Chapter 3
Chapter 3
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: Sync
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He stumbled out of the subway station and ran for a long time before he could finally catch his breath.
The sound of tearing flesh still echoed in his ears, and the metallic scent of blood lingered thickly in his nostrils.
He wasn't sure if he was truly smelling it now or if it was just an afterimage left in his memory. His legs were still trembling, and his palms were slick with cold sweat.
He swallowed his dry saliva and looked around.
An ordinary street.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙
An ordinary crowd.
Everyday scenery was unfolding as if everything that had just happened was a dream.
But I knew. I knew I could never return to my old daily life.
I stood there blankly for a while, looking at the message on my smartphone.
People bumped into me as they passed, cursing as their shoulders brushed against mine, but I couldn't move. The words floating on the screen had captured my gaze.
Talent.
The moment I saw that word, I felt as if I heard a click in my head, as if something had just slotted into place.
Like fitting the final piece of an old puzzle, or like finding the answer to a complex riddle, a clear realization came to me.
'Wait, this is...'
The memory that flashed through my mind was vivid.
The cold air of the living quarters at night. Reading that ghost story series under the blanket, relying on the light of my smartphone. The 'Catastrophe Foundation.'
The Catastrophe Foundation was a series of containment fiction about a secret organization that researched and isolated supernatural phenomena and objects.
Talent was an energy unit that appeared in that Catastrophe Foundation series.
According to the foundation's research, Talent was a type of energy source that existed within everything that had broken away from the laws of reality. It was present in abandoned houses where ghosts appeared, in cursed dolls, in places where time was distorted... Talent was there in all of those places.
According to the records, a billion Talent was powerful enough to completely overturn the world's laws, while a thousand Talent was barely enough to make one or two impossible things possible.
Some used it to turn back time, others used it to restructure reality. There were even records of it being used to bring the dead back to life.
However, the foundation itself knew that while it was possible to obtain refined Talent by chance, it was an energy source that couldn't be extracted directly from ghost stories. So how was I able to extract it?
The 10,000 Talent I had received was quite a large amount, considering it was a reward for escaping two lower-grade phenomena: Monkey Dream and the Sleeping Gas Ghost Story.
⚔ STATUS ⚔
[You have safely escaped from the 'Monkey Dream' ghost story.] [You have safely escaped from the 'Subway Sleeping Gas' ghost story.] [You have escaped from a ghost story at the fastest speed.] [Granting 6,000 Talent as a basic reward.]
+ 6,000D
[Granting 4,000 Talent as an additional reward.]
+ 4,000D
My hand trembled. I gripped my smartphone so hard my knuckles turned white.
Was the phenomenon I was experiencing right now real?
A doubt crept in that maybe I was still dreaming on the subway.
But everything around me was so clear. The sound of footsteps filling the street, the honking of cars, the noise of a construction site from afar.
This was undoubtedly reality.
All the ghost stories I had seen on the Ghost Story Gallery had become real.
And within that reality, my smartphone was displaying a bizarre message you'd only see in a novel.
I pressed the message with a trembling finger.
A new application window popped up on my smartphone screen.
📜 TALENT SHOP 📜
-『Reset Button』: 10,000,000,000D -『Deus's Mechanical Device』: 1,000,000D -『Sephiroth's Altar』: 800,000D -『Creation』: 750,000D -『Void Amulet』: 500,000D -『Ghost Story Fusion Ampoule』: 400,000D -『Goblin's Hat』: 200,000D
My eyes widened as I looked at the list.
They were all tool-type ghost stories I had read about at least once while reading the Catastrophe Foundation series.
Among them, the one that stood out the most was the Reset Button at the very top.
It was an item I had never seen in the countless Catastrophe Foundation documents I had read before.
'What is it to cost 10 billion?'
Unable to contain my curiosity, I pressed the description.
『Reset Button』 -Grade: EX -Price: 10,000,000,000D -Description: Pressing this button will unsync the Ghost Story Gallery from reality.
A chill ran through my entire body. The meaning implied by this short sentence was immense.
If this was real, it meant that with this one button, I could turn everything back to how it was.
But 10 billion Talent...
It was an amount far beyond the 10,000 Talent I had just received.
Cold sweat trickled down.
I thought about what I could do in this situation.
First, I needed to confirm if this system really worked.
I browsed through the cheapest items for a test. Among them, 'Ruminative Thought Enhancement Serum' caught my eye.
『Ruminative Thought Enhancement Serum』 -Grade: E -Price: 5,000D -Description: A serum injected intravenously. When used, memories existing within the user's subconscious become much clearer. Side effects include a slight headache and an increased probability of developing PTSD.
The fact that it came with a slight headache and an increased chance of PTSD was a bit concerning, but this serum was desperately needed right now.
Even I couldn't remember all the ghost stories posted on the Ghost Story Gallery perfectly.
The price of the serum was 5,000 Talent. It was an amount I could easily afford with the 10,000 Talent I currently possessed.
I hesitated for a moment.
Memory enhancement would definitely be helpful in this situation. It would allow me to recall the countless pieces of information I had read on the Ghost Story Gallery more clearly.
But PTSD? Just the incident I had experienced on the subway moments ago seemed like it would be a lifelong trauma.
'Still... survival comes first.'
Gathering my courage, I pressed the purchase button.
A bizarre phenomenon occurred in the air right in front of me.
The air twisted and tore as if it were being ripped apart, and from it, a syringe filled with a blue liquid appeared. It was a tangible object. A real object I could touch, not an illusion.
"No way..."
A sigh escaped my lips involuntarily.
This was no longer something I could dismiss as a coincidence or an illusion. The Catastrophe Foundation documents that had been posted on the Ghost Story Gallery had all become real as well.
I looked around. It was too dangerous to be holding a suspicious-looking syringe in a crowded street.
I moved to a quiet bench in a nearby park.
I rolled up my sleeve and looked for a vein. I found a blue vein standing out like a thread and brought the needle of the syringe to it.
Cold sweat trickled down.
"One, two..."
I took a deep breath and plunged the needle in before counting to three.
I felt a stinging pain and the sensation of a cold liquid flowing into my vein.
Injecting an unknown drug like this...
Watching the blue serum gradually empty, I realized once again that I was doing something truly crazy.
At first, I felt no change. Then, suddenly, my temples began to throb. A dull pain surged in, like a hangover after a heavy night of drinking.
And then, the memories began to flood in.
The Catastrophe Foundation documents I first read in the military. The classification of Talent by grade and their characteristics. The countless ghost stories I had read all night on the Ghost Story Gallery. Everything came back to me as clearly as if I had just read it.
But the memory of the subway came back with it.
"Ugh..."
The metallic scent of blood. The sound of tearing flesh. The mechanical movements of the dwarves. Nausea surged up in an instant. The memory was too vivid. It felt like a hallucination, as if I were right back in that spot.
Cold sweat trickled down. My hand trembled. My chest tightened.
Was this the side effect?
But I had gained something in return. The information in my memory was organized like a library catalog.
It seemed I could now recall the information I needed much faster and more accurately.
'With this... my chances of survival have increased even further.'
Now, there was one more thing I had to check. With trembling hands, I accessed the Ghost Story Gallery.
But the screen was empty.
The countless ghost stories and posts I had seen before were all gone. They had been wiped clean without a trace, as if they had never existed in the first place.
The comments, the likes, the view counts—all of it was gone.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙
[Syncing Ghost Story Gallery... 100%]
The message I had seen right before I passed out came to mind.
The Sleeping Gas Ghost Story and the Monkey Dream Ghost Story I had just experienced, and the Reset Button and Ruminative Thought Enhancement Serum I had seen in the shop just a moment ago.
My hypothesis became a certainty.
All the ghost stories from the Ghost Story Gallery had become real.
They weren't just stories anymore; they had manifested in reality as actual phenomena.
The only functions remaining on the gallery were 'Write' and 'Comment'.
I wrote a new post with trembling hands.
─Title) Anyone who survived a ghost story?
After posting a single line, I held my breath and stared at the screen.
If my hypothesis was correct and the ghost stories had become reality... then everyone was probably struggling to survive the ghost story phenomena right now.
In that situation, it was unlikely anyone would leave a comment on my post. It would probably end up being nothing more than a lone cry into the void.
Just as I was thinking that.
Ding!
The sound of a comment notification ringing from my smartphone made my heart drop.
Someone had replied to my post.