Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work Novel - Chapter 108

The Security Chief gave me a towel so I could clean up my blood-stained cleaning uniform.

I mechanically wiped the uniform, trying my best not to look beside me.

There would be the grotesque corpse of the Nameless Brilliant Cultist, whose head had been blown off by the Security Chief.

“Hmm. It’s certainly not a pretty sight! It’s dirtied the floor without any aesthetics… Oh, Mr. Roe Deer! An interesting phenomenon is appearing!”

“…??”

I instinctively turned my head.

Where the blood, flesh, and crushed head had been discarded, it was now melting away.

As if time had been rapidly reversed, what had dried up on the floor transformed into someone’s shriveled body…

A human corpse.

From its wide-open, emaciated mouth, a brittle, rolled-up old paper fell out.

The inside, which had been inscribed with unrecognizable golden letters, writhed and changed into Korean the moment my gaze touched it.

Imitator Sutra, Verse 4 Tale Usurper

“…!”

It was Divine Law.

In other words, it was something like the Nameless Brilliant Cult’s ghost story generator.

Initiates who swallow fragments of a Divine Law scripture and perform a ritual at the altar can use that power.

The Security Chief slowly approached it and squatted down.

He seemed to be about to pick it up…

“It’s rank 4… Hey, do you want to have it?”

Huh?

“The company… seems to buy it for quite a bit… You can sell it later, saying you got it somewhere else…”

“…Mr. J handled it, is it really okay for me to take it personally?”

“What’s it matter…”

“……”

“I don’t really… need money…”

No, I meant, is it okay for me to take it personally when the company’s security team got involved…?

Anyway, since he was giving it, I quickly took it.

“Thank you.”

Besides selling it to the company, a few immediate uses came to mind.

‘It’s good to have many usable cards.’

Besides, after all this hardship, it’d be good to get something…

To avoid any potential influence, I wrapped the item in ‘Packaging Material 12B357na’ and pretended to put it in my pocket, but actually put it into my inventory.

‘Phew.’

“Once again… Thank you for your help. You saved my life.”

“No problem…”

Meanwhile, the memories of the past two days slowly returned to my mind.

A dry, mundane daily life.

Moments that passed instantly, with no particular peculiarities, so I wouldn’t even bother writing a diary about them.

Days that would likely disappear from memory in about a year… In terms of a novel, days that would correspond to ‘narrative omission.’

That’s why it was chilling.

The feeling of having my time sucked dry.

‘Nameless Brilliant Cult… truly the worst.’

There’s a reason they’re the faction I want to avoid getting involved with the most among the three.

‘A ghost story bleeding into reality.’

I never thought I’d encounter one while cleaning. I knew there were Nameless Brilliant Cult members deployed to Daydream Inc., but I never expected to encounter an isolated entity escaping like this without any preparation…

‘Glad to be alive.’

I let out a deep sigh of relief. Now I just want to go home and rest…

“Ah, here… It was in the hallway.”

Thud.

Beyond the door to Isolation Corridor B, which the Security Chief opened, a man in a scarlet uniform, unconscious, slowly slumped down.

The cleaner who came in with me.

“…Assistant Manager Badger!”

Aaaaaah!

You were here on the third day too!

Fortunately, Assistant Manager Park Minseong regained consciousness shortly after being moved to the lounge.

“…Huh? What? Someone… pushed me,”

“There was an escape from the isolation room.”

“Huh?!”

I explained everything I had experienced so far.

Incidentally, during this process, the Security Chief only nodded occasionally when asked. He truly seemed to have not an ounce of desire to interrogate me about already knowing about the Nameless Brilliant Cult.

He just… seemed like he didn’t want to work…

‘…He’s on lifelong employment, so that’s understandable.’

I understood.

And Assistant Manager Park Minseong’s complexion changed as if he understood my explanation.

“Certainly, I don’t really remember what Roe Deer did on day 1 and 2… It just finished cleaning without any problems. That’s what remains.”

“……”

“That cult is scary.”

“Right?”

The Nameless Brilliant Cult’s imitator usurped and absorbed even the incidents it caused.

Calm and ordinary, as if nothing had happened.

‘And that’s a rank 4 ability.’

A kind of reality manipulation, so to speak.

Actually, for Daydream Inc. standards, it’s about a B to C rank, so it’s not low-tier, but…

The problem is that the Nameless Brilliant Cult has countless fanatics who have received rank 4 or higher ghost stories as ‘powers’…

Recalling the imitator from earlier, who was barely human, I swallowed hard.

Please, I hope I don’t get involved with them again until I’ve collected all my wish points.

“Um… The cleaning’s finished, so you should change too…”

“Ah. Right. Roe Deer, I’ll go change quickly. Just a moment!”

“Yes.”

I bid farewell to Assistant Manager Park Minseong as he left the room.

Beside me, the Security Chief was sweeping a piece of paper that Assistant Manager Park Minseong had dropped into the trash can with a broom.

That strange work tip note.

“……”

“Excuse me. About this note…”

Just in time, the Security Chief spoke first.

“I was going to ask about it because it was so suspicious, but was that really a tip that circulated within the security team?”

“Yes… it was. But… I definitely wouldn’t have given it to that person.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Assistant Manager Badger…”

The Security Chief mumbled softly.

Looking at the spot where Assistant Manager Park Minseong, who had already disappeared from the room, had been.

“That person, ‘Hungry Hangman’ was a full-blown contaminator… So they’re not supposed to touch any form of work rule book… because they’re contaminated by a similar darkness…”

“…!!”

Wait, that’s right!

‘Assistant Manager Park Minseong was contaminated by the kindergarten education book, so similar forms of writing could be dangerous enough.’

Although the intensity differed, having experienced the same contamination made my stomach churn.

It was perfectly natural to prevent him from approaching anything that would remind him of the contamination.

But what the Security Chief was about to say didn’t end there.

It was… an even more chilling fact.

“Assistant Manager Badger can contaminate rule books just by reading them…”

“……”

What did you say?

“If they realize it themselves, they’ll become too conscious of it… and the contamination might accelerate, so they probably don’t know it themselves right now…”

In that case.

“…Does that mean someone intentionally gave Assistant Manager Park Minseong a forbidden note? So that I would read the work tips that Assistant Manager Park Minseong had contaminated?”

Nod.

The security officer slowly nodded.

“Aha, a trap! How classic.”

My reaction was also classic and straightforward.

“…Can we check the CCTV?”

“In the security team’s dormitory area, there are no CCTVs… There’s a high probability of bad things being caught…”

“…So they targeted the area without CCTV.”

“Yes, probably…”

Who on earth?

This was clearly an attack specifically targeting Assistant Manager Park Minseong’s shift. It wasn’t just a coincidence and misfortune that the imitator escaped.

‘Did another Nameless Brilliant Cult member within the company cooperate?’

But it seems difficult for a Nameless Brilliant Cult member in an isolation room to properly escape using this method… It just causes a disturbance.

‘Then the goal isn’t to escape…’

If the goal was the cleaning staff working that day.

‘What if the goal was to screw me over?’

“……Mr. J.”

“Yes…?”

“Can research team staff also know a lot about the security team’s underground area?”

“Hmm… Depending on the team…?”

The Security Chief’s eyes narrowed.

“Is there… a suspicious employee… in the research team?”

“…A little.”

“Who…?”

“……”

I hesitated slightly.

But the Security Chief is in charge of security in this area today, so he has the right to know.

‘Besides, he could be a witness to the situation.’

Good. I intentionally spoke candidly.

“Section Chief Kwak Jegang.”

“……”

“To begin with, I received this disciplinary action because I didn’t arbitrarily follow his orders. …He told me to leave my finishing team colleague in a death trap, so I ignored him.”

“……”

“Of course, rather than suspecting the section chief personally, it’s circumstantial speculation…”

“Understood.”

“…??”

“Just a moment…”

Beep.

The Security Chief walked over to the wired phone in a corner of the lounge and picked up the receiver.

After pondering something for a moment, he pressed the buttons.

A short dial tone sounded, then… Click.

[Yes, yes, this is Kwak Jegang!]

“…!!”

I stared open-mouthed at the Security Chief, who had directly called a section chief from another team in the middle of the night.

But he showed no change in expression.

“Hey… This is Security Team 3’s Chief J3.”

[…J3? …Wait, who is this?? Section Chief of B team… Oh, right, you’re not on the elite team anymore, are you? Haha, I made a mistake talking to someone who’s not even on the field exploration team!]

“……”

[Anyway, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it! I heard you became a chief in the security team too. Wow~ capable employees are different! It’s a shame you can’t enter the darkness.]

‘Is he provoking him?’

No, there’s no need to wonder. It sounds like he’s thoroughly provoking him, isn’t it?

[Anyway, why the sudden call? Were you on duty today? Is that a security team area phone?]

[Is there some incident? Oh, if you really want to enter the darkness, I’m afraid I can’t grant that. Haha!]

I nervously watched the Security Chief.

“Hey.”

[Hmm?]

“You know… even if I can’t enter the darkness… I can still kill people.”

[……!]

“Just… saying.”

And he hung up the phone.

“……”

Wow.

“Is that… okay?”

“Yeah… well.”

The Security Chief shrugged.

“But it probably won’t… work much… High-ranking research team members… hmm.”

The Security Chief chose his words.

“They’re crazy…”

“……”

He didn’t seem to choose them very carefully.

I barely managed to respond.

“Anyway, seeing his reaction, hmm, I realized my suspicion is reasonable…”

Judging by his subtle indirect question, ‘was anything happening during your security team shift today,’ it definitely seems like Kwak Jegang was involved.

‘I thought he lost interest after getting fed up with my Gen Z-ness.’

It doesn’t seem to be that easy to go back.

‘This is driving me crazy…’

…I need to prepare a countermeasure again.

Anyway, I nodded to the other person.

“Thank you, Mr. J.”

“Hmm, then… next time too…”

Aha.

“I’ll bring some snacks and visit you again. Like donuts.”

“Okay.”

Surprisingly, the bribery code is easy.

“Anyway… be careful… You never know what that one might do…”

“……”

I hesitated for a moment and then asked.

“May I ask if you, Mr. J, also had a bad experience with conflict with the research team?”

“……”

The Security Chief avoided my gaze.

“It’s not… a very interesting story.”

A short silence.

“I entered a strange fairy tale… And I came out much… much later.”

And the Security Chief said no more.

“……”

‘A fairy tale ghost story caused by the research team.’

Actually, just hearing that sentence, I figured it out.

What kind of darkness the Security Chief had been contaminated by.

And a naturally associated elite team named character came to mind.

And the desperate exploration record of that character becoming a security team member.

For the recording log of the employee who went missing during Qterw-A-37’s research, refer to the document ‘And They All Lived Unhappily Ever After.’

‘I could pretend not to know and ask more…’

Then I could confirm another named character.

“……”

I also remained silent.

And so, I decided to respect the Security Chief’s silence.

A moment later. The Security Chief said this to Assistant Manager Park Minseong, who returned after changing clothes:

“Anyway, the three days of cleaning work… you passed safely… Hmm, now… you too… it seems like you’ll be able to work for the security team…”

This was Assistant Manager Park Minseong’s first verdict of recovery.

“…! Really?!”

“Yes… And it seems like you can go out too.”

“Gasp.”

“Only after sunset, though…”

Hmm.

“Um, can I go out today too? The sun has already set now.”

“No, Roe Deer? I’m fine. I can go another day…”

“Just a moment…”

The Security Chief uploaded a report somewhere using an old computer, then declared.

“Go today…”

“Gasp!!”

A healthy glow returned to Assistant Manager Park Minseong’s slightly drawn complexion, and a smile spread across his face.

It was the same expression I had seen when he was in Team D.

“……”

“Hey, you need to be back before sunrise… um…”

“What happens if Assistant Manager can’t come back?”

“You’ll have to… request a rescue service from the company…”

“……”

“Don’t… do that… Unless you want to be… lifelong employment.”

Assistant Manager Park Minseong bowed his head deeply.

“Yes. I will definitely keep the time. Thank you.”

“No problem…”

The Security Chief scratched his cheek.

And a moment later, I quickly prepared to go out with Assistant Manager Park Minseong and ascended the stairs.

“See you again…”

The Security Chief slightly waved his hand, sending us off as we left the basement.

“Wow! It feels good to walk outside!”

Assistant Manager Park Minseong smiled broadly and raised both arms.

It was past 3 AM, so there were few people around, but as expected of Seoul city, lights still twinkled everywhere and people were walking.

“No, it feels like it’s been ages since I breathed outside air… I even see stars!”

Assistant Manager Park Minseong was wearing a mask and a hat pulled low. As if trying to cover his face as much as possible.

The permitted outing time for the Assistant Manager was conservatively set at 3 hours, until dawn.

‘At least it’s winter, so that’s a relief, I guess.’

“Assistant Manager, are you going home?”

“Ah, hmm… I’m going to the hospital.”

“……”

“My family is hospitalized. They’re probably sleeping, but I thought I’d at least go see their face.”

Assistant Manager Park Minseong scratched his cheek with a somewhat embarrassed expression.

“Hmm, actually, I’m collecting points because of my family…”

Damn it.

“May I ask which family member?”

“Ah, my younger sibling. They’re really kind! And a genius? A violin genius!”

And Assistant Manager Park Minseong excitedly explained how kind and wonderful his younger sibling was as a child, and how much they loved and played the violin.

However, there was no mention of their current condition.

“……”

“Anyway… that’s why I really need points for my sibling. So, if possible, I don’t want to resign…”

“Then will you return to the Field Exploration Team?”

“…Hmm. That, seems like it would take too long.”

Assistant Manager Park Minseong’s voice trailed off for some reason, then he added with a slightly brighter tone.

“Oh, surprisingly, there’s a department in the security team that gives a lot of points. More than the Field Exploration Team, they say?”

“…!”

…Ah.

There.

“…Wouldn’t there be a reason why they give a lot?”

“Hmm. That’s true… but.”

Assistant Manager Park Minseong mumbled.

“Sometimes, you have to risk danger for your wishes to come true…”

“……”

“Oh, Roe Deer’s residence arrived!”

Assistant Manager Park Minseong patted my back.

“Go in quickly. I can take a taxi from here. Go in comfortably, Roe Deer. You really worked hard!”

And he spoke softly in a low voice.

“Hey, you don’t have to worry too much about me… Honestly, I was prepared for this job anyway. This is a better outcome than I expected… It’s thanks to you, Roe Deer. Thank you.”

“……”

I eventually smiled faintly and shook his hand.

“I’ll support you wherever you work, but I hope we’ll have a chance to work together if possible.”

“…Yeah. I hope so too.”

We said our goodbyes like that, and Assistant Manager Park Minseong took a taxi to the hospital.

“Phew…”

I sighed and entered the residence building.

If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a peculiar kind of madness emanating from Assistant Manager Park Minseong when he spoke about his wish…

“He was an ordinary person, but now he’s developed an interesting personality.”

Don’t say such scary things, Brown…

‘Anyway, I can finally sleep now…’

It wasn’t bad to have a day off on the last day of the year, but I didn’t expect to spend it just sleeping.

I entered the dark dormitory in the early morning, and with a chill, I kept my smartphone flashlight warmly and brightly on as I headed to my room.

And then I just slept.

‘Countermeasures for Kwak Jegang… I’ll think about that after I wake up with a clear mind… Please, just rest.’

My overworked body, exhausted from the physically and mentally draining night shift, sweetly accepted sleep.

It had been a very long time.

Since I had fallen asleep without watching children’s cartoons or comedies before bed.

I enjoyed a very deep and sweet sleep, without dreaming.

And the moment I woke up from my daze, feeling refreshed as if I had just closed and opened my eyes…

“Ah. You’re awake.”

“…!”

I immediately sat up.

“It seems you have an unexpected guest, Mr. Roe Deer.”

Someone was standing by the faint window.

A tired face, casual clothes, hair tied tightly, and…

An empty left hand.

“Long time no see, Roe Deer. …You said you cleaned with Minseong.”

The real Assistant Manager Eun Hajae.