WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

The Legendary Newbie of the Ghost Story Labyrinth

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 70 - The Disposal Site (1)

With a flash of light, it felt as though every one of his senses was being sucked into a tiny hole.

'If I ever fell into a black hole, I wonder if it’d feel something like this.'

That pointless thought crossed his mind, then a wave of nausea hit him. His consciousness drifted away before he could think any further.

How much time had passed? Cold raindrops striking his face finally brought Park Minho back to his senses.

"Ugh...!"

His head felt like it was about to split open. Forcing his battered body upright, he felt damp droplets run down the bridge of his nose and drop from his chin.

It was raining.

Park Minho stared blankly at the sky.

".......Hah."

The heavens were murky violet, like one enormous bruise. There was no sun, no stars, and no moon.

A dense fog covered everything around them. Beyond it loomed towering black silhouettes. At first glance, they looked like mountains, but they were actually just heaps of garbage.

They contained rusted steel frameworks, shattered machinery, dismembered entity corpses. Just mountains upon mountains of discarded debris piled endlessly atop one another. Tar and black oil flowed from those towering mounds like blood, collecting into foul-smelling pools below.

Looking beside him, he spotted Seol Suyeon and Jung Manchin lying unconscious.

"Suyeon, wake up. Suyeon.”

"Uuugh......"

At that moment, Jung Manchun groaned awake.

"Good grief…every bone in my body’s screaming. I think I’m dying.”

Seol Suyeon regained consciousness a moment later. She relaxed when she saw Park Minho, but the moment she noticed their surroundings, fear overtook her.

"Oppa, where are we?”

"Who knows…”

Then, Jung Manchun, who had been surveying the area, suddenly went deathly pale. His lips trembled violently.

"N-no, it can’t be……This place!”

"You know where we are, Boss?”

Clutching his head, Jung Manchun sank into despair.

"The Disposal Site! I’m certain of it! It’s exactly like the stories! I never imagined we’d end up here!”

"The Disposal Site?"

With trembling hands, Jung Manchin wiped the rain from his face.

"At the very bottom of the Backrooms, there’s a place called the Abyss, where everything is ground into nothing. And this is the layer directly above it. People call it ‘The Lid of the Abyss’ or ‘The Upper Abyss.’”

"The Lid of the Abyss?”

"That’s right! Trash discarded from every corner of the Backrooms, lost souls, entities, filth of every kind don’t fall straight into the Abyss but sometimes get caught here by chance, like all the muck trapped in a drain strainer!”

Jung Manchun couldn’t hide the terror in his voice.

"It’s over! We’re finished! There’s no way out of this place! Explorers who come here either take their own lives or become Collectors like those things over there, condemned to sift through trash for all eternity!”

He pointed toward one of the foul-smelling pools hidden within the fog. Something grotesque stirred nearby. They seemed humanoid, but their skin was ash-gray. Their eyes were dull and lifeless like the glazed eyes of dead fish.

Watching Jung Manchun spiral into panic, Park Minho spoke firmly.

"Calm down, Boss.”

"How am I supposed to calm down?!”

"You said you’d heard stories about this place, didn’t you? That means someone must have made it out alive, right? It’s too early to give up. Let’s get out of this rain first.”

Jung Manchun slowly regained his composure. Seeing someone far younger than himself remain so calm helped pull him back from the brink of panic.

“Y-you’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

Just then—

“RaAaAAAAAaaaAAAH—!”

A horrifying roar thundered through the dense fog somewhere far off.

"Th-that voice!”

Jung Manchun instantly dropped flat against the ground. Park Minho bit his lip. A moment later, a familiar voice echoed across the Disposal Site.

"Where are you?! You filthy little rats! I’ll tear you apart while you’re still alive!”

Gu Bonjae had followed them. Then came the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw revving somewhere in the distance.

Park Minho helped Seol Suyeon and Jung Manchun to their feet.

"We have to move. There’s no time.”

The three of them carefully made their way over hills of piled up trash.

The footing was incredibly unstable. Hagged metal jutted out everywhere, and some spots gave way beneath their feet as if they were walking on quicksand.

"Agh! It’s so slippery!”

"Just hang on. Let’s find somewhere to hide.”

Then an ominous cracking sound came from beneath them.

-Craaaaack!

"Ah...!"

Before anyone could react, the junk mound, barely holding together after years of decay, collapsed beneath them.

"Aaaaagh!”

"Kyaaaaah!”

"Uwaagh!”

All three of them plunged into the darkness below. Moments later, they slammed into the bottom, rolling uncontrollably until they crashed into one of the walls.

"Ugh......"

It felt as though every bone in Park Minho’s body had shattered. Fortunately, nothing seemed broken, but he was cornered in painful bruises.

"Uuugh......"

"Ngh......"

Seol Suyeon and Jung Manchun were groaning as well, trembling from the impact.

Park Minho immediately pulled out bottles of the anomalous beverage, sikhye, and handed them over.

"Are you two okay?”

“Ah… This sikhye really is amazing."

Unless someone had a hole blown clean through their stomach, the drink’s healing effects were exceptional.

Seol Suyeon couldn’t help staring in amazement as the bruises covering her body rapidly faded away.

"So this is……”

It was the underground layer of the Disposal Site. This place, like the one above, was filled with thick fog and trash.

“I think this floor has multiple layers.”

At least we’re out of the rain. Oppa, that person!”

Seol Suyeon suddenly pointed to one side, startled. Turning toward where she pointed, they saw someone slumped against a collapsed sheet of rusted metal. When we approached, they found the long-dead corpse of an explorer.

Fortunately, it appeared he’d died as a human before he could become one of the Collectors.

His tattered clothes and shoes, worn almost through, made it painfully obvious just how long he’d wandered this Disposal Site.

Jung Manchun slowly shook his head.

"He died searching for an exit, consumed by despair..."

Park Minho searched the body. He found an anomalous compass that still functioned inside the Backrooms along with an old leather notebook. An exploration journal.

Just as he’d expected, its pages were filled with despair and terror. But as Park Minho skimmed through it, his eyes suddenly widened when he reached the final entry.

Because there he found hope.

"We might actually be able to get out of here.”

"Wh-what?!”

"There’s a clue about an Entity Rift in the journal."

[Beyond the northwestern ridge, at the heart of a fortress made of scrap metal, there is an Entity Rift.]

Reading the passage Park Minho pointed to, Jung Manchun frowned.

"An Entity Rift isn’t a route humans can use. Only entities can pass through it. Don’t tell me you’re planning to go there. It’ll be a waste of time.”

Under normal circumstances, Jung Manchun was absolutely right, but every rule had its exceptions.

"It certainly is impossible for an ordinary explorer. But I can use it.”

“What…? At a time like this you’re making jokes?”

"No. I can really open Entity Rifts.”

"Wh-what did you say…?”

Seol Suyeon chimed in from beside him.

"It’s true, Boss.”

"...Really?”

Park Minho nodded.

“Yes, so as long as we can find the Entity Rift, we can leave this place. Don’t worry.”

There wasn’t the slightest bit of hesitation in his voice. Seeing that confidence, Jung Manchun realized Park Minho wasn’t bluffing.

“Just…what exactly are you? I’ve never heard of an explorer with an ability like that. Could you actually be an entity…?”

At that moment, another roar echoed across the Disposal Site.

"You little rats! I can sense you!”

Park Minho’s expression darkened.

'Something’s off.'

The Disposal Site was unimaginably vast. Dense fog made it difficult to tell east from west, let alone judge distance. And yet Gu Bonjae was somehow keeping pace behind them.

‘Could it be the Molting Church book?’

Maybe Gu Bonjae had some way of tracking it. At that moment, that was the most plausible explanation.

Even so, Park Minho had no intention of abandoning such a valuable source of information.

If you wanted to gain something, accepting the risks that came with it was simply part of it.

"Let’s keep moving.”

Taking the lead once again, Park Minho pushed his way through the trash.

They continued onward for quite some time, and then suddenly he came to an abrupt stop.

"Oppa…? What is it? I don’t see any entities ahead…”

Seol Suyeon asked as she scanned the area with the Eyes of Princess Cavaletto.

Instead of answering, Park Minho grabbed his chest. His heart was beating strangely. No, it wasn’t his heart. It was something even deeper. Some sort of connection.

'What is this?'

A familiar sensation was coming from somewhere ahead. He had no idea what I was, but something was pulling him toward it.

Park Minho tilted his head.

"Suyeon, could you check if there’s something over there?”

"Over there…?”

“Yeah. I don’t know why, but I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s like I have to go there. No, that’s not quite right……Hm, it’s more like there’s something over there that’s connected to me.”

Seol Suyeon focused her enhanced vision in the direction Park Minho pointed.

‘There’s really something there?’

Park Minho wasn’t the type to act like this for no reason. If he felt that strongly, then she had to look. Originally, her ability had simply allowed her to see anomalies as three different colors.

But after saving Park Minho when his heart had stopped, the Eyes of Princess Cavaletto had evolved dramatically. Now she could perceive things she never would have noticed before.

"This is……?”

"What do you see?”

"Something like a chain? A thin, golden chain. It’s broken, but it stretches off somewhere in the distance.”

A golden chain? Park Minho wondered what that could possibly mean.

Since Seol Suyeon was seeing it with her anomalous eyes, it had to be connected to an anomaly somehow. He didn’t know what it was, but he couldn’t suppress the urge to find out.

“Can you keep guiding me?”

"Huh? Yeah, I can.”

Wanting to uncover the source of the strange force pulling at him, Park Minho followed Seol Suyeon’s directions.

As luck would have it, the golden chain led them northwest. The same direction the journal said the Entity Rift was located in. They could investigate it along the way.

-Thump, thump.

The farther they climbed through the piles of trash, the more violently Park Minho’s heart pounded.

'What’s happening to me?'

An inexplicable heat was welling up from deep within his chest. Even he couldn’t make sense of it.

"Oppa, it’s just ahead.”

Seol Suyeon pointed toward a small trash mound barely visible through the fog.

"The golden chain disappears into that hill.”

"Let’s take a look."

As Park Minho strode forward without hesitation, Jung Manchun hurriedly grabbed his shoulder.

"Gu Bonjae is right behind us. Is this really the time to go digging through a pile of trash?”

His impatience was obvious. He wanted them to move, but Park Minho only offered him an apologetic smile.

"Just give me a minute. If it’s buried too deep, we’ll give up.”

"Hmph…Fine.”

Jung Manchun kept glancing nervously into the thick fog. The fear that Gu Bonjae might emerge from it at any moment was written all over his face.

Meanwhile, Park Minho reached the small trash mount and began clearing away the trash where Seol Suyeon had pointed.

"What in the world could be buried in there…?”

Jung Manchun looked completely baffled.

To be honest, Park Minho didn’t know either. But the force drawing him toward it was unmistakably real.

'Just what is buried here?'

He dug through the heap for quite a while. Then, beneath a layer of thick, sticky tar, something finally emerged.

"......!"

The instant Park Minho saw it, his breath caught in his throat. Both hands froze in midair. Even the voices calling to him from nearby suddenly felt impossibly distant.

"Ah......"

A stifled sigh escaped Park Minho’s lips. It was the cracked white head and upper torso of a mannequin. Time had stained it, and its surface was fractured and split in countless places.

His vision blurred in an instant.

Most of it had been obscured by grime and oil, but on the mannequin's white face, the faint outline of an expression remained. One that someone had carefully drawn on it long ago.

( ᵔ ᗜ ᵔ )

It was still wearing that beaming smile.

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