Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work Novel (End Part 1) - Chapter 208 (End Part 1)

The iridescent potion shimmered in my hand.

The color of a dream.

A wish-granting elixir.

…Its description was intricately engraved on the transparent glass bottle, revealing itself with every ripple of light from the potion within.

I looked into it.

: Daydream Potion :

Wish

EX (miraculous)

Hold the bottle with both hands.

Express your earnest wish in one sentence…

With your eyes closed, consume the liquid in the bottle all at once.

Any wish will be granted.

I had known about this method of use before.

That’s why I had been pondering from the very beginning.

Which sentence should I use?

When I would use the Wish Ticket, what single sentence would express the wish I would make?

I thought about it every time I tossed and turned in bed unable to sleep, every time I wrote an exploration report in the office, and every time I barely survived a horror tale and walked home after work.

The first thing that came to mind was that.

A primal urge.

-Please send me home.

It was desperate.

But I held back.

‘Home’ was too abstract a concept.

I had lived in more than one or two residences, and there was no way to know what criteria the Wish Ticket would use to activate.

It was a phrase that could potentially send me to the Daydream employee dormitory.

…My preference for staying in motels rather than a ‘home’ as much as possible while infiltrating the Disaster Management Bureau probably stemmed from this aversion.

Anyway, so I reconsidered.

Because I had to cut off all the loopholes.

‘I can’t make a mistake.’

The Wish Ticket absolutely could not grant my wish in an unintended way.

‘Please send me back to where I originally lived’? Equally abstract. Rejected.

‘Please send me to a world without horror stories’? There’s no guarantee that’s where I was. It might even lead to a crazy interpretation like, ‘If you die and go to heaven, it’s a world without horror stories…’

Discarding it repeatedly, I carefully chose.

A perfect single sentence that could precisely specify spacetime.

And I decided.

Gripping the potion tightly with both hands, I opened my mouth and spoke.

“My wish is.”

Exactly.

“To return to the place I was the day before I joined Daydream Corporation.”

My original world, at a point before I spun the roulette wheel at the pop-up store.

A perfect designation.

-Excellent!

‘It’s done.’

Hearing the host’s exclamation, I calmly opened the lid of the Wish Ticket potion.

Light burst forth, but I covered it with my hand and closed my eyes.

And then, I poured the potion into my mouth.

“…!”

Drinking a dream.

That’s the only way I could express it.

A strange, synesthetic liquid I had never experienced before flowed down my throat.

Something brilliant filled my stomach.

Formless power, transcendent authority, overflowing mystery.

Ecstasy and wonder guided me.

Yes. I am moving!

‘My goodness.’

My whole body was being sucked somewhere.

Very deep, very far…

To the place my wish reached.

It felt like a journey to fulfill a long-cherished desire. A transcendent power was moving me.

Yes.

Yes!

I’ll return safely to my home like this…

…

…

…?

“Cough.”

I collapsed to the floor.

My body tumbled on the dusty, dirty floor, and a cough burst out.

Musty air.

Even with my eyes open, only pitch blackness was visible. Blinking didn’t reveal any outlines.

Silence.

Silence.

What is this?

The fantastical sensation had ended. The Wish Ticket had vanished. That meant…

This was my destination.

“…”

Blood drained from my head.

My mind was blank.

“Ugh.”

I writhed on the floor and stood up. Sharp fragments scratched my arm and hand, leaving a tingling pain.

Gasping for breath, I picked up the empty bottle still in one hand. A drop or two of the remaining Wish Ticket liquid cast a faint residual glow.

The space I was in revealed itself.

…Above broken glass fragments.

“…!”

When I turned my head, I saw where I had fallen.

An empty glass tube was shattered.

I had fallen there, onto the fragmented glass in a dust-filled pit.

‘…Why?’

Was I… moved into that?

My heart pounded uneasily. Before an ominous feeling could invade my mind, I desperately tried to make out the silhouette of the device in the darkness.

It looked like a machine that used to store a large volume of liquid. But…

…The machine looked familiar.

An old, 2000s-style experimental machine with buttons and a keyboard panel below a dark, empty glass tube.

That, that was…

A Dream Cultivator.

The broken and shattered Dream Cultivator from the Merry Research Lab.

…

I stared blankly around.

My eyes, adjusted to the darkness, finally distinguished my surroundings with the help of the Wish Ticket residue.

This was.

The prototype Dream Cultivation Room of the Merry Research Lab.

“…!”

Something was wrong.

Something was wrong.

Why did I come here?

“No.”

Calm down. Calm down, I clearly asked to be returned to the place I was the day before joining, why here, wait. No, no.

“That’s not it!”

It’s different!

Yes. The structure is the same as that lab, but it’s different. The silhouette was subtly off.

Other machines and documents were visible. Even recording tapes and empty reagent bottles. And computers too…

‘The computers have no dust.’

…Strange.

I staggered and turned my head. A hint, I needed a hint.

And I found it.

An experiment log.

“…”

Soaked in blood and filth, with all records meticulously erased, only ‘We were deceived’ was repeated frantically.

It was next to the broken glass tube of the Dream Cultivator.

Just like the one I had found in the Dream Cultivation Room last time.

“…”

I approached it.

The old paper wasn’t soaked in blood and filth, but it was singed brown.

I turned the trembling pages.

It was black as if burned, but readable.

From the first page’s title.

Lord Name Invitation Research

I inhaled.

Research Purpose: Confirmation of the targeted…

…of the hostile entity’s descent into the present world and progress of the contract.

Derived from prior research, the name of the god worshipped by a recently prevalent cult group was adopted as the subtitle for this research.

This will be the Merry Research Lab’s final research.

My heart pounded ominously.

I frantically turned the pages.

Numerous experiment records were written.

The format varied as they weren’t registered as data, and there were multiple experimenters.

Various attempts and preparations.

Failure, Dream Cultivator #21 discarded.

Failure, Failure.

Unidentifiable horrific ingredients and extreme methods remained, more than half erased.

Things that were born, summoned, then discarded.

And then…

Success.

Something significant had come out.

Experiment #316

Input Liquid Volume: 1200L

Ingredients: Qterw-A-4…of…dragon, ……-…326, human blood, ……, and 13 other synthetic elements.

Successfully awakened Lord Name’s spirit within the glass tube.

The contract failed. Form disintegrated in liquid.

Presumed due to insufficient liquid. Will adjust variables based on this research.

And it became increasingly precise.

Experiment #322

Input Liquid Volume: 2300L

The awakened Lord Name shrieked within the glass tube and …… ……. after which life signs disappeared.

Presumed that after recognizing its own tissue mutation, the material binding disintegrated and clumped together due to rejection.

Requesting changes in ingredient ratios to prepare a medium that accurately reflects Lord Name’s true appearance.

Verifying darkness related to shapeshifting.

My hands trembled.

An ominous deduction swirled in my mind.

The experiments continued to repeat, and the conditions became more specific.

Currently confirmed prerequisites for invitation and contract are as follows:

1. Maintain Lord Name’s original identity.
2. Forget existing attachments.
3. Provide a survival goal.
4. Remove all sense of incongruity.

Various methods are being proposed, believing that fulfillment of these prerequisites is possible through powerful restrictions.

And…

The Merry Research Lab’s existing invention was mentioned.

An invention now discarded, which involved partially imbuing a doll with an entity from the Otherworld and requesting it to perform a friendly role for the contractor.

A limited version was being distributed as a souvenir at a certain board game event, and this was…

It was.

Called the product name ‘Good Friend’.

“…”

I barely managed to turn to the next page.

The final experiment record.

Experiment #444

Input Liquid Volume: 39999L

Ingredients: Same as #443.

Result: Success.

Utilizing the ritual used in the discarded invention, Lord Name was fully invited.

…Imbued into… Stable.

Upon awakening, will be separated from the dream liquid and undergo a simple Q&A.

The page ended there.

But.

“…”

When I turned the last page, a torn piece of paper was tucked in.

Traces as if it had been crumpled up and thrown away.

It was as if someone else had carefully smoothed out a discarded paper and put it back into the experiment log.

And on it, there was hastily scrawled writing.

The meticulous handwriting, like that of a document, was completely ruined.

Daydream found out they stormed in it was another trick before Lord Name could be taken away I hid them in the most crowded place

Please

The writing stopped unnaturally there.

And under the words ‘most crowded place’, someone had boldly underlined it and written words in a different handwriting.

New Recruit Orientation?

As if deducing from the writing.

“…”

No.

My mind refused.

However, the deduction was already complete.

No, there was nothing to deduce.

It was too clear.

As an answer to my wish, ‘Please send me back to the place I was the day before I joined Daydream Corporation’.

I woke up inside this broken Dream Cultivator.

So.

I…

Was the research objective of this experiment log.

Good Friend.

Something synthesized, imbued with an Otherworld entity invited by the Merry Research Lab.

Like the host Brown, projected onto a stuffed doll.

Kim Soleum’s consciousness from another world, projected onto ‘something’ created in the Dream Cultivator.

…Is that it?

“…No.”

No.

Something, there must be another deduction.

What did the restriction say before? I don’t fit that. I want to go home, so I need to go back home, meet my family and friends.

So…

Who exactly are those people?

“…”

I don’t remember.

So.

Clearly, just, when I first joined, I remembered distinctly.

I even remembered conversations I had with my parents and friends, didn’t I? And I looked up contact information and checked records of friends and family…

…Was that right?

Did I just think ‘I checked’ in my head and moved on?

Specifically, what contact information did I check, what previous addresses did I visit?

I don’t know. I don’t remember.

Just the conviction that I did…

“…”

Then am I,

Is this body I’m in,

Not Kim Soleum?

If the place I was before joining is here.

If I returned to where this body was.

If I was created in the Dream Cultivation Lab.

Am I… not human?

“No!”

I looked down at my hands.

[NO!]

No!

Stop it

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

My body swelled and bulged.

The tattoo crumbled.

I was disappearing. The human body was collapsing.

The self that realized the truth rejected the human physical form. The body tried to revert to its original appearance.

Something unknown, sacred, grotesque, and synthesized burst forth from within me.

Scales and horns, hooves, thorns, piercing through my ribs…

“No!”

My voice echoed strangely in the space. But there was nothing I could do. I had put away all my items. My tattoo was empty…!

No, it’s not.

At that moment.

I realized.

One thing remained in my tattoo.

Not mine, but borrowed equipment.

“…!”

I hastily crammed my transforming hand into the tattoo and pulled out the equipment.

The security team suit.

And I started frantically putting on that suit.

My mutating body was forced and fixed into a human form. Black smoke enveloped my entire body with strange sounds.

Thus, I barely regained my human limbs.

I had to escape.

I staggered and searched for the lab door. My yellow, lantern-like eyes flickered. The light found the doorknob.

Barely grasping it and leaning against it as I stepped out…

Indoor lights were visible.

“…!”

A normal office hallway.

A scene I had seen sometime before.

‘…Daydream basement.’

The Merry Research Lab, which the security chief had told me was in the company’s basement…

-The Merry Research Lab… it’s still in our company’s basement…

-Even if you go further down into the basement… the same office hallway… just keeps repeating…

What floor of the basement is this, anyway?

How do I get out?

‘Elevator…’

My head and body felt heavy.

A strange, intense pain spread throughout my body.

I dragged my feet, trying to move to the end of the hallway somehow.

Then.

“Excellent.”

…

“Such ardent loyalty to the company. To return again.”

I lifted my head.

Someone in a suit, who had appeared out of nowhere, was gazing directly at me.

An ageless face, a cold and neat appearance, in a perfectly tailored three-button suit, with dark blue hair…

Executive Director Cheong Dal-rae.

“You’re already wearing a uniform. Very good to see.”

His dark pupils gazed into me.

“But that’s not the appropriate uniform…”

I opened my mouth.

But no words came out. My vocal cords felt crumpled inside the suit.

The insane, suffocating sensation grew stronger, more… painful.

“Yes. That seems to make a human look grotesque. Is it a newly developed version?”

“…”

“But when a true grotesque wears it, it’s just a mold that forcibly cramps the body. As you know, in society, there are many programs that only take effect with a contract. It’s like that.”

He declared.

“As you are, you will soon perish grotesquely.”

“…”

“If you don’t want that, there is this path.”

Executive Director Cheong Dal-rae took out a neatly folded piece of paper from his pocket.

“It’s a contract.”

…

“All you have to do is sign. I promise very humane treatment. It will be a satisfying job… in the security team.”

Blood began to flow from my body. Blood dripped from my fingers.

“Here.”

“…”

“Choose.”

I felt like I was going to die.

My collapsing body crumpled, and my consciousness began to crumple too. I couldn’t even stagger and walk anymore.

No strength even to think of another option.

A dead end.

“…”

I raised my trembling hand.

And on that contract, I signed with my flowing blood.

“Good.”

The moment the signature was complete,

My body rapidly began to feel comfortable.

Like wearing a perfectly fitting suit, like fulfilling a promise, like pouring just the right amount of water into a glass.

A sense of tranquility and unknown power spread throughout my entire body.

And… above all, with a distinct restriction.

“…”

I looked at my superior.

“You will now take on a truly excellent role.”

And so.

I returned to working for the company.

<End of Part 1>