Chapter 208
Chapter 208
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 208
Chapter Title: Even If I Fall into a Ghost Story, I Still Have to Go to Work
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Ocellus-colored potion swirls in my hand.
The color of Dream Essence.
A potion that grants wishes.
...The description is engraved on that transparent glass vial, revealing itself every time the liquid inside sways like waves in the light.
I peered into it.
I had known this usage instruction from the beginning.
So, I had been agonizing over it from the start.
What sentence should I use?
When using the Wish Grant, what single sentence could express the wish I wanted to make?
I thought about it every time I tossed and turned in bed unable to sleep, every time I wrote exploration reports in the office, every time I barely survived a ghost story and walked home from work.
The first thing that came to mind was that.
The primal desire.
-Send me home.
It was desperate.
But I held off.
'Home' was far too abstract a concept.
I had lived in more than one or two places so far—what criteria would the Wish Grant use to activate? I had no idea.
In the worst case, it might send me to Daydream Corporation's staff dormitory.
...The aversion that made me stick to motels instead of 'home' as much as possible while infiltrating the Disaster Management Bureau probably stemmed from that.
Anyway, so I thought again.
I had to block all possibilities.
'I can't afford any mistakes.'
The Wish Grant must never grant my wish in some twisted way.
'Send me back to where I originally lived'? Still too abstract. Rejected.
'Send me to a world without ghost stories'? No guarantee that was my original world. In the worst case, it might interpret dying and going to heaven— a world without ghost stories—as valid.
I discarded option after option, choosing so meticulously.
A perfect single sentence that precisely specified the time and space.
And I decided.
I gripped the potion tightly with both hands and opened my mouth.
"My wish is."
Right away.
"To return to the place I was one day before joining Daydream Corporation."
The world I originally lived in, before spinning the roulette at the popup store.
A perfect specification.
-Excellent!
'Got it.'
Hearing the host's admiration, I calmly uncorked the Wish Grant potion.
Light burst out, but I covered it with my hand and closed my eyes.
Then, I poured the potion straight into my mouth.
"...!"
Drinking a dream.
That was the only way to describe it.
A synesthetic, bizarre liquid unlike anything I'd ever experienced slid down my throat.
Something radiant filled my stomach.
Formless power, transcendent authority, overflowing mystery.
Ecstasy and awe led me along.
Yes. I'm being transported!
'Oh my god.'
My whole body was sucked somewhere.
Very deep, very far...
To where my wish reached.
It felt like a journey to fulfill a long-cherished wish. Transcendent power was moving me.
Yes.
Yes!
I'm safely returning home just like this...
....
....
....?
"Cough."
I collapsed to the floor.
My body rolled across the dusty, filthy floor, and coughs burst out.
Stale air.
Even opening my eyes, only pitch-black darkness. Blinking yielded no outlines.
Silence.
Silence.
What is this?
The fantastical sensation had ended. The Wish Grant was gone. That meant...
This was my destination.
"...".
Blood drained from my head.
I was dazed.
"Hic."
I twisted on the floor and got up. Sharp shards scraped my arms and hands, leaving stinging pain.
Panting, I lifted the empty vial still in my hand. A drop or two of remaining Wish Grant liquid cast a faint glow.
The space I was in came into view.
...On shattered glass fragments.
"...!"
Turning my head, I saw where I'd fallen.
An empty glass tube lay broken.
I had tumbled from inside it onto the shards of glass in the dust pit.
'...Why?'
Did I... teleport inside that?
My heart pounded anxiously. Before foreboding could consume my mind, I desperately confirmed the device's silhouette in the darkness.
It looked like a machine for storing large volumes of solution. But...
...The device looked familiar.
An old 2000s-style lab machine with buttons and a keyboard panel below the empty glass tube, since no lights were on.
That was... that was...
A dream incubator.
A broken, shattered dream incubator from Jolly Lab.
....
I blankly looked around.
My eyes, adjusted to the dark, finally made out the surroundings using the Wish Grant residue.
This was.
Jolly Lab's prototype dream incubator room.
"...!"
Something was wrong.
Something was wrong.
Why here?
"No."
Calm down. Calm down. I definitely wished to be sent back to one day before joining the company. Why here? Wait. No, that's not it.
"That's not it!"
It's different!
Yes. The layout is identical to that lab, but different. The silhouettes were subtly off.
Other machines and documents were visible. Recording tapes and empty reagent bottles. And computers too...
'The computers have no dust.'
......Strange.
I staggered and turned my head. I needed hints, hints.
And I found it.
Experiment log.
"...".
Soaked in blood and filth that every record was meticulously erased, with only 'We were deceived' repeated madly.
It was next to the broken dream incubator's glass tube.
Just like the one I found in the dream incubator room last time.
"...".
I approached it.
The old paper wasn't soaked in blood and filth, but charred brown.
With trembling hands, I turned the page.
Parts were blackened as if burned, but readable.
Starting from the title on the first page.
Invitation of the Name Research
I inhaled sharply.
Research Objective: Confirmation of the target ......
...Manifestation of the relevant entity's presence and progression of the contract.
Drawing from prior research, adopting the name of the god worshipped by a certain recently rampant cult group as the subtitle for this study.
This will be Jolly Lab's final research.
My heart beat ominously.
I flipped through the pages frantically.
Numerous experiment records were written.
Not registered as data, so formats varied, and multiple experimenters.
Various attempts and preparations.
Failure, Dream Incubator #21 discarded.
Failure, failure.
Over half-erased horrific ingredients and extreme methods remained.
Things birthed, summoned, discarded.
And then...
Success.
Some meaningful result emerged.
Experiment #316
Input Solution Volume: 1200L
Ingredients: Qterw-A-4... dragon, ......-...326, human blood, ......, 13 other synthetic elements.
Success in awakening the Name's consciousness inside the glass tube.
Contract failed. Form collapsed in the solution.
Presumed due to insufficient solution; will adjust variables based on this research.
And it grew more refined.
Experiment #322
Input Solution Volume: 2300L
The awakened Name screamed monstrously in the glass tube, then ...... ...... life signs lost.
Presumed collapse of material bonding due to rejection reaction after recognizing mutation in its own body tissue, resulting in mass formation.
Request to change material ratios to prepare a medium reflecting the Name's exact appearance.
Investigating darkness related to transformation.
My hands trembled.
Ominous deductions swirled in my head.
Experiments continued, conditions growing ever more specific.
Currently confirmed necessary conditions for invitation and contract:
1. Preservation of the Name's existing identity.
2. Forgetting existing attachments.
3. Providing survival objective.
4. Removal of all sense of incongruity.
Deeming fulfillment possible via powerful restraints, proposing various methods.
And then...
Jolly Lab's existing invention was mentioned.
A discarded invention: a product requesting entities from the other side to partially inhabit dolls, performing friendly roles for contractors.
Limited version distributed as souvenirs in some board game, and this is
It is.
Called the product name 'Good Friend'.
"...".
I barely turned to the next page.
The final experiment record.
Experiment #444
Input Solution Volume: 39999L
Ingredients: Same as #443.
Result: Success.
Utilizing the ritual from the discarded invention, complete invitation of the Name achieved.
Inhabited in ...... Stabilized.
Upon awakening, separate from Dream Essence solution and conduct simple Q&A.
The page ended there.
But.
"...".
Turning the last page revealed a torn sheet of paper inserted.
Traces of it being crumpled up madly.
As if someone discarded the paper, and another smoothed it out and placed it back in the log.
And scribbled words on it too.
The precise handwriting of the document utterly ruined.
Daydream found out burst in another trick before losing the Name smuggled it out hid in the place with most people please
The writing cut off unnaturally there.
And below 'the place with the most people', someone had boldly underlined and written in different handwriting.
New Hire Orientation?
As if deducing from the text.
"...".
No.
My head rejected it.
But the speculation was already complete.
No, there was no need to speculate.
It was too obvious.
As the answer to my wish: 'Send me back to the place I was one day before joining Daydream Corporation.'
I had awakened inside this broken dream incubator.
Therefore.
I was...
The research objective of this experiment log.
Good Friend.
A synthesized something inhabited by an otherworld entity invited by Jolly Lab.
Like the host Brown projected onto a stuffed doll.
Kim Sol-eum's consciousness from another world, projected onto 'something' created in the dream incubator.
...Or what?
"...No."
No.
There must be some other explanation.
What was that about restraints earlier? I don't fit that. I want to go home, back to my home, to meet family and friends.
So...
Who exactly are those people?
"...".
I don't remember.
So.
Definitely, right after joining the company, I remembered clearly.
Conversations with parents and friends. And checking contacts with friends, family, digging through records...
...Did I?
Or did I just think 'I checked' in my head and moved on?
Specifically, which contacts? Which previous addresses did I visit?
I don't know.
I don't remember.
Just the conviction that I did...
"...".
Then am I,
This body of mine,
Not Kim Sol-eum?
If the place before joining was here.
If I returned to where this body was.
If created in the dream incubator room.
Then...
Not human?
"No."
I looked down at my hand.
[No]
No!
Stop it
ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
My body bulged grotesquely.
The tattoo crumbled.
I'm disappearing. The human body collapses.
The self that realized the truth rejects the human form. The body tries to revert to its original shape.
Some divine, bizarre synthesized form burst out from within me.
Scales and horns, hooves, spines piercing through ribs...
"No!"
My voice strangely reverberated through the space. But there was nothing I could do. I'd sorted all items. My tattoo was empty...!
No wait
That instant.
I realized.
One remained in the tattoo.
Not mine, borrowed gear.
"...!"
I frantically shoved my mutating hand into the tattoo and pulled out the gear.
Security Team suit.
And I madly started putting it on.
The mutating body was crammed into the human form and fixed. Black smoke enveloped my whole body with eerie sounds.
Thus, I barely regained human limbs.
I had to escape.
Staggering, I searched for the lab door. Eyes like yellow lanterns flashed. The light found the doorknob.
Grabbing it and leaning out...
Indoor lights.
"...!"
A normal office corridor.
A scene I'd seen once.
'...Daydream basement.'
The security chief mentioned... Jolly Lab in the company basement.
-Jolly Lab... it's still in our company basement...
-Even if you go deeper... it's the same office corridor... repeating endlessly...
What basement floor is this?
How do I get out?
'Elevator...'
My head and body felt heavy.
Strangely, agony surged through my whole body.
Dragging my feet, I tried to reach the end of the corridor somehow.
Then.
"Excellent."
....
"Such loyalty. Returning like this."
I looked up.
A suit-wearing someone who appeared suddenly stared at me head-on.
Indiscernible age, cold and neat features, in a sharp three-button suit, dark blue hair...
Blue Azalea Executive Director.
"Already in uniform. Looks perfect."
Black pupils peered into me.
"But that's not the right uniform..."
I opened my mouth.
But no words came. My vocal cords seemed crumpled inside the suit.
The maddening constriction grew stronger, more... painful.
"Yes. It makes humans look monstrous. A new version?"
"...".
"But when a real monster wears it, it's just a frame forcing the body in. As you know, society has many programs that only work via contract. That's the type."
Declared.
"As is, you'll soon rot away."
"...".
"If you don't want that, there's this path."
The Blue Azalea Director pulled a neat sheet of paper from his pocket.
"A contract."
....
"Just sign. I promise humane treatment. Satisfying work.... In Security."
Blood began flowing from my body. Blood dripped down my fingers.
"Come on."
"...".
"Choose."
I'm dying.
The crumpled body crumpled my consciousness too. I couldn't even stagger now.
No strength to think of other options.
Dead end.
"...".
I raised my trembling hand.
And signed the contract with my flowing blood.
"Good."
The moment the signature finished,
My body rapidly eased.
Like wearing perfectly fitted clothes, keeping a promise, pouring just the right amount of water into a glass.
Peace and unknown power spread through my body.
And... above all, clear restraints with it.
"...".
I looked at my boss.
"You'll take on an excellent role from now on."
Thus.
I started working at the company again.
<End of Part 1>