WETRIED TRANSLATIONS
The Legendary Newbie of the Ghost Story Labyrinth
[Translator – Aren]
Chapter 81 - State-of-the-Art Military Base (2)
The loudspeaker crackled to life.
<One person from each squad. One person from each squad. Report to the company office.>
I immediately bolted out. The two privates from my squad who would normally handle this had been called away to a meeting with the Sergeant Major.
"1st Squad!”
I answered loudly as I arrived. The room was stacked with boxes of supplies. The company clerk jerked his chin toward them as if to say, ‘Help yourselves,’ then immediately went back to staring at his Excel spreadsheet with a tired expression.
Since I was the most senior soldier among the ones who had come, I took charge of sorting the supplies.
But as his hands moved out of habit, they suddenly froze.
"Private Park-nim?”
"Is something wrong, sir?”
“The numbers all seem right.”
I shook my head and resumed sorting.
"It’s nothing.”
But I couldn’t hide the slight tremor in his fingertips.
[Polish UHT Milk.]
Polish boxed milk being issued as army supplies…? That made no sense. Wasn’t the standard drink they always got Mastxr?
'Something really is wrong…’
This wasn’t a normal military base. Maybe I was dreaming.
If this was a dream, how was I supposed to wake up?
I thought about it, but no answer came.
* * *
The anxiety kept growing.
More and more evidence kept piling up that something about this world wasn’t right.
For example, some stains simply refused to disappear. No matter how hard I scrubbed them with toothpaste, they’d be back in exactly the same place the next day.
"This feels like I’m being haunted…”
Then there were the trees lined up around the parade ground. It was as if the same model had been copied and pasted over and over again.
Even the patterns in the bark were identical.
"Holy shit……”
The biggest problem was that, at some point, I simply stopped being able to meet Sergeant Ma Ilho. Every time I was tired, someone would deliberately get in the way.
"Sergeant Ma! Take charge of the work detail!”
Even if Sergeant Ma happened to spot me first and started walking over, an officer would always appear and send him off to do something.
I couldn’t hide his disappointment. The one person who seemed to know what was really going on had been completely cut off from me.
Then something even stranger happened.
One day, out of nowhere, I received a letter from his girlfriend.
"What? I don’t have a girlfriend…”
Not a single person had visited me or written to him since I’d enlisted.
Then suddenly a letter arrived from someone claiming to be my girlfriend.
"Seol Suyeon…?”
Who was this, exactly? It was a beautiful name. And for some reason a warmth blossomed somewhere deep in my chest. That couldn’t be right. Yet somehow it felt as though I really did know this woman.
For some reason, the neat, rounded handwriting looked strangely familiar, too.
The only thing that bothered me was the large stamp across the envelope that read ‘Military Censorship Approved.’
Park Minho began reading the letter.
It was an ordinary letter from a girlfriend who missed her boyfriend serving in the military.
As I read, his heart grew warmer all on its own.
[Oppa, are you doing well? I'm doing well too. It’s already been quite a while since you enlisted. You said time would fly, remember? But I don’t know why it feels so long for me. Without you here, every day feels twice as long.]
I read every line carefully. Maybe there was something hidden in it. Maybe this mysterious girlfriend was trying to send him a message.
But no matter how closely I examined it, the contents were completely ordinary.
Only the postscript stood out.
[Do you remember when we folded paper boats together? It was about the same size as this sheet of paper.]
Why did she bring up folding paper boats all of a sudden? It wasn’t like I didn’t know how to fold one.
I had no idea why I knew, but it felt like someone had taught him a long time ago whenever we were bored.
"Hmm…a paper boat?”
I folded Seol Suyeon’s letter into one. There wasn’t any point staring at the letter any longer anyway.
I figured I might as well fold it into a boat and leave it in his locker.
-Fold, fold.
As the paper boat took shape, I suddenly realized something.
"Huh......?"
Because of the boat’s three-dimensional folds, letters that had seemed randomly scattered across the page now lined up perfectly along the folded edge, forming a message.
"Business card, recycling station……?”
There was no mistake. The message clearly read, ‘Business card. Recycling Station.’
"......What?"
I couldn’t make sense of it. Was it telling me to find a business card at the recycling station? It sounded completely random.
Maybe it was nothing more than an accidental arrangement of syllables.
Maybe it meant absolutely nothing, and yet I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
'It’s not like checking the recycling station would hurt…'
As luck would have it, today was the day they would sort the recycling. Normally, one of the junior guys under him would be the one going, but this time, I volunteered.
"I’ll go."
"Huh? You, Private Park?”
Sorting recycling was miserable. One had to do it during one’s break, so everyone avoided it if they could. Naturally, he looked puzzled.
I gave him some sort of vague excuse.
"You looked like you were coming down with something. So take a break.”
"Private Park..."
The kid looked genuinely touched. So I headed to the recycling station with the others from the squad. Since everyone there had less time in service than I did, I asked them a favor.
"If you happen to find a business card, let me know, okay?”
"A business card? What do you need that for?”
I used the excuse I’d already prepared.
"Our squad leader thinks he accidentally threw away one he got outside. So he told me to check, just in case.”
"Ah..."
"If you find it I’ll buy everyone something at the Post Exchange."
"Oh? Seriously?”
The guys enthusiastically tore through the recycling station while sorting the trash. I searched just as hard for this so-called business card.
But in a recycling yard that big, there was no way a single business card would be easy to spot.
"Hmm……”
The funny thing was, the recycling station had all kinds of bizarre stuff lying around.
Duct tape, a black lump of something, a huge key, a ring, a tumbler, a barcode scanner, an armband, a backpack, and plenty more…
It looked like someone had dumped all their belongings there.
The strange part was that it wasn’t just one person’s gear. There was enough equipment scattered around that it looked like someone had been preparing for an expedition.
Then again, that was hardly the first strange thing I’d seen. So I pushed the thought aside and focused on finding the business card.
"Why can’t I find it……Hah……”
I searched for hours. My back felt like it was about to snap.
Just as I was about to give up, the newest private from 4th Squad shouted.
"Private Park! Over here!”
"What is it? You found it?”
"I think this is it, sir.”
I hurried over. There really was a business card. I quickly took it and looked it over.
[Bright Mind Psychiatric Hosptial.]
[Keep this in your upper pocket.]
"......?"
It was a business card for a psychiatric hospital. The director’s name was printed on it, but, strangely enough, there was no phone number.
"Huh? What is this?”
For a business card, there was almost no information on it, and why was it telling me to keep it in my upper pocket?
"I have no idea.”
"Still……thanks. I’ll stop by the Post exchange tonight and buy you something.”
"Thank you, sir!”
Whether this was the right card or not, I’d found one.
* * *
That night.
Relentless Demon was built scratching at the athlete’s foot on the soles of his feet, nearby.
The reason everyone called him Relentless Demon was because of this relentless scratching.
The insane bastard would scrape flakes of skin from his disgusting, hole-riddled fungal infection onto his blanket, then shake them onto the bedding of soldiers junior to him. And if anyone so much as looked disgusted? The next day, they’d be treated to a ‘liver shot festival’ behind the boiler room.
'That fucking psycho.'
I’d put up with it for months. Now the newest recruit was the one suffering.
"What? Too disgusting for you?”
"No, Corporal!”
"It totally grosses you out, doesn’t it?”
"No, Corporal!”
"Then I guess you won’t mind catching it too, huh?”
"......"
"Kekeke!”
Thinking that I had to deal with that damn athlete's foot demon somehow, I slipped the business card into my upper pocket.
"1st Squad, lights out. Good night!”
-Click.
I fell asleep almost instantly as the lights went out.
* * *
I opened my eyes.
"......?"
An unfamiliar ceiling greeted me. I was lying on a simple bed made from a steel frame.
"Wh-what?”
I wasn’t even wearing my fatigues anymore.
"A patient gown?”
Only then did I realize my surroundings looked like an old hospital ward.
-Bzzt. Bzzt.
The fluorescent light overhead flickered weakly, as if it might die at any second.
I desperately tried to make sense of the situation.
'Did they move me to a military hospital while I was asleep…?’
Everything around me looked like a hospital room, so that was the only conclusion I could come to. But this didn’t feel like a military facility.
The place was old and musty.
Then I heard a knock, making me jump.
-Knock, knock.
The visitor didn’t wait for a response.
The door opened immediately.
A grotesque-looking nurse stepped inside.
I couldn’t see any facial features beneath the bandages wrapped around her head. Her arms and legs were unnaturally long. She was so tall her head nearly brushed the ceiling.
A chill ran down my spine.
But her voice was gentle.
"Patient? The Inspector would like to speak with you."
Fear left my mind completely blank. Even so, there was no way I could bring myself to resist that horrifying thing.
"Y-yes."
If I refused, those impossibly long fingernails at the end of her shriveled fingers looked more than capable of tearing me to pieces.
As if under a spell, I followed after her.
"This way."
While following the nurse, I finally realized where I was. A psychiatric hospital.
I spotted a sign that read ‘Bright Mind Psychiatric Hospital.’
"...!"
Bright Mind Psychiatric Hospital… That was the exact name printed on the business card, wasn’t it?
What was happening?
Even as goosebumps crawled across my skin, I desperately tried to think, but before I could figure anything out, I found myself standing before a massive mahogany door.
"Go inside. The Inspector is waiting for you.”
I did as I was told. The moment I stepped through, I nearly collapsed, foaming at the mouth.
Because of the thing waiting inside.
A figure wrapped in layer upon layer of yellowed clothing.
They weren’t ordinary clothes. They were psychiatric straitjackets. Filthy, yellowed with age, and stained. Dozens of them layered together.
Between the restraints, patches of human flesh peeked through. One section looked like someone else’s arm. Another looked like a leg. It was as though pieces of countless different people had been stitched together into one enormous mass.
On the desk before it sat a nameplate reading ‘Inspector.’ Then the grotesque mass spoke.
"Welcome, Park Minho-nim.”
I was so terrified I could barely answer. Why was the monster standing before me speaking like a courteous gentleman?
And yet for some reason, I didn't faint. Not even with such a creature right in front of me.
It was almost as if I’d experienced something like this before.
It was an incredibly weird sensation.
The inspector bared a mouthful of yellow, horrifying teeth as it spoke.
"At present, Park Minho-nim, you have become caught in the effects of Floor 15. And coming to this hospital was an excellent decision.”
I couldn't make sense of what it was saying.
Summoning every ounce of courage I had, I forced myself to speak. My instincts told me this conversation was important. I couldn’t just stand here trembling like an idiot.
"...What exactly is Floor 15?”
The flesh monster wrapped in straitjackets seemed impressed by my composure.
"Hoh…As expected of someone with such extraordinary potential. To remain capable of holding a conversation before me without being consumed by fear! Under normal circumstances, that would hardly be difficult for the real Park Minho-nim, but your current condition is quite different.”
"What do you mean?”
"To be honest, I wasn’t certain we’d even be able to converse. If you’d collapsed screaming, we would have had no choice but to begin the treatment procedure, regrettably.”
I had no idea what this treatment procedure involved, but it sounded utterly horrifying. All I could think was how fortunate I was to have avoided it.
"What do you mean…?”
"First, allow me to answer your question. You are an explorer traveling through the Backrooms. This time, you entered Floor 15. Do you remember being engulfed in a brilliant white light?”
The monster known as the Inspector looked at me expectantly. I frowned as I searched my memory. Then something surfaced.
"A brilliant white light……”
The inspector nodded.
"Correct. That is the typical phenomenon experienced when passing from one Backrooms floor to another. You did prepare yourself. Unfortunately the anomalous property of Floor 15 had intensified even further, and so the floor swallowed you whole.”
"......."
"You temporarily lost your sense of self. You were no longer the explorer Park Minho. You became one of the people reconstructed from the Abandoned Military Base.”
I still couldn’t fully understand.
But another question rose to the surface.
"What happens if you get discharged?”
Sergeant Ma Ilho had feared being discharged. The very thing every soldier should have been desperately waiting for. The inspector answered calmly.
"If you are discharged…you become an entity of Floor 15. You will be reduced to a permanent component of the floor itself.”
"......."
"So, you must accomplish it before you're discharged.”
"Accomplish what?”
The Inspector gave an answer I never could have expected.
"Desert. And not just by yourself. Take your comrades with you.”
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