GSGW c209
note: I folded under zero pressure and now I'm gonna try and translate the beginning of GSGW Part 2. I will also most likely continue translating until the original translator, KiyoshiSai, comes back to webnovel. I also did find non-MTL translations for c201-c208. Should I share the link? Maybe you'll find something at the end of this chapter ;)
after posting chapters 209-213, I will probably have a set schedule when releasing new chapters. I too gotta rest
now, onto the translation! yippee!
- UglySunfish
GSGW Part 2 - Start!
Chapter 209
It was 6 p.m., as the sun began to set.
The dim glow of the evening sunset filtered through the entrance of a building in Seoul.
A cold, clean first-floor space built in a modern style.
Daydream Inc. – Annex Building
Access to this building is restricted to authorized personnel only.
This was the lobby of Daydream Inc.’s annex building.
But the bleak space—normally quiet and deserted—was now filled with the lively murmur of people.
“Wow, the atmosphere here.”
“Hello. Yes—nice to meet you…!”
Dozens of young professionals in black suits were gathered together, greeting one another.
Their faces were bright with anticipation and nervous excitement.
It was only natural.
“Congratulations on getting in.”
“Haha, thanks! Congratulations to you too!”
They had just succeeded in getting hired by Daydream Inc., a pharmaceutical company that had become a hot topic on the stock market over the past few years.
So the company had summoned them by email to the annex building next to the Seoul headquarters.
New Employee Orientation Notice
Today was the first day of orientation.
“A two-night, three-day orientation in the Seoul annex? That’s pretty luxurious.”
“Right? Wow, this place looks like a museum lobby.”
“Man… a major corporation really is something… Wait, are we all sales hires here?”
“Seems like it. From what I’ve heard, everyone here is in sales.”
“Then maybe the new hires from other departments are gathering somewhere else nearby.”
Drunk on the joy of success, the new employees chatted cheerfully with one another.
There was no reason not to be friendly. After all, they were the victorious peers who had all secured jobs at this huge pharmaceutical company. They’d be seeing each other for a long time.
Because of that, some people even started conversations with those standing alone.
“Hey, you’re a new hire too, right?”
“……”
From within the noisy crowd of recruits, someone who had been quietly staring around the annex lifted his head.
He looked about the same age as the others, though his face appeared pale and exhausted.
The new hire who had been leading the conversations spoke to him again, with a faintly boastful tone.
“Congratulations on getting hired! Let’s do our best together!”
But…
“Thank you.”
That was it.
“……”
“……”
Silence.
'What the…?'
What kind of sales hire had such terrible social skills?
How did he even pass the interview?
Sensing the atmosphere turning awkward, the man who had started the conversation hurriedly began talking again.
“Haha, actually… I had a friend who already works at Daydream.”
“Wow.”
“Really?”
“Which department?”
“Yeah, yeah. I think it was the research team?”
The others' reaction was explosive.
Relieved that the mood had recovered, the new hire continued speaking in a tone halfway between bragging and casual conversation.
“But you know what? He actually told me not to come here. Said I’d regret it if I joined.”
“Haha!”
“Friends who get jobs first always say stuff like that.”
“Exactly!”
“……”
Everyone laughed as if they’d just heard another typical story about modern workplace overwork.
But then—
“…The department.”
“Huh?”
The quiet man finally spoke.
“The department your friend works in…”
At that moment—
[Ah, ah. Mic test.]
“…!”
Everyone looked up at once.
[Oh, looks like everyone’s gathered nicely. Let’s begin~]
A speaker installed in the corner of the wall began broadcasting a voice.
It belonged to a man with a relaxed, cheerful tone.
[Welcome to all our new hires who made it through a 142-to-1 competition ratio! I’m Section Chief Kwak Jaekwang from Research Team 1, and I’ll be running today’s orientation.]
[Let’s start with a round of applause, shall we?]
“Woooo!”
The recruits clapped enthusiastically—though some looked slightly puzzled.
“Why is he talking through the speaker…?”
Why didn’t he show himself?
“Maybe they’re planning some kind of activity for just us?”
[Oh! Correct!]
“…!”
H-he can hear us?!
[That’s right, that’s right. Starting now, to build teamwork and company spirit, you new hires will be doing a very fun activity together!]
[Just a light mission—more like recreation, really. There’s even a prize!]
The new employees quickly accepted the idea positively.
“Maybe they want us to get close with our fellow hires!”
“That’s actually great. Haha.”
These days, large corporations and famous startups often ran creative or unusual orientations, after all.
“I heard one company even runs a murder mystery board game set in their office.”
[…Ah, that does sound fun. This will be similar. Yes indeed~ Now then…]
The voice from the speaker grew slightly more excited.
[Let’s begin the new employee orientation!]
At the same moment—
Click-click-click-click.
Lights switched on at the entrance of the annex.
“…!”
Under the bright incandescent lights, things that had been hidden in darkness became visible.
Far down the hallway—rows of heavy iron doors.
“……”
They looked less like security doors…and more like something meant to seal things away. Massive. Unsettling.
'Why would a company annex have doors like that…?'
But before anyone could question it, their attention was drawn somewhere else.
The brightest light fell on the front desk.
And on top of it—an object placed deliberately in plain sight.
“…Ah!”
The recruits blinked as they looked at it.
A jet-black cylindrical box.
“A… raffle drum?”
It was large. And old.
So shabby and wrinkled that it looked completely out of place in the modern marble lobby.
The black drum, made from thick paper, had its top covered so no one could see inside. But from the silhouette of the lid, it was clear there were three holes.
Each round opening had a number written above it.
① ② ③
[Now then, let’s have you come up one by one and draw lots. You’ll draw the next numbered slip in order, and we’ll keep going like that.]
[Ah, let me show you an example first. The three people standing closest right now! Come up and draw one number each in order!]
“Ah—yes!”
Amid the murmuring crowd, the three people who had been pointed out stepped forward awkwardly, unable to refuse.
They drew their slips.
Flap.
Each slip read the following:
① Level 6
② 322
③ Recite a lullaby
“…What is this…?”
[Now then… let’s look at the desk again. You see the whiteboard behind the lottery drum, right?]
Everyone’s gaze turned toward the whiteboard.
A printed sentence was written on it:
I will go down to Basement ①___
At Door No. ②___
In order to ③______________.
[If you fill in the blanks with what’s written on the numbered slips, the sentence becomes complete!]
[Carrying out that sentence is your mission. Very simple, right? Hahaha!]
When the slips were placed on the whiteboard in order, the sentence was completed.
Like this:
I will go down to Basement Level 6
At Door No. 322
In order to recite a lullaby.
“……”
“……”
For some reason, the completed sentence sent a chill down their spines.
'The basement?'
Just then—
[Ah, right. The team with the best mission performance will also receive a fantastic prize.]
As if sensing their unease, the speaker’s voice chimed in with cheerful motivation.
[A whole 100 points you can spend like cash in the employee mall!]
One hundred points?
“Excuse me, may I ask what you can buy with that?”
[Of course! That’s enough to buy a robot vacuum cleaner!]
“Ooooh!”
If it could buy a robot vacuum, it must be worth quite a bit!
The atmosphere instantly brightened.
Logic and practicality returned to their minds.
'Right. At worst it’s probably just a courage test.'
'The company wouldn’t be stupid enough to make us do something actually dangerous.'
Besides, there were so many people here, and they were working in teams of three.
Even if there were surprise scares prepared, it couldn’t be anything too extreme.
The recruits looked at one another, nodding and smiling.
“Excuse me, do we have to use the stairs?”
[Oh dear, that would be exhausting, wouldn’t it? Feel free to use any elevator that’s currently operating. Hahaha!]
[Alright, form teams however you like and give it a try!]
“Yes!”
They chatted among themselves, excitement on their faces as they reached into the black drum and pulled out slips.
The slips that would decide their fate.
“Good luck!”
“Our group will go first. We just take this elevator, right?”
“Let’s go. Basement Floor 6!”
The atmosphere couldn’t have been better.
Thirty-four minutes later. Until the elevator returned. And its doors opened—revealing their colleagues with only their lower halves remaining.
“AAAAAH!”
“AAAH!”
And then it continued.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
The sound of elevators arriving.
Each time the doors slid open, tearing screams echoed through the annex lobby in a chaotic discord.
Screaming. Terror. Panic.
Elevators kept arriving, and every other one was filled with what had once been human bodies.
Horrific sights no one had ever imagined seeing in reality—blood, filth, and pieces of organs. Sometimes ash and ice. Fragments of skin covered in dense writing scrawled in ballpoint pen.
Some employees had even died from blood loss after writing bizarre phrases or symbols on the elevator mirrors using their own blood.
“AAAAAAAH!!!”
Among them, a few returned alive. But they were no longer sane.
“Run! We have to run! Run!”
“I—I’m sorry… I’m sorry for knocking on the door…”
Some simply muttered blankly to themselves.
Then, finally—someone who seemed relatively sane appeared.
“T-This person is okay!”
“…!”
“What the hell happened down there?! What is this?!”
A recruit standing in front of the elevator—using a dead coworker almost like a shield—spoke with a pale face.
“…There's someone there.”
Down in the basement. Beyond the doors.
“Who?! Who is it?!”
……
“…A strange employee.”
Then the survivors began describing what they had seen.
When the elevator doors opened, there had been a silent, desolate corridor in the basement.
Rows of iron doors. But only the door they were assigned to visit had a strange marking. From that door came sounds. A fishy smell. A faint light.
And when they peered through the small hole above the number plate… they saw the employee inside.
“They were wearing employee uniforms… but something was wrong. Wrong…”
Some looked like children. Some wore doctors’ coats. Some carried oxygen tanks. Some held armfuls of balloons. Some wore cowboy hats and had wooden hands. Some wore Bukcheong lion masks.
The grotesque descriptions sent chills down everyone’s spines.
And then—
“I-It reacted.”
“…!”
“It reacts to what we do! It chases us—like that!”
Everyone slowly turned their heads.
Toward the elevators filled with body parts.
“……”
“……”
The recruits realized something. The mission—
“Carry out the sentence you created.”
It had been a suicidal act straight out of a horror movie.
They had been dragged into something utterly unreal.
“No!”
The half of the recruits who hadn’t yet gone down for their missions looked at each other with pale faces—and ran for the front entrance.
But the annex’s only door had already been sealed shut.
People rushed to the door shutters.
“Help us!”
“My phone—there’s no signal! What do we do?!”
“This… this must be a TV show. Right? There must be cameras somewhere…”
“Open the door! Please open the door!”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
They pounded the shutter until their hands bled.
There was no response. Then several recruits realized something else.
“The speaker!”
They rushed over to the speakers that had been broadcasting Section Chief Kwak Jaekwang’s voice. Begging. Pleading. Screaming for help.
However…
[(Beep—) The responsible staff member is currently unavailable. The automatic response system has been activated.]
The speaker no longer carries the voice of Section Chief Kwak Jaekwang.
Instead, a bright prerecorded voice repeats endlessly.
[The main entrance will open once all participants have attempted the mission. In 30 seconds, any attempt to forcibly open the shutter will result in death by security protocol.]
[Orientation participants, good luck!]
Beep—beep—beep—beep!
“AAAAAH!”
Two employees who attempted to break the shutter suddenly had their heads explode and die on the spot.
Chaos erupts.
“W–what… what…?”
“H–hic…”
No one understands the mechanism.
The sight before them is so unbelievable that, paradoxically, the noise in the lobby begins to die down.
From that point on, the people in the lobby huddled together in front of the desk, trembling for more than half a day.
There were occasional whispers and small attempts to find a way out—but no one even approached the elevators.
No one attempted the mission.
And then, a new “encouragement” arrived.
[This is an announcement regarding the delay of mission completion for over six hours.]
[If the next participant does not board an elevator within five minutes, death by security protocol will occur.]
“……”
“……”
The new employees looked at one another with shaking eyes.
Someone—
had to go.
Someone had to be sent down the elevator.
But who?
“…Shit.”
The recruit who had earlier been boasting about having a friend in the company shrank into a corner, trying desperately to avoid the stares.
Cold sweat ran down his back as he looked again at the sentence his team had created.
I go down to Basement Level 13.
At Door No. 666
In order to enter inside after knocking.
I’m going to die.
There was no way anyone could survive after drawing numbers this ominous.
'Run…'
Just then—
“The people who drew the next turn! Those people!”
Damn it!
“They’re over there! Those ones!”
“…!”
People rushed forward and violently shoved his team toward the elevator.
He resisted like mad, but they were outnumbered. And he had no weapon.
“No!”
[The doors are closing.]
He scrambled to his feet in panic, desperately trying to press the open button—
when someone from his team grabbed his hand and pulled it down.
“…!”
“It’s already too late.”
Thud.
The doors shut.
“—Hik!”
He turned in terror. The quiet man with the hollow expression was looking at him.
The one who had been strangely silent the entire time.
But now he spoke calmly, almost as if explaining something.
“Someone has already died because of the security protocol. That means if we stayed in the lobby, we would’ve died anyway.”
“……”
“Since it’s come to this, we have to do it.”
“N–no…!”
“Calm down and think about it. Quite a few people returned unharmed.”
As if forcing him back to his senses, the man gripped his shoulders.
“…Among every three teams, at least one said nothing happened.”
“…!!”
That was true.
— Nothing happened to us…
— There was just a strange… person in something like a special agent uniform staring at us silently.
— I’m telling you, there really wasn’t anyone inside!
“Even among the teams where something happened, half of them still came back alive. So rather than dying in the lobby, this gives us a better chance of survival.”
“….”
“…Let’s move carefully, based on what the people before us said.”
Breathing heavily, the two recruits slowly nodded.
The calmness of the man speaking made him seem almost like someone with experience.
The boastful recruit found himself speaking without thinking.
“Excuse me… your name is…?”
“……”
The quiet man finally answered.
“My name is Jang Heoun.”
Ding.
The elevator arrived in the basement.
The doors opened to reveal an old corridor lined with iron doors. The recruits stepped out, trembling.
And soon found the room they were looking for.
666
They inhaled deeply. Then reached out toward the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
***
I had a dream.
A very strange and bizarre nightmare.
A dream where I entered the creepypasta wiki I loved.
In the dream, I became an elite employee of a terrifying pharmaceutical company that pushed people into horror stories to turn them into potion ingredients.
At the same time, I infiltrated a special organization that rescued people from those horror stories—the Bureau of Supernatural Disaster Management—working there as a spy.
During that time, I entered countless creepypastas recorded in the <Darkness Exploration Records> wiki.
A convenience store where you play tag with ghosts. A quiz show where you die if you answer incorrectly. An ink painting haunted by a changgui spirit. An exhibition that charges admission using your organs. A bizarre theme park.
Days that were intense and terrifying, constantly balancing on the edge between life and death.
And during those days, I met people I could never forget.
— Kim Soleum. Can you hear me?
— Roe Deer! Seventeen employees escaped thanks to your announcement!
— I hope your wish comes true.
— It’ll be okay, Grapes.
The afterimage of that dream lingered vividly.
You know those dreams—where you wake up and forget most of the details, yet the powerful impression remains like a shock.
Especially when the ending is horrible and overwhelming.
I survived countless brushes with death, endured the horrors of the creepypasta company—and when I finally drank the wish-granting potion I had longed for…
Actually I am not someone who crash-landed into another world but someone who was invited and my body is not human and I realize■■■■■■■■■■—
No!
I don’t want to wake up.
I don’t want to know the truth.
I don’t want to realize that I’m still at Daydream Inc.
……
And then, in the next moment, I realized something.
I cannot fall asleep.
“—!”
Dawn.
I sat up in bed, gasping.
Or rather—there should have been a sound like that.
If I had functioning vocal cords.
“….”
I reached a hand toward my throat.
Hiss—A strange sound of escaping smoke.
My gloved hand touched not skin—but part of a rubber-like protective suit wrapped around my neck.
I fumbled along it. The silhouette of a human body.
But when my hand reached upward—touching the bizarre horn-like ribs extending above my head—I let my hand drop.
“….”
I realized it again.
I cannot sleep.
—RIIIIIING!
—It is your working hours. Please wake up. It is your working hours. Please wake up…
I rose from the metal bed. And began today’s work.
As the contract required.
you can find c201-208 at lightnovelworld.org
edited note: recently got a comment that you can find translations up to c271 on the wayback machine. If you don't want to wait, go ahead and check it out, although idk how to get to it. And thank you anonymous commenter for the heads up!
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