Chapter 32
The Day Guests Come
“Ah, it’s finally gone.”
At some point, the plastic I had been gripping tightly disappeared, and I no longer felt its weight.
The clammy mist that had drenched my entire body and the drooping leaves had vanished as well.
I checked my phone.
[Completion Requirement: Clean the pond in the ghost story, Chodam Park.]
[Complete]
“...That was brutal.”
Where was Myeong Haebin?
I barely managed to get up and look for her, but she lay facedown beneath one of the roadside trees, completely motionless.
“Haebin, are you all right? Try to wake up.”
A sticky liquid coated my hand when I turned her head.
Blood.
She must have struck her head when she was thrown earlier.
“Mmm...”
Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I shook her. Myeong Haebin flinched and released a quiet groan.
Thank goodness.
She was alive.
They said it would be fine as long as she didn’t die.
I had to take her back to the company.
How had Myeong Haebin done it before? I vaguely remembered her putting something into a door, after which the company employees had emerged.
There was nothing resembling a door here, though.
I didn’t even know what she had inserted.
There was no other choice.
“...Hup.”
I hoisted her onto my back and flagged down a taxi that happened to be approaching.
The taxi glided to a stop, but the moment I opened the rear door, the driver clicked his tongue and waved us away.
“Ah, no. I’m not taking you.”
“Why not?”
“You think I want to ruin an entire day’s business? You’ll destroy my seats! Hurry up and close the door.”
Our appearances were to blame.
My hair was disheveled, and my entire body was caked with mud and sweat. Of course he wouldn’t want us in his car.
Still, I pushed Myeong Haebin into the back seat.
“Hey!”
“I’ll pay for the cleaning and compensate you for the time you lose. Naturally, I’ll pay triple the fare too. Would you like the money upfront?”
“Honestly, you should learn to drink responsibly. Tsk. Where are you going?”
“Exit Seven of Gwonhae Station, please.”
The taxi driver still looked reluctant, but he couldn’t defeat capitalism and pulled away.
“Senior... did we get out?”
“Yeah. We’re on our way back.”
“Why is this so norma...”
Myeong Haebin’s muttering stopped as her head slumped forward.
I hurriedly placed a hand beneath her nose, but fortunately, I felt her soft, steady breathing.
“Young people these days. Tsk.”
Through the taxi window, I spotted a barbecue restaurant that appeared to have just opened, with congratulatory flower wreaths lined up outside.
How strange.
I had disposed of all my guilt, so why did one corner of my chest feel so hollow?
What happened after that?
We returned to the company, where I happened to encounter Team Leader Yong and handed Myeong Haebin over to him. Then I returned to the dormitory and—
“Ah.”
I vaguely remembered somehow managing to shower before collapsing.
I was fairly certain they had said that the dormitory bed functioned somewhat like a respawn point, yet I was still incredibly tired and hungry.
I patted the shoulder where the burn marks had disappeared, then pulled my still-slightly-swollen foot closer.
Yesterday, it had been a complete mess—covered in blisters, with the skin peeled back and scabbed with blood. Now, not a single trace remained.
What’s this?
A card rested on the desk beside my bed.
[The submitted relic, the Untearable Garbage Bag, has been verified.
As this relic has become a valuable resource for Headquarters, one point has been added to Kim Hanmu’s Achievement Record.]
“A relic?”
The Untearable Garbage Bag must have been the bag we had assembled to capture the monster.
I had thought it seemed unusually sturdy amid all that chaos. Apparently, it hadn’t been because of Tool Enhancement.
I had no memory of submitting it, so Myeong Haebin must have submitted the leftover material after we finished making the giant bag.
Bzzzt—
Just then, my phone sent me an alert.
[ ]’s Notification
You may expend your completion reward to update the [Dictionary] feature. Do you permit the update?
The completion reward...
That must refer to my two questions.
Wait. Wouldn’t a dictionary be more valuable than two questions?
A dictionary was ordinarily used to look up things you didn’t know.
There was no reason to refuse.
[The update has been completed.]
When I pressed [Y], a new tab immediately opened.
[Dictionary]
: Enter a search term. |
I entered “relic” into the search box where the cursor was blinking, and a result appeared.
[Relic]
A tool/object discovered within a “ghost story.” It possesses an effect that an ordinary tool/object cannot have. Some claim that relics have a tendency to attract “ghost stories.”
Synonym: Item
Items existed in the world where I used to live?
That was genuinely shocking.
After testing several more things, I discovered that the Dictionary would not accept questions written as sentences.
It accepted only individual terms.
It had its restrictions, but its usefulness would depend on how I used it.
“Yawn...”
Despite not feeling any less tired, I left my room with my eyes half closed.
When I opened the communal kitchen’s refrigerator, I found a bottle of cola shoved among various instant foods.
It probably belonged to my roommate, but...
I’ll apologize later. Or replace it before he notices.
I was too thirsty to care about the consequences, so I decided to worry about them later and gulped it down.
“Why are all the lights off?”
Had he already gone to work?
I switched on the living-room light and picked up the snack wrappers that, as always, had been scattered everywhere.
I needed to give him a piece of my mind when I saw him.
With that thought, I turned on my phone—and noticed the strange time.
[June 15, 00:42]
It wasn’t morning, but the middle of the night?
More importantly, the date was wrong.
I had slept for three whole days.
Should I go to the company tomorrow? No. I should at least go out and check.
I didn’t necessarily need to leave, but I was starving after going several days without food.
A company that assigned night shifts would surely keep its cafeteria open. More than anything, my stomach had shriveled until it felt glued to my spine.
I can also check whether Myeong Haebin is doing all right...
Knock, knock.
As I slipped my feet into my ragged shoes, someone knocked on the dormitory’s front door.
“Senior, Senior, are you in there? Are you?”
It was Myeong Haebin.
It seemed Team Leader Yong had put her to bed in time.
“I’m coming out. Give me a moment.”
“Can I come in? Can I?”
Why was she saying everything twice?
Was it urgent enough for her to rush me?
I stopped trying to untangle my ruined shoelaces and reached for the doorknob.
“I said I’m coming out. Or you can just come—”
I had been about to tell her to come inside and wait.
“You fucking lunatic!”
“Urk!”
Someone seized the back of my neck and hurled me backward.
The impact knocked the breath from my lungs and made me cough.
“Cough, cough...”
“You crazy bastard! Who are you trying to get killed by opening the door at this hour?!”
A short-haired guy who looked more like a boy than a man angrily switched off the living-room light.
“Senior, Senior. Can I come in? Can I come in? Can I come in? Can I come in? Can I come in? Can I come in?”
Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
The deeply unnatural sound of fingernails scraping across the door seeped inside.
Only then did I snap fully awake.
Whatever stood outside the door was not Myeong Haebin.
“...What is that?”
The guy who had thrown me glared as though he wanted to strangle me and mimed zipping his lips shut.
I closed my mouth.
He was the one who had shouted, though.
We waited in silence. The screeching sound from outside, like fingernails scraping against sheet metal, gradually receded.
The guy silently approached the entrance and pressed his ear against the door.
Only then did he appear relieved. He glared at me with his mouth firmly shut, revealing a protruding canine.
“I wrote you a fucking kind warning and even stuck it to your door.”
“What warning?”
A grubby sheet of paper was attached beside my bedroom door, where he was pointing.
[Warning: The Day Guests Come]
- Do not turn on the lights between 11:00 p.m. on the 14th and 1:00 a.m. on the 15th. (Do just this, and you’re already halfway safe.)
- If you turn on the lights, a guest will come. Do NOT answer. (Easy as long as you keep your mouth shut.)
- If you answer, never open the door or invite the guest inside.
- If you break that rule too, consider it death by natural causes. (Even if the guest doesn’t kill you, I will.)
“‘The Day Guests Come’...?”
Had that thing outside been a guest?
But this was the company.
Aberrations wandered around inside the company?
If he knew enough to post a warning in advance, it must have been something only I, as a newcomer, didn’t know.
But why had he stuck it out here? How was I supposed to see it if it was outside my room rather than inside?
“Why did you put this here? I didn’t see it.”
“Because I’m not supposed to enter someone else’s room!”
Was he insane?
Entering someone’s room was forbidden, but throwing its occupant across the living room was fine?
I was grateful that he had saved me, but he didn’t seem remotely sane.
I stared at the boy as he folded his arms and glared back resentfully.
“You’re Kang Dochae, aren’t you?”
“If you already know, why ask?”
He was my roommate and the main culprit responsible for trashing our communal space.
He had been nowhere to be found whenever I looked for him, yet today, there he was.
“Why are you speaking so casually to me?”
Between his schoolboy haircut and small build, he was obviously a minor. A high school senior at best.
Did this company employ minors too?
Kang Dochae proudly puffed out his chest and pointed to himself.
“Because I am the Tiger of the Dismantling Team.”
I had asked why he was speaking casually, and he responded by introducing his affiliation.
In that case, I could do the same.
“I’m with the Cleaning Team. Why are you speaking casually to me?”
“I just told you—I’m a Tiger! And you’re only a cleaner. If you don’t like it, talk casually to me too!”
I had heard about Tigers.
If I remembered correctly, even the Dogs on Team Leader Yong’s side had to defer to them.
“I don’t know what makes you so special, but fine. Casual speech sounds good.”
As his roommate, I had plenty to say to him.
“You know perfectly well that you shouldn’t enter someone else’s room, yet you turn the communal area into a complete pigsty? You must have known I was here if you wrote that warning. Are you even aware that this is shared accommodation? I cleaned it once without complaining, so at least today you should—”
“You clean it for me.”
Kang Dochae cut off my lecture and ostentatiously picked his ear, as though he saw no problem whatsoever.
“...What did you say?”
What had he just said?
Surely I had misheard him.
“Isn’t that why you joined the company? Cleaner. Honestly, I don’t even understand why they put you in the same room as me. Hmph. You should be grateful that I’m giving you work.”
Ring-ring. Ring-ring.
“Looks like time’s up. I’m leaving.”
The clock alarm sounded the instant it became one, and Kang Dochae swept out of the dormitory like the wind.
He left behind the garbage in the communal living room—and me clutching the back of my neck.
What the hell was wrong with that bastard?
More importantly, hadn’t he just left his room carrying a... sword?
“I’m asking for a room change.”
Whether I had to corner Myeong Haebin, shake down Team Leader Yong, or find someone in another department who handled administrative work, I had to leave this room as soon as possible.
What exactly had “The Day Guests Come” been about again?
The whole thing had swept past while I was still too dumbfounded to properly process it.
Actually, I didn’t need to ask Kang Dochae.
I had my reliable Dictionary.
: The Day Guests Come |
I wasn’t sure whether it would recognize an entire phrase, but a result appeared.
[The Day Guests Come]
One of the incidents/accidents that occur at Daecheonmyeong. On the final night of every lunar month, a guest who must not be admitted is said to wander the dormitory.
One of its incidents and accidents? Doesn’t that mean there are more things like this?
Considering that the company itself was deeply entangled with ghost stories, it wasn’t that strange.
But how was I supposed to live here without constantly fearing for my life?
I wasn’t even sure whether it was truly safe to leave now.
After wavering between hunger and fear, I eventually surrendered to hunger and stepped outside the dormitory.
“...Hmm.”
The outside of the door was in a horrific state.
Dozens of pale fingernail marks scarred the entrance, with deep scratches extending along the wall.
Now it truly felt as though I had nearly died.
If not for Kang Dochae, I probably would have come face-to-face with that guest...
So why didn’t I feel grateful?
Perhaps he had simply made such a terrible first impression that I already despised him.
I decided to head to the cafeteria.
As expected of a company that operated night shifts, the brightly lit cafeteria appeared to be open twenty-four hours a day.
“This could put most major corporations to shame.”
I couldn’t believe I had been eating spicy pork at Gimbap Heaven when a place like this was available.
It was a buffet divided into Korean, Western, and Chinese food sections, and there was even an ordinary convenience store off to one side.
After all that talk about the Day Guests Come, there are quite a few people here.
I hadn’t stayed in my room for very long, yet employees were already seated here and there.
I piled my tray so high at the Korean food section that it nearly overflowed, then sat down.
Another tray slid into the seat across from mine.
“Wow, you eat a lot. Can you really finish all that?”