WETRIED TRANSLATIONS
The Legendary Newbie of the Ghost Story Labyrinth
[Translator – Aren]
Chapter 68 - Sallim-dong, Euljiro (5)
In the nauseating stench of coagulated blood and rusted iron filings Gu Bonjae, the monster who had long since abandoned his humanity, knelt on the floor.
His massive body was twisted beyond recognition. Yet at this very moment, there was something almost reverent about him. Cradled carefully in his hands was the stillborn body of Gu Taeson.
With painstaking care, Gu Bonjae lowered the tiny corpse into the hollow biological seat at the center of the horrific artificial body, stitched together from the dismembered remains of the alley craftsmen.
Then he pulled out a scripture containing the doctrine and arcane rites of the Molting Church. He began chanting.
"Cast aside the worn-out shell of flesh and achieve true molting……”
As he recited the incantation, he drove cable after cable into the shriveled body of the stillborn entity.
Thud! Thunk!
Finally, he produced the trump card he had prepared. a Blood Stone. A pulsating crystal mined from the deepest reaches of the Backrooms, beating like a living heart. The moment he embedded it into the flesh supporting Taeson’s body, a powerful vibration rippled through the room.
-Vrrrrrrrrmmm!
At the same time, the stillborn entity’s mouth suddenly fell open. A scream burst from its throat.
"Kyaaaaaaaah!”
And then a miracle… Or rather, a catastrophe occurred.
Beneath the shriveled back skin of the stillborn infant, crimson blood and black oil began surging violently. Its withered muscles swelled. A sickly yellow light ignited inside the empty eye sockets that had once been nothing but gaping holes.
The infant’s body, linked to the massive quadrupedal mass of flesh by countless cables, merged with it as one. The dead entity revived through the bodies of the craftsmen, the power of the Blood Stone, and the forbidden sorcery of the Molting Church.
"Kyaaaaah! Kyeeeeegh!”
As the monstrous Gu Teason threw back its head and shrieked, Gu Bonjae trembled with joy.
"Aah…..! Taeson! My son!”
A dark oily fluid streamed from his eyes like tears. Turning proudly toward Jung Manchun, he shouted.
"Look, Manchun! Teason’s alive again! The Molting Church was telling the truth! Kahahahaha!”
Watching the scene in utter horror, Jung Manchun cried out as though coughing up blood.
"Hyungnim! Please…! Please come to your senses! This isn’t Taeson! It’s a monster!”
Gu Bonjae’s face twisted into something demonic.
"Shut up! I said shut up! If you say another word, I won’t forgive even you, Manchun! If that’s a monster, then are you saying I’m a monster too?!”
“Hyungnim…!”
"I waited 13 whole years just to see that little child move again!”
But Gu Bonjae’s euphoria was short-lived.
"Ghiiiiiiiiih…… Fssssh......"
The creature suddenly began making a strange sound, like air escaping from a punctured bellows. The light in Gu Taeson’s eyes dimmed, then the being staggered forward before collapsing onto the floor, lying there motionless as if it had fallen into hibernation.
There still weren’t enough materials. He needed to grind far more people into raw components before it could truly live.
Yet simply seeing that possibility was enough to satisfy Gu Bonjae.
"I understand, Taeson. You’d prefer a fresher body with strong anomalous energy. Just wait a little longer.”
The giant creature slowly turned its massive body, sniffed the air, then twisted its head at an unnatural angle as it surveyed the surroundings.
"I smell them…There aren’t many humans outside, but the few that are there are brimming with life. They’ll be perfect for my Taeson.”
Gu Bonjae reached out with one enormous hand and picked up a chainsaw.
* * *
Park Minho couldn’t help questioning the old man’s plan.
"Suyeon, I agree with the basic premise that we need to escape through the Backrooms exit in the workshop, but..."
"But?”
"I don’t think the old man’s advice about sneaking in while Gu Bonjae is away is realistic. More importantly, the two of us stand out.”
There weren’t many people trapped inside the Backrooms that had been superimposed over reality. The reason was simple. Although the inside had expanded enormously due to the anomaly, the Gray Square itself wasn’t actually very large.
Only the people caught within its original area had been pulled inside.
Park Minho didn’t know all the details about Gray Squares, but he had realized one thing. Despite how enormous this place was, there were astonishingly few humans inside.
“In a situation like this, you and I are going to stick out like sore thumbs.”
"Then it’d be pretty hard to avoid someone like Gu Bonjae.”
“Exactly. And there’s no guarantee he’ll even leave he workshop like the old man thought. If we’re unlucky… We’ll end up fighting him.”
The problem was that such a fight would be anything but easy.
"Even that Grinder entity we ran into by chance was stronger than the Cleaning Supervisor. Gu Bonjae is basically the boss of this Backrooms, so the odds are he’s even stronger.”
“So isn’t fighting him impossible then?”
However, Park Minho already had a plan. It was the same method he’d used to deal with something far more powerful than Gu Bonjae. The Hanged King.
“I’ll use Reality Manipulation to tear open a hole in the Backrooms and drop him through it.”
“Ah…the same thing you used against the King? But you’re going to use Reality Manipulation again?"
Recently, Park Minho had received an important warning on the gallery.
ㄴ(Pitbull) Unless you’re a god-class entity, there’s a limit to how much your body can endure. Keep using that power, and eventually your body will collapse.
In other words, it was a power humans simply weren’t meant to wield. Even if he appeared to recover afterward, permanent damage would continue accumulating. Both his body and his soul would gradually begin to crack.
“I know. But we don’t really have another choice. I’ll use it as sparingly as possible.”
His plan wasn’t to erase Gu Bonjae completely. He only wanted to create a hole beneath him and send him falling through.
Trying to erase an entity that powerful from reality itself would likely produce a backlash. Park Minho couldn’t possibly survive. That was why he intended to use the workaround he found instead.
"Let’s test it first. I need to make sure I can still open holes here like I could in the Grand Liminal Hotel.”
This wasn't an ordinary Backrooms floor. It was the Backrooms layered over reality. If he discovered at te most crucial moment that Reality Manipulation no longer worked, they’d be finished.
"Be careful, Oppa.”
"Don’t worry."
Park Minho took out the noose and slipped it around his neck.
"Ugh...!"
His face instantly turned bright red. It felt as though he was about to lose consciousness.
'I’ll just test it then get this rope off as fast as I can.'
Using Reality Manipulation, Park Minho created a small hole in the floor. The moment it formed, he immediately removed the noose.
"Kgh…Cough…!”
"Oppa!"
“I-I’m okay…”
"What do you mean you’re okay?”
It had been rough, but since he’d released the noose almost immediately, Park Minho recovered. Then his expression suddenly turned puzzled.
"What in the…?”
Looking into the hole in the floor, he didn’t see the endless black void between Backrooms floors he’d seen before.
Instead, he saw a subway train passing beneath them. Watching beside him, Seol Suyeon frowned.
"Oppa, don’t tell me…? Is that a hole leading to reality?”
"...Yah. I think it is.”
After taking a closer look, they were certain. Perhaps because this was a unique Backrooms layered directly over reality, instead of connecting to the void between Backrooms floors, the hole now opened straight into reality.
"Oppa, then if we knock Gu Bonjae into it, he’ll end up in reality?”
"Looks that way. The NCE would have one hell of a cleanup job if we do this.”
During the ensuing chaos, the two of them could escape through the workshop’s Backrooms exit. And as a bonus, they’d dump one enormous mess right into the NCE’s lap. It was an awfully tempting idea, but both of them shook their heads.
"No, that won’t work."
"Yeah. We can’t do that.”
The reason was simple. If they dropped a monster as powerful as Gu Bonjae into the real world, there was no telling how many innocent civilians would die.
Eventually, the NCE would probably manage to kill him. The problem was how many people Gu Bonjae would butcher before then.
Neither Park Minho nor Seol Suyeon was the kind of person who believed that as long as they escaped, it didn’t matter how many ordinary people died.
Park Minho had certainly made cold-blooded decisions before. He had killed. But only when dealing with enemies who had clearly crossed the line. He couldn’t stand by while ordinary residents of Euljiro, who were simply going about their daily lives, were torn apart without even knowing why.
“Oppa, what if we do this instead?”
"What?"
"Let’s open a hole to reality and use it to lure the NCE into the Backrooms.”
"Ah, that’s actually not bad.”
Knowing how the NCE operated, if a gateway into the Backrooms suddenly appeared, they wouldn’t just sit around waiting for the Reality Anchors to finish collapsing the Gray Square. They’d undoubtedly send in a Special Operations team to investigate.
Neither Park MInho nor Seol Suyeon had any reason to feel sympathetic toward the NCE. After all the organization had nearly killed them both. If NCE operatives died, neither of them would lose any sleep over it.
“If the Special Operations team enters, the whole palace will descend into chaos, and Gu Bonjae’s attention will shift to them. If they end up fighting each other, that would be a massive win for us. don’t you think?”
"Hah, Seol Suyeon! You’re sneakier than I gave you credit for.”
Of course, letting the NCE inside carried its own risks. But it was still a far better option than what they were facing now.
"Alright. Let’s do it!”
"Once we open the hole, we need to get as far away as possible.”
"Can you help support me afterward?”
"Leave it to me! For some reason, I feel like I’ve become a lot stronger lately.”
Whether she truly had become stronger was hard to say. But Seol Suyeon did possess anomalous traits related to physical stamina. If things got dangerous, she should still be able to support Park Minho while they made their escape.
* * *
Outside the Backrooms in the real world, the NCE was pouring every available resource into dismantling the Gray Square.
-Kiiiiiiiiiih!
Multiple Reality Anchors surrounding the Gray Square emitted an ear-splitting whine. Blue waves radiating from the machines relentlessly slammed against the surface of the gray cube, forcibly shaving away the distortion between dimensions.
"We’re maintaining the Reality Anchors at 120% output! At this rate, we’ll eliminate the Gray Square roughly 1 hour ahead of schedule!”
Despite the hopeful report, the Incident Command controller didn’t look reassured in the slightest.
A massive anomalous phenomenon had appeared in the middle of Seoul. There was no way anyone could stay calm. No matter how much memory erasure or media manipulation they carried out, completely containing the fallout would be nearly impossible. Especially if things dragged on any longer.
"Haah......"
The controller rubbed his face with dry hands, deep in thought. If there was anything they could do to resolve the anomaly even a few hours sooner, they had to do it.
Then something unexpected happened.
-Craack! Crash!
Like a stone smashing into an enormous pane of glass, spiderweb-like fractures suddenly spread across the perfectly smooth, solid side of the Gray Square.
Watching the monitors, the controller’s eyes went wide.
“What happened?! Did something go wrong with the Reality Anchors? Report. Now!”
“N-No, sir! The Reality Anchors are functioning normally. A localized structural collapse of unknown origin has occurred on the side of the Gray Square!”
At the same time, the side of the Gray Square split open. A crack tore across its surface, opening a hole large enough for 2 or 3 grown adults to walk through side by side. Beyond the opening they could see a Backrooms-corrupted version of Euljiro.
A sickly yellow sky, twisted rows of rusted shutters, endlessly repeating alleyways stretching into the distance…
The controller reacted immediately.
"All combat personnel, establish a defensive perimeter! Now!”
The waiting NCE armed units sprang into action. Armored vehicles roared into position, forming a semicircle around the breach. Mounted heavy machine guns were deployed, and barricades went up.
-Clack! Click!
Dozens of firearms were trained on the opening. The message was unmistakable. Whatever came out would be shredded on sight.
Yet, nothing emerged from the breach. Meanwhile, a heated debate erupted within the field command center.
"We need to seal that breach immediately! We have no idea when entities could start pouring out!”
“What are you talking about?! If we do that, we’ll have to restart the entire Gray Square dismantling process from the beginning!”
"We have to prepare for the worst-case scenario!”
"And you don’t think leaving that gigantic anomaly standing is the worst-case scenario?”
Both sides had perfectly reasonable arguments. In the end, the controller reported the situation to headquarters and waited for their decision.
"What are our orders?”
"Effective immediately, Special Operations Unit Zeta-9 is authorized to enter. They are to proceed through the breach, assess the threats inside, and eliminate them preemptively so the Gray Square can be safely neutralized.”
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