I Activated Cheat Mode in a Bizarre Game

"...Why the hell did you pick a fight with the monster?"
"...That wasn’t it—I just wanted to show I wasn’t scared..."
Bora let out a laugh, like she found it all a bit ridiculous.

Well, it worked out in the end, so wasn’t it fine?
By now, we’d checked almost every place worth checking. It wasn’t the restroom. It wasn’t the emergency stairs either.
"The last places left... would be the fire hose cabinets hidden around the station."

Park Sunja spoke like she was drawing a final conclusion.
Yeah. This really was our last hope now. Praying there might be a survivor hiding inside that tiny space, we moved again.
Leaving behind the chaos from the emergency stairs, we started combing through Ha-Moo Station once more.

This time, the objective was the fire hose cabinets.
Luckily, on one wall of the platform, there was an old evacuation map posted—probably for emergencies—and we used it to pinpoint the locations of the hose cabinets.
There was no way we could check every single cabinet in this massive station, so we decided to start with the two closest ones to where we’d exited the train—specifically those tucked away in remote corners, where a survivor might realistically hide.

"There’s one over there."
"...Right next to the station office, of all places...!"
The first cabinet we found was at the end of the platform, right beside the tightly shut station office.
We crept toward it, backs hunched, tense with fear that the station staff monster might catch sight of us.

With anxious hands, we opened the metal cabinet door—but all we found inside was a dust-covered fire hose, neatly coiled. No sign of anyone.
Suppressing our disappointment, we headed toward the next target location.
The second hose cabinet was located midway down a pitch-black corridor leading to the transfer tunnel.

It was definitely more secluded and inconspicuous than the last one.
Just as we approached the cabinet—
"Wait. Do you hear something?"

Faint, but unmistakable—there was a sound coming from inside the cabinet.
"...Hhng... Fuck... How long is this gonna... Hngh..."
A frightened woman’s voice, breaking with sobs and curses.
When we leaned in to listen, we could hear her crying intermittently, interspersed with muttered swearing.

We exchanged glances. Had we finally found someone?
Park Sunja motioned for us to stay quiet.
Then she gently knocked—tap, tap—on the cabinet door.

The sobbing inside abruptly stopped. Then we heard ragged, panic-filled breathing, now louder and more fearful than before.
"H-Hkk..."
Park Sunja lowered her voice as much as possible and whispered through the crack in the cabinet.

"We’re... the Baekho search team. We came in response to a rescue request. We’re here to get you out. But if you make any loud noise right now, it’ll be dangerous. So... if you can calm down and stop crying, we’ll open this door and help you out. Okay?"
Whether it was her calm tone or something else, the harsh breathing from inside the cabinet gradually began to settle.
We swallowed dryly and waited for the survivor inside to fully calm down.

Just as we were about to sigh in relief, a voice came—still cautious, but a little less panicked than before.
"...Are you really human...? Not one of those monsters pretending to be... like the ones crawling around here?"
Her suspicion was justified.

Even just looking around Ha-Moo Station, there were plenty of monsters mimicking human forms or behaviors—clumsily but convincingly enough.
In a life-or-death situation, the fear that your rescuers might actually be something even worse was more than understandable.
Then, the woman inside the cabinet hit us with a completely out-of-the-blue question.

"...Name three ingredients that go in malatang. Quickly."
Malatang ingredients? Now?
I froze, caught totally off guard. But judging by her voice, she was dead serious.

It must have been her desperate way of verifying we weren’t monsters—figuring they wouldn’t know how to answer.
I racked my brain and awkwardly stammered:
"Uh... lamb? Maybe... bok choy...?"

Park Sunja beside me just twitched her lips slightly, clearly unable to come up with an answer.
She must have lived a life as far from malatang as mine.
Just then, like a hero, Bora stepped forward.

"Fu zhu, dried tofu skins, sweet potato noodles, bean sprouts, napa cabbage... and all kinds of mushrooms too—lots of 'em."
Bora rattled off ingredients with the fluency of a brand ambassador, even adding her personal preferences.
It was hard to believe she’d been living in some remote countryside house until recently. Maybe sensing our surprised stares, Bora scratched her cheek, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Ahaha... I’ve, uh, eaten it a lot since coming up to Seoul."
Whatever the case, her answer must’ve satisfied the woman inside, because a moment later we heard a heavy click from inside the hose cabinet.
Then a young woman—still bearing traces of adolescence—peered out with a terrified expression.

Park Sunja calmly recited the survivor's identifying details that the support team had provided. The woman nodded frantically, saying she was indeed the person we’d come for.
We had finally rescued a survivor from Ha-Moo Station.
"Now all we have to do is get out of here together."

Park Sunja exhaled ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) with relief.
But then she straightened her expression and, in a firm tone, emphasized one last set of rules to the rescued woman.
"But before that, there are a few things you must keep in mind. No matter what happens—don’t panic. Don’t shake. And never show fear. You must not let them see you're afraid. Do you understand?"

The woman, clearly terrified, nodded desperately—like someone grabbing hold of their last lifeline.
Now with our newest companion in tow, we had to cross that platform swarming with monsters to get back to the surface.
The method for returning from Ha-Moo Station to the real world was the same as the way we’d arrived.

Go back to the same platform where we exited the train, and when a new train arrives, board it backward, without looking at the doors. Just like before.
Simple in theory. The problem was actually doing it.
This time, the platform wasn’t empty. Quite the opposite.

"There’s... so many..."
Bora bit her lip as she spoke.
The platform we returned to was overflowing—packed shoulder-to-shoulder with grotesque monsters, like a transfer station at rush hour.

And we had to cut straight through them, attract their attention, and board that train in that bizarre way?
There was no doubt the monsters would focus on our strange movements. And their interest would definitely not be good for us.
"Everyone, stay calm."
"W-We really have to go that way?"

Each of us tried to act calm in our own way. But the real problem was the rescued woman.
She was trembling all over like a leaf, biting her lower lip so hard in an effort to hold back her fear that—
—a thin trickle of blood slipped down her chin.

And in that instant, the monsters’ attention visibly turned toward us.
Even I could smell the faint, metallic tang of blood in the air.
Was that really why they were noticing us?

As more and more eyes turned toward us, my heart pounded harder and harder, imagining the worst-case scenario—
"Huh?"
A small, familiar shadow waddled up to us.

It was that little goblin monster we’d run into earlier near the restroom.
It was holding something in its tiny hands—something big.
It came up to me and thrust it forward.

"Uu!"
"...What is... wait, seriously, what is this?"
It was a movie poster.

And the moment I saw what was printed on it, I went past shock and into dumbfounded disbelief.
At the center of the poster was a dynamic scene of me and Daeho locked in an intense standoff at Bora’s countryside home.
Above it, in huge letters, were the words:

[Now Showing! Tiger Mayhem!]
At the bottom, some ridiculous text:
Starring: The Monster Rookie
The little goblin pointed back and forth between me and the version of me on the poster, squealing incomprehensibly:
"Uu! Uu!"

Like it was saying, That’s you, right? Great movie!
That damn director monster... It had actually turned what we went through into an entertainment movie for the monster world—and released it.
I could only laugh in disbelief at how absurd this all was.

Bora and Sunja looked just as dumbfounded.
"This... This is real?"
"Look at the corner of the poster—we’re in it too."
The little goblin still stood in front of me, holding the [Tiger Mayhem] poster with both hands like it was precious.

Its twinkling eyes were filled with desperate hope.
No way... Don’t tell me this thing actually wants—
"...An autograph?"
"Uu!!"

At the goblin’s eager gesture, another monster crept up beside us.
It was like living waste oil in motion—formless, a black sludge-like slime.
As it drew close, a nauseating oily stench hit me so hard I felt dizzy.

Then the goblin pointed excitedly at the slime.
"Uu!"
I hesitantly reached out and touched the slime's surface with one finger.

As expected, thick, sticky black gunk smeared onto my fingertip.
I couldn’t ignore the goblin’s sparkling eyes, or the other monsters now staring right at me.
So I took a deep breath... and using the slime as ink, scribbled something resembling my name in the corner of the poster.

"...Here."
I meant to write "Kim Minjun," but with that slippery texture, it just ended up looking like a mess of squirming worms.
The goblin squealed with joy—"Uu! Uuuu!"—like it had just received the world’s greatest treasure.

Then an adult goblin, probably its parent, approached and bowed deeply toward me.
I... actually signed an autograph for a monster.
Still, maybe because of that silly little event, the monsters’ sharp, dangerous stares around us seemed to soften just a bit.

The blood scent had been masked by the oil stench, and while I was signing, the blood on the woman’s lip had dried.
Thanks to that little goblin, even our fear seemed to fade just slightly.