Chapter 198
Chapter 198
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 198
Chapter Title: Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story, I Have to Go to Work
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The villagers were swarming in.
The shout from the guy with the megaphone grew louder and louder, and before long, the singing and gong sounds surged back to life with ferocious intensity.
A whirlpool of people.
"This way!"
I followed the bronze agent into the crowd to hide from the villagers, but it wasn't enough.
"Whoa, jackpot."
"Is that the guy who gets the golden rooster?"
Whispers from people who still hadn't grasped the situation, villagers charging toward me without a care in the world, people prostrating on the ground and praying toward the mountain, and Baek Saheon vanishing into the midst of it all.
And...
"Run."
I grabbed the bronze agent, who was shoving me and Deputy Manager Eun Ha-je backward while trying to confront the villagers head-on.
"Calm down. At this point, the odds of me getting out 'safely' are slim anyway."
"...!"
"And it was definitely in the rulebook."
I met his eyes.
"How to act in a situation like this."
"Go."
"...".
"Figure out a way to rescue me quickly and come back. That's my only chance to live."
I could see the fierce internal struggle in the bronze agent's eyes. The tug-of-war between emotion and rational judgment.
But soon, reason won out.
"Tomorrow."
"...".
"I'll definitely come back."
I quickly stashed the five-colored sneaker lace he handed me into my inventory tattoo.
A fallback to use if, in the worst case, I had to risk disappearance or suicide to get out.
And the bronze agent tore through the crowd at terrifying speed toward the entrance.
"You've come, the blessing of Mount Jisan!"
At the same time, the villagers overwhelmed me.
I blinked.
I must have blacked out for a moment.
And the place where I came to was... a wide, antique wooden floor.
A square room with sliding paper doors on two opposite sides.
"...".
I'd seen this style recently.
'That tiled house.'
Deputy Manager Eun Ha-je was nowhere to be seen. Looked like she hadn't been captured with me.
Good.
'...'
I looked down at my legs.
Both were bound with golden cord.
The cord extended out through a hole in one of the sliding doors.
When I tugged lightly, it had give. But it felt anchored.
'This is getting serious.'
At that moment.
Creak.
The sliding door opened, and people entered.
No, just two.
One carrying a low tray laden with festival food, the other with a bottle of liquor. They bowed deeply to me and set down the neat spread of food and drink.
And faint music began to drift in.
Outside the building, a wildly intense festival was probably raging all through the night.
"...".
The two pulled out a small lottery tube they'd brought and drew sticks. The one who drew the rooster-feather stick stayed; the other bowed and left.
The one who stayed was the liquor carrier.
"Saheon."
"...".
The villager who'd carried the liquor—Baek Saheon—looked at me.
The prime suspect in why I'd suddenly drawn the special prize.
"Did you rig it last night so I'd draw the 'special prize' stick from your pocket?"
That's exactly how he'd so naturally guided me.
The only suspicious action that explained why I'd gone from dud to special prize yesterday was that.
"You made me someone who'd already drawn the special prize, to make me 'fit'?"
"...".
"So you'd guide me to draw it again today?"
A flash of deep satisfaction crossed Baek Saheon's eyes.
And in a hoarse voice, he said,
"What if I did?"
"You've been planning this for a long time."
"...".
"Even figuring it would work, and what to do if the agents didn't rescue you."
A smile of ecstasy spread across Baek Saheon's lips.
"Right."
Liberation.
Madness.
"I thought about it every day. What if I win someday? I don't want to end up like that. Every time I slept in this shithole house, every time someone died, even when my sister died!"
He spat it out.
"I thought, I absolutely don't want to become like that. Fuck, if I die, god this and that can go to hell..."
"God?"
Baek Saheon swallowed. I could feel the anxiety and thrill of someone uttering the forbidden.
"This Harvest Festival is about worshiping a god, isn't it?"
"Worship? No!!"
Baek Saheon screamed it out.
"This is a ritual to create a god!"
"...!"
"'They pick an auspicious day to make it Harvest Festival, place the winner in the shrine to free us from worldly truths, and create the god, the blessing of Mount Jisan.' They're really doing this insane bullshit because they believe it!"
"Is that even possible?"
"I don't know! But..."
Panting.
"There really is something here."
"...".
"If no outsider draws the special prize during Harvest Festival, they gather the remaining sticks and draw among ourselves every day. And if you win then..."
Baek Saheon's face hardened.
"When the last day of the festival ends, they blindfold you like livestock and drag you to the shrine."
"...".
"Drag you there, and in the shrine, they do something."
"What?"
"I don't know. I don't know. But there's something..."
His face paled.
"When the dragged ones come out in the morning, their faces are different. They can't speak. They prepare next year's Harvest Festival among themselves..."
"...".
"And after the Harvest Festival they prepared ends, they hang themselves in the shrine."
...!
"But they come back every Harvest Festival. Dead, but they return. Walking out of the shrine."
He wailed.
"They do the pungmul performance!!"
"...!"
"They're doing it now. Outside!"
"I'm not going to end up like that. I'm not dying. Never."
Baek Saheon's eyes flashed with terror, rage, survival instinct, and relief at having pulled it off... then calmed into reason and calculation.
"Now that you've won, the festival and draws are over. I don't have to come back here. My ties to this Jisan Village, being trapped—it's all done."
....
"Got it."
I nodded.
Baek Saheon muttered,
"Now you're an insider too, so you can talk about it? Haha... I always thought the idiots who blabbed this stuff first were morons, but this... this is what it feels like?"
A situation only he endures, swallowing info no one else knows.
It's funny, but I think I understand Baek Saheon's mood better than he does right now.
'...'
Truth be told, I should be angry or anxious right now.
This crazy bastard sacrificed a government agent—who came to rescue him but couldn't find a way—just to save his own skin.
I should be furious, disgusted, anxious and wronged about it happening to me, my mind racing to find an escape.
That's normal.
But weirdly, I'm not.
Instead, strangely... my mind feels at ease.
This feeling where tomorrow and the near future feel a bit opaque.
'Being stuck here means I don't have to think about anything else.'
No more agonizing over the Wish Grant, Director Ho's taboo, info I need within a month, how to handle the exposed agent.
'Literal escapism.'
Death threat bringing peace of mind is ridiculous, but true.
So I could say it plainly.
Without sympathy or anger.
"I see. I understand."
"Understand?"
Caution returned to Baek Saheon's eyes.
"'Poor you, I understand... but you can't do this, so let me go'—is that what you're building up to?"
"Maybe. But living day-to-day unable to relax, feeling like death is imminent, constant terror."
"...".
"I get that."
He looked at me with a sunken expression.
"Still, of the two agents, you picked the lucky one."
"Why, you wanna die?"
....
"A little?"
Not sure right now.
"Have you never wanted to die? Not even once?"
"...".
"You have."
"No reason to."
Baek Saheon blurted.
"I don't want to die. If you do, great for you. Just stay put."
"...".
It's odd.
No mockery in his words about me getting duped. A chance to taunt, but he doesn't seem amused.
Just pure, selfish desperation for survival.
No guilt, but... no room for it either.
'Come to think of it, always like that.'
Desperately chasing only his own gain and survival.
But if he's not getting joy from others' misery or tormenting them... there's another approach.
I can use it.
'...Even so, I can't just escape reality until death.'
In the end, I spoke.
"Saheon. If there's a way for both of us to survive, will you help?"
"...What?"
"It'll be harder for you than now, and you'll risk exposure."
"Would I? You psycho."
That was when.
...The stuffed doll started speaking again.
....
'Ah. It's fine.'
The stuffed doll fell silent.
'I'll handle it alone. That'll be more fun, right?'
'It's fine.'
I ended the chat with the doll and turned back to Baek Saheon.
Words to someone I hadn't even hoped from came out casually.
"But Saheon. I'm dying because of you."
"...".
"I came to rescue you but couldn't find a way. You're putting me in your place, so I'm dying."
"Why's it my fault?"
Baek Saheon's face twisted.
"Did I say kill someone if I draw special prize? Did I stuff someone in the shrine and kill them? Someone else does the killing! So I should just die? You..."
Getting angry and cursing brings negation.
"...!!"
Baek Saheon and I both whipped our heads toward the sliding door.
A murmur echoed.
Echoing voices.
Baek Saheon stared at the sliding door, his face drained white.
Nothing there, but the pungmul troupe sounds grew louder and louder...
"Baek Saheon."
"No."
He crawled to the opposite side of the door, hunching and clutching his head.
Hard to believe this was the guy who pulled off all sorts of stunts so casually. Such helplessness.
'Trauma response.'
I wondered if this would work.
After a moment's thought, I opened my mouth.
Toward the sliding door.
"Sorry. I got flustered and cursed."
The sound stopped.
"Bad attitude for the festival. I'll try to speak politely from now on."
The sliding door stayed dead silent.
And...
The pungmul started up again, slowly fading away.
Until it melted completely into the festival noise.
"...".
"...".
"Baek Saheon."
Baek Saheon stood from the corner by the door, drenched in cold sweat.
And looked at me with confused eyes.
"I just saved your ass from dying."
"...".
"No gratitude at all?"
"...Grateful enough to die in my place?"
"You talk like gratitude demands a huge price."
He stared at me like I was stating the obvious.
Fine then.
"Do whatever. Your life seems awfully precious."
I glanced down at my feet.
"But mine was precious too. Even if I sometimes wanted to die."
"...".
"...".
After a long silence.
Baek Saheon's mouth opened.
"So what's this exact way for both of us to live."
"...".
"What is it."
I slipped my still-free hand into my pocket, rolling the caught silver badge inside.
Silver Heart.
"Simple."
I realized it hearing his words just now.
What kind of ghost story this was.
"We'll plant doubt in their beliefs."
God-making, liberation from worldly truths, chance and fate, rituals shared by a select few, returning dead, scapegoat...
It all pointed to one thing.
This was a Nameless Radiant Church-affiliated ghost story.