Chapter 74
Chapter 74
Translator: Penny
Chapter 74
The moment the door swung open, a large, elongated doll covered in white cloth sprang out, dangling from a rope and swaying eerily.
If it had been just a doll covered in white cloth, it wouldn't have been so bad. But the problem was the eyes and mouth, horrifically drawn with smudged ink, giving it a nightmarish appearance.
A pre-warned scare wouldn't have been frightening, but this sudden horror, encountered when they were expecting rest, startled them.
The timing couldn't have been worse, as the room was growing darker, maximizing the effect.
Kim Dobin, the most easily frightened of the five, had already clung to Gyeon Hajun's back, emitting unintelligible whimpers.
With the snow falling harder, they hurried inside the dorm.
They fumbled for the lights and switched them on, but the room remained dimly lit, as if the fixtures themselves were too weak to brighten the space properly.
"Aaaah!"
Kim Dobin's scream sent me rushing over. He was pointing a trembling finger at the framed pictures hanging on the wall.
The old frames, hung like windows, displayed ghostly paintings and photographs of spirits poised as if about to leap out of their frames.
"Ah, come on. If these were actual windows, I'd understand the scream. But what's scary about photos and paintings? It's clearly just staged to create a spooky atmosphere."
"Waaah, don't say that! It's terrifying!"
"Tch, you scaredy-cat."
Clicking my tongue, I scanned the lodge.
Setting aside the eerie atmosphere, the ghostly paintings on the walls and the yellow talismans plastered everywhere made the place feel more like a haunted house than a lodge.
The bizarre Japanese dolls and unidentified shamanistic artifacts occupying the display case felt more like a deliberate ploy than genuinely frightening.
Their blatant placement seemed to diminish the fear, as if the attempt to scare us was too obvious.
This, however, appeared to be my own perception. Seo Yehyeon, who had sidled up to examine the display case, immediately turned his back and moved away.
Is the fireplace just for show, or what?
After being shown the storage shed behind the lodge, I received the camcorder.
Seeing the firewood stacked in the shed, I concluded the fireplace wasn't just for decoration.
"Contact us immediately if anything happens," the staff said as they withdrew, leaving us alone in this Haunted Mountain Lodge—or haunted house—with the camcorder and the cameras installed throughout the lodge.
We were essentially told to film our own "haunted house experience" to create content.
Well, having the staff around would constantly remind them they were on camera, making it less scary.
"Aaaaaah! Hyungggs!"
Kim Dobin's thunderous scream echoed through the house again.
Rushing over, we found a dismembered mannequin stuffed inside the refrigerator.
"Hey, it's clearly just a mannequin. What's there to be scared of?"
With a dismissive wave, I pulled the mannequin pieces out of the fridge and replaced them with the groceries we'd bought.
Before I knew it, Kim Dobin had latched onto my back like a leech.
"These talismans are creepy. Can't we just tear them off?"
"Dobin Hyung, do you even know what those are? What if they're real talismans?"
Ryu Jaehee, the second-biggest scaredy-cat, stopped Kim Dobin from ripping off the talismans plastered all over the walls.
"Hey, hasn't the sobbing stopped...?"
"There's probably a hidden recorder somewhere."
Terrified, Kim Dobin glanced around nervously and gripped my arm tightly. I asked him, "Dobin, didn't you mention wanting to do a haunted house video before?"
"That would only take thirty minutes! This isn't about spending the night in a real haunted house!"
"I don't understand why you're so scared. It's not even a real haunted house—we just rented a pension for filming."
"I don't understand how you can be so calm about this, Hyung..."
The mountain lodge had four rooms.
Kim Dobin and Ryu Jaehee insisted they couldn't sleep alone, so we put them in the same room. Gyeon Hajun, Seo Yehyeon, and I each took a separate room.
According to the production team, there was one large room and three smaller ones. We willingly conceded the large room to the Maknae Line.
We hadn't checked the rooms yet, but it was highly likely they were decorated like a haunted house.
The Maknae Line kept whining about how they were too scared to enter the rooms, convinced something was lurking inside. So, we all grabbed camcorders and decided to explore each room together.
I chose the first room.
"Huh, the room's pretty ordinary."
"No way! If you open this drawer, there's definitely... AAAH! See? I told you! Waaah, get this off me! What is this?! What is this?!"
The moment Kim Dobin opened the closet, something lunged out and covered his face.
Nearly fainting from the long, stiff hair that had enveloped his face, Kim Dobin was terrified.
The culprit turned out to be a mannequin dressed in a white mourning robe, its long-haired wig placed upside down.
After righting the mannequin and closing the closet, Ryu Jaehee turned to me, his face pale, and asked, "Hyung, can you really sleep here?"
"As long as I can't see it, I'm good."
"What if the mannequin suddenly opens the closet, jumps out, and starts strangling you in your sleep?"
"Wow, Jaehee, you should be a writer."
Just in case, I opened the shelf next to the bed and found a bloodstained kitchen knife and a rusty pair of old scissors. At first, I couldn't figure out why they were there.
"Now, when Hyung falls asleep, the mannequin ghost will open the closet, come out with a kitchen knife in one hand and scissors in the other, and stare down at him from beside the bed."
Listening to Ryu Jaehee's rapid-fire, trembling explanation, I immediately understood why he'd put those props there.
So, it's possible to create terror with just two props.
"Hey... do you hear that ticking sound? There's no clock here, but I keep hearing it."
"Oh, ASMR."
"Wow, this Hyung's mental fortitude is something else..."
There must be a recording device hidden somewhere, but I couldn't be bothered to look for it. It wasn't like the sound of fingernails scratching metal—just a ticking clock.
Anyway, my room had the classic closet-lurking virgin ghost. Next up was Gyeon Hajun's room...
"This looks like some kind of murder scene concept?"
A crime scene preservation line and bloodstains painted on the floor, police tape surrounding the bed, and what looked like splattered blood on the blanket.
A faceless, life-sized rag doll slumped on the piano bench, its head pressed against the keys as if dead.
Blood smeared across the piano keys and pooled on the floor beneath the bench.
Of course, it was almost certainly just paint, not real blood.
The moment Kim Dobin lifted the blanket and saw the paint-soaked rag doll, he recoiled in horror and collapsed to the floor.
Ryu Jaehee fled, claiming he couldn't bear to look, only to return moments later, terrified of being alone in the living room.
"I can't sleep here," Gyeon Hajun declared, surrendering without a fight.
Surprisingly, the next room Seo Yehyeon chose turned out to be perfectly normal.
"Looks like I finally picked a decent room," Seo Yehyeon said, flopping onto the bed. He soon began silently flailing and pointing wildly at the ceiling.
My gaze followed his pointing finger to the ceiling, where a photo of a grinning ghost was plastered right above the bed.
It was positioned perfectly to meet my eyes the moment I lay down.
"Come to think of it, there's a talisman under the pillow... It's actually there."
I lifted the pillow slightly to reveal a neatly arranged talisman beneath it. Seo Yehyeon declared his defeat.
"I can't sleep here either."
"You won't see it if you close your eyes anyway."
"Then... can we switch rooms? No, seriously, if you don't mind it, please switch with me."
Seo Yehyeon clung to me, pointing at the ceiling with a deathly pale face.
But I had no desire to wake up and immediately exchange glances with a ghost photo, so I firmly refused.
So far, only one of the three rooms had been deemed suitable for sleeping.
Finally, we opened the door to the last room.
"Wow, this place really looks like it's haunted. If we sleep here, we'll definitely get sleep paralysis. Even I'm a little scared here."
"Can't we just leave? Can't we just get out of here?"
I shook my head at the sight—it was like someone had moved an entire shaman's shrine into the room.
Was this some kind of movie set? They've made it look incredibly realistic.
There wasn't even a bed here, just a thick mattress on the floor.
"So that's where the incense smell was coming from."
The incense sticks burned slowly in the burner.
I slowly examined the mock ritual offerings and straw dolls arranged on the altar.
They looked recently placed, with no dust on them.
If they were dusty, it would have been even scarier. What a shame. Of course, the two scaredy-cats who had to sleep in this room were already freaking out at this level of spookiness.
Gazing at the faded tangka paintings that covered the walls, I seriously wondered if they really belonged in a place like this.
If my room ticked with the sound of a clock, this place jingled with the sound of bells.
Ryu Jaehee, who was more terrified of this kind of creeping dread than jump scares, urgently pushed us out, insisting we leave immediately.
Afraid we'd actually get haunted if we stayed any longer, we hurried out.
"So... the only room we can actually sleep in is the one Eden Hyung chose?"
"Honestly, even that room isn't exactly cozy, but the other rooms are so unbearable we can't even consider them."
"But isn't that room too small for all five of us? It only has a single bed."
"What choice do we have? We'll just grab blankets and sleep together in the living room."
After everyone threw a fit about not wanting to go into that room, I ended up carrying the blankets out of the shaman-themed room.
Wow, there are so many ways to exploit your Hyung.
"Wow, we didn't even need to worry about content."
Just filming the cowards' reactions as we went from room to room was enough for a whole episode.
It seemed like they had planned this night at the Haunted Mountain Lodge in advance, anticipating that the winter sea content would be boring.
As expected, the talents from top universities are on a different level.
"...I can't sleep," Ryu Jaehee muttered, staring blankly at the ceiling.
"Well, how about we take turns telling ghost stories?"
"That'll just make it harder to sleep. And they say ghosts listen in when you talk about them," Ryu Jaehee retorted.
Kim Dobin, who had buried himself under the blanket at Ryu Jaehee's words, mumbled, "Don't say things like that!"
"But the living room's scary too. What are we supposed to do?"
"Then we'll just have to sleep outside. What else can we do?"
Desperately avoiding the display cabinet, Seo Yehyeon walked to the window and peered outside, his face grave.
"This snow is no joke. Are we going to get stranded here like we did at the resort on the first day of our vacation?"
"At least that was in the city. If we get stranded here, there's no way out—"
The majestic chime of a grandfather clock cut him off.
It was the first time I'd ever seen a real, working grandfather clock.
Kim Dobin, who was closest to the clock, threw a fit, demanding to switch places, convinced a ghost would emerge from it.
Later that night, Seo Yehyeon and Ryu Jaehee were simultaneously struck by sleep paralysis. Their screams woke everyone, and we spent the rest of the night tearing apart the living room, desperately searching for the source of the sobbing we kept hearing.
By the time the sun finally rose, the hopeless situation we'd joked about the night before had become our reality.
📝 Translator’s Note:
You may notice that certain lines or phrases in this novel appear both in their original Korean (or Hanja) form and in English translation.
This is intentional — these phrases are classical idioms, divine titles, or poetic expressions that carry layered meanings.
To preserve their original tone and authenticity, the raw text has been kept for reference, while the English interpretation is provided right before or after it. This helps convey both the literal and cultural nuance of the original work.
but if you guys dont want tha raw for future chapters or my future other novels u can just text me on discord and say so discord name Mr.Penny