Chapter 030
The moment I thought I needed a large sum of money, a message asking if I needed money arrived from an unfamiliar profile.
But this was inside a Ghost Story.
[K.LEE: Employee-nim?ㅎㅎ]
Screaming, blocking the contact, and leaving the chatroom seemed like the wise choice, but….
“It also feels a little too stereotypical.”
Since I was inside a Ghost Story, I decided to listen to ghost-story-style advice.
I put Good Friend beneath the bed, turned off the light, and summoned Brown using the usual method of casting a shadow.
This time, however, I used the small flashlight I had bought on the way home in advance.
-Oh, Friend!
This time, having recovered his senses almost without any delay, Brown took great delight in recalling my escape method from the previous Ghost Story, then immediately grasped the current situation.
A message from a stranger mentioning a large sum of money!
-Suspicious indeed! But is not the curiosity that refuses to overlook suspicious things the very virtue of a show?
-Of course, it is even better if glittering, sparkling gold comes along with it!
The stuffed doll sounded like some kind of dopamine addict, but seeing that reaction was enough to confirm that this was not a ghost-story-related phenomenon.
“If that’s the case.”
I briefly typed a question into the chatroom.
[Kim Soleum: Who are you?]
A reply came back at once.
Honestly, I had thought the most I could expect was something like “ㅎㅎyour friend~”.
But unexpectedly, it was a proper introduction.
[K.LEE: I’m Assistant Manager Lee Kangheon from Team Cㅎㅎ]
“…!!”
“Team C?”
Another elite group again.
Why on earth was he contacting me… no, more importantly, he was giving away his identity and rank this readily?
[K.LEE: Employee-nim, I heard you turned down a scouting offer from Team A today!!!ㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
Oof.
[K.LEE: Damn, the nerve is insane! I’ve seriously never seen such a competent rookieㅋㅋ]
[K.LEE: You turned it down this time, but maybe next year we’ll see you in another elite team? Like wow, is someone finally showing up who’ll take the route of joining an elite team the moment they make Chief?ㅋㅋ]
Are you wearing some kind of dedicated equipment that boosts typing speed…?
Before I could even type a single reply, sentences exploded at me like a bombardment.
I barely managed to gather myself and send one line.
[Kim Soleum: Yes, pleased to meet you, Assistant Manager Lee Kangheon.]
[K.LEE : Ah, no need for that. If we run into each other at the company sometime, let’s say hello and maybe grab a meal. I know a really solid charcoal dak-galbi place nearby too!ㅎㅎ]
[K.LEE: Oops, oops, I’m talking too much. Anyway, the reason I contacted you today is!]
The atmosphere changed.
[K.LEE: Employee-nim, you need a lot of money, right?]
“…….”
[K.LEE: This is exactly the point where you’d be wishing you had a bit more money… The promising kids right before making Chief usually start looking for routes to get personal itemsㅋㅋ]
[K.LEE: I heard you already have dedicated equipment too. Then you’re probably already asking around about ways to get items, right?]
I’m not, though.
“I just went to the alien shopping mall I already knew about….”
[K.LEE: All that kind of stuff takes moneyㅎㅎ]
[K.LEE: Instead of wasting your money and time buying meals and drinks for seniors for no reason, hear it from meㅎㅎ]
Hmm.
[Kim Soleum: I truly appreciate the offer, but why are you telling me?]
[K.LEE: Because I want to get close?ㅎㅎ]
At least put a little effort into your bullshit….
[K.LEE: Want to hear it?ㅎㅎ]
I hesitated for a moment.
-My! Roe Deer-ssi, there is the scent of a cheap snake-oil salesman in those letters. He does not seem like the sort fit to appear on a refined professional channel.
-But… cheap things do have their uses in their own cheap way.
-If you coax him gently….
I typed.
[Kim Soleum: No.]
-…!?
[K.LEE: ???????]
[K.LEE: Ah, Employee-nim, you really are good at jokesㅎㅎ Truly worthy of the one breaking the ultra-fast accumulated point recordㅎㅎ]
-Kim Soleum: I’ll just ask the Manager.
-Kim Soleum: I hope you have a good night.
-K.LEE: waitㄲ;ㄴ
-K.LEE: Hey wait a sec
-K.LEE: No way, are you Assistant Manager Lee Jaheon’s cousin or something?;; Your personality is exactly the same
You’d be better off just swearing at me….
In any case, since he still didn’t seem to know my personality very well, that bluff worked nicely.
The other party started firing off messages in a panic.
-K.LEE: Ah, I’m not asking for money, so just hear me out seriously, okay? I really don’t make offers like this often;;ㅠㅠ
Then a rapid barrage of KakaoTalk messages came in.
-K.LEE: (link)
Along with some kind of internet page link.
-K.LEE: If you need seed money or items, go check it out. Just put me down as the inviter hawaiib53 <- that’s what you enter
-K.LEE: You don’t have to, but since I’m the one introducing you, maybe follow the voice of your conscienceㅋㅋㅋㅋ You know?ㅎㅎㅎㅎ
-K.LEE : And please keep it moderately secret from other people! (shy emoticon)
“…A template?”
No matter how I looked at it, it felt copied and pasted….
-K.LEE: Anyway, I’m the one who told you about it, okay?
-K.LEE: Then I’d better get out before I get caught in an audit. Hope you have a happy shopping lifeㅎㅎ
[K.LEE has left.]
“…….”
“If you were worried about getting caught in an audit, why bother introducing yourself….”
Was he trying to make me feel indebted to him?
I deleted the reply I had been in the middle of typing, which had reached, What exactly is the site you sent me….
“Since he talked about shopping and all, it sounds like some kind of platform for buying things.”
It wasn’t a bad idea to open up a route besides the alien store.
Besides, the other party’s wording was fairly interesting too.
“Seed money.”
He was phrasing it as though I could make quite a bit of money.
“It’s not some internal betting site, is it?”
Anyway, there was only one way to find out.
After running one safety check on the authenticity of the link, I cautiously accessed it.
My smartphone screen went pitch black, and the text that appeared was….
Salmon
“…??”
Like salmon swimming upstream against the flowing river
We swim upstream against this crazy world
“CyX world……?”
What in the world was this nostalgic line supposed to be?
The phrase disappeared with an effect that really did make it look like salmon were swimming, and a new sentence appeared.
Registration available (inviter required)
Hmm.
It was truly suspicious in every possible sense, but I created an account with that employee as the inviter anyway. I had to check it somehow.
And the moment I logged in and the page changed, I realized.
Salmon Market
“So it’s a secondhand marketplace.”
This was a site where people bought and sold goods to one another.
Except the goods and information being traded were superstitious and bizarre things.
[For sale: dried mermaid jerky (authentic, appraised by Hannuriok)]
[Looking for tiles from a blood bathtub, no discoloration]
[ComegetcredibleinfoonthespawnfrequencyoftheMisfortuneVendingMachine]
[Selling spiritually effective protection talismans]
I clicked around and took stock of the situation.
So this was….
“A total scam pit.”
From the perspective of someone who had read Darkness Exploration Record, it was full of junk items, meaningless trinkets, and false information.
In other words, it felt like an occult secondhand marketplace with very little expertise, at least by industry standards.
Rubbing my forehead, I said,
“Is this a place with more ordinary people than actual insiders?”
-Hm. Popularity inevitably leads to a decline in expertise! Considerable effort and labor are required to prevent that… and this place feels as though it has been deliberately left unattended.
-People with no expertise but a mania for the subject will buy even trivial things for absurd prices.
-Much like the psychology of tearing away even fragments of a stage set that a star once stepped on!
Well, that at least had commemorative value, and it was real.
The problem here was that this place was full of fakes.
And yet I could see traces showing that those fakes had still been sold for pretty high prices.
“…….”
“That’s right. In this worldview, supernatural phenomena still aren’t officially acknowledged.”
The government, worried about social anomie, and the corporations, wanting to protect their secrets, all kept quiet and secretly explored Ghost Stories.
But civilian victims would already be widespread.
So it wouldn’t be strange at all for a site like this to appear, with grim rumors and personal experiences circulating in secret among ordinary people too.
And when I looked at the prices in proportion to the goods being traded, it got even more dizzying.
“One sheet for one million won….”
Deposits the size of monthly rent were flying back and forth.
I couldn’t tell whether it was because survival was on the line, or because occult items also benefited from a Veblen effect….
“If I play this right, could I sell something too?”
If that employee who had introduced me really was an elite Team C Assistant Manager, then employees of Baekilmong Co., Ltd. seemed to be quietly selling junk items or information through this place.
That part actually bothered me.
“The moment you cross the line too much, you’re definitely getting caught in an audit….”
So let’s set up a safety measure.
I logged out of my current account and created a new one.
The name would be, hmm…….
[Blue Friend]
-‘Friend’! Did you create it while thinking of me? My, how moving!
Well, yes, more or less, since I just combined what came to mind with what I could see.
And for the inviter ID, I entered the first account I had made earlier.
“Done.”
-Hoho. So you are creating a new identity and avoiding traceability!
Exactly.
My plan was to use this account for trading anything that a Baekilmong Co., Ltd. employee likely wouldn’t possess, or anything that might get flagged in an audit.
“That way, even if purchase records are traced, they won’t lead back to me.”
“Of course, I’ll also leave a few transaction records on the first account.”
-To avoid suspicion. Excellent.
With the previous account, I planned to handle the kinds of things a Baekilmong Co., Ltd. employee would likely trade without crossing the line too much.
Now that social maneuvering was over, it was time to get to the point.
What should I sell?
“First of all… reselling items from the alien store is out.”
Just look at how amateurish this site was. It would cause an enormous uproar.
Well, I didn’t really have the spare time to chase arbitrage profits like that anyway, since I was too busy even trying to buy useful items from the alien shopping mall.
I browsed Salmon Market in order of newest posts.
Something I could sell for money, without standing out too much…. wasn’t there….
[Buying food originating from supernatural phenomena.]
Oh?
[Buying food originating from supernatural phenomena.]
For research.
Preference given to strong supernatural phenomena (Disaster Management Agency wave anomaly).
40.0
-This guy again
-Ah yes, the food I seek is for research and of First-Class Wave, you see. (pushes glasses) ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Is this person a macro or what? Feels like this gets posted every day
-Occult nerd, please step out of your own made-up worldview already. What the hell is a Disaster Management Agency wave?
Only a few mocking and jeering comments were left beneath it.
However….
“…That’s real.”
The Supernatural Disaster Management Agency.
In Darkness Exploration Record, it was one of the three great powers in the setting alongside Baekilmong Co., Ltd.
My merch item, the memorial grip tok, was also an item this institution issued to its civil servants.
“And the Supernatural Disaster Management Agency classifies the danger levels of Ghost Stories by punishment grade….”
The wave anomaly mentioned in this post was a real classification too. In Baekilmong Co., Ltd. terms, it was slightly above C-rank.
This person was the one who really knew something.
I stared at the page.
“If they’re a real insider, then the odds of them screwing me out of money are probably lower.”
The very fact that they used technical jargon in the post without explaining it—jargon outsiders wouldn’t understand—lowered the odds of a scam.
It was an element that increased trust in the transaction.
And just look at the price.
40.0?
“That’s forty million won.”
At that amount, even someone clueless might think it was worth taking the risk and trying to contact them.
And sure enough, when I looked up previous posts, there were already comments about it.
-Wow, but that’s still 40 million won… anyone actually contact them after seeing this?
└I contacted them because I was seriously thinking of selling, but after they kept asking about the source a few times, they vanished lol
└다들 left on readㅋㅋ just a concept weirdo, don’t bother
No, that wasn’t it.
“From what they’re saying, he probably ignored them because the Ghost Story wasn’t above wave grade.”
But in my possession, I happened to have something that matched the preferred conditions exactly.
Something suspicious, of unknown effect, and something I absolutely couldn’t bring myself to consume.
“…I do have that.”
In fact, I had two packs of it. <Blue Soda Churros>
The snack I had received from the blue dragon mascot at the theme park.
“…….”
-Ah, that unclean food!
Not unclean, exactly.
The thing is….
“Good children need campaign funds.”
The mascot would understand. Surely.
[Blue Friend: Hello, sir^^ I can sell the food originating from supernatural phenomena that you’re looking for!]
Message sent!
The next day.
“It’s the weekend again, conveniently enough.”
I ended up waiting for the other party near Gwanghwamun Station.
In my hand was a box containing one pack of the Blue Soda Churros I’d gotten from the mascot.
“My handling was… okay, right?”
I recalled the messages I had exchanged with the buyer yesterday.
Almost the moment I sent my message, a reply had come.
[T: What exactly is the food?]
That had been the branching point.
I had had two choices.
Show that I knew exactly what the Supernatural Disaster Management Agency was, what wave grade meant, and use specialized knowledge to inspire trust.
Or….
[Blue Friend: It’s something like churros, I think. Honestly I’m not really sure…ㅠㅠ I got it in a really strange situation.]
[Blue Friend: But I’m scared to keep it with me… and I really need the money too. Could you maybe check it first, and if it matches the condition you want, then buy it…?]
Pretend not to know anything and leave the judgment entirely up to the other party.
And my choice had worked well.
“To be fair, the second thing I said was all true too.”
I wasn’t keen on letting anyone realize I was an employee of Baekilmong Co., Ltd., after all.
Anyway, that was why I was standing near Exit 5 of Gwanghwamun Station, seven minutes before the appointed time, waiting for the other party.
“If the vibe feels off, I’m running immediately.”
As I waited tensely just in case, I saw someone approaching Exit 5 from Cheonggye Plaza, glancing around.
“Oh.”
The way they were looking around made it obvious to anyone that they were here for a secondhand transaction.
A tall person wrapped head to toe in black clothing, even wearing a mask, met my eyes and approached, then said,
“Could it be Salm….”
I nodded.
Then I immediately opened the box and held it out.
It meant: check it.
“…….”
The other party quietly reached out a hand.
They were wearing gloves too.
The voice sounded fairly young, but to think they’d come wrapped up so thoroughly that it was impossible to infer their identity.
“Not that I’m one to talk.”
I, too, was dressed in everything I could find, from a cap to glasses.
I pulled my hood lower and watched the other party’s movements. If they tried to grab it and run, I’d have to move first.
The prospective buyer ran a gloved hand over the top of the box once, then nodded and took hold of it.
Hm?
“This is the item I was looking for.”
Then they held out a small beverage box to me.
When they opened it slightly on their side, I could see that it was filled with 50,000-won bills before it was closed again.
“…….”
The other party seemed to be looking at me as if asking what I was waiting for.
It was a little unfortunate that I couldn’t ask Brown, but….
“First things first.”
I set the box down on the ground.
“…?”
After giving the other party a slight bow, I pulled out a notebook from my pocket.
“…??”
Then I opened it to a page and held it up toward the buyer.
[I do not know the effect of this food.]
[It did not seem dangerous to keep, but just in case, I think it may be better not to eat it.]
[You said it was for research, but just in case, I thought I should write this.]
“……!”
I couldn’t see their expression, but the other party seemed a bit flustered.
“It must seem like some bizarre performance out of nowhere….”
Sorry. I didn’t want my voice to be recognized.
After bowing again, I showed the last page, politely accepted the beverage box, and bolted.
[Have a nice day^^]
“Good.”
I deposited the cash immediately and returned home.
Maybe because it was the weekend, Baek Saheon was already not at the company dorm. Seeing how he was there sometimes and absent other times, I wondered if he went back to his family home or something.
In any case.
“Now it’s time to access the alien shopping mall.”
I revived the link.
