Chapter 30
Chapter 30
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: Salmon Market Deal
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The exact moment the thought of needing serious capital crossed my mind, a message from an unfamiliar profile popped up, asking if I was strapped for cash.
Normally, this would just be mundane spam, but I was currently operating within the ruleset of a ghost story.
Screaming, blocking the user, and bailing from the chatroom immediately seemed like the smartest survival tactic...
'But that feels a bit too clichéd.'
Since I was currently bound by the narrative mechanics of a ghost story world, I figured I might as well hear out this horror-esque setup.
I placed my 'Good Friend' plushie under the bed, killed the overhead lights, and summoned Brown using my tried-and-true shadow manipulation trick. This time, to speed up the process, I used a mini LED flashlight I had picked up on my commute home.
Brown snapped into existence almost instantaneously this time. Recalling my successful extraction from the previous anomaly with evident glee, the entity quickly grasped the current situation.
An unsolicited message from a complete stranger promising vast sums of wealth.
-How wonderfully suspicious! But isn't a measured dose of curiosity—so long as it doesn't cross into outright folly—the very essence of a good show?
-Of course, it would be even more spectacular if shiny gold followed!
The stuffed doll spouted its usual dopamine-junkie nonsense, but seeing its casual reaction confirmed one crucial detail: this wasn't an active, lethal ghost story phenomenon trying to ensnare me. That was good enough.
'In that case.'
I fired off a simple, guarded question.
The reply was instantaneous.
I had half-expected some vague, ominous nonsense like 'just a friend~', but surprisingly, the sender offered a proper corporate introduction.
"...!!"
'C Squad?'
Another elite, frontline combat team.
Why the hell was an elite operative reaching out to me... No, more importantly, why was he revealing his identity and rank so brazenly on an unverified channel?
Damn it. Word traveled fast.
Did this guy have some sort of neural-link typing booster equipped...?
Sentences poured into the chat like carpet bombs before I could even formulate a single character in response.
I finally pulled my thoughts together and sent a polite, neutral line.
The digital tone suddenly shifted.
"......"
I don't have any grand ambitions like that.
'I was literally just going to hit up the alien shopping mall I already had access to...'
Hmm.
Could you at least put some actual effort into the lie...
I pondered the angle for a moment.
-Oh dear! Deer buddy, I can smell the stench of a cheap, back-alley peddler from these words. Hardly the sort you'd find on refined professional channels.
-But... even cheap things have their distinct uses if played correctly.
-A little sweet-talking...
I made my decision and typed.
-...!?
You might as well just curse at me directly...
Regardless, since the guy didn't actually know my true, cowardly nature, the stone-cold bluff worked perfectly.
He hastily started firing off panicked, desperate messages.
A relentless barrage of notifications followed.
It was a hyperlinked URL to an encrypted webpage.
'...Is this a copy-paste template?'
It looked like the most generic, multi-level-marketing spam I had ever seen...
"......"
'If you were so worried about corporate audits and karma, why bother introducing yourself with your full rank and name...'
I guess he wanted to establish a psychological IOU.
I deleted my half-typed reply asking, 'What kind of site is this?'
'Based on the shopping terminology, it's probably an underground e-commerce platform.'
Unlocking alternative supply routes outside of the alien shop wasn't a bad tactical move.
Plus, his phrasing was undeniably intriguing.
'Seed money.'
He made it sound like liquidating assets for massive payouts was a routine occurrence.
'I just pray this isn't some exclusive underground gambling ring.'
There was only one way to find out.
I ran a rigorous digital safety scan on the URL, then cautiously tapped the link.
My smartphone screen instantly went pitch black. Slowly, stylized text faded into view...
"...??"
'What is this cheap, Cyworld-era emo aesthetic...?'
It was dripping with early-2000s nostalgic cringe.
The text faded out alongside a cheap animation of pixelated salmon swimming upstream, replaced by a login portal.
Hmm.
It was suspicious on multiple fronts, but I went ahead and created an account using the assistant manager's ID as the referrer. I had to investigate it anyway.
Logging in stripped away the emo facade, revealing the page's true, chaotic nature.
"It's a secondhand trading site."
A black market platform designed for peer-to-peer sales of bizarre, anomalous, and occult items.
[Selling dried mermaid jerky (Authentic, certified by Hanuri Pavilion)]
[WTB 'Blood Bath' tile shard, must have zero discoloration]
[$$ Highly reliable spawn coordinates for Misfortune Vending Machines $$]
[Offering enchanted protective charms - 100% survival rate]
I clicked around the interface to get the lay of the land.
So this place was...
'Absolutely crawling with scams.'
To anyone who had actually memorized the [Darkness Exploration Records], it was glaringly obvious that 90% of this was just junk, meaningless props, or outright misinformation.
In short, from an insider's perspective, it was a low-expertise occult flea market.
I rubbed my temples, exhaling slowly.
"It's mostly run by clueless amateurs, isn't it?"
-Hm. When a platform gains public traction, it inevitably dilutes its own expertise! Preventing that decay requires massive administrative effort... This place feels deliberately neglected.
-Amateurs without an ounce of genuine expertise will gladly pay top dollar for utter trash.
It was exactly like obsessive fans paying thousands to pry up floorboards from a stage where their favorite idol performed!
Well, at least stage floorboards were tangibly real. The problem here was the sheer volume of fakes.
Yet, I noticed several transactions had successfully closed at astronomical prices.
"......"
'Right. The world at large doesn't officially acknowledge the existence of anomalies.'
The government frets over mass social hysteria, and corporations fiercely guard their supernatural monopolies—everyone actively hushes it up while secretly probing the ghost stories.
Civilian casualties had to be rampant by now.
Dark rumors and urban legends were bound to circulate underground among the normal populace, so the existence of a black market site like this wasn't actually surprising.
But the pricing? It was utterly detached from reality.
'A million won for a single, useless piece of junk...'
People were tossing around the equivalent of monthly rent deposits like spare change.
Was it driven by life-or-death survival anxiety? Or was the Veblen effect heavily artificially inflating the perceived value of occult goods? Who knows.
'Wait... maybe I could offload some assets here too?'
If that employee was genuinely a C Squad elite from Daydream Corporation, then corporate insiders were definitively using this site to quietly liquidate junk and information on the down-low.
But that reality worried me.
'If I cross the corporate line even a fraction of an inch, an internal audit is guaranteed...'
I needed a secure, airtight countermeasure.
I immediately logged out and created a brand-new, secondary account.
Username: Blue Friend.
-'Friend'! Oh! Did you fashion that after me? How profoundly touching!
I just mashed up whatever came to mind based on my recent trauma, but sure, let's go with that.
For the referrer, I input my primary account.
"Done."
-Oho. Establishing a secondary identity to sever the digital paper trail!
Spot on.
Items a Daydream employee explicitly shouldn't possess, or assets carrying a high audit risk? I would fence those exclusively through this burner account.
'This way, none of the high-risk transactions will ever trace back to my primary profile.'
"I'll execute a few safe, mundane trades on the first account too."
-To establish a baseline of innocence and avoid suspicion. Brilliant.
The primary account would exist solely for 'Daydream employee staying within acceptable bounds' transactions.
With the operational security established, it was time for the main event.
Figuring out what to actually sell.
'I definitely can't resell items from the alien shop.'
Given the amateur hour occurring on this site, dropping highly potent, authentic anomalous gear would cause absolute chaos.
Besides, I was too busy buying essential survival tools from the alien shop to waste time arbitraging them anyway.
I scrolled through the Salmon Market by newest listings.
I needed something low-key, untraceable, but highly profitable...
Oh?
The comment section was a cesspool of mockery and jeers.
But...
'...It's real.'
The [Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau].
According to the wiki, they were one of the three major global powers regulating anomalies, standing right alongside Daydream Corporation as a legitimate government agency.
My prized merch, the Memorial GripTok, was a standard-issue item for their civil servants.
'And the Bureau actually classifies ghost story threat levels using a penalty-based sanction system...'
The specific "Fracture-sanctioned disruption grade" mentioned in the post was a 100% legitimate internal classification. In Daydream Corporation's metrics, it mapped to an anomaly slightly above a standard C-grade.
This buyer was a true, verified insider.
I stared intently at the screen.
'If this is a real Bureau agent, the chances of getting stiffed on the payment are basically zero.'
Casually dropping highly classified, niche terminology without explaining it to the outsiders drastically lowered the odds of this being a scam.
It was a massive boost to credibility.
And the bounty?
40.0?
'Forty million won.'
It was enough cash to make even clueless civilians bite at least once out of sheer curiosity.
Sure enough, digging through the poster's past listings revealed a trail of failed interactions.
No, that wasn't it at all.
'They were ignored because the items they offered didn't meet the rigorous Fracture-sanctioned baseline.'
But as it so happened, I currently possessed an item that perfectly matched those exact criteria.
Highly suspicious, possessing entirely unknown effects, and far too sketchy for me to ever consume myself...
'...I've got it.'
I actually had two packs sitting in my inventory.
[Blue Soda Churros]
The bizarre, anomalous snack personally gifted to me by the blue dragon mascot at the theme park.
"......"
-Ah, that filthy, unsavory food!
Filthy was a bit harsh...
But you know.
'Even good kids occasionally need to liquidate assets for operating funds.'
The mascot would understand. Probably.
DM successfully sent!
The next day.
'Thank god it's the weekend. Perfect timing.'
I found myself loitering near Gwanghwamun Station, waiting for my buyer.
In my hands was a nondescript box containing a single pack of the mascot's 'Blue Soda Churros'.
'I think I handled the negotiations... okay.'
I reviewed yesterday's DM exchange in my head.
The buyer's reply had been near-instantaneous.
It was a critical fork in the road.
I had two distinct tactical options: I could flex my knowledge of the Disaster Bureau and the Fracture-sanctioned grading system to establish peer-level trust.
Or...
I could play the clueless, traumatized civilian and leave the burden of verification entirely on them.
My choice worked flawlessly.
'Besides, the second half of that message was 100% the truth anyway.'
I had zero desire to out myself as a Daydream Corporation employee to a rival government agency.
So here I was, standing rigidly at Gwanghwamun Station Exit 5, arriving exactly seven minutes early to scout the perimeter.
'If the vibes feel even slightly off, I bolt.'
Tense and hyper-alert, I scanned the crowd. Over there—someone was lingering near Cheonggye Plaza, actively peering toward Exit 5.
'Yup. That's the one.'
They had the classic, hyper-vigilant gaze of someone conducting a black-market transaction.
The buyer was exceptionally tall, wrapped head-to-toe in matte black clothing, and wore a mask that obscured their lower face entirely. Upon spotting me, they approached with measured steps.
"Are you from Salmon... by any chance?"
I gave a stiff nod.
I popped the lid of the box open and offered it forward.
Check it out.
"......"
The buyer reached out in silence.
They were wearing thick tactical gloves.
The voice had sounded young, but their entire posture was geared toward absolute identity concealment.
'Not that I'm a pot calling the kettle black.'
I was currently decked out in a heavy hat, sunglasses, and a mask, completely obscuring my own features.
I pulled my hood down lower, tracking their every micromovement. If they tried to steal the anomaly and run? I was already coiled to move first.
The buyer's gloved hand gently skimmed the exterior of the box. They paused, gave a sharp nod of confirmation, and took possession of it.
Hm?
"This is exactly what I have been looking for."
Without a word of haggling, the buyer handed me a small, heavy beverage carton.
I cracked the lid open—it was densely packed to the brim with banded 50,000-won bills. I snapped it closed.
"......"
The buyer stood perfectly still, eyeing me as if asking, 'Is there a problem? What are you waiting for?'
I couldn't telepathically consult Brown in public, which was a massive pity...
'Business first.'
I set my box down on the pavement.
"...?"
I gave the buyer a deep, formal bow, then pulled a small notebook from my pocket.
"...??"
I flipped it open and presented the pre-written page to the buyer.
"......!"
I couldn't see their face through the mask, but their body language practically screamed flustered confusion.
'Yeah, I know this sudden silent performance is weird...'
Sorry. Voice anonymity is paramount.
I bowed one final time, flipped to the very last page of the notebook, grabbed my carton of cash, and bolted into the crowd.
"Nice."
I deposited the ungodly sum of cash into a secure account ASAP and immediately headed back to the dorms.
Since it was the weekend, Baek Saheon was already out of the room. Based on his usual in-and-out patterns, he was likely making his routine trip back to his family's estate.
Whatever. His absence was perfect for me.
"Time to hit the alien mall."
With a newly fattened wallet, I pulled up the encrypted link.