Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: The Ghost Story Comes to Farm
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My head throbbed painfully.
Two fields of vision.
One looked into my room.
The other peered down an unfamiliar back alley.
With the views moving independently, every head turn brought on nausea so intense it felt like my guts would spill out.
Even in that state, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the newly appeared vision.
"Those crazy bastards..."
It was a hair-trigger situation.
- Please, spare me. Please, spare me. Please, just spare me.
The woman who had dashed into the alley was now on her knees, begging desperately. It was a dead-end alley, and despite her screams, no one had come to help.
- You. Fucking. Bitch!
Slap!
A man with a Chinese accent backhanded her across the cheek. He was a grubby-looking guy with a cap pulled low over his face.
- Hey, hey. Enough. Quick, shut her up and get her in the car. This area's empty, but you never know.
Another man grimaced, glancing around nervously.
The slapper grabbed the fallen woman's hair and yanked her to her feet.
- Kyaaak!
- You. Scream one more time. See what happens. Got it?
The woman trembled violently, stifling her sobs.
- Come on, you bitch.
He started dragging her roughly by the hair.
- Kyaaak!
She screamed again.
- Bitch!
The man whipped around and slammed his fists into the back of her head. Thud! Thud!
- Agh! Aaaagh!
Sensing mortal danger, she flailed wildly. She tried to pull away, but couldn't shake off the hand gripping her hair.
By then,
I was fumbling for my phone with shaking hands, dialing the number.
"Gotta report it. Quick, report it..."
No matter how you sliced it, this was a kidnapping. If she got taken like that, God knows what horrors awaited her. Just thinking about it twisted my stomach.
My hands shook so badly I kept messing up the three digits: 1-1-2.
"Damn it. Why do I keep screwing it up? Ah... but where? Where is that place? What do I do? I need to know the location to report it..."
My mind was a tangled mess.
Still, as I punched in the first two ones,
"Hngh! Urgh!"
The woman's eyes, dodging the man's punches, landed on a teddy bear doll leaning against the dead-end wall.
I froze, finger hovering over the 2. No idea why. Just a sudden chill.
Their eyes met.
The woman's and the bear doll's.
Until then, it had been sitting there,
head slightly raised,
watching everything.
A teddy bear doll with missing fur, stuffing leaking out, one eye dangling loose.
Did seeing it remind her of her own plight?
Suddenly, tears gushed from her eyes.
A strangled voice leaked from her lips.
- Help me... please help... anyone. Anyone...
- Huh? What're you looking at?
As she murmured through sobs, the man paused his punches and looked up. He followed her gaze.
- A doll? Fuck. Filthy rag doll. Creepy shit. *Ptui.*
He hawked a thick glob of spit onto the ground and lowered his head.
That instant, the bear doll moved.
Crunch!
Eh?
What?
I couldn't process the scene flashing in my peripheral vision.
- Aaaagh!
The woman flopped onto her butt as the pull on her hair vanished.
And the guy dragging her? His head rolled across the ground with wet thuds.
Exactly—his head had been ripped clean off.
Splurt!
Spraying blood soaked the alley. Steam rose from the hot blood, turning the narrow space into a steamy sauna in seconds.
I blinked.
Blinked again. The scene didn't change.
This wasn't even my eyes viewing the alley—it persisted crystal clear no matter how much I squeezed mine shut.
But was this really reality?
Spraying blood. Spraying blood.
And the bear doll moving so fast it blurred,
- Huh? Wh-what...?
approaching the lookout at the alley mouth,
Crunch!
twisting his neck.
- Gurg... glrk...
The man's head spun two full turns. He gurgled like boiling blood, spewing from nose and mouth, then collapsed.
Crunch! Crunch! Crack!
Then it began.
The teddy bear doll pounced on the fresh corpses, tearing off skin. It scraped out the fat beneath and stuffed it into its own leaking body.
It compared the four eyeballs one by one, picked the best, and jammed it into its empty socket.
Ripped out eyebrow hairs and packed them densely into its bald patches.
"Urk..."
I dry-heaved involuntarily.
Truth be told,
when I created the 'Responding Bear Doll' setting, I'd imagined something like this. Ghost Story Gallery folks loved creepy stuff. I did too. My imagination always veered grotesque.
And it fit my idea of logic, somehow.
I mean, what does a bear doll know? If it's a doll that loves humans, human parts would seem best.
Yeah. So this was my imagined scene. It was, but...
"Ugh... blegh!"
Witnessing it for real, my stomach churned uncontrollably.
Forcing a human eyeball—wrong size—into its socket. Jamming human body hair and eyebrows into fine fur. Abdominal fat oozing from torn seams.
The Responding Bear Doll.
And behind it, two blood-soaked, mangled corpses.
The alley steaming from spilled blood.
A nightmare landscape.
But,
- Y-you... saved me...?
the woman's reaction to its horrific form defied my expectations.
She showed no fear or disgust at the grotesque doll staring blankly at her.
Instead,
- Thank you. Thank you... really, thank you...
She crawled on her knees to it, scooped it up, and hugged it tight.
Stroking the hideous bear, she glared coldly at the gruesomely slain bodies.
Her eyes trembled with inexpressible hatred and rage.
She casually plucked off dangling fat chunks and eyeballs, saying,
"This is gross. Don't use it. I'll fix you up nice at home."
The doll, which had just painstakingly patched itself, flailed in protest. But her gentle *shh-shh* calmed it instantly. Hard to believe this was the thing that casually snapped a grown man's neck and shredded skin.
She examined the bear all over, then her eyes sparkled.
She'd spotted the tag.
<Responding Bear Doll from KEH> - KEH? Ke? Country of origin? Or manufacturer?
She tilted her head briefly, then smiled.
- Your name's Responding Bear Doll? Perfect fit... You really responded... when no one else would help... Thank you. So thankful... really. Thank you, Responding Bear. Thank you, KEH...
She buried her face in the doll and sobbed.
My bear doll glanced up at my floating vision over the alley, then lowered its head to hug the woman's tightly.
And.
Blackout.
The visions merged into one.
"Haaah!"
I gasped, collapsing to the floor.
"What? What was that? What just happened? Dream? A waking dream?"
Too vivid for a dream, yet the chain of events felt utterly unreal.
I sat dazed for a while, mind blank.
Staring endlessly at the bare wall, then,
"No good."
I jumped up and ransacked the house.
Gone.
Nowhere to be found.
The worn-out doll my parents bought me—missing eye, leaking stuffing, patchy fur—truly gone.
So what I saw was real?
My bear doll had become that monstrosity? Exactly as I set it?
As I reeled in disbelief,
Bzzzzt—
My phone vibrated.
"What?"
As I picked it up, the call connected automatically. No number, just the call screen.
A low, gruff voice from the speaker.
- Handled.
"Pardon?"
No reply.
"Hello? What? Hello?"
Nothing.
The call had ended.
"Wh-what? What the hell?"
My already rattled heart pounded wildly from the unexplained events piling up.
Thud! Thud!
"Eek!"
I shrieked like a little girl.
"What? What is it? Who are you!?"
That thudding wasn't my heart. Someone was pounding on the front door.
"Wh-who is it!"
I yelled aggressively, checking the intercom.
"..."
No one outside.
"What the."
I grabbed a kitchen knife, crept to the door, and
flung it open.
Whipped my head around outside.
Empty.
But,
"...Delivery?"
A package sat neatly by the door.
"Whew... scared me. Why pound like that for a delivery."
I exhaled anger and relief, grabbed it, and went inside.
"Expecting anything?"
The label confirmed: mine.
<Kim I-han>
My name, clear. No contents listed.
I opened it.
"Huh?"
First thing: cash. Jumbled 50,000 and 10,000 won bills, like dumped from a pocket.
"Wh-what? How much? Thirty... over 300,000 won...?"
A hefty sum.
"Why send this by delivery..."
Dazed, I pulled out the money, brushed aside the packing paper below, and
"Kyaaah!"
I leaped like a startled kitten.
"Kyaa! Kyaa! Kyaaaa!"
Under the paper: two rolls of neatly skinned human flesh and three jars with eyeballs floating in them.
"Kyaaaaaaaah!"