WETRIED TRANSLATIONS
The Legendary Newbie of the Ghost Story Labyrinth
[Translator – Aren]
Chapter 48 - Backrooms within a Dream (4)
"Ugh......!"
With a short groan, Director Yoon, Yoon Tae-Oh, opened his eyes. The first thing he felt was a coldness that seeped deep into this very core.
"Uuugh......"
He tried to sit up, but the moment he moved, a cold and heavy object pressing against his neck made his breath get stuck in his throat. Panicking, he fumbled around with his hands and discovered a thick iron restraint locked around his neck.
It was an ‘Anomaly Suppressor.’ A device that could be said to be the absolute bane of the Awakened.
“W-why is this on my neck…?!”
Yoon Tae-Oh hurriedly tried to draw out his telekinetic power. Out of habit, he envisioned a massive storm inside his mind, trying to tear apart the iron door before him. But even as sweat tricked down his forehead, nothing happened.
Only after forcing his telekinesis with such effort that the veins in his head nearly burst did a tiny piece of concrete debris on the floor rise 1cm into the air before dropping back down again.
“Uuuugh..."
The high-ranking Awakened who once wielded overwhelming power no longer existed. With trembling hands, Yoon Tae-Oh looked around again.
Pale gray concrete walls, a rusted iron bed, and flickering fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. It was the very psychiatric hospital room where he had imprisoned Park Minho.
"No way…!”
But at some point, even his clothes had changed. His tailored suit and white coat were gone. All that remained was a musty-smelling patient’s uniform.
A name tag was pinned to the left side of the garment.
[100]
It felt like mockery. It was as if it existed solely to remind him of Rule 2, the 100% recovery rate that had ultimately caused his downfall.
"Aagh……AAAAAAAH…!”
As panic flooded his mind, his chest turned ice-cold and his heart pounded violently. Within seconds, sweat drenched his forehead.
Then the iron door opened.
-Click.
"Good morning, Patient 100. It’s time for your medication.”
A nurse entity whose face was split by a crescent-shaped tear stretching across half its surface greeted him with a cheerful voice. A tiny green pull sat in her palm.
"...!"
The instant he saw the pill, Yoon Tae-Oh felt his heart freeze. After all, no one knew those pills better than he did.
The one thing the hospital obsessed over was recovery rate, so he designed this horrific treatment program and medication in pursuit of satisfying its goal.
Overwhelming terror consumed him.
"S-stay back! Don’t come any closer, you monster bitch! Stay away from me!”
Yoon Tae-Oh shouted while scrambling backward into the corner of the bed. But the nurse just continued to smile.
"Patient 100, if you refuse, we’ll have no choice but to administer it by force.”
The moment she finished speaking, two more nurses waiting outside rushed into the room. Yoon Tae-Oh kicked and struggled desperately while lying down, but without his telekinesis, he was nothing more than an old, exhausted man.
"Aaaaaagh! Let go! My arm! Aaagh!”
The nurse entity twisted both of Yoon Tae-Oh’s arms behind him and pinned him against the bed.
Even then, he screamed at the top of his lungs.
“I’m the director of this hospital, you pathetic pieces of trash!”
But soon the nurses forced his mouth open with their fingers, effectively silencing him. And then the green pill was shoved into his mouth against his will.
"Ugh! Gahk...!"
The disgusting sensation of something sliding down his throat. It was only a tiny pill, yet it felt like he’d swallowed something enormous that completely clogged his throat.
Soon after, dizziness began to wash over him.
* * *
Later that afternoon. It was time for his consultation with the faceless doctor entity.
Since Yoon Tae-Oh was still violently resisting, the consultation was conducted with him restrained to a chair.
“Listen to me! I’m not a patient! I’m Executive Director Yoon Tae-Oh of TBU! You idiots! This is a dream world! A dream Backroom that I reconstructed myself!”
"Ah, patient..."
"I’m upper management! I’m the director! Untie me and return me to my proper position already!”
"Oh dear, such severe delusions of grandeur."
The entity doctor shook his head sympathetically. Ignoring Yoon Tae-Oh as he shouted with bloodshot eyes, he calmly continued writing on his chart.
-Delusional disorder, grandiose type. Patient firmly believes delusions are reality.
-Additional medication required. Drug tolerance and side effects not to be considered.
-No safety plan review. Prioritizing complete recovery above all else.
The entity doctor pretended to let out a sigh from a mouth he didn’t possess.
"Patient, you’re mentally unwell right now. You need to honestly accept that and approach your treatment with the proper mindset. I’ll be adding the red pill to your existing prescription. You’ll feel much more comfortable. I’m looking forward to seeing your improvement during our next consultation. Hehehe.”
Yoon Tae-Oh’s complexion turned pale as a sheet. The red pills were far more potent than the green ones after all.
* * *
Yoon Tae-Oh fought desperately to avoid taking the pills. But the nurses were thorough.
Forcing them down his throat was only the beginning. Even if he stuck his fingers down his throat and vomited after they left, they somehow always found out and came back to force him to take them again.
As time passed, Yoon Tae-Oh’s identity began to blur, and his eyes lost focus.
The self of Patient Yoon Tae-Oh was slowly becoming stronger than Executive Director Yoon of TBU. But the more that happened, the harder Yoon Tae-Oh clenched his teeth.
'I have to endure…! That brat endured for an entire week, didn’t he? There’s no way a high-ranking Awakened like me can’t do it!’
But for Yoon Tae-Oh, who knew nothing about the anomalous trait ‘Short Sleep,’ this had never been possible in the first place. He even began clinging to false hope.
‘There’s only one way. I need to become a model patient like that brat did.'
If he managed that, he’d gain access to the complaint forms in the recreation room. And he’d also be able to get a pen and notebook to organize his memories. There would be inspections, but if he thought of some method only he could understand, like some code or cypher, this would be a simple matter.
Once he made that decision, Yoon Tae-Oh immediately began sucking up shamelessly.
"Nurse, I take my medicine properly now. Hahaha! It’s all thanks to you.”
Day after day he forced himself to keep acting. The problem was that as time passed, the line between acting and reality began to collapse.
Whenever he woke up after taking the pills and sleeping, it felt as though chunks of his brain had been carved away. Why was he pretending in the first place? Why was he trying so desperately to escape this small but comfortable room? What exactly had he been so angry with? Those thoughts only became blurrier and blurrier.
And because of all the chaos he’d caused up until now, becoming a model patient was proving nearly impossible. Growing impatient, he picked up a sharp fragment of stone lying on the floor and began scratching words into his own skin.
‘Memo…I need to make memos. I can’t forget who I am.’
The message he etched into his flesh deep enough to draw blood served as a reminder of his identity.
[I am Executive Director Yoon of TBU. I am the true director of this hospital. Park Minho cast me into this hell.]
It hurt, but he felt unexpectedly reassured. Satisfied, even.
The next day, he had grown even closer to becoming Patient Yoon Tae-Oh, but after barely making it through his afternoon consultation, he somehow managed to regain his original clarity of mind.
Yoon Tae-Oh hurriedly checked the words carved into his body.
But the moment he did, his eyes widened in terror as if they were about to split apart. The scars contained something completely different from what he remembered.
[I am Patient 100, Yoon Tae-Oh. Thank you, benevolent Director. I am happy to receive treatment.]
"......!"
It was the kind of terror that suffocates you. Unable to endure it, Yoon Tae-Oh let out a scream.
“Aahhhhh—! AAAAAAAAH!”
He tore at his hair and muttered like a madman.
“I didn’t write this! There’s no way I would’ve written something like this…!”
But the truth was cruel. All of his desperate efforts to hold onto his sanity had merely become repetitions of praise toward the hospital.
In the end, thrown into absolute despair, the last thread of his willpower snapped.
The screams spilling from his mouth didn’t take long to turn into hollow laughter.
“Haha, hah…… Right. I am Patient 100. A patient…receiving treatment because my mind is sick…”
Bright Mind Psychiatric Hospital was surely the only place that would accept someone like him.
Faced with endless medication, all resistance completely collapsed.
A week later. The influential Executive Director Yoon of TBU no longer remained. There was only Patient 100, Yoon Tae-Oh, happily accepting his circumstances.
As always, the nurse came that day wearing her crescent-shaped smile.
"Congratulations, Patient 100. You’ll be having a consultation with the Director today. You’ll likely receive your recovery certification.”
Yoon Tae-Oh was overwhelmed with emotion.
“Finally…with the magnificent Director himself……!”
It felt like a dream. To think someone as insignificant as himself was allowed such a rare consultation.
As he followed the nurse through the hospital corridors, he felt as though he were walking on clouds.
Finally, they arrived in front of the Director’s office.
When the door opened, a scene unfolded before him that seemed utterly out of place in a hospital. A window flooding the room with warm sunlight. The aroma of black tea. A neatly organized desk and bookshelves.
"Welcome, Patient 100.”
The thing that moved him the most, however, was that the Director greeted him first.
"H-hello…!”
Yoon Tae-Oh smiled brightly and bowed. And then he saw it.
The name engraved on the heavy nameplate.
[Bright Mind Psychiatric Hospital - Director Park Minho]
The gentle-looking Director in a white coat looked at Yoon Tae-Oh and asked,
“Patient 100, do you still have anyone you harbor resentment toward?”
* * *
After some time spent in consultation, Yoon Tae-Oh scribbled his signature across the document Park Minho handed him, indicating his agreement. Then he immediately lost consciousness and collapsed face-first into the floor.
As if waiting for that very moment, the Inspector appeared.
[…Now we can engrave the brainwashing completely into his mind……Director.]
“How should I proceed?”
[You only need to write down whatever is necessary in the Director’s chart……However, making it too long or complicated is not advised. Excessive commands may conflict with one another and create flaws in brainwashing.]
"Thank you for the advice.”
After thinking for a moment, Park Minho began writing down several rules Yoon Tae-Oh would have to follow.
1. Yoon Tae-Oh shall obey Park Minho absolutely.
2. Yoon Tae-Oh shall harbor no hostility, murderous intent, or rebellious thoughts toward Park Minho. Furthermore, he shall be incapable of any direct or indirect attempt to harm him.
3. Yoon Tae-Oh shall maintain complete secrecy regarding Park Minho and behave as though nothing has changed.
4. Yoon Tae-Oh shall prioritize Park Minho’s interests above all other values.
5. Yoon Tae-Oh shall feel no sense of discomfort or suspicion regarding his current condition.
"Good."
He could make it even more thorough, but just as the Inspector warned, there was a chance the commands might conflict with one another. This much seemed appropriate.
In the first place, destroying someone’s sense of self through medication had always been for the purpose of carrying out perfect brainwashing like this.
Once someone who had undergone this process woke from the dream, they would return to normal. Patient 100, Yoon Tae-Oh, would once again become Executive Director Yoon. However, the commands engraved at the deepest core of his consciousness would remain intact.
Executive Director Yoon would become Park Minho’s most perfect subordinate.
‘Looks like all that suffering inside the dream wasn’t for nothing.'
There was no need to even say how many benefits he’d gain from making one of TBU’s strongest figures into his underling.
[…Then we shall proceed as written…]
The Inspector accepted the document and stamped it.
-Bang!
At that moment, the document Park Minho had written transformed into black smoke and was sucked directly into the unconscious Yoon Tae-Oh’s head. After finishing the brainwashing procedure, the Inspector looked toward Park Minho.
[Would it be possible for you to perhaps become the new director?]
At the moment, Park Minho was only serving as acting director temporarily. The Inspector needed a new hospital director, and it seemed to think Park Minho would do well.
"Hmm......"
Honestly, now that he understood just how terrifying this brainwashing ability truly was, Park Minho hesitated.
But he shook his head.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think this position suits me.”
This was a truly wicked power. Something that could only be called a twisted, demonic path. If repeated continuously, it could cause some serious cognitive corruption.
More than anything, Rule 2, the 100% recovery rate, was far too dangerous. No matter how carefully someone handled it, eventually they’d slip up. Park Minho thought that if he recklessly abused this power, he might end up suffering karmic payback just like Director Yoon had.
[That is unfortunate……However, if you ever change your mind, please use this to return.]
The Inspector held out a business card for the hospital director. Park Minho’s name wasn’t written on it yet. The Inspector explained that if he placed it in his chest pocket and fell asleep, he would be able to return to the hospital.
"I’m not sure I’ll ever have a reason to use it, but I’ll gratefully accept it. Then, could you send me back to reality now?”
[…Of course. Please close your eyes...]
Soon, together with a flood of light, Park Minho felt his consciousness rising toward the surface, as if emerging from deep underwater.
'Once I get back, I should make Director Yoon hand over the list of people he brainwashed.’
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