Chapter 026
After I finally escaped that insane theme park,
-Roe Deer!
-Holy shit, Roe Deer’s out!!
I was met with an enthusiastic welcome from my teammates when I ran into them at the elevator.
As it turned out, the team members had been in a panic and were even trying to contact civilian survivors to figure out what on earth had happened.
“We were going to squeeze out whatever experience they had. Anyway, it’s a relief you made it out safe.”
Group D’s assistant manager said with a much brighter expression.
“What the hell happened? Why were you so late?”
Hmm.
Before answering, I deliberately raised my arm with my wrist turned outward and rubbed the back of my neck.
So that the mark left behind after the membership pass burned away would be clearly visible.
: Socius :
“……”
“……”
“Roe Deer?”
“Ah, sorry. For a second… I’m just so tired.”
“Ahh.”
The assistant manager and the senior staff merely nodded, apparently thinking that after all the hell I’d been through, that was understandable enough.
That was when I realized it.
‘They can’t see it.’
There was no reaction.
That tattoo was invisible to them.
It was not a good sign.
After a very brief hesitation, I opened my mouth.
“The reason I was delayed… was that the exit gate lost power right in front of me. I waited, but it never came back on, so I found another way out.”
“Huh?!”
I deliberately omitted the part where my bracelet had changed into a membership pass.
In a nonsensical Ghost Story company like this one, it would not be wise to admit that something decidedly abnormal had attached itself to my body.
‘Let’s also leave out the part where I now have a plush doll that talks to me.’
Of course, I explained everything else properly, so there would be no real issue with registering the Exploration Record or making the manual.
“…Wait. So… you went to the yellow zone, found that the gate there was off too, and then turned it on yourself and came out? By opening the power panel?”
“Yes.”
“What the hell are you….”
“Aw, I’m just an ordinary Roe Deer.”
“Mm… that’s true.”
“…??”
Anyway, the atmosphere became fairly warm.
“The points will be credited tomorrow. Don’t be surprised—this time the amount might come out to close to ten thousand points.”
“Isn’t that incredible?!”
In truth, the number of points being distributed would have gone down because I had survived and made it back.
The two seniors, still not even washed yet, clearly having run around in worry over whether I was alive or dead, grinned at me.
Honestly, I felt a little grateful.
It was even a little touching. Far more wholesome than this company deserved.
But one person was missing.
“Come to think of it, where is the leader?”
The assistant manager looked away.
“…He got called in by the team chief.”
Gah.
“It’s fine. He’ll get chewed out a bit and that’ll be the end of it. Besides, honestly, wasn’t that mantis-mask bastard from Group A basically a suicide case?”
Even so, it seemed Group A’s leader had really taken a dislike to him.
I remembered the mallard mask staring daggers at the lizard.
Even the senior staff whispered,
“Assistant Manager, is that true?”
“What.”
“That our leader has the performance to make it into an elite team, but because of that personality of his, he keeps slipping and stays in Group D every time….”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s probably true.”
The assistant manager crossed his arms.
“But he’s always lived like that, so just leave him alone.”
“……”
“I guess God really is fair after all. Seeing that face of his with that personality….”
“Shhh. He’s a good boss.”
A lizard face with a lizard personality?
Well, by now I could understand and agree to some extent that he was a good boss.
Especially since I had just watched the absolute worst kind of boss up close.
“Ah, the research-team manager.”
Meaning Kwak Jegang, the manager of Research Team 1 who had, without warning and on a whim, shoved his own team member into a Ghost Story and gotten him killed.
“That guy crossed the line.”
From what I had heard, under questioning he was claiming that “in his panic, he made a mistake and threw the game piece to the researcher.”
‘Anyone could tell it had been deliberate and full of intent….’
The Field Operations Team members who had been there would all remember that it had definitely not felt like an accident.
The problem was that there was no one willing to testify strongly on behalf of the dead gambling-addict researcher.
Just look at the state of the superiors whose words carried weight.
“Group A’s leader is seeing red over our leader, and our leader probably doesn’t even realize he’s supposed to be paying attention to the research-team manager.”
The outlook was that things would just get glossed over and end with some appropriate pay cut.
In a company where an employee’s life was valued according to performance, it did not seem like they were about to hand out serious punishment to a manager-level employee just because one ordinary staffer they thought was a waste of salary had died in a workplace accident.
‘So that’s how Kwak Jegang kept showing up again and again in Darkness Exploration Record….’
One wrong draw and he was obviously screwed, but he seemed to be good at slipping through that one bad moment like a crafty snake.
The Group D superiors clicked their tongues and said that it seemed a few creepy rumors involving Kwak Jegang had turned out to be true after all.
“I hate that we still have to keep working with that guy, but since he had an episode this time, he’ll probably stay quiet until next quarter.”
“Right? If not, he’d have been fired already.”
As expected, they were numb enough to danger to be willing to risk their lives working in a Ghost Story company.
‘To a certain extent I agree too… but the truth is, it felt like Kwak Jegang had been trying to get all of us killed, not just his own researcher.’
The researcher had only been a disruptive variable to make that happen.
But since everyone had escaped safely, that part had become blurred, which made it strange.
‘I need to keep watching him.’
I planned to go back through the wiki page in Darkness Exploration Record involving Kwak Jegang and review it again from top to bottom.
“Whew, it’s been a long day.”
“It really has.”
The conversation tapered off.
Since no one knew when Leader Lee Jaheon would be back, permission was given for us to just go home for now.
The assistant manager grinned as he said,
“There’s nothing else for you to do separately. We still hadn’t officially registered you as missing. We thought we might still be able to find you. …Good thing we were right.”
“Right! We kept saying among ourselves that you’d definitely come back out, Roe Deer.”
“Hurry up and go rest.”
“……Thank you.”
“Aw, no need for that.”
So I parted ways with my superiors while listening to well-wishes along the lines of, Just look forward to the points coming in tomorrow.
I returned to the Research Team 1 office, gathered my things, and headed home.
And on the way, I ran into one more familiar face.
“Mr. Jang Heowoon.”
“…! Mr. Soleum!”
The Group Y rookie.
Perhaps because everyone else in his team had died and he had been shoved aside in the confusion, he was sitting blankly inside the Research Team 1 office.
His shoulder had healed, but he was still wearing the same bloodstained clothes.
“So you made it out safely! That’s a relief….”
“Yes, thank you.”
I sat across from him for a moment and made some small talk.
Perhaps because of the amount of blood he had lost, Jang Heowoon looked pale, but strangely enough, he seemed slightly less gloomy.
Given that everyone else in his team had died, it was hard to call that lucky….
I recalled what the superiors had quietly told me earlier.
-Ah, that Group Y rookie, apparently word might go up about him this time. Since B-rank is high grade.
-If he works without problems for about three months, there’s a good chance they’ll move him out as a regular employee!
That was all well and good.
The problem was whether he could stay alive for three months….
“Um, have you ever considered resigning? The situation you’re in seems far too dangerous….”
“Yes.”
The answer came back firm.
Jang Heowoon, the Group Y rookie, still wearing the cow mask, clenched both hands tightly.
“I absolutely need a Wish Ticket. I can’t resign.”
“……”
It seemed he had his own reasons too.
“In that case, I hope fortune favors you.”
I hesitated, then eventually added,
“Three months.”
“Yes?”
“If you can hold out for just three months, there’s a high chance you’ll be reassigned.”
Enduring when there’s a fixed limit is completely different from enduring indefinitely.
The weight of it is different.
That would be true from the standpoint of motivation too.
“…!”
Light entered Jang Heowoon’s eyes.
“Yes, yes…. I’ll hold out…!”
He took a deep breath while looking up at the ceiling for a moment, then bowed his head.
“You helped me a great deal today. I… after three months, next time, I will absolutely work hard so I can return the favor.”
“No. I’m the one who made it out safely thanks to you. Thank you.”
I shook his hand.
And, filled with sympathy and empathy, I spoke without thinking.
“You really went through a lot. You must have been terrified.”
“Huh?”
A puzzled look crossed Jang Heowoon’s face.
Uh…?
“Ah, it’s fine. It’s not like it was the first time I almost died….”
“……It’s that, and on top of that, you saw so many unpleasant scenes.”
“Ah, right.”
Jang Heowoon made an awkward expression.
“I’m really bad with blood and organs and things like that… I keep fainting or my legs give out.”
“…I see.”
Wait a second.
Just now, the range of what counted as “unpleasant scenes” suddenly got a lot narrower….
‘No way.’
“…Mr. Heowoon, are you… perhaps fine with paranormal phenomena and ghosts?”
“Ah, ah yes! I’m fine with things like that!”
“……”
“I just tend to think, Ah, so that’s how it is. Unless someone is actually badly hurt in front of me, I don’t feel much about it.”
“……”
He… wasn’t a coward?
“Thank you for worrying about me… Ah, that’s right! Mr. Soleum. I think you were talking with that person in the rookie group chat… uh. Y-you’re not in the room.”
There was a rookie group chat…?
So he wasn’t a fellow resident of the Coward’s Shelter.
…And there had been a rookie group chat without me in it!
“Hah.”
I returned to the company housing in a troubled state of mind, washed up, and came back out.
The two shocking truths had left the back of my head throbbing.
‘What a long day….’
That traitor—no, Mr. Jang Heowoon—had given me the link to the rookie group chat, so I would have to join it, but I planned to do that a little later.
There was something else I needed to check first.
“I should start by checking the tattoo on my wrist.”
Several candidates came to mind, but there happened to be one clearly easy person to ask.
‘Good Friend.’
I sat down on the bed, took out the plush doll keyring from the front pocket of my suit, and called,
“Brown?”
But there was no answer.
‘Just as expected.’
It had said that once I returned from the Ghost Story to reality, it would look like an ordinary doll.
———————=
Good Friend will stay with your everyday life like a shy doll.
Treat it appropriately.
It remembers everything.
———————=
In other words, that meant it wasn’t that it had been reading the room and keeping quiet while I talked at work earlier—it literally had been unable to speak.
But even outside a Ghost Story, there was still a way to talk to Good Friend.
‘…Make reality resemble a Ghost Story.’
I recalled one method written in Darkness Exploration Record.
———————=
Speaking with Good Friend
#1 Use darkness, a lighter, and a shadow.
———————=
Honestly, it was a little creepy, but let’s do it.
I lowered my head beneath the bed.
Then I propped Good Friend up against the inside of the rear right bed leg.
‘Next… a light source.’
I had quit smoking long ago, so I didn’t have a lighter, and used my phone flashlight instead.
I placed it on the floor so that narrow beam of light would shine on the bed leg, then turned off the room light.
Click.
Then I sat on the bed in the dark.
‘…This is a little scary.’
My back prickled, so I pulled the blanket over myself.
No reason to be embarrassed. I was alone.
‘…Though I don’t think I’ll stay alone for long.’
When I raised my head, the flashlight under the bed cast its beam upward, throwing the giant shadow of the plush doll onto the wall.
“……”
Soon, the shadow of the plush doll leaning against the bed leg began to sway together with the light.
As if it were shaking itself awake.
If you watched it in silence like that, before long you would hear a sound.
A voice that sounded almost unreal.
-Friend.
“…Brown.”
The host awoke.
-Ah, so you made it safely out of that bizarre theme park! Congratulations.
“Thank you.”
Brown seemed to remember, at least roughly, what had happened to me after coming out of the Ghost Story, almost as though he were replaying a tape.
‘So that’s what it meant when it said it remembers everything.’
-Right, my friend got off work. Have you come home to rest now? Oh, this is quite a cozy place!
“Thank you.”
It wasn’t my home, but company housing.
-Hmm, come to think of it, Mr. Roe Deer, you speak far too formally to me! Friends don’t need to do that.
“…But Brown also seems to be speaking rather formally.”
-Haha, that can’t be helped for me. It’s an occupational habit, you see!
I swallowed the words, I think I can’t help it either because of the occupational habit of being a new hire at an insane Ghost Story company.
The more familiar I became with this plush doll, the safer and stronger it would get.
“…Fine. Then from now on I’ll speak casually. We’re friends.”
-Oh, wonderful!
The doll’s shadow swayed as if nodding happily.
Good… now the main subject.
“I happened to have a question for my friend too.”
-Oh! In that case, how about we take turns asking each other questions? But each must be answered.
-It sounds like a game. How fun….
Stop acting like a Ghost Story!
“Sure. Sounds fun.”
But I forced myself to answer warmly.
It felt like working overtime…. Hang in there.
“What I was going to ask about is this.”
In one motion, I lowered my left hand beneath the bed.
So that the black letters like a tattoo on the inside of my wrist would be clearly visible right in front of the plush doll’s face.
“The membership-pass bracelet burned up, and this mark was left behind.”
A brief silence.
And then….
-This is… Latin. Hoh.
There was a strange fascination and immersion in Brown’s tone.
His voice lowered.
-Socius.
-It’s been used to mean companion, member, kin, things like that. Ah, the versatility of Latin!
“I know that much already.”
I had already searched a dictionary on the internet on the way home.
It did seem fairly connected that a bracelet meaning “membership pass” had burned away and left behind a word meaning member, but what mattered more was this.
“But it seems like other people can’t see it. Why do you think that is?”
-Oh dear, perhaps they all have bad eyesight! I can see it perfectly well.
Which meant creatures from Ghost Stories could see this.
“Good to know you can see it.”
I changed the question.
“Then what kind of role does this mark serve?”
-It is a sign that grants you qualification.
The answer came without hesitation, in a cheerful tone.
-Now and then, honored guests come to a talk show as audience members, don’t they? They always have splendid signs that distinguish them from the other audience members. A name tag or a badge, for example!
-And that ‘superior sign’ grants them special seats, rehearsal viewing, backstage access, and things of that sort!
Reflexively, I lifted my arm and checked the lettering.
“…So this is something like a ‘special qualification’?”
-Well, to the theme park mascot, yes.
Brown’s voice turned dispassionate.
-That overly emotional mascot seems to be acting far too familiar with Mr. Roe Deer. Well, if you visit again, perhaps you can at least have it secure you a welcome drink!
I want to never visit again for the rest of my life.
But in order to appear cooperative, I nodded as though I agreed.
-Good, good!
‘Social life is brutally hard….’
Anyway, even if “granting qualification” was abstract, it didn’t sound especially negative.
‘From now on, when I enter a Ghost Story, I should see whether there’s anywhere this might be useful.’
The plush doll, seemingly excited, swayed its shadow-head a few times, then whispered softly.
-Do you know?
What now.
-Mr. Roe Deer, you just asked two questions.
-That is a violation of the rules.
A chill ran down my spine.
-Haha, it’s alright. Isn’t it the charm of close relationships that rules are sometimes broken?
Phew.
“…Right. Thanks.”
-Think nothing of it!
-In any case, now it’s my turn to ask a question.
I swallowed and stared at the gigantic doll shadow on the wall.
“What are you curious about?”
Brown whispered.
-Who lives in the room next to yours?
It was a question I had never expected.
And of course, the one in the room next to mine in this company housing was….
“…A coworker.”
Baek Saheon.
-Are you close?
Not at all.
“He’s just a coworker.”
-Ah, I see. Yes…. Good.
Brown’s voice grew bright again.
-Friend. It would be best if you stopped paying attention to that ‘coworker’ in the next room now.
“Why?”
-Because he’s going to die soon.
