Chapter 132

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Even if I fell into a ghost story, I still had to go to work.

Agent Bronze, Ryu Jae-gwan, stood in a corner of the indoor space, showing no signs of anxiety.

The room where the final successful candidates gathered.

The calling of the names of those who passed the personality and aptitude test had already finished several times, so the prepared chairs were almost full.

However….

‘Why isn’t he coming?’

While the successful candidates were being called one after another and making their appearances, the person he had inevitably passed had not yet arrived.

‘Kim Sol-eum!’

Even though his number had already been called three times!

-Group Da, Number 4.

-You have passed. Please move to the designated location.

If that broadcast was repeated more than four times, the screening would be changed to pending!

Because they would judge that he had given up on the interview.

‘Why on earth…’

To pass the personality and aptitude test only to give up like this?

It was the very moment when Ryu Jae-gwan’s insides were about to burn with anxiety that even he himself could not understand.

Thud!

“I-I’m sorry.”

In the room where almost all the successful candidates were gathered, the door was hurriedly opened, and a man whose face had turned crimson walked inside.

He was catching his breath as if he had run in a hurry, but water was dripping from his suit sleeves and neck….

[C-4]

The number that was almost processed as expelled if called just one more time.

It was Kim Sol-eum.

No matter how one looked at it, he seemed to have washed his face due to tension.

…If he were a spy, he probably wouldn’t do something so conspicuous….

‘Damn it!’

Let’s not look at him compassionately! Ryu Jae-gwan kept his mouth shut and maintained an displeased expression.

-Please sit in your seat.

“Y-Yes…”

Kim Sol-eum, who adjusted his glasses, quietly sat in the corner of the back row.

The sound of another successful candidate sitting next to him carefully talking to him could be heard.

“Are you okay? Um, at least have this…”

“Ah, I-I am okay! Thank you…”

The sight of him being startled by the kindness of the person next to him offering water appeared more concrete in the eyes of Ryu Jae-gwan, who knew the circumstances.

As if he had come to feel deeply touched by even such minor goodwill because he had been among cult-like employees whose ethics had completely worn away at that crazy pharmaceutical company…

“…….”

The agent quietly continued to observe the situation.

-From now on, the appointment will begin.

The Disaster Management Bureau’s agent appointment ceremony was rather simple and plain.

They registered their desired funeral method in the event of dying in the line of duty, received a temporary pass, and were informed of the brief training schedule and the missions they would be deployed to.

There was no standardized administrative procedure itself that made it difficult to compare to ordinary public servants, but the proportion of training was not as large as that of special forces either.

Paranormal disasters.

Because the ability to respond to terrible and chilling paranormal phenomena was ultimately developed through experience.

And more than half of the agent applicants were people who had lost family or relatives to frightening, unknown incidents.

Even if that wasn’t the case, a sense of duty peculiar to people who had realized the secrets of the bizarre otherworld was presumed as the atmosphere in the room of successful candidates.

-Group Da, Number 4. Kim Sol-eum.

“T-Thank you.”

It was the same for Kim Sol-eum, who received the pass from among them.

Because he looked timid and gloomy, he had a hunch that if someone of that personality applied, their determination must be out of the ordinary.

Of course, a bitter look as if looking at an underqualified half-wit was mixed in between, though.

-You will undergo three weeks of training and mock deployment to ultimately decide which team you will be assigned to.

-Until then, please follow the instructions of your senior agent thoroughly.

It was at this time that the interviewers appeared.

The interviewers would become the seniors of the new agents they had selected, directly guiding and taking responsibility for the recruits they passed.

Since this was the basic policy of the Paranormal Disaster Management Bureau.

Of course, when there was a mismatch, agents who were not interviewers were also mobilized, but at least for the ‘impressive successful candidates,’ the interviewers directly attached themselves as partner agents.

And in Kim Sol-eum’s case, by the subtle support and recommendation of the assistant interviewers….

-The agent standing in front of you will be your direct senior and will take charge of your one-on-one training for three months.

Ryu Jae-gwan stood in front of Kim Sol-eum.

“…!”

Watching the face beyond the glasses, which recognized him, turn deathly pale.

* * *

“Follow me.”

“…….”

Ryu Jae-gwan heard the quiet sound of his assigned rookie, Kim Sol-eum, following him.

And the moment they entered an unmaintained room in a corner of the desolate building for the personality and aptitude test, leaving only the two of them.

Rustle.

“…!”

He heard the sound of the opponent pulling something out.

‘A weapon?’

The moment Ryu Jae-gwan was about to move his hands to subdue him immediately….

“Um, Agent.”

“…….”

“I… wanted to return this.”

That was….

The temporary agent badge and pistol.

The items he had given to the temporary agent, Grape, at ‘Sekwang Technical High School.’

Because the situation had progressed so urgently, they were things that even Ryu Jae-gwan had forgotten.

“I should have returned them sooner, but there was no opportunity, so I am returning them like this now. I’m sorry…”

“…….”

Ryu Jae-gwan looked at Kim Sol-eum.

Despite having self-reported something that no one would have known if he had just kept his mouth shut, the opponent looked as if he had already given up on everything.

It was as if he thought the agent in front of him would accuse him of being a pharmaceutical company spy at any moment.

…Ryu Jae-gwan’s heart settled.

“Does that pharmaceutical company know you are here?”

He slowly shook his head.

“No.”

How on earth could he believe that…

“Because at the company, I am already a dead person…”

“…!”

What?

“What do you mean by that…”

“I was, for over a month, caught up in the Dark… I mean, a paranormal disaster, and couldn’t get out.”

Kim Sol-eum’s face turned slightly pale.

“Since they treat you as dead once it exceeds a month, um, the company probably thinks of me as a deceased employee, or rather, an ex-employee…”

“…….”

They ended the identity processing like that without even a rescue?

While he was speechless at the unethical processing method beyond imagination, Ryu Jae-gwan realized the premise of Kim Sol-eum’s answer.

“Then you were trapped in a ghost story for over a month?!”

Kim Sol-eum nodded his deeply lowered head slightly.

Ryu Jae-gwan felt as if he had been hit on the back of the head with a hammer.

‘No way!’

And he examined the opponent again.

The reason why the neat and tidy opponent had suddenly become so cautious and clumsy in reacting to his surroundings.

It seemed to be the effect of being trapped in a terrible ghost story for a long time… that made him like this.

“Could it be on purpose…”

“No.”

Right.

What kind of madman would choose to voluntarily lock himself inside a ghost story for a month?

Let alone someone who had experienced it while working there…

“But not reporting to the company after getting out… that was indeed on purpose.”

“……!”

Ryu Jae-gwan spoke reflexively.

“Was it so that… you could resign quietly and ‘without trouble’?”

“…….”

Kim Sol-eum took a deep breath, and finally, he nodded.

“Yes.”

It was a lie.

Daydream Co. was a place that would let you leave without a word even if you waved your hand and said something like, “Dobby is free.”

It was just that doing so meant throwing hard-earned points into the trash, so no one in the Field Exploration Team did it!

“I don’t regret it.”

However, in the mind of the well-meaning Disaster Management Bureau agent who did not know that fact, a typical escape drama from a pseudo-religious multi-level marketing company floated up.

Mental shock, PTSD, the aspect of a victim who finally escaped the company after being gaslit to the point of pretending to be dead….

“Um, so… about the fact that I was from that company, of course I can’t stop you, but… please, I beg of you not to reveal it publicly…”

“…….”

He was afraid of being tracked by Daydream Co.

Ryu Jae-gwan sensed it, but instead of showing it, he asked as if interrogating him.

“What about the wish? Didn’t you work there because of the wish they said they would grant?”

A hollow, bitter smile spread across the lips of Kim Sol-eum, who was hanging his head.

“That… that became meaningless.”

“……!”

“Well, a problem arose while I was working, so the performance points I had accumulated for the wish were reset.”

“…….”

“Only then did it feel strange.”

Daydream Co.’s Wish Ticket certainly granted wishes.

However, the company could decide not to give a Wish Ticket to an individual employee at any time.

Irrationally and unfairly.

“I thought to myself, ‘I’ve made an absurd judgment and am working in such a terrible place without any promise of the future,’ and…”

Ryu Jae-gwan felt the words, ‘Didn’t I tell you not to believe such absurd nonsense about granting wishes?’ rise to the tip of his throat, but he held them back.

“Ah! Don’t worry. Since I was processed as dead anyway… I can no longer accumulate performance points or receive it.”

The bitter smile also gradually disappeared from Kim Sol-eum’s face.

It was emptiness.

“Once that happened, there was nothing left for me to do.”

“…….”

“So… I remembered the business card you gave me and applied to the Disaster Management Bureau.”

And he shrank his body again.

“…If I made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry.”

Suddenly, Ryu Jae-gwan felt as if he were interrogating the opponent over something absurd.

It was psychological guilt.

It would feel similar if he grabbed the collar of a citizen he had just rescued from a paranormal phenomenon and shouted at them to explain exactly what happened.

Guilt as if he had psychologically pressured a victim who had barely escaped while trying to live morally despite being harassed by unethical company duties and guidelines!

Yet he had given biased and excessive pressure only to the opponent in the interview, and even now, hadn’t he called him separately to scare him?

Furthermore, the opponent was in a state where he had lost both his desperate goal of a Wish Ticket and his affiliation.

Ryu Jae-gwan thought.

…Even so, Kim Sol-eum’s attempt to enter here must have had an unconscious expectation.

What the Paranormal Disaster Management Bureau does.

Protecting the safety of citizens from paranormal disasters, ghosts, unidentified creatures, unknown phenomena, and threats.

It could be said to be the exact opposite purpose of the Daydream Co. he had attended.

Through their past two meetings, if Kim Sol-eum had entered with a shred of hope and a sense of purpose toward this organization.

‘If so…’

Ryu Jae-gwan clenched his fist tightly.

* * *

‘He’s not trying to hit me, is he?’

I stared at the clenched fist of Agent Bronze with a feeling that cold sweat was about to break out.

I had spilled everything.

‘I thought it worked.’

I broke out in a cold sweat because I didn’t know why he was clenching his fist.

However, after a few seconds of silently hanging my head without changing my expression, after that….

Beep beep beep beep.

“…!”

The watch on Agent Bronze’s wrist began to ring a noisy alarm.

“…Please wait a moment.”

“Yes.”

Whew.

‘Was he clenching his fist because of that?’

Click.

Almost at the same time Agent Bronze opened the door and walked out, I shook my head and sat on the floor.

Ha.

‘The only time in my life I’ve conned a good person to this extent was during a game of Mafia…’

Now, to play the spy, I was deceiving a civil servant. I was literally in a state of bathing in cold sweat.

Still, the important thing was….

‘He seems to believe it, right?’

The point was that it seemed to have worked.

Earlier, I checked that Agent Bronze had clearly become suddenly quiet and started looking at me with compassionate eyes.

If that compassion was not directed at a criminal who would soon be permanently imprisoned in the Disaster Management Bureau’s special glass cage, it meant that ‘Applicant Kim Sol-eum’ had escaped a sort of suspicion list.

‘It worked.’

I wiped the cold sweat from my temples.

They say a great lie is 90% truth and 10% falsehood, and it seems I inadvertently maintained that ratio well.

…By the way, my colleagues who infiltrated the Disaster Management Bureau as spies together with me didn’t go through this kind of trouble.

-Director Ho, then what about the other recruits…?

-Ah, they have already entered.

-…….

-Up until last month, there was a route prepared through the Disaster Management Bureau’s irregular recruitment, so they could be deployed immediately.

…In short, I was the only one who caught the last train of the spy mission and had to take the Disaster Management Bureau’s official exam instead of the irregular recruitment route, going through all this trouble. Haha….

Ms. Go Yeong-eun, Mr. Jang Heo-un… I haven’t heard where you are in the Disaster Management Bureau, but please suck honey in a comfortable place, and if anything happens, please help me… please.

‘I beg of you.’

I wondered if it was okay to wish for my colleagues’ peace for such a self-centered reason, but in any case, isn’t a good thing a good thing?

Of course, what was immediately important now was….

‘The department I’ll be working in at the Disaster Management Bureau.’

The deduction was not difficult. I crossed my arms.

Let’s see, thinking based on the <Records of the Dark Exploration>.

The affiliation assigned to an agent who passed the official exam at the Disaster Management Bureau after determining their aptitude through three weeks of temporary duty was….

‘It can be largely divided into three.’

So to speak, they could be seen as the three basic stages of dealing with paranormal disasters.

First of all.

1. New Investigation Team

: An exploration team that grasps the phenomena of newly generated ghost stories, measures their progression patterns and risk levels, and reports them.

Their role was to find, explore, and classify urban legends rumored lately, regardless of whether they were online or offline.

Of course, it wasn’t a method of grinding down the field exploration team to make a manual like Daydream Co. did, but collecting information and conducting exploration as safely as possible.

‘It makes me realize anew what a crazy workplace I used to work at…’

But come to think of it, I am still working there and even playing the spy.

…It was sad, so let’s stop thinking about it.

Anyway, next, the second.

2. Dispatch Rescue Team

: A mobile squad that receives rescue requests from civilians caught up in already occurred paranormal disasters and ghost stories, and dispatches.

It was literally the rescue team.

It was a crazy job of entering a field where a ghost story was running wild and saving people when it was at its scariest.

It was the most dangerous, but at the same time, it was a department respected within the company as the essence of the Paranormal Disaster Management Bureau.

‘And the exploration records are also the most interesting.’

However, it wasn’t what I was aiming for.

‘I’ve had enough of interesting things.’

Interesting things were enough as indirect experiences….

‘What I’m aiming for is the last affiliation.’

It was….

3. Site Cleanup Team

: Cleaning up the situation after the occurrence of a ghost story and restoring the scene so that ordinary citizens do not notice.

Also known as the cleanup team!

Like crime scene cleaners, it was a team that finally cleaned up the place of a concluded or sealed ghost story and wrote related documents.

In other words, I could do the work of creating registration documents!

Since it was the easiest to access documents, it was the team with the easiest access to information about ‘a certain paranormal ghost story’ that Director Ho had mentioned.

‘Furthermore, for someone who has already read the Records of the Dark Exploration, there couldn’t be a better honey job.’

It was no different from me organizing the wiki, so it was a truly comfortable and fun occupation.

And above all….

‘You enter after all the scary things are over!’

It meant it was the least scary.

With this, I could finally live a normal office life without breaking into cold sweat…!

Can you hear it? The sound of my quality of life rising exponentially!

The method of assignment was also simple.

‘For the next three weeks, I just need to show a passive and smart appearance.’

Let’s appeal a character with an analytical and researcher-like aspect in classification and organization overall.

Have you noticed? It was an occupation that perfectly matched the character I had created now…!

Moreover, since the senior was someone who knew I was a ghost story survivor, it would be easier to appeal.

Besides, didn’t he know my suspicious origin?

‘I got through by talking well, but if a shred of doubt remains, they’ll shove me into document organization.’

Agent Bronze seemed to be a capable person.

But why on earth would he expect someone from a crazy pharmaceutical company to save people!

“Fuu.”

I stood up, smiling inwardly with relief.

Just in time, the agent also returned.

Thud.

“Mr. Kim Sol-eum.”

Ah, he’s probably going to tell me to go home now….

“Take this.”

Toss.

I caught what the opponent handed over, almost throwing it, in spite of myself.

‘A pass?’

It looked like an identification card for facility access. But didn’t I already receive this earlier during the agent appointment ceremony…?

“Originally, rookie agents are assigned to their work locations after three weeks of two-person duty.”

I knew that….

But I didn’t know the next words.

“However, I have arbitrarily assigned you to a division.”

“…….”

Excuse me?

“From now on, you belong to the same division as me.”

“…….”

Hold on.

‘If it’s Agent Bronze’s division…’

With an ominous feeling, I flipped over the pass I was holding…….

Agent (β)

Name: Kim Sol-eum

Assignment: Dispatch Rescue Team, Black Tortoise Team 1

“You belong to Black Tortoise Team 1 from this hour onward.”

“…….”

No….

No!!

“Since a rescue call just came in for me, we will immediately enter the paranormal disaster to rescue citizens. Follow me.”

“…….”

The persuasion jackpot went off in an unexpected place!