Chapter 14

A new employee on her third day at <Daydream Inc.>.

“Whew.”

As lunchtime drew to a close, Go Youngeun cautiously settled into her desk chair. This unlicensed medical practitioner, who had never taken the national licensing exam, thought she was adapting fairly well to her situation...

Her superiors in Team R weren't particularly warm, but they didn't haze her much, either, or recklessly push her into situations that would get her killed.

Most importantly, she had already successfully cleared two F-grade ghost stories...!

‘Didn't they say the average new recruit usually clears one or two a week?’

Two in three days was pretty good for a new recruit, even if they were the lowest-grade Darkness!

She was truly doing her best to adjust to this insane company...

Even if she had nearly fainted when she saw how many points a Wish Coupon cost.

‘I only got 66p for clearing two. How long is it going to take to reach five hundred thousand...’

“...”

But she couldn't give up.

‘I can do this.’

Go Youngeun steeled herself.

‘... I wonder if the other recruits feel the same way.’

She absently glanced at her phone. A group chat was pinned to the top of her messenger app.

[Daydream Inc. Recruits' Group Chat]

It was a chat for the new recruits.

Only one person hadn't been invited. Not because they wanted to exclude him, but because nobody had his contact information.

The top recruit, Kim Soleum.

‘We should invite him, too.’

Even that Baek Saheon was in the group chat, but strangely enough, she hadn't run into Kim Soleum once at work, so she'd never had a chance to tell him about it.

Perfectly understandable grounds for puzzlement, if you had no idea how fucking brutal Kim Soleum's first two days had been!

‘Should I try contacting him through the company messenger, at least?’

She logged onto the intranet and was about to look up his name and contact him...

That was when it happened.

DING! DING! DING-DING-DING-DING!

Suddenly, the group chat started blowing up.

-Did you see the official notice that just went up?

-Does anyone here happen to know Employee Kim Soleum...?

-He's the one who was named top recruit, right?

-What do they mean he cleared an A-grade as a Major Contributor...?

-Is Kim Soleum the one with that weird horned mask...?

“...?!”

* * *

“Wow, Roe Deer. Apparently someone upstairs is saying they ought to promote you to supervisor right now.”

“Ghk.”

I nearly choked on my medicine.

“But some assholes in other departments were frothing at the mouth about how unprecedented it was, so it got shot down immediately.”

“... Oh, I see.”

Was I supposed to say that was a shame? I honestly wasn't disappointed in the slightest, so that was the best I could manage.

I set down the empty medicine bottle and rubbed my stomach.

After barely escaping ‘The Tuesday Quiz Show,’ which had mutated into an A-grade ghost story, we'd been rushed straight to the infirmary and were now taking emergency medication.

We had been bleeding profusely from our facial orifices, after all.

“Your stomach feels much better now, right?”

“Yes.”

The medicine did seem to work well.

Suspicious as <Daydream Inc.>'s medicines were, ordinary first-aid medications like these usually just worked exceptionally well.

[“You know those bizarre creatures that appear in Darkness... I mean, urban legends? This is a recovery medicine you take when one of those things inflicts supernatural damage on you.”]

A health potion for ghost stories, so to speak.

‘I'm pretty sure they sold this as a cherry ade at the collaboration café near the pop-up store...’

The real thing just tasted like cold syrup.

‘Anyway, I can't believe I'm alive and drinking a potion.’

Now that I'd escaped, everything felt wonderful.

Being alive in broad daylight really was a blessing...

My superiors, however, seemed more concerned with something else than with that overwhelming relief.

How exactly had the incident been reported upstairs, and what had been done about it?

They were busy calling on every connection they had to find out.

“Honestly, this was an unprecedented special circumstance. I wish the team leader would push our case a little harder, but he's not the type...”

“You can do that for us once you get promoted, Deputy.”

“Yeah, I'm quitting before then.”

“Actually, so am I.”

God, I wanted to do that, too.

With a curious sense of solidarity, we each sprawled out on an infirmary bed.

Supervisor Park Minseong stretched, then sighed—a long sigh of relief.

“... I really thought I was going to die. Being alive sure is great! Thanks, Roe Deer.”

“Not at all. I only did my best.”

Honestly, the <Records of Dark Exploration> wiki did all the work.

Any further excuses would only steer the conversation into uncomfortable territory—how we'd all been about to die, but I'd been so clever and done so well, and so on—so I just kept quiet.

“We're not usually such incompetent seniors. We let our guard down because it was D-grade.”

“That's a pretty pathetic excuse, Deputy.”

“Then we'll prove ourselves in the next Darkness.”

‘I'd rather there just wasn't a next Darkness...’

Our peaceful paid break didn't last long.

“The section chief's meeting is over.”

“...!”

“He's coming to the infirmary.”

The deputy sprang up, smartphone in hand. The supervisor followed suit, and I found myself sitting up along with them.

‘Am I finally going to see him in person?’

Section Chief Lee Jaheon.

Employee D, alias Lizard!

One of the most famous Daydream Inc. employees in <Records of Dark Exploration>. The one whose popularity had supposedly attracted a corporate sponsor, with a character design rumored to be coming soon.

Honestly, I was a little curious.

What kind of person was he?

‘Judging by our conversation over the call button, he didn't seem exactly ordinary...’

Still, after that incredible play with the AAA battery shot, I was ready to see everything about him through rose-colored glasses.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

“The door's open. Come in, Team Leader!”

The infirmary door opened, revealing a tall figure.

Dressed in a perfectly fitted black suit, complete with an employee ID badge, he cut an impressive figure as the very picture of a traditional, by-the-book office worker.

Section Chief Lee Jaheon had finally arrived. Named Employee D from <Records of Dark Exploration>...

“Hello.”

“...!? ...!!”

A-a lizard.

No, I mean, not his mask. Actually...

‘He actually... has a lizard's head.’

“...”

Wait.

No... That couldn't be right.

The TV-headed host's lingering image, combined with extreme stress, must have been causing me to hallucinate.

Right? My brain was mistaking his masked face for a real lizard head or something...

‘On closer inspection, his mask is hanging from his waist.’

“...”

I was going to lose my mind.

“I'm so glad to see you I could cry.”

“Come on in, Team Leader!”

Why was everyone so calm?

If a lizard was going to show up in a suit, shouldn't they at least warn the new recruit not to freak out?

Why were they acting like this was a perfectly normal round of introductions?!

“Ah, this is Roe Deer. And this is Section Chief Lee Jaheon. Say hello.”

“Wow, I think Roe Deer's stunned by how handsome you are, Chief! Haha! You really don't look like the same species as us!”

Could someone please clarify whether that was office flattery or a hint...?

The white lizard head turned toward me without expression.

His bloodred reptilian eyes gleamed, their pupils vertical slits.

“Mr. Roe Deer.”

“...”

“Can you see?”

F-fuck.

“What do you... Oh, my eyes weren't injured. There's nothing wrong with my vision, either.”

I impressed myself with that quick thinking.

“...”

Hello?

“I see.”

The pale reptilian head swiveled smoothly away.

I nearly fainted.

‘Please, seriously, just stop.’

A setting where you still had to suffer like this after getting out of a ghost story was far too unreasonable...

‘What the hell is going on?’

But I wasn't going to breathe a word of it.

Judging by the atmosphere, I clearly wasn't supposed to be seeing a lizard's head!

‘Everyone else is seeing a perfectly normal human face.’

Don't stand out.

I absolutely would not give that walking human... no, lizard excavator any reason to suspect me.

I managed to keep my expression under control, and thankfully, the other team members kept the conversation flowing smoothly.

Then they got down to business.

“Chief, did the higher-ups explain how things ended up like this?”

“Yes.”

The white reptile—no, Section Chief Lee Jaheon—nodded.

First, the cause of the incident.

As for the employees who had barged in midway...

“Apparently, human error resulted in ‘The Tuesday Talk Show’ being assigned to both Team D and Team L.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake.”

“Ugh...”

No wonder the assignment had come in so suddenly. There had apparently been a mistake.

The section chief continued his briefing.

-Team L began filling out the medium for entry into ‘The Tuesday Quiz Show’ (a postcard) at approximately the same time as Team D, but briefly left the company building before finishing, resulting in a completion-time difference of roughly fifty minutes.

“... Maybe they went to buy the new recruit a coffee.”

“That team really was full of people who looked after their own.”

Both team members looked briefly bitter, perhaps thinking of Team L, who had died to the last person, before concealing their feelings.

“Anyway, that explains why they got transported in at such a strange time. Our team had already gone ahead, of all things.”

“Yes.”

Lee Jaheon gave a brief reply and continued the briefing.

The problem was that his next statement was a bombshell.

“And the request to reclassify ‘The Tuesday Quiz Show’ as A-grade was denied.”

“...?!”

“Wh-what?”

-The absence of another group capable of corroborating the incident, a relatively high initial survival rate (43%), and other factors leave it unproven whether this Darkness actually meets the criteria for Pitch Dark (A) grade.

“All of Team L got wiped out! What kind of bullshit is that?”

“The collector! The liquid in the Dream Essence Collector was gold! We've been told more than once that's the A-grade color...”

-Although the concentration of the liquid in the Dream Essence Collector is comparable to A-grade, the possibility of an exceptional circumstance in which high-grade liquid was extracted from low-grade Darkness cannot be ruled out.

“Therefore, as ‘The Tuesday Quiz Show’ was originally D-grade under the company's official classification, no exception will be approved.”

“...”

So the company's position was...

‘Why make an even bigger deal out of something that happened by mistake? Let's just handle it quietly... Basically.’

Well, typical management.

In the sense that they drove their employees insane.

“This won't do. I'll have to go see them in person, at least...”

“Deputy, hold on. Just a second.”

The supervisor asked incredulously,

“They already took all the A-grade liquid. And we're really only getting credit for a D-grade clear?”

“No.”

“...!”

“Compensation has been determined separately.”

Honestly, I wasn't surprised.

‘They're stuffing something in our mouths to keep us quiet...’

Unless the company was completely idiotic, preparing some kind of incentive to placate us was only natural.

The question was how much that incentive would be.

Trying to avoid meeting the lizard's eyes, I watched Section Chief Lee Jaheon's snou... no, mouth.

“Since the exceptional circumstances and the color of the liquid in the Dream Essence Collector can be confirmed, they will acknowledge that the exploration was comparable to A-grade.”

“Then...?”

“Additional points will be awarded.”

-For this clearance of ‘The Tuesday Quiz Show’ only, additional points equivalent to A-grade will be awarded on a one-time basis.

The amount was...

“Thirty thousand points per person.”

“...!!”

The supervisor and deputy froze as though struck by lightning.

“Thirty thousand??”

“Yes.”

“Waaaaah!”

The base reward for A-grade was a hundred thousand points.

Assuming that was split among everyone who entered to clear it, even if only two teams survived, the expected amount would be no more than seventeen thousand points each.

‘But we just got almost twice that.’

And that wasn't all.

“An additional incentive has also been awarded to the employee who played a decisive role in the clearance.”

The lizard's head turned toward me.

“Mr. Kim Soleum.”

-An additional 10000p awarded to the top contributor

“You will receive forty thousand points.”

“...”

Eight percent of the way to a Wish Coupon, all in one go.

‘Wow.’

I was stunned.

What, was it a shame the A-grade clear wouldn't be officially recorded?

No, this was better!

‘Standing out and getting promoted at breakneck speed won't do me any good in this setting.’

What would happen if expectations rose beyond all reasonable limits?

I'd obviously get forced into harder ghost stories, and the more attention I drew, the harder it would be to use my ‘merch.’

Sure, promotion would give me access to certain special areas and items, but I couldn't lose sight of my priorities.

One wrong move in this world could get you killed!

‘And considering I really did come within a hair's breadth of death... I'd rather never go anywhere near A-grade again.’

Still, judging by the points, it hadn't all been for nothing.

The other two seemed to feel the same way.

“... I think I just heard my resignation move up by about three years.”

“Me too.”

But they soon collected themselves and turned to me.

“Points can't be transferred, so... this is a little embarrassing.”

“Right. Roe Deer basically earned all of these himself.”

“No, it's fine.”

Honestly, even if transfers were possible, I suspected they would've found some excuse not to hand them over.

This wasn't a question of character.

‘These people signed up for a job that could kill them so they could save enough points to buy a Wish Coupon.’

For most Field Exploration Team employees, their points would be something they could never give up.

Hmm. I'd make sure to keep that firmly in mind.

“Wooo!”

“They really came through.”

We headed straight back to the office and registered our points.

[Employee Kim Soleum / Accumulated Points : 40100p]

‘Wow.’

I stared at the monitor.

A five-digit number.

Honestly, it was quite a feeling.

“All right! We're alive, and we raked in a ton of points...”

The deputy grinned.

“Doesn't that call for a team dinner on the company card?”

“Ohhh!”

“Let's go, Roe Deer!”

My answer came readily, without pretense.

“Yes!”

* * *

And now.

I was witnessing the rare spectacle of a lizard eating Korean beef...

SIZZZLE.

I was trying to watch as casually as possible as perfectly grilled beef disappeared into the lizard's mouth.

“The team leader's personality is a little unusual, but he's definitely capable.”

“Right. You really lucked out joining our team.”

“... Yes.”

That pretty much confirmed I was the only one seeing a lizard face.

If they'd seen Section Chief Lee Jaheon physically smash his way through ghost stories a few times, I could understand their favorable attitude.

At any rate, ghost stories or no ghost stories, the beef was delicious, and I enjoyed the team dinner more than I'd expected.

‘They aren't making things uncomfortable.’

I was also discovering firsthand that a little alcohol really helped take the edge off the fear.

‘I'll go home, watch ten episodes of a children's cartoon, and sleep with all the lights on.’

I was devising this extreme bedtime routine when Section Chief Lee Jaheon, who had been eating shredded scallions, suddenly asked,

“Are you going to save the forty thousand points?”

“Pardon?”

An obvious question.

“Oh, yes. I need to buy a Wish Coupon.”

“I see.”

“...”

Wait. This conversational pattern felt familiar.

I went back over our earlier exchange.

So...

“Is there perhaps some other useful way to spend the points?”

“Yes.”

“...”

Right. So this was how I needed to approach him...

I was finally getting the hang of operating our lizard team leader. That was a little satisfying. In a much more relaxed voice, I asked,

“What would that be?”

“Custom equipment.”

“...!”

I hadn't expected that to come up here, now...

‘There it is at last.’

One of the defining features of Daydream Inc. employees.

‘Exclusive Equipment!’