Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work - Chapter 209
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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 209
6 PM as the sun begins to set.
The dusky sunset reflects on the entrance of a building located in Seoul.
A cold, clean first floor space with modern architecture.
Baekillmong Co. Annex Building
This building restricts entry to authorized personnel only.
This is the annex lobby of Baekillmong Corporation.
However, this desolate space that should normally be quiet and dreary was now bustling with the chatter of people.
“Wow, the atmosphere.”
“Hello. Yes yes. Nice to meet you…”
Dozens of new graduates in black suits were gathered, greeting each other.
Their faces were bright with anticipation and nervousness.
They had good reason to be.
“Congratulations on joining the company.”
“Hahaha, thank you. You too!”
They had just successfully joined Baekillmong, the famous pharmaceutical company that had become a hot topic in the stock market over the past few years!
So the company had gathered them at the annex building next to Seoul headquarters through email.
New Employee Orientation Guide
Today was the first day of orientation.
“A 2-night, 3-day orientation at the Seoul annex? That’s quite luxurious, isn’t it?”
“Right. Really. Wow, this place looks like an art museum lobby.”
“Wow, as expected of a large corporation… Ah, are these all sales employees here?”
“I think so. From what I heard, everyone here is in sales.”
“Then new employees from other departments might be gathering at other nearby locations.”
People intoxicated with the joy of passing chatted with each other while laughing.
There was no reason not to be harmonious. These were the colleagues they’d continue to see as victors who got jobs at this major pharmaceutical company!
So naturally, some people started generously approaching those left out of conversations.
“Excuse me, you’re a new employee, right?”
“…”
Among the noisy new employees, someone who had been quietly staring at the interior of the annex building looked up.
A peer with a pale complexion.
So the new employee who had been leading the conversation continued talking to him with a slightly boastful attitude.
“Congratulations on joining! Let’s do well together!”
However…
“Thank you.”
That was it.
“…”
“…”
Silence.
‘What the.’
What kind of new sales employee lacks social skills to that extent.
How did he even pass the interview?
As the atmosphere was about to become awkward, the new employee who had initiated the conversation hurriedly babbled.
“Haha, actually… I have a friend who already works at Baekillmong.”
“Wow.”
“Really?”
“Wow, which department?”
“Yes yes. I think it was the research team?”
An explosive reaction came from the other people!
The new employee inwardly sighed in relief at reviving the atmosphere and continued speaking in a subtle tone as if bragging but not quite.
“But actually, he kept telling me not to come here. Said I’d regret it if I joined this place or something.”
“Haha!”
“Friends who got jobs first always say things like that.”
“Exactly!”
“…”
People laughed as if they had heard the usual complaints about modern office workers’ overwork.
However…
“…Department.”
“Excuse me?”
The person who had been silent opened his mouth.
“That friend you mentioned, which department…”
At that moment.
[Ah, microphone test.]
“…!”
Everyone looked up in unison.
[Oh my, everyone gathered well. Then let’s begin~]
A speaker installed in the corner of the wall.
A voice with quite a cheerful tone began coming from there.
A smooth male voice.
[Welcome, new employees who broke through the 142:1 competition to join our company! I’m Gwak Je-gang, manager of Research Team 1, in charge of your orientation today.]
[Shall we give ourselves a round of applause before we start?]
Waaaah!
The new employees applauded cheerfully in unison while feeling slightly puzzled.
“Why through a speaker…?”
Why wasn’t he showing himself.
“Um, maybe we’re supposed to do something among ourselves?”
[Hey. That’s correct!]
“…!”
He, he’s listening…!
[That’s right, that’s right. From now on, to build teamwork and company loyalty, you new employees will be doing some very fun activities together!]
[Well, it’s just light missions, so it’s basically recreation. There are prizes involved too!]
The new employees quickly accepted this positively.
“I guess it means we should get close with our colleagues quickly!”
“Actually, that’s great. Haha.”
These days, large corporations and famous venture companies are said to conduct orientations in very creative or unique ways.
“I heard some places even do murder mystery board games with the company as the setting.”
[…Aha, that sounds really interesting. This is similar too. Of course~ Well then, well then…]
The tone of the voice flowing from the speaker rises as if excited.
[We will now begin the new employee orientation!]
Simultaneously.
Click click click click.
The lights came on at the entrance of the annex building.
“…!”
Things that weren’t visible before began to show under the bright incandescent lights.
Over there, iron doors filling the dark corridor.
“…”
Rather than maintaining security, they seemed heavy and alien, as if cutting off and confining something.
‘Why are there such things in the company annex…?’
But before I could feel puzzled, my gaze focused on the most brightly lit area.
A desk sitting alone at the entrance.
A conspicuous object placed on top of it.
“Ah…!”
The new employees blinked and confirmed what it was.
A black cylindrical box.
“A lottery box?”
It was large and old.
Shabby and crumpled in various places, enough to not fit with the modern, clean marble annex lobby.
The top of the black lottery box made of thick paper was covered so the inside couldn’t be seen, but through the silhouette of the cover, you could tell there were a total of 3 holes.
Each round cover was numbered.
⓵ ⓶ ⓷
[Now, come out one by one and draw lots. Take turns drawing the next number, and keep going around like that.]
[Ah, let me show you an example right away. You three people standing closest right now! Draw one number each in order!]
“Ah, yes!”
Amid the murmuring, the three selected people came forward, glancing around but unable to refuse.
And they drew lots.
Flutter.
The contents written on each lot were as follows.
⓵6th Floor
⓶322
⓷recited a lullaby
“This is…”
[Now, let’s… look at the desk again. Do you see the whiteboard behind the lottery box?]
People’s gazes turned to the whiteboard.
Printed sentences were displayed on it.
I go down to underground ⓵___
at door number ⓶____
⓷______________.
[If you fill in the whiteboard according to what’s written on each numbered lot, the sentence will be completed!]
[The mission is to perform according to that sentence. It’s so simple, right? Haha!]
As people filled in the whiteboard according to the numbers… the sentence was completed.
Like this.
I go down to underground 6th Floor
at door number 322
recited a lullaby.
“…”
“…”
The completed sentence gave an inexplicably eerie feeling.
‘Underground?’
That was the moment.
[Ah, that’s right. Amazing prizes are waiting for teams with good mission performance.]
As if sensing something, cheerful motivation came from the speaker.
[Exactly 100 points that can be used like cash at the employee mall!]
One hundred points?
“May I ask what we can buy with that?”
[Of course. That’s enough money to buy a robot vacuum!]
“Ooh!”
If you could buy a robot vacuum, it must be a considerable amount!
The atmosphere suddenly brightened.
Reason and reality returned along with the calculations.
‘Right, at worst it’s just a courage test.’
‘The company isn’t stupid, there’s no way they’d make us do something truly dangerous.’
Especially with this many people and in groups of three, it was an environment where it was hard to be scared.
Even if they prepared some surprises, it would have to be at a level that even timid people could endure!
The new employees looked at each other, nodded, and smiled.
“Excuse me, do we need to move by stairs?”
[Oh my, wouldn’t that be too tiring? When moving, you can use any elevator that’s currently operating. Hahaha!]
[Come on, let’s form teams however you want and give it a try!]
“Yes!”
They conversed with each other, then with excited faces stuck their hands into the black box and drew.
The lots that would decide their fate.
“Fighting!”
“The three of us will go first. We just take this elevator, right?”
“Let’s go. Basement 6th Floor!”
The atmosphere couldn’t have been better.
34 minutes later. Until the returning elevator doors opened to reveal colleagues with only their lower halves remaining.
“Aaaaah!”
“Aaah!”
And it continues.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
The sound of the elevator arriving.
Every time the sound of doors opening is heard, people’s piercing screams become discord that echoes through the Annex Lobby.
Screams, terror, panic.
The elevators arriving one after another are filled every other time with what were once ‘bodies’.
Horrific forms that one could never imagine encountering in reality. Blood, filth, organ fragments, sometimes ash and ice, human skin scraps densely written with text in ballpoint pen.
Even employees who died from excessive blood loss while writing bizarre phrases or symbols on the elevator mirror with their own blood.
“Uaaaah!!!”
Even those who return alive from within are not in their right minds.
“We have to run! Run! Run!”
“S-sorry. I’m sorry, sorry for knocking on the door…”
Those who mutter with their souls departed.
Then, people who are relatively normal appear.
“Th-this person is fine!”
“…”
“What on earth happened?! What is this?!”
The New Employee who had been holding a Dead Employee like a shield in front of the elevator door spoke with a pale face.
“Someone is there.”
In the underground beyond the door where they went.
“Someone?? Who exactly?!”
…
“A, a Strange Employee.”
And the survivors’ testimonies burst forth.
The quiet and desolate underground corridor revealed when the elevator doors opened.
The numerous iron doors there, and the strange marks that were only on the doors they visited. The sounds, fishy smell, light that only came from those doors…
And the scene inside that they glimpsed through the small hole above the number plate.
The employee.
“They were wearing employee uniforms but… it was strange. Strange…”
One that looked like a young child, one wearing a doctor’s gown, one carrying an oxygen tank, one holding lots of balloons, one wearing a cowboy hat with wooden hands, one wearing a Bukcheon lion mask…
People’s spines freeze at the descriptions of bizarre appearances.
And.
“Th-they reacted.”
“…!”
“They react to our actions! Ch-chasing, and like… like that!”
People’s heads turn.
To the body fragments filling the elevators.
“…”
“…”
The New Employees realize.
The mission to ‘act according to the sentence you made’.
That it was a kind of horror movie suicide act.
That they were caught up in an unrealistic disaster.
“No!”
About half of the New Staff Members who hadn’t yet gone down to perform the mission looked around at each other with deathly pale faces, then ran toward the main entrance.
However, the Annex Building’s only door was already sealed.
People clung to the shuttered door.
“Please save us!”
“Th-the phone won’t work. What do we do?”
“This… this must be a variety show. Yeah, uh, there are cameras here and stuff…”
“Please open the door! Please open the door, please!”
Bang bang bang!
Even beating the main entrance shutter until they bled brought no response.
Several New Employees noticed another way to communicate.
“The speaker!”
They rushed to the speakers where ‘Manager Gwak Je-gang’s’ voice had come from and began pouring out rescue requests, pleas, and terror.
However…
[(Beep-) The automatic response system has been activated due to the person in charge being absent.]
‘Manager Gwak Je-gang’s’ voice no longer comes from the speaker.
Instead, a recorded cheerful voice repeats.
[The main entrance will open after all participants have attempted the mission. In 30 seconds, death will occur due to security protocol for all attempts to forcibly open the shutter.]
[Orientation participants everyone, keep it up!]
Beep beep beep beep- Beep!
“Aaaaah!”
Two Employees who tried to break the shutter die with their heads exploding.
Pandemonium.
“Uh, uhhhhhh…”
“Heuheuk.”
By what principle, what happened – it’s incomprehensible.
At the scene so unbelievable as reality, the people’s commotion actually subsides.
From then on, the people in the lobby huddled together in front of the desk, trembling for more than half a day.
There were occasional whispers and movements trying to find some way to escape from here, but at least no one went near the elevator.
The mission shows no signs of being performed.
Then an amazing encouragement measure is given.
[We are informing you due to mission performance delay of over 6 hours.]
[If the next participant does not board the elevator within 5 minutes, death will occur due to security protocol.]
“….”
“….”
The new staff members look at each other with trembling eyes.
Someone.
Must be sent.
Must be put on the elevator.
Who should they send?
“Fuck….”
A few hours ago, the New Employee who had been acting pretentious saying ‘a friend works at this company’ burrowed into a corner, avoiding those gazes as much as possible.
And breaking out in cold sweat, he looked again at the sentence his group had completed.
I go down to basement floor 13
At the door of room 666
After knocking, I enter inside.
He would die.
There was no way he could survive carrying such ominous numbers.
‘Escape….’
Just then.
“The people who were picked for the next turn! Those people!”
Damn it!
“They’re over there, those are the people!”
“…!”
People rushed over and roughly pushed his group into the elevator.
He resisted frantically, but couldn’t overcome the numerical advantage. It wasn’t like they had any weapons either.
“No!”
[The doors are closing.]
He got up and was flailing in panic, frantically trying to press the open button.
Someone from the same group grabbed his hand and pulled it down.
“…!”
“It’s already too late.”
Thud.
The door closed.
“Hik!”
Unable to even feel anger, he turned his head in fear to see a peer with a gaunt impression looking at him.
Someone who had been strangely quiet.
But now he spoke as if explaining calmly.
“Due to security protocol, someone died. In that case, staying in the lobby would have meant death anyway….”
“….”
“Since it’s come to this, we have to do it.”
“I, I don’t want to…!”
“Calm down and think about it. Quite a few people came back fine.”
As if telling him to come to his senses, the other person grabbed his shoulder.
“…Surely, about one team out of three testified that ‘nothing happened.'”
“…!!”
That was indeed true.
-Nothing special happened….
-Th, there was just this strange… person dressed like a Special Agent uniform who was silently staring at us.
-I’m telling you there really was nobody inside!
“Even among the teams where something happened, about half the people returned alive. So, rather than dying in the lobby like that, this side probably has a higher chance of survival.”
“….”
“…Let’s move carefully based on the testimonies of those who went before.”
Breathing heavily, the two New Employees slowly nodded their heads.
It was thanks to a calmness that made one wonder if he might be experienced.
The pretentious New Employee found himself speaking without realizing it.
“That person over there, may I ask your name….”
“….”
The other person who had been silent opened his mouth.
“I’m called Jang Heo-un.”
Ding.
The elevator arrives in the basement.
The New Employees step out trembling onto the old-style corridor lined with iron doors.
And they found the room they were looking for.
666
Taking a breath, they place their hands on that door.
Knock knock knock.
I had a dream.
It was a really strange and bizarre nightmare.
A dream where I entered into the eerie ghost story wiki that I used to like.
In the dream, I became an elite employee of a terrible pharmaceutical company that pushed employees into ghost stories to make potion ingredients.
And I also worked as a spy infiltrating a special agency that rescued people from ghost stories, the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau.
In that process, I entered numerous ghost stories from the wiki.
A convenience store where you play hide and seek with ghosts, a quiz show where you die if you don’t get the right answer, an ink painting where Chang-gwi lurks, an exhibition that collects organs as admission fees, a bizarre theme park….
Days that were intense and eerie, crossing between life and death.
Yet I also met unforgettable people.
-Kim Sol-eum. Can you hear me?
-Noru, seventeen employees escaped listening to your announcement broadcast!
-May your wish surely come true.
-It’ll be okay, Grape.
Terrible afterimages remain.
Why, even when you wake up from sleep and forget most of the details, the intense impression and lingering feelings remain like a shock – that kind of dream.
Especially when the ending is terrible and shocking, isn’t that so?
I survived near-death experiences, endured terror while working at the ghost story company, and the moment I drank the wish potion I had longed for so much…
Actually I am ■■■■■■ this is not crash-landing in another world but being invited and my body is not human and I realize ■■■■■■■ ■■■.
No!
I don’t want to wake up.
I don’t want to know reality.
I don’t want to realize that I’m still remaining at Daydream Corporation.
…
And the next moment I realized.
That I cannot fall asleep.
“Huh.”
Dawn.
I sat up on the bed, drawing in breath.
No, surely that kind of ‘breathing’ sound would have been made.
If I had intact vocal cords.
“…”
I reached my hand toward my throat.
A strange hissing smoke sound.
The hand wrapped in glossy gloves, the rubber-like material of work clothes wrapped around my throat instead of skin could be felt.
I fumbled around. A human silhouette.
But when I touched the strange and countless rib-like horns that connected from there up to my head, I dropped my hand.
“…”
I realize again.
I cannot fall asleep.
-Whirrrrr!
-It is your work time. Please wake up. It is your work time. Please wake up…
I got up from the iron bed and started today’s work.
According to contract.
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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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