Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work - Chapter 268
—————
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 268
What kind of situation am I in.
My head, alternating between dull and sharp pain, can’t immediately understand the current environment and sways.
Only the swaying surrounding scenery appears blurry.
Colorful light bulbs, yellow braille tiles on the floor, exit number signs, gray….
Stairs.
“Ugh.”
At that moment I realized.
Go Young-eun was carrying me on her back while desperately running down the stairs. A hand missing several fingers was gripping my arm that swayed over her shoulder.
I barely managed to open my parched mouth.
“…San, yang.”
“…!”
Whether startled by my voice or having misstepped, she almost fell but barely regained her speed and continued running down the stairs.
All the way to the platform.
“….”
I must be heavy.
Go Young-eun is… her body isn’t in perfect condition either, so how is she carrying me on her back. I can’t understand what’s happening. But I could feel the urgency as if we were fleeing. I can’t keep being carried. I must be heavy, and since I’ve regained consciousness, let me walk on my own feet. I put strength into my body and stretched my legs toward the ground….
….
They’re not there.
Everything below my thighs is gone.
My left leg has no thigh at all, and my right leg is cut from the joint.
Traces of bleeding that had burst out but was strangely stopped.
‘…The casino!’
Suddenly, my memories from just before return as if my head was exploding.
The Body Casino, VIP room, Russian roulette, Deputy Manager Lee Seong-hae, the chilling sensation of tearing off heads, body parts stolen from the rail, euthanasia drugs, struggling, my hands blocking nose and mouth….
Acts that caused tremendous damage to the casino’s assets.
‘Were my legs… charged as compensation?’
Circumstantially, it seemed like a somewhat reasonable guess. Though it was strange that losing just my legs couldn’t possibly cover such tremendous destructive acts.
But in the first place.
‘Why didn’t I die?’
I held a gun to my head and shot. But why am I still here. Why do I have consciousness.
And….
Is Go Young-eun trying to rescue me?
“Here, is,”
“Shh.”
Go Young-eun, who had run down to the subway platform as if about to fall, immediately ran to the wall opposite the platform screen doors.
And opened the fire extinguisher.
“…!”
“Hurry…!”
The fire extinguisher, originally just big enough to barely fit a hose, was strangely quite spacious inside.
Enough for one person to lie down, or for two people to hide though it would be cramped.
Go Young-eun hurriedly pushed me carefully into that darkness and then entered herself.
Thud.
And closed the fire extinguisher door. With the sound of metal clashing, the door closed lightly and darkness arrived.
All that was visible was the faint light bulb glow and red emergency lights coming through the gaps.
“….”
“….”
“It’s, it’s okay, huff, the casino dealers won’t chase outside… just avoid the addicts.”
However, unable to continue speaking, Young-eun had to catch her breath more. Even so, she leaned toward me as if trying to check my condition.
The moment I reflexively moved my hand to pat her back.
“Hup….”
Another light source appeared in the darkness.
Light green.
Something glowed very faintly from Go Young-eun’s waist. She didn’t seem to notice due to the angle, but I knew what it was.
‘Baek Il-mong’s C-grade regeneration potion.’
….
I realized something.
Taking advantage of the darkness, I took that regeneration potion from Go Young-eun’s worn padding pocket and hid it in my own pocket.
Meanwhile, Go Young-eun was barely calming her breathing.
“Sanyang.”
“Huu, yes?”
“Did you rescue me? From the casino….”
“….”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know either. Just, it seemed like dealers were coming to the VIP room, and when I looked inside, everyone was dead, and only Noru was still breathing….”
So she carried me and ran away.
…Probably with the help of items or equipment too.
Having been in this Segwang Special City for half a year, this colleague must surely have prepared measures for survival….
“Still, I was a bit late… while carrying you out, Noru’s legs,”
“Don’t worry about that. …Thank you.”
The situation where I failed to die instantly was the worst.
‘…If Go Young-eun hadn’t helped.’
Instead of Deputy Manager Lee Seong-hae, I would have had my body completely dismantled at the casino and become a dealer. Like some kind of baton pass.
My spine runs cold.
“And since you don’t have legs… you would have been less heavy.”
“….”
“It’s rather fortunate.”
“Fortunate my,”
Go Young-eun looked choked up, as if she wanted to pour out curses, but swallowed her words. I don’t know if she was worried about drawing attention from outside, or if she lacked energy….
Though my head is working, I feel the brief return of my mental sharpness gradually becoming duller….
I noted that I still have pain in my head.
When I raised my hand to touch it, I could tell there was a wound.
Whether my skull… was pierced, I absolutely can’t confirm.
What’s certain is that I was indeed shot.
‘…Was there a problem with the firing.’
Or maybe I happened to be hit in the brain in a direction that made instant death impossible.
They say the brain can’t feel pain, so I don’t know how miserable I look.
And Go Young-eun, who was watching me feel around with my hand, trembled her shoulders and seemed to realize something as she sat up.
“Ah!”
And started searching through her pockets.
“The potion, the one I got from Manager…!”
“….”
As expected.
I knew she would try to use it on me.
“Hurry, hurry…”
Regeneration potion.
It was something I had secretly taken from my pocket. Go Young-eun’s hands were trembling as she searched through her pockets, trying to find the one she had received from Manager Lee Ja-heon.
…Guilt and complexity seemed to consume my body.
But I had no intention of returning it now.
Using it would have made me feel even more guilty.
“…It’s fine. The bullet seems to have grazed me.”
“What, what are you saying…”
“So… the body loss, cough, later… we can find it at the casino.”
“…”
“If we can find the potion later, it would be more… effective if Sanyang drinks it.”
I could only hope that my wretched appearance wasn’t clearly visible in the darkness.
“My head gunshot wound… seems like a dud, and for now… my condition is getting better.”
No.
I was going to die soon.
But using it here would be a complete waste. Go Young-eun absolutely had to use it.
“…We just need to board the train. Once we board the train, we’ll return to our original forms! Then we can slowly find it and take measures…”
“Yes.”
I probably wouldn’t last until then.
But I quietly agreed. Go Young-eun looked anxious, but she couldn’t bring herself to fully open the fire extinguisher to see me in the outside light.
She just repeated herself as if trying to reassure both me and herself.
“Don’t worry. Fire extinguishers… when you get addicted, strangely, everyone doesn’t open them…”
“I see…”
I gathered my words while enduring the dizziness.
To divert Young-eun’s attention.
“Did you also hear that as a rumor?”
And… because I had originally wanted to ask.
“Sanyang, what exactly happened?”
“…”
As before, there was no answer from Go Young-eun for a while.
But then the words suddenly began.
“Do you remember? I said I dropped out of medical school.”
“…”
“Actually, it was a bit of a forced enrollment from the beginning. I lived in the provinces, and my family wasn’t that well off. Tuition, living expenses, and rent after failing to get into the dormitory… it was all a burden.”
Go Young-eun’s voice sounded both rambling and calm.
“Even with student loans, there were limits to working part-time jobs alongside studies. In the main course, it seemed almost impossible…”
“…”
“There were also some issues in the department.”
…
“But it happened to be around that time. When things completely went wrong with my parents.”
Ah.
“We fought and completely lost contact.”
Go Young-eun’s shoulders slightly hunched.
“From then on, all support was cut off, and somehow, my sense of purpose became vague… so I naturally changed majors. I was also… a bit burned out.”
I listened silently.
“It’s nothing special, right? But…”
Go Young-eun’s voice became smaller.
“It’s funny, but that’s the reason.”
“…What do you mean?”
“For joining this company.”
“…”
“I didn’t know how to contact my family again.”
That didn’t simply mean she wanted to locate her family through detective agency methods.
“I wanted to get along well again… but I was blocked from the start.”
“…”
“I thought if it could grant any wish, I could ask for something like this too.”
And I know.
That Go Young-eun knows how to use the Wish Scroll ‘properly’.
Since she thought of a way to fulfill Jang Heo-un’s wish by proxy, the same would apply to her own wish.
“When you gave me the Wish Scroll… I thought about it.”
Her voice sank.
“I didn’t want to go to another world where my wish was fulfilled. I didn’t want to suddenly wake up and find that I hadn’t enrolled in medical school, or that I was living with my family as a doctor. So…”
So.
“I made this wish.”
“Please give me a supernatural ability to gather information about my family.”
…!!
“I thought that if I could contact my family with that, I could understand the situation and try to reconcile.”
A wish asking for a specific ability.
‘It’s not too excessive either.’
Go Young-eun had calculated and come up with a wish that would apply thoroughly only to herself personally, to the point where I wondered how she thought of it.
‘Originally, this should have… definitely worked.’
But.
“When I made the wish and opened my eyes…”
…
“I opened my eyes here.”
In this strange subway station.
Underground in Segwang Special City.
“And the moment I opened my eyes, I realized. That I had… doubts.”
“Where did I used to live?”
“Isn’t that too strange? Who introduces themselves as being from the provinces in the first place? You’d know which region. But I, strangely, had never even had such doubts. And with my family too…”
The sound of swallowing.
“I didn’t know why contact was cut off.”
Eeriness.
“There’s just a feeling left that ‘our relationship irreversibly soured and contact was cut off.’ And only vague resignation and rejection that we could never contact each other again…”
At that moment, I realized.
“What exactly is this?”
Go Young-eun was from Segwang Special City.
When the ‘extinction-level supernatural disaster’ occurred and the area was sealed, this colleague alone was left floating in reality while living alone in Seoul.
And the Wish Scroll also created an environment for the ‘ability to hear news of family’ to be activated.
By pushing her into the containment zone.
And.
“I gained a strange ability to perceive rumors floating around the region.”
And this colleague’s family members were all…
“But, but I’ve never heard news of my family.”
…
“Maybe that’s natural. This is inside a ghost story, isn’t it? Right? How could I find news of my family in a ghost story like this? Right, right…?”
“….”
“The Wish Potion didn’t work, or Director Ho definitely scammed us. Right?”
Even if I couldn’t agree, I wanted to answer yes for her sake.
I tried to.
“…Noru?”
But the words wouldn’t come out.
“Noru!”
I slumped my body against the fire extinguisher wall.
I couldn’t put strength into my limbs. As if something was wrong with my nervous system….
‘Is it over.’
The end is coming now.
But then….
The train is entering.
“Can you hear me?”
Go Young-eun seems to be grabbing my shoulder.
She’s trembling.
“The train! The train is entering. We can take that one. This one coming, this one is my shelter. We just need to get there, please….”
It’s getting harder and harder to respond.
Passengers are requested to board safely while observing proper etiquette.
Light pours in. The fire extinguisher seems to have opened.
I felt Go Young-eun trying to drag me out.
“That train. Train G1572, if we just take that one, just that….”
After coming out of the fire extinguisher, Go Young-eun seemed to try carrying me on her back again….
I stopped her with all my might.
“…Noru?”
There’s no strength in my hands, so it’s actually meaningless. I just barely managed to place my hand on her arm.
I tried to speak with lip movements.
‘Don’t worry.’
“What….”
‘I’ll come back.’
At the end, even my mouth won’t move.
“Noru, Noru….”
Along with the roar of the incoming train.
I died.
I opened my eyes.
“You’re awake. Noru!”
Ho Yu-won’s voice.
“Everyone was trying to kill me because Noru wouldn’t wake up. It was really scary. How am I supposed to know about Noru’s personal circumstances….”
The plague’s eyes looking down at me.
“But I’m curious too.”
His mouth curves into an arc.
“You rescued the person you meant to rescue, but don’t you have any ‘lingering attachments’ left in Segwang Special City?”
….
“Has a reason to go back in again emerged?”
Damn it.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————