I Activated Cheat Mode in a Bizarre Game

Still a bit dazed from Bora’s probing and Park Sunja’s welcome, I stepped into the Temporary Team 10 office.
As if she already knew exactly what I was wondering, Park Sunja began explaining with a soft smile.

Apparently, Shun, Bora, and Hanbit had all been steadily contacted and recruited by Park Sunja from long ago.
“They weren’t exactly attached to Dongto as a company anyway. The timing just worked out, and the initial terms Dongto offered weren’t bad, so they stayed there for a while. But honestly, it wasn’t difficult to scout them over to Baekho.”
At her words, Bora chimed in with her usual confident smile.

“To be honest, if they’re offering better working conditions and the right compensation, why wouldn’t I come?”
Hanbit, with his usual indifferent face, added a single remark.
“I quit because the item vault was full of trap items. Just seeing those told me how they treat lower-tier employees.”

I couldn’t help nodding at that.
I had my own complaints about Dongto’s item distribution and quality.
Finally, Shun opened his mouth.

Still burning with that fierce gaze directed at me, he spoke short and sharp.
“Kim Minjun. I came because you’re here.”
“…Sorry?”

“Teach me.”
That bluntness. Unbelievable.
Even though we were now on the same team, his fighting spirit toward me hadn’t cooled at all. I couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh.

Bora elbowed him in the side and said,
“If you’ve got that much energy, go fight a monster or something. Don’t growl at your teammates.”
“Monsters are boring.”

“They probably think the same of you.”
“...”
Once the conversation settled down a bit, Park Sunja gathered our attention again and began explaining the main duties of Baekho’s exploration teams.
“We mainly take on missions that come directly from the Monster Control Bureau, or those involving unexplored and unverified zones. So naturally, we end up doing a lot of monster elimination.”

At that, Shun and Bora both immediately lit up with confidence.
Those two were definitely combat-oriented.
On the other hand, it was the word “rescue” that caught my attention.

Because at Dongto, that kind of mission was almost nonexistent.
The most we did was recover items, manage monsters, or explore unknown areas—never proactive rescue operations.
Noticing my reaction, Park Sunja elaborated.

“When a report of a possible monster incident comes in, the Monster Control Bureau first assesses the situation. If they judge that monsters are involved, they issue the mission to companies with proper authorization. Then those companies dispatch their exploration teams.”
Still, only a few places handled rescue missions consistently.
Baekho, the Bureau’s in-house rescue teams, and lately, a few rising small offices.

“Rescue ops almost always involve actual monster encounters, so the rewards for success are substantial. Dongto simply chose not to take those kinds of missions.”
That made sense.
Dongto, after all, was profiting from far more stable—and much darker—methods, like the human trade deals at the underground hotel.

They had no reason to risk themselves with rescue missions.
I let out a bitter smile internally.
I didn’t expect Baekho to be completely clean, but at least… I hoped it would be less dirty than Dongto.

After wrapping up the explanation of Baekho’s main operations, Park Sunja offered us a gentle suggestion.
“It’s a special occasion, all of us meeting like this—how about we go have a meal together?”
There was no reason to refuse.

A shared meal was the best way to loosen the awkwardness of a first meeting.
“Is there anything you’d like to eat?”
As she looked around with hopeful eyes, the first to respond was Shun. Without hesitation, he bluntly said:

“Meat.”
I couldn’t help laughing at his conciseness.
Next was Bora.

Instead of naming a food, she said something unexpected.
“Hmm… I’d like some hot soup with soju.”
Turned out she liked alcohol more than I’d expected.

With her somewhat youthful face, I didn’t see that coming.
Lastly, all eyes turned to Hanbit.
He rested his chin in his hand, thinking for a moment, then spoke.

“I’d… like to try commoner food.”
Commoner food?
I doubted my ears.

This wasn’t a drama or a movie—this was real life—and hearing a phrase like commoner food from someone who looked barely twenty was surreal.
I wasn’t the only one. Bora, Shun, even Park Sunja stared at him, momentarily speechless.
Hanbit, for his part, just tilted his head in confusion, completely unaware of why everyone was suddenly looking at him like that.

Trying to ease the awkwardness, I spoke up.
“I’m good with anything.”
Park Sunja quickly recovered her expression and offered a conclusion that incorporated everyone’s preferences.

“Then how about pork ribs? It’s on me.”
Not a bad choice.
“Soup…”

Everyone nodded in agreement, and only Bora looked slightly disappointed, mumbling the word soup under her breath.
I smiled at her—told her she could get some soybean paste stew or something.
I never liked alcohol, so I didn’t fully get it, but people who loved soju always seemed to crave hot soup too.

We decided to go out for pork ribs, as Park Sunja suggested. I quickly excused myself to message the former Team 15 members.
I let them know I’d be going to dinner with my new teammates.
“Alright, shall we head out for that meal? I’ll guide you.”

With a soft voice, Park Sunja took the lead, and the rest of us followed with mild anticipation.
But just as we passed through the building lobby and stepped outside, something felt… off.
It was hard to describe, but the atmosphere was unmistakably wrong.

“…What the…”
Then, in the next moment, we were hit with an unexpected sight.
In the plaza in front of the building, dozens of cameras were pointed at us, surrounded by intense lighting rigs that looked like broadcast equipment.

As if we were the stars of a major press conference.
“Hold on. What’s with these lights—?”
“Something’s wrong.”

Bora spoke in a confused tone, [N O V E L I G H T] and Shun had already lowered his body, scanning the area cautiously.
And just like Shun said, I quickly noticed what was strange about all of this.
“…There are no people.”

No one stood behind the cameras or lights where crew members obviously should have been.
If someone was filming something, there should be people. But not a single person stood behind the dozens of cameras.
Suddenly, someone brushed past Shun from within the crowd—bumping his shoulder lightly as they passed.

As Shun glared, a man’s voice rang out into the air.
Okay! Moving on to the next scene!
Next scene?

I didn’t even have time to process what that meant before the environment around us began to shift rapidly.
The brightly lit building plaza was instantly consumed by darkness, and when I opened my eyes again, we were in a narrow alleyway filled with cold, damp air.
The lights and cameras from before were still there—but the location had changed completely.

“Where… are we?”
“No way…”
And then, I realized it instinctively.

There’d been talk recently about a rise in monster phenomena.
“This is… a monster phenomenon, isn’t it?”
At Bora’s words, we all nodded simultaneously.

We had been swept into a monster phenomenon.
Right in front of a company that deals with monsters.
Amid the confusion, Park Sunja calmly looked around and bent down to pick something up off the ground.

It was a small bundle of thin papers. As she unfolded them, all of our eyes turned toward what she was holding.
“This is…”
Her quiet voice accompanied the reveal.

It was a movie script.
On the cover, scrawled in eerie cursive, were the words: [The Tiger Murder Case – Script]
Park Sunja flipped to the first page and began skimming the contents. Her brow furrowed slightly.

“It says here… ‘SCENE #1. Busy street. Shun, distracted while picking up fallen papers from his bag, collides hard with a stranger. The man glares at him without apologizing. Shun glares back, equally intense…’”
“That’s exactly what just happened…”
The moment we heard it, our faces all went stiff—including Shun’s.

Because the scene described in the script lined up almost perfectly with what had just happened in front of the building.
Shun had bumped into someone.
And he’d glared at the man—just like in the script.

Only the detail about the falling papers was different.
Park Sunja turned the page.
SCENE #2.

Dark alleyway.
Shun corners the man from the previous scene and beats him mercilessly.
The man collapses, bleeding.
Shun turns away coldly.
The man, watching Shun’s back, vows to take revenge.
“There’s no Scene 3 listed… But still…”
“We can’t let it follow the script.”

Bora replied to Park Sunja’s murmured observation.
This monster phenomenon was trying to force us into playing assigned roles.
So we couldn’t just go along with it.

The script’s title alone—The Tiger Murder Case—suggested that if we followed it, nothing good was going to happen.
Ready, action!
Again, a voice echoed from nowhere.

And down at the far end of the alley, the man appeared.
We all looked toward him, watching warily.