Chapter 6

‘New merchandise?’

And if it meant that a new usage permission had been unlocked, then it seemed like I could use another one of the pieces of merchandise I’d purchased.

‘What determines when they unlock?’

I wanted to click the notebook floating impossibly in midair right away, but then I realized I was still sitting in the middle of the lecture hall.

The host had even called me out as the top performer and whatnot, so there were people sneaking glances at me.

‘I’ll leave the room first and check.’

The event seemed to be over, so I could just go home and—

Wait.

I suddenly realized something extremely important.

“…….”

Did I even have a home here?

I hurriedly opened my smartphone and started checking my records.

All traces of me getting a job and working had vanished as though they’d never existed.

Even my family contacts were completely gone.

‘Oh, come on. Please.’

The only things left were records from my university days, which were similar enough to what I remembered that I felt relieved for a moment.

The problem was… I’d lived in a dormitory during college.

‘That’s why I had such a hard time after graduation when my plans got messed up while I was trying to find a place of my own.’

Sure enough, the most recent records consisted of messages arranging appointments to look at rooms at real estate agencies, along with KakaoTalk messages from a friend saying they’d been staying at a motel because their studio apartment contract had fallen through….

“…….”

I unconsciously raised my eyes and looked at the lecture hall’s screen, which was still displayed.

More precisely, I focused on one line at the bottom.

[Employee Benefits — Other]

Company Housing Support

I guess I should make good use of the benefits, right?

---

And this “company housing support” was processed astonishingly quickly.

“Oh, hello!”

“Hello.”

Within an hour of asking at the desk, I had been assigned a room number and given a key and an address.

I headed there immediately, and the location was even pretty decent.

Of course, it probably wasn’t out of the goodness of their hearts or a desire to make things convenient for employees.

‘If they’re going to work us to the bone twenty-four hours a day with no days off, I guess they need their indentured servants living nearby….’

Anyway, the building was a fairly nice officetel.

It looked newly renovated, was clean, and had decent security.

Considering that “company housing support” was usually a benefit provided for employees working away from their hometowns, this was an absurdly generous perk.

But….

‘The company literally just put us through a death survival game. Who the hell would willingly move in?’

Unfortunately, that sarcastic thought became reality.

When I ran into Go Yeong-eun in front of the officetel and exchanged greetings, she said:

“Did you hear? Apparently seven people got company housing.”

“……?”

That was more than half of us.

Come to think of it, Go Yeong-eun seemed to be here to move in too.

Perhaps she noticed me looking at her, because she gave me an awkward expression.

“It is a little scary, but we’ve already joined the company. Turning down a free officetel near a subway station would feel a little….”

“……Yeah.”

Right.

In capitalism, money was the scariest thing of all.

‘If I’m saving about 1.2 million won a month, I can see why someone would pretend they’re crazy and move in.’

Of course, there was an even more important reason.

“Apparently, people who came up from the provinces were given the information and registered as soon as they passed.”

“I see.”

Now I understood what had happened.

The new employees who had enthusiastically accepted the job and said okay couldn’t exactly back out anymore.

I had wondered how they’d managed to get a room ready for me so quickly.

Now I had a pretty good guess.

‘Was the room I was given just vacated by one of the new employees who failed that death survival game?’

The fact that this thought sent a chill down my spine was honestly embarrassing.

Anyway, after saying goodbye to Go Yeong-eun, I went up to the twelfth floor, where my room was.

Everything was fine up to that point.

The problem was that the officetel was a two-bedroom apartment.

And my company housing roommate was Baek Sa-heon.

“…….”

“…….”

Baek Sa-heon was sitting in the living room.

He was wearing a medical eye patch over one eye, so apparently he’d received some kind of treatment.

Given how little time had passed, it seemed the company had treated him somehow rather than sending him to a hospital.

I didn’t bother talking to him.

I simply gave him a small nod and was about to find my room when—

“Hey.”

What?

“Hey?”

I stopped walking.

Baek Sa-heon flinched when I actually responded, but apparently his anger was stronger than his hesitation.

He glared at me without holding anything back.

“Must’ve been pretty damn entertaining, watching me get my perfectly good eye gouged out when you knew there was a lost item sitting right there, huh?”

Apparently, he’d convinced himself that I’d deliberately let him lose his eye even though I knew perfectly well that the actual lost item was there.

‘He just ran out on his own. What the hell does he want from me?’

Where did he even get the novel idea that he could punch someone else’s eyeball out with his fist, but somehow I was supposed to take care of his eye for him?

At the same time, though, I understood something.

If I took a submissive approach and said things like, ‘No, that’s not what happened. You suddenly left…’ or ‘Why are you suddenly speaking informally, sir…?’

he’d probably become even more emboldened and start spouting more nonsense.

After years of dealing with difficult clients, there was a term for people like Baek Sa-heon.

The so-called Creation-of-Heaven-and-Earth Type difficult customer.

Someone who imagined an entire situation however they pleased and stubbornly insisted that their version was reality.

You couldn’t reason with people like that.

Instead….

“Yeah. It was pretty fun.”

“…!”

The answer was to come on strong.

I walked straight toward Baek Sa-heon.

Then I grabbed his shoulder firmly.

“Thanks. I really enjoyed it. Is this what they call dopamine?”

“Wh—”

“Give me more good news in the future. No, actually, I’d love to work with you.”

“…….”

“Working here is going to be fun.”

There.

‘That should make me look like a complete lunatic.’

Judging from his behavior so far and his exploits in Dark Exploration Records….

‘The moment Baek Sa-heon realizes I’m a coward, he’s probably the kind of guy who’d throw me straight into danger.’

If that was the case, it would be better to give him the impression of, ‘Oh, I should stay the hell away from this guy.’

‘A little bluffing, while I’m at it.’

I patted Baek Sa-heon’s shoulder a couple of times as he fell silent.

Then I stood up and headed toward my room without looking back.

‘As long as he doesn’t stab me in my sleep, I’ll be fine.’

Actually, I’d bluffed a little just now.

The odds of us working together at this point were extremely low.

What company would put a bunch of new employees together and have them work as a team?

They’d split them all up and assign them separately.

On top of that, assignments seemed to be balanced out like some ninja manga, distributing people evenly according to their evaluation scores.

And regardless, I’d been called first, while Baek Sa-heon had been called second.

‘He must’ve also received a high score, so it’s even less likely that we’d end up on the same team.’

So we wouldn’t have to work together for a while.

Let’s just pretend the other doesn’t exist.

Click.

I entered my assigned room with a lighter heart.

“Phew.”

The clean room had what looked like freshly replaced bedding, a desk, and even a door leading to a private bathroom.

There was even an information booklet hanging on the door.

“If I apply, they replace the bedding and provide cleaning services every week for 100,000 won a month?”

The company’s absurd level of benefits was starting to make its intentions obvious.

They were trying to overwhelm the new employees with a barrage of carrots.

A surprisingly clean and friendly reality, as though the death survival game we’d just experienced had never happened, would probably leave quite a few new employees confused.

Of course, knowing why the company was doing this made its intentions painfully obvious to me.

‘Yeah. It must be hard to recruit enough people who are actually useful for the Field Exploration Team.’

‘These new employees have been judged capable of doing the job. The company wants to make sure none of them run away.’

‘Well, if they’re giving it to me, I might as well use it.’

I’d already decided to stay, after all.

There was even a small welcome gift package on the desk.

Expensive snacks and office supplies bearing the company logo.

And inside a half-open drawer, I found a diary.

The company logo was also printed on the cover, so it seemed to be another company-issued item.

‘But this was made for last year.’

Had the previous person living here left it behind?

I flipped through the diary.

And on the first page, there was a huge message.

—RUN.

‘Good grief.’

Thank you for the senior employee’s heartfelt words of wisdom, but I’m already doomed.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t even that scared.

‘It’s just… the brutal history of an office worker, isn’t it?’

For some reason, I felt a little more faith in humanity.

I closed the diary and carefully put it back in the drawer.

I’d checked everything worth looking at.

Maybe I should get to what I actually needed to do.

[Dark Exploration Records Real Goods Box]

**—New merchandise usage permission unlocked! (!) **

Now that I was alone, I could finally check it!

‘Phew.’

I sat on the edge of the bed and reached toward the notebook in a comfortable position, my heart trembling with anticipation.

Tap.

Just like when it had spat out the Memorial Grip, the notebook opened, and something fell out from inside.

It was an OPP transparent plastic package.

Inside the kind of bag commonly used to package stationery was a bundle of stickers.

“This is….”

I lifted the plastic.

A sticker featuring a yellow circle with a stereotypical smiling emoji drawn on it.

The so-called bribe item.

======================

Dark Exploration Records / Daydream Inc.

/ Item

Smile Sticker

A sales employee’s best friend! 🙂

When attached to an intelligent being, it causes them to feel a mild sense of friendliness toward the user.

Item usage requirement: Permanent employees of Daydream Inc. or higher-ranking personnel.

(P.S. Using it for inappropriate personal purposes, such as picking up dates, will result in disciplinary action.)

======================

“Whoa.”

These cheaply packaged stickers, with barely any finishing to speak of, were surprisingly iconic items that appeared in several parts of Dark Exploration Records.

Making someone feel friendly toward you?

It was basically manipulating their favorability.

‘Wasn’t it used when persuading people from other organizations to cooperate?’

And now I understood why this particular item had been unlocked.

Item usage requirement: Permanent employees of Daydream Inc. or higher-ranking personnel.

In Dark Exploration Records, items created by organizations or specific groups were usually restricted so that only people of certain ranks or affiliations could use them.

From a worldbuilding perspective, this was meant to prevent people from recklessly smuggling them out.

‘And from the perspective of the people creating the horror stories, it was probably meant to prevent enthusiastic beginners from barging into all kinds of horror stories and randomly using every tool they could find like some Mary Sue causing everyone else trouble.’

Anyway, the fact that I now met that requirement meant….

‘If I get promoted or change affiliations, the Goods Box will spit out another piece of merchandise each time?’

It certainly seemed like something that could help me survive.

Though I really wished I hadn’t been dragged into this world in the first place.

Thinking about it that way, the Goods Box itself was starting to feel like a horror story.

‘Ugh.’

Feeling vaguely uneasy, I stared up at the glowing notebook a few times before forcing myself to think about something else.

“At least I got something.”

A Smile Sticker.

Having to physically stick it onto the other person was a little difficult, but the ability to win someone’s favor in a desperate situation was definitely useful.

There was just one problem.

‘…These definitely got discontinued after appearing a few times.’

The authors had nearly killed each other arguing over the sticker’s power, turning the comment section into a literal Colosseum with their tongues, until eventually the item itself disappeared into the annals of history….

I didn’t know exactly when it happened, but there was a possibility that the sticker set in my hands was the only one remaining in this entire world.

I looked down at the freshly packaged Smile Stickers with renewed seriousness.

Hmm.

I absolutely mustn’t let anyone find out about these.

Still, just in case, I put five stickers separately into the front pocket of my suit.

That way, I wouldn’t forget to bring them on my first day of work.

‘……Going to work.’

I was starting to feel strangely emotional, but for now, I needed to sleep.

After everything so spectacular and absurd that had happened, both my body and mind were completely exhausted.

‘I need to recover.’

I changed into the robe provided in the room, checked the locks, and went to bed.

It was my first rest since falling into the horror story.

To be honest, I didn’t sleep very well.

The sight of people literally bursting apart and the grotesquely transformed subway station kept replaying in my brain, fueled by my imagination and playing in surround sound.

I felt like I’d bought some kind of home-theater-exclusive speaker system.

Still, after about two days, I was at least able to recover enough to sleep despite being plagued by nightmares.

A few days passed like that.

I checked the small amount of savings in my bank account, somehow stretched it out to buy clothes and necessities, and prepared myself for everyday life.

Of course, I didn’t forget the most important thing.

‘I need to memorize all of it.’

Through the ‘Memorial Grip,’ I continued reading every Dark Exploration Records wiki page I’d previously seen, memorizing them until I could recall the information at the slightest prompt.

This was my lifeline.

And then Monday came around.

The day of my first day at

---

“…….”

Monday morning.

I headed toward the headquarters with a face that looked anything but refreshed.

I must have looked terrible, because Go Yeong-eun, whom I ran into on the way down from the officetel, was startled.

“Oh, Sol-eum, are you okay? D-did you not sleep well?”

“…A little. Yes, I’m fine.”

“Oh dear….”

The two new employees walked the fifteen minutes to the headquarters, making a little small talk along the way.

We also ran into several other new Field Exploration Team employees, all of whom had tense expressions on their faces, but we merely exchanged nods.

Then we scanned our employee IDs and got into the elevator.

“I heard the Field Exploration Team uses floors ten through fifteen…. Ah, I’ll get off here. Sol-eum, let’s do our best together….”

“Yes. Fighting.”

I watched Go Yeong-eun get off on the tenth floor and looked at the floor number of the elevator button I’d pressed.

Thirteenth floor.

‘Even the number seems like it’s foreshadowing the future….’

I could only hope it was just my imagination.

I checked the assignment message I’d received the day before yesterday once again.

[New Employee (Field Exploration)_Assignment.pdf]

—Kim Sol-eum / Team D

Ding.

When the elevator doors opened on the thirteenth floor, I saw a hallway divided into sections marked with letters.

I found the automatic door labeled D, pressed the button, and greeted them at the same time.

“Hello.”

“Oh!”

“You’re here.”

Several men and women sitting in a fairly spacious office looked up and welcomed me.

One of the men stood up and extended his hand.

“Welcome to Team D, Fifteenth Class.”

A short-haired woman with an expressionless face standing behind him nodded and continued.

“Just so you know, D Team’s nickname is ‘The Team Where All the Newbies Die.’”

“…….”

“Just kidding.”

Should I quit right now?