Dispatches from the Graduate School of Ghost Stories - Chapter 37

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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 (37)
Resignation Vlog (6)
Do you remember where you were born, who raised you, what life you lived before you came here?
Yu Jong-hwa hurled questions at the bewildered specter one after another, but the phantom born from rumor could not answer any of them.
[I… I’m not sure. I can’t remember anything at all.]
“It’s because you’re an Urban Legend Phenomenon, sir. For the past few years… well, what I mean is, we’ve been seeing cases where urban legends that were spreading as mere stories take on actual form. It’s like a natural disaster, they say. Haven’t you heard about it?”
[An urban legend? So I’m an urban legend? A story someone made up…?]
“Exactly! Something like that. From what I understand, it’s an urban legend created from rumors about someone dying from workplace harassment at some poorly run company.”
The intern turned the words over in his mind for a long moment before speaking, his voice hollow.
[Then I was created from the very start just to suffer here. I’m not even a real person….]
“But it’ll all be over today! Don’t be so gloomy! You’re such an important part of this urban legend. That’s why you can’t resign…. Let’s make a different scapegoat instead of Park Min-gu! We can spread new rumors and swap things around!”
[So you’re saying I should create someone else who gets harassed. If I spread information that a person exists who suffers worse than me, would that work?]
“Yeah, right! Since urban legends are rumors, we should be able to change it if new rumors spread!”
Probably. Yu Jong-hwa was grasping at straws, throwing out words for a plan he’d never attempted nor even heard of before.
But the specter, desperate to clutch at any lifeline, typed with frantic speed. Within moments, the monitor filled with emails containing pathetic complaints.
I’m a new hire at DNA Logistics, but even the chairman ignores me, and all the employees harass me. I want to die every single day. The depressing content was so tedious that any recipient would lose the will to finish reading.
[Will this do?]
“It sounds more like spam than before.”
Yu Jong-hwa genuinely thought the intern’s writing was terrible, but he stopped him gently, taking care not to hurt his feelings.
One was a perpetual intern, the other an MZ-generation intern who burned down the company in a single day.
There was no chance anything plausible would come from the two of them putting their heads together.
“What if we create a completely different type of successor? Something totally new would stick in people’s memory better than something similar. Better yet, make it a capable specter! An employee who works hard enough to satisfy the chairman!”
[To be honest, I’m not confident…. But let’s try.]
They needed to create an entirely new variety of urban legend. After a bit more serious discussion, Park Min-gu began to type.
[Hello, this is Kim Min-ju, an intern at DNA Logistics. A happy workplace! A company where everyone works joyfully! I love this place so much! All of you newcomers will soon be satisfied with this perfect work environment! DNA always welcomes new colleagues! So far, I’ve been working continuously for 1654678756346 hours!]
Park Min-gu, who’d changed the text color to screaming red, was lost in thought for a moment before opening the paint program.
He clumsily sketched the outline of a person with a beaming smile using the mouse, then attached the finished image to the email.
The hastily drawn figure with sparse hair was so crude it was hard to tell the gender or age, but it carried a deeply unsettling quality entirely different from a child’s doodle.
The original was truly different.
It had the touch of a specter who’d scattered curse emails without number throughout the urban legend.
A voice tinged with unmistakable pride flowed from the phone speaker.
[How does it look?]
“It’s good. Completely like an urban legend. If we send this and add some more eerie language to it, it’d look more convincing…. Wait a moment.”
Messages, emails, phone calls, postal mail—these are the classic causative agents that appear in urban legends.
After receiving strange mail, if you go complain to the sending organization, there’s a high probability you’ll hear this response:
‘We have no such employee, and we would never send mail like that.’
Yu Jong-hwa opened a new email composition window and typed a simple message.
[Hello, this is DNA Logistics. The email sent just now was not sent from our company.
We have confirmed that an intern by the name of ‘Kim Min-ju’ does not exist in our organization.
If you have received an email impersonating an employee, we ask that you delete it immediately for your safety. We are not accepting inquiries regarding this matter.
Thank you.]
“Wouldn’t this make it seem more authentic?”
[Sounds good. Should we send it now?]
“Yes! The sooner the better.”
Despite the late hour, surely someone in Korea wasn’t sleeping. As Yu Jong-hwa watched the specter densely populate the recipient list with email addresses, he noticed familiar university domains among them.
The specter wasn’t sending indiscriminately—he’d carefully filtered organizations and research institutes related to the Urban Legend Phenomenon. Yu Jong-hwa confirmed that his own Research Lab email was correctly entered, then clicked the send button.
Thousands of emails announcing DNA Logistics’ new intern scattered across Korea.
“Now we wait. It’ll take at least until morning for the rumors to spread sufficiently.”
[……I suppose so. Do you think this will actually work?]
The intern who’d claimed not to trust Yu Jong-hwa was now clearly buoyed by hope. He waited in silence for the clock on Yu Jong-hwa’s smartphone to pass 9 AM.
The moment it turned 9:01, a deafening wail shook the entire building.
[There’s no way this will work!! It’s all over. I’ll never escape from here and I’ll rot away forever……! Waaaahhh, waaahhh…….]
“……In the real world, it’s barely commute time. Not many people have seen the email yet, so it probably just hasn’t spread. Don’t lose hope so quickly.”
At an hour when most office workers had only just arrived, the specter was already tantruming, insisting the rumors had no effect whatsoever.
What a troublesome specter. At this point, wouldn’t it be fine to just leave him and go?
A specter who couldn’t even cause major chaos despite knowing it was an urban legend—the most harmless among all the Urban Legend Phenomena entities he’d encountered. Yu Jong-hwa found himself thinking that a curse from something this insignificant would unravel in no time.
[Just now, you found me bothersome, didn’t you.]
“What? Me? No, I didn’t.”
Being a specter, it seemed to have sharp intuition. Yu Jong-hwa made a show of being busy and hastily searched through his email. Even at this early hour, there were a fair number of responses—more than expected. Among several emails boldly posing questions to understand the changes in the DNA Logistics Urban Legend Phenomenon, he spotted a subject line in a familiar tone.
[What the hell did you do?]
Even without a name written on it, the subject line offered no anonymity whatsoever.
This was So Hwi-yeong.
Yu Jong-hwa hid what he’d done as best he could, made excuses about strange phenomena suddenly erupting in the Urban Legend, and appealed earnestly for help. Less than five minutes later, an email arrived.
[Strange phenomena just happened? That doesn’t make sense.
Don’t bother lying—tell me the truth.
If you want to live.]
At the end of the email was a sentence so dire it was impossible to tell whether it meant she’d help him escape unscathed or kill him herself.
In the end, Yu Jong-hwa sent her a painstaking account of the entire truth, as if being led to the slaughter.
[I’m so sorry, senior. Please save me. I didn’t mean to, but I ended up setting the company on fire…….]
With each character he typed, he placed a hand over his heart and berated himself. By any standard, he was a terrible junior.
Fortunately, So Hwi-yeong didn’t abandon him—she sent one profanity-laden email, then immediately set about damage control.
[Create a new Urban Legend? It’s a terrible idea, but since you’ve already done it, there’s no helping it…….
Shouldn’t we at least build some credibility? If I just get emails, I won’t know for certain whether DNA Logistics has actually changed. And besides, there’s nothing written about who the previous intern was or what happened to them? Think of something more concrete!]
[Understood! Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you!]
[For building credibility, I’ll figure out a way with Jong-ho.]
[I really can’t thank you enough for not abandoning me. I’ll definitely treat you to meat. Hanwoo if you’d like.]
[Really? I got that screenshotted?]
So Hwi-yeong must have been with Jong-ho. When her junior didn’t return, they waited together. The two debated for a few minutes before sending an email saying they’d go with a reliable method, even if it took longer.
[Anyway, people believe what the government says. I’ll ask them to update the national Urban Legend information site. We could have it up by this afternoon if we’re lucky. Urban Legend cases are treated as emergencies.]
[Government agencies actually do that when a private citizen asks?]
[Only if there are a lot of reports coming in besides us. Jong-ho’s heading out now to meet with an information broker. You owe him thanks. Get him prime rib.]
So Hwi-yeong clearly disapproved, and after lecturing him at length about his recklessness, she landed a sharp observation.
[There’s no record of the chairman ever appearing. That’s why I can’t tell you how to escape your situation. But can you trust the specter beside you right now? Are you even sure that Train Ticket is a proper ticket on ‘our’ side? No matter how long it takes, I think waiting is safer. I’m going to take care of something, so don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.]
The message was simple: she’d given him enough supplies, so just hold on.
Of course, So Hwi-yeong didn’t know yet that he would die if he didn’t graduate. But the Train Ticket was too suspicious, just as her senior had warned, so he couldn’t simply board a train on her word alone.
The intern specter seemed to have read the email—it said nothing for a moment. A few seconds later came the sound of something moving.
Yu Jong-hwa saw the first drawer of the filing cabinet beneath the desk slide open.
A single sheet of discolored paper lay there, solitary. When Yu Jong-hwa tried to pick it up, the drawer snapped shut in an instant.
[Just look with your eyes until the work is done.]
“Come on. You’re not really worried I’d run off with it, are you?”
You won’t even open the door anyway. As Yu Jong-hwa grumbled, the specter seemed sheepish and the drawer slowly opened again.
He glanced at the paper—a Train Ticket was printed on it.
Tonggō Station > Seoul Station
The ticket only indicated that a late-night train would arrive at Seoul Station, with no exact date or time.
“Wow, when was this ticket made? I’ve never even seen one. Everything’s digital these days.”
[……What year were you born?]
The specter in the Urban Legend was flabbergasted.
What year was this specter born? Did a birth year even exist for it? The two fell silent for a moment, each suddenly aware of the generational gap between them.
[……You mentioned it was a Research Lab. Unlike the intern, your seniors must be quite competent.]
“That’s right! They’re wonderful people, actually. The only weird one is the professor, but it’s a good workplace otherwise.”
It felt oddly like he was being criticized, but Park Min-gu’s tone had noticeably softened.
[I envy you.]
Park Min-gu genuinely envied him.
While waiting for the seniors’ contact, the specter asked whether the disturbing stories he’d heard about the Graduate School were true. Yu Jong-hwa told him reality was worse.
After an hour, they were debating which was more dreadful—DNA Logistics or the Graduate School—and Park Min-gu, true to his spectral nature, pressed on without breathing, insisting his company was worse.
After two hours, their conversation had shifted to everyday topics. Park Min-gu marveled as he learned about technological advances. By then his voice through the line had become fitful and sparse, and Yu Jong-hwa assumed the specter was simply lost in deep thought, forgetting to respond.
After three hours had quietly slipped away……Park Min-gu was barely responding with tiny whispers, and the already poor audio quality deteriorated further, sounding like a radio approaching a dead zone.
“Are you alright?”
[I’m very comfortable.]
Minutes passed before a single word finally came back. He spoke as if he’d forgotten fear, saying he was planning his Departure now.
Yu Jong-hwa thought he sounded like someone being slowly strangled, but since Park Min-gu himself seemed quite satisfied, he said nothing. Instead, while the new Urban Legend Phenomenon took time to fully take his place, he kept up a long, rambling monologue to keep the specter from getting bored.
“Intern?”
Day 2 of the DNA Logistics Urban Legend Phenomenon investigation. Current location: Room 315.
Outside, night still reigned, and the employees’ overtime showed no sign of ending.
But from the intern trapped alone in that distant office, no answer came any longer.
At last, he had achieved his purpose.
Soon, beyond the quiet office, the sound of footsteps is heard.
Knock-knock……. Knock… Bang!!
The forceful knocking quickly gave way to the violent sound of someone kicking the door.
The metal door opens with an unpleasant screech, and something that looks poorly made—barely maintaining a human form—stands grinning with its mouth wide open.

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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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