Got Dropped in a Ghost Story Chapter 19

That psychopathic doctor had sent his own researcher into the ghost story as a sacrificial lamb.

Kwak Jaekang was probably hoping that adding an unpredictable researcher to the mix would produce even stranger deaths among the Field Exploration Team and give him more unusual data to observe.

The problem was that I had ended up on the same team as that researcher.

Huu…

I forced myself to calm down.

My ears noticed the ghost story before my eyes did.

– ♩♪♬♬~♩♬♬~♩♪♪

Cheerful melodica and orchestral music filled the air.

Typical theme-park background music.

“Hah…”

I opened my eyes.

We were standing in the middle of an old-fashioned amusement park painted in bright, colorful shades.

– Hahahaha!

Children’s laughter echoed around us.

Yet there wasn’t a single uncovered human face anywhere.

Only mascots wandered through the park.

From a distance, I occasionally thought I saw visitors walking around in mascot costumes, but whenever I tried to focus on them, they vanished as though they had never existed.

So this is what the place is like.

I immediately checked my wrist.

[(Cheerful) Fantasyland Admission Ticket □□□]

Three empty spaces.

Just as I remembered.

This was that insane amusement park inside a board game where the only way to escape was to ride three attractions.

======================

Dark Exploration Records / Ghost Story

[Cheerful Theme Park!]

: A ghost story featured in <Dark Exploration Records>.

: Daydream Inc. Identification Code – Qterw-B-11

A board-game amusement park themed around various fantasy worlds.

After entering this Darkness, visitors may return home after experiencing three major attractions.

The ghost story became particularly famous because of the supplementary booklet titled Cheerful Theme Park User Guide, which was written by people who played the game while suffering from delirium.

Among the many amusement-park ghost stories, this one was especially well known for its bizarre nature and relentless horror.

======================

‘They even sold merchandise based on this theme park at the pop-up store.’

The supplementary guide had gained a cult following too.

It was what people called a Neapolitan ghost story.

And its classification was—

B-Class.

Gloom-Class Darkness.

Civilian survival rate:

Two percent.

Those four university students who had returned alive must have been unbelievably lucky.

If someone compared old unexplained missing-person cases with this Darkness, there were probably plenty where everyone involved had simply died here.

Cold sweat slid down my back.

…Squad D is probably in danger too.

But I couldn’t worry about them yet.

I had a more immediate problem.

The variable known as the researcher who got dragged in with us.

“Uwaaah! H-Huff… huff… Let me out! This is wrong! This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

“Quiet!”

I clamped a hand over the researcher’s mouth and forced him to crouch.

At that exact moment—

Clunk.

Every mascot in the amusement park turned toward us.

More precisely, toward the researcher who had been screaming.

“…”

======================

Cheerful Theme Park User Guide

(Applicable through Exploration Record #64)

3 – Please refrain from displaying intense negative emotions such as crying, wailing, or screaming!

Such behavior does not suit the cheerful atmosphere of the theme park.

======================

This place was a nightmare.

I desperately resisted the urge to squeeze my eyes shut.

Three…

Two…

…

Then the sound returned.

– Hahahaha!

– ♩♪♬♬~♩♬♬~♩♪♪

The mascots stopped staring.

The lively atmosphere of the park resumed as though nothing had happened.

Only then did I slowly remove my hand from the researcher’s mouth.

Immediately afterward—

Smack!

An employee from Squad A struck him across the jaw.

“…!”

Thud.

The researcher stumbled.

The Squad A employee in the butterfly mask grabbed him by the jaw, pulled his face closer, and spoke in a low, chilling voice.

“Hey.”

“…!”

“If you start whining like that one more time, I’ll kill you myself before anything here gets the chance.”

“Hii… hiiiek…”

The researcher stumbled backward and collapsed onto the ground, clutching his head.

He began muttering to himself.

“This is a dream…”

“This isn’t real…”

Mixed in between were curses and incoherent fragments.

He was clearly panicking.

“…Wasn’t that a little excessive?”

The new recruit from Squad Y cautiously spoke up.

The Squad A employee ignored him completely.

Instead, she looked at me.

“Hey, rookie.”

“I heard you were the top recruit.”

She tilted her head.

“Your judgment isn’t bad.”

“…Thank you.”

“Did you get your personalized equipment yet?”

Hmm.

So at least she was treating me like a fellow employee.

Not elite material, maybe, but apparently being the top recruit is enough to qualify as a person.

It was a ridiculously simplistic standard, but I politely answered without showing what I thought.

“Yes.”

“What does it do?”

“It gives me a hand that can remotely interact with objects. There are limits on its duration and how often I can use it.”

I stopped there.

There was no reason to explain more.

Then I asked a question of my own.

“What kind of equipment do you use, Assistant Manager?”

“That’s not really your business…”

She paused.

“Hmm. Fine.”

The Squad A employee hooked a finger beneath her index fingernail and pulled.

The nail came off.

It was fake, like something used for nail art.

A translucent, sticky-looking thread stretched from beneath it.

“It can extend indefinitely, and it’s fairly strong.”

“…That sounds extremely versatile.”

“Hmm.”

She seemed pleased by the response.

“Yeah. I suppose it is.”

I immediately followed up.

“May I ask your name?”

“Just call me Assistant Manager Jin. What’s with all the awkward introductions?”

Wasn’t introducing yourself basic courtesy when meeting someone for the first time?

Still, her surname alone was distinctive enough.

Maybe she’s that employee.

Several records surfaced in my memory.

– Assistant Manager Jin Nasol enters the murderer’s bedroom, sets the clock to 4:44.

– When asked, “Do you have some kind of grudge against carrots?” Jin Nasol answers seriously. No special remarks.

– Teddy bear limbs severed. Executor: Employee Jin Nasol.

And so on.

There weren’t enough details to understand her personality completely, but she had always been portrayed as highly competent and rather cold.

At that moment, the Y-squad rookie quietly asked,

“…What exactly is personalized equipment?”

Ah.

Right.

He was a new recruit too.

It made sense that he wouldn’t know much yet.

“Oh. The company has certain Darkness you can use to customize equipment—”

“Hey.”

Assistant Manager Jin cut me off.

“Let’s move.”

“In a large-scale Darkness like this, observation comes first.”

“…”

“What are you waiting for, top recruit?”

“I said move.”

She had already started walking.

I followed and answered,

“Yes. I’ll explain it to my colleague while we move.”

“What?”

She glanced back at me.

“Why bother explaining something like—”

Then she stopped.

“Oh.”

The mouth beneath the butterfly mask curled into an odd smile.

“What?”

“You really don’t know?”

“…”

“Well, do whatever you want.”

I didn’t argue.

Instead, while walking, I quickly explained the basics of personalized equipment to the Y-squad rookie.

I deliberately added something reassuring.

“I thought about mine for a long time and ended up spending quite a lot of points on it.”

“Things can get frightening from here on, so having something useful helps.”

“I… see.”

I nodded.

“By the way, I never introduced myself properly.”

“I’m Kim Soleum.”

“…I know.”

A gloomy voice came from beneath the bison mask.

“I’m… Jang Heo-un.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Then I looked toward the researcher still crouched on the ground.

“Can you walk?”

“No!”

“No, no, I can’t! Someone save me!”

“I could help support you while you walk, Supervisor.”

I spoke as though genuinely concerned.

“But that would reduce both of our mobility.”

He looked up.

“In a place like this, that would probably increase your chances of dying.”

He stood up immediately.

As expected.

Assistant Manager Jin gave me a disapproving look but said nothing.

She simply continued scanning the surroundings as we walked.

I increased my pace and did the same.

The theme park was dazzling, yet somehow suffocating and disorienting at the same time.

Like a brightly colored nightmare.

Is red the theme of this zone?

Flags.

Buildings.

Tents.

Nearly everything displayed some sort of red symbol.

We drew the red game piece, so we must have been sent to the red area.

One of the flags showed a cute rabbit raising one paw with a smile.

[Magic Bunny Arcade Zone]

So this was some kind of magical-rabbit adventure area.

It really does look like a proper theme park.

Then a rabbit mascot stepped directly into Assistant Manager Jin’s path.

“Ah.”

“A roadblock…”

“Please wait.”

I stopped her just as she was about to walk around it.

Because—

“…I think there’s a parade coming.”

A line had been drawn behind the rabbit mascot.

From farther down the street came cheerful music.

Colorful rabbit mascots began appearing one after another.

There was absolutely nothing exciting about the sight.

I tried desperately not to cover my face.

It’s starting.

======================

Cheerful Theme Park User Guide

(Applicable through Exploration Record #64)

7 – Cheer for the parade with a joyful expression!

Everything that occurs during the parade at the cheerful theme park is pleasant and never negative.

Absolutely.

Absolutely not negative.

======================

The parade approached.

A rabbit mascot in a dress waved from atop a castle float…

Then—

Bang!

It swung a brightly colored wand at the carrots beside it.

Red, glittering objects burst into the air.

– Waaaaah!

Candy.

Jewels.

Flower petals.

Fireworks.

But that wasn’t all.

Bang!

Another carrot burst.

More red objects poured out.

Blood.

Entrails.

Organs.

– Hahahahahahaha!

They spilled across the street.

Tumble.

Tumble.

The mascots danced through the intestines.

The cobblestones directly in front of me turned red.

Wow.

This is fucking insane.

And this was the real problem with the amusement park.

It casually produced things no normal human being could possibly smile at, as though they were harmless visual glitches.

But if you screamed or cried—

you got [redacted].

– Wooooow!

Splatter.

Blood splashed across the ground in front of my shoes.

Something rolled toward me and bumped into the tip of one.

An eyeball.

!@#$!@%!%

AAAAAGH!

The scream stayed trapped entirely inside my head.

A chill tore down my spine.

I’m going to throw up.

I narrowed my eyes as much as possible without looking obviously suspicious, doing everything I could not to look directly at what was happening.

Calm.

Just look calm.

“Ugh.”

“…?”

Wait.

That wasn’t me.

Was it?

I glanced sideways.

The bison-masked rookie had covered his mouth.

Could it be…?

“…Are you bad with gore?”

“…”

Jang Heo-un slowly nodded.

The part of his face visible beneath the mask had already gone pale.

A comrade…!

For a moment, warmth almost filled my heart.

Finally.

Someone else who understood how completely insane and horrifying this situation was.

You’re doing great! Keep holding it in!

I was about to suggest that we cooperate and somehow survive this nightmare together when—

“Seriously… what the hell are you doing?”

An irritated voice cut through the moment.

Assistant Manager Jin.

“Can’t handle gore?”

She scoffed.

“How do you not understand that a coward like that is dead weight, not an extra life?”

“…!”

“Hey, top recruit.”

She pointed at Jang Heo-un.

“I’m only telling you this because you seem promising.”

“That.”

The Y-squad rookie flinched.

“Don’t waste time getting friendly with the X-, Y-, or Z-tagged squads.”

“…”

I had heard something similar from my own senior earlier.

– Roe, when you meet people from the other squads, especially Y-squad, just keep things light with them.

I already knew why.

Every Field Exploration Team squad is assigned a letter.

And those letters have meaning.

A, B, and C.

Elite squads.

D through W.

Ordinary squads.

And X, Y, and Z were—

======================

Dark Exploration Records / Daydream Inc.

/ Field Exploration Team

Cleanup Teams

A branch of the Field Exploration Team composed of employees who passed the entry examination but possess some defect that makes them unsuitable for ordinary exploration duties.

Primarily deployed as experimental personnel in unusual situations.

Usually designated by the final three letters of the alphabet: X, Y, and Z.

======================

“The last three letters are where they dump people like that. They’re just meat shields. Think of them as spare lives given to employees who actually know how to do their jobs, so don’t worry about them.”

“…What?”

“They apparently don’t explain it properly to new hires because of something about eliminating variables, but he’s going to die here anyway, so who cares.”

The bison-masked employee went rigid.

“W-What are you talking about…?”

“Claeanup Team.”

Assistant Manager Jin looked at him.

“Bison mask.”

“Raise your left hand.”

“?!”

His left hand rose instantly.

As though pulled by invisible strings.

“…!!”

The exposed lower half of Jang Heo-un’s face went deathly pale.

“W-What…?!”

Assistant Manager Jin lifted her chin.

“That’s how you use a meat shield.”

======================

When an employee above a certain rank enters a Darkness alongside a member of the Cleanup Team, they may issue absolute commands.

The Cleanup Team member is compelled to obey.

======================

Right.

…It’s a system designed to produce more brutal and dramatic Exploration Records.

In simple terms, they were slaves.

Or suicide troops.

Reading about it as a fictional setting was one thing.

Watching it happen to an actual person was far more grotesque than I had imagined.

Especially when Jang Heo-un was visibly trying to resist the command.

This is insane.

The gold marking near the chin of Assistant Manager Jin’s butterfly mask caught the light.

“If there’s something dangerous you need tested, send one of them in first, though sometimes they screw up the instructions and die before accomplishing anything, which really pisses me off.”

“Ugh… uuugh…”

“Then again, if they had enough sense to understand instructions properly, they probably wouldn’t have been assigned to a team like that in the first place.”

Her insults continued with the casual exhaustion of an office worker complaining about incompetent coworkers.

“Why do people like this even apply for these jobs just to become a burden?”

“Every time it’s the same.”

“Lunatics.”

“Cultists.”

“Criminals…”

“…”

So they really did intentionally assign people with certain personality defects to the Cleanup Teams.

It was a storytelling device.

Something designed to lower the emotional burden on readers.

People feel less uncomfortable when someone evil or deeply flawed dies as a tool than when a kind, ordinary person does.

But seeing the system in reality left a bitter taste in my mouth.

What had Jang Heo-un done that justified being treated like a disposable suicide-squad member?

“Even that pathetic coward…”

Right.

A coward.

“…?!”

…

Wait.

Hold on.

Assistant Manager.

I think you just said something extremely important.

“…Did you just say ‘coward’?”

“Yeah.”

Assistant Manager Jin looked at me like the answer was obvious.

“Can you believe someone passed the entrance exam while being that much of a coward?”

“That Y-squad rookie.”

…

That’s it?

Seriously?

Jang Heo-un had been assigned to a Round-Off Team simply because he was afraid?

Being scared counted as that serious a defect?

Then—

What about me?

…

I’m a coward too!

Memories from my first day at work flashed through my mind.

What I had told my seniors after fleeing from the convenience-store ghost.

– Uh, actually… I got out so quickly because I was scared.

“…”

Only now did I understand.

I was unbelievably lucky that they didn’t believe me.

So being a coward wasn’t merely something employees mocked.

It could get you officially labeled as defective and sent into death traps.

I thought I just had to hide an embarrassing weakness.

This is much worse than that!

I could practically hear my survival rate crashing in surround sound.

No way!

No way!

“Anyway, there’s nothing I need to order him to do right now. He’ll probably just get in the way, so you and I are moving on alone. Got it?”

Absolutely not!

If I go alone with you, I feel like I’ll be exposed as a coward in five minutes!

I could already picture my future.

Assistant Manager Jin from Squad A reporting, What? This guy was a coward too?

And Employee Kim Soleum getting shipped straight off to a Cleanup Team.

“In that case, please go on ahead.”

“W-What?”

For the first time in the month since I joined the company, I broke one of the rookie commandments.

I defied a superior.

And I had a perfectly good reason.

“I’ll bring my teammate with me.”

“…”

Assistant Manager Jin fell silent.

For a moment, I worried she might decide to use the Y-squad rookie to get rid of me.

“This idiot…”

Instead, the assistant manager in the butterfly mask seemed to decide she was done with me and started walking away.

But there was one problem.

You can’t go off by yourself anyway.

======================

Cheerful Theme Park User Guide

(Applicable through Exploration Record #64)

2 – Make sure to stay together with teammates of the same color inside the theme park!

If you move more than five meters apart while not riding an attraction, you will be executed.

You will be strangled.

It hurts, so do not move too far apart.

Do not do it.

======================

There’s no way this place would let someone as fearless as you wander around freely…

We needed her as our tank.

Assistant Manager Jin suddenly choked and stopped in her tracks, as though something had yanked her back by the neck.

“This fucking—!! Ah!”

A red cord appeared overhead.

Like a leash, it stretched from her back toward the rest of us, pulled taut by the distance between us.

Jin immediately caught on and stepped backward. As soon as she closed the gap, the red cord disappeared again.

“You…!”

“Assistant Manager Jin.”

I raised an index finger to my lips.

Then I glanced around with my eyes.

The mascots surrounding the parade were all staring directly at her.

“…”

Assistant Manager Jin immediately calmed herself.

It really is convenient when competent people catch on quickly…

“Could it be that the teams were divided like this because…”

“Yes.”

I nodded.

“We all drew red pieces, so we were assigned to the same team. It seems the Darkness also physically prevents teammates from separating.”

“…No way.”

Assistant Manager Jin stared at me for a moment.

Then she asked in a meaningful tone,

“Did you… expect this?”

…?

I mean, I had already read about this ghost story.

But I decided to go along with it.

I put on a serious expression.

“As you may remember, there were four civilian survivors.”

“So?”

“Isn’t it possible that all four belonged to the same team?”

I continued earnestly.

“We were also divided into teams of four, so I thought the same might have happened to them. It seems likely that one entire team survived together.”

“…”

“So for now, I think we should look out for one another under the assumption that staying together is part of the safest way to escape this Darkness.”

There was a brief silence.

“…That makes sense.”

Assistant Manager Jin nodded.

“Fine.”

“Kim Soleum-ssi, th-thank you…”

“It’s nothing. Let’s work together and do our best.”

The bison-masked rookie looked genuinely moved.

But now wasn’t the time for sentimentality, my fellow coward.

Let’s see.

I took another objective look at our team.

One superior overflowing with elitism.

Two cowardly Dumb and Dumber.

And one employee from another department who had been dragged along as an extra.

‘Hahaha. What a fucking mess.’

If this were an actual story, everyone here would probably be dead at the very beginning, and the point of view would switch over to Section Chief Lizard.

Still, there was a way for a team like this to survive.

There is.

We just had to follow the rules carefully and aim for the escape condition.

“…Do you happen to remember?”

“Remember what?”

“The phrase written on the board game box.”

– Ride three fantasy attractions with your teammates as quickly as possible and receive spectacular prizes!

The eyes behind the butterfly mask narrowed.

“Three attractions…”

She looked down at her wrist.

“There are exactly three empty spaces on the admission ticket too.”

“Right.”

I nodded.

“For now, I think we should follow that instruction. Following the conditions suggested by the Darkness is generally the standard approach to clearing it.”

“…You’ve only been here a month, yet you talk more like an expert than someone who’s worked here for three years.”

Oops.

“Well… I’ve spent the entire past month being sent into Darknesses without completed manuals, so… I guess I’ve gotten into the habit of making these kinds of deductions.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

Fortunately, Assistant Manager Jin simply nodded.

Apparently, she hadn’t meant it as an accusation.

“Your reasoning makes sense.”

“Yes.”

I raised my hand and politely offered a suggestion.

“Then I think we should start by riding one of the attractions.”

Fortunately, a nearby sign pointed toward exactly the attraction I had been looking for.

[Fantasy Train]

A literal magic train.

“…Isn’t that the attraction mentioned in the civilian testimonies?”

“That’s right.”

I nodded calmly.

Then the panicking researcher shouted,

“They said everyone who rode that thing died!!”

Yes.

This was the hellish train of death with a three-percent survival rate.

But I haven’t lost my mind.

For anyone familiar with the records, there was always a way.

…

A less terrifying way to clear it.