Chapter 8
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 8
Chapter Title: 7. Anomaly Management Department
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The White-Faced Bride must have caught the scent of another woman because this time she strongly insisted on following me.
"I want to follow you too, dear husband..."
"No. You have to guard the house."
"But..."
If she tagged along and got caught flirting with another weirdo, that'd be a problem!
Grip!
"Ah, ow!"
"I wanna go with you..."
But her tantrum was too intense to refuse outright.
She was clutching my hand so tightly that if I didn't take her, she'd probably throw another fit. So, reluctantly, I decided to bring her along.
This girl is surprisingly stubborn.
"Sigh. Fine. But you have to stay quietly inside the ring?"
"Yes...!"
And so, with the White-Faced Bride in tow, I began searching for the weirdo tied to the seventh of the seven great ghost stories haunting the Fixer Office building.
'A quest popped up.'
[Search the 7 Great Ghost Stories of the Building. (1/7)]
I've already met the elevator woman, so that counts as one cleared.
Check off all six remaining, and it's done, I guess.
In that case, next stop is the fourth-floor women's restroom.
According to the World of Doom Gallery's info tab, there were tons of rumors about something appearing in the mirror there.
Title: Am I the only one seeing this weird stuff?
(Roughly a photo of the restroom)
Something seems to be reflecting in the fourth-floor women's restroom mirror. Am I the only one seeing it?
Seriously looks like something's in the mirror?
Not an element from the in-game version.
But why'd you go into the women's restroom?
Because I'm a girl.
Where do you live and how old are you?
There was a girl in the pepper field World of Doom Gal.
The world of World of Doom even sucks in women.
For now, I'll make a note of the women's gallery separately...
'A hazy figure. Rarely shows its full form, huh?'
Cross-verifying various reports confirmed something was definitely in the fourth-floor women's restroom mirror.
"It's not coming out."
I waited a long time, but the mirror ghost didn't appear.
Is there no way to make it pop out like the elevator woman?
There was a surefire way to summon the elevator woman, but I had no clue how to draw out the mirror ghost.
The gallery users didn't seem to know a specific method either.
Eventually, with no other option, I just glared at the mirror, and info popped up.
There really was a weirdo hiding in the mirror.
But why didn't it show itself?
'No way...'
I held up the Token of Pure Love on my left ring finger toward the mirror, and the favorability plummeted.
[Favorability: 0% → -120%]
[The weirdo has fallen into extreme fear.]
[It fears the being by your side.]
[The being fades away.]
As expected, it was terrified of the White-Faced Bride!
No wonder it seemed unusually meek. With that message about the being fading, it completely vanished.
It seems that when the disaster-class weirdo appeared, it straight-up fled.
To think just bringing the White-Faced Bride purified it...
'Weirdos kill each other if their territories overlap, so it's possible. But the effect is too good.'
Not all weirdos get along with each other.
Quite the opposite—they have terrible relationships.
They're such strong-willed entities that if one encroaches on another's territory, they try to kill each other and fight like mad.
Shamans are a prime example of scum who exploit this.
Anyway, the weirdo haunting the fourth-floor women's restroom vanished completely as its favorability tanked into the negatives.
But it wasn't a total waste.
I learned a new fact: if favorability drops to around -120, it auto-exorcises.
Raise it to make an ally, or slash it to drive it away.
"Exorcism success with this, I guess."
[Search the 7 Great Ghost Stories of the Building. (2/7)]
The quest counter went up, so it counts as cleared.
But this miracle wasn't exclusive to the fourth-floor women's restroom mirror ghost.
"Excuse me?"
"Eek!?"
The cleaning lady weirdo we bumped into by chance.
"Is this the second-floor empty room?"
-Kyaaa!!!
The weirdo causing a ruckus in the second-floor empty room.
"Where are these bloodstains on the rooftop supposed to be?"
All the rooftop warehouse bloodstains too.
They all packed up and left.
"This is like auto-hunting or something."
Just bring the White-Faced Bride to a weirdo haunt, and anything below disaster-class foams at the mouth and dies.
Everyone except the elevator woman exorcised themselves.
[Search the 7 Great Ghost Stories of the Building. (6/7)]
"What? When did the knocking outside the office get purified?"
One even vanished without us encountering it.
I was planning to gather some weirdos as building guardians, but they all cowered before the White-Faced Bride's overwhelming presence and died off.
'Well, can't blame them.'
The White-Faced Bride has the Earthbound Spirit trait.
In short, once she sets up her haunt and roots in my office, this building becomes her territory.
Fight or flee. Anything below disaster-class was probably forced into those two choices.
'Even so, everything but the elevator woman is gone.'
Now, only one ghost story remains.
The mysterious underground parking lot.
"Stairs appeared."
True to its name, the mysterious underground parking lot is one that shouldn't exist.
This building doesn't have an underground parking lot to begin with.
Yet sometimes, late at night, stairs leading down appear.
'Like today.'
Go down those stairs, and you enter a dilapidated underground lot. Step inside, and a gray sedan without a license plate attacks.
A gray sedan possessed by a ghost, with no plates or driver, launches indiscriminate attacks.
Less scary and more physically dangerous weirdo.
-Kyaaaaa!!!
-Agent Yoon! Don't come this way!
-Supervisor Park! Help!
What's this noise?
The World of Doom Gallery didn't mention anything like this.
It said you'd have a car chase in an empty underground lot, so why are there screams from people down there?
"What the...?"
Looking down revealed a spectacle.
"Kyaaaaa! Supervisor Park, help me!"
"Argh! Agent Yoon! Hold on just a bit! I'll escape and call for backup!"
A man in a black suit with a ponytail and a woman with a bob haircut were fleeing in terror from the gray sedan in the underground parking lot.
'Where'd these humans come from?'
I hadn't sensed anyone approaching the building.
I'd been monitoring outside while searching for weirdos, in case visitors came.
Most guests just grab coffee at the first-floor cafe and leave, but how did these two reach the underground lot?
Anomaly Management Department agents.
They were pitiful civil servants, at least.
Unlike other groups, the Anomaly Management Department is a national agency managing weirdos for the safety of Korean citizens.
They must have entered the underground lot via another route but got trapped and couldn't find a way out.
Getting out was surprisingly simple.
'Find the car key.'
Find the key for the attacking gray sedan, and the weirdo stops. Then stairs up appear.
"Uwaaa! It's hitting!!!"
"G-Get away! Aim for Supervisor Park first!"
While the two agents desperately drew the gray sedan's attention, I searched the lot for the dropped key.
"Huh? H-Hey? Supervisor!! Over there! A person!"
"Damn! Another victim!"
That's when the two spotted me and came running, waving their hands.
No, why are you running over?
Shouldn't you pretend not to see me?
Now the car's aggro is on me too.
No way they planned this...?
"You can't stay here!"
"It's dangerous! Go up!"
They're barely surviving themselves, yet worrying about others.
"Ah, found it."
I found the car key right then.
I raised it toward the gray sedan chasing the agents.
Click.
"Wha...?"
"What?! It stopped?!"
The charging car screeched to a halt, and the Anomaly Management agents collapsed gasping.
How long had they been wandering this lot?
"Are you okay?"
"Th-This place is dangerous. Hurry, up... Hah. Hah..."
"I feel like I'm dying..."
They could barely respond, just heaving for breath.
I calmed them down to catch their breath, then approached the stopped gray sedan.
Accident-class: below disaster, above alert—an ambiguous weirdo.
Probably rated lower because it can't leave the mysterious underground lot.
[Favorability: 0% → 50%]
[Thanks you for finding its key.]
[Seems to want you to play with it.]
As per the World of Doom Gallery, the gray sedan was tamable.
Said to have dog-like intelligence. Maybe the chase was tag for it.
From the human side, a car charging means fight for survival, but to the car, it was just playing tag with its human owner...
A tragic mismatch in scale. Humans too weak for tag, sedan too strong.
"Excuse me. Who are you?"
"Me? I'm Fixer Lee Do-hyun."
"A fixer?"
"Yes. Here's my card."
As I patted the gray sedan, Park Jae-hyeon, having caught his breath, approached.
I pulled a business card from my pocket and handed it to him.
"Weirdo specialist fixer, Mr. Lee Do-hyun... Do you have time by any chance?"
Looks like he's thinking of scouting me for the department.
"My office is upstairs. Want some coffee?"
I don't like being tied to any group, but department referrals sound tempting.
Maybe chat it out.
The Anomaly Management Department is, well, full of mistakes and blunders.
But they bring overwhelming work, so getting friendly can't hurt.