MTL
A colorful potion shimmers like waves in my hand.
The color of dreams.
A potion that grants wishes.
...The introduction is engraved on the transparent glass bottle, revealing itself whenever the potion inside ripples with light like waves. I looked at it.
1 Daydream Potion : Wish EX (miraculous)
Hold the bottle with both hands.
Express your earnest wish in one sentence...
With your eyes closed, consume the liquid in one go.
Any wish will come true.
I've known these instructions from the beginning.
So I had been contemplating from the start.
What sentence to use.
When using this wish, what single sentence would express my wish?
I thought about it every time I tossed and turned in bed unable to sleep, every time I wrote exploration reports at the office, every time I barely survived urban legends and walked home after work. The first thing that came to mind was that.
The most primal desire.
-Send me home.
I was desperate.
But I hesitated.
'Home' is too abstract a concept.
I've lived in more than one or two residences, so it was impossible to know what standard the wish would use to activate.
If I wasn't careful, it might send me to the Daydream company dormitory. ...The aversion I felt when infiltrating the Disaster Management Bureau, staying in motels rather than at 'home,' probably stemmed from this concern.
Anyway, I thought again.
I had to eliminate all possibilities for misinterpretation.
'I can't make a mistake.'
I cannot allow the wish to grant my desire in some bizarre way. 'Send me back to where I used to live'? Also too abstract. Rejected. 'Send me to a world without urban legends'? No guarantee that would be where I came from. If I wasn't careful, a crazy interpretation like "dying and going to heaven would be a world without urban legends" might be possible.
Discarding options again and again, I carefully chose.
A perfect sentence that could precisely specify time and space.
And I decided.
Holding the potion tightly with both hands, I opened my mouth and said:
"My wish is."
Right then.
"To return to where I was the day before I joined Daydream Corporation."
My original world, at the point before I spun the roulette at the pop-up store.
It was a perfect designation.
-Excellent!
'Got it.'
While hearing the host's admiration, I calmly opened the lid of the wish potion.
Light burst forth, but I covered it with my hand and closed my eyes.
And then I poured the potion into my mouth.
"...!"
Drinking a dream.
That's the only way to describe it.
A strange synesthetic liquid I'd never experienced before flows down my throat.
Something brilliant fills my stomach.
Formless power, transcendent authority, overflowing mystery.
Ecstasy and wonder guide me.
Yes, I'm in transit!
'Good heavens.'
My entire body is being sucked somewhere.
Very deep, very far...
To where my wish reaches.
It's like traveling to fulfill a long-cherished desire. A transcendental force
moves me.
Yes.
Yes!
I'm going back to my safe home...
...
...
...?
Cough.
I collapsed onto the floor.
My body rolled on the dirty, dusty floor, and a cough burst out.
Musty air.
Even with my eyes open, I see only pitch-black darkness. Blinking doesn't
reveal any outlines.
Silence.
Silence.
What is this?
The fantastic sensation ended. The wish has disappeared. Which means...
This is my destination.
"..."
The blood drains from my head.
I feel dazed.
"Hng."
I twisted my body and stood up from the floor. Sharp fragments scratch my arms and hands, leaving stinging pain.
Breathing heavily, I held up the empty bottle still in one hand. One or two drops of the wish liquid remaining cast a faint light. The space I'm in revealed itself.
...On top of broken glass shards.
"...!"
Turning my head, I see where I fell.
An empty glass tube is broken.
I fell from there onto broken glass in a dust pit.
'...Why?'
Was I... transported into that?
My heart pounds anxiously. Before foreboding could take over my mind, I desperately tried to identify the silhouette of that device in the darkness. It looks like a machine that once stored a large volume of solution. But... ...the device looks familiar.
Below the empty glass tube that has no light are buttons and a keyboard panel—an old experimental machine from the 2000s. That's, that's...
A dream cultivator.
A broken, shattered dream cultivator from the Joyful Research Lab.
...
I looked around blankly.
My eyes, adjusted to the darkness, finally identify the surroundings with the
help of the wish potion residue.
This place.
This is the prototype dream cultivation room of the Joyful Research Lab.
"...!"
Something is wrong.
Something is wrong.
Why am I here?
"No."
Stay calm. Calm down, I clearly asked to be sent back to where I was the day before I joined, why am I here, wait. No, no. "This isn't it!"
It's different!
Yes. It has the same structure as that lab, but it's different. The silhouette is subtly different.
I see different machines and documents. Even recording tapes and empty reagent bottles. And the computers... 'There's no dust on the computers.'
...Strange.
I staggered and turned my head. I need a hint, I need a hint.
And then I found it.
The experiment log.
"..."
The one that was soaked in blood and filth with all records meticulously erased, with only "We've been deceived" repeated madly.
It was next to the broken glass tube of the dream cultivator. Just like what I found last time in the dream cultivation room. "..."
I approached it.
The old paper wasn't soaked in blood and filth, but it was Browned as if burned.
I flip through it with trembling hands.
Though blackened as if burned by fire, I could still read it.
From the title on the first page.
[Name]'s First Research
I took a breath.
Research Purpose: Confirmation of the targeted ...
Progress of the otherworldly being's manifestation in this world and the contract.
We named this research after the deity worshipped by a certain cult group that has recently become active, derived from previous research. This will be the final research of the Joyful Research Lab.
My heart beats ominously.
I frantically turned the pages.
Numerous experimental records are written.
Since they aren't registered as data, the formats vary, and there are multiple conductors.
Various attempts and preparations.
Failure, Dream Cultivator No. 21 discarded.
Failure, failure.
Terrible unknown materials and extreme methods remain, more than half erased.
Things that were born, summoned, and then discarded.
And then...
Success.
Something meaningful resulted.
Experiment #316
Solution amount: 1200L
Materials: Qterw-A-4... substance, ...-...326, human blood, ..., plus 13
other synthetic elements.
Successfully awakened the subject's consciousness in the glass tube.
Contract failed. Form collapsed in the solution.
Suspected insufficient solution; will adjust variables based on this research.
And it gets more refined.
Experiment #322
Solution amount: 2300L
The awakened subject screamed horribly in the glass tube ... ... ... then life signals ceased.
After recognizing the mutation in his body, rejection reaction caused material bonding collapse, resulting in clumping.
Requesting changes in material ratios to prepare a medium reflecting the subject's exact appearance.
Investigating darkness related to transformation.
My hands are trembling.
An ominous deduction circles in my mind.
The experiments continue repeatedly with increasingly specific conditions.
The necessary conditions identified so far for invitation and contract are:
1 Maintaining the subject's original identity.
2 Forgetting previous emotional attachments.
3 Providing a survival goal.
4 Removing all sense of discomfort.
Believing these conditions can be fulfilled through powerful prohibitions, various methods are being proposed.
And...
The Joyful Laboratory's previous invention is mentioned.
A now-discontinued product that allowed partial manifestation of beings from the other side into dolls, requesting them to perform friendly roles for
the contractor.
A limited version is being distributed as merchandise in a board game.
It is called "Good Friend."
"..."
I barely turned to the next page.
The final experiment record.
Experiment #444
Solution amount: 39999L
Materials: Same as #443.
Result: Success.
Complete invitation of the subject achieved using the ritual from the discontinued product.
... manifested. Stabilized.
Will conduct a brief Q&A after separation from the dream solution upon awakening.
The page ended there.
But.
"..."
When I turned the last page, I saw a torn piece of paper inserted.
It had traces of being crumpled and balled up.
As if someone had thrown away the paper, and another person had smoothed it out and put it back into the experiment record. And there was hastily scribbled writing on it too.
The once meticulous handwriting completely ruined.
Daydream found out they rushed in it was another trick before losing the subject they smuggled him out and hid him in the most crowded place Please
The text ended unnaturally there.
And below the words "the most crowded place," someone had underlined it heavily and written in different handwriting: New employee orientation?
As if deducing from the text.
"..."
No.
My mind refused it.
But the deduction was already complete.
No, there was nothing to deduce.
It was too obvious.
In response to my wish: "Please send me back to where I was the day before joining Daydream Corporation." I awoke in this broken dream cultivator.
So.
I...
Was the research target of this experiment log.
A Good Friend.
Something synthetic with a being from the other side invited by Joyful Laboratory manifested within it.
Like Moderator Braun projected into a stuffed doll.
Kim Soleum's consciousness from another world, projected onto "something" created in the dream cultivator. ...really?
"...No."
No way.
There must be, must be some other explanation.
What did the prohibition say earlier? I don't fall under that. I want to go home, I need to go back to my home, meet my family and friends. So...
Who exactly are those people?
"..."
I can't remember.
Certainly, when I just joined, I definitely remembered.
Didn't I remember conversations with my parents and friends? And with friends, family, I checked contact information, looked through records... ...did I?
Did I just think "I checked" in my mind and moved on?
Specifically what contact information I checked, what previous address I visited.
I don't know.
I can't remember.
Just the certainty that I did it...
"..."
Then am I,
this body I'm in,
not Kim Soleum?
If this is where I was before joining.
If I've returned to where this body was.
If it was created in the dream cultivation lab.
Am I... not human?
"No."
I looked down at my hands.
[No]
No!
Stop it
Hahahahahahahahahahaha
My body bulges and protrudes.
The tattoo collapses.
I'm disappearing. The human body is breaking down.
The self that realized the truth rejects the human body form. The body tries to return to its original form.
Some unknown mystical and bizarre synthetic form erupted from within me.
Scales and horns, hooves, spikes, breaking through the ribs...
"No!"
My voice resonates strangely through the space. But there's nothing I can do. I cleared out all my items. My tattoo is empty...! N o
At that moment.
I realized.
There was one thing left in the tattoo.
Not mine, borrowed equipment.
"...!"
I hurriedly shoved my mutating hand into the tattoo and pulled out the
equipment.
Security team suit.
And I frantically began putting it on.
My mutating body was stuffed and fixed into human form. Black smoke surrounded my entire body with a strange sound. That's how I barely regained human limbs.
I need to escape.
I staggered, looking for the lab door. Yellow lamp-like eyes flashed. The light found the doorknob.
Barely grabbing it and leaning out...
I see indoor lights.
"...!"
An ordinary office corridor.
A scene I've seen before.
'...Daydream basement.'
The security captain had mentioned... Joyful Laboratory in the company basement.
-Joyful Laboratory... still in our company basement...
-Even if you go further down... the same office corridor... keeps repeating...
What floor underground is this?
How do I get out?
'Elevator...'
My head and body feel heavy.
Strangely, excruciating pain surges through my entire body.
I dragged my feet, somehow trying to move to the end of the corridor.
Then.
"Excellent."
...
"Such loyalty to the company. Coming back."
I looked up.
Someone in a suit had appeared and was staring at me head-on.
An impression of indeterminate age, a cold and neat appearance, wearing a perfectly fitted three-button suit with dark blue hair... Managing Director Cheongdallae.
"Already wearing the uniform. Very good."
Black pupils examine me.
"But that's not the appropriate uniform..."
I opened my mouth.
But no words came out. My vocal cords seem crumpled inside the suit.
The constricting sensation becomes stronger, more... painful.
"Yes. That seems to make humans look like monsters. A newly developed version?"
"..."
"But when a real monster wears it, it's just a mold forcibly containing the body. As you know, there are many programs in society that only work when a contract is made. It's like that." He declares:
"As is, you'll soon necrotize."
"..."
"If you don't like that, there is another way."
Director Cheongdallae took out a neat piece of paper from his breast pocket.
"A contract."
...
"Just sign it. I promise very humane treatment. It will be satisfying work...
in the security team."
Blood started flowing from my body. Blood drips down my fingers.
"Here."
"..."
"Choose."
I feel like I'm dying.
My collapsed body crumples as my consciousness begins to crumple too.
Now I can't even stagger forward.
No strength to think of another option.
A dead end.
"..."
I raised my trembling hand.
And signed that contract with my flowing blood.
"Good."
Next
The moment the signature was complete,
My body rapidly began to feel comfortable.
Like wearing perfectly fitted clothes, like keeping a promise, like pouring just the right amount of water into a glass.
Tranquility and an unknown power spread throughout my body.
And... above all, with a distinct prohibition.
"..."
I looked at my superior.
"From now on, you will have an excellent duty."
And so.
I ended up working for the company again.