WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

The Legendary Newbie of the Ghost Story Labyrinth

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 41 - Hanged King (3)

The texture of the noose against his skin was horrifyingly rough and cold.

Only now did Park Minho truly realize just how monstrous this object was.

'It didn’t just execute one king.'

This was a noose that had carried out death itself over and over again for countless ages.

Delighted by its new victim, the rope tightened viciously around his throat.

"Ugh...! Kgh!"

His breath stopped instantly. And in that moment, Park Minho fully understood what he had done.

The first thing that hit him was deep regret.

'Thi-this is…no…’

How could it possibly be this bad? If he could take it back, he would’ve ripped it off immediately.

He writhed wildly in agony.

"Kaaagh…! Gack!"

Drool streamed from his mouth, and the veins in his forehead bulged as though they might burst.

Then his eyes rolled back grotesquely.

"Kgh!”

Apart from the approaching death, the king’s authority began flooding his mind.

With a sound like tens of thousands of glass panes vibrating at once, dazzling colors poured directly into his brain. And for a brief moment, the ecstasy of revelation overwhelmed even the pain of being strangled.

'A-ah……!'

But the sheer volume of it was far too much for a mere human to contain. It was like trying to pour a waterfall into a teacup.

Even so, it was enough to completely change the way Park Minho perceived reality.

'……So this is Reality Manipulation and Reality Collapse?’

This was power that interfered with the laws of existence itself. A power worthy of something called a king.

Park Minho knew he couldn’t even properly handle the outermost fragment of this authority, but he felt satisfied anyway.

'Doesn’t matter. This is enough…’

He tried to activate this power. Something far beyond his station.

But immediately he reached his physical limits.

As the few seconds of euphoria faded, his vision began turning black.

“Khhg......."

The pressure crushing his carotid arteries caused his body to collapse automatically.

-Thud!

As Park Minho dropped to his knees, the king watching him burst into laughter.

[……Kukuhahahaha!]

It was as if this outcome had been obvious to him from the start. Park Minho’s consciousness was already fading, making even the king’s laughter sound distant.

But then Adrenaline Pump activated. It wasn’t simply a surge of adrenaline. It was an anomalous trait that forced the body to keep moving like a zombie.

'...!'

His awareness suddenly snapped back. And with it came the unbearable agony of suffocating to death.

"Aaaaaagh……! Ghk...!"

But Park Minho regained the strength to move again. Even though he still couldn’t breathe and every second felt like he was drowning, he forced himself to manipulate the power granted by the noose.

The Hanged King’s mocking smile faded. And for perhaps the first time in ages, genuine admiration entered his withered heart.

[……I have lived a long time, yet never have I seen a human such as you……]

The way the king addressed him changed completely. He no longer called him an insect.

[……I shall offer you a proposal…………Abandon the noose……and present the Princess’ eyes to me…]

“...”

[……Do so, and I shall grant you mercy……]

It was an unbelievably rare offer, but Park Minho had no interest whatsoever. Ignoring the king entirely, he extended one hand forward. 

To use his new power.

[……Foolish……!]

The king’s already-short fuse finally burned down completely. He raised his massive greatsword and brought it crashing down toward Park Minho.

At that very instant, Park Minho activated reality manipulation.

If true masters of reality manipulation saw Park Minho’s understanding of the power, they would probably laugh.

After all, he had tried to pour infinite knowledge into a teacup.

Even so, he grasped the concept in an extremely intuitive way.

'Reality Manipulation is just reshaping the pile of sand called reality however you want.’

Inside Park Minho’s mind, reality solidified into the image of sand that he could scoop away or pile up freely.

-Sssssssssh.

The king’s terrifying greatsword suddenly crumbled into sand and poured away.

[...What...!]

The Hanged King stared in shock as grains slipped through his fingers. His empty hand clawed helplessly at the air.

[……You manipulated reality……? You……?]

For the first time, the Hanged King instinctively took a step backward.

He couldn’t believe it. How could such a pitiful human reproduce Reality Manipulation, even briefly?

Of course, the backlash was equally horrifying.

"Kuaaaaaaaargh…!”

Bloody tears streamed from Park Minho’s eyes. Blood poured endlessly from his nose like thick raindrops. More blood surged upward from his throat, but the noose blocked it, causing it to churn agonizingly inside him instead.

It hurt so much he wanted to give up immediately.

The Hanged King had recoiled in surprise, but after seeing Park Minho’s condition, his composure returned.

[……You have surprised me………Yet such power does not suit your station……]

The king spread both arms wide.

[……In honor of your efforts, I shall grant you a chance……Try it……Erase me, if you can……]

The confidence in his tone was overwhelming. And Park Minho understood why.

'I can’t erase him…'

The Hanged King’s existence was far too deep and heavy. With Park Minho’s current level of power, erasing him was absolutely impossible.

[……Even if you possessed the power of a god, so what of it……? If you cannot wield it, it is no different from a child’s game…]

Park Minho drooped downward. Brain death was approaching.

Even the extra time granted by his anomalous trait was beginning to run out.

But then, while staring at the floor, a single thought crossed Park Minho’s mind.

'Do I even need to erase the king?'

That had been nearly impossible from the beginning anyway. But if he shifted his perspective, another path existed.

"......!"

Gritting his teeth, Park Minho activated Reality Collapse this time.

His target was the floor of the Backrooms itself. More precisely, its boundary.

The Backrooms might exist behind reality, but they were still ultimately part of reality itself. Just a version heavily saturated with anomalies.

'If I can’t erase him… Then I’ll exile him…!'

A wave of Reality Collapse burst from Park Minho’s outstretched fingertips.

And instantly, the floor of the Backrooms, the very boundary of this floor, began to collapse.

-Rrrrrrumble! Booom!

A section roughly 3 meters wide caved inward completely. And beneath it spread a pitch-black void untouched even by light.

It was the emptiness that existed between the floors of the Backrooms. Like the vast vacuum separating planets in outer space.

'Fall!'

The Hanged King’s body tilted, then was dragged downward into the abyss.

If the king fell into the void, returning would be nearly impossible. It might become an exile lasting eternity itself.

[……Kraaaaaah……!]

The king let out a beast-like shriek and desperately reached out with one arm.

-Crack!

Miraculously, his right hand caught the edge of reality that had not yet collapsed. His enormous body dangled precariously, supported only by several fingers.

[…You insolent wretch! You dare commit such insolence against me……?!]

With trembling hands, Park Minho grabbed the broken leg of shattered pieces of furniture nearby. Using Reality manipulation, he transformed it into an axe and swung downward.

-Crack! Thud! Bang!

Yellowed bone became exposed through the king’s fingers. After several more blows, the fingers were severed completely and flung away into the void.

[……Kraaaaaaaaaaah......!]

At last, the king fell into the darkness.

And just before his form disappeared entirely into the endless void, he spoke one final, bizarre sentence.

[……Now that you wear the noose……You too are merely someone else’s puppet……!]

Park Minho wanted to answer, but he didn’t even have the strength to do that.

Another wave of backlash wrecked his body completely.

"Kgh.......!"

The noose tightened harder and harder, as though determined to finish him off.

Thrashing desperately, Park Minho forced out the last scraps of his strength.

"Agh......! Gaaaaah......!"

Grabbing the rope hanging from the noose, he began wrapping it around the neck of his shadow.

With bloodshot eyes and frantic movements, he looked almost like someone strangling another person to death.

"Kuuuurgh......! Kgh!”

At that moment, the target of the noose shifted from Park Minho to his shadow.

"Kgh...! Gaaasp!”

His crushed airway opened. Air flooded violently into his lungs. His vision spun wildly, his mind dizzy and numb, but the sensation felt unbelievably euphoric.

Then, unable to even lift a single finger anymore, Park Minho collapsed face-first onto the floor.

* * *

In a dimly lit space filled with towering server racks, a woman sat staring at several monitors.

She wore an elegant blue dress from another era, brilliant golden hair, and a bonnet decorated with ribbons.

She was the being known as ‘the Lady in the Blue Dress,’ the true owner of the famed Liminal Grand Hotel, a destination visited by travelers from countless dimensions. 

"My Lady.”

Someone emerged from the darkness and bowed his head to her.

Surprisingly it was the crow-headed hotelier.

Without taking her eyes off the monitors, the Lady in the Blue Dress answered indifferently.

“You should be reviving and returning to the hotel by now. How long are you planning to laze around?”

The hotelier casually rubbed his neck as he replied.

Feathers had fallen away from it, and horrific marks from being strangled by a rope were still visible.

"Laziness is not a trait possessed by the Spirit Rodbearers. I simply wish to remain by your side a little longer, my Lady.”

"What a sly wretch."

"And yet, could I ever compare to the one who wrote this entire script? Kukuku.”

The hotelier already knew that his mistress had intentionally transplanted the eyes of Princess Cavaletto into Seol Suyeon.

"You gifted her the eyes and flaunted her as a VIP guest for all to see. Naturally, the king lost his mind.”

The reason she had gifted a treasure impossible for her to protect was simple.

Seol Suyeon had merely been bait. She was precious to Park Minho. But to the Lady in the Blue Dress, she was nothing more than a tool attached to him.

Honestly, even if Seol Suyeon died because the gift exceeded what she could handle, it did not matter. If she died, they could simply retrieve the eyes later or implant them into one of Park Minho’s future companions.

The lady smiled faintly.

"The Hanged King had locked himself away in his kingdom for ages and refused to come out. Princess Cavaletto’s eyes were enough to lure him into motion.”

"Did you truly expect the king to act like this, my Lady?”

At that, she slowly turned her chair toward the hotelier and asked,

"Who do you think gave him proof that the 8th Day was stolen property?”

"Good heavens……!”

From the very beginning, even the king’s rampage had been orchestrated by the Lady in the Blue Dress.

And despite that, she had acted in front of Park Minho as though she knew absolutely nothing, pretending to be caught completely off guard.

"But my Lady, the hotel has been devastated. This hotel is unique within the Backrooms.”

"The hotel doesn’t matter. We can rebuild it.”

"It will not be easy to recover the trust once lost.”

“It doesn’t matter. We managed to place the noose on our newbie, didn’t we? That’s enough.”

The Lady in the Blue Dress giggled.

“Honestly, I was getting nervous myself. I thought we might lose the hotel and fail anyway. But he actually pulled it off exactly as intended. I didn’t think the odds of success were very high…yet he exceeded expectations. I feel absolutely delighted!”

She was extremely satisfied. After all, the process of tempting Park Minho with the Shadow Modification Circuit and leading him to covet the noose had unfolded perfectly naturally.

It proved, all the time she had spent observing Park Minho’s personality had been worthwhile.

"Was all of this truly necessary…? He is only one human.”

"Did you not see what that one human accomplished, Hotelier?”

"......."

"At this point, I don’t think anyone can ever reach the end of the Backrooms without going this far. Just look at all the repeated failures until now.”

She turned her chair back toward the monitors and waved dismissively.

“Go. Restoring the hotel is going to be troublesome enough already. Don’t slack off.”

The hotelier bowed and withdrew. Then, as though remembering something, The Lady in the Blue Dress suddenly asked,

"Right, what about TBU?”

"We saved the team leader. The subordinate who fled was captured by our side, interrogated for information, and disposed of.”

"Good. Mark him as missing. The team leader still has ties to TBU, so treat him well.”

"Understood."

After the manager departed, she sent Park Minho, who would wake up soon, a DM in advance. Acting completely innocent.

▶Admin: Are you okay????

▶Admin: I’m worried since I haven’t heard anything from you. Once this is over, I’ll compensate you as much as possible.

▶Admin: Please tell me you survived. Message me back the moment you see this.

▶Admin: Also, the Hanged King left something behind! 

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