Dispatches from the Graduate School of Ghost Stories - Chapter 31

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

Urban Legends and the Graduate School (31)
A Day in the Life of an MZ Generation Intern (5)
The interior of the Logistics Warehouse was far more expansive than its exterior suggested. Along both walls, merchandise was stacked in neat layers upon shelves that reached toward the ceiling, waiting to be shipped.
Parcels wrapped in boxes and plastic continued their endless procession along conveyor belts, yet despite the staggering volume, not a single person was sorting through them. The belt near the entrance curved into a U-shape, beginning nowhere and leading somewhere Yu Jong-hwa couldn’t see, stretching on for so long it disappeared from his field of vision.
He couldn’t begin to estimate how far he’d need to walk to reach the end of this warehouse.
This had to be the same warehouse where he’d interviewed, so why had it transformed into an entirely different space?
He set aside the question and walked slowly alongside the conveyor belt, reading the addresses scrawled on parcels as they passed. His task was clear enough.
‘Find the parcel with written on the address.’
That hanok village in Seoul existed, certainly, but Ju Ho had emphasized that the address had to include the word “deep area” as a suffix—meaning it wasn’t a place ordinary tourists could reach.
For the record, though they were technically stealing these parcels, it was ambiguous enough to call theft. When Yu Jong-hwa had asked, So Hui-yeong responded confidently.
‘Why would we be thieves? We’re returning things to their original owners. We’re like daily courier workers. We’re volunteers!’
The researchers recovered lost items and delivered them to the Supernatural Phenomena that had requested them, and in return, these entities expressed their deep gratitude and granted difficult favors. It was groundwork for building goodwill. Particularly in the Deep Area of Bukchon Hanok Village, the residents were apparently cooperative, making it a genuinely helpful act.
Of course, from DNA Logistics’ perspective, they were merely thieves damaging the company’s reputation.
That explained the massive warning sign posted at the entrance.
Warning
Access to delivery items strictly forbidden to non-employees.
No leniency for thieves.
The warning sign itself appeared in no reports or guidelines, but a simple warning seemed nothing to worry too much about.
Before long, a peculiar box entered his field of vision.
The small black box wasn’t plain paper—a traditional pattern etched in subtle gold foil gleamed beneath the warehouse lights.
Who wouldn’t think it was headed to the hanok village?
Since the box had already drifted far from Yu Jong-hwa, he hurried forward and grabbed it before it vanished beyond the warehouse’s unseen end.
As he turned the box over, he noticed a sticker with tiny handwritten characters on its side.
[Bukchon Hanok Village Deep Area, Lot 10-3 ■■■■■■]
Even wearing the Security Glasses, several characters were easy enough to read.
The delivery address on the label was definitely Bukchon Hanok Village Deep Area.
The detailed address and name written on the back were in complex Hanja, so Yu Jong-hwa gave up on reading them.
Pleased at how easily the task had unfolded, taking it as a sign his fortune wasn’t bad today, Yu Jong-hwa stuffed the black box into his backpack.

An announcement blared so loudly his ears went briefly numb.
Like the day of his interview, the voice came from no discernible direction.
Had the computer failed to shut down after quitting time?
At the same moment, a sound like a dying beast reached him from beneath his feet. And as if the warehouse temperature had plummeted, he felt the cold seep into his bones.
Yu Jong-hwa slowly lowered his head toward the space beneath the conveyor belt.
“……, …….”
Against the tip of his shoe, something was vibrating faintly. Thin leather bunched together—whatever it was, it was clearly breathing. Blood vessels threading across its paper-thin surface pulsed visibly. Or rather, they didn’t anymore. The Security Glasses blurred away anything harmful to the wearer’s mind. Yu Jong-hwa only sensed that it was rising to its feet before he began backing away slowly.
A murmur reached his ears.
“So cold…….”
Then it uttered a few more words he couldn’t understand.
To Yu Jong-hwa’s eyes it appeared as nothing more than an apricot-colored mass, but he could discern it was a monster with an elongated body tall enough to touch the tops of the shelves.
Unable to properly steady its long frame, it staggered and thrust a grotesque hand toward Yu Jong-hwa’s shoulder.
He dove forward, throwing himself out of the way. The razor-sharp claws raked through empty air where he’d been standing—a clear intent to shred him apart.
This was bad. He’d heard nothing about this. DNA Logistics must have finally hired warehouse security guards to prevent theft!
The creature made wet smacking sounds, working its mouth. Rigid with tension, he felt his vision growing increasingly distorted. It was good that the threatening thing became harder to see, but it was equally unclear how it was lunging at him.
“Is it…… the Security Glasses, then?”
Just as Ju Ho had pointed out, the Security Glasses had a problem. Yet he had no confidence he could maintain his sanity if he faced the creature with bare eyes.
Yu Jong-hwa stopped deliberating and simply turned and ran with all his strength.
He was certain he was running toward the entrance he’d come through, but somehow the door only grew more distant.
Barely managing to evade the creature as his breathing grew ragged, Yu Jong-hwa eventually abandoned any hope of escaping through the exit.
He turned sideways and hid behind the shelves stacked with bulky items. Now the creature’s form was only faintly visible, but he could track its position by the sound of its footsteps on the frozen floor.
The warehouse temperature had fallen to midwinter depths. He shielded his mouth as breath misted from it, examining the parcels that concealed him. These shelves held all the same type of merchandise—toys for making something, apparently.
Yet something about the description printed on the box’s side seemed odd.
MAKE IT MINI BABY! -Baby Manufacturing Kit-
This is an unassembled product containing only the main components.
The infant formula that the finished product must initially consume is not included; please purchase separately through the manufacturer.
The intelligent parent’s choice for raising an excellent child!
The infant formula is composed of essential substances the product must consume—water, carbon, ammonia, calcium, phosphorus, salt, potassium nitrate, sulfur, and more—and provides a remarkable effect in preventing the product from indiscriminately attacking parents and passersby!
*Excessive consumption may cause the product to grow excessively fast.
Like a toy for making miniature food, the box appeared to be a product that mixed viscous material to create a finished item.
Printed on the box were images of an enormous human hand and, resting upon it, the misshapen figure of an ugly human baby. The crudely formed features, attempting pitifully to resemble humanity, were more than enough to inspire revulsion in any observer.
Yu Jong-hwa wanted to slip behind something safer. He took a step forward.
But the deeper he ventured into the warehouse, the more grotesque the “Baby Manufacturing Kit” displays became. Behind him, moving in silence, came a soft sound—thud, thud—boxes dropping as if knocked by something unseen.
“Hungry, hungry, lonely, hungry…….”
A thin murmur in several languages drifted from nearby. A chill crept up the back of his neck, and Yu Jong-hwa felt cold sweat break across his skin. Now he understood. The creature wasn’t failing to find him. It was growing more eager as he tired and slowed; the murmuring quickened with his exhaustion.
Where should he go? Where was he even heading? He walked forward endlessly, but the shelves—vast, branching in every direction—only repeated themselves. A conveyor belt drifted lazily between them, carrying shipments toward their destinations.
Perhaps his failure to find an exit was because he wasn’t truly seeing this landscape at all?
<Interns are not permitted to leave designated work areas during shifts. Please return to your assigned station.>
A loud announcement echoed through the cavernous warehouse, warning him.
Yu Jong-hwa took a deep breath and removed his security glasses.
Thud, thud-thud…….
A box bearing the image of something human-shaped fell directly behind him.
Yu Jong-hwa’s brown hair trembled in the foul breath that gusted down over his head, then stilled, then trembled again.
He looked up to meet an elongated face tilted sideways toward him—or rather, a malformed skull with barely enough human flesh clinging to its twisted bone.
When their eyes met, the creature grinned, its sunken eye sockets stretching wide.
Its leathery skin rippled, and from the cracks emerged long arms tipped with razor-sharp nails. A body resembling a starved human crept slowly closer. It raised a twisted hand and swept a product box from a shelf at Yu Jong-hwa’s shoulder height.
The box that fell at his feet made a faint, muffled jingling sound from within.
“I’m, I’m just a new employee here. I was about to return to my station. Could you please let me go……?”
The creature didn’t appear to possess any great intelligence. A chain ran around its neck with a small metal plate inscribed with a name: “Wendigo.” It was a word Yu Jong-hwa had never heard before.
<Interns are not permitted to leave designated work areas during shifts. Please proceed to the Manager’s Office and submit an incident report.>
The announcement grew louder. Now it was no longer merely a warning—it was demanding he visit the Manager’s Office. Yu Jong-hwa sensed something had gone terribly wrong.
His bag continued to chime with message notifications, as if mocking him.
His seniors had told him this place was simple: steal a package and escape. They’d called it an easy supernatural phenomenon.
Either his seniors were liars, or something catastrophic had gone wrong with this supernatural phenomenon.
The creature, drool streaming from its mouth, rushed at him the moment the announcement ended. Yu Jong-hwa kicked a box near his feet into its legs, then began to flee, sending items crashing to the floor as he ran.
The creature approaching in long strides wasn’t running—but its stride was several times that of a human, making it only a matter of time before it caught him.
Yu Jong-hwa wove frantically through the divided shelving sections, dodging the creature. Every time he passed the corner displaying baby-making kits, he felt dozens of gazes upon him. The images on the box surfaces—seen now without the security glasses—showed baby eyes that moved, following his escape.
Sickened, he managed to stumble toward a corner displaying other merchandise.
Yu Jong-hwa ducked into a section stacked high with large black delivery bags, grabbed one, and hurled it with all his strength at the pursuing creature.
Thud, thump, rumble…….
The black, thick delivery bag met the creature’s careless swing and tore at the corner. Through the split seam, colorful plastic capsules spilled out and scattered across the floor.
It was unmistakably a sight he felt he’d seen before.
Yu Jong-hwa stumbled and stepped on a purple capsule. As it cracked open, he found no scrap of paper with a prophecy inside.

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