Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work - Chapter 199

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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 199

The Jisan Village festival continued throughout the night.

Outsiders could sleep in the various private houses that were completely opened to them, and enjoy free alcohol and meat all night long.

In the end, quite a large number stayed in the village without leaving.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, they’re doing some big event on the last day. So… it seemed like a gut ritual or something?”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to film it to make shorts.”

The outsiders casually muttered as they stayed up all night or drunkenly collapsed to sleep in any random room.

And on the last day when the sun rose bright.

“Oh.”

“Looks like it’s starting now.”

[Jisan’s Blessing descends~]

Finally, the ritual began.

Thump thump thump

To the janggu drums played by the traditional music troupe, the village people lined up on both sides as if creating a path, forming a long space.

From the tile-roofed house.

To the village shrine.

And from the tile-roofed house at the village center, which was the beginning of the path, something finally walked out.

[Mountain mountain white paper mountain blessing grant us proxy.]

It was a giant human palanquin.

Four people with rooster feathers pinned to their chests and heads covered with white cloth were carrying someone.

“Oh.”

“Hey hey, this is getting serious.”

The outsiders just had casual conversations out of mere curiosity, but among them was also a being hiding with gleaming eyes.

‘What a commotion.’

Agent Eun Ha-je.

The one who had been called that by Kim Sol-eum checked the movements of him on the human palanquin and the village people.

At this rate, it seemed the project work could be carried out smoothly.

Those sharp eyes turned toward the outskirts.

Precisely toward the direction of the well site, on one side of the village lined with abandoned houses.

‘Inside the well.’

That place was the destination of the work.

The agents of the Disaster Management Bureau had not yet determined the exact principle of why the village people followed less when near the well, or why it was relatively safe.

They had come to check during non-festival periods, but it was just a blocked well.

However, this ‘reporter’ knew the exact reason and also knew what needed to be investigated.

That well was once a corridor connected to somewhere else.

So during this bizarre festival period, the village itself becomes a high-grade darkness, and the corridor’s function sometimes comes alive.

So it had to be investigated now.

But…

“…”

The reporter glanced once at Kim Sol-eum riding on the human palanquin, then finally began moving quietly.

Not toward the well site among the abandoned houses, but in a different direction.

[Mountain mountain white paper mountain blessing grant us proxy]

Meanwhile, the procession of the palanquin continued.

When the traditional music troupe cleared the path and the palanquin passed, the village people bowed. And there were many who staggered and passionately followed the palanquin.

However, they maintained some distance. As if getting close was not permitted.

The problem was that there were also those in that place for whom such permission didn’t matter.

“Wow! Look at this, this is an event being held for the first time in decades!”

Several outsiders followed closely, holding up smartphones.

Those who were drunk and had impaired judgment didn’t maintain distance, and even poked at the village people with covered heads who were serving as the human palanquin.

These few had only visited this rural village festival for the free alcohol and food anyway.

However, the village people didn’t stop them.

They just watched with smiling faces.

“Ooh, pretty good for a rural place?”

“Professional spirit. Professional.”

The village people didn’t get angry.

They just watched with earnest eyes to see if the palanquin was going safely.

“…”

Eventually, the human palanquin safely arrived in front of the village shrine and stopped.

Those who had been serving as the palanquin carefully set down ‘The Chosen One’ they had been carrying on their shoulders, then two people approached the village shrine.

And they cut the sacred rope of the village shrine.

Snap.

The sacred rope fell to the floor. The remaining two people untied the sacred rope that had been around the feet of the one they had carried in the palanquin and hung it back on the village shrine.

And the door of the village shrine opened.

What was inside was…

“The door is opening! Wow! Look at that! Gold!”

A golden rooster.

That gold rooster statue that had been the ‘special prize’ was enshrined inside the village shrine.

But its size was enormous.

“Isn’t that gold plating?”

“Crazy.”

In the center of the village shrine, rising from a round wooden frame placed unexpectedly where the altar should have been, it was literally human-sized.

Greed beyond admiration shone in the outsiders’ eyes.

In their eyes, they could barely see the original village shrine poles stuck upside down behind the gold mass.

Like sticks inserted upside down into a lottery drum.

[Mountain mountain white paper mountain blessing grant us proxy]

The one riding on the palanquin finally moved.

When the one wearing white clothes stood in front of the village shrine, the village people came forward one by one and covered the white clothes with paper.

The paper was densely covered with characters written in ink.

Hangul and Chinese characters.

They were the names of the village people.

And after bowing three more times, they tilted a bottle of alcohol over it.

Trickle trickle.

As the sacred wine poured down, the ink washed away and the characters disappeared.

It also looked as if it was seeping into the one wearing white clothes.

“Free us from the worldly truth, O Jisan’s Blessing, O Proxy.”

“Free us from the worldly truth, O Jisan’s Blessing, O Proxy.”

“Free us from the worldly truth, O Jisan’s Blessing, O Proxy.”

The village people bow, pray, cry, and wail as they vomit out their long-held deep fears, raising both hands or pleading toward the air.

That desperation and tension could not be covered even by the sounds of the traditional music troupe.

“Uh…”

“Hey. The atmosphere seems kind of strange.”

Most of the outsiders awkwardly backed away.

Because they were gradually sensing something eerie…

And.

“Should we take a closer look at this bronze statue? Huh, but there’s something fragrant… like the smell of alcohol…”

Thud.

It was the moment when the person holding a smartphone stepped into the village shrine.

“Huh?”

[Sansan-baekji-sanbok-jusiopge-daerija-ya]

The golden rooster melts away.

Bubble bubble.

As if making such a sound, the rooster melts and spreads along the grooves in the shrine floor…

Soon touching the feet of the one who dared enter within.

The golden liquid.

“…”

The outsider who had been blankly staring at their feet opens their mouth.

“I understand!”

Thump.

The smartphone fell to the floor.

“The world is ■■! We are merely ■■ written within it!”

“Please don’t look at me, don’t look at me, don’t ■■ me”

“I’m valuable, I’m interesting, wait?? I don’t exist? What is this? What? Name-nim?”

Madness spreads like contagion.

“What, what is it.”

“Why are those people acting like that?”

People on the outskirts see the situation and either back away in horror or crane their necks to get a better look.

But it was already too late.

“Aaah!”

Eventually, most people fall into delirium.

Screaming and muttering nonsensical soliloquies, or sitting with completely empty, vacant eyes.

A scene where madness and calmness coexist.

However, the village people do not look back at them.

Because they had already seen too many times the fate of those who touched the divine liquor, learned the worldly truth, and became captivated by that terrifying enlightenment.

Outsiders are just outsiders.

And they, the family of this Jisan Village, could avoid such a fate.

Right at the end of this long Jisan festival they had prepared!

[He comes!]

Unlike these defiled ones, only they who had served the ritual with devotion for decades and waited for Jisan’s Blessing, the chosen ones, would meet liberation!

“A new pole is erected at the village shrine!”

The clamorous sound of the kkwaenggwari covers the frenzy.

The Chosen One calmly moves toward the village shrine amidst this chaotic madness.

Holding the special prize, the golden rod, in hand.

Once their proxy inserts that small rod into the melted golden liquid, it will melt into the village shrine and become Jisan’s Blessing.

A sacrifice, no, a god who will bring liberation from that terrifying worldly truth!

They will escape from this strange and cruel world, avoid disaster and be liberated!

But…

…

“Everyone.”

The Government Official’s monotonous voice.

“The procedure here is wrong.”

“…?!”

The Chosen One looked at the golden rod they were holding and sighed.

“At this rate, it will fail. In your terms, we could say ‘it will become defiled.'”

A deathly silence flowed.

Then, a wailing voice was heard.

“Jisan’s Blessing speaks lies to abandon us and flee!”

“I wonder about that.”

Two hands in white slowly spread and rise.

Toward the sky.

“I know.”

He speaks in their language.

“Having been cleansed with divine liquor and received enlightenment of worldly truth, I already know. Jisan’s Blessing who will pull out the golden pole and erect it again at the village shrine already knows.”

The truth.

“You have distorted the teachings. Whether you read only a few pages of some nameless scripture somewhere, or stole and misunderstood only part of the teachings.”

Confusion.

Groans and mutterings of those who do not understand.

“What did you think liberation from worldly truth meant? Fleeing from the cruel, painful, and unreasonable situations of this world, avoiding disaster under Jisan’s Blessing’s protection and becoming chosen exceptions to live freely?”

The village people raise their heads.

Affirmation shown through action.

“I thought so. Then I’ll start from here.”

Kim Sol-eum speaks.

The certain knowledge he possesses.

The most important doctrine of Mumyeong Chanran Temple.

Its first teaching.

“There is no freedom in this world.”

“This world belongs to Name-nim. Only by receiving Name-nim’s choice does one have meaning, and one must acknowledge this truth and cultivate oneself to receive His choice, planting and tending the seeds of origin in the world.

“Your free will has no meaning whatsoever, only Name-nim’s will and choice have meaning.”

“The weak who cannot accept this truth fled the world through death, but that is not an escape route.”

He declares.

“There is no escape route from Name-nim.”

…

“This word is liberation.”

A deathly silence.

The Chosen One, the strange being dressed in white robes, looks around at the village people and asks.

“Do you refuse to accept this?”

I don’t want to.

I don’t want to.

That can’t be right!

“Then choose another auspicious day and prepare a different form of festival and ritual. The Jisan’s Blessing that you summoned using the same methods as now,”

He points to himself.

“Was me.”

The disappearance and death of outsiders. The end of the mountain sacrifice ritual that offered sacrifices through lottery.

From here and there, cries of ‘No’, ‘That can’t be’, ‘We’re cursed, we are cursed’ and moans and wailing continue.

However, they cannot kill the Chosen One before their eyes.

If he dies in this village, he becomes the new god.

Because that was the procedure.

In the end, they just have to let him go.

“Aaaaah!”

The traditional music troupe staggers, and people collapse everywhere.

The village festival lost its way and ended in chaos.

And the Chosen One who brought about this conclusion, Kim Sol-eum who succeeded habitually using his specialty of information warfare and psychological warfare…

‘As expected.’

He was just watching it with sunken eyes.

Without any joy.

I knew this would happen.

I looked around at the insane scene.

This was indeed a ghost story under Mumyeong Chanran Temple. But it wasn’t a place that properly taught their doctrine.

Probably intentionally.

‘They probably ‘experimented’ to make this village develop its own characteristics as a ghost story while performing crude rituals.’

I needed Baek Sa-heon’s help to understand this process in detail.

Because I had to find out exactly how the rituals were conducted and what doctrines they served.

And.

It was also possible because Baek Sa-heon controlled another village person who drew a golden stick, securing enough dawn time for me to hear and analyze all of this.

‘…Did he get another brainwashing item in the meantime?’

I no longer had the motivation to retrieve it.

It was meaningless and pointless anyway.

Anyway, so I was able to definitively catch their errors…

Because all my knowledge of Mumyeong Chanran Temple was real, the village people were more easily incited.

Since I could already guess what that damn world truth was when it came to Mumyeong Chanran Temple, I wouldn’t be affected by it…

Because I’d seen it all on the wiki.

Anyway.

‘Jisan Village will contemplate what’s right, believe what they want to believe, and fight among themselves.’

When such division occurs, their unity will weaken and vulnerabilities will emerge, so the Disaster Management Bureau should be able to take countermeasures before next year’s festival.

So before this commotion dies down, let me also quietly leave.

The festival is over.

The village rejected me being the Chosen One.

So probably… it should be safe to leave the village.

“…”

I tried to walk out of the village shrine.

Splash.

The golden liquid creates ripples under my footsteps.

This was that golden rooster.

Looking at the color, it seemed the circular wooden board that looked like a base underneath didn’t melt along with it.

It’s probably still on this floor.

‘Only the gold melted away…’

Thud.

“…”

I stopped walking.

Thud.

The ground is shaking. No,

Thud.

The floor.

It cracks and the golden liquid pours down below.

“…!”

I threw my body outside the village shrine. I barely avoided the collapsing floor.

And through the gap between the cracked circular wooden boards…

Clear liquid gushes up.

Divine wine.

…!

I realized.

‘The golden rooster statue was a weight stone.’

And the circular wooden board wasn’t its base…

‘It was a cover.’

That golden statue was pressing down to prevent something buried beneath the village shrine from rising up.

A giant wine jar.

And the real thing that had been sleeping restrained inside it.

It heard my ‘real’ doctrine and awakened.

Charalalalalalak.

Along with the sound of countless legs scraping against the floor.

Aaaaah!

A long body emerges from within the transparent liquid.

Something with countless legs writhing about.

A giant centipede that had been inside the wine jar.

Aaaaah!

However, those countless legs are made of human arms.

Praying hands.

Clasped in prayer.

Bland facial feature holes that seem to mimic a human face move about.

Its appearance resembles a wicked fallen monk from old folk tales.

…A characteristic I can recognize.

Centipede Monk

A ghost story that conveys the traditions of the Nameless Radiance Cult. Having received recognition from a religious worker who was moved by the story’s divine authority dwelling in lowly creatures, it cultivates mutated believers throughout the world.

However, its body is already half-rotted.

The arms protruding outside the village shrine are worn away by alcohol and liquid.

Its eyeballs have melted too.

There’s a folk tale that in some rural village, they misinterpreted this being’s teachings, captured it and imprisoned it in a wine jar, then held rituals with that wine.

So that was it.

What spread the doctrine to this place.

To appease that being, they used chickens as symbols—known as the centipede’s favorite prey—and placed them here and there.

Though it seems to have been of no use.

Aaaaah…

Name-nim.

That thing is obsessed with the doctrine of the Nameless Radiance Cult, making dialogue or communication impossible.

It only provides doctrinal teachings and enlightenment.

Indescribable truths, violently.

There is no liberation, there is no nirvana

This is the truth of the world, eternal freedom approaches, when the end of the degenerate age comes, offer pain and madness and insanity, spit out relics and live eternally, that is the true nature of the Way and the law of immeasurable value

I need to respond.

I know.

But…

‘Do I really have to?’

I dropped my arms.

…I’m tired.

I don’t know how many times this has been.

Just how long do I have to keep doing this?

My head tells me I just need to endure one month, just need to get the Wish Potion…

The thought that it wouldn’t matter if I listened to that centipede’s terrible preaching for a while weighs down my body. The thought that it wouldn’t matter if my body gets crushed.

I might be…

“Grape Agent.”

A large hand grabs my shoulder.

I turned my head.

Eyes shining in a resolute expression.

Bronze Agent is there.

“I came at the promised time as agreed. …And I told you.”

When I return…

“I would find a way to rescue you.”

The hand gripping my shoulder tightens.

“According to the rules.”

That is…

“‘For this supernatural disaster, two agents are deployed for the rescue of the rescue requesters.'”

Agent Choi’s cleaver struck beneath the village shrine’s roof as dokkaebi fire burst forth fiercely.

—————
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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