Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work - Chapter 379

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Even If You Fall Into Ghost Stories, You Still Have to Go to Work – Episode 379
Daydream Corporation’s habit of throwing dozens, even hundreds of people into a single ghost story simultaneously is surprisingly common in the Wiki.
Because it’s entertaining.
In fact, I experienced it firsthand not long after joining Daydream.
A place where dozens of employees died.
‘The Mansion of the Blind….’
Remembering that mansion where a bizarre exhibition was held, where visitors had their facial features and limbs collected as admission fees, my mouth went dry even now.
[I announce again. We’re entering a night special operation today.]
So when over a hundred workers were assembled and mobilized in the evening, I caught on pretty quickly. My PTSD alarm was flashing like crazy in my head.
‘This is a hundred percent.’
They’re about to dump all these workers into a single ghost story.
And typically, these investigation records have a survival rate of around fifty percent.
Because that’s fun to read.
‘Damn it.’
I forced my expression to relax despite wanting to grit my teeth.
Looking at Jin Na-sol instead, she seemed to have figured it out too—her eyes were sunken as she gathered up painkillers. Truly, the Elite Team….
“This painkiller is pathetically weak. Is this all there is?”
“……Yes.”
I didn’t know what to say.
‘Don’t trust anyone that much….’
In this ghost story world with no blood, tears, or mercy, trusting only myself is good for my personal safety. I could even be betrayed by myself….
“Ugh, if we don’t rest our bodies, how are we supposed to work tomorrow? What’s the point of dragging people out at night like this?”
“But they’re doubling the pay with night shift allowance…!”
“Wait, seriously?”
“Damn, what a massive corporation!”
Two hundred in cash.
At that magic word, the workers grumbled but didn’t resist.
[Yes, yes. Put on your eye patches.]
As I was dragged along like baggage, I desperately tried to deduce what this was about and narrow down the possibilities.
What kind of ghost story could it be?
[Get out.]
Soon the truck stopped and we were guided toward a single door.
[Alright, form a line. Yes. Five people per group.]
Five people to a team.
‘An odd number.’
Watching the line form in order and randomly divide, I calculated quickly and positioned myself in the middle.
I debated separating from Assistant Manager Jin, but figured that even in a worst-case scenario where only some survive from a team, the two of us could help each other, so I stood beside her.
‘Usually it’s better to stay together anyway.’
[Mm… yes. That’s everyone.]
The security staff checked over the workers, exchanged some kind of signal with each other, and then
the containment room door opened.
Creak….
“…….”
“Isn’t it way too dark?”
The interior of the door was invisible.
The space beyond, shrouded in deep darkness, almost felt like a void.
“At least you should give us a flashlight or something so we can see what we’re going into.”
“And can this many people even fit in there?”
[Yes. There’s plenty of space inside. You’ll see everything once you enter.]
“Still….”
[Ugh…. Really.]
Annoyance crept into the Researcher’s exasperated voice.
[Then skip the work. Skip it and take penalty points.]
“…!”
[So either deal with the consequences or just go in quickly. Don’t you see everyone else losing time because of you? Does everyone really want to stay up all night together?]
“That….”
“Yeah, come on, grown man complaining about the dark.”
“Just go in, it’ll be fine.”
And when a few of the workers ahead offered their support, the protesting worker fell silent.
They needed his cooperation, yet instinctively they didn’t want to offend the stronger authority of the Researcher.
‘Most of the workers seemed to think those who didn’t come back had been fired or hospitalized….’
They either considered the rumors of deaths hearsay, or if they believed in superstitions, they figured those people were weak and fell victim to ghosts.
But since they’d done the same work and turned out fine, they reasoned they’d be okay going forward too.
‘Naive, but realistic.’
Meanwhile, I read anxiety and tension—or the blank look of someone already half-gone—on the faces of the Z900-series workers….
[Take your manual and go in. Your entire line enters simultaneously.]
But entry had already begun.
The workers at the front moved sequentially into the darkness.
Then it was my line’s turn.
“…….”
The security staff closest to me held out a piece of paper.
Would it be the same person as on my first day?
“Th-thank you….”
I took it.
The moment I stepped into the containment room door, clutching the slightly worn paper,
Thud.
Darkness swallowed us.
“…….”
Strangely, we didn’t collide with the team ahead.
We walked forward slowly.
One step.
Another step.
“I mean, how much further do we have to go…?”
Just before the nearby worker’s words could finish,
Whoosh.
A brief gust of wind sounds.
And my vision opened up.
“……!”
What tickled my forehead was mountain wind.
A hillside trail overgrown with dark green branches came into view.
“A… mountain?”
“We came out through a door? Wait, how is this possible?”
“Why on some wild hillside like this….”
Jin Na-sol tilted her chin.
The paper in my hand.
‘Check it.’
I was already unfolding the paper I’d received.
If just entering the containment room triggered the entry, then this would almost certainly be the escape hint.
The folded paper revealed itself.
Refreshing Courage Experience
Stamp
4
3
Collect them and receive a prize.
Visit the famous sites of Sagyeong Mountain in the sunless darkness, build your courage and perseverance, and cultivate your spirit.
Seonyeo Rock – Sagyeong Lodge – Osaek Mineral Spring
Prize Receipt Location:
Information Desk in Front of First Floor Entrance of Shinmaru Training Center
“…A courage experience?”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
At the very least, if they pretended it wasn’t a ghost story at first, what could possibly go wrong?
‘Why is it so elaborate….’
A courage experience ghost story, really?
“Hey, let’s look at that together.”
I quickly held up the paper so my team members could see it clearly.
The text at the bottom of the old-fashioned, crudely made guide—looking like it was made in Photoshop—suddenly stood out to me.
This is a continuous experience program
for our Shinmaru Training Center rental groups.
Participation available anytime without prior registration.
That moment.
“Shinmaru Training Center?”
…!
“Do you know the place?”
“Oh… isn’t that the training center where all those kids died in an accident?”
What?
Cold water seemed to pour down my spine, a chill running through me.
A worker with an unsettling expression rubbed his chin.
“I’m telling you, I definitely heard about it. Just before coming to this job… that, a bunch of students died.”
“…….”
“I heard it was some kind of cult-run training center. They couldn’t even find the bodies, apparently.”
An eerie silence descended.
“…So we’re there now? Unbelievable.”
“No wait, look, shouldn’t we go back and properly ask the announcement people and then move…?”
We turned to look back.
A dimly lit mountain trail was visible.
The containment room door was gone.
We were just stranded in the middle of the mountain.
“…….”
“W-what’s going on…?”
“No, the door we came in from… no.”
This wouldn’t do.
These people had clearly never experienced supernatural darkness this blatantly before.
“Is it just hard to see because it’s dark?”
“That must be it, right? Otherwise….”
“Yeah, that’s probably it. You can’t really see well in the dark….”
I quickly agreed.
If not, they’d all panic.
‘Quick, find the escape route and get out of here.’
My mind raced urgently.
First, I deduced what kind of ghost story this was. So… a training center where people died, a courage test….
‘It’s way too clichéd.’
These fragmented conditions were standard tropes for ghost stories. Several familiar ones came to mind, but it was hard to confirm which one. It could just be one variation among many cases, like with the wooden dolls.
‘I’d know for sure if I experienced some defining gimmick….’
Tap-tap.
Jin Na-sol tapped my back.
“Leave them behind and move.”
“Huh?”
“The guide doesn’t mention any specific number of people. Let’s go, come on. Why drag extra baggage around for no reason.”
“W-wait, just a moment.”
Five people are overwhelmingly more reassuring than two in this terrifying mountain…!
‘The more the merrier, and the less scary it is!’
I was scrounging for words to justify this rationally while breaking into a cold sweat.
“Ugh, what’s there to see anyway. You said we’d see everything once inside but there’s absolutely nothing to see….”
“Everyone.”
One worker chuckled and pulled something out. It was….
“A flashlight!”
“…!”
“See, it’s all about thinking ahead.”
With a tense expression yet somehow prideful, the worker held up what he’d retrieved—a small flashlight.
“Since they said it was a night operation, I grabbed one just in case.”
“Wow, that’s why smart people are different.”
“Phew, thanks to that we can move around comfortably. We’ll keep it secret from the company, yeah, of course!”
The relief that came with light and an open field of vision seemed to brighten everyone’s faces.
Yeah, it’s true—once you have light in a mountain at night, fear becomes less than half.
But this….
‘…Daydream didn’t know people would sneak those in?’
No, they definitely knew. With CCTV everywhere, how could they miss it?
If they knew, why didn’t they stop it?
And yet they deliberately didn’t provide flashlights.
-You’ll see everything once you enter.
That refusal showed clear intentionality. The Researcher’s reason for not providing them must have been deliberate….
“…….”
Wait.
“Come on, turn it on quickly….”
“Don’t turn it on.”
“What?”
“Don’t turn on the flashlight.”
“Whoa, suddenly getting all serious?”
“Maybe you’re the type to act tough when you’re scared?”
But the workers who remembered me from my Z999 days ignored what I said, and they chuckled casually as they moved.
“It’s fine. Really worried about seeing ghosts, huh.”
Damn it.
“Come on, there’s no ghosts~”
The worker pressed the flashlight switch….
Smack!
I kicked them down and stomped the flashlight out of their hand.
“Uh, uhhhh!”
I pinned them down, suppressing them, and knocked the flashlight away.
“What the hell, you crazy?!”
“Damn it!”
The other workers rushed at me, trying to pull me off.
‘Shit!’
The flashlight rolled downward.
Jin Na-sol raised one eyebrow as she watched, then came toward me. She seemed about to subdue them when
I shouted.
“Close your eyes!”
It was already too late.
“Hey!”
The flashlight left the struggling worker’s hand, and it was already pressed on, so
Ting.
it rolled across the ground, scattering light.
Ting-rolling….
Damn.
“Close your eyes…!”
“Ugh,”
I pressed down on the worker beneath me, forcing their face to the ground, and clamped my own eyes shut.
“What is this. You a lunatic?”
“Why would he say not to look. It’s so bright.”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, it’s so bright even at night.”
“I can see everything.”
“That’s good.”
“That’s good.”
“That’s go—”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAA.”
“Uhhhh uhhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah goodgoodgoodgood good AAAAAAGOODTHERE”
“Wow…….”
“…….”
“…….”
“There was one. On the mountain.”
Silence.
…….
…….
Now only the wind sounds.
The hands that had been trying to pull me away were gone.
A muffled voice came from beneath me.
“Th-there…”
…….
“What was that just now….”
“Don’t open your eyes.”
Shit.
“Manager, are you there?”
“Not here.”
She obeyed my orders immediately.
‘Elite trained, after all….’
Next, I staggered to my feet.
And slowly, taking one step at a time… I started walking down the trail.
Toward where it was brightest beyond my eyelids.
“…….”
My legs were shaking. But I didn’t stop.
And after stumbling back and forth several times in the brightest spot,
Thud. Something kicked under my foot.
“…….”
I bent down and picked up the flashlight with my cold-sweaty palm, turning off the switch.
Click.
Darkness had never felt so welcome.
‘Phew.’
I put the flashlight in my work clothes pocket, then very slowly opened my eyes.
A dark mountain path came into view.
That was all.
“……You can open your eyes now.”
Drenched in cold sweat, I turned my head. I saw the worker who’d been pinned beneath me and Jin Na-sol, who had somehow already gripped the guide in her hands and begun reading it again.
Two people.
That was all there was.
“…Seong Gil-i, or rather, the others…?”
“I don’t know.”
I wiped away the cold sweat.
“I can’t see them.”
Right.
I remembered.
‘Of course I’d know.’
This ghost story—the one where you can’t turn on lights.
======================
Dark Investigation Records / Ghost Story
[No Light]
: <
Dark Investigation Records
> featured ghost story, Daydream Corporation identification code Qterw-C-1010.
A ghost story where the standard horror game gimmick of being attacked when lights go out
works in reverse.
Anyone who falls into this ghost story will vanish if they activate any light source—candles, flashlights, glow sticks, or otherwise—during exploration.
What makes it most terrifying is that not only the person who turned on the light disappears, but anyone who sees what the light revealed also vanishes.
It remains unknown what explorers actually see or what experience they undergo.
Those entering experience a courage test being conducted at an abandoned training center in the rural area outside Gyeongnam Province, and cannot escape the ghost story until that test is properly completed.
======================
I’m going insane.
‘This is… exactly why they didn’t confiscate the flashlight.’
They let it through to see what would happen—maintaining a control group.
As a result.
‘Right after entry, two out of five on this team have vanished….’
Without any way to know what they saw or what happened.
“…….”
It had been a while.
That experience of two people I’d just been talking to, two living people, making strange sounds and then disappearing.
“Uh, uhh… that…”
“Take a deep breath.”
But it wasn’t the first time either.
“I’ll be carrying this.”
I calmed myself down.
Wiping the sweat away, I disassembled the battery from the flashlight in my pocket and put it back in.
The worker didn’t ask for it.
Instead, he asked a question.
When people are in shock and panic, they instinctively depend on anyone who seems to know something.
“If… we turn on a light, something bad happens…?”
“Yes.”
“Why…??”
Notably, Jin Na-sol never asked how I knew.
She’d already figured it out.
“You deduced it because they didn’t give us a flashlight, right?”
“Yes.”
“Your head’s still sharp.”
Jin Na-sol, having read the guide one more time, began to move.
“So shall we go.”
“U-uh, to find the others….”
“We’re going to collect stamps. That’s the night work the company gave us on paper.”
I answered quickly before Jin Na-sol could tell him to drop it and go.
“And….”
Shit.
After a beat, I tried to keep my voice as steady as possible.
“Yes. It would be best if we move quickly like Manager says.”
But I knew.
There was one more condition needed for this ghost story to work.
‘Eventually, we’ll reach a point where we can’t help but turn on a light….’
Obvious, isn’t it?
Otherwise, it’d be nothing—just adapt to the darkness and stumble through slowly, passing the ghost story. Simple.
‘That’s not worth logging as a case.’
To be fun, it has to be horrifying and bone-chilling.
I swallowed.
‘I just… have to endure it.’
I’ll have to suffer through tonight thinking of it as horror torture.
And this time, I have an elite from the trained teams walking ahead of me, someone who won’t retire at the slightest difficulty.
That much was genuinely reassuring.
“…Let’s go.”
So I clenched my teeth and stepped forward.
Into the darkness.

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