Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work - Chapter 161

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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 161

The new employee had been infected.

“Agent?”

Ryu Jae-gwan had already experienced similar situations numerous times.

An agent who miscounted the steps and stepped on the wrong stair with just one step left, an agent who endured two days without drinking a single drop of water but got contaminated by rainwater that fell on their eye membrane…

They just disappear.

Just like that.

Without context or warning.

People commonly call stories where such eeriness is considered entertaining ghost stories…

But for those involved, it naturally feels like an ordinary tragedy.

Like right now.

“Cheongdong.”

Then, his senior tapped his shoulder and quickly put an arm around him.

“…!”

And wrote letters on his back with a finger.

In a way that wouldn’t look natural to the new agent in front of them.

Stay calm.

“Grape! But we need to go. Your hand will disappear soon too.”

“Ah…”

The new agent, Kim Sol-eum, looked at his severed and disappeared right arm and answered quite cheerfully.

“It’s okay! The Mermaid Princess said she’d give me one. I’ll be fine!”

“…Really?”

“Yes! Look. I received these too…”

Kim Sol-eum lifted up several items he had received from the children, showing them off proudly.

In reality, they were all worn and shabby objects, and even from the Sparkling Dragon Palace’s perspective, they were toys that only children, not full-grown adults, would like.

“…I see. Wait a moment.”

The two left Kim Sol-eum to mingle with the children and briefly stepped away to have an urgent conversation.

“I don’t know what he did, but the infection is too deep.”

Half his face was covered by tumors, and the infection source represented by the tail had grown excessively.

Usually, it never became like this in about three days.

Had he perhaps actually entered the ‘Dragon Palace’? Or maybe something went wrong while making contact with the children, or Kim Sol-eum himself might have a body particularly vulnerable to biological hazards.

Either way, there was a slight possibility for a new employee to experience this, but it was difficult to confirm immediately through a new employee whose mind already seemed contaminated.

Or…

“Don’t tell me that cat…”

“…”

A more dangerous entity had intervened.

To rush them along.

Ryu Jae-gwan’s face went pale before he snapped back to attention.

“The conch shell.”

The cure.

“We need to get it. Right now!”

“Wait.”

Agent Choi grabbed his arm.

“That cat seems to have given the cure to save the kids.”

“Right now Grape Agent also looks like a child on the outside…”

“Listen to me. If that cat is a higher-grade, high-risk phenomenon than the dokkaebi prank our elder cast on us… it might not consider that guy as one of the ‘kids’ anymore.”

“…!”

Ryu Jae-gwan almost shouted, ‘So you’re saying we should just sit here and do nothing?’

However, his superior, Agent Choi, was looking at ‘Grape Agent’ with a strange expression, thinking about something.

“…”

And after calming his junior, he approached Kim Sol-eum among the children again.

“Grape.”

“Yes?”

“Then it would be okay to stay here completely, right?”

“Yes!”

Ryu Jae-gwan couldn’t hold back and grabbed Agent Choi by the back of the neck.

“Senior!!”

“Hey, hey, I was asking to check the contamination level. …It’s serious. Not only is the infection severe, but even his way of thinking…”

“…”

“Let’s get him out right away.”

“Then…”

“No, using the method we originally used!”

Agent Choi sighed and patted his junior’s back.

“Cheongdong, Cheongdong. Get it together. Our escape method isn’t based on contamination level but on the time of disappearance.”

“…!!”

That’s right.

A child who doesn’t turn into foam and disappear through the Disaster Management Bureau’s escape method is one whose disappearance time hasn’t exceeded 1000 days.

Grape Agent, who had only stayed for 3 days, definitely met that criteria!

“We just need to properly persuade him to leave. I’ll send this guy out and come back, so you just watch the kids and make sure they don’t scatter.”

And looking back at the infected Kim Sol-eum, he spoke in a bright voice.

“Let’s come to the Dragon Palace again next time, Grape! Instead, shall we go while playing with balloons? Floating up like when we came here earlier!”

It was an escape route identified by the Disaster Management Bureau.

Do you remember?

Didn’t we mention that children’s books with appendix pages suddenly included, detailing ‘How to Go to the Sparkling Dragon Palace,’ are found throughout the playrooms?

Actually, there’s additional description there.

On the very last page of books containing ‘How to Go to the Sparkling Dragon Palace,’ methods for returning from the Dragon Palace are rarely found.

These pages consist of advanced vocabulary and steps comparable to professional texts, requiring a level of reading comprehension impossible for preschool children to understand.

All attempts to find the materials needed for the ‘return method’ ritual from the Sparkling Dragon Palace have failed.

Therefore, to actually use this escape method, agents carried the materials with them directly.

Fortunately, since the entire preparation process was filled with irrationality and obstacles, narratively the escape method itself was the correct approach.

Up until this very moment.

“It won’t float…”

“…!!”

This time was an exception.

Agent Choi almost looked at Kim Sol-eum hanging from the balloon with an expression like he might bite his tongue, but managed his expression.

Originally, a child hanging from a ‘balloon going home’ closes their eyes and floats up into the sky, then falls when the balloon bursts at some point.

And they’re found having rolled down from the slide.

That’s what should happen…

The balloon won’t float at all.

This had never happened before.

After all, no agent had ever been infected to this extent…!

Moreover, since the degree of infection usually matched the year of disappearance to an eerie extent, children who could escape had floated up on balloons without exception.

But now a new irregular had occurred.

-If the subject is severely contaminated, the balloon cannot rise to the sky at all, making the escape method useless.

Like a parasite tightly gripping its infected host.

Kim Sol-eum’s ulcerated tumor tail was heavily settled on the ground, writhing.

‘…Is it almost connected to that mass of ulcers?’

Agent Choi frowned as he thought about that bizarre cluster that appeared to be the Dragon Palace.

Yet his mouth spoke casually.

“Sorry~ I didn’t put enough air in! Let’s try a different method.”

“Yes…”

And Ryu Jae-gwan, who had been with the children, began to move as soon as the two returned empty-handed.

“Cheongdong.”

“We need to get treatment immediately. Prepare…”

“Cheongdong!”

Agent Choi paused for a moment, then spoke slowly…

“Haven’t you thought that if Grape had been in his right mind, he would have given up his spot for the kid?”

Ryu Jae-gwan stopped his hands.

“I have thought about it.”

“…!”

“Because most agents have that tendency, we need to prioritize them even more. Otherwise, they easily… give up their own lives.”

“…”

“We need to save agents so more people can live.”

His senior seemed to lose his words and fell silent for a moment.

Then he let out a small sigh.

“I… don’t know. It’s not like we’re ranking human lives… Wouldn’t it be better to just want to save them because they’re colleagues?”

“…”

“Was our agency… always like this? It seemed different before… At some point, everyone started staking their lives on that principle.”

“Everyone realized it was necessary.”

“…”

Ryu Jae-gwan also knew that Agent Choi’s silence was closer to denial than agreement.

But Agent Choi also surrendered with a small sigh.

“Anyway, yes. We have to save Grape.”

“…!”

“Let’s go meet those cult company bastards.”

Before that.

From the remaining eleven conch shells, excluding one for the agent.

“We need to select ten people.”

“…”

Agent Choi’s eyes darkened, but he approached Grape anyway.

“You said you organized the children by era? Can you tell me?”

“Yes!”

Grape Agent diligently classified the children.

Somehow, he had gathered all twenty-something children scattered throughout the city.

‘…Did being contaminated and connected to the cluster allow them to communicate with each other?’

Pushing aside that chilling speculation.

“These ones know the same songs!”

The children were classified.

From children of the 2010s to a child from the 1960s.

And a few were explained a bit differently.

“These… seem like friends from a slightly different place.”

Those with six fingers, or no whites in their eyes, or those who claimed to be from countries that don’t exist on Earth.

Bronze Agent immediately placed them in lower priority. Because there was a high probability they weren’t ‘citizens.’

…It didn’t feel good.

Ranking human lives.

Ryu Jae-gwan felt a deep fatigue he had momentarily forgotten.

…As always, he was tired.

And he tacitly selected children whose disappearance dates were relatively more recent.

Because with the information the agents currently had, those children had the highest probability of being suitable for escape.

“…Still, we’ll take them all for now.”

“…”

Ryu Jae-gwan nodded slowly.

“Good. Grape. The kids might get scared now, so shall we walk while playing together? We’ll meet the Mermaid Princess tomorrow, today let’s play with your big brother.”

“Okay!”

They decided to protect Grape Agent as much as possible from Baekillmong Corporation by hiding him among the children.

If it was discovered he was an agent, it would become a weakness. The Baekillmong Elite Team would likely know that the Disaster Management Bureau prioritizes agents’ lives over citizens.

‘Contaminated agents… easily become targets.’

At least until they could steal the conch shells and treat him.

So they quickened their pace.

And shortly after.

“Oh! Over here!”

At the promised location, they saw the Pony Mask Employee waving his hand and the other employees watching them with wary attitudes.

‘They didn’t run away.’

Ryu Jae-gwan confirmed that the tracking device Agent Choi had attached to the conch shell was giving a signal that it was intact, and joined up with the people from Baekillmong Corporation.

They flinched upon seeing dozens of ‘Young Mermaids,’ but perhaps because the cat’s influence still remained, they didn’t act rashly.

They just kept a definite distance.

-This way.

The two forces exchanged brief written communication, then moved forward while keeping each other in check.

Down into the city.

“This is… a place kids rarely go.”

Even from the perspective of the ‘Sparkling Dragon Palace,’ it wasn’t particularly beautiful or distinctive.

A shaded area under an underpass.

Under an iron bridge that had somehow managed not to collapse and remained rusted, next to a stream where contaminated black water flowed, there was a small door.

However…

“We can’t see it.”

The contaminated children couldn’t see the door at all.

Just like how they couldn’t see the conch shells.

“…”

In that case.

Agent Choi, conscious of Baekillmong Corporation’s gaze that seemed to be trying to catch their vulnerabilities, calmly closed his eyes and reached out his hand.

…Right. It passes through.

“Ah. We just need to deceive our senses completely. We can go in with our eyes closed.”

The only problem was that they had to make 28 children do this.

“Kids! Let’s have a contest to see who can walk the longest with their eyes closed.”

“Uh…”

“It’s scary.”

Usually the children would excitedly play along, but some were strangely hesitant.

As if they instinctively felt repulsion.

‘Damn.’

…A sharp sense of foreboding crossed the agents’ minds – would they have to leave behind the kids who couldn’t be selected from here?

But then.

“Are you a coward?”

“…!”

“N-no, I’m not!”

“Then close your eyes!”

Kim Sol-eum began encouraging the children.

“When you close your eyes, you can see something sparkling, right? Can’t you see it?”

“No, I can see it!”

“Look carefully. If you can’t see it, just walk forward a bit.”

Surprisingly, he succeeded in getting all the children to close their eyes and walk.

“…”

“Agent.”

“…Ah, let’s go.”

Agent Choi, who had been watching the scene in a daze, soon snapped back to his senses.

He patted the anxious Bronze Agent’s shoulder and started walking.

“Let’s go!”

The children with closed eyes safely passed through the ‘wall’ and entered inside.

And then.

“Huh.”

A place that wasn’t the ‘Sparkling Dragon Palace’ revealed itself.

From Baekillmong Corporation’s perspective, that is, from the ghost story ‘Mermaid Graveyard’s’ viewpoint, it was just a steel passage with a menacing feel, slightly less rusted than outside.

It looked like an emergency passage for personnel hastily constructed.

But in the children’s eyes…

‘It’s gone.’

Just a white rectangular path.

In other words, it appeared as if all the original textures had been stripped away.

It seemed this place couldn’t implement the ‘Sparkling Dragon Palace’s’ hallucination.

To speculate, it was a space somewhat isolated from contamination.

‘…This is getting more and more meaningful.’

The veteran knew that the more meaningful it became, the higher the probability of being the correct answer, so he quickened his pace.

“Should I keep my eyes closed?”

“Can you see something amazing if you open your eyes?”

Fortunately, the children followed without sitting down in fear or crying loudly. The Grape Agent soothed or distracted any crying children.

“…”

The end of the passage came into view.

The true appearance visible through the Sun Catcher item was…

“Ha.”

A hastily constructed, crude station.

It seemed to be a place where a total of 7 escape ships had been stationed.

In the spots where the already launched escape ships of alien mechanical civilization had been, only dust, filth, and dried infectious fluids remained.

But there was one thing – a massive capsule-type escape ship covered in blood was there.

Approaching it, the door’s device announced:

[Please certify removal of infection■■.]

Hmm.

-This means we need to show the severed tail to this device, right?

When only a few people from Baekillmong Corporation passively nodded without responding, Agent Choi quickly added another message.

-Fifty thousand won for the cool person who answers quickly haha

-I thought it was for proving that you contributed to preventing infection by hunting infected entities! That’s how you gain permission to board the escape ship haha

Agent Choi nodded at the immediate response and instantly handed over the cash.

“Yahoo!”

Ignoring the giggling pony mask employee, he turned around and said:

“Good. Then… Grape. Could you come here? Let’s have the friend Grape was just talking about come too!”

“Yes!”

Kim Sol-eum, who had been standing with the children, grabbed one child’s hand and approached the escape ship.

Fortunately, the Daydream employees didn’t seem to notice that he was also an agent.

Ryu Jae-gwan stood guard while almost forcibly taking several conch shells from Baek Sa-heon’s bag and handing them to Agent Choi.

“This…”

Baek Sa-heon’s sound of swallowing curses in regret wasn’t transmitted.

Agent Choi smiled and lifted the conch shells, approaching Grape.

“If Grape closes their eyes for just a moment, it’ll be quick…”

Then.

“What’s that?”

“Wow! It’s really a white spaceship!”

The child standing next to Grape ran toward the escape ship.

“…!”

“Let’s go together!”

Grape followed the child and ran all the way to the front of the escape ship.

“No…!”

If an infected child is forcibly boarded onto the escape ship, acute molting will proceed, causing ulcers to grow throughout the body and resulting in loss of vital signs.

Never attempt this.

That absolutely must not happen…!

Moreover, the Baekillmong Corporation employees immediately took an aggressive stance. The Bronze Agent blocked their path.

“Grape!”

“Huh?”

At that moment, Grape turned around at the sound of someone calling their name.

Naturally, their tail hit the escape ship door’s device.

“…!”

The message displayed again.

[Please certify removal of infection■■.]

“Wow! You were right! It just sparkled!”

“Right?”

In that gap, Agent Choi ran over, grabbed both of them, and pulled them back.

The Bronze Agent, who had been watching the scene through the Sun Catcher, let out a short sigh and relaxed his threatening stance toward Baekillmong Corporation.

Breathtaking tension lingered for a moment.

“Ha. At least the escape ship didn’t attack. That’s fortunate.”

Agent Choi didn’t even have time to pretend to wipe cold sweat as he lifted the conch shells.

But…

“…”

The Bronze Agent felt something strange from the scene he had just witnessed.

The device that resumed output the moment the living tail collided with it.

And the words his senior had said.

-The escape ship isn’t attacking. That’s fortunate.

“…!”

Could it be.

“Well, then if we treat the kids and have them board by giving them the severed tail….”

“No.”

“…Cheongdong?”

“This… isn’t like that.”

The Bronze Agent read the device’s text again.

[Please certify removal of infection■■.]

It seemed to read as if telling them to eliminate the infected, meaning the mermaids, and certify it.

But….

“This is already a ruined city. Looking at how hastily this space with the escape ship was made, it seems like it was urgently constructed for a final escape attempt during the collapse.”

“Then?”

“They would have assumed that most people entering this escape ship were already infected.”

“…!”

The Bronze Agent turned his gaze back to the last remaining escape ship.

“Especially if this was the last remaining means of escape, it wouldn’t be strange to assume everyone was infected.”

“…That’s right.”

Agent Choi’s eyes sparkled.

“Then as a minimal measure, to prevent the contagion from spreading to other spaces….”

“Yes.”

Both agents’ gazes turned toward the tail.

A grotesque creature with ulcers that secreted infectious fluid.

“It seems to mean cutting off the protrusions that cause infection and then entering the escape ship.”

Then the device could be read with a completely different meaning.

[Please certify removal of infection protrusions.]

‘Not telling them to attack and kill other infected beings, but to remove their own source of infection—the tail!’

Thus, only intelligent beings without tails who had ‘certified’ their severed tails could safely enter.

“Wait, that means in the end….”

“Yes.”

For the first time today, a faint smile of elation spread across the Bronze Agent’s face.

“They don’t need to be completely cured of the infection. If the kids just cut off their tails and certify it, they should be able board the escape ship without the conch shells.”

“…!”

“And if we use the conch shells only for kids whose lives would be in danger from excessive bleeding when cutting their tails….”

If they could just distribute them properly.

“We can all get out together.”

Without leaving a single child behind.

They could rescue them all from this supernatural disaster.

‘That’s it!’

I clenched my fist inconspicuously.

Being among the children, I probably wouldn’t be noticed, but I kept suppressing my mouth that wanted to let out sighs of relief and joy.

‘It worked.’

Getting Baekillmong Corporation’s knowledge to naturally mix with the Disaster Management Bureau’s knowledge, leading people to make decisions similar to the deduction I had made.

How much effort had I put into guiding them to this conclusion as unsuspiciously as possible…!

It had truly been a grueling day.

I swallowed.

‘…Getting infected was also a wise choice.’

It would be a lie to say it wasn’t horrible and disgusting.

But it was hard to give up the various advantages gained by becoming infected.

From completely hiding my identity from the Baekillmong Corporation employees by covering my face with tumors, to directly providing the hint for the conclusion that ‘cutting the tail allows entry to the escape ship.’

It was the one and only correct answer that could naturally overcome all obstacles without suspicion.

And….

‘…I might be able to get off the suspect list too.’

That cat.

Agent Choi knows that I can transform into a ‘street animal.’ Since he was the one who recommended that item.

Of course, the fake Necronomicon’s effect would make it difficult to connect the two directly, but I might be suspected after escaping.

‘It’s better to cover it with a stronger impact.’

So I… attempted to get infected ‘to the extent my sanity could endure.’

By gradually increasing the infectious fluid and artificially consuming it.

‘This was the limit.’

This current state where half my face was covered with tumors.

Being able to understand the collective will and the strange telepathy with the children while not losing my own sense of self.

…Strangely enough, the Dokkaebi Tricks that made me look like a child actually helped. Perhaps because it forcibly fixed me as ‘me in child form.’

Anyway, I had calculated to take Nostalgia Candy if things went wrong during this process… but looking at it now, it seems unnecessary.

‘Very good.’

I believed in you, agents…!

As expected, the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau is different from that damn psychopath potion company!

It was even somewhat moving.

‘This is the early Disaster Management Bureau-style solution that’s been hard to see since the Darkness Investigation Records expanded…!’

Trying their best to save everyone and actually succeeding.

Perhaps because I was in a child’s body, I was almost overwhelmed with emotion. *Sniff*.

Of course, being a ghost story, about half of such attempts ended in shocking total annihilation, but this time it proceeded smoothly.

Now we just need to coordinate and escape together….

Tingle.

‘…Huh?’

That’s when it happened.

A strange feeling traveled up through my tail.

Tingle.

‘Above?’

I quickly raised my head.

…Beside me, the child in the blue dress muttered.

“That’s strange.”

She was right.

“Strange.”

No, it’s not just that child.

All twenty-seven children standing around me have lifted their heads to look up at the air.

All the Young Mermaids… still with their tails attached.

“The Mermaid Princess… is angry.”

It seems so.

All the hosts had been somewhere completely undetectable.

A threat to survival.

I had been searching for where exactly it was detected from at the end.

And I found out.

The Mermaid Princess had.

A sharp sensation.

“Grape?”

“Right now.”

Chills ran up my spine.

My mouth opened urgently.

“The Mermaid Princess is coming for us.”

Crash.

The ceiling collapsed and hundreds of strands of tumor masses began rushing down.

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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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