Dispatches from the Graduate School of Ghost Stories - Chapter 5

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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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Haunted Phenomena and Graduate School (5)
Famous Super Broadcasting Corporation
There’s good news, bad news, and terrible news.
The good news was that Yu Jong-hwa had successfully boarded the train. The bad news was, naturally, that he could now enter a Haunted Phenomenon.
The terrible news? That lay at today’s destination.
Yu Jong-hwa sat in the moving train and opened the search bar on his Smartphone.
The Haunted Phenomenon that the professor had ordered him to investigate was the FSBC Broadcasting Station.
The FSBC Broadcasting Station was designated as a Haunted Phenomenon managed by the state, so information poured out the moment you entered the government website.
Yu Jong-hwa clicked on “Emergency Procedures for Haunted Phenomena” and found the broadcasting station’s data.
FSBC is the Famous Super Broadcasting Corporation, a broadcasting station whose closure was decided on February 18th, 2011.
Yu Jong-hwa stumbled through the English words and clicked his tongue. Learning the official name of a broadcasting station he’d never paid attention to before, he found himself thinking they deserved to go under.

Following large-scale layoffs, broadcast transmission ceased, yet “Hilarious Medical Tips for Daily Life,” which had been aired previously, was discovered to be continuously transmitted on specific regional channels.
Viewers of the program expressed strong complaints about medical procedures demonstrated that were unsuitable for broadcast standards, and it was recorded that some viewers complained of severe abdominal pain after watching the program.
After 2 PM on September 10th, fifty-seven emergency patients were transported to a university hospital near the FSBC Broadcasting Station.
The patients showed common organ damage, with severe spinal fractures reported in ten cases.
Yu Jong-hwa read through the descriptions of the “unsuitable” medical procedures that followed and quietly set down the water bottle he’d been drinking from.
There was no need to explain it in such detail.
All attempts to artificially halt the broadcast transmission failed.
The Haunted Phenomenon is being controlled through periodic explorations conducted in cooperation with relevant agencies.
If it’s under control through exploration, it sounds safe—but ultimately it means they’re appeasing the Haunted Phenomenon with human sacrifice.
Below that was a note that safety education was being conducted for Explorers. It seemed like a last vestige of conscience.
Yu Jong-hwa read the attached explanation for anyone entering the Haunted Phenomenon. It listed the process of entering the broadcast and what one would experience once inside.
This Haunted Phenomenon wasn’t about exploring the broadcasting station building—the goal was to participate in a broadcast program and survive.
That was the terrible news. Which program you’d end up in was completely random.
And there were so many types!
The broadcast programs for which exploration records exist are as follows……
Some programs had very detailed information, but as you went down the list, records that didn’t even fill a single line began to increase.
However, before he could finish reading everything, the high-speed train arrived at Daejeon Station without a single second’s delay.
* * *
The long-closed broadcasting station had no lit windows. As Yu Jong-hwa entered, several police officers blocked his entrance. He produced his identification and certification, passing through the barricade—thanks to the research lab having filed his entry request in advance.
Tense and glancing nervously around, Yu Jong-hwa followed the police officer leading the way.
“Once you’re ready here, you can enter the Haunted Phenomenon.”
A makeshift office constructed from a shipping container had been set up in the broadcasting station’s parking lot. The facility looked rather shabby, apparently due to limited budget.
“Is anyone here……?”
“Yes, yes, just a moment.”
After clanking several times, the door swung open cheerfully. A middle-aged woman emerged from within and gestured for Yu Jong-hwa to come in.
Hoping against hope that this would be a Haunted Phenomenon where multiple people entered together, Yu Jong-hwa peered inside the container—but as expected, no other personnel were visible.
“……Do I have to go in alone?”
“Goodness. You don’t know anything! If multiple people went in together, they’d fight over who gets to live. We can only send one person at a time.”
“I actually read the description! But I still don’t want to go alone! I’m a complete newcomer! Please, just this once!”
“Hey now, young man. Why are you like this? There’s nothing I can do for you even if you beg me. Come on, sit down first.”
Yu Jong-hwa squeezed his large frame into a comically small folding chair and, doing as instructed, spread both hands. Something resembling laboratory Safety Goggles was placed in his palms.
“What is this?”
The other person showed no particular sympathy even as he stared back blankly.
“If you’re confident you won’t be Assimilated once you enter the Haunted Phenomenon, you don’t need to wear it. Doesn’t your university research lab send you to many field sites?”
“No…… Today is my first day of work.”
“Hmm, that’s rough for your first time. If you’re lucky, nothing serious will happen.”
It’s fine, it’s fine.
The middle-aged woman, who exuded the confidence that Haunted Phenomena were nothing to fear, offered casual reassurance.
“Assimilation” by a Haunted Phenomenon meant becoming so steeped in it that your mind warped. Yu Jong-hwa had no confidence in coming out unscathed, so he quickly put on the Safety Goggles.
“You absolutely must return those. They’re expensive equipment—the principle is that you bring your own, but I’m lending you mine.”
“Thank you so much! I’ll definitely return them!”
Yang Jung-yeon. He confirmed her name, written on her nameplate, belatedly. After returning from the Haunted Phenomenon, he’d need to return the equipment—so he committed those three characters to memory.
“Most Explorers who’ve entered the broadcasting station so far went in through an outdoor exploration program. The mission is to find treasure hidden in the mountains, and you can return if you grab the treasure before the other participants. There’s even a prize.”
“You mean ‘Walking into the Forest’?”
The program name seemed familiar from somewhere.
He was worried about the broadcasting station’s copyright awareness, even for a Haunted Phenomenon.
“That’s right. If you run hard, it’s simple. Since the treasure is hidden in one of four locations, if you’re lucky you can escape right away. If you’re unlucky…… you’ll have to run faster and harder than everyone else.”
He had no confidence in luck, but he had confidence in his stamina.
I’ll just run then. Yu Jong-hwa conceded plainly, but his attention snagged on the phrase “other participants.” If no one else was entering together, that meant everything inside the program wasn’t human.
When he raised his hand with a question, Yang Jung-yeon answered him in a cordial tone.
“They’re people who went missing long ago. But don’t expect to rescue them. Only one winner can come back alive.”
“Then…… if I fail to escape, there’s no way back? No rescue team or anything……?”
“Some do get rescued if they’re lucky, but most are in a state beyond recovery. So even if you meet people inside, don’t count on cooperation.”
Yang Jung-yeon, with her gentle expression, shook her head at these bleak words.
She identified herself as a civil servant with the Ministry of Interior and Safety, and though she worked in the shadow of disaster, she showed no sign of tension. Yu Jong-hwa found himself wondering what she’d done in the past.
“Just think about saving your own skin and getting out. Then everything will be fine.”
He’d been fighting death itself since the moment he enrolled in graduate school. Yu Jong-hwa decided to accept his senseless fate once more, opening his mind to whatever lay ahead.
“By the way, is the prize always the same no matter which program you drop into?”
“No? They’re all different. Is there something specific you want?”
The treasure-hunting prize he had to retrieve and bring back was a small pure gold pig. The Haunted Phenomenon had given it the name “pure gold,” but he’d heard it was actually an unknown substance that made it a research subject for them.
Did the professor know about this when he sent me? Yu Jong-hwa began to suspect the professor’s character, wondering if he really meant for him to stay here until he obtained the required object.
“If ‘Walking into the Forest’ doesn’t come up, the professor might actually kill me. He specifically ordered me to get the pig that comes from there!”
“My, I wish you luck.”
Is there truly no way for me to choose which program to enter?”
“Then there wouldn’t be anyone going missing, would there?”
Of course not.
The bureaucrat’s cold answer was reasonable enough, but Yu Jong-hwa only felt forlorn.
To risk your life going in, and the result is random besides? That meant he could do all this work for nothing!
As a last hope, he asked the civil servant carefully.
“I just got my Grade 2 Certification recently, so this Haunted Phenomenon shouldn’t be that dangerous, right……?”
“It used to be, but…… the broadcasting station keeps presenting stranger scenarios as more people succeed in escaping. That’s why this place will be shut down soon.”
“So it’s still okay for me to enter, right?!”
“It’s open today, isn’t it?”
Despite the gravity of the matter, she shrugged and explained that this was how people’s work always went.
An old clock on the wall showed 7:30.
“It’s time. I’ll take you to the entrance.”
Yu Jong-hwa, his face fallen, rose reluctantly at those words.
If it were truly a dangerous Haunted Phenomenon, they’d have banned entry long ago. He forced himself to trust Korea’s system, drowning out his anxiety.
He walked through the desolate broadcast station corridor and stood before a soundproofed side door. Nothing could be heard from inside—befitting a place that had long since failed.
“Alright, open this door and you’re in the studio, so focus! You know what to do, right?”
In the silence, he whispered the first step to entering the Haunted Phenomenon.
“When I go in, I close my eyes and count slowly until someone grabs me and stands me on stage.”
“Don’t open your eyes until the light feels bright enough to penetrate your eyelids.”
Yang Jung-yeon’s words followed, and Yu Jong-hwa grasped the doorknob and opened it.
The heavy door closed behind him. Only the sound of his footsteps briefly stirred the empty space.
He pressed his eyes shut harder and began counting slowly.
One, two…… Sound filtered through as if heard underwater, muffled and dull, tickling his ears.
Three…. His forearm was seized roughly. He yielded, letting himself be pulled along by this unknown force.
Four. Other footsteps gradually mixed with his own. The noise of sneakers dashing forward, the sharp click-clack of high-heeled shoes in succession. The soft shuffle of slippers dragged lightly across the floor.
Five. Voices erupted all around him as if he’d just woken from a dream, crystalline and sudden. The urgent shouts and calls that crisscrossed the studio before broadcast now flooded his ears with perfect clarity.
“Are we ready?”
“Yes! Changing the lights!”
Six. The space brightened. Yu Jong-hwa held his breath. His feet had climbed a low step and stopped on the stage. The force guiding him vanished, and he felt presences on either side.
…….
Yu Jong-hwa slowly opened his eyes.
His green eyes flickered in the brilliant light before surveying his surroundings. The immaculately dressed host swept the area where Yu Jong-hwa stood, checking that everyone was in place.
What met his eyes first was a gleaming sink lined with elaborate kitchen tools and a gas range.
On the massive screen at the center of the stage, a logo of a spatula and ladle intertwined kept undulating through flames.
Everyone standing beside Yu Jong-hwa wore white aprons over chef’s uniforms.
He looked down and examined himself. Somehow he’d also been dressed in the same black chef’s coat and white apron as everyone else.
“Starting recording! Three, two, one!”
“Welcome! An unparalleled culinary survival show bursting with thrills and excitement! Head-to-Head Culinary Showdown! ‘Cliff-Edge Chef’! Season 1, the momentous first battle begins……!”
The host’s introduction, pitched high with energy, resonated through the studio.
Followed by the audience’s roars and applause—disorienting, vibrating through the space—Yu Jong-hwa’s heart grew cold.
Feeling his pulse throb, he closed his eyes again, as if counting might unlock a different space. His trembling hand felt into his pocket, confirming his smartphone was there beside him.
Though the device might not function as it should, the fact that he hadn’t been completely severed from his world offered a small comfort.
“Let the challenge…… begin!”
Yu Jong-hwa had become the first participant in a survival program with no record anywhere.

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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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