The last time I had heard any news of Kang Yihak was back when I’d gone out to collect the Man in the Screen Ghost Story.
And even then, it had been news that she was missing.
I’d heard talk that she had probably been taken away by the Supernatural Disaster Management Agency, but since she was a senior staff member, I’d assumed she would be let go without any real trouble…
…So why is she here?
A glamorous female clay figure standing in the silent, filthy corridor.
The sounds coming from inside the ceramic.
“~!!”
A choked scream, the kind that sounded like someone being buried alive, shrieking as though suffocating to death…
—Yeah…. There was probably also an employee… who went missing on that floor……
…The missing employee was Kang Yihak?
But I had no time to pursue that thought for long.
In the next instant—
There were two clay figures in the corridor.
“…….”
The one visible beyond that corner was much smaller than the female form right in front of me. Like something nested inside a matryoshka doll, it looked similar, but not the same.
And in that reduced form, its true nature became even clearer.
A jar.
At that moment—
Tilt.
…!
The ceramic woman lurched toward me, swaying back and forth. Precious ornaments glittered in the corridor’s dim light and fell away from it.
From inside the clay figure came the sounds of a person, jewelry, and liquid colliding….
I watched it without moving.
“Well done…. Don’t touch it….”
…….
“It’s doing that on purpose….”
The tension in the air went rigid.
From behind me came Assistant Manager Eun Haje’s low groan as she grasped the situation.
“This fucking thing. It’s that honey-jar bastard.”
Right. I’d noticed too.
One of the Twilight-grade darknesses Baekilmong used to procure gold.
To be exact—
A Ghost Story whose danger was kept at an appropriate Twilight-grade level through an extremely strict manual.
———————=
Darkness Exploration Record / Ghost Story
[The Golden Jar of Canopus]
:…