WETRIED TRANSLATIONS
The Legendary Newbie of the Ghost Story Labyrinth
[Translator – Aren]
Chapter 97 - Floor 23 (3)
With a heavy metallic clank, Gu Bonjae stepped forward, casting an enormous shadow.
Park Minho had grown somewhat accustomed to his appearance, but objectively speaking, Gu Bonjae looked so vicious that even most entities couldn’t compare.
He stood at 2.5 meters with a hunched back and pitch-black skin. In places where his flesh had been torn away, wires and tubes were grotesquely tangled over the exposed red muscle.
Above all, the two additional arms protruding from his shoulders and the sharp tools fused all over his body made him look like a demon that had walked straight out of hell.
Even the Molting Church members who had been rampaging around and hunting the survivors moments ago recoiled in horror at his overwhelming presence.
"What the hell is that monster?!”
"Who lured it here?!”
Park Minho and Ivan followed behind Gu Bonjae as well.
There were seven Molting Church members in total.
Every one of them wore a gray robe stained with blood and dust, and pinned to their chests were grotesque cicada brooches depicting the insect shedding its shell.
There were no two-headed crow brooches signifying high-ranking officers, so they appeared to be ordinary believers.
Their anomalous abilities had also been sealed, and since they had lost their belongings upon entering Floor 23, they were only armed with things like wooden clubs and kitchen knives.
In short, the conditions were even.
That meant victory would depend on each individual’s physique and combat ability. Under circumstances like these, Ivan held an overwhelming advantage.
“I don’t know who these bastards are, but stop them!”
The Molting Chruch members charged while swinging their wooden clubs. Their gleaming eyes were filled with murderous intent.
-Whoosh!
The fanatic at the front swung his club as though he intended to smash Ivan’s skull in.
But Ivan’s gaze remained cold as ice. He effortlessly read the trajectory of the incoming blow and slipped past the club with a clean sidestep.
Then he immediately threw a hook.
-Crack!
His fist connected with the man’s jaw, accompanied by the sound of breaking bone. Before the bastard could even scream, his eyes went unfocused and he collapsed onto the concrete.
From the beginning, members of the Molting Church were no match for Ivan, a human weapon forged through countless real battles.
"Graah!”
At that moment, one of the Molting Church members swung a kitchen knife at Park Minho.
It was an extremely dangerous situation, but Park Minho remained calm. He hadn’t spent years training martial arts like Ivan, but he had already survived all kinds of life-threatening situations.
Compared to those, a fanatic with a kitchen knife was almost cute.
Park Minho swung the wooden club in his hand and struck the man squarely on the wrist.
-Thud!
The moment he was hit, the man dropped the kitchen knife and screamed.
"Aagh!”
But Park MInho showed no mercy. He immediately brought the club down on the man’s forehead.
-Thud!
The Molting church bastard’s eyes rolled back as he collapsed. Park Minho felt something cave in and briefly wondered if he might have killed him, but he didn’t care.
Meanwhile, Gu Bonjae was facing off against the monster dog.
"Rraaaaah!”
The monster dog opened its lamprey-like mouth wide at Gu Bonjae. But if anything, it looked like a frightened dog barking loudly out of fear.
"Hah, look at this bastard. Guess you’ve never been beaten before!”
Gu Bonjae pulled a thick iron chain out from inside his arm.
-Cliiiink.
His body seemed to contain all sorts of things, like a walking toolbox.
Gu Bonjae threw the chain like a cowboy casting a lasso and ensnared the monstrous dog in a single move. Then he began hauling it toward himself with all his strength.
Once its body was bound, the monster dog thrashed desperately, but Gu Bonkae merely laughed heartily.
"You little rascal! Look at you going wild because you’re scared. How cute!”
Apparently realizing that struggling in place wasn’t going to work, the monster dog stopped resisting the pull and charged straight at Gu Bonjae.
"Roooooaaar!”
But Gu Bonjae had four hands. With one of the hands that wasn’t pulling the chain, he seized the monstrous dog by the scruff of its neck.
Then he smashed its head with the power hammer attached to his left hand.
The repeated impacts from the power hammer knocked every last one of the monster dog’s vicious teeth out. Yellowed teeth were rolling in every direction.
Eventually, the remaining Molting Church members turned and began to flee. Three managed to escape, while the other four were captured by Park Minho’s group.
The monster dog included.
The survivors, who joined them belatedly, completely lost it and began beating the fallen Molting Church members.
-Thud! Smack!
"You fucking pieces of shit!”
"Nicole! Aaagh! Nicole died because of you bastards!”
They looked ready to beat them to death on the spot, so Park Minho hurriedly had to stop them. He still had questions he needed to get out of these captives.
"Calm down."
"Move! You Asian bastard!"
However, perhaps because one of their companions had died, they simply couldn’t calm down. In the end, Ivan had to step in.
"You lot would all be dead if we hadn’t helped, yet you still don’t know your place. Back off.”
Only then, faced with his sharp intimidation, did the survivors seem to come to their senses.
-Thud!
At that moment, Gu Bonjae threw the unconscious monster dog onto the ground, making the survivors flinch and retreat in fear. Even so, they couldn’t hide their suspicion.
"Why are humans traveling around with an entity?”
"Are you people like the Molting Church as well?”
Park Minho stepped forward.
"No. We have a few questions to ask. Is that all right?”
"Will you let us go if we answer…?”
"Of course."
First, he asked whether they knew why the Molting Church had suddenly begun hunting survivors.
However, they all shook their heads.
"......We have no idea. Those cultists used to pass through Floor 23, but they treated the survivors like we weren’t even there. Apparently, they tried proselytizing in the past, but I guess it didn’t go very well, because they haven’t done that lately either.”
Park Minho had an idea about that and whispered quietly to Ivan.
"It really does look like they’re trying to block off the hidden routes.”
"I think so too, Minho-nim. They’re probably trying to wipe out every survivor who might know about one.”
Considering how obsessively the Molting Church was currently trying to seal every route leading to Floor 24, it was a reasonable conclusion.
However, the survivors’ next testimony left both of them puzzled.
"A huge Molting Chruch branch was recently established on Floor 23.”
"Really?”
"Yes. It seems that monster dog lying over there is managed by them as well.”
"Do you have any idea why?”
"...No. There’s nothing valuable on Floor 23, so that only made it even harder to understand.”
"Do you know where the branch is?”
"I’ve only heard rumors, so I don’t know the exact location.”
Park Minho fell into thought.
'Did they gather that many people here just to block the existing passages…? Or is there some other reason?’
Park Minho asked one final question.
"Do any of you know of an uncontrolled hidden route leading to Floor 24? Even a clue related to one?”
The survivors talked among themselves before they all shook their heads.
"I’ve never heard of one.”
"Neither have I.”
Park Minho glanced at Ivan. He was skilled at judging whether someone was lying from their behavior. Apparently, that was because he had worked for an intelligence agency called SVR before coming to the Backrooms.
Ivan gave a slight nod.
It was a signal that they didn’t seem to be lying.
Park Minho told the survivors they were free to leave.
"Understood. You can go now.”
"...Thank you for saving us.”
The survivors hurried away. They were grateful for being saved, but it seemed they were still afraid of Park Minho’s group because they were traveling with an entity.
Once the survivors had left, Gu Bonjae, who had remained silent until then, offered his opinion.
"Hmm……This may be a hasty conclusion, but this old man thinks there’s something going on at the Molting Church branch.”
Park Minho nodded as well.
"I think so too. Something about it feels suspicious. Ivan, what do you think?”
"I think it would be worth investigating. It doesn’t look like we’ll have much luck getting information about hidden routes from the survivors anyway.”
Park Minho pointed toward the Molting Church members sprawled across the ground and asked,
"We’ll have to make these guys talk if we want to know the location. Can you do it?”
However, Ivan said it wouldn’t be easy.
"If we had anomalous abilities, perhaps, but it’ll be difficult to make fanatics talk through physical torture alone. Still, I’ll give it a try.”
But fanatics weren’t called fanatics for nothing.
Ivan dragged over an abandoned chair, tied them up, and subjected them to various forms of torture, yet they continued screaming defiantly until the very end.
"Unbelievers! You think this will make us talk?!”
"We do not fear the destruction of our flesh. We need only shed our husks!”
"Gyaaaaagh! Just kill me instead!”
In wuxia novels, they would use the Eight Extraordinary Meridians to inflict pain no one could possibly endure, so it was unfortunate we had no such methods here.
Then Gu Bonjae extended one of his enormous, pot-sized hands and crushed one of the fanatics’ heads outright.
-Crunch. Crack!
The skull caved in, squeezing out the brain.
"Mister."
Apparently, watching them had pissed him off so much that he couldn’t take it anymore.
However, Gu Bonjae unexpectedly said something else.
"There’s no point wasting time on these useless bastards. We have a better way. Old Yellow here says he’ll guide us.”
"......What?"
Wondering what he meant, Park Minho looked over and saw that Gu Bonjae had already chained up the monster dog, which had regained consciousness, and was leading it around like a pet.
The thing was larger than a tiger, but standing beside the massive Gu Bonjae, it somehow really did look like his pet dog.
"Old Yellow?”
"Kahaha, I felt a little bad for beating him up so badly, so I gave him a name. I asked him, and Old Yellow says he knows where his home is.”
The human face of the monster dog was swollen black and blue, yet it was wagging its canine tail furiously.
Apparently, the Molting Church’s fanatical faith meant little to this creature. All it cared about was sucking up to its new master, Gu Bonjae.
"You can communicate with it?”
"Surprisingly enough, maybe because we’re both entities, we can understand each other.”
Neither Park Minho nor Ivan could communicate with the monster dog at all, but Gu Bonjae was different.
The Molting Church members watching this completely lost their minds.
"You ungrateful beast!”
"Have you forgotten who raised you?!”
However, Gu Bonjae crushed every last one of them beneath his enormous hands, silencing them forever.
"Don’t pay them any mind, Old Yellow.”
"Woof!”
"Good. Now show us where your home is.”
Old Yellow took the lead, dragging his chain along as if telling them to leave everything to him.
"Woof, woof!”
His eagerness to curry favor with his new master was already painfully obvious.
Guided by Old Yellow, they finally reached the Molting Church members’ hideout around noon the following day.
"For now, we’ll just observe. Let’s not do anything rash.”
The others agreed with Park Minho. From a position where they wouldn’t be spotted, they observed the Molting Church’s Floor 23 branch.
The cultists had occupied a supermarket nestled among the abandoned apartment buildings, and just as they had heard, there were quite a lot of them.
There were even several of those extremely dangerous monster dogs.
Gu Bonjae watched them and muttered.
"Fortunately, those Old Yellow lookalikes don’t actually have dog noses, so their sense of smell isn’t anything special. We shouldn’t have to worry about being discovered while we’re hiding.”
Because they had human heads instead of dog heads, their sense of smell was apparently no different from a human’s.
"That’s a relief. Let’s keep watching for now.”
There were too many of them to simply storm the place like that. If they kept observing, they might uncover some kind of clue, though.
Then they spotted something far more significant than expected.
"No, wait.”
Someone who looked like a high-ranking officer at a glance appeared at the Molting Church branch, accompanied by bodyguards.
And Park Minho recognized him.
"Seol Suhyeok?”
There was no doubt about it. It was Seol Suhyeok.
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