Dispatches from the Graduate School of Ghost Stories - Chapter 24

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Urban Legends and the Graduate School Presents (24)
Fabrication and Spin
Lee Ju-ho didn’t show it, but inwardly he was waiting for the strange girl’s answer with keen anticipation.
Over all this time, many researchers had come and gone through Yeongrok Elementary School, yet despite this girl’s ghost possessing such a clearly defined sense of self, there wasn’t a single line of record about her. For a mere specter, the intelligence in this child was undeniably present—could she have been a person who vanished here in the past? Ju-ho was even entertaining thoughts of quietly spiriting her away. His work at the lab had always been rooted in one purpose: rescuing the missing.
“I don’t know.”
But the girl shattered his expectations with a vacant response, and pointed at Yoo Jong-hwa with her finger.
“That one over there knows. I told him everything.”
“Wait, hold on! I don’t know either… I only heard why she died! I didn’t catch the rest!”
“What, she’s just an ordinary ghost.”
So Hwi-young wrapped up the situation neatly and lost interest.
Baek Sa-hye clearly couldn’t be bothered to repeat her story twice, so Yoo Jong-hwa explained to his seniors what had happened in Grade 6, Class 3 in the past—an incident of school bullying—smoothing over the worst details. Though he worried about the child hearing such unpleasant things about herself, she seemed utterly unbothered by it.
Perhaps because supernatural phenomena tend to congregate where bizarre or grievance-laden events have occurred, his seniors didn’t look particularly surprised. They simply offered a solution.
“So… the bullies were shut under the classroom back then. Want us to dig them up and beat them for you?”
“That’s fine. I can do it myself.”
“Good. Self-motivation is always admirable.”
Setting aside the content of what was being discussed, Lee Ju-ho and the girl were conversing in rather cordial fashion.
So Hwi-young, pleased by the improving atmosphere, casually handed Sa-hye some snacks and once more asked for her cooperation with their upcoming plans. Yoo Jong-hwa and Lee Ju-ho were each given a chocolate bar to substitute for breakfast.
“So, like I said—you’re Sa-hye, right? Want a chocolate bar? This is expensive stuff. But in exchange, you really do need to help us, okay?”
“I want that one.”
“Of course. I’ll get it for you.”
So Hwi-young casually plucked the chocolate bar from Yoo Jong-hwa’s hand and gifted it to Sa-hye. Guilty as he was, Jong-hwa accepted his hunger without protest.
Three of them—minus one sinner—nibbled their snacks while listening to the report fabrication scheme that So Hwi-young orchestrated entirely.
Operation codename: “As Long as It’s Not Me.”
“There’s only us here anyway. No CCTV. So people outside will believe whatever we write—they don’t have a choice.”
“Are you leaving out the pond-related material entirely?”
“No. Too obvious if we do. When the next team comes into the school, if they report something seems off, they’ll definitely come interrogate us. We need to be careful.”
“Should we lie and say the snake was there but didn’t attack?”
“Hmm… let’s say by the time we reached the pond, the anomaly was already present. The snake never appeared at all. Then wouldn’t they start digging into whoever came before us?”
“The research team that came here right before us was probably from Hwangryong University.”
Lee Ju-ho quickly provided a name for the scapegoat in response to So Hwi-young’s suggestion.
Hwangryong University was the kind of place you could call where Korea’s brightest students went. It held such prestige that coming home with an acceptance letter on New Year’s Day meant a celebration feast at grandmother’s house.
None of Yoo Jong-hwa’s circle came from Hwangryong, though he harbored no desire to befriend them either—neither by rumor nor in person. They tended to be tedious, by and large.
“Lucky them. Those people are insufferable.”
“…Not everyone there is going to be insufferable, though. That’s too much.”
“It’s prejudice, sure. But we haven’t had good experiences being entangled with them so far.”
Lee Ju-ho sighed and shook her head at Yoo Jong-hwa. Jong-hwa rolled a cheap yellow candy—pulled from the teacher’s desk—between his fingers across the desk, soothing his conscience.
Unlike the one fed to the snake, the candy found in the desk drawer was paler and slightly smaller. The candies in the desk drawer were identical to the ones the teacher had used during lessons, so it stood to reason the teacher had hidden them away.
Then whose were all those bright yellow candies scattered across the floor the night before?
“Going forward, the supply of materials will gradually dwindle, and when none appear, we’ll treat it as naturally concluded.”
“There’s been no documented case of artificially terminating a supernatural phenomenon yet. No matter how much people destroy or burn, most phenomena revert to their original state the next day.”
“That’s why these things are classified as natural disasters. But there are cases of natural extinction. So let’s fabricate it as natural extinction.”
As Yoo Jong-hwa listened to his seniors’ explanation, he ventured a careful question toward Sa-hye.
“Is there any chance the black snake that flew to Yeongrok Elementary today will come back?”
The girl answered without emotion.
“No.”
The reason was unclear, but the child spoke with absolute certainty.
So Hwi-young, as if she’d never harbored any doubt, scribbled the plan into her notepad.
“We’ll claim the school started acting strange after the Hwangryong team went in.”
“Then we can say they’re the ones who destroyed the music room too?”
“Yeah, let’s go with that.”
Lee Ju-ho slipped her own wrongdoing in and disposed of it along with the rest.
If the supernatural phenomenon had been terminated, damaged objects might not be restored. Therefore, they would do their best to include in the report only the phenomena they hadn’t themselves destroyed.
“We supported the statue of King Sejong when the statues were fighting, and it ended in a draw, so we got nothing. It broke our hearts. And after that, we were too busy being chased by the library ghost until morning. Understood?”
“Right. So our team will report that we’re returning with only one piece of candy—the prize Jong-hwa won by answering a quiz correctly during class yesterday.”
“So I’m the success story?”
“Well, you did successfully answer the question. And he’s close to her anyway. As for Sa-hye… we’d better not mention that part.”
“Of course. If you tell anyone else, I’ll come find you.”
Yoo Jong-hwa had no desire to be cursed by a ghost, so he promised the girl his silence about everything that had happened here. Sa-hye carefully extracted promises from the seniors as well, looking satisfied.
And so the first draft of their Yeongrok Elementary School survey report was complete.
The content wasn’t yet well-organized—it was more like notes from a meeting stuffed full of fabrications.

Investigators: So Hwi-young, Lee Ju-ho, Yoo Jong-hwa
Date of Investigation: 2026-03-26
Location: Yeongrok District, Gyeonggi Province
Supernatural Phenomenon: Yeongrok Elementary School
Objective: To obtain food products containing concentration-enhancing compounds from faculty at Yeongrok Elementary School.
Investigation Results: Participated in sixth-grade special class under the role of “teaching assistant”
―Solved elementary-level advanced mathematics problems and obtained 1 candy.
“Um… there are so many problems. To be honest, I couldn’t solve them. I cheated.”
“From now on, you solved them.”
“Right. No one would think a graduate student can’t solve elementary school problems.”
“But they weren’t elementary school level……”
Investigation Details
―Attempted exploration of the Seven Wonders phenomena in the evening to acquire additional materials.
―Observed the statues of King Sejong and General Yi Sun-shin. Offered a ritual to the King Sejong statue and watched a duel, but failed to acquire materials due to a draw.
―Passed by the pond with no reaction observed, and no serpent appeared.
―Subsequently returned to school but the structure had changed, and the Library was repeatedly sighted. Library wonder manifested. Discovered an optical illusion doll but failed the ritual. Chased by the spirit in the Library and fled until the morning bell.
―7 AM. The bell rang normally but confirmed no one had arrived at school, and decided to return.
The names written on the report were all people everyone knew, but the content of the investigation was almost entirely fabricated.
“You said no one has ever resolved a supernatural phenomenon before. What if everyone caused incidents like this and just glossed over them?”
“The good thing about an emerging business is that there’s no proper law. The bad thing is the same.”
Since several Yeouiju Fragments remained in this school, it would not be marked as concluded just yet.
Sa-hye agreed to help hide candy throughout the classroom and other locations where supernatural phenomena had occurred.
She seemed to think of it as a treasure hunt.
As more time passed and materials found at the school were completely depleted, interest in this place would fade as well.
“Sa-hye, Yeongrok Elementary School isn’t going to disappear completely, right? The principal seems like he’s still going to be here.”
Yoo Jong-hwa suddenly grew worried that they had robbed an innocent spirit of its home.
“Everything worked out fine. Why are you curious about that?”
“We suddenly barged in and wrecked the place, and I was wondering if you might disappear too……”
“To survive a long time, it’s sometimes necessary to bury the truth appropriately and run away. Look over there.”
The seniors continued their conversation with each other and walked out of the classroom without him, as if Yoo Jong-hwa had never existed in the first place.
Their eyes were neither hazy nor vacant, and their steps did not stagger. They spoke in clear, articulate sentences and walked with perfect naturalness.
“……Sa-hye. What happened to those pale yellow candies that fell last night, aside from the small candy you gave us?”
“I ate them.”
“Even if school was over…… there must have been teachers and security guards around. Back then, while you were screaming, no one came……?”
“No.”
“All that time you were trapped…… no one came looking for you?”
“No.”
“The floorboards in this classroom are old, but the wood is sturdy enough that I couldn’t pry them up. No matter how small you are, elementary school children couldn’t have torn open a hole large enough for a person to fit through. And they couldn’t have hidden that hole perfectly either.”
“Can you be certain of that?”
Yoo Jong-hwa hesitated before answering.
The child still had skin pale and ashen as new snow. The eyes, too, had remained the same since last night—a solid, pupilless black.
“What are you so curious about?”
“There’s no dead child here, right?”
A sharp, cackling laugh pierced his ears.
The laughter soon transformed into short, wheezing breaths.
A pale, slender serpent with a long tail coiled upon itself was now perched on the desk, its black eyes gleaming.
“Not a human child, anyway.”
Yeongrok District was such a pleasant place to live that snakes were quite abundant there.
The serpent scratched its own jaw with the tip of its tail and shook its head.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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