Got Dropped in a Ghost Story Chapter 30

The moment I started thinking about how badly I needed more money, a message arrived from some unknown person asking if I wanted extra cash.

But this was a world where ghost stories were real.

[K.LEE: Mr. Employee? haha]

The obvious choice was to block them and leave the chat immediately.

Still…

That feels a little too stereotypical.

Since I lived in a world full of ghost stories, I might as well ask a ghost for advice.

I placed [Good Friend] beneath the bed, switched off the lights, and summoned Braun with the shadow trick.

This time, I used a small flashlight I had bought on the way home.

– Oh, Friend!

Braun responded almost immediately.

After recalling how I had escaped the previous ghost story, he seemed quite pleased. It didn’t take him long to understand the situation either.

An unknown person suddenly offering me a large amount of money.

– How suspicious! But isn’t a little curiosity beyond suspicion the very essence of entertainment? Especially when there’s glittering gold involved!

This plush doll really was a dopamine addict.

Still, his reaction reassured me.

Apparently, the message itself wasn’t some supernatural phenomenon.

In that case…

I typed a quick reply.

[Kim Soleum: May I ask who this is?]

The answer came immediately.

Honestly, I had expected something vague like, lol just a friend~

Instead, the person introduced himself properly.

[K.LEE: This is Assistant Manager Lee Kangheon from Squad C haha]

“…!!”

Squad C?

Another elite squad.

Why was someone from Squad C contacting me?

And why was he revealing his identity and rank so openly?

[K.LEE: Heard you turned down Squad A’s offer today!!! lolololol]

Crap.

[K.LEE: Wow, gutsy! Never seen such a capable rookie lolol]

[K.LEE: Sure, you turned them down this time, but who knows? Next year you might end up joining another elite squad after all. Get promoted to Assistant Manager and move right up! Could be you lol]

Was he using some kind of speed-typing device?

Messages came flying in one after another before I could even finish typing a reply.

I quickly pulled myself together and sent a single line.

[Kim Soleum: It’s very nice to meet you, Assistant Manager Lee Kangheon.]

[K.LEE: No need to be so formal. If we run into each other at work, let’s grab a meal sometime. I know a great charcoal-grilled chicken place nearby! haha]

[K.LEE: Oops, I’m talking too much. Anyway, here’s why I contacted you!]

The tone shifted.

[K.LEE: You need money, right?]

“…”

[K.LEE: You’re probably reaching the point where you want some extra funds… People with potential usually start looking for ways to get personal items right before they’re promoted lol]

[K.LEE: Heard you already have personalized equipment too. Bet you’re looking for ways to get your hands on more gear, right?]

I wasn’t.

I’m just using the Alien Shop I already knew about…

[K.LEE: It all costs money anyway haha]

[K.LEE: No reason to waste money buying seniors meals and drinks just to hear this stuff when I can tell you directly haha]

Hmm.

[Kim Soleum: I appreciate the offer, but may I ask why you’re telling me this?]

[K.LEE: Because I want us to get closer? haha]

Could you at least make the lie convincing?

[K.LEE: Curious? haha]

I hesitated.

– Goodness! Mr. Roe Deer, I can practically smell the cheap salesman through those messages. Hardly the sort of person you’d see on a reputable channel.

Braun paused.

– Still… cheap things have their uses. If you handle him properly…

I typed my response.

[Kim Soleum: No thanks.]

– …?!

[K.LEE: ???????]

[K.LEE: Oh wow, Mr. Employee! You’ve got a sense of humor! Makes sense for someone setting records for point accumulation haha]

[Kim Soleum: I’ll just ask my Section Chief instead.]

[Kim Soleum: Have a good night, sir.]

[K.LEE: wsit jyst]

[K.LEE: hey wait just a minute]

[K.LEE: ur not related to section chief lee jaheon are you?;; uve got the exact same attitude…]

You might as well just swear at me directly.

Anyway, he didn’t know my personality well enough to tell I was bluffing.

Apparently, it worked.

More messages immediately poured in.

[K.LEE: hey im not charging for this just hear me out. i swear i dont make these offers often!;; T-T]

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

His messages kept arriving.

[K.LEE: (Link)]

A webpage link appeared.

[K.LEE: if u need seed money or items just check this out. put me down as your referrer → hawaiib53 ← just type that in n itll work]

[K.LEE: u dont have to obviously but since i referred u itd be nice if u could jus,, follow ur conscience lolololol u know what i mean ryt? hahahaha]

[K.LEE: and pls keep this between us! (Shy emoji)]

…Is this a template?

It looked like an obvious copy-paste message.

[K.LEE: anyway remember who gave u the tip ok?]

[K.LEE has left the chatroom.]

“…”

If he’s worried about getting caught, why did he openly tell me who he was…?

Maybe he wanted me to feel indebted to him.

I started typing,

[What kind of site did you send me, sir?]

Then deleted it.

From what he said about buying items, it sounds like some kind of online marketplace.

There was no harm in checking for alternatives to the Alien Shop.

And one particular phrase had caught my attention.

Seed money.

Maybe this site offered some way to earn serious cash.

Is it some kind of private gambling site?

There was only one way to find out.

After running a security check on the link, I cautiously opened it.

My smartphone screen turned completely black.

Then words slowly appeared.

SALMON

“…??”

Like salmon swimming against the current of a river,

we swim against this mad world.

Cyworld…?

Animated salmon swam across the screen as the text faded away.

Then another message appeared.

[Membership available (Referral required)]

Hmm.

This place was suspicious in more ways than one.

Still, I entered the referral ID Assistant Manager Lee had given me and made an account so I could look around.

The moment I logged in, I understood what kind of site it was.

[Salmon Market]

“So it’s a secondhand marketplace.”

It was a platform where users bought and sold things directly to one another.

Except the listings here weren’t normal secondhand goods.

They were occult items, supernatural objects, and information.

[Dried Mermaid Meat for Sale (Certified by Han Nuri Jade)]

[Buying: ‘Bloodlust Tile’ Fragments (Untainted)]

[

RareMisfortuneVendingMachineLocations!VerifiedInformationAvailable!

]

[Selling Enchanted Protective Charms]

After browsing for a while, I quickly understood what kind of marketplace this was.

Basically…

It’s full of scams.

From the perspective of someone who had read <Dark Exploration Records>, most of these listings were obviously random junk, meaningless props, or outright misinformation.

In short, Salmon Market was essentially a secondhand occult marketplace with almost no professional credibility.

I rubbed my forehead.

“Is this site mostly used by amateurs?”

– Ah, public platforms inevitably lose credibility over time! Preventing that requires considerable effort. But…

Braun studied it.

– This place feels almost deliberately neglected. Amateurs will sometimes pay enormous prices for meaningless objects. Like fans peeling pieces off the floor of a stage where their favorite celebrity performed! At least that would be genuine memorabilia, though. Most of this is simply fake.

And yet…

quite a few expensive transactions had actually been completed.

“…”

Right.

The general public doesn’t officially acknowledge that supernatural phenomena exist.

Governments investigated paranormal incidents in secret because they feared social disorder.

Corporations hid them to protect their trade secrets.

But ordinary civilians were still frequently caught up in supernatural incidents.

Naturally, urban legends and personal experiences would circulate among the public.

So it made sense that a marketplace like this would eventually appear.

And judging by some of these prices…

This place is insane.

One million won for a single item…

Money was changing hands like people were paying housing deposits.

Maybe it was survival anxiety.

Or perhaps even occult goods were subject to the Veblen effect.

Could I sell something here too?

If that man really was an Assistant Manager from elite Squad C, then Daydream Inc. employees were probably already using this site to sell strange items and information.

But that created another problem.

If I cross the line, I’ll definitely get flagged in an audit.

I needed a safer setup.

So I logged out of the account I had just created and made another one.

As for the username…

[Blue Friend]

– “Friend”? Oh! Were you thinking of me? My, how touching!

Well…

Kind of.

I had just combined whatever came to mind.

For the referral ID, I used the first account I had created.

“Done.”

– Hooh! So you’re creating another identity to make yourself harder to trace!

Exactly.

I would use this account for things that a Daydream Inc. employee shouldn’t possess, or anything that might draw attention during an audit.

That way, those transactions won’t be directly associated with my employee account.

“Of course, I’ll still leave some normal transaction history on the first account.”

– To avoid suspicion. Clever.

On that account, I would only trade things that seemed reasonable for a Daydream Inc. employee to possess.

With that settled, the next question was what I could actually sell.

Reselling Alien Shop items is out.

Considering how amateurish this marketplace was, bringing genuine Alien Shop merchandise here could cause absolute chaos.

Besides, I was already too busy buying the things I personally needed.

I wasn’t about to waste stock reselling them for profit.

I scrolled through Salmon Market’s newest listings, looking for something inconspicuous that I might still be able to make money from.

Then—

[Buying: Food from Paranormal Phenomena]

Oh?

I opened the listing.

[Buying: Food from Paranormal Phenomena]

[For research purposes]

[Strong preference for food originating from Fracture-sanctioned phenomena according to the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau classification – 40.0]

The comments underneath were less serious.

[there he goes again, this guy]

[aaah “Looking for food for research purposes. Fracture-sanctioned phenomena only.” pushes up pretentious glasses lolololol]

[Is this guy a bot? He posts this every day.]

[hey occult otaku, pls get out of your fantasy world. wtf even is this “Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau classification” supposed to be?]

Most of the comments were just mocking or teasing the poster.

But…

…It’s real.

The Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau.

In <Dark Exploration Records>, it was one of the three major powers alongside Daydream Inc., a government agency that handled paranormal incidents.

Even the Memorial Popsocket attached to my phone was an item issued by the bureau to its personnel.

And the Bureau classifies the danger level of ghost stories by “sanction.”

The rank mentioned in the post, Fracture-sanctioned, was a real classification.

In Daydream Inc.’s system, it roughly corresponded to something slightly above a C-Class Darkness.

This person knew what they were talking about.

I stared at the listing.

If this is a legitimate buyer, I probably won’t get scammed.

They were casually using terminology only insiders would recognize, without bothering to explain it.

That made the post seem much more credible.

And then there was the price.

40.0.

Forty million won.

At that price, even people who had no idea what the terminology meant would probably contact them out of sheer curiosity.

Sure enough, when I looked through the older comments, I found people discussing exactly that.

[Whoa, but it’s 40 million won… Has anyone actually contacted this person?]

└ [i did because i thought they might actually be legit, but after they asked me a few questions they just stopped replying LOL]

└ [everyone gets left on read. they’re just pretending to know stuff. nah im good]

No.

That’s probably not what happened.

From the way they described it, the food those people offered simply hadn’t met the required Fracture-sanctioned level, so the buyer had ignored them.

Conveniently, I happened to have something that probably did meet the requirement.

A food item of mysterious origin with unknown effects that I absolutely had no intention of eating myself.

…Yep.

I had just the thing.

In fact, I had two of them.

The snack the blue dragon mascot had given me at the theme park.

“…”

– Ah, that suspicious food!

It wasn’t that suspicious…

Well, whatever.

Even a good child needs spending money sometimes.

The mascot would understand.

Probably.

[BlueFriend: Hello sir/ma’am ^^ I have a food item from a paranormal phenomenon that you might be looking for!]

Sent.

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

The next day—

Good thing it’s the weekend.

I stood near Gwanghwamun Station holding a box containing one pack of [Blue Soda Churros].

I think I handled this pretty well.

I remembered the messages I had exchanged with the buyer the previous night.

They had replied almost immediately.

[T: What kind of food is it?]

That had been the important part.

I had two options.

I could show off some insider knowledge by mentioning the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau and the Fracture-sanctioned classification, hoping that would make the buyer trust me.

Or…

[BlueFriend: It seems to be some kind of churros? I’m honestly not sure… I ended up with it under some strange circumstances, and keeping it around makes me a little uncomfortable. I also really need the money. Could we meet so you can inspect it first? If it’s what you’re looking for, you can decide then.]

I could pretend I knew nothing and let the buyer judge it themselves.

Fortunately, the second approach worked.

To be fair, almost everything I said was true.

I had no intention of revealing that I worked for Daydream Inc. either.

And so, seven minutes before our agreed meeting time, I was already waiting near Exit 5 of Gwanghwamun Station.

If anything feels wrong, I’m leaving immediately.

I stayed alert.

Before long, someone approached from the direction of Cheonggye Plaza, glancing around near Exit 5.

There.

Judging by the way they were scanning the area, they were clearly here for the transaction.

The person was tall, dressed entirely in black, and wearing a mask.

As soon as our eyes met, they walked toward me.

“You’re the person from Salmon…?”

I nodded and opened the box so they could inspect what was inside.

“…”

A gloved hand reached toward it.

The voice sounded fairly young.

Still, I hadn’t expected the buyer to be this careful about hiding their identity.

Not that I’m in any position to criticize.

I had also shown up wearing a hat, sunglasses, and just about everything else I could think of to obscure my face.

With my hood pulled low, I watched their every movement.

If they tried to grab the item and run, I would react immediately.

The buyer slowly ran a gloved hand over the box.

Then they nodded and took it.

Hmm?

“This is exactly what I was looking for.”

Then they handed me a small container that looked almost like a child’s sippy cup.

They opened it just enough for me to glimpse stacks of 50,000-won bills inside before closing it again.

“…”

The buyer stared at me, clearly wondering why I wasn’t taking it.

It was unfortunate that I couldn’t ask Braun for advice here, but…

First things first.

I placed the money container on the ground.

“…?”

Then I nodded politely and pulled a notepad from my pocket.

“…??”

I opened it and showed the buyer what I had written.

[I don’t know what effects this item has.]

[Keeping it around didn’t seem dangerous, but just in case, I recommend that you don’t eat it.]

[I know you said it’s for research, but I wanted to warn you anyway.]

“…!”

I couldn’t see their expression beneath the mask, but they seemed genuinely surprised.

Yeah, I know this probably looks ridiculous…

Sorry.

I just didn’t want to risk someone recognizing my voice.

After giving a short bow, I flipped to the final page.

[Have a nice day ^^]

Then I nodded once more, picked up the money, and immediately ran off.

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

“Great.”

The moment I got home, I deposited the cash.

Since it was the weekend, Baek Saheon didn’t seem to be around.

Based on his usual pattern, he had probably gone back to his family home.

Anyway.

“It’s time to log into the Alien Shop.”

I opened the link.