Chapter 75
Chapter 75
Translator: Penny
Chapter 75
"The door won't open," Seo Yehyeon muttered, trying to open the door on a sunny morning. He'd been feeling stiff and wanted to go for a walk.
Seeing the door stuck, I felt a familiar sense of dread, like when we were trapped in the dorm.
I immediately rushed to the window and peered outside. Thick layers of snow had piled up.
Unable to gauge the depth, I decided to go out and check myself.
Though the window was low, thankfully the snow hadn't reached it like during our previous isolation, so I didn't need to dig my way out.
"Hey, youngest member! Bring me my padded jacket!" I shouted.
Ryu Jaehee, hearing my call, grabbed my jacket from the sofa and handed it to me, asking, "Are you going outside?"
"Yeah, I want to see how much snow has fallen."
As I climbed out the window, my feet sank deep into the snow. The blizzard obscured my vision.
"Wow, the snow's up to two-thirds of my calves! Can the car even get through?"
With this much snow piled up, it was no wonder the front door wouldn't open.
I quickly brushed the snow off my head and shoulders and collapsed in front of the heater. Just then, the PD from My Idol Observation Camera called.
"Huh? Why isn't the internet working?"
"Maybe the Wi-Fi's down? Use your data."
"My data's not working either?"
"Try turning your phone off and on, Hyung. Wait, mine's not working either? What's going on? Hajun Hyung! The internet's down!"
To escape the noisy Maknae Line, I retreated to the shaman-themed room.
The room's atmosphere remained eerie, but it was nothing compared to the conversation I was having.
"Yes, I'll relay that to the members. Okay."
After ending the call with the PD, I sighed and stepped out of the room to gather the members.
"Guys, gather around. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"
"The bad news," Kim Dobin blurted out immediately. Isn't it customary to hear the good news first?
"The snow's piled up so high that the car can't get through. It's still snowing too heavily for snow removal until tomorrow at the earliest."
"What about walking down?"
"Do you even know the way?"
Kim Dobin, who had been sound asleep in the car on the way up to the pension, couldn't possibly know the way. Besides, the path was buried under the snow.
"What's the good news?"
"The battery in that creepy sound recorder is about to die and shut off."
"That's it?"
"Yeah, that's all."
A solemn atmosphere settled over the room.
"We have to stay another day in this haunted house...?"
Kim Dobin muttered, clutching his head and trembling as he jabbed a finger at the shaman-themed room.
"This is the lodge's curse! The curse of Haunted Mountain Lodge!"
"You're spouting nonsense again."
Clicking his tongue, he calmed the panic-stricken Kim Dobin.
"Hey, we already checked all the rooms yesterday, so it's not that scary today. Plus, we're not even sleeping in that room—we're all sleeping together in the living room. What's there to be afraid of?"
"But Jaehee and Yehyeon Hyung both got sleep paralysis at the same time yesterday! They both saw the same ghost! This is definitely not a coincidence, I tell you!"
Yeah, they did say they saw the same ghost. The same long-haired ghost. As if there's only one long-haired ghost in the world! Huh?
"So, Dobin, why don't you go outside and build an igloo out of snow to sleep in?"
Even though I said it through gritted teeth, Kim Dobin seemed to take it seriously, nodding with a sincere look in his eyes.
"That's not a bad idea. If we all work together, we could build one big enough for all five of us."
I'm going to lose my mind.
In this already insane situation, I was contemplating whether to verbally tear into this guy for saying such infuriating things, hoping it would relieve some of my frustration. Just then, the quick-witted Ryu Jaehee pulled Kim Dobin out of my sight.
"There's a slim chance the electricity and gas might get cut off, so they told us to light the fireplace."
"They said there's firewood in the shed behind the pension. Should I go get it now before the blizzard gets worse?"
"Let's go together."
I stopped Seo Yehyeon, who was getting up to go outside alone, and went to Gyeon Hajun in the kitchen.
"Jun-a, the power's still on, right?"
"Yeah, the induction stove is still working."
"Then let's cook anything that needs fire now. If necessary, we can warm it up on the fireplace later."
I left the cooking to Gyeon Hajun and approached Seo Yehyeon, who was bundling up in his outerwear. I grabbed my padded jacket.
"Hyung, did you say there was a snow shovel behind the pension yesterday?"
"Yeah, he said it was leaning against the wall."
"We should dig a path through the snow to the storage shed. It'll make it easier to carry firewood back and forth. We don't know when we'll need to restock."
I gestured for the Maknae Line, who were sitting around listlessly, to follow me.
The front door remained locked, so they climbed out through the window.
Four of them—excluding Gyeon Hajun, who was preparing the meal—grabbed snow shovels and began digging a path toward the storage shed.
Since Ryu Jaehee was filming with a camcorder, the actual digging was done by only three people.
"Wow, it seems like everyone's gotten a bit used to shoveling after that one time before, huh?"
"I don't want to get used to this..." Seo Yehyeon replied weakly, scooping snow with his shovel.
Still, with three of them working together, they managed to clear a rough path to the storage shed.
The shed wasn't too far from the pension, which helped speed things up.
When they opened the shed door, the first thing they saw was a massive pile of firewood stacked in one corner. It was a relief they wouldn't need to chop any wood.
While Seo Yehyeon immediately approached the woodpile and began gathering firewood, Ryu Jaehee scurried around the storage shed and emerged with a torch in hand.
"Hyung, should we take the torch too?"
"Of course. No one has a lighter."
If I were still smoking, I'd have one, but I quit.
"There's a portable burner here too. Let's grab it in case the power goes out. Don't forget the butane gas."
After gathering everything that seemed necessary from the shed, we returned to the pension.
We tossed the firewood through the window and, since I already had the shovel, I cleared the snow in front of the main entrance.
"Hyung, have you ever been stranded before? How are you so good at this?"
"Because I don't trust you guys to handle it."
Gripping the front door, I shook it roughly as I retorted. With a sharp tug, the door creaked open.
"Why won't this wood catch fire? It's just getting charred..."
"If we keep at it, it'll ignite eventually, right?"
Just in case, I grabbed a few extra logs from the shed and stacked them by the fireplace. Then I settled in to watch Seo Yehyeon and Kim Dobin, the least reliable duo, put on their chaotic fire-starting show.
After a long struggle with the torch and logs, they somehow managed to get the fireplace lit.
"Time to eat!" Gyeon Hajun called out.
We stopped watching and headed to the dining table, where Ryu Jaehee had already finished setting everything up.
The meal consisted of grilled Spam, fried eggs, kimchi, microwaved instant rice, canned tuna, and golden-brown shrimp dumplings.
"It's so lucky we bought that bulk pack of instant rice. We almost had to eat without rice today."
We had originally planned to stay at the pension for just one night and leave in the morning, so we only bought enough groceries for one meal. But while sneaking extra snacks past Seo Yehyeon's watchful eyes, we unintentionally ended up with enough food for an entire day.
Yesterday's unexpected haunted house visit and everyone sleeping in the living room made it impossible to sneak any late-night snacks. This double whammy turned out to be a stroke of divine luck.
If we had eaten those snacks, we would have been woefully short on food for today.
"When did you buy the Spam?"
"Come on, Yehyeon Hyung. Let's not sweat the small stuff. If I hadn't secretly added it, we wouldn't be able to eat like this right now."
After finishing a late lunch, I slumped onto the sofa and checked my phone's data connection.
My phone was also without internet.
No internet meant...
I'm screwed.
Completing the Weekly Quest was impossible. Yesterday, I'd skipped it while engrossed in exploring the haunted house, and skipping it again today would automatically trigger the penalty.
To make matters worse, the Weekly Quest deadline was tomorrow at midnight.
I'd already used my One Chance penalty waiver during a busy week working on my music, leaving me with only two options:
Accept the penalty quietly, or burn through all my accumulated Random Tickets and Item Selection Tickets to try and pull a Penalty Exemption Ticket.
The latter option meant it was game over if a Penalty Exemption Ticket didn't appear.
Wait a minute, though. This is an emergency situation caused by a natural disaster. Shouldn't the System show some discretion and grant us some leeway?
The System remained stubbornly silent. By now, I was used to it and didn't even get angry anymore.
Whatever the penalty was, I just hoped it wouldn't involve vomiting blood. We couldn't even get to a hospital emergency room right now.
As the sun set and darkness fell, the five of us huddled around the fireplace, wrapped in blankets.
"Hello, this is Dobin, back with Season 2 of our 'Stranded' special! We're currently trapped in the Haunted Mountain Lodge—or rather, Haunted Mountain Lodge—due to the heavy snowfall. This time, it's a real-life survival situation!"
I asked Kim Dobin, who was enthusiastically ranting into the camcorder, "Why are you filming this now? Why not this morning?"
"Come on, you know these things have to be filmed in the dark, with the atmosphere just right, to create a sense of urgency."
Even after his explanation, I still didn't understand. He really had a unique way of thinking.
"Doesn't this feel like we're at a campfire?" Seo Yehyeon chuckled, warming her hands by the fire.
"I don't know about a campfire, but it definitely feels like a scene from a survival thriller or horror movie. Imagine, we're sitting here, and suddenly a ghost or a murderer appears at the lodge—"
"Do you really want to say that in a place plastered with ghost photos and amulets?"
"Ah, Kim Dobin, stop it!"
After scolding Kim Dobin for his pointless chatter, I turned to Ryu Jaehee, who had let out a sharp cry.
"Jaehee, what's wrong?" Gyeon Hajun asked calmly, while everyone else stared at Ryu Jaehee with bewildered expressions.
Ryu Jaehee replied with a tearful face, "Last night, when I was paralyzed by sleep paralysis, a long-haired ghost crawled out of that room, crawled over us, and tried to strangle me! Yehyeon Hyung had the same dream, and I'm scared to death, but Dobin Hyung keeps talking about ghosts...!"
The room Ryu Jaehee was pointing at was the one I had chosen—the one with the ghost mannequin that suddenly pops out of the closet.
"That's probably just a nightmare conjured up by your spectacular and vivid imagination."
"Is it really a coincidence that two people had the exact same nightmare?"
"You're the one stirring up fear here, you little brat."
Before the maknae line members could start sulking at each other, I hastily made them apologize and got them ready for bed.
Having barely slept the night before and endured a day of grueling physical labor, I was utterly exhausted.
As the grandfather clock chimed midnight, the System—a heartless, bloodless, and tearless loan shark—inevitably began its calculations.
☀ Commencing Weekly Quest settlement.
⚠ Less than three Weekly Quests completed. Random penalties will be applied.
📝 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