Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work (Novel) - Chapter 54
Chapter 54
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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The promised three days.
The final day at ‘Horizon Lodge’ dawned.
“…….”
The official got up from his bed.
He was not in a particularly good mood.
Because he felt that things had gone awry from some point….
Even if that task itself was not very welcome, anyone’s mood would not have been very good.
But since his shift was not over yet, he put on the prepared work clothes, strapped on his equipment, took his tools, and came out of the room.
And he came to see a sight that was not very welcome.
“……Sigh.”
The first-floor living room was covered in blood.
As if offering a sacrifice to someone, a pentagram was drawn in blood, and severed body parts were placed on each section.
And on the only clean sofa, a woman who had lost consciousness lay collapsed.
She was the wife of the couple.
“…….”
The official hesitated briefly, but eventually made up his mind to execute as scheduled.
Because he knew the danger of arbitrary judgment.
And….
“Ugh…… Wh-What?!”
Because they were not people particularly worth living, either.
“Aaaaagh!”
The woman who suddenly regained consciousness on the sofa shrieked.
Because a man of robust build stood before her eyes clad in a black waterproof raincoat, holding a butcher knife that easily exceeded 35 cm in his hand!!
The person holding the slaughter knife held back a sigh.
‘Of all times.’
She regained consciousness now.
He was tired.
Even more than usual.
No, how on earth could a situation not flow according to plan to this extent……!
The official reflexively recalled from the first day spent at the lodge.
The very first target he took was one of the couple.
It was the Bureau’s analysis that he was an easy target due to his great greed, and that if one of the couple died first, it would create terror and make subsequent work easier.
He intended to lure him to the kitchen and realize the foreshadowing in the frame, in the way whispered by the impulse infiltrated in his head…….
‘I must burn him in the furnace.’
But someone had already taken it.
‘…!?’
A corpse was already inside the furnace.
In a highly avant-garde fashion, at that.
…??
Only question marks floated in his head.
Surely, the Disaster Management Bureau used their past know-how to acquire and assign the corresponding cassette tape in advance so that he would be selected for the serial killer role.
But why did another killer suddenly pop out.
Still, even up to this point, he thought that perhaps the irregularity of a supernatural disaster had erupted again.
Until he discovered the clothing of the two college students who turned into mincemeat in the backyard that day at lunch.
‘…….’
He had no choice but to hang the large hammer he had prepared back in the closet carefully….
By this point, he had no choice but to know.
Some crazy bastard knew everything, made the first move, and was killing them.
It was an exasperating situation.
Today, under the pretext of it being the final day, he had even done the dismemberment murder first, so it was impossible not to develop a headache.
What on earth was this insane situation.
But the task did not change. Meaning, even in this exasperating situation, he had to execute the final task in order of priority.
That was a judgment worthy of the Disaster Management Bureau.
“Heeek….”
The short recollection ended like that.
The official looked at the prey beneath his eyes that couldn’t even resist.
Feeling deep fatigue at what was to happen next, right at the moment he was about to swing the knife sharply.
“007 Agent.”
“…….”
He turned his head toward the voice.
A person leaning against the second-floor railing and looking down at the living room was visible.
The office worker.
The seller acquired from Salmon Market.
“You don’t have to kill her.”
Kim Sol-eum looked down.
The corresponding person firmly believes they are a being who inherited the inspiration and legacy of the legendary killer, and undergoes mental and physical mutations.
Indeed, from the black raincoat to the flashing butcher knife, the official possessed the attire of a full-fledged killer that anyone could see.
Anyone could see he was the serial killer selected by this disaster.
But Kim Sol-eum knew.
“Even if he looks like that, he will be open to reason.”
-Are you sure, friend?
He was sure.
‘Because Disaster Management Bureau agents prepare countermeasures tailored to the disaster.’
Like the holster slightly visible through the raincoat near that official’s chest right now.
———————=
Records of the Dark Exploration / Paranormal Disaster Management Bureau
/ Item
Line Holder
A black holster-shaped equipment-type item.
When worn, it grants resistance against supernatural mental anomalies of Grave-class and below.
Item usage condition: An 8th-grade or higher public servant belonging to the Paranormal Disaster Management Bureau.
———————=
저건 정신 방어 장비였다.
The public servants were not all fools, so would they deploy someone bare-bodied while sending them to a ghost story where they could be reborn as a killer through brainwashing.
‘There is absolutely no way they would send them without their sane mind.’
They were public servants deployed mainly to dangerous ghost stories where fatal accidents were premised anyway.
‘Because it would be trouble if they met a wicked pharmaceutical company employee using affinity-building items like a smile sticker.’
That is what I mean.
Kim Sol-eum said to the official standing expressionlessly.
“You really do not have to kill her. All the foreshadowing has already been realized.”
“…….”
“Because I did it all.”
Silence.
“Did you kill them?”
Mm.
Certainly, this disaster does not end unless serial killings occur.
According to the , if there was artificial intervention and murder did not happen until the end, they would roughly kill each other in the inheritance partition part and end in a catastrophe.
‘So they likely set up the board for the public servant to kill them directly.’
Since the official must not die by mistake, they rather designate him to become the serial killer and manage it.
That was the law.
Commit serial murder, or.
“No.”
“…!”
“I made them think they were killed.”
Or make it judged as no different from serial murder!
“There were corpses.”
“That is true, but….”
The office worker, Kim Sol-eum, stroked the back of his neck.
“But they aren’t corpses made by me.”
“…!”
“Do you know that? There is a basement in this lodge.”
Kim Sol-eum recalled.
Part of the stanza of poetry that was inside the pure gold frame.
There was not only the murder method foreshadowing in it.
There was another foreshadowing as well.
The sound of hopping and running with laughter,
Thump-thump on the wooden floor beneath the feet.
The dining table is rich,
A hum is heard,
This paragraph was a hint.
Thump-thump on the wooden floor beneath the feet.
Meaning there was an empty space beneath the floor so the sound resonated.
And….
‘Since that poem compared murder to food……’
The dining table is rich,
Meaning that something related to the serial killings was rich.
Sure enough.
“Dismembered body parts and organs preserved in antiseptic were displayed in the basement.”
“…!”
There was a workshop.
“Just as you said, it seemed serial killings had occurred in this lodge before as well. …I thought I was going to faint.”
Truly.
Could they likely be accessories derived from the serial killings that occurred in previous iterations.
In any case, repeating “no ghosts will appear” at night, he prepared himself and went down to the basement, only to see that sight; Kim Sol-eum’s heart…… well, I will skip it.
At any rate, what was important was that he devised a new method of utilizing those crazy props.
The official grasped it.
“…The corpses that appeared up until now.”
“Yes.”
Kim Sol-eum said sheepishly.
“Not many of them were in intact shapes, right?”
Because they were staged as if they just died by recycling the dismembered parts that were in the basement!
That was why Baek Sa-heon needed to become the first victim.
‘……I couldn’t have done it without an assistant.’
Staging a murder scene by handling dismembered corpses with bare hands alone at night?
Because just imagining it made me want to say goodbye to the world….
At any rate, Baek Sa-heon had a face that wanted to pour double curses, but he succumbed to the ultimate either-or option of, ‘This is how we can survive intact. Or do you just want to die?’
Meaning he quietly became a good murder trick assistant.
The two worked hard to manipulate the murder scene.
After putting firewood in the kitchen furnace and burning it as if exploding it, they inserted a foot and put Baek Sa-heon’s sneakers on it.
The ground bone and meat in the backyard recycled food ingredients that were in the freezer behind the warehouse, and they merely stripped the clothes and scattered them appropriately.
The state of the living room littered with these body parts now was the same.
Though Kim Sol-eum did all the attacking and kidnapping of the victims directly by himself.
‘It couldn’t be helped since Brown’s ability was needed for the attack to be easy.’
At any rate, Kim Sol-eum finished speaking while shrugging his shoulders.
“I hid the people secretly and staged the scene pretending they were killed. Perhaps because I set it up with real corpses, it wasn’t suspected.”
“…….”
“Because I thought that at least the killer would stay still out of embarrassment.”
But the thing is.
“But… someone still killed people anyway.”
“…….”
“Namely, the allergy and the landslide.”
Both died before Kim Sol-eum could do anything.
Even if the landslide is considered dying by getting swept up in this supernatural phenomenon, the allergy was not something that could occur by chance.
No one other than Sherlock Holmes would be able to find out what fatal allergy a partner had through observation alone when meeting them for less than a day.
‘Actually, I didn’t know either before chatting by chance.’
So, it is even more impossible for him to pack the allergen, peanuts, in the lodge in advance for murder.
If so….
Meaning it was the act of someone who knew the profiles of the people entering here in advance and prepared for murder.
“The allergic shock, did you cause it, Agent?”
“…….”
The official did not deny it.
And Kim Sol-eum was….
‘Mm, as expected.’
not shocked at all!
You might ask if he couldn’t express a bit of mourning since innocent civilians were dying and sacrificed?
The thing is, they were not ‘innocent civilians.’
‘Because the government does not select victims by Russian roulette.’
The civilian conscripts of the Paranormal Disaster Management Bureau are selected through the ‘Scale of Evil.’
The scale’s weight is set by ‘unmotivated murder,’ and if it is heavier than that, they are classified as conscripts.
Meaning, the government selects and puts only those proven to have committed crazy acts worse in quality of crime than random killings into this ghost story.
‘If this disaster must absolutely be operated periodically, they gather and put in humans who deserve to die.’
A judgment trying to preserve minimal ethics. Worthy of an official organization.
‘This time too… are they all figures who deserve to die by the government’s standards.’
And Kim Sol-eum’s guess was accurate.
In fact, the man and woman who appeared to be a couple were in an adulterous relationship; the married partner’s original wife and young son committed suicide together as a whole family due to shock and financial difficulties.
College students who were prosecuted as perpetrators of a case where they killed a classmate through group bullying but were released due to insufficient evidence, then entered college side by side and joined a climbing club.
Down to the middle-aged man doing surrogate driving, who was an uncaught pediatric sex offender.
Kim Sol-eum, who guessed roughly even if he did not know such concrete facts, nodded inwardly.
‘Mm. It is probably a dream lineup.’
Surely, the government must have intervened to ensure the tapes fell into their hands.
‘And they deploy a public servant to manage and supervise all this.’
Meaning that person who was replying to Kim Sol-eum right now.
The official opened his mouth without shaking.
“They are all criminals.”
“…….”
“Every person in this lodge is a wicked sinner of such a bad quality of crime that they would have been sentenced to death in other countries if the penal code functioned properly.”
Except for you, who do not possess a tape.
However, the official inwardly lacked confidence in how much this statement would be received.
Even more so when reflecting on his experiences with civilians met during his duty performance up until now.
Feeling deep fatigue, he raised his head.
But….
“Mm… I see. No wonder. I guessed roughly.”
“…!”
Surprisingly, the office worker on the second floor nodded readily.
“At any rate, other than those two, the rest of the people are alive and well.”
Kim Sol-eum said casually as if slightly sheepish.
“Well, even if they are wicked, there would be a psychological burden on the person directly killing them, so I guess it isn’t a bad result….”
“…….”
The official eventually asked.
“Who are you.”
Staging the murder scene first out of concern that a murder might occur, and even trusting himself, whose attire is suspicious to anyone, through rational thinking?
This was not the mental strength of an ordinary person.
“Mm.”
The man before his eyes let out a long sigh.
“Just… someone who unfortunately gets caught up in these situations easily.”
“Are you by any chance a relation to the Disaster Management Bureau?”
“No way. Though I’ve heard rumors. It is fascinating to meet you directly like this, Agent… Ah,”
The office worker turned his head.
Creak.
The back door of the kitchen was opening.
Just like the first day.
“It seems the caretaker has returned.”
The ending scene of the disaster was approaching.