Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work (Novel) - Chapter 73

Chapter 73

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Brown was gone.

“W-What is it?”

“T-This person, they moved!!”

Judging by the absence of the silver coin inside the doll’s belly, was the ‘Good Friend’ ritual itself invalidated? Or was it because this was a dream that it really just looked like a doll…

‘Stop!’

Deduction is not the priority right now! Pull yourself together!

You are inside a ghost story right now!

“Look over here!”

I snapped my head around.

In a corner of the dark classroom, someone was screaming.

It was the person who had been poking the ‘student’ who sat alone at the desk earlier, frozen like a wax doll without a single movement.

But that wax doll…

“Over there!”

had disappeared from the desk.

And following the pointing finger of the person nearby whose face had turned deathly pale…

[Sekwang Technical High School]

The vanished student stood tall at the back door.

Holding onto the door.

Expressionless.

Looking back at the classroom.

“…….”

“E-Excuse me. You’re joking right now, right?”

There was no answer.

There was no movement either.

“Wait a minute.”

One brave person approached and waved a hand right in front of its face.

The ‘student’ did not even blink. It just stood frozen blankly in front of the back door, looking incredibly lifelike…

“It’s not breathing. It’s a mannequin, not a person…”

“No, how does a mannequin suddenly move? Didn’t they just learn a technique to make it look like they aren’t breathing?”

“Yeah, this is that. You know, those things on variety shows or WeTube where they observe people’s reactions.”

It was not.

Naturally, there were no cameras here, nor any variety show production crew trying to startle people.

[Ding-Dong-Dang-Dong-]

Instead.

[Attention, students of Sekwang Technical High School! The graduation ceremony will begin shortly. Please gather in the auditorium.]

“Graduation ceremony…?”

A cheerful and neat announcement, typical of a school, came through.

“Shall we go? How fascinating.”

“Excuse me, we look just like we did in high school right now, right? Wow. What kind of dream is this?”

A few people who had concluded it was simply a dream conversed with each other without any tension.

Certainly, it would not be very scary up to this point.

‘It must not feel realistic.’

Had they not reverted to their high school selves? Rejuvenation was usually a pleasant thing.

And while a school at night was a staple location for ghost stories, it could also feel romantic when there were many people and a little moonlight filtering in.

However…

“Uh, look at this student mannequin?”

One person approached the motionless student in front of the back door.

And pointed at the hand the student stretched toward the back.

“This hand gesture looks exactly like…”

[Students, we will now close the automatic curtains and turn on the lights for heating and safety.]

“It seems like it was trying to lock the back door.”

Thud.

The window curtains closed.

“Oh my goodness!”

“Ah, you startled me!”

The automatic curtains shut with a roaring sound, instantly wrapping the classroom in darkness.

For just a brief moment.

Flicker.

With a slight delay, the classroom lights turned on.

“Ah, thank goodness.”

“I guess they were trying to turn on the lights… Huh?”

Blood flowed profusely over the ivory-colored classroom floor.

“Uh… U-U-Uh?”

Following the blood with my eyes,

one of the people lay collapsed near the back door with their neck completely snapped backward.

An enormous amount of blood poured from the neck at a bizarre angle that a living human could never manage, pooling between the floorboards.

As if completely caught off guard, their astonished eyes were wide open.

“Aaaaaack!”

“Kku-heo-eo-eok!!”

It had begun.

———————=

Records of the Dark Exploration / Ghost Story

[In the Black Shade]

: A ghost story appearing in the <Records of the Dark Exploration>, Daydream Co.’s identification code is Qterw-()-62, and the Disaster Management Bureau’s registration number is 2845PSYA.2016.Ha53.

A ghost story where one falls asleep after reading a text file circulating on the internet, wakes up in Sekwang Technical High School at night, and is chased by something non-human until death.

All civilian attempts to locate the high school in reality have failed, and it is currently identified as a place that does not exist in South Korea.

———————=

Yes.

The only way to escape the ghost story in this nightmare was ‘death’.

There was no other way to leave this school at night except by dying.

And… a ghost story featuring a non-human entity, which was so striking that it had become a cliché.

“T-That… That person!!”

One of the screaming people raised a finely trembling hand and pointed.

At the student who was still frozen at the back door.

But there was exactly one difference.

“There is blood on its hand.”

“…….”

People’s gazes stiffened as they turned.

And they confirmed the fact.

On the right hand of the student doll holding the door, inside the curled fingers as if trying to hide it,

blood was smeared along the fingerprints.

“…….”

People’s gazes returned to the corpse.

They saw that there were bloodstains in the shape of fingers behind the snapped neck of the corpse,

and watched.

“Ack!”

“Oh my goodness! U-U-Uh! Heok!”

And again,

flicker,

the lights flickered.

The students of Sekwang Technical High School did not move as long as someone was watching them.

However, the moment the gaze was gone,

and the classroom brightened again in the blink of an eye,

they moved with inhuman speed.

The person who had pointed at the doll was gone.

“Ack!!”

That person was found on the floor as a corpse with its body crushed below the chest.

Thud.

The pointing finger, losing its support, drooped and fell limply to the floor.

“Ah…”

“…….”

“Aaaaaack!!”

Panic, terror, and frenzy.

“N-Now! Let’s attack now! Huh? Hey, someone close to it, hit it!”

“F-Fuck! Then you do it, why are you barking at me!”

Flicker.

“Hik.”

One more corpse was added.

One of the shouting people was rammed upside down into a desk.

Leaving only their lower body.

“…….”

“…….”

Amidst the silence of terror,

people turned their heads.

Now, the ‘student’ at the back door was staring intently at the people.

A strange smile hung on its face.

“…!!”

“Heeeeek!”

“R-Run! Run!”

“Open the door right now!”

People rushed toward the front door to avoid the back door blockaded by the student. However…

It was already too late.

“This way… Aaaaaack!”

The person who opened the front door collapsed.

In front of the open front door stood a smiling student.

[Sekwang Technical High School]

The same name tag was attached to the female student with neatly trimmed bangs.

“Go, we can just go to the side!”

“Go!”

People ran past the smiling student. And again,

flicker,

the lights flickered.

“…….”

The student at the front door vanished from my sight.

Aaaaaack!

…Echoes of desperate screams from the hallway.

And one by one, the screams died down.

“…….”

“…….”

A maddening silence.

Panting breaths, distant shrieks, and people staring at the door with eyes wide as if they might pop out.

“Slowly,”

I said quietly, looking around the classroom.

“Let’s move slowly. While checking if anything starts moving again. Both the front and back doors.”

“Ah, ah…”

The adults, looking no different from high school students, shuddered and stumbled backward from the door.

“…….”

Among those who opened their eyes in this classroom,

half ran away, making their survival unconfirmable, and the other half remained in the classroom.

Or rather, instead of remaining, it was closer to say they had frozen, unable to move.

I quietly thought in the midst of it.

‘I’m doomed.’

I shouldn’t have started it like this.

Before the curtains closed and turned it completely pitch-black, I should have dashed out alone first, grabbed an emergency flashlight, and then taken the necessary items to hide.

‘I missed the timing.’

I was flustered by the absence of Brown, which delayed my judgment.

In the meantime, someone who finally noticed the situation began to speak up.

“T-This is that!”

“Pardon?”

“Don’t you know? The monster that can’t move if you look at it!”

“D-Do you know it?”

“Ah, why don’t you know?? You know, that monster that follows you if you don’t look at it! Right now, while we are watching, it can’t move!”

The person whose voice had turned strange with fear and excitement babbled on.

Asking if everyone had read a strange text file, saying we had probably entered a game, or if it was possession…

Even people who would normally ignore it listened in a state of panic.

It was a development I had seen often.

And the conclusion of a group overwhelmed by fear was also… simplistic and extreme.

“In that case, we should quickly attack and get rid of it!”

“What?!”

“I’m telling you, if we run now, it will keep chasing us anyway! We’ll all die because we aren’t looking! You saw the people who went out! Hurry! Before the lights flicker again!”

“Ah!”

As if possessed, people searched the empty classroom for anything that could be used as a weapon. Brooms, chairs, mops, utility knives…

‘No.’

This was a shortcut to a typical bad ending!

“Please wait a moment—”

It was then.

Someone covered my mouth.

…!

I almost threw a punch.

To avoid escalating the situation, I slowly turned my head back to check the person covering my mouth.

My eyes met a familiar face.

‘…The public official!’

It was an agent from the Disaster Management Bureau!

Agent Ryu Jae-gwan, whom I had met at the mountain villa, had short hair like a high school student, but his appearance was not much different from the present.

‘Where had he been sitting?’

No, that was not what was important!

‘Right. Public officials could enter too!’

This was not a ghost story under the ‘containment and acquisition’ of Daydream Co.

In other words, it meant I could meet someone from another agency like this.

But even so, to see the exact same agent again? Aren’t you working way too hard?

“If you don’t scream, I will let you go.”

I immediately nodded with a serious face, and the public official let me go without another word.

‘Whew.’

“You really have a constitution that easily gets swept up in these things.”

“…Yes.”

Let’s just say it is something like that.

“And, what that person said earlier is partly correct.”

“…….”

“Keep watching that student doll no matter what. You must not take your eyes off it, so blink one eye at a time, and if the lights go out, duck your head unconditionally. And…”

The public official quietly whispered the standard manual that I already knew.

“Those things are very sensitive to sound.”

Indeed.

The students showed a clear tendency to chase people who made loud noises, such as screaming, cursing, or shouting.

“You must not raise your voice. Absolutely.”

I nodded slightly.

“But, is it right to let people attack that thing…”

“Right now, your own safety comes first. Saving people caught in the disaster comes after that.”

The public official declared familiarly.

“For people caught in a supernatural disaster, move under the assumption that everyone will die first.”

“…….”

This was… a typical Disaster Management Bureau-style manual.

‘They think it is more important to fully grasp this ghost story and seal or destroy it.’

Since that would prevent countless deaths that would occur afterward.

It was a value judgment where they would pull the lever without hesitation to kill one person instead of five in a trolley dilemma.

“I will also let you know when to run. For now, just keep in mind what I told you.”

“…Yes.”

Arguing with the public official here right now was a suicidal act.

I shut my mouth for now.

Meanwhile, people were approaching the student with weapons.

‘Damn it,’

Once more, I crafted a question to deliberately lead to an answer.

Because knowing this would make my future actions natural.

“Excuse me, but isn’t this a dream? Then wouldn’t we just wake up from sleep even if we die…”

It was indeed the classic escape method of a nightmare.

The moment you meet death in a dream, waking up and returning to reality.

If you only heard this far, you might think it would be better to commit suicide quickly, but not at all. One must never make such a choice…

‘There is something needed.’

“…That is correct, but there is a condition.”

Of course.

“A condition?”

“Yes. Do you see the name tag over there?”

The public official pointed at the ‘student doll’ with his finger.

“You can only wake up ‘normally’ if you die while possessing that doll’s name tag. …If you fail to do so,”

Upon failing to meet the release conditions,

the explorer becomes bound to ‘In the Black Shade’.

“You will receive a rather unfavorable influence.”

“…….”

“There are a few other conditions to die safely, but I will tell you the details as we move together.”

“M-Moving together?”

“Yes.”

Wait a minute.

However, however he interpreted my bewilderment, the public official wore an expression that seemed to say ‘there is nothing to feel sorry about.’

It meant he tried to force a smile as if to reassure a child.

“Do not worry. Right now, many other agents have been deployed besides me. There must be someone who passed.”

Disaster Management Bureau agents, not just one but several…?

‘This… looks like our explorations have overlapped properly indeed.’

There must be a corresponding round.

I tried to frantically sift through past exploration records in my head to pick out candidates, but changes in the situation took precedence.

“D-Die!”

The people had finally started attacking the student doll.

Then, surprisingly,

Crack.

“Ack!”

“B-Blood…!”

The student of ‘Sekwang Technical High School’ suffered injuries like a normal human.

Blood splattered, bruises formed, and the sound of breaking bones resonated.

“Ack!”

“What do I do, ah, shit…”

‘…Sigh.’

Fear and mixed emotions crawled up my spine.

But the public official, unfazed as if accustomed to it, made a small gesture toward the front door for me.

“First, taking advantage of this gap, we should… Mmh?”

It was then.

Figures appeared on the brightly lit central stairs visible outside the open front door.

…!

It was three or four people walking up while muffling their footsteps.

They had something in common.

Which was… that they were all wearing bizarre animal masks!

‘They are employees!’

And I even spotted a familiar mask.

Bison!

‘Mr. Jang Heo-un.’

He was the Group Y rookie with whom I had shared trials in the theme park ghost story!

‘Did he get reassigned to the general team?’

It had been so long.

My own situation had been so chaotic lately that I hadn’t checked the regular assignments of others, but he seemed to have survived safely for three months.

‘Anyway, it is really good to see you.’

But next to him… was a person I wasn’t particularly glad to see, whom I had also seen earlier.

A black goat mask.

“…….”

It was Baek Sa-heon.

‘Did those two open their eyes in the same classroom?’

They all seemed to be strictly adhering to the company’s safety recommendation to ‘bring a mask and wear it if possible.’

‘I want to wear mine too if possible.’

I wanted to check and use the items I brought along to increase the probability of escaping.

Overall, it would be better to naturally separate from the public official and join them.

“Um, Agent…”

“Daydream Co….!”

“…….”

Heok.

“Be careful. If you meet someone wearing an animal mask and a suit in a place like this, you must never act like you know them.”

The public official gritted his teeth and shot a look of contempt forward.

“Since they must be sent from that disgusting pseudo-company, never get involved with them.”

“…….”

“Most of their employees are also psychos with abnormal ethics. You must be careful.”

“…Yes.”

Absolutely.

Absolutely! Let’s not get caught!