Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work - Chapter 136
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story, I Still Have to Go to Work Episode 136
Do you know what it feels like to die from your blood drying up?
It means to suffer terribly and die from anxiety, a term mainly used when enduring long and persistent physical and mental pain.
That’s exactly what we’re going through right now.
The feeling of our blood drying up.
“….”
“….”
For three days.
I’m experiencing firsthand what happens to a human who’s trapped in a ghost story, feeling the fear of death, waiting for companions who never come, unable to sleep or eat properly.
You know what?
If a person can’t sleep properly for three whole days, normal thinking gradually becomes impossible.
We take turns sleeping for an hour at a time in the 2nd Floor Food Court, but even that has its limits. We’re repeating a state where our nerves are on edge, feeling mortal danger every hour.
‘Perfect conditions to go insane.’
…Especially if your companion is a minor who’s caught up in a ghost story for the first time.
“Hic! Wh, where are we now….”
“…It’s been 56 minutes. Let’s move.”
The High School Student I need to rescue got up, limping.
The mental exhaustion must be even more severe than mine. They’re gradually staggering more from dizziness than their ankle injury, and instead of crying, they’ve started muttering nonsense into the air.
They’ve lost even the energy to cry or get angry.
‘Since we can’t eat properly either.’
Naturally, the safe Food Items available in this damn mart are very limited, and most are things a High School Student wouldn’t normally even touch.
…Things like rats or cockroaches.
Things that clearly wouldn’t be treated as merchandise in the mart.
‘It’s a lineup you’d rather starve for three days than eat.’
Occasionally, items that Shoppers had already paid for and lost are found intermittently in the Food Court, and we had to search for Food Items among those to eat.
I saw it exactly once in three days.
Had I ever been so happy to see a banana in my life?
‘To put it another way, that banana was all we ate in three days….’
It was insane.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we hadn’t encountered any other Missing People on the 2nd Floor yet, so there was no competition.
It might have been natural. The Missing People are….
‘Most of them… are on the Upper Floors.’
“….”
Anyway.
This was the limit now.
‘The High School Student I’m in charge of has hit rock bottom in both stamina and mental strength.’
Even filling our stomachs with Water from the Food Court’s water dispenser has its limits.
If this continues for another two days, we’ll really end up catching and eating rats or bugs.
‘Of course, at this rate, something will probably ‘go wrong’ before we even get to eating cockroaches.’
Right now we’re getting up every hour to go to the Bathroom, but if one of us dozes off or collapses and this timing gets messed up….
That’ll be the end.
‘…We’ll encounter an Employee.’
Whether it’s an Employee coming to take orders at the Food Court, or an Employee pretending to clean the Bathroom.
Escorted outside. Processed as missing.
We’d become just one line in an exploration record that disappears leaving only these words.
Revulsion and chills mix together and flow down my spine.
“….”
Honestly, surviving this precariously for three days while carrying a minor with a leg injury was also thanks to luck.
Of course, I’m not an idiot either. I didn’t create this situation on purpose.
‘I never thought I wouldn’t be able to meet the Bronze Agent for three whole days…!’
That’s right.
My Senior Agent has vanished.
This is driving me crazy.
“….”
On the first day, I thought our timing was just off.
‘Maybe while we were hiding under the Display Stand for dozens of minutes, they waited on the 2nd Floor and then moved?’
If they hadn’t injured their leg like the High School Student I’m in charge of, they might have taken a more aggressive approach to escape preparations.
So after much deliberation, I decided to keep waiting on the 2nd Floor.
‘If they want to rest, there’s a high probability they’ll return to the 2nd Floor.’
Actually, I didn’t have much choice either.
Going up and down floors again with a High School Student with a leg injury was close to suicide.
I chose to wait on the relatively safe 2nd Floor for now, and I think it was a rational decision.
But they didn’t come.
So from the second day, I started searching other floors.
I couldn’t search for long. Even leaving the injured High School Student alone for a few hours seemed like it would kill them.
But even when I pushed myself to the point of insanity by going all the way to Basement Level 1, the situation didn’t change.
The Bronze Agent was nowhere to be found.
At least, not within the range I could reach within an hour.
Three days passed like that.
And….
‘Throughout all that time, the mart never started normal operations….’
One of the reasons why escape before closing time is earnestly recommended.
The main culprit that turns this mart into hell and lowers Civilian survival rates.
The shortest confirmed period for mart operations to resume is one day, the longest is 20 days.
Not knowing when operations will start again.
That’s right.
No one knew when Lucky Mart’s new day would begin.
Sometimes normal operations start again in just one day, but sometimes hundreds of hours pass by human perception without a single day passing.
‘This is why there was speculation that the time gap with Reality keeps widening until Lucky Mart’s time becomes the distant past….’
Regardless of how accurate that speculation was, what mattered was the Reality we’re facing now.
The fact that we’ve been trapped here for three days.
…I’m starting to fear what thoughts might be forming in the High School Student’s head.
“We, we actually came here to find a kid who lives in the same Apartment.”
Just then, I heard confused muttering.
“…You came to find someone?”
“Yes, yes. They DMed saying they were going to Lucky Mart and then went missing. So we were like, it’s like a Ghost Story, let’s find them….”
Good lord.
“But it was stupid. They’re probably already dead too…. Wh, what if they got ground up in a mixer?”
“…Let’s not think too far ahead.”
I patted the High School Student’s shoulder.
“For now, you’ll be able to get out today.”
“…What?”
I had something to believe in.
I recalled again the record that was presumed to belong to the Bronze Agent.
If I reconstruct this….
‘After three days passed, they made contact with the agent.’
The agent had escaped alone at that time.
Although it was a rescue failure, the agent surely would have attempted to rescue the civilians.
‘They would have tried to hold out until business resumed.’
So probabilistically, today there was definitely a very high chance the door would open when business resumed.
“Su, surely not right now….”
“Yeah. Just wait a moment.”
I looked at my wristwatch calmly, filled with hope and anticipation.
[ 09 : 59 ]
My heart was pounding.
Soon now, when the time changes….
[ 10 : 00 ]
The exact hour.
Silence.
“…?”
I waited a bit longer.
But nothing happened.
No logo song played, no announcement broadcast came, the lights didn’t return.
…The exit door didn’t open.
“….”
The mart didn’t resume business today either….
‘Fuck.’
I blinked my eyes.
A cold, dull shock rang through my sleep-deprived head….
“Is, is it over?”
“….”
“Uh, uhhhhh….”
“It’s okay. There’s another way….”
I turned my head.
The High School Student was rustling around with something.
A receipt.
It was the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau’s information sign disguised in that form. Probably the paper where the High School Student had found the rescue request number.
‘Why is he….’
Was he trying to find some advisable method?
However, instead of looking at the receipt contents, the High School Student pulled something out from inside. And was about to throw it into his mouth….
“…!!”
I knocked the High School Student’s hand away.
“Ah!”
I forcibly opened his hand and snatched what was inside. He resisted but I ignored it.
“No…!”
…A white capsule-shaped pill.
‘This.’
I recognized the form.
What the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau once included when placing information signs in high-grade ghost stories… euthanasia drug.
If it becomes too painful, please take the enclosed capsule.
We guarantee a comfortable end.
The bad premonition was exactly right.
‘Damn, damn damn!’
It had been enclosed in the information sign this guy saw.
“So, sorry.”
The High School Student said while sobbing.
“I, I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to get ground up in that mixer. I’m too scared and dizzy, I can’t do it. I want to die comfortably….”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Sorry, am I being selfish trying to get comfortable alone? Then if half a pill can kill me too, if we share it….”
“No.”
I looked at the High School Student who was starting to ramble, and gritted my teeth.
And with the most comfortable expression possible, I patted his arm.
“It’s okay. There’s another way out.”
“How?! It’s been three days now without sleep, without eating, without being able to do anything….”
“You can do it.”
I gripped him tightly.
“Until now, I used a method of holding out as safely as possible because I thought business would resume soon. If the door won’t open quickly, there are other methods too.”
“Re, really?”
“Yeah.”
It was the truth.
…If I just made one decision.
-Abandon the Bronze Agent.
The worry that he might not be able to escape while looking for us, the pressure that we need to confirm each other’s survival, the hope that we could receive help.
Abandon it all for now.
Anyway, there was a record that the Bronze Agent himself would escape on his own.
…Though the rescue would fail.
‘Trying to take care of the civilians who followed him… that’s delusion.’
Let me come to my senses.
I chose to do my best within what I could do.
‘If just the two of us have to hold out until business resumes….’
The priorities in my head quickly changed.
Since I’d been thinking about it for the past three days, the next plan was decided quickly.
“We’re going to go upstairs.”
“What…?”
“Don’t eat this, just put it lightly in your mouth.”
I immediately distributed Nostalgia Candy to the High School Student.
A strange item that fixes you to the state when you were at your best.
“Wow…!”
As soon as the candy was put in his mouth, the High School Student’s eyes changed.
“My, my legs are fine!”
“You have to think of it as melting very slowly. It only works while you’re eating it.”
“Yes…!”
The High School Student, whose condition rapidly improved, stood up with a bright face. Even his mental state seemed to have returned to ‘the best time’.
I had prepared myself for him to complain about why I hadn’t given it to him earlier, but he seemed too excited about the mysterious item that immediately improved his physical condition to think about such things.
“Um, the mart’s 3rd floor is the top floor, right? Is there an escape method there? Can we escape through there? Are we going to escape?”
“We’re going to ‘prepare’ for escape.”
And…
“The 3rd floor isn’t the top floor.”
“…What?”
“Sometimes a door leading higher than the 3rd floor appears.”
However.
“But, the receipt said not to go there…”
That was correct.
This mart is a 3-story building, with the mart spanning from basement level 1 to ground 3rd floor.
We repeat: even if you witness an emergency exit leading to the 4th floor, do not believe it. The 4th floor is not part of the mart.
Lucky Mart 4th Floor.
This was also a gimmick that was used almost like a meme in .
‘It’s a disappearance keyword.’
Went up to the 4th floor.
Everyone disappeared after ending with this sentence.
It didn’t matter what desperate, nail-biting, thrilling exploration they had done before. As if bewitched, they vanished futilely and emptily.
That made it even more terrifying.
Until the very end, no one wrote about ‘why’ they disappeared or what was on the 4th floor.
It was an unspoken agreement.
Even the case that dealt with the disappearance process in the most detail was like that.
I recalled it.
The challenge of an agent who realized that all rescue targets had died.
“…”
It was a record that would make anyone resolve never to open the emergency door leading to the 4th floor.
But.
“It’s okay. Once we find the door, I’ll tell you what to do.”
That’s our destination.
“…Yes.”
Whether due to three days of trust or seeing the mysterious power of the Nostalgia Candy, fortunately the High School Student obediently nodded.
“Let’s move quietly.”
We left the 2nd floor food court.
And walked up the stopped escalator, quietly ascending.
Although we had avoided the escalator inspection time for that section, we took off our shoes and moved very carefully barefoot to avoid making even the slightest noise that might attract the employees’ attention.
Our conversation also paused temporarily.
We moved each step slowly and quietly, breaking out in cold sweat.
And finally, the 3rd floor that revealed itself was…
“Ah…”
It was strange.
Originally, the 3rd floor of the previous Lucky Mart was said to be space for event stores.
Various discount displays with different themes were alternately arranged each day.
And the 3rd floor we’re seeing now is.
“Wh, what is this…?”
Those display stands are repeating endlessly.
An endless mart.
If the Lucky Mart on the 2nd floor and below was unsettling because it perfectly recreated the past, from the 3rd floor onward, that space was… infinitely expanded and bizarre.
The currently reported event stores on mart 3rd floor number 3,611, with an area of 232㎢.
Always check your starting point.
If you lose your way, you will never be able to find the escalator leading to the lower floors.
The endlessly repeating displays and special product exhibitions, like being inside a giant maze or the plans and drawings of a madman, were perfect for driving people insane.
But again, it also meant it was good for shaking off or hiding from employees.
It was said that some stores far away didn’t see employees for months.
‘It’s also good for secretly stealing food or daily necessities.’
…If you give up on escape, that is.
So there would be missing people scattered throughout here, though we don’t even know how many…
Perhaps, even Bronze Agent.
“…”
“…”
“We need to stick to the wall. If you spot an emergency exit there, tell me right away.”
“Yes, yes…!”
We stuck to the back wall of the escalator and moved slowly.
Like that, we entered together into the dizzying path made of display shelves with no end in sight.
In the dark general mart display stands with only emergency lights on after business hours, corners repeated endlessly.
[Camping Supplies Special Sale]
[Winter Season Outlet Event]
[Housewarming Gift Event Prices]
[Sell Flesh Lucky Mart]
[Spring Kitchen Supplies Big Discount]
Eventually, bizarre words began appearing. Whenever I saw such displays or signs, I turned back and walked again.
For dozens of minutes, while checking the escalator’s position and crossing from store to store.
A small sound was heard.
From somewhere beyond the display stands, a dull echoing sound.
-…
I quickened my pace.
However, the sound gradually became more distinct, and finally…
-Huh? Is someone there…
“Huh?”
High School Student suddenly raised his head.
-Who’s there? Can I help you?
A voice speaking from afar.
“There, a person….”
“Shh.”
I crouched down with High School Student.
And warned in a very small voice.
“It might not be human.”
“…!”
“And… even if it is human, would someone who’s been here long be normal?”
“…!!”
There’s no way they’d be sane.
The possibility was incredibly slim.
Especially if they were speaking so friendly like that.
‘It’s dangerous.’
A human would be even scarier.
-Hey there. You’re human, right? I’ll help you.
We ran along the wall.
The friendly voice offering help continued to be heard.
-The employees will follow because of my voice. I know a way out. I’ll help you.
Sweat formed on the back of High School Student’s neck. I kept moving my feet while gauging the distance from the voice.
-Hurry. The employees can’t see you.
‘Damn.’
Should I try to suppress them for a moment? No, if employees really swarm in then… Right, if it’s human, I should just leave them until they get caught by employees.
I need to endure and move… wait.
‘That thing.’
The moment I suddenly raised my head, something appeared ahead on the wall we’d been following.
An iron door.
An emergency exit with green light coming in. And….
A signboard.
[ 3F ↗ 4F ]
“Th, that…!”
It appeared.
‘The emergency exit to the 4th floor.’
I immediately ran over and grabbed the iron door handle.
And urgently instructed High School Student.
The most important thing.
“Never go up the stairs.”
“What?”
“When we open the door and go in, just stand still right there. Got it? You absolutely can’t move.”
High School Student nodded with frightened eyes.
Right.
This was my hypothesis.
Agent Choi : It looks normal? Just a somewhat old emergency exit. There are stairs…. Really nothing different. The exit door is there too.
‘…But when the employee climbed the stairs, the door suddenly disappeared.’
Then reasoning in reverse.
-As long as you don’t climb the stairs, the 3rd floor door won’t disappear.
Because you haven’t left the 3rd floor yet.
And if this idea is correct, there’s no safer space than this.
‘There was no record of employees trying to go up to the 4th floor.’
Because it’s not the mart.
In the end, inside the emergency exit to the 4th floor becomes a safe zone that only humans can open and pass through.
Then everything becomes much easier.
‘I can eat the food I brought in my tattoo there too.’
Because once we open this door and go out, it’s not the mart.
From the stair landing, I’ll open the door every time it hits 10 o’clock to check outside and confirm if business resumes.
‘Staying here is the safest.’
To escape with the injured High School Student, this is the best option unless Nostalgia Candy has infinite supply.
All sorts of 4th floor disappearance stories remain in my head making it scary, but I have to do it.
I gritted my teeth and opened the iron door.
Creak.
The same door sound as described rang out, revealing the old stairway area inside.
“Let’s go in, carefully.”
“Y, yes…!”
I went inside with High School Student.
And to prevent any possible situation, I very slightly wedged paper torn from my notebook between the emergency exit doors to keep them from closing.
Just enough that you couldn’t notice it was open from outside.
‘Phew.’
This way I can shake off that crazy bastard who was chasing us too.
And just as I was catching my breath.
“Gr, Grape Agent…!”
High School Student called me in a voice like he was choking and pulled my arm.
And pointed upward.
“Up there…!”
Up the stairs.
I raised my head with an eerie feeling.
Someone was standing on the stairs to the 4th floor.
A short-haired woman with a pale complexion and hollow eyes.
“…A, a person!”
Go Young-eun.
My colleague, a former medical student.
“….”
‘…What?’
My brain couldn’t understand what situation this was.
But the next moment, the other person’s clothing caught my eye.
A metal badge attached to the collar.
It’s an ID badge for Supernatural Disaster Management Agency agents.
‘Ah.’
Some words from memory pass through my mind.
-However, the two agents who entered earlier are currently in a short-term missing status from that supernatural disaster.
The missing two agents that the Bronze Agent had mentioned.
“…!”
One of them was my colleague who had infiltrated the Disaster Management Bureau as a new employee.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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