Chapter 152
Chapter 152
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 152
Chapter Title: Gotta Go to Work Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story
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The beginning of the X-mess traces back to when I showed up for work at the on-site cleanup unit.
Up until then, everything had been going smoothly.
"Alright, everyone, make your introductions. This is our newbie. Vermilion Bird agent."
A scholarly-looking middle-aged woman with a friendly face stepped forward to introduce me to Jang Heo-un, and we chatted as if we were meeting for the first time, exchanging agent names.
"Um, I'm Grape... N-Nice to meet you...!"
"...?! A-Ah, heh, yes...!"
For some reason, Jang Heo-un choked a bit once, but we got past it smoothly, and everyone exchanged greetings with smiles.
The team leader of the on-site cleanup unit's Vermilion Bird Squad 2 was chatting with the Bronze agent and seemed to have heard from him that I aspired to join their team, as snippets of related conversation drifted into my ears.
"Haha, my kid's still a newbie too. It'd be nice to have someone around the same age join the team."
"Yes. Looking forward to working with you."
Thank you, Bronze agent...!
I suppressed the urge to grin ear to ear and instead hunched my shoulders, pretending to be tense. Jang Heo-un glanced at me and quickly averted his gaze.
"Alright, the site we're entering today... Yeah, it's not too tough, so you two newbies should be perfect for it."
The team leader smiled and patted our shoulders.
"Conveniently, Black Tortoise Squad 1 just had Choi agent rescue some civilians from a horror. Oh, Black Tortoise Squad 1 is under Bronze agent—heard of them?"
"Yes...!"
I nearly got strong-armed into joining them...
Anyway, the Vermilion Bird Squad 2 team leader gave us a clean briefing on the supernatural disaster we'd be tackling today.
Complete with safety precautions, too.
"If it gets too much, just say so. Grape agent's senior is waiting outside."
"Thank you...!"
But that wouldn't happen.
I was determined to perfectly complete the cleanup unit's dispatch duties and handle the paperwork flawlessly...!
And besides.
'This is a familiar horror.'
No, familiar didn't even cover it—it was practically an old friend. GripTok working or not wouldn't matter.
'I spent all night spectating people argue over how to end this horror's exploration record.'
And it had ended in the rational way I thought best, so I dragged myself to work the next day on a dopamine high, which made it stick in my memory.
Of course, it was in the format of horror I feared most.
But the horror stuff was already over! No ghosts showing up!
In terms of cleanup, it was similar to the taxi last time, but way better since no supernatural entities popped out. It was literally just site cleanup...!
"Wearing this uniform puts my mind at ease."
Jang Heo-un spoke up brightly as he donned the white hazmat-like agent uniform issued for cleanup.
"It really does...!"
It covered me from head to toe, giving a sense of psychological security.
I replied with a bright smile, but for some reason, Jang Heo-un's expression turned ambiguous. Did I come off too friendly...?
"Alright, Vermilion Bird agent, let's go over the site briefing one more time."
"Yes!"
At the team leader's encouraging words, Jang Heo-un turned to me briskly.
"The supernatural disaster we're cleaning up today is located in Dobong-gu, with an estimated completion time of 3 hours. And its characteristics are as follows..."
A clear explanation followed.
"A payphone booth that tells scary stories."
Sunset in a quiet neighborhood in Seoul. It stands alone by a remote roadside.
An old payphone booth.
This rarity in modern Korea has a sky-blue ceiling.
Its exterior is a standard payphone booth produced in the 1980s—worn on the outside, but phone calls connect normally.
The walls are plastered with faded old phone number ad stickers from years past.
The ad stickers next to the phone are mostly for defunct businesses.
However, among them, dialing the number on the 12cm x 7cm ad sticker in deep red and yellow—"I'll Tell You a Scary Story"—plays a scary story related to the payphone booth.
(The number is 13 digits long; attempting to call from outside the booth with another device fails to connect.)
Booth users reported an intense urge to call upon spotting the sticker.
The supernatural disaster originates there.
And that scary story actually happens inside the booth.
This afternoon, the dispatch rescue squad extracted civilians caught in the horror from that very payphone booth.
So now, we just have to clean up the creepy "site" left in the horror's wake...
The current situation:
The booth was filled to the brim with bright red blood, overflowing messily outside.
"......"
"......"
Wow.
'I wanna run.'
But failure means a dismissal recommendation.
I swallowed hard.
"Let's go in."
"Y-Yes...!"
Jang Heo-un, also squeamish around blood, looked like he might faint, but as a fellow spy, he couldn't back down.
So we approached the creaking phone booth.
The handset dangled from its cord, swaying on the floor—and that's probably where the blood had poured from...
"I'll take photos...!"
"A-Ah... Yes!"
I raised the camera, centering the payphone booth and zooming in.
'...What's floating in the blood.'
Organs.
Chills ran down my spine.
'Please no.'
Th-Think. The civilians were rescued fine, so that's gotta be props or something. Yeah, just like entering a haunted house...
'Haunted houses are scary too!'
Anyway, tough it out!
I yelled at myself internally and barely finished the burst shots before lowering the camera. Beside me, Jang Heo-un stiffly approached the booth, opened the door, and inserted the "Liquid Swallower."
The on-site cleanup unit's specialized equipment, shaped like an industrial vacuum, sucked up the blood steadily.
However, due to the inlet size limit, anything larger had to be collected manually.
"......"
"A-Are you... alright?"
"Y-Yes... It's covered... all over..."
Direct contact without the suit would be a nightmare.
Fortunately, Jang Heo-un hadn't fainted, so together we entered the booth and started cleaning.
This fucking...
Suppressing curses, I grabbed entrails and round organs, dumping them into the collection bin.
No life-threatening danger meant my mind was clear, letting me fully savor the horror in HD.
I can't take this anymore...!
'Save me.'
Physiological revulsion made me squeeze my eyes shut a few times.
Watching me, Jang Heo-un paled but admired.
"You're... really acting like—no, you seem like a proper newbie...!"
"......"
"Ah, g-good meaning."
"...Thanks."
Not acting...
Biting back words I couldn't say, I continued the mechanical cleanup swiftly. Ngh.
Thankfully, the blood inside the booth drained easily.
And thanks to the protective effects of our hazmat-like uniforms, things progressed more calmly than when I'd first seen this insane state.
'Don't look too closely.'
I tried not to think about having to count the organs later, cleaning the horror filth spotless.
Next, spray the purifier...
Next...
"Huh?"
"What?"
"What comes next...?"
Oh. Did I mutter my thoughts aloud from tension...?
Next thi...
"......"
"......"
We slowly turned our heads.
The phone handset, sunk in the blood, emerged as the vacuum sucked it away.
Congealed blood dripped off it—
Drip. Drip.
Revealing.
A clean speaker.
Thud.
The booth door slammed shut.
"...!!"
We reflexively backed away from the phone.
The characteristic static and mechanical buzz of an auto-playing recording emanated from the handset.
"The phone... it's still connected...!"
Beep.
A short electronic tone.
...One of the number buttons on the payphone body depressed on its own.
Second row, first button.
4.
Ring ring ring!
I lunged for the phone.
Frantically mashing the hang-up button, I yelled into the receiver.
"It's March 7th, 202X right now. There are no payphone booths in Dobong-gu. Isn't that scary?"
"I've already heard the next scary story!"
The call cut off.
'Now...!'
"Agent, this!!"
I nearly called Jang Heo-un by his real name as I grabbed the payphone body with both hands and hoisted it into the air.
"...?! Wh-What,"
"Get back!"
And hurled the whole thing at the glass booth door.
"...!!"
Crash!!
The booth door shattered, the payphone tumbling onto the sidewalk. With each roll, it broke apart more, emitting eerie recorded screams, button beeps, and dial tones mixed together until...
It vanished, leaving only black ash.
"...Hah."
"H-Huuuuuh...!"
Jang Heo-un and I collapsed.
Sometime during, the glass booth we'd entered had vanished too. The surroundings were wide open, and the bin where we'd collected blood-soaked organs was spotlessly empty.
Only the vacuum's roar sucking empty air echoed loudly...
'Huuuuuh...'
'That scared me.'
I nearly ended up in a gruesome mess.
Good thing this horror's resolution wasn't too hard.
'By letting it know I've already experienced a payphone-related horror, creating a contradiction, then ripping out and tossing the phone body outside...'
The "scary story" only works inside the booth, so it naturally dissipates.
A supernatural disaster resolution where the horror devours itself.
'I personally liked this method, but actually using it myself is wild...'
"Grape agent!!"
I heard the senior agent on standby rushing over.
The booth vanishing suddenly must've shocked them. Yeah, Bronze agent, I escaped safely...
"......"
Wait a sec.
There was a senior agent waiting outside anyway.
'So couldn't I have just waited it out...?'
And besides.
'Instead of cleaning the site, I straight-up erased the site...?'
I looked up.
The arriving Bronze agent stared at us in astonishment.
"......"
"......"
"You... just smashed the payphone booth?"
Ah.
"UHAHAHAHA!!"
"......"
"Not cleanup—destruction! Destruction King Newbie! Grape agent!"
Choi agent, who'd been laughing maniacally, gave a thumbs up.
"Yes! Ending the supernatural disaster is true cleanup! Good job, junior!"
I wanna smack him once.
'Ha.'
I pressed down my right hand as it tried to thumbs-up again, swallowing a deep sigh and my irritation.
...After I smashed the booth, I recall the Vermilion Bird Squad 2 team leader's awkward voice while talking to Bronze agent...
-Impressive, but... it could've been dangerous. Maybe a calmer agent would suit our team better.
-......
Obviously, I couldn't say, "It was a resolution I'd seen in the Darkness Exploration Records, so totally safe..." even if my mouth split open.
In the end, my actions were interpreted as a timid newbie, in a slight delirium, boldly and riskily acting on instinct and inspiration.
And luckily, it worked!
Of course, terminating the supernatural disaster itself was astonishing, so the ability got recognized...
......But the evaluation concluded like this.
-Yeah, that newbie agent fits perfectly in Bronze agent's team! Dispatch Rescue Squad!
Kughhh.
...I saw Jang Heo-un fidgeting behind me, his expression shifting to "Yeah, Supervisor Deer suits somewhere else better" territory. Thought I was going nuts.
'...I could've at least done the paperwork well!'
The site vanished entirely, nothing left to clean.
And with the horror fully resolved, I went from paperwork handler to paperwork subject.
...Just got grilled for data collection testimony by the Vermilion Bird Squad 2 team leader...
"......"
"Kh-hm, but you got face time with that team's newbie. Knowing people in other teams makes it easier. Good for casual favors."
So why am I meeting Choi agent now.
"Oops! Sorry. Team not set yet. I jumped the gun~ ...But you're working with us today."
Yeah. My next assignment was set.
...As a newbie agent, I'm experiencing various squads' duties indiscriminately for 3 weeks.
Which means...
"Welcome back to Black Tortoise Squad 1!"
Dispatch Rescue Squad duties? Again.
And apparently, HR found it convincingly fitting to assign me one more rescue mission because of what I did.
'Bronze agent...'
He tried to shield me, but newbies gotta do it anyway...
"Man~ Some juniors have it good. Working in the perfect squad for their aptitude today~"
"......"
Choi agent grinned, rubbing his hands.
"Today, junior~ You're doing a fulfilling three-man routine rescue mission!"
Save me.