Dispatches from the Graduate School of Ghost Stories - Chapter 27

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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 Graduate School (27)
A Day in the Life of an MZ Generation Intern (1)
A small town in Gangwon Province. Yu Jong-hwa arrived in an unfamiliar region, dressed slightly more carefully than usual.
Having hitched a ride in a senior’s car, he found himself deposited in front of a Logistics Warehouse that stood isolated on a sparse, desolate road. The rusted iron gate hung improperly closed, rattling with an irritating screech whenever the wind blew.
“This Urban Legend Phenomenon has a strange pattern—there are periods when entry gets blocked.”
Lee Ju-ho, who had finished parking in a field where dust still swirled, stepped out of the driver’s seat stretching.
“Nobody knows why. But we got word that it’s not during the new hire intake period. Anyway, we need to move fast while they’re accepting applicants.”
So Hwi-yeong, who climbed out of the car behind her, looked thoroughly unhappy.
During the few minutes remaining before entry to the Urban Legend Phenomenon, Yu Jong-hwa flipped through materials he’d prepared beforehand, reviewing them. Everything compiled on those thick sheets of A4 paper was a list of anticipated interview questions.
“I’m probably going to be first. I submitted my application earliest.”
“Have you been here before, Lee Ju-ho?”
“Twice—once after I passed the interview, and once more before starting. It’s not dangerous, but… it’s not a pleasant place either.”
“Meaning it can’t be solved by force?”
Lee Ju-ho smiled faintly. Unlike her usual demeanor, she seemed somewhat depleted, which suggested this was quite a hazardous Urban Legend Phenomenon.
So Hwi-yeong opened the iron gate with practiced ease and stepped into the Back Yard before the warehouse. Not a sound of human presence emanated from the peeling-paint warehouse.
“Did you… I mean, have you been here before too, So Hwi-yeong?”
“Five times. And from now on, don’t act like you know me.”
So Hwi-yeong’s face hardened as he spoke in a cold tone, his words barely audible.
[♬♪]
Not long after, a short chime sounded from inside Lee Ju-ho’s pocket—a text message notification.
[Your interview number is 1. Please proceed to the Interview Room.]
The message was formatted poorly. No staff member had actually confirmed that the applicant arrived at the proper location, yet the text seemed to already know she was waiting.
After completing the interview, applicants had to exit through the Back Yard door. Unless specifically contacted, those waiting outside the Interview Room had no way of knowing whether the person ahead had left safely.
Following So Hwi-yeong’s instruction not to acknowledge each other, Yu Jong-hwa swallowed his curiosity and didn’t text Lee Ju-ho.
Buzz—
About fifteen minutes after Lee Ju-ho went in, So Hwi-yeong’s phone vibrated in his hand.
After checking his screen, he said nothing to Yu Jong-hwa and strode into the Logistics Warehouse.
Perhaps ten minutes after he entered, Yu Jong-hwa’s own summons finally arrived.
[Your interview number is 3. Please proceed to the Interview Room.]
Were the other two all right? Yu Jong-hwa sighed and powered off his smartphone. He’d heard there were cases of people being expelled for impoliteness when a ringtone went off during an interview.
A simple rejection would actually be a mercy—but he’d heard of one researcher who, cursed somehow, had failed every interview for three straight years. He wanted to avoid such a terrifying fate.
“Hello, I’m Yu Jong-hwa…”
With obvious nervousness coloring his voice, Yu Jong-hwa opened the door and stepped into the empty Interview Room.
There were no windows, no lights—just a dark and cavernous space. The bright, sunlit world outside that he’d been holding the door to now receded slowly as he let it close.
In the completely darkened warehouse, Yu Jong-hwa felt about with his hands searching for a chair.
1. Upon entering the Interview Room, sit in the chair prepared solely for the applicant. Don’t touch the three chairs arranged in a row—those are for the judges. Any idiot who sits in the panel seats won’t be rejected politely.
The interview precautions were naturally written by So Hwi-yeong. He’d insisted that DNA Logistics was an extremely easy Urban Legend Phenomenon, and that the interview in particular was very safe. His words were hardly reassuring.
“We will now begin the interview.”
The voice that emerged from a distant speaker was garbled, mixed with electronic static.
Click, crackle, click-clack.
Despite the Logistics Warehouse clearly having been without power for ages, the speakers activated and deactivated noisily, spurting out the judges’ words. The low voice was difficult to place as either male or female.
“Shall we start with a brief self-introduction?”
As most companies do, the interview within the Urban Legend began by asking the participant for a self-introduction.
As Yu Jong-hwa delivered the fabricated introduction he’d written in his application, questions followed one after another. Everything was from the list of anticipated questions his seniors had compiled—except for one.
“Among the applicants who came in before you, is there anyone you know?”
Was it because he’d talked too much in the Back Yard outside? Or had he overheard something from his seniors?
Yu Jong-hwa faltered, his lips opening and closing silently, before crafting what seemed like an answer befitting a promising job candidate.
“We met while waiting and got along! I’m quite confident in my interpersonal skills!”
“Good.”
“Very good.”
“You’ll fit right into our company.”
Left, right, or above—he couldn’t pinpoint where the voices originated. The judges, as if filtered through an audio device, dispensed muffled affirmations from all around.
In the pitch darkness, unable to even see the outline of his own hands, Yu Jong-hwa forced himself to smile.
“When can you start work?”
“Since I’m currently job-hunting, I can come anytime you call!”
The judges seemed satisfied with this textbook answer.
“You may exit through the back door over there.”
“Thank you.”
Though his feet were invisible even to his own eyes, Yu Jong-hwa bowed and walked toward the back door.
2. Didn’t say anything stupid in there, right? Once they give you permission to leave, exit carefully: five steps to the left, then straight ahead, and when your toes touch the wall, turn right and walk until you can grab the door handle. Please memorize this.
Five paces to the left. Then forward.
Thud—the toe of his shoe brushed against something soft and yielding.
The shifting mass registered as something vast, even through that brief contact. A faint breath resonated along the sole of his shoe. The room suddenly felt unnaturally cold.
“…, …….”
The seniors had said he’d touch a wall, but did walls feel like this in an Urban Legend Phenomenon?
There were things in this world better left unknown, so Yu Jong-hwa didn’t inspect it carefully. He turned his body slowly to the right.
The breathing behind him grew fainter and fainter.
Screeeech—
A rusted iron door groaned open with a sound like fingernails dragging across a chalkboard.
Though he’d been isolated from outside for only minutes, it felt as though he hadn’t seen the sun in ages.
Yu Jong-hwa blinked repeatedly to adjust to the sudden brightness before his surroundings came into focus.
Unlike the front of the Logistics Warehouse—which looked completely abandoned—the back appeared to be an actual workspace. Boxes and items wrapped in opaque plastic were stacked everywhere near the door.
He recalled So Hwi-yeong’s warning, the one about how the real problem came after the interview.
3. Never, ever touch anything in the Back Yard. Don’t make a sound until the wall comes into view,
and when you leave the yard, exit through somewhere other than the gate.
Objects scattered across the yard were piled so high that passage was difficult. Some of them looked valuable enough, but Yu Jong-hwa felt no impulse to touch them.
So Hwi-yeong’s insistent warnings now seemed almost pointless. He occasionally vaulted over boxes blocking his path, making straight for the gray stone wall.
Beside a polished-looking iron door, there was a section where the wall had crumbled. Yu Jong-hwa slipped through the gap, escaped the yard, and rushed to find his seniors. He soon spotted them waiting near the parked car.
“Did it go well?”
“Yes, they asked when I could start.”
“Good—we’ve saved one. Let’s head home.”
Lee Ju-ho listened quietly, then immediately pressed the accelerator and pulled away.
“Senior! Ju-ho! I have a license! I’m a good driver! Please let me drive!”
“No need. Get some rest.”
“No-o-o-o!”
He’d made a strong case to take the wheel, but she’d brushed him off cleanly.
Yu Jong-hwa had always believed he had no motion sickness, but after riding in Lee Ju-ho’s car today, he realized how many timid drivers he’d been traveling with all his life.
As the car tore recklessly down the road, he fought back nausea and asked So Hwi-yeong how the interview had gone.
“I think you passed?”
“Doubt it. Probably not. I went too many times. They knew.”
“What about Ju-ho?”
“She… seemed displeased with me.”
“……Does that mean I’m going alone?”
Even if you pass, you can’t start the same day anyway. Good luck in there.”
So Hwi-yeong spoke casually, but Yu Jong-hwa’s sudden fortune of employment unsettled him.
The origin of the DNA Logistics Urban Legend Phenomenon was workplace harassment.
An Employment-track Internship—wasn’t that when people got assigned to wherever they were needed, dangled with the promise of hire, strung along through overtime as a free lunch, and then cast out? This legend, too, supposedly ended the same way: an intern who couldn’t bear the workplace harassment, who worked those “voluntary” overtime shifts like clockwork, eventually took his own life.
Yu Jong-hwa’s role was to experience one day in that poor intern’s shoes, then steal an item and flee.
“You’ll probably feel depressed, so steel yourself before you go.”
“The feelings I experience in there—they’re all from Immersion, right?”
“Yes… I’m feeling the dead intern’s emotions?”
“Honestly, I don’t know why this legend even exists when it’s not based on anything real. We just spend the day feeling appropriately sad, steal a package to mark the time, and clock out. Your body comes back healthy.”
As So Hwi-yeong said, DNA Logistics was never a real company. It was merely an Urban Legend Phenomenon born from rumors that nested in an abandoned building—a company that had closed due to economic downturn.
No matter how simple the Urban Legend Phenomenon, worry still gnawed at him. The moment the car pulled up to school, Yu Jong-hwa retched.
He hadn’t been Immersed into the Phenomenon yet; it was just that an F1-caliber driver sat behind the wheel.
* * *
Exactly three days after that bizarre interview, a notice of acceptance arrived at the Research Laboratory’s email address.
The email bore only the name “Kim Jong-sik,” so it was confirmed—Yu Jong-hwa was the only one heading into the Urban Legend Phenomenon.
Well, as with most Korean companies, the rejected candidates received no word.
The seniors—especially Lee Ju-ho—tried to hide it, but their joy was written all over their faces.
“I’m supposed to start tomorrow……”
“Right. Work hard, Jong-sik. Let’s grab dinner when you’re back.”
“Don’t say things like that. It sounds like I won’t come back.”
Yu Jong-hwa frowned as he scrolled down through the acceptance email.
Ah, there it was again—that unsettling image attached.
The composition was the same as before: a perspective looking at a man inside an office. But this time, the crack in the door seemed to be open just a little wider.
“Don’t look at that. It follows you.”
A senior’s muted voice whispered to him.
Yu Jong-hwa hurriedly closed the email and said nothing more about the image. The seniors deliberately steered the conversation toward everyday topics, while Yu Jong-hwa resolved to focus solely on preparing thoroughly for his entry into the Urban Legend Phenomenon.
“Does your Research Laboratory have Security Glasses or anything like that? I used them once when I went into broadcasting, and they were great.”
“I’ve got a few. I figured you wouldn’t need one, but want one?”
“Yes……. With one, I definitely won’t have to see such ugly things.”
So Hwi-yeong quickly pulled the Security Glasses from his bag, but Lee Ju-ho stopped him with a worried expression.
“Well, it’s not entirely a good thing. They alter what appears in your field of vision to look safe. So you won’t be able to see situations accurately.”
“I’ll only take them out when things get really dangerous.”
Yu Jong-hwa understood his senior’s concern well enough, but stubbornly decided to keep the Security Glasses for his own peace of mind. The broadcast station’s cooking show was still vividly fresh in his memory.
“Since you’re going alone, either take my Earrings or have Hwi-yeong give you his Bag.”
“Really?!”
“If you can use them. But only one of the two.”
Such luck coming my way?
The things his seniors possessed boasted performance that defied common sense.
He had secretly envied them, and now the chance to use equipment born from Urban Legend Phenomena had finally arrived. Moved by his seniors’ kindness, Yu Jong-hwa fell into contemplation over which one to take.

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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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