Chapter 7
[Private Post]
“Huh.”
A guestbook where you can see gallery users’ past posts and comments.
In the guestbook I checked for the first time today….
으아들이대 - If you’re a woman, please leave a comment in my guestbook
갇혔어요집에 - You alive? You alive? You alive? You alive? You alive? You alive? You alive? You alive? You alive?
[Private Post] Newbie, send me your bank account so we can split the profits - WhiteHacker
[Private Post] This is about the gallery - 관리를관리
A few users’ comments and two private posts had been registered.
One of them didn’t need to be read right away.
I steeled myself and clicked the private post left by the head mod.
[This is about the gallery]
Author: 관리를관리
As you may have noticed, the Administration Bureau gallery cannot be entered through normal means.
Most of the people who remain in the gallery are already dead.
I don’t know why dead people from the Administration Bureau can gather here, so just keep that in mind.
As for the remaining few, it would be better for you not to know who they are.
Because it could put 갤질참쉽죠 in danger, please stop digging into it.
There is no human among the current gallery users who can meet you in person.
Please think of the gallery only as a tool to help with Administration Bureau work.
If even a hint of what I’ve said leaks into the gallery, you will be permanently banned on the spot.
“I expected it, but I didn’t think it’d be this much.”
The information imbalance around that rights-waiving hiring process, the strangely mismatched point of their conversations and mine.
Was it because they weren’t alive to begin with?
“Then what are these guys?”
If you’re a woman, please leave a comment in my guestbook
으아들이대, who went on and on every day about getting dumped by women, as if his dick ruled his brain.
[Private Post] Newbie, send me your bank account so we can split the profits.
WhiteHacker, who physically helped me in a gallery that supposedly had no living people.
What were these two?
Were these the people he said it would be best not to know the identities of?
Smack!
As useless thoughts began to grow, I slapped both cheeks hard with my palms.
“Agh….”
My old man used to say.
Don’t cling too much to things you can’t solve.
If you’re going to spend time and energy on something you can’t change right now, use it somewhere else.
I never thought something I heard when I was a snot-nosed kid would help me now.
I switched off the mental switch in my head and threw myself onto the soft bed.
What I needed, having been out of the Backrooms for less than half a day, was rest.
“…Ah, the account….”
I fell asleep thinking I should’ve replied to WhiteHacker’s comment asking me to leave my bank account number.
.
.
.
Pa-pa pa-pa-pa pa-para-pa-pa pa-pa-pa-pa pa-pa-pa
“What the fuck! Which asshole set the military wake-up bugle as the dorm alarm!”
I woke up with a horrible feeling.
7:00 a.m.
If I’d known this was the alarm that rings an hour before work starts, I would’ve asked them to turn it off in advance.
I tried to open the gallery to clear my foul mood, but noticed another icon lit up.
“Admin KakaoTalk?”
It seemed to be the company’s internal chat messenger.
This company has absolutely terrible naming sense….
[Morning break. Come to the office after lunch.]
I had a message from Team Leader Lee Mina, whom I’d exchanged numbers with yesterday.
“What kind of profile pic is this…?”
Her profile picture was grotesque.
Blood-soaked, with a gigantic hammer resting on her shoulder, and she’s doing a gyaru peace sign.
Her expressionless face and the decayed-house background combined to give it an indescribable, eerie vibe.
I should ask her later, once we’re closer.
I was dying to know what in the world the situation was, but I decided we weren’t close enough to ask something like that.
[Confirmed.]
I sent a brief confirmation text.
Then the 1 disappeared immediately, followed by a reply.
[Ah, by any chance, do you play mobile games? The kind with character gacha.]
What was this suddenly about?
[Yes. I have one I’ve played since before I joined the company.]
[Good. Install the game on your device and come back after patching it too.]
What the hell?
It was nice not having morning duties, but I had no idea how to interpret that meaningless request.
The gallery was the place for situations like this.
[By any chance, is there an entity related to gacha games?]
Author: 갤질참쉽죠
My boss asked me not to come in this morning and just play gacha games.
I said yes without thinking, and now they’re telling me to install the game on my device and come in this afternoon.
This isn’t flirting, so it can’t be that. Is it a death flag?
[Comments]
Wassyo! Wassyo! Wassyo! Wassyo! Wassyo! Wassyo!
Moderator, bring the booze and the doghouse at once!
Backrooms next, and now a luck-based trash game, lololol
Comments full of ominous reactions.
Somehow, my bad premonitions were always right.
(Author)갤질참쉽죠 : Don’t just sit there cackling—explain it to me.
ㄴ 게이괴이게이야 : If you’re an Administration Bureau employee, you should be able to infer that much.
ㄴ(Author)갤질참쉽죠 : No, I figured they told me to install it because it was related to gacha games. What else would it be?
ㄴ게이괴이게이야 : That’s all there is to it. If you’re lucky, you die. If you’re unlucky, you live.
What the hell does that mean.
Die if you’re lucky, live if you’re unlucky.
Isn’t it usually the other way around?
HuntingDog : I’ve never seen that one myself, but I heard from a coworker that it’s the pity ceiling? They said you absolutely have to hit it once before going in.
ㄴ지박령1호 : Your friend’s pretty sharp.
ㄴ사냥개 : But he died to that thing.
ㄴ지박령1호 : Aw, too bad.
So that’s what they meant.
Piecing together the fragmented information from the comments, I could guess the characteristics of the thing I’d be meeting in the afternoon.
So there’s no way that bastard is going to make it to a tea shop.
***
Knock, knock
“Come in.”
When I opened the door to the Field Response Team office, Team Leader Lee Mina was the only one there.
“Good afternoon.”
“Really? If I were Seongbin, I’d have been grinding my teeth and cursing you to no end.”
“It’s work hours, so working is only natural.”
“Is that so?”
I mentally swallowed the words, “I think the fact that you gave me time to respond puts you in the top 65%.”
“Sit down for now. Take out your device.”
I sat down and looked at Lee Mina’s face.
She was definitely older than me if she was a team leader.
Looking at her dazed expression, she just didn’t seem like a superior at all.
Maybe you only get to be team leader if you don’t even react to most things.
“Today Seongbin will be handling entity management with five N-grade agents.”
“N-grade personnel?”
“Yes. Any problem?”
“Yesterday you definitely said I was an employee….”
“Ah, that.”
During yesterday’s interrogation, Lee Mina definitely said this to me:
‘Congratulations on surviving. And welcome to the Field Response Team, Park Seongbin.’
That meant she recognized me as a member of the Field Response Team.
But was that just lip service?
Snatch.
Lee Mina suddenly stretched out both arms, pulled my hand toward her, and wrapped both hers around the back of my hand.
“I consider you a proper employee, Seongbin.”
Though the only difference was our sex, the feel of her skin on the back of my hand was on another level.
What was this feeling?
Could it be that I wasn’t human at all, and was really one of the N-grade personnel?
Otherwise, how could a person’s skin be this soft….
“Seongbin?”
“Y-yes? Yes, I’m listening.”
Squeeze
Her hand, which had been stroking the back of my hand, tightened.
At the same time, Lee Mina began kneading my hand in earnest.
“However, the Administration Bureau still can’t accept Seongbin as a full-fledged employee yet.”
Damn that rights-waiving hiring process.
You hired people through that thing, so what do you want me to do if you can’t even trust them?
“So come back alive.”
“Team Leader….”
I was moved.
My first impression of her had been terrible, but what did that matter?
She was looking after me and taking care of me like this right now!
Ah, Team Leader, if I’m with you, any task at all….
“Seongbin has to come back alive before I can hand over any of my work.”
Cancel that last thing I said.
“Is that so?”
“Why do you think I’m the only one in such a big department? It’s because everyone else is out in the field.”
I loved her.
From now on, survival is all that matters to me.
“Have you installed the game on your device?”
“Yes.”
“Mmm~ I really hope you’re terribly unlucky, Seongbin.”
Saying that, she held out a document.
“Read it and go to the quarantine room. Overtime gift.”
++++
[Entity Report]
Why Are You Luckier Than Me?
Rank - Level 2
Classification - Entity Type
[Photo of a tablet running a mobile game]
‘Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’ is a tablet discovered in 2023 in an apartment in XX-dong, Daegu.
The site we went to after receiving a report that the tablet killed people was already a scene of three casualties.
Sensing the Field Response Team, ‘Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’ forced them to do gacha pulls in whatever mobile game they were playing.
Of the five dispatched personnel, the two who refused were [CENSORED].
The three personnel afterward [CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED].
Even after being brought into the Administration Bureau, it continues to periodically demand people who will do gacha pulls.
About 20 N-grade personnel per day on average are needed for the entity to produce the result it wants.
++++
If you censor this much, what’s even the point of the report?
“Team Leader, most of this document’s information isn’t visible.”
“Ah, that’s normal. There are quite a few things you can’t see if your rank is too low.”
So you knew and still gave it to me.
“But I came in as team leader from the very start…. So I have no idea what I can’t see?”
So you gave it to me without knowing, you smug show-off.
“Still, it’s better than knowing nothing, so when you come back alive, remember I get a cut too, okay?”
“I’ll definitely come back alive so we can split the work, Team Leader.”
“Yeees~.”
After exchanging a light greeting with Lee Mina, I headed to the quarantine room where ‘Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’ was being held.
“When’s the next person coming? Nobody’s succeeded today.”
Squelch, squelch, squelch
“They look like they’re in a bad mood today. Isn’t the next person going to die too?”
“Who knows. It all depends on their own luck.”
In front of the quarantine room I’d arrived at, other employees were joking around while putting a headless corpse into a body bag.
And maybe, just maybe.
The thought crossed my mind that I might end up in one of those body bags
with its mouth gaping open.