I Activated Cheat Mode in a Bizarre Game

The men who had flinched at my laughter soon twisted their faces in rage and began to pull out whatever weapons or items they had to threaten me.
Sharp blades.
The moment I saw them, I moved.

“Hey, you think this situation’s funny? …Huh?”
“…My item…”
Clang.
But the moment they even started pulling things out of their jackets, my fist had already shattered every item they had into pieces.

It didn’t take long for them to realize that resistance was meaningless.
***
After driving for a while—

The car gradually came to a halt in front of an old, abandoned factory in a desolate industrial district.
When I slowly stepped out of the vehicle, the four men who had just been threatening me inside scrambled after me in a panic.
Then, as if nothing had happened, they bowed to me at a ninety-degree angle and greeted me respectfully.

“Please go safely, sir!”
“Sir is a bit…”
“…Have a great day, teacher!”
Yeah. “Teacher” was at least easier on the ears.
After I crushed all their flimsy weapons and shabby items in the car, our relationship had completely flipped in an instant.

As they sent me off with pitiful obsequiousness, I asked for the password to the factory door—just to remember it.
One of the men, the one I’d even stripped of his clothes, replied with a trembling voice.
“The code?”
“…It’s 7123!”

He was now wearing nothing but a white tank top, thanks to me taking his outfit.
Wearing that man’s clothes and mask, I approached the old door lock at the entrance of the factory and keyed in the password. With a dull clunk, the door opened. I had finally infiltrated their base of operations.
Inside the factory was far larger than I expected.
Dozens of computers were lined up in the wide space, and many people sat in front of them, engrossed in something.

But strangely, every single one of them had the same dark, lifeless expression.
As if they were all being forced to work here against their will.
As I stepped inside, a few of them noticed me and flinched, immediately standing and bowing their heads.

Because of the clothes and mask I was wearing, they must’ve mistaken me for someone else.
Thankfully, the infiltration was going smoothly. I returned their greetings as naturally as possible and began sweeping my eyes over the interior of this suspicious factory.
As I was quietly scanning the eerily lifeless interior—

Almost like he’d been waiting for me, a man approached with a hurried expression and spoke.
“Brother Changshik! You’re finally here!”
Changshik. That must be the name of the guy whose clothes and mask I’d taken.

I gave a casual nod as naturally as I could. The man gave me a puzzled look and asked:
“Brother, are you feeling sick? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
I was briefly flustered, but quickly pointed at my throat and made a small metallic “Ahh…” sound, like my voice was hoarse.

It meant I couldn’t speak because my throat hurt.
Luckily, my sloppy act seemed to work. The man easily bought it—“Ah, you lost your voice, huh”—and urged me to hurry, saying there was an emergency.
“It’s a mess right now. You gotta see this right away, Brother!”

He took the lead and guided me deeper into the factory.
As I followed him, I quietly assessed the state of the security around us. I honestly couldn’t tell whether it was thorough or just neglected.
There were plenty of heavy steel doors and high-end digital locks installed throughout the place, but most of the doors were wide open. The few that were locked? All used the same code I had entered earlier: 7123.

At that point, it was a stretch to even call it “security.”
They may have planned for strict security at first, but now it seemed like no one was managing it properly.
“…Mmm.”

And then—when we finally arrived at the very innermost section—I was quietly stunned, though I did my best to stay composed outwardly.
In the deepest part of this old, rusty factory, out of nowhere, there was the entrance to a massive supermarket.
In front of it, a group of men with rough faces were murmuring anxiously.

The man who had guided me walked up to one of them—a guy with a large scar on his face—and gave a report.
“Boss, I brought Brother Changshik!”
The scarred man turned to me and spoke urgently.

“Changshik, good timing! We’ve got a problem. We’re gonna have to redraw the map. The store’s layout changed again!”
Hearing that, I started to get a sense of what this “store” actually was.
This must be their supply source—the place where they obtained all those countless items.

A supermarket that changed its internal layout at regular intervals, trapping and isolating those who entered.
It was a textbook monster phenomenon.
Listening to them talk, I quietly observed the bizarre supermarket from afar.

“…Why isn’t he answering?”
“Oh, Brother Changshik’s throat’s not doing well at the moment.”
“Really?”
From the looks of it, the scar-faced man was the one with the highest rank, and next came me—or rather, the real Changshik.
Apparently, Changshik was the one who could analyze the layout of this monster-store and had items that helped him avoid the monsters inside.

Which was why, now that the layout had changed again, they wanted me to go in first to scout.
If I played this right, I might be able to turn this entire situation completely to my advantage.
“Let’s go, Changshik.”
“We’re counting on you, Brother!”

Reluctantly nodding, I followed a few of the men and stepped through the supermarket entrance.
“Shit, they’re already here! Get down, boss!”
The moment we passed through the entrance, the men whispered and ducked low, hurrying past the checkout counters.

Their eyes were locked onto something.
Uniformed store employees.
But their faces were far from normal.

They were all grinning far too widely—so wide that their bright red gums were fully visible.
And perhaps because of those unnatural smiles, the corners of their eyes twitched violently, not with friendliness but something eerie and horrifying.
“…”

Yeah. That’s what a monster is.
After seeing things like that, regular humans just don’t scare you anymore.
The interior of the supermarket was like one of those massive warehouse stores, like Costco.

All sorts of items were stacked neatly on tall shelves, like merchandise.
The sight reminded me of Dongto’s item warehouse.
The way they displayed the items, the sheer scale—it all felt eerily similar.

“Brother Changshik! What are you spacing out for! We need to find the path!”
Snapped back by their shouting, I composed myself and started moving up front.
Finding the path—or remembering it—wasn’t hard at all.

Because I had a map.
A map only I could see, showing the layout of this place at a glance.
Calmly, I led them forward.

And, using a raspy voice, I began to casually probe for information.
“…I heard there’s rumors someone other than the Jinmyeong Group’s been watching us lately… Is that true?”
The men snorted in laughter. One of them, wearing a gun-like item at his hip, spoke with confidence.

“Boss, your voice isn’t the only thing that got weak—your guts too? We’re holding onto items like these. What could we possibly be afraid of?”
He added:
“We’ve already got a mole inside the Jinmyeong Group. We see every move they make like it’s on the palm of our hand. The cops? They’re nothing. And the monster investigation teams? Same thing. Far from being a threat, those guys are practically donating items to us.”

He twirled his gun-shaped item with flair.
“That thing—won’t it break again like last time?”
I asked, still using my hoarse voice. He glanced at me like I was acting strange.

“Boss, you forgot? The three-star loot from this place? No malfunctions, no side effects. That’s a basic fact.”
He added that the only downside was that the items were too expensive to buy, so they had to steal them—and now had to keep hiding from the employees because of it.
Except for the scar-faced boss, all of them seemed to have stolen three-star items.

Feigning ignorance, I said, “Yeah, I know. Just checking.”
The man, now even more excited, kept bragging.
“I didn’t even aim—just pulled the trigger—and it hit him right in the head!”

The others jumped in, eagerly sharing their own war stories: how they’d killed Jinmyeong Group employees, how they’d ambushed cops, how much damage they’d done.
Like it was something to boast about.
Hearing them talk, any sympathy or curiosity I’d felt toward them evaporated.

They were villains, plain and simple.
Just like I thought this place would be.
“…This way.”

So I decided—
To do exactly what I had planned from the beginning.
On the map that only I could see, the red dots—monster positions—were clearly marked.

Pretending to be helpful, pretending to be Changshik, I began leading them, one by one…
Straight into the monsters.