Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work - Chapter 77

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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 077

I’m currently walking up the stairs in the Nightmare School with a Disaster Management Bureau agent.

…While dragging them along like a prisoner after restraining them, that is.

For reference, I knocked them out and restrained them using an item they gave me.

“….”

What a mess.

‘This can’t go on.’

I think I’ve really crossed the line here.

By tomorrow, I might end up on the Disaster Management Bureau’s blacklist and get conscripted by the Scale of Evil if things go wrong.

The Company would probably protect me, but I don’t want to deal with the insane situation of owing a debt to Baekillmong Corporation…!

‘I, I need to somehow rehabilitate my image.’

The cold sweat on my back never seems to dry…

I spoke seriously first.

“If you swear not to scream, I’ll remove the gag. Just nod your head.”

The agent’s eyes, which had been glaring at me murderously, calmed down.

And they nodded their head very quietly.

‘…That’s obviously a lie.’

If you’re going to deceive me, at least try to hide it better…!

In the end, I sighed and said.

“I have absolutely no intention of harming you, Agent, or of deceiving you to extract Bureau information and report it to the Company.”

“….”

“And… while making that statement just now, I felt no pain whatsoever.”

“…!”

“I know the caramel you gave me is a truth serum for interrogation.”

The agent’s pupils trembled.

“Of course, I don’t think you had any malicious intent. It’s just…”

I looked into the air with slightly melancholic eyes.

“Even though I didn’t bother to mention that I work for Baekillmong Corporation, I wanted to convey that I had no intention of lying…”

Strictly speaking, this was bullshit.

If things went south, I was planning to inject painkillers rocket-delivered from the Alien Shop and spout survival lies.

Sure enough, uncomfortable pain rose from within.

‘Ugh.’

A feeling like my stomach was twisting and churning like a stomach ulcer.

But momentum was important here.

‘I can endure this much without showing it now.’

The more malicious or intentional the lie, the stronger the pain. What I just said was closer to evasion, so it wouldn’t even be level 1.

Let’s endure it.

‘Next is…’

Trust.

I simultaneously loosened a small silver badge from my pocket with one hand while slightly hiding my expression.

Then I openly showed that item, the ‘Silver Heart’, to the agent.

“I’m telling you this without relying on such effects.”

“….”

“I’ll say it again. …If you swear not to scream, I’ll remove the gag. Just nod your head.”

An indescribable conflict appeared in the agent’s eyes.

And when we reached the stair landing.

They nodded their head very slightly.

“….”

I removed the gag without complaint.

The agent didn’t cause a disturbance as promised.

‘Good.’

Alright. Next step.

I returned the agent’s confiscated flashlight and pistol to their hands.

And I loosened the restraints on their arms.

“This is…”

“You’ll need self-defense in such an urgent situation.”

‘Anyway, that pistol has almost no effect on targets other than ghosts or supernatural phenomena.’

I heard that in the case of evil people, it sometimes works depending on the bullets, but no matter how I thought about it, neither I nor Jang Heo-un seemed to be evil enough to meet that standard.

‘Jang Heo-un… there were no rumors of him doing crazy things in the past 3 months.’

But I didn’t remove the restraints since this agent couldn’t escape before my favorability effect ended.

I attached a plausible excuse to that too.

“It’s too dangerous for you to run away alone, so I’ll maintain the restraints only until your rational judgment returns.”

“….”

It was when we finished climbing the stairs while slowly watching our surroundings.

Suddenly, the agent asked.

“Is Noru your alias?”

“….”

“Don’t you move in team units and call each other by aliases taken from masks?”

“…That’s correct.”

“Are you the team leader?”

“No. I’m just a new employee. This person is… my colleague.”

I smiled somewhat bitterly and took out a half-mask from my pocket, placing it against my face.

Then the familiar texture like tree bark with grown horns covered my skin.

The agent looked at me with a somehow shocked expression.

And Jang Heo-un’s dejected voice was heard.

“…I’m sorry. Noru. For trying to help me…”

“Not at all. You must have been very confused.”

Honestly, compared to Baek Sa-heon who was trying to screw me over somehow, this situation was something I was prepared for since I pretended to be a temporary agent…

Moreover, Jang Heo-un even made excuses for me to the agent.

“Noru is really kind and a good person. When we first met, they risked their life to save me from the darkness…”

“It, it wasn’t that much.”

Nice shot!

“We just… helped each other. To survive together in the darkness.”

“Noru…”

“….”

The agent closed their mouth with an even more complicated expression.

But let’s find meaning in the fact that they didn’t try to hit my head with the small pistol’s handle.

“…Entering 4th Floor.”

And we finished climbing the floors.

[4F]

“….”

We did arrive but…

‘This is pretty scary.’

From the 4th floor onwards, this ghost story starts to become more twisted.

First, even if students die, no announcement broadcast comes out…

It’s extremely dark.

Crackle…

Most of the lights have already broken and gone out, and the few remaining ones are all flickering except for a select few.

And the bigger problem is…

“…!!”

“Gasp,”

Dozens of students are standing crowded in the corridor.

And they were already staring directly at us.

‘Ha.’

Those students standing lined up on both sides like mannequins in the dark school corridor.

All student entities on the 4th floor are third-year students, and over 100 entities have been confirmed in every exploration attempt that entered this floor.

Just hearing this much makes it sound like a death sentence.

However.

“…It’s alright.”

The agent provided information in a stiff voice.

“They cannot leave their positions.”

Right.

The 4th floor is really too strange. We can’t actually witness those ‘students’ moving in the first place, but we can still see them changing positions, right?

But the 4th floor students can’t move.

It’s like their feet are stuck to the classroom floor.

-From the 9th investigation records recording

Since they don’t charge at us and just stand still, we just need to avoid entering the students’ territorial radius.

If we need to approach nearby, we keep staring at them while freezing their movement entirely.

‘The problem is that it’s dark, making it easy to miss spotting them.’

And they were very… very cunning.

They often tried to catch us off guard with psychological warfare.

‘…Hmm.’

That’s right.

After confirming that Jang Heo-un had the name tag he obtained from a school student attached to his blazer, I spoke seriously.

“Then let’s investigate the 4th floor very carefully and slowly.”

There were no objections.

We entered between the students.

‘Whew.’

Jang Heo-un swallowed his saliva.

The feeling was really strange.

To pass right beside the ‘student’ entities, close enough for their school uniform sleeves to brush against him, while trembling.

But he gritted his teeth.

‘I need to be helpful.’

It seemed like he had ruined this exploration for his grateful colleague, Kim Sol-eum.

What was he trying to do by accompanying the agent?

‘He was probably aiming for a high score… a clear, right?’

But according to the manual, the longer you survive here and the more name tags you collect, the higher the concentration of the liquid in the Dream Essence Collector tends to become…

Maybe because it was too dangerous, Kim Sol-eum didn’t even glance at the name tags attached to the 4th floor students.

‘…I don’t know.’

Jang Heo-un decided not to make judgments unnecessarily.

Relying on his own intelligence wasn’t a good habit.

He simply focused on staring at the students getting closer.

Especially when entering areas where all the lights were broken or flickering, he persistently shone his flashlight.

Step, step.

“Mr. Buffalo, please watch the back.”

“Yes.”

His voice trembled thinly.

Jang Heo-un walked backwards while looking behind.

In the path they had passed, he could see dozens of students who had turned their heads this way and were stretching their hands out…

“I can see the music room over there, let’s keep going just until there.”

He moved his feet.

Soon they reached a section with no lights at all.

‘Whew.’

In the suffocating darkness, students standing blankly and still gazing at them eerily.

It was the moment they were pushing through that gap, illuminating it with their flashlight.

Flicker.

A light somewhere flickered. It seemed like a power outage had occurred…

‘Huh?’

Wait a minute.

Something was strange.

‘How could a light flicker when there are no lights?’

And Jang Heo-un realized a beat too late.

It wasn’t a power outage.

What flickered was…

Someone’s flashlight up ahead.

Just now, someone had lost their line of sight.

“…!”

Jang Heo-un almost turned around to look back. But a calm voice stabbed his back first.

“Don’t turn around.”

“You…!”

“For now, we need to… keep walking.”

Kim Sol-eum’s voice was mixed with panting.

And…

The smell of iron.

Drip, drip…

In Jang Heo-un’s field of vision as he walked backwards, he noticed that at some point, red liquid had been dripping onto the floor.

He couldn’t see properly while watching the student, but the ground beneath his shoes was slippery.

And,

Jang Heo-un also saw a student’s hand extending into the center of the corridor, reaching high enough to bump into his waist.

It was stained red with blood dripping from it.

Jang Heo-un suppressed his urge to vomit.

“N-Noru…!”

When he finally pushed through the gap between the students and turned around.

Kim Sol-eum was holding his stomach with a pale, ashen face.

And the flashlight in his hand flickered once more.

He smiled with a pale face.

“…The battery,”

-Effective lighting time: 60 minutes

That’s right.

Emergency flashlights don’t have very long usage times.

‘Ah…!’

The two who had prepared supplies in advance and kept the emergency flashlight as a spare for real emergencies had failed to consider the time limit of the flashlight the other person was carrying…!

“W-wait… urgh.”

“D-don’t speak!”

Jang Heo-un tried to support Kim Sol-eum somehow while suppressing his nausea. The agent reflexively joined in to help.

Thus, the Daydream Corporation employee and the Disaster Management Bureau official urgently supported one person and entered the classroom.

There were several students peering in there too, but they set down the person they had been struggling to carry in a range the students couldn’t reach.

And Kim Sol-eum, sitting down, pressed against his wound and spoke.

“You two.”

“…”

“Please leave me behind.”

The one wearing the horned mask pressed against his wound and smiled with difficulty.

“Ah, wait a moment.”

Kim Sol-eum reached out with the hand that wasn’t holding his stomach and completely untied the Disaster Management Bureau agent’s restraints.

“I forgot. Now you can go…”

The agent didn’t even listen and rummaged through his pocket, pulling out a spare name tag and shoving it into Kim Sol-eum’s pocket.

But…

“You don’t need to give it to me. Didn’t you have somewhere to use it?”

“…”

“Go ahead. There must be other people on this floor. If you join them, urgh, it should work out.”

Kim Sol-eum started to frown slightly but then relaxed his expression.

“Actually, even if I die like this, it probably won’t be a big problem for my work at the company. The company would be satisfied with this much…”

“That damn company!”

The agent clenched his fist tightly.

“Why do you people believe in such an absurd, disgusting organization!”

It was as if he had touched a nerve.

“Do you really think a company that treats human life so cheaply will actually grant your wishes?”

“…!”

Jang Heo-un looked at the agent in surprise.

The agent gritted his teeth and said.

“We know all about working for the Wish Potion. Do you really believe in that ridiculous illusion? That a magic potion will grant any wish?”

Kim Sol-eum looked up at the agent quietly.

“It does grant them.”

“…”

“If the Wish Potion were fake, this structure couldn’t be maintained. Once you drink it, it grants any wish.”

“…Hah.”

The official sighed as if he was going crazy with frustration, then spoke as if repeating logic he’d built up over a long time.

“Think about it. Say someone wishes for world peace, and someone else wishes for human extinction. How can both contradictory wishes be fulfilled?”

Jang Heo-un, wearing the buffalo mask, flinched and trembled.

But Kim Sol-eum remained calm.

“From the perspective of the person making the wish, yes. It comes true.”

“What… does that,”

“It means the Wish Potion isn’t meant to change the world, but is an item that omnipotently grants individual wishes.”

What on earth did that mean?

It sounded like some kind of cult salvation theory.

However, Kim Sol-eum’s attitude wasn’t religious fanaticism, but rather like the resignation of someone who had inductively verified the situation many times…

The agent looked at him with confused feelings, but Kim Sol-eum just shrugged his shoulders.

“Anyway, this seems to be as far as I go.”

“…!”

Blood gushed out from under the hand pressing against his stomach.

The bleeding wasn’t stopping at all.

Kim Sol-eum handed the name tag back to the Bronze Agent.

The name tag was stained with blood.

The agent gritted his teeth.

“Even if you’re dragged here every new moon night and keep giving away name tags, that company will never help you.”

“That might be true.”

Kim Sol-eum tried to shrug his shoulders again, but winced slightly from pain while still smiling.

“Still, the Disaster Management Bureau can eventually end this darkness… this disaster, right? Then I’ll be completely free too.”

“…!!”

The agent looked at Kim Sol-eum like someone who had been struck.

“Go ahead, you two. It might be dangerous if you keep looking back like this.”

Kim Sol-eum raised his head and illuminated the area outside the classroom with his still-functioning emergency flashlight.

“While you’re going, I’ll keep watch ahead as much as possible.”

“…”

“Also, Mr. Buffalo is a new employee who really hasn’t done anything wrong, so I’d appreciate it if you could travel together safely for a while.”

“Noru…”

The agent was conflicted.

But eventually he gritted his teeth, turned around, and walked with his flashlight.

“Follow me.”

“Ah…”

Jang Heo-un hesitated but finally made his decision.

‘There’s nothing I can do even if I stay beside him…’

It might be more comfortable for Kim Sol-eum if he disappeared quickly.

But he couldn’t just leave, so he secretly slipped something into Kim Sol-eum’s chest.

“Noru, I… this is my spare name tag.”

“…!”

“Thanks to you, I lived longer… and I don’t have anyone else to save. It’s not much, but at least one more…, thank you.”

And he left following the agent without waiting for an answer.

Unable to bring himself to look back.

“…”

Kim Sol-eum watched the agent and Jang Heo-un leave for a moment, as promised.

And…

‘Perfect!’

As soon as they disappeared around the corner, he hurriedly pulled out the item he had prepared from his pocket.

A single eyeball candy wrapped in plastic.

Those warm days of the past,

The magic candy!

The old-fashioned red, yellow, and white eyeball candy was nestled large inside its nostalgic wrapper.

Nostalgia Candy

The Emergency Recovery Medicine that Kim Sol-eum had purchased.

He unwrapped the packaging with his bloodied hands and put one piece in his mouth, beginning to roll it around.

Then changes began to occur.

“…!”

The wounds on his body began to close.

The blood he had shed was reabsorbed and his broken bones naturally reconnected to their original form.

As if time was rewinding.

When rolling the candy in your mouth

Old memories come back to life!

While the eyeball candy dissolved in his mouth, it fixed the user’s appearance to when their body and mind were healthiest during the past 10 years.

‘Since this is a dream anyway, this kind of temporary measure is enough.’

His condition improved dramatically and his mind became crystal clear.

His head was spinning with sharp thoughts.

‘I succeeded…!’

Kim Sol-eum let out a sigh of relief.

His scheme had worked perfectly.

The most effective method he could use in this situation.

‘As expected, Death Retirement.’

He had barely managed to seize an opportunity that could target both freedom of exploration and image renewal simultaneously.

‘I was so nervous about missing the timing for the emergency flashlight to go out.’

He dusted himself off and stood up, letting out another big sigh of relief.

His heart was beating too fast.

Relief and fear.

‘…Good.’

Now he knew what he had to do.

Kim Sol-eum stood up and checked his regenerated tattoo, then pulled out a spare powerful flashlight from within it and gripped it in his hand.

After taking a deep breath, he left the classroom and took a single step alone into the dark 4th floor corridor.

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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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