Chapter 42
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 42
Chapter Title: Monster Tale Specialist Office: The Cursed Video (4)
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“Okay, then I should get back to my own work…”
It hadn’t been long since the two of them had gone into their respective rooms when Sia came through the stair door.
“No way, did you guys have that much to talk about?”
Even after wasting some time in the middle with Woli, Sia had taken longer than expected to return.
Wondering if they’d really had that much to say, Taeju asked.
“Guess she had a lot of questions?”
“Well, she’s at that age where she’s super into occult stuff.”
Sia shrugged as if to say there was nothing to be done about it. Fair enough—telling her to ask away and then sending her off without answers would’ve been weird too.
“Yeah, but you probably gave her the super long explanation again, right, sis?”
“I kept it short. I didn’t even get into half the technical details.”
Sia protested, but Taeju just stared at her in disbelief.
“You call that half?”
“…Half at most.”
It was like a conversation about whether a half-full glass was half empty or half full.
“Sigh…”
This wasn’t the time for chit-chat, so Taeju shook his head and changed the subject.
“So, did that help ease her anxiety a bit?”
As much back-and-forth as there was, the long talk had at least helped calm Seonwoo’s nerves.
“Yeah. I gave her a talisman too, even if she probably doesn’t need it.”
“You gave her a real one? Weren’t you bragging last time about buying some expensive materials?”
At Taeju’s question, Sia shook her head.
“No chance. That stuff’s way too pricey. It’s just a replica made with basic materials. It’ll hold up for a few days, though. After that, it’s basically just a souvenir.”
A few days was plenty of time. Taeju nodded.
“That’s more than enough.”
Cases at the office usually wrapped up within a week at most. And from the looks of things, this one didn’t seem like it would drag on either.
“What’d you think of her after talking? Learn anything new?”
At Taeju’s question, Sia furrowed her brow. Something still felt off to her.
“I did pick up on something.”
“What?”
Sia sat down across from him and closed her eyes, as if pondering for a moment.
After a brief pause, she spoke.
“It was you.”
“Huh?”
Taeju tilted his head at Sia’s out-of-nowhere comment, wondering what she meant.
“The ghost in the video said that, right? Meanwhile, you guys heard ‘It’s not you.’”
“…Ah. The target.”
Only then did Taeju catch on and nod.
“Yeah. If it didn’t matter who the target was, that line wouldn’t have come up.”
“So, someone cursed Seonwoo specifically to mess with her?”
Taeju thought it was a pretty straightforward conclusion, but Sia shook her head.
“No, it’s too soon to wrap it up that neatly. Seems like the curse hadn’t pinned down its target until now.”
“Huh?”
“How’d I figure that out?”
Sia said that, then stared into space while clicking her e-cig case open and shut. It was a habit she had when something bothered her.
“That girl… she seems like she grew up super loved, you know? It’s not just about the money. Her clothes, her mannerisms—they all scream she never wanted for anything.”
“Yeah, that’s the vibe I got.”
Taeju recalled how Seonwoo had said she could give them as much money as they wanted. She seemed loaded enough that borrowing a tablet made no sense.
“But what’s that got to do with it?”
“That’s what makes this case weird.”
Taeju grew even more puzzled at Sia’s vague explanation.
“You mean it’s weird that she’s the target? Curses are weird anyway, but her being the victim doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary. They usually hit rich folks, right?”
People who live well are the ones who breed envy and jealousy. Taeju’s point was valid in that sense, but it didn’t quite apply to this curse.
“True, that’s the higher probability. But this situation’s different from the usual. This curse is all tangled up.”
“Tangled how?”
“Hmm, how to put it. It’s like a curse that latched onto the wrong target.”
Taeju narrowed his eyes at Sia’s words.
“I’ve told you this a bunch of times, right? A curse always has a sender and a receiver. Remember?”
“Of course. That’s why most curses are easy to break, you said.”
It was something he’d heard repeatedly even before Woli joined the office.
Unlike other monster tales, curses were relatively straightforward to dispel.
“Yeah. Usually, you don’t have to smash the whole curse—just tweak the conditions. Reflect it back on the sender, or let them confirm the target’s dead, and it fizzles out naturally.”
It was a flaw inherent in a curse’s structure. That’s why, unless it was overwhelmingly powerful or so sneaky the victim never noticed, curses were ultimately easy to handle.
“But this one doesn’t work that way?”
“Nope. That’s why I called it tangled. In this curse, the sender and receiver are the same person.”
Taeju was so shocked by the unexpected revelation that he couldn’t speak.
“What… the hell? How does that even happen?”
Even Sia was seeing this for the first time today.
“Dunno. I’m just going by what I experienced. I tried Curse Reversal the second I sat down, but it didn’t take. That’s when I checked and found out.”
He couldn’t fathom how it had ended up like that.
“Does that even make sense?”
Taeju was flustered by a scenario he’d never even imagined.
“It makes sense in theory, I guess. That’s all I ever learned—theoretical possibility.”
“If it’s theoretical, there’s gotta be a theoretical fix, right?”
“Where? Cases like this are basically suicide pacts. No blocking or preventing it.”
Sia dismissed it as vague textbook stuff—something that might exist in theory.
“Man, never thought I’d see something like this with my own eyes.”
Sia shook her head and pocketed her e-cig case.
“Anyway, good thing it’s a sloppy curse. If it’d been made with real intent, she’d be dead before reaching us.”
Taeju’s expression turned serious at Sia’s words.
Calling the victim lucky sounded off, but if the curse had progressed a bit faster or been more lethal, Seonwoo really could’ve died.
And there was more to worry about.
“But no matter how you look at it, she doesn’t seem like the type to curse herself.”
Seonwoo didn’t strike him as suicidal at first glance, and if she had been, she wouldn’t have come running to them.
Sia nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, exactly. That’s why it’s tangled.”
“This is getting ridiculous.”
Sia nodded at Taeju’s grumbling too.
“Yeah, totally inexplicable.”
Sia pressed her temples like she had a headache.
But she was certain: it was definitely self-inflicted.
Taeju trusted Sia’s conclusion as much as his own.
So they had to find a reason that made this absurd situation make sense.
“Assuming Seonwoo didn’t plant it herself, you think the original owner stuck that video on the tablet on purpose to curse her indirectly?”
Taeju asked Sia, but she shook her head, rejecting that too.
“Nah, curses are like 99% intent. That’d make it a third-party curse, and Curse Reversal would’ve worked. That video was genuinely made to curse the maker themselves. That’s the weirdest part of this curse.”
Taeju tilted his head slightly. It was hard to wrap his mind around.
“If we’re forcing an explanation that makes sense, maybe someone made it to curse themselves, but for some reason it jumped to someone else? Finding that ‘reason’ is probably the key here.”
That must be why Sia called it a wrong-target curse.
“How does it get this messed up?”
“No clue. That’s why my head hurts.”
Sia rubbed her head. Taeju realized “tangled” wasn’t exaggeration or flair—it was literal. This wasn’t going to resolve as easily as he’d thought.
He recalled Seonwoo’s first words after the initial treatment and their chat: This definitely involves that girl somehow. Maybe she’d instinctively sensed the twist.
“…Would’ve been easier if it was a digital-download curse.”
Then it could’ve been her downloading it herself, cursing herself without it being suicide.
But Sia shook her head at Taeju’s words.
“Never seen or even thought of something like that. If it were possible, victims wouldn’t be limited to one.”
“Either way, the big thing is this curse turned into a self-curse, so tricks like Curse Reversal don’t work, right?”
“Tricks? This is the standard method! Time-honored technique.”
Sia glared, offended that her go-to move got called a trick.
“Oh, sorry. So, what’s our next move?”
“Next move? Well, a few options, but first we gotta meet the original owner. Got a way?”
Sia stretched her arms.
“Yeah. Told Woli to drag her here tomorrow somehow. Same school.”
“Perfect. The sooner, the better.”
Sia nodded, stood, and headed for the stair door. Then she turned back with a “Oh!”
“One more thing—super certain on this.”
“What?”
Taeju stood too as he replied.
“That curse is absolutely not properly made. It can kill, sure, but the odds of it actually doing so are basically zilch.”
“Huh? That arm seemed pretty threatening. If it’d been Woli, maybe, but a regular person wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Missed that? Not like you. But hey, that’s why I’m here.”
Taeju rolled his eyes at Sia’s smug tone.
“I missed something?”
“Think about it. First voice, then eyes, then arm. What comes next?”
“Dunno, full body?”
“And where does the video play?”
Taeju glanced down at the tablet without thinking.
“…Aha.”
“Some ‘death curse’ that can’t even get past the arm.”
Sia snickered as she said it. Taeju finally got it and scowled in annoyance.
“For a headache, it’s got holes everywhere.”
“Anyway, I’m heading down. Nothing more we can do right now.”
With that, Sia went downstairs, and Taeju tidied the table while muttering to himself.
“Hope Woli and Seonwoo pull it off.”