Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work - Chapter 198

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

Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story, I Still Have to Go to Work Episode 198

The village people come rushing in.

[You’ve come, Jisan’s Blessing!]

The shouts from the megaphone holder grow louder, and soon the singing and gong sounds fiercely come back to life.

A whirlpool of crowds.

“This way!”

I followed the Bronze Agent through the gap to hide from the village people, but it wasn’t enough.

“Wow, incredible.”

“Is that person getting the golden chicken?”

The murmuring sounds of people who still don’t understand the situation, village people rushing toward me abandoning everything, people prostrating on the ground praying toward the mountain, and Baek Sa-heon who disappeared among them.

And….

“Please run away.”

I grabbed the Bronze Agent who was trying to push me and Deputy Manager Eun Ha-je back and confront the village people.

“Calm down. Anyway, there’s a high chance I won’t be able to get out ‘safely’ now.”

“…!”

“And it was definitely in the rulebook.”

Our eyes met.

“How to act in similar situations.”

When conducting rescue operations, there are occasional cases where one of the agents gets captured by village people.

However, unless it’s the last day of the festival, don’t rush in recklessly or confront the entire village.

You can always re-enter a village during a festival. What that means is, you can come back with sufficient preparation.

Don’t get swept away by emotions, cause a commotion, and waste precious opportunities. Act wisely and boldly.

Let’s all survive and escape from the disaster – those who were captured, those who remain, and those to be rescued.

“Please go.”

“….”

“Go, quickly find a way to rescue me and come back. That’s my way to survive.”

I can see intense contemplation in the Bronze Agent’s eyes. A struggle between emotion and rational judgment.

But soon, reason won.

“Tomorrow.”

“….”

“I will definitely come back.”

I quickly put the five-colored shoelaces the Bronze Agent handed me into my inventory tattoo.

It’s a card to use when I need to get out at the risk of disappearance or suicide in the worst case.

And the Bronze Agent ran toward the entrance through the crowd at a terrifying speed.

“You’ve come. Jisan’s Blessing!”

At the same time, the village people swarmed over me.

I blinked my eyes.

I seemed to have lost consciousness for a moment.

And where I came to my senses was… a spacious and elegant wooden floor.

Paper sliding doors on both sides of the square space.

“….”

I’ve seen a similar style recently.

‘It’s that tile-roofed house.’

Deputy Manager Eun Ha-je was nowhere to be seen. …It seems she wasn’t captured with me.

That was fortunate.

‘….’

I looked down at my legs.

Both legs were tied with sacred rope.

The sacred rope extended outside through a hole in one of the paper sliding doors.

When I pulled slightly, I felt elasticity. It seemed to be fixed.

‘This is serious.’

At that moment.

Slide.

The paper sliding door opens and people come in.

No, just two people.

One person carrying a small table with festival food and another carrying a bottle of alcohol. They both bow deeply to me and set down the neat food and alcohol.

And faint music begins to be heard.

Probably an intensely wild festival was taking place outside the building.

All night long.

“….”

The two use a small lottery box they brought to draw lots. Then the one who drew the stick with rooster feathers stays here while the other bows and leaves.

The one who remains is the one who carried the alcohol.

“Sa-heon.”

“….”

The village person who had carried the alcohol, Baek Sa-heon, looked at me.

The suspect I can guess as to why I suddenly drew the special prize.

“Did you deliberately make me draw the ‘special prize’ stick from your pocket last night?”

-…Check my pocket.

He had definitely guided me so naturally.

Yesterday, when I had only drawn duds in the lottery, the only suspicious behavior that could explain why I drew the special prize was that.

“To make me someone who had already drawn the special prize, to make me ‘suitable’?”

“….”

“So you guided me to draw the special prize the next day.”

Deep satisfaction flashed in Baek Sa-heon’s eyes.

And he speaks in a hoarse voice.

“What if that’s right?”

“You planned this for a long time.”

“….”

“Until you could make this prediction, and while worrying about what to do if the agents couldn’t rescue you.”

An ecstatic smile spreads across Baek Sa-heon’s lips.

“That’s right.”

A sense of liberation.

Madness.

“I thought about it every day. What would I do if I got selected someday. I don’t want to end up like that. Every time I slept in this fucking house, every time someone died, even when my sister died!”

He speaks as if vomiting it out.

“I absolutely didn’t want to become like that. Fuck, if I die, god or whatever….”

“A god?”

Baek Sa-heon swallowed his breath. I could feel the anxiety and thrill of someone speaking forbidden words.

“This festival celebration was about serving a god.”

“Serving? No!!”

Baek Sa-heon spat out like a scream.

“This is a ritual to create a god!”

“…!”

“‘Choose an auspicious day to make it a festival, then enshrine the winner at the village shrine to create a god, Jisan’s Blessing, who will liberate us from the world’s truth.’ They really believe that crazy bullshit and are doing it!”

“Is that really possible?”

“I don’t know! But….”

Panting.

“There really is something here.”

“….”

“During the festival, if there’s no outsider who draws the special prize, we gather the remaining sticks and draw among ourselves every day. And if you win there….”

Baek Sa-heon’s face hardened.

“When the last day of the festival ends, they cover your head like slaughtering livestock and drag you to the village shrine.”

“….”

“They drag you there and do something at the village shrine.”

“What do they do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. But there’s something there….”

His face turned pale.

“When the people who were dragged there come out in the morning, everyone’s complexion is different. They can’t speak. They prepare the next year’s festival among themselves….”

“….”

“When the festival they prepared that year ends, they hang themselves at the village shrine.”

…!

“But they appear again every festival. They come back even though they died. They walk out of the village shrine.”

He wailed.

“They perform the traditional folk performance!!”

“…!”

“They’re doing it right now. Outside!”

Hiyaaaaaaa!

“I won’t end up like that. I won’t die. Absolutely not.”

Baek Sa-heon’s eyes flashed with fear, anger, survival instinct, and relief that he had succeeded… then calmed down with reason and calculation.

“Now that you’ve won, the festival and the lucky draw are over. I don’t have to come back here anymore. Being unable to escape from this Jisan Village, being trapped here, that’s all over now.”

….

“I understand.”

I nodded.

Baek Sa-heon muttered.

“Now you can speak because you’re an insider too? Haha. …I thought all the bastards who blabbed about this stuff first were idiots, but this… so this is how it felt?”

A situation only I experience, information only I know that I can’t speak and must swallow.

It’s funny, but I think I know better than anyone what kind of feeling Baek Sa-heon is experiencing right now.

‘….’

Actually, I should be angry or anxious right now.

Didn’t this crazy bastard Baek Sa-heon push a government official who just came to rescue him and said there was no way to save him as a sacrifice in his place, just to save his own life?

I should be angry, disillusioned, feel anxiety and resentment about what happened to me, and my mind should be spinning frantically to find a way out.

That would be right.

But strangely, that’s not the case.

Instead, I feel oddly… at peace.

This feeling of a complicated tomorrow and near future becoming a bit unclear.

‘Since I’m trapped here, I don’t have to think about other things.’

I no longer have to worry as priorities about the wish potion, Director Ho’s prohibition spell, the information I need to find within a month, or how to deal with an agent whose identity has already been exposed.

‘Is this literally escapism?’

It’s a bit funny and absurd that the threat of death is actually comforting.

But it was true.

So I could speak calmly.

Without sympathy or anger.

“I see. I understand.”

“Understand?”

Wariness returned to Baek Sa-heon’s eyes.

“Are you trying to say ‘that’s too bad, I understand’… while still asking me to let you go because this isn’t right?”

“I might. But… being completely unable to feel safe, feeling like I’m going to die soon, spending daily life in a situation where every day is terrifying.”

“….”

“I know that feeling.”

The other person looked at me with a sunken expression.

“Still, you chose well among the two agents.”

“Why, do you want to die?”

….

“Somewhat?”

I’m not sure right now.

“Haven’t you ever wanted to die? Not even once?”

“….”

“You have.”

“That won’t happen.”

Baek Sa-heon said abruptly.

“I don’t want to die. If you wanted to die, then good for you. You can just stay as you are.”

“….”

Strange.

There was no sign in those words of mocking me for being fooled by him. Even though he could tease me in this situation, he didn’t seem to find it particularly amusing.

I only felt selfish desperation toward survival.

He didn’t seem to feel particularly guilty, but how should I put it… he seemed to have no room for guilt to enter.

‘Come to think of it, he was always like that.’

He desperately looked after only his own interests and survival.

But still, if he doesn’t feel pleasure watching someone in trouble because of him or enjoy tormenting them… there’s a slightly different approach.

I can use this.

‘…No matter what, I can’t just escape reality until I die.’

Finally, I opened my mouth.

“Sa-heon. If both you and I could live, would you help?”

“…What?”

“You’d just have to work harder than now and take the risk of being caught.”

“Would I do that? Crazy bastard.”

That’s when it happened.

-Good heavens, stop! There’s a limit to how much I can overlook as dramatic elements. How can you be so rude!

-Ah, Friend. Why are there so many lately who repay your kindness with betrayal! This Brown’s heart aches too.

…The stuffed doll started speaking again.

-I will help you. Let’s get out of here first.

-After that, let’s give them a refreshing lesson on what karma is. That would be quite a thrilling and exciting scene.

….

‘Ah. It’s fine.’

The stuffed doll stopped talking.

‘I’ll try it alone. That would be more fun, wouldn’t it?’

-Well… I think it would be a good flow if appropriate help came in!

‘It’s fine.’

I ended my conversation with the stuffed doll and looked at Baek Sa-heon again.

Since these were words directed at someone I hadn’t even bothered to expect anything from, they came out naturally.

“But Sa-heon. I’m dying because of you.”

“….”

“I’m someone who came to rescue you but simply couldn’t because there was no way. I’m dying because you pushed me into this position.”

“How is this because of me?”

Baek Sa-heon’s face contorted.

“Did I fucking tell you to kill people when you draw the special prize? Did I put people in the village shrine and kill them? It’s some other bastard doing the killing! So I should just die instead? That….”

Getting angry and cursing brings impurity.

“…!!”

Both Baek Sa-heon and I turned our heads toward the paper sliding door simultaneously.

Muttering could be heard.

Getting angry and cursing brings impurity. Getting angry and cursing brings impurity. Getting angry and cursing brings impurity. Forgotten one, disappear. Forgotten one, disappear. Forgotten one, disappear. Sansan-baekji-sanbok-jusiopge-daerija-ya sansan-baekji-sanbok-jusiopge-daerija-ya sansan-baekji-sanbok-jusiopge-daerija-ya

Resonating sounds.

Baek Sa-heon looked toward the paper sliding door with a face pale as a sheet.

Though there was clearly nothing there, the sounds of the traditional folk performance troupe began to grow louder and louder….

“Baek Sa-heon.”

“No.”

He went to the opposite side of the paper sliding door, crouched down, and covered his head.

It was hard to believe this helplessness came from someone who usually committed various unexpected actions with composure.

‘A trauma response?’

Would this work perhaps?

I pondered for a moment, then opened my mouth.

Toward the paper sliding door.

“I’m sorry. I cursed because I was flustered.”

The sounds stopped.

“It was an inappropriate attitude at the festival. I’ll try to use gentler words from now on.”

The paper sliding door remained motionless as if dead.

And….

Hiyaaaaa!

The folk performance sounds that had started again gradually grew distant.

Until they completely dissolved into the festival noise as if disappearing.

“….”

“….”

“Baek Sa-heon.”

Baek Sa-heon stood up from the corner by the paper sliding door, drenched in cold sweat.

And he looked at me with confused eyes.

“I just helped prevent you from dying again.”

“….”

“Don’t you feel even a little grateful?”

“…You want me to die in return for being grateful?”

“You speak as if saying thanks would require paying an enormous price.”

Baek Sa-heon looked at me with eyes that said ‘what obvious thing are you saying.’

Is that so.

“Do as you please. Your life seems terribly precious to you.”

Then I looked down at my feet.

“But my life was precious to me too. Even though I sometimes think about wanting to die.”

“….”

“….”

After a long silence.

Baek Sa-heon’s mouth opened.

“What exactly is this method for both of us to live?”

“….”

“What is it?”

I put my still-free hand into my pocket and rolled the silver badge I caught inside it.

Silver heart.

“It’s simple.”

Because I had realized it while listening to Baek Sa-heon’s words just now.

What kind of ghost story this was.

“I’ll plant doubt in their faith.”

Creating gods, liberation from worldly truths, chance and fate, offering rituals shared only by a few people, returning dead, scapegoats….

Everything pointed to one thing.

This is a ghost story under the Nameless Radiance Cult.

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