins were being destroyed, their bodies crushed by the tentacles.

'This won’t work.'

There was no clear solution. He couldn’t use electricity since the soot on the knife was completely gone. Burning it wasn’t an option either since he had no gasoline.

Aside from triggering a Noise Phenomenon a few times, he was painfully aware that he was still just a normal human.

'Should I just run while the mannequins hold that thing down?'

But for some reason, the thought of abandoning Unit 1 and Unit 2 didn’t sit right with him. Even though he knew it was irrational.

'Our connection is just because of the eye’s control, nothing more…'

If that was true, then the correct choice would be to open the fire shutter and escape immediately. But Park Minho didn’t want to.

"Excuse me…!”

The terrified woman called out to him. When he turned, he saw her holding out a strange machine. Something between a trash compactor and a pressure cooker.

“P-please use this! I-it might help!”

Even though she was trembling from everything she’d witnessed, Seol Suyeon still tried to help him somehow.

"What is this?”

"A-a compactor! If you put flesh inside, it compresses it into cubes!”

"Cubes? Ugh! Watch out…!”

At that moment, fragments from a shattered mannequin came flying, and Park Minho instinctively pulled Seol Suyeon into his arms, shielding her.

"Kyaah!”

"You’re okay. Keep talking.”

“Th-Those guys shoved people into it to turn them into cubes and ate them!”

"And?”

“I-If you put that monster’s flesh in here, it won’t be able to regenerate!”

"Wouldn’t it just become into a crushed lump of flesh?”

"No! The properties of the object itself change!”

There was a reason Seol Suyeon was so certain. The human flesh cubes made by the compactor surprisingly didn’t smell, and they didn’t rot either.

It was as if all biological activity had completely stopped.

"Okay, got it. Stay back for now!”

Park Minho decided to trust her for now. The problem was how to carve that thing up in the first place.

He anxiously scanned his surroundings. He prayed for a saw, a blade, or anything else that would help him, but there was nothing.

'If there’s no tool, then I need something else to use……’

Sweat poured down his face as he searched until something caught his eye.

"Wait...?"

The fire shutter.

It was technically still functional, but clearly damaged. Every time it came down, it didn’t descend smoothly but dropped with a deafening crash.

Instead of lowering it like a normal one, it slammed down like a guillotine.

The flesh monster had incredible regenerative capabilities but low durability, so this might work.

Park Minho immediately ran to the breaker panel and raised the shutter.

-Creaaaaak.

Going up, it moved slowly like a normal shutter would.

Now he just needed to lure it in.

Park Minho quickly called out to Unit 1.

"Kwik?”

"When I give the signal, hit this button immediately, got it?”

"Kwiiik!”

Then Park Minho ran straight toward the flesh monster. He was the best bait available.

Grabbing a chunk of concrete from the floor, he hurled it.

-Thud!

"Hyung-nim! Don’t you think I’d taste better than those mannequins?!”

The flesh monster, which had been busy dealing with the attacking mannequins, reacted instantly.

[Kuaaaaargh! Flesh! Meat! Blood and flesh!]

Its writhing tentacles crawled toward him like something out of a living nightmare. Park Minho’s legs nearly gave out, but he bit down hard and forced himself to move.

He turned and ran toward the half-open entrance.

[Flesh! Fleeeeesh! I’m HUNGRY!]

Ignoring the mannequins entirely now, the creature focused only on him.

Park Minho glanced upward briefly, then stepped back, baiting it further.

“You’re moving so slowly. Are you sure you’re even hungry?"

[Kuuuaaaargh! Give it to me!]

The moment the flesh monster slid beneath the shutter, Park Minho shouted out.

"Press it!”

At his words, the broken fire shutter came crashing down.

It wasn’t particularly sharp, but its weight was absolute.

-Kwooooom!

-Crack!

With a heavy impact, it drove straight into the creautre’s jelly-like flesh, shattering bone after bone.

Blood and bodily fluids burst out like a fountain, and in an instant, the monster’s upper body was shredded into a mangled mess.

Park Minho shouted again.

"Again!”

The fire shutter rose once more.

-Whiiiiir.

Park Minho, who had stepped out into the hallway, rushed back into the discount area and yelled again.

"Press it!”

The shutter slammed down again.

-Kwooooom!

The creature couldn’t withstand the second strike. The shutter dropped straight into the split gap and finally cleaved the flesh monster in two.

But that wasn’t enough to kill it. The severed chunks of flesh began bubbling, wiggling toward each other like worms, trying to reconnect.

"Again!”

-Kwooooooom!

The third impact shattered into even more pieces.

Park Minho was about to go for a fourth, but the shutter suddenly stopped halfway up. Its mechanism jammed, clogged by the creature’s sticky fat and fluids.

It was time to finish it off.

Park Minho threw open the compactor lid and shouted.

"Stuff it in here! Now!”

Unit 2 and the other mannequins moved immediately, grabbing the fragmented flesh monster and rocking it into the compactor.

The opening was barely 60 cm wide, so they really had to shove it in. But strangely, as soon as they began, the compactor pulsed like a living organism, its opening stretching and contracting as it swallowed the mass.

Like a snake devouring far too large prey.

-Crack! Snap!

As they forced the writhing flesh inside, bones broke and folded inward.

The interior of the compactor was pitch black, like a bottomless void, so everything they pushed in simply disappeared.

And yet, for some reason, each time they shoved more in, a faint metallic clinking sound echoed from inside.

'...?'

He didn’t know what it was, but there was no time to think.

"Don’t just use your hands! Stomp it in from above!”

Park Minho didn’t care how the compactor worked. He just kept forcing it in. Even then, the flesh monster continued trying to regenerate.

-Grrrrruuuuuuoh!

It didn’t look like they’d be able to fit all of it. The compactor was already trembling violently like it was reaching its limit.

Still, they had managed to shove in a third. The rest was simply too massive to force inside.

Finally, Park Minho decided this was enough and slammed the lid down.

"Press it! Go, press it!”

It wasn’t easy to close the lid. The regenerating flesh kept bulging out, trying to force its way back. Only after several mannequins piled on were they finally able to lock it shut.

At that moment, the compactor began to shake violently, like it was about to burst.

It thrashed like a pressure cooker about to explode.

"Move!”

At the last second, he shoved the overheated compactor toward the remaining chunk of flesh still regenerating near the shutter, then immediately turned and dropped to the ground.

-BOOOOOOM!

A deafening explosion tore through zone C4. A sharp ringing filled Park Minho’s ears, and his back felt like it had been ripped open.

"Uuugh…!”

-Ruuuuumble!

The entire ceiling trembled like it was about to collapse, and then something began to pour down.

For a moment, Park Minho thought the broken sprinklers had started up again, but it wasn’t water.

It was what the compactor had spewed out.

The explosion had shredded the monster's flesh into fragments, and now it rained down in pieces. Crushed organs, shattered bone, and foul sludge splattered everywhere.

-Splat!

A large chunk landed right in front of Park Minho’s face. And this time, it didn’t bubble, trying to regenerate.

...He’d done it!

Pushing himself up, Park Minho turned back. Near the shutter, the remaining mass, which was too large to fit inside the compactor, was smoking.

More than half of it had been blown apart. What remained was charred black and was no longer moving.

He had originally planned to stop its regeneration by turning it into cubes, but the overload explosion had finished it off instead. The sheer force had pushed it past its regenerative limits.

"Phew..."

It hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but a win was a win.

Then something unbelievable happened.

The compactor, already half-destroyed, sparked and detonated a second time.

-BOOOOOOM!

And with that an impossible sight unfolded.

Hundreds of gold coins poured out like rain.

-Clink!

-Clatter

-Jiiingle! Jingle!

-Clink! Rollllll.

Coins scattered across the blood- and flesh-covered floor, rolling and glinting beautifully.