Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work Novel - Chapter 217

The red yarn of Nostalgia wraps around my neck.

The first sensation was clarity.

A feeling that everything was distinct and in its place.

“……”

I blinked.

I could blink.

Eyelids and eyebrows. The vision seen through the cornea is clear…

I looked down at my hands. There were human hands, with bare skin fully exposed, without black rubber.

I clenched and unclenched my bare hands.

Yes.

This is what it used to feel like.

This is what it used to be like.

The shock naturally faded, leaving only traces, and only familiarity remained.

Natural emotions and sensations.

And in their place, a forgotten, familiar feeling also settled in.

Yes. Feeling.

I clearly…

Thud.

…

…

I lowered my head.

My bare hands are gone.

All that can be seen are numinous hooves and scales attached to melting, amorphous flesh…

Forcibly, I put on the gloves.

I put them on.

I put them on.

“…Roe Deer?”

I put them on.

I put them on.

Done.

Human fingers.

Fingers with a silhouette similar to a human’s are visible.

And between them, I see.

The floor.

A single thread, looking worn and tattered, lies on the floor.

Frayed, dirty, discolored, now worthless.

The yarn snapped.

“…!”

“Wait…”

It was a delusion.

Did you think Nostalgia Kitty could help you? Did you think what you’re experiencing now is contamination? Did you think there was a possibility of returning to a time when your body and mind were healthy?

Did you believe you could return to the days of comfortable ignorance? Did you think you could get a hint from it, know your direction, understand how to navigate this world, reset your goals, return to being human, go home, and finally go home?

Did you wish for such a thing?

Did you believe it was possible?

Really?

An absurd wish, a wrong wish, realizing what you didn’t need to know, waking up in a grotesque body, experiencing this, and the terror of spending six months alone in the basement seeing only ghost stories and corpses, washes over me.

Wearing Nostalgia Kitty was a mistake.

Not all effects can be good. You cannot have only a human form, only a body capable of interaction. What this means is the emotions I should have felt if I were human.

My fear and despair also return.

And once experienced, it doesn’t disappear, even if the brain and body crumble into a pulp in an instant.

It remained.

I can’t bear it.

…

Smoke rises.

It continues to rise, covering this entire space, filling it so there’s no escape. It can fill it, but it’s not enough…

…

Space,

It’s not enough.

“Roe Deer, wait…”

I stood up.

The one wearing the badger mask falls into the thick smoke. I moved him to the bed. May he rest.

I faced the security chief.

He says nothing. Because his working hours are over, and he has no duty or authority to control me.

So, please.

“Hey…”

.

“Is there… anything I can do…?”

I opened the isolation room door.

I walked straight out.

The black smoke that flowed out filled the isolation corridor.

Red and blue lights flickered on.

Like the 13th basement floor of the annex.

[Evacuation alarm. High-grade darkness containment failure. Evacuation alarm. High-grade darkness containment failure. Evacuation alarm. High-grade darkness containment failure…]

The alarm blares in the corridor.

And in my head too.

You cannot leave the designated area! You cannot leave the designated area! You cannot leave the designated area!

You did not designate a place for me to be after working hours. You only assigned a new workplace, but you did not designate my space, nor did you inform me verbally, by signature, or by implication.

Therefore.

I can choose where to rest after working hours.

I can go anywhere.

You—

It stopped.

But the unbearable feeling doesn’t disappear. Why doesn’t it disappear? Why? Why…

Ah.

Right.

I keep moving my feet. The distance narrows through the smoke.

The isolation corridor is almost at an end. The rental warehouse front appears. Only a few security team members are in place, as the others have left to prepare equipment and arm themselves to subdue the escaped containment entity.

I know.

That there will be a problem with their calculations.

A disaster caused by the misjudgment that containment entity (130666) was not observed to have unrealistically fast movement, so it would take at least three times longer to reach the rental warehouse.

This is a situation that could be described in such a way.

“No…”

The few remaining security team members sink into the smoke.

I found a key from one of them, opened the rental warehouse door, and came out.

I kept walking until I reached the central elevator.

Ding.

The elevator stopped. I boarded it.

The floor to go to is set.

The -17th floor is… especially where the research staff looking for new darkness are.

17th floor.

[Door opening.]

A neat office space of glass and marble, which I had once visited in a different form, appeared.

The smoke that filled the elevator pressed out, as if crushing the office space.

[Evacuation alarm. High-grade darkness containment failure. Evacuation alarm. High-grade darkness containment failure. Evacuation alarm. High-grade darkness containment failure…]

“Aaaah!”

“Run! Run…”

Those in white coats ran to the emergency exit. Someone who inhaled the smoke collapsed. They cried, wailed, burst into laughter, clutched their heads and mumbled. They bowed.

All those melting mosaics.

I stepped into it.

Until I found what I was looking for.

Towards the office I already knew.

[Research Team 1 A]

To the clean, spacious area at the very end.

Before escaping.

Before hiding.

I gathered the smoke that had spread throughout the corridor, made it settle at my feet, and then made it surge upwards to cover an entire section of the corridor.

Thus, I isolated Research Team 1’s office.

With smoke.

…

Now, those inside cannot escape.

Darkness and silence settled in front of the corridor.

Within it, I opened the door.

“Ah.”

Only one person was on night duty there.

[Evacuation alarm. High-grade darkness containment failure. Evacuation alarm. High-grade darkness containment failure. Evacuation alarm. High-grade darkness containment failure…]

Amidst the loud alarms, Kwak Jaegang, who had been scanning the CCTV footage with an ecstatic look, raised his head towards the open door.

The expression of someone who has realized something.

“You… no, you.”

…

“It was Kim Soleum, wasn’t it?”

I approach.

“It wasn’t the vessel; it was like that from the beginning. From the begi—!”

I grabbed his neck.

His white lab coat hung down as he was lifted into the air.

“To kill me? Because you’re angry? Haha…”

Fear and dread seemed to fill his eyes, but soon exhilaration and curiosity welled up.

“But… aren’t you curious?”

…

“I just can’t figure out what you are. How you extract dreams, how you go between darkness and humanity…”

Kwak Jaegang’s eyes, behind his glasses, looked at me.

He was smiling.

“Actually… don’t you know either? …What kind of being you are.”

…

“You don’t want to be tied to the company, do you? I’ll help you! Director Cheongdallae? Who cares? A researcher should be a researcher! Pursue the origin! The truth! Understanding!”

A voice filled with madness shouted. Certainty and yearning burst forth.

“If you’re trying to find out why you were called here, why you are in that form, I will fully cooperate! No, I earnestly ask you to let me cooperate!”

Ecstatic eyes.

“Dying here like this wouldn’t be bad…! But I really want to see something, so I can’t stand it…”

…

I loosened my grip.

The neck I had held in my hand fell to the floor.

“Ugh!”

But Kwak Jaegang looked at me with eyes sparkling with exhilaration, without complaint.

“That’s right! A wise choice…”

I bent my knees and sat in front of his eyes.

And meeting his gaze, I spoke with smoke.

I don’t want to.

“…!!”

I can’t believe it.

“Hey.”

The smoke drew letters.

Unbelievable.

: Target for deletion.

“…! Wait.”

His gasping grew louder.

I announce.

Warning 3.

Reason: Insulting remarks towards an employee.

Cumulative Warnings: 3 / 0 until disciplinary action.

Smoke rose from the black gas mask.

To envelop Kwak Jaegang’s head.

“Just a moment,”

He recoiled.

I don’t follow. But the smoke follows.

And it envelops his features…

The slowly suffocating researcher coughed and groaned painfully, then desperately managed to utter one word.

“…Then!”

He fumbled behind him with his still-free arm, his fingers slipping several times before he finally managed to grab his drawer.

The temporary storage for Twilight-grade darkness.

He fumbled inside and pulled something out.

“This, what about using this…?”

It was barely held out before my eyes.

…A red thread.

Its form was remarkably similar to the one I had just used.

The smoke writhed.

But remembering that it was not yarn, and that it was thin and fine, I calmed it down…

And I also realized that it had a completely different use.

“Wouldn’t it be enough to make it so I can’t betray you, so I’m forced to be trustworthy!”

Only one thing matches that description.

Red Finger.

: A darkness that literally fulfills the children’s rhyme, ‘Pinky promise, cross my heart.’

If one swears a single promise and wraps the thread around the tip of their pinky finger, that promise must be fulfilled.

Because if you try to break it, you die.

“How to use it…”

Kwak Jaegang, who had been about to speak, made a sound that was a mix of laughter and sobbing as I tore open its packaging and pulled his pinky finger.

“It seems… you know this darkness.”

There is nothing I don’t know.

If it has been described.

I took the red thread and tied it around Kwak Jaegang’s pinky finger.

Kwak Jaegang smiled, sweating coldly.

“I swear. Um… I will not betray you.”

I looked at him.

Impossible.

Reason: Inaccurate.

“…I will fully cooperate?”

Impossible.

Reason: Inaccurate.

I slowly changed the smoke.

Cumulative failures: 2.

Attempts remaining: 1.

Cold sweat beaded on Kwak Jaegang’s face and dripped down.

“…Then, will you tell me what to swear? It would be troublesome in many ways if I just made something up again and looked suspicious and died!”

…

The smoke drew a sentence.

Proposal:

I will not go against your will from now on.

Kwak Jaegang’s eyes wavered.

Because he understood the comprehensive and total meaning embedded in the sentence.

But his mouth opened.

Because there was no other choice.

“I will not go against your will from now on…”

Thwack.

I pulled the red thread.

The tip of the researcher’s pinky finger, around which the thread was wrapped, was severed.

Blood splattered.

“Ahahahahaha! Ahahahahahahaha!!”

Kwak Jaegang laughed, holding his bleeding left hand, watching the tip of his pinky finger roll on the floor.

“Thank you… Thank you!”

6 minutes later.

I returned to the isolation room myself.

The commotion outside the door doesn’t matter.

Even if two security team members disappeared, it’s okay… because it means they returned safely.

I just thought about this new situation.

About what the experience of being wrapped in yarn gave back to me.

About fear and unbearableness.

…And I concluded.

‘I need to know.’

Why do I exist here in this form?

Who called me here?

To do that, I first need to find out the company’s secrets.

What is in the main building’s basement.

What exactly was the Pleasant Research Institute?

And if there’s no way even after finding out all of this…

…

Then, I’ll give up.

It was the moment I decided that.

[That’s a very exciting plan, friend!]

‘……!’

I stood up.

…There was something on the bed where I had been lying alone.

A fluffy body. Pink, lovely ears, black eyes, and a bow tie around its neck.

And.

[Roe Deer-ssi.]

A call.

‘…Brown?’

[Ah, my friend finally calls my name. How delightful!]

The good friend was there.