Chapter 72: Room 101, Cursed Room – ‘Common Sense Renovating Media’ (6)
*
Fourth Attempt
*
[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)]
[Date: Day 23]
[Current Location: Floor 1, Room 101 (Cursed Room – Common Sense Renovating Media)]
[Sage’s Advice: 3]
*
Bang!
Exploring the upper floor was far easier than the basement.
Bang!
All I had to do was shoot everyone in sight, and honestly, it couldn’t have been more convenient. I received a gun from Songee and kept shooting, and somehow, I felt my marksman skills improving with every pull of the trigger.
I paused for a moment to replenish my blood supply.
What I discovered today was that we didn’t even need to draw our own blood to fill the pistol’s magazine. The entire TV Station was flooded with corpses, which meant we had all the blood we could ever want.
“Oh wow! Is that…”
Bang!
“Elen—”
Bang!
“…”
“Oh dear—”
Bang!
“…”
It seemed like being in a TV Station meant there were a few people here and there who recognized Elena. But they weren’t real people anyway, and the fact that they might approach us after realizing who she was made things even more dangerous.
So, we had no choice but to eliminate anyone in sight and press onward. Elena seemed startled at times but didn’t interfere.
People? No problem—just shoot them all. But where were we supposed to explore next?
“Elena, do you have any idea where we should search around ABS?”
“Based on what I know about the broadcast station, I think there might be hints hidden in the information you’ve discovered, Kain.”
“Something I discovered?”
“Didn’t you find ‘warnings’ in the guardhouse downstairs? There might be something similar up here.”
‘Warnings’? I wonder if there are any on the upper floors.
Now that I think about it, who exactly came up with those warnings?
I headed up to the second floor, making our way towards the offices. Most of the staff must have come down to check out the commotion and met their end. The office was deserted.
Once inside, I found a laminated sheet pinned to the wall, just as Elena had guessed.
1. You must only press one floor at a time in the elevator.
2. There are no floors between the 4th and 5th floors. Do not enter any unidentified floors and keep moving down.
3. Always knock on the 6th-floor restroom door before entering.
4. Under no circumstances should you go to the roof.
“Wow, they really do have warnings on the upper floors. Alright, let’s break them one by one, just like I did last time.”
As I was about to turn around, Songee grabbed my arm.
“Kain-oppa.”
“Yeah?”
“Is there any reason we should be the ones breaking the rules? Didn’t you mention monsters showed up whenever you turned around at the stairs? We might have something similar here.”
I got her point. I was alone during the basement exploration, but now we had a whole bunch of staff around.
We really didn’t have to take unnecessary risks, right?
Elena chimed in, “Songee’s got a point! There are tons of cameras around here as well. Let’s just ask one of the employees to break the rules while carrying a camera, and we can monitor things through the tablet.”
The Elena who once flinched at me shooting the workers had completely vanished. Now, she suggested we give a camera to the staff so they could die in our place!
But honestly? It sounded like a solid plan.
After about half an hour of bouncing ideas back and forth, we managed to sync the cameras with one of the tablets in the office.
Now, we just needed to find someone willing to put themselves in danger for us.
“How do we convince them? Should we threaten them with our guns?”
“Oppa, is a gun even a good scare tactic in a world where people laugh off murder?”
“Alright, I’ll give it a shot.”
Elena led us to the 4th floor. She moved like a pro, clearly having visited ABS several times before, unlike Songee and me.
It seems the chaos from the 1st floor hadn’t reached the 4th yet. As soon as we arrived, we found a crowd of people everywhere. Should I just shoot aimlessly? Who should I pick for this?
“Kain-ssi, just shoot everyone except for the ones I point out. You can take out anyone in sight.”
I fired at about four people standing nearby, and they quickly stopped breathing.
Once again, I was astonished by how the other employees stood there, watching their coworkers die, their faces lit up with intrigue.
That’s when Elena suddenly seized my arm.
“Don’t shoot the one coming out now. Songee?”
“Yes?”
“Can you hit me with that mental protection charm?”
The bracelet lit up, and Elena stepped forward to chat up the approaching man.
Three seconds into their conversation, I realized something. Based on their discussion, it seemed like the staff member had developed some… feelings for Elena.
Let’s just stop there. We all know how impossible unrequited love can be.
Whatever Elena said must have been sweet because the guy was practically glowing as he followed us.
As we reached the corridor, Elena quickly hooked up the camera to him.
“Alright, Jinwook-ssi! Can you go ahead to the elevator?”
“Of course! But, Elena? Mind telling me what you have prepared?”
“Oh! Wouldn’t it ruin the fun if I spoiled it now?”
What she had prepared was most likely a first-class ticket to hell for him.
“Uhoho! Was I a bit too naive to ask that?”
Once the guy stepped into the elevator, we decided to test out Rule #1: You must only press one floor at a time in the elevator.
“Jinwook-ssi! Can you press both the 3rd and 4th floors together?”
As soon as Elena suggested that, the guy froze.
“Jinwook-ssi?”
“Wh—what are you saying?! Didn’t you hear what the Sir said? You can never—”
He suddenly started rambling without taking a breath. “Sir?”
Oh right, he probably didn’t know the station’s ‘warnings’. “You see, you absolutely mustn’t press two floors in the elevator, like, ever! It’s strictly forbidden by the Sir.”
“Jinwook-ssi, who is this ‘Sir’ you’re going on about?”
Instead of answering her, the guy began to shake uncontrollably. He tore his clothes apart and bolted out of the elevator like a madman.
Bang!
Looks like we stumbled upon something we shouldn’t have touched.
A moment of silence passed between us.
“Elena-unni, do you have anyone else you can lure out?”
“There are a lot of them. However, it seems the staff can’t break the ‘warnings’ due to some internal restrictions.”
“Just grab someone else. This time, I’ll trick them.”
Going through the same process, Elena brought in another guy.
Just how many of these TV station employees had she bewitched? She was an aspiring actress, and judging by her vibe, she’d probably be a star if she had stayed in the real world.
This time, we didn’t even mention anything about breaking the rules.
We simply told the employee to step into the elevator after we pressed one of the buttons beforehand, and thanks to the bracelet’s influence, he pressed another button without a second thought.
Once the elevator doors shut, we quickly switched to the tablet to monitor the situation.
Inside the elevator turned pitch-black, as if someone had doused the lights.
Did he realize what was happening? The employee suddenly dropped to his knees and began wailing, “I-I’m sorry! Sir! Director! I’m so sorry! It was an accident! It was this fool’s mistake!”
He then started smashing himself against the elevator walls.
In no time, the camera broke. Just before the connection was lost, we glimpsed multiple white shapes emerging from the elevator doors.
*
“Should we give that another shot?”
“Let’s bring in someone different! And switch up the camera angle.”
We continued testing the consequences of ignoring the warnings.
*
1. You must only press one floor at a time in the elevator.
“It seems like it really does stop at a place that’s overflowing with nurse monsters, huh?”
“Upon reviewing the footage, I see some other rooms in the distance. It looks like the monsters are capturing the employees instead of outright killing them.”
“What do they do with them afterward?”
*
2. There are no floors in between the 4th and the 5th floors. Do not go into unidentified floors and keep going down.
“This is genuinely bizarre. When they go down or up, nothing happens at all.”
“But after going up and down a few times, an empty floor just appears out of nowhere.”
“What is this empty floor all about? Do you know anything about it, Miss Elena?”
“I’m sure there’s nothing like that in this TV Station.”
“Could this be another part of the ‘hospital’?”
“This place feels incredibly odd. There’s nothing here yet it’s so spacious. The employee’s just kneeling there, weeping as if he’s really sorry.”
“Wait, what’s that? Over there in the right corner!”
“It’s a massive eyeball!”
A gigantic eyeball was staring at us. Not at the employee; it was watching the camera.
Feeling sick, I quickly severed the link with that camera.
“It’s getting worse with every moment.”
“Let’s move on to the next one, oppa.”
*
3. Always knock on the door of the toilets on the 6th floor before going in.
“Ah, hell! Oops, sorry, that caught me off-guard.”
“Uh, he’s munching on his arm?”
“Amusing that you’re so nonchalant watching such a horrifying act, Miss Elena.”
“It practically feels like a movie since we’re viewing it on a tablet.”
“If you knock before going in, a normal person will step out, but without knocking, and you’re greeted by a flesh-eating monster. Remember that, oppa. Now, let’s check the last warning.”
*
4. Under no circumstances should you go to the roof.
“Songee?”
“Hold on a sec.”
…
“Is it not working?”
…
That’s strange. Up until now, Songee has been pretty good at controlling people with the bracelet, but now she’s having issues sending them to the rooftop.
No matter what she did, the employees with cameras around their necks simply hovered around the door to the roof and wouldn’t even attempt to open it.
“This is odd,” she mentioned.
“What does it feel like?”
“It’s like they can’t even perceive the door to the rooftop. This feeling is quite familiar….”
“Familiar?”
“I remember when I once tried to use the bracelet on you, Elena-unni, and couldn’t do anything because ‘Athanasia’ was controlling you. It feels just like that.”
“So, what happened next?”
…
Songee didn’t respond. Why was Elena asking such a thing?
“I think I’m starting to get the picture. It’s like how Athanasia had the power to control us, I think something stronger is stopping them from reaching the rooftop, right?”
“What do we do now?”
“The fact they’re hiding it so fiercely makes me think there might be something super important up there. We’ve got to go ourselves.”
In the end, we resolved to head to the roof directly after eliminating the staff lingering near the door.
*
The three of us halted just before the door.
Without uttering a word, we each shared an understanding of what was about to happen.
We could still vividly remember the aftermath of breaching the previous warnings.
The employee who pressed two floors at once was dragged into the hellish hospital by the nurse monsters.
The guy who entered the vacant floor between the 4th and 5th floors crumbled upon seeing the colossal eye.
The individual who barged into the 6th-floor restroom without knocking had been swiftly devoured.
There was no doubt about it—the door to the roof would likely lead us to an equally horrifying place. And now, we had to step into that realm ourselves.
“Kain-ssi.”
“Yes?”
“When we go in, if it seems like we’re about to die…”
“… I’ll make sure you can go peacefully. Ideally, it’d be great if all three of us could bite the dust by bullets.”
“Please do that for me as well, oppa.”
“Sure. If we keep chatting like this, we’ll never muster the courage to go in. Let’s just do it already.”
Thus, we rallied each other, bracing ourselves for the possibility of a bullet each, and finally stepped through the door.
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