Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Translator : Elizabeth
What the hell is that damn manual anyway...!
Today, I fell into a Ghost Story. No, perhaps I fell in yesterday.
"F... F... Fuck..."
Right now, having violated Item No. 9 of the manual provided by the Administration Bureau.
I was enduring the day trembling in the safe zone, consumed by extreme terror.
Ung-ae! Ung-aee! (Waaah! Waaah!)
The chilling sound of babies crying rang in my ears.
Those monster bastards, the kind that burrow into a person's entrails and make a home there, were currently prowling right outside the room.
I couldn't maintain a proper train of thought.
Death.
It was a phenomenon that occurred commonly in our company, but facing it myself, I couldn't help but feel incredibly aggrieved.
It wasn't as if I hadn't tried my best. Nor had I committed some grave error.
"That damn rule! What on earth is that manual...!"
Just a single sentence among the rules that make up this Ghost Story.
Because of that one sentence, the life of me, Park Jun-seo, was about to come to an end.
[9. You must never look at the actions of the 'babies' with 'disgust' or any expression containing similar emotions. If the entities in question confirm such emotions, escape becomes impossible.]
"......"
Rattle, rattle, rattle!
My trembling body informed me that the situation was continuously worsening.
Clutching at straws, I logged into the gallery.
[Ghost Story Escape Gallery].
It is a place where Administration Bureau agents like me, or those related to the field, connect to share various information.
[Title: Ghost-bro here, just got trapped in a daycare. Someone save me...]
It's a 'daycare' right now, but I saw the corpse of a team member who came in with me and broke Rule No. 9.
Is there seriously no answer to this?
I waited for a moment, and replies were posted immediately.
[↳ User: Nope, no answer.
↳ User: No, seriously, it's critical.
↳ You said it's a daycare lol. There hasn't been a single agent who came back alive after breaking a rule there, so what do you expect?
↳ But seriously, what kind of r*tarded thing did you do to break a rule in such a beginner-level Anomaly?
↳ Must be an F-Rank scrub, right?
↳ You are seriously too much.
↳ Avg Ghost User;]
What returned was a reaction so skeptical it felt cold.
'This is real?'
I'm going to die. Here, just like the corpse of the team member who died yesterday, I was going to become a cradle for those monster bastards with my abdomen terribly ripped open.
"...I don't want to."
I hate it.
I hate pain, and I hate dying even more.
Feelings of injustice welled up, blurring my vision, but I roughly wiped them away and did not give up.
[- But seriously, how did it end up like that?
↳ User: I don't know;;; Team member bastard took a shit and died.
↳ I heard that sometimes weak-minded bastards hear auditory hallucinations or something. Sounds exactly like that?
↳ Yeah, yeah, goodbye.
↳ You won't get far~
↳ Original F-Rank agents are usually clumsy, so they often make mistakes like that.
↳ Fr;]
[- Don't you have anything on you? There must be basic items handed down by the Administration Bureau.
↳ User: Suicide pistol, suicide pill, and-
↳ Just die out of courtesy at that point.
↳ User: Manual notebook, and, ah.]
Come to think of it, there was one thing I had obtained here by chance.
[- User: It wasn't given by the Administration Bureau, though...
↳ What is it?
↳ User: Some kind of stone? It's like that, but there are some weird patterns drawn on it.
↳ Post a pic.]
I immediately took a picture and uploaded it to the post.
[↳ That's that thing.
↳ User: What is that thing?
↳ Ah, that?
↳ Ah~
↳ User: No, fuck, tell me too.
↳ We don't know either.
↳ User: ?
↳ Busted lol.
↳ But doesn't it just feel like something? It looks like you'd be fucked if you carry it around.
↳ User: I carried it around in my pocket thinking I'd get a bonus?
↳ How did this guy seriously become an Administration Bureau agent?
↳ That's why he's an F-Rank scrub.
↳ Aha!]
"What is it."
Nothing had happened so far so I just carried it around; was I not supposed to do that?
I blindly took it because they said that if you submit such special items to the Administration Bureau after escaping an Anomaly and returning, they award you performance bonuses.
[Title: Ah, I know that thing]
That's that thing.
Something like a trace crossed over from another Anomaly.
If you have it, there is a high probability of being encroached by another Anomaly. Yep.
↳ Why is something like that in a place like that?
↳ Author: When have you ever seen an Anomaly go according to our common sense?
↳ Aha!
↳ User: .....?
↳ Author: You're going to die by attracting another Anomaly anyway, even if not there?
↳ User: Ahhhhhh seriously;;
↳ Fr lol out of everything you could carry, you carry something shitty like that.
↳ Author: Or just try using it once.
↳ User: ?
↳ Author: Since if you stay still, providing warm blood and guts to the Ung-aes (babies) there is confirmed.
↳ Author: Isn't it better to roll the Anomaly Gacha and overwrite it with another Anomaly?
↳ User: That works?
↳ Oh, true.
↳ Is he a genius?]
This is the first I'm hearing of it.
Covering an Anomaly with another Anomaly; just what kind of insane idea is that?
As my thoughts reached that point, I realized.
That common sense of ordinary people does not apply to those for whom exploring the inside of Anomalies has become daily life.
[Title: Why not?]
If you succeed, a possibility of escape opens up via the rules of the other Anomaly.
If you fail, you meet a more terrible Anomaly and die more terribly.
But whatever happens, isn't that a smarter move than starving to death there?
↳ Me: ;;;;;
↳ Oh so frustrating, I would've done it instead of worrying.
↳ If you aren't gonna use it, give it to me.
↳ In the first place, if it's coming out from there, it probably isn't that intense of an Anomaly.]
"Aaaaaah."
Emotions that couldn't be expressed in words spilled out of my mouth.
I'm really doing this?
Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty-five minutes passed, until an hour.
My body, starved for a long time, continued to inform me that a crisis was approaching.
Growl...
I am hungry. Extremely.
My hands are trembling, and no strength enters my legs.
If I go outside in this state, being torn apart and eaten by those monster bastards is the natural sequence of events.
Gulp.
I looked down into the stone held in my hand.
[- User: So how do you use this...?
↳ Smear blood on it, or swallow it.
↳ There are many ways.
↳ What's with eating it?
↳ What will you do if it explodes inside?
↳ Are you a r*tard? Do you think an Anomaly hatches inside a stone or something;
↳ It wasn't?
↳ ?
↳ User: Everyone shut up.
↳ User: Is smearing blood correct?
↳ As far as I know, yeah.]
"Haa...!"
First, take a deep breath.
This is the only way anyway.
I don't know when another Administration Bureau agent will come to find me, and it's questionable whether they would save me, someone who has already broken a manual rule.
'Let's just die comfortably?'
Wouldn't they rather personally load the suicide pistol and hand it to me?
'I don't want to.'
I hate dying.
I didn't work just for this kind of futile death...!
.. ... ....
So.
If things go wrong and this fails.
The gallery user who taught me this method just now, 'SafeToday'—I will definitely curse you, at least.
"I can't just die. I can't die out of sheer injustice!"
Crunch!
With a dizzy mind, I bit shallowly into my thumb.
The stinging pain that spread seemed to snap my mind back into focus.
[- ... is he gone?
↳ Is he really gone?
↳ Hey, this guy's gone lol
↳ I don't know what this guy really does, but he seriously has no luck either.
↳ Out of everything to break, he breaks No. 9 ah lol]
'...Sons of bitches.'
I brought my thumb, with blood trickling down, to the pebble-sized object.
Over the grotesque pattern, a freshly flowing red trace is engraved.
And at that moment.
Whoosh...!
"Uhut!"
Ominous violet light began to shimmer over the bizarre pattern of the stone, as if reacting to my blood.
"I- I don't know anymore."
If it's going to work, please be an easy Anomaly.
In this place that had become hellish difficulty because the rules were broken, I watched the phenomenon with a desperate heart.
Ssssss...
Black fog began to flow along with the violet pattern.
The thing, which started to creep down to the ground and expand its territory, began to coil around my feet as if it had found prey.
"...!"
There is no sensation felt, but the visual shock is substantial.
Anomaly (Gwoei).
They are bastards full of malice toward humans, and if anyone gets entangled wrongly—it is a place where survival cannot be guaranteed.
I had effectively taken a step deeper into such a territory by my own volition.
I was in a state where I couldn't turn back anyway.
Right, as the gallery user said, since I was going to die anyway, it was correct to gamble on even this faint possibility.
'How did I end up...!'
In the end, that damn Administration Bureau was the problem.
To be precise, the astronomical amount of money the Administration Bureau offered was the problem.
Since they presented money that would deny my entire life up to this point right in front of me, I had fallen for a temptation so great that I couldn't maintain normal thinking.
Sssss...
Before I knew it, the black smoke had coiled around my ankles and continued to climb up my body.
"Is this right...?"
Trembling at the phenomenon I was seeing for the first time, I had no choice but to keep my body still.
At least I thought an entrance to another place would open, or some terrible entity would pop out.
The black smoke merely continued to advance up to my chest like a long-starved beast.
"Uh...?"
The smoke rises right up to under my chin.
Whether due to my psychological state, or if the black smoke was actually pressing down on my chest.
It's hard to breathe.
Under the nose.
Only then did I realize that things were going wrong.
"Hup...!"
Something seeps into my nose.
Into a territory that should not be invaded, the black smoke continued to enter my body through my respiratory tract.
'Ah.'
I can't breathe.
The thoughts craving oxygen brought vertigo, driving my mind into a state of panic in an instant.
".....!"
Violent survival instincts knocked my body onto the ground.
I rolled roughly across the ground as if my whole body was on fire, but the black smoke that had already encroached upon my body had no intention of falling off.
Confirming the black domain rushing in from all directions with my vision was the last moment I remembered.
.. ... ....
"....."
Did I lose consciousness for a moment?
Forcing away the drowsiness I didn't want to wake from, I slowly opened my eyelids which had closed at some point.
There was still no difference in the space.
It was the moment that proved the gamble had completely failed.
"...Huk." (Sob.)
I hear the sound of weeping.
'A girl?'
No, listening closely, the sobbing was coming from me.
But why is the voice so, somewhat...
"....?"
Sensing something strange, I slowly lifted my upper body.
Slide.
Corner of my vision.
Something like a pure white spiderweb brushed my cheek and flowed down.
"Uegh?" (Eh?)
Once again, a voice that wasn't mine flowed stupidly out of my mouth.
Ah, come to think of it, why are my legs.
My legs are thin. Just like a girl's, pure white and pale skin dizzied my vision.
Clearly, what I was wearing were black suit trousers, so when did I take them off?
"Ah?"
I felt my body as if possessed.
Something is strange.
"What is this?"
A frail voice, unable to comprehend the situation, continues to leak out.
My body, why has it become so small?
Where did the hard and heavy muscles, trained for survival, go? Only soft flesh is conveyed through my hands.
And.
"Hih."
Something squishy that shouldn't be on me, essentially appealing for its small existence.
"What is this, seriously...?!"
Ding!
「Congratulations. You have become an Anomaly.」
「Name: Little Lamb」
「You have acquired a Title.」
「Title: Lowest-Ranking Prey」
「A Quest has arrived.」
「- You, who were an Administration Bureau agent, made a foolish choice due to a crisis. As a result, you have been encroached by an Anomaly and obtained a new body.」
"Wha, what."
「- If you are discovered by an Administration Bureau agent right now, it is obvious you will become their best resource and spectacle. Use other entities to establish your own safe zone.」
Entities? Safe zone?
It was an amount of information my understanding couldn't catch up with at all, but the phenomenon was already weighing heavily on my shoulders.
**「▶ Face Reality (Incomplete)
▶ Go outside the room and discover lower entities five times (0/5) (Incomplete)」**
"What is thiiiiis...!"
To my aggrieved shout, nothing returned.
However—
Ding!
「Quest complete.」
「▶ Face Reality (Complete!)」
Flash!
Just as a faint light seemed to shimmer in the upper part of my vision, something hard fell onto the top of my head.
"Ouch?!"
Belatedly, I picked up the object that had fallen miserably to the ground.
"A hand mirror...?"
A hand mirror with an ordinary appearance, likely to be sold at a neighborhood stationery store.
S-Surely. Does it have some other function...
**「▶ Ordinary Hand Mirror (F)
A mirror that can be easily broken. Handle with care.」**
"....."
I blankly turned the hand mirror to reflect my face.
"Ha, haha."
I wasn't there.
A girl with an appearance like a doll made with great effort, stitch by stitch by an expert, wearing a liberated smile as if she would shed tears at any moment, was simply located there.
Hair like pure white silk, jewel-like blue eyes, and even pure white skin without a single blemish.
How are the facial features drawn so daintily and well on this small head?
"I, I want to stop..."
The familiar appearance I had remembered for over 20 years no longer existed.