Chapter 32

The missing manual reviewer.

My missing fifty million won.

And the missing gift Blood Bathtub (prospective).

"..."

Worse still, Braun—the very person who had asked for that gift—was currently sitting in a pocket of my bag...

'He's hearing all of this. Fck...' *

Leaving him at home felt uncomfortable for several reasons, and I never knew when I might enter another ghost story, so I'd been carrying him around. Now it felt as if that had backfired.

It was like... promising a Christmas present to your niece, only to arrive at the department store on Christmas Day and see a SOLD OUT sign on the shelf.

Except your niece was Annabelle.

"Whew..."

A sigh escaped me.

'The person responsible has been absent without notice for a whole week... in this universe.'

It was obvious.

That meant they'd gotten caught up in a ghost story and gone missing.

"Just relax and wait. It's better for your mental health."

If I relaxed and waited and someone else bought the Blood Bathtub from the Alien Shop first, I'd end up breaking my 'promise' to Braun!

I did not want to get on the wrong side of a stuffed doll that had burned an A-grade Darkness to death with a snap of his fingers...!

'This is killing me. Seriously.'

Deputy Eun Haje patted my shoulder and returned to her desk, leaving me seated in silent agony.

What should I do?

Spend two months on tenterhooks, then grovel in apology if the bathtub sold in the meantime?

Find some way to take out a loan?

Or...

'... Should I at least find out why the reviewer went missing?'

It wasn't solely about covering my ass by saying, 'I did everything I could.' Maybe I could actually find the reviewer without much difficulty or danger.

<Records of Dark Exploration> was still there, both in my head and on my smartphone.

'Let's just check.'

Work had been fairly quiet since the theme park incident. Besides, I'd explored a ghost story yesterday and finished the paperwork.

That meant I could afford to slack off a little today, as long as I didn't blatantly escape the company premises.

'Even my superiors are just drifting in and out of the office.'

Of course, I was at the very bottom of the seniority ladder, so I decided to limit my excursion to about an hour after lunch.

The first place to visit...

'The reviewer's desk, naturally.'

* * *

DING

The elevator doors opened.

Naturally, I'd also prepared an excuse for this visit.

["Roe Deer wants to at least visit the reviewer's office? Oh, dear... Then take this along!"]

Our softhearted supervisor had let me deliver his training completion certificate—a document that didn't particularly need handing in right now, but wouldn't raise eyebrows if it was.

'Thank you, Supervisor Park Minseong... '

What a heartwarming gesture in this ghost-story world teeming with psychopaths.

I entered the Administrative Support Office and located the employee who would take the document. As luck would have it, they were seated at the desk next to the manual reviewer's empty one.

"I've brought a document for Supervisor Park Minseong of Team D."

"Hm? Put it there."

"Yes. Oh, and this..."

I politely offered the bag I was carrying to the office worker, who was tapping away at a computer with bored eyes, not even turning toward me.

Inside were still-warm golden doughnuts dusted with sugar and generously filled with vanilla cream.

Plus iced Americanos.

'Bribes really are essential for this sort of thing.'

"I picked up a few extra while buying snacks for our team. I thought you might enjoy something while you work."

"...! Oh, you didn't have to bring us anything."

Even so, the hands accepting the Americano and doughnuts were swift. A true office worker.

"Supervisor Kang, pass these around."

"Oh? Doughnuts?"

"This gentleman brought them."

"Wow, thank you! Are you from Team D?"

As the administrative staff bit into their doughnuts, I watched the office atmosphere subtly shift into tea-break mode.

The mood was ripe for idle chatter.

An ideal moment for a stranger to slip into the conversation—especially the stranger who had supplied the snacks.

I judged my timing and spoke, looking straight at the empty desk of the manual reviewer, Lee Byeongjin.

"Excuse me, should I just leave a coffee on Section Chief Lee Byeongjin's desk too? He doesn't seem to be here..."

"Oh, just take it with you. He hasn't even come to work."

"Oh, he's on vacation."

"Vacation? Nah, he's missing."

Hooked.

The employee at the neighboring desk spoke casually, sounding hardly sorry at all, and exchanged a glance with the colleague across the way.

"Honestly, I knew this would happen."

"Hey, hey."

"What? Everyone's going to hear about it anyway. You, from Team D—you said you were new, right? What's your name?"

"Kim Soleum."

"...! Oh, the one who almost joined Team A?"

"Well, I'm grateful they thought highly of me."

"Wow."

Somewhere nearby, I heard murmurs along the lines of, 'So that was Team D's new recruit.'

The employee beside the empty desk discreetly looked me up and down with renewed interest, then spoke, quietly shedding their indifference.

"Well, you'll find out eventually if you keep working here, so I'll tell you."

Hmm.

"Even working at this company, there's always someone who cluelessly picks up something strange and goes missing, you know?"

"Pardon?"

I deliberately furrowed my brow as though thinking before asking,

"Do you mean... that's why he hasn't been coming in?"

"Exactly. That... what was it? A hanging pole?"

"A hanging scroll. A scroll."

The person opposite corrected them in a resigned tone, and the employee beside the desk snickered.

"Oh, right. A scroll. He said he'd bought some scroll that brought a windfall or something... He was quietly bragging that he'd won second prize in the lottery after buying it."

Oh.

He'd bought a suspicious scroll, bragged about his newfound financial luck, then disappeared?

'A textbook secondhand-item ghost story... '

The setup was a complete cliché.

'Hmm. All right.'

I made a quick decision.

'Let's back out.'

Getting involved just to receive my money a little sooner could leave me a corpse.

I was preparing something like, 'Wow, that's frightening! Well, I'll be going now...'

"Anyway, that's a bit unfortunate for you."

For me?

"Hey, come on! You don't have to tell him that too!"

"But it's true. That Darkness undergoing a manual revision review is yours, right?"

Yes.

"Without the missing Section Chief Lee, it'll be hard to get that approved."

...?!

Wh-what did that mean...?

"That section chief was close with Team A. You know the sort of thing. They were in... the same 'camp,' so to speak."

"...!!"

Camps.

The foundation of office politics.

Relationships divided into factions according to which higher-up you were close to!

And the missing reviewer had been particularly close to Team A—a member of their 'camp,' in plain language...?

Realization struck like lightning.

'So that's why Team A's leader sounded so certain!'

No wonder he'd been so confident about how quickly the manual would be revised!

"Honestly, who knows what the replacement will be like... but they probably won't put someone from the same camp in the job. It'll likely be one of Director Cheong's people."

"..."

"And they're not on particularly good terms with Team A... Well."

Did you hear that?

The sound of fifty million won evaporating.

It wasn't arriving late. It was disappearing altogether...!

'No!'

Before I knew it, I was speaking.

"Do you happen to know where the reviewer disappeared...?"

"Actually, there's an interesting story about that too."

The employee next to the desk leaned toward me conspiratorially.

"Rumor has it he disappeared inside the company."

"...!"

"Someone said they ran into Section Chief Lee in the lobby when he came to work that morning, you see? But he never made it into the office."

"... He disappeared on the way here?"

"Well, we don't really know. No one can say for certain. Nobody actually saw him disappear."

"..."

Nobody saw it... huh.

'Maybe no person did. But something else might have.'

I looked up.

In a corner of the office, the red light of a security camera was glowing.

* * *

Security cameras.

If he really had disappeared inside the company, naturally there might still be footage of it.

'For security cameras at a company this size... would they keep about two weeks of footage?'

If so, it should still be available.

Finding the missing man's whereabouts was urgent if I wanted my fifty million won on time.

... The problem was,

'The department managing the security footage here... is the security team.'

And the security team was... hmm.

* * *

Immune from liability for shooting to kill. (Applies to all employees.)

* * *

That's right.

For several reasons, I'd hoped to avoid encountering them...

'But now that I work here, I can't avoid them forever.'

Since it had come to this, I might as well use the opportunity to gather information while checking.

Once again acutely aware of Braun in my pocket, I headed to the first floor.

Straight to the Safety Management Office, where the security team was based.

"So I go down to the basement from here?"

On the outskirts of the first floor was a staff-only door leading to a separate basement area. A short flight of stairs brought me to an iron door.

[Safety Management Office]

I raised my hand.

KNOCK KNOCK

"..."

KNOCK KNOCK

"Come in, or whatever..."

"...??"

I carefully opened the door.

An old sofa stood in the center of a cramped room that looked like a typical facilities office.

Someone was sprawled across it.

A security employee in a worn navy uniform.

...?

"Hello..."

My eyes swiftly scanned the name tag on his uniform.

[Security Team 3 Chief J3]

"Excuse me, Chief. Could I possibly check the security footage from a week ago? Someone has gone missing..."

"..."

The answer came slowly.

"You want to see the security footage..."

"Yes."

"Ah..."

He looked exhausted and annoyed by everything.

Still slumped on the old sofa without even introducing himself, Team 3's chief slowly spoke.

"Normally, you'd have to submit a security footage access request..."

Ah.

"But since when has this company cared about that sort of thing... Just go watch it."

"..."

Was that kindness, or dereliction of duty?

In any case, I was the one asking a favor, so I offered the remaining snacks as a bribe.

"I thought you might like something to snack on..."

"Oh, doughnuts."

His utterly drained face lit up, and he promptly rose from the sofa to snatch the bag.

"I like doughnuts, but nowhere delivers them to the company... I can't go outside during the day, so I don't get to eat them very often..."

I see.

'He doesn't look nearly as violent as I expected.'

But ghost stories also had the classic 'doesn't look like it, but is actually a ghost' trope.

Still on my guard, I spoke gently.

"Then would it be all right for me to head to the surveillance room now?"

"Yes... But."

Scratching the back of his head, he spent a long time staring at the doughnuts as if wrestling with a dilemma, then slowly began.

"There's a guard available. Take him along... It could be dangerous..."

"Oh, thank you."

I waited for him to call a guard over the radio or something.

But he didn't move a muscle.

"...?"

"...?"

"You said you'd assign a guard to me..."

"Me..."

He pointed at himself.

"That's me..."

...

"Oh... Right."

'Don't get involved with him.'

I'd better check the footage and get out quickly.

"You said a week ago..."

"Yes, yes."

At any rate, I went into the surveillance room with the security chief and checked the recordings.

My suspicions deepened when this supposed security chief proved none too adept with the equipment, but something else mattered more.

"Found him."

I'd found footage of the reviewer.

I watched a middle-aged man enter the lobby and board an elevator.

His face matched the photo of Section Chief Lee Byeongjin registered on the company intranet.

And there was a long object in his hand.

'Is that the scroll rod?'

It certainly wasn't something you'd bring to work. There was something unsettling about it.

"You're good at finding things. You could be a security guard..."

Please don't say such frightening things.

"Thank you. I suppose I'm concentrating because I'm trying to find a missing person."

"... A missing person?"

"Yes."

He fell silent, looking somewhat taken aback.

Apparently, he'd only half listened earlier and was just now registering it.

The fact that someone had vanished inside the company without the security team's knowledge, that is.

"Missed that one..."

"Will this cause you much trouble?"

"No... Wasn't my shift, either."

"..."

"They'll deal with it themselves..."

Right...

Thank you for that crystal-clear demonstration of shift-worker logic.

Anyway, by checking the elevator footage next, I was able to establish where the missing reviewer had gotten off.

The surprising thing was... he hadn't gone upstairs.

"... He went down to the basement."

Below even this Safety Management Office.

[B2]

The footage clearly showed him staggering out on the second basement floor.

... That was chilling.

'What on earth happened?'

Why had an administrative employee suddenly headed underground as though possessed?

'Only the Security Management Department has access down there.'

I'd heard even they only did patrols there. What was going on?

I broke into a cold sweat.

I hastily tore my eyes away from the empty elevator.

'From here on, even watching the footage feels dangerous.'

I might have gotten away with casually bypassing procedure so far, but I didn't think that would fly here.

The basement of a bizarre pharmaceutical company that sourced its ingredients from ghost stories.

A place where ordinary employees weren't even allowed, with no idea what went on inside?

'Even <Records of Dark Exploration> described it like some Napolitan ghost story!'

Nope. Time to wash my hands of this and leave.

Avoiding the security footage as much as possible, I bowed to the chief.

"Thank you for letting me see it. I'll be going now..."

"... Restroom."

"...?"

"The person you're looking for. He went into an unused men's restroom in the basement..."

"..."

"He hasn't come out. All week."

I desperately refused to look at the footage.

But the chief seemed to have already taken it upon himself to zip through recordings of the fourth basement floor, where the missing man had gone.

"Want to visit the restroom...?"

"I'm not authorized to access the basement floors."

"I'm going..."

Yes. That's your workplace, so of course you are.

I'd be truly grateful if you could go find the missing man...

"Let's go together... We'll say you're a new security recruit, or whatever."

What?!

"No, you really don't have to go that far—"

"Let's go..."

No!!

* * *

How had things come to this?

'He even gave me a uniform.'

I was riding a service elevator in the navy uniform of an ordinary security team member.

Trying to comprehend this situation was making my head spin.

'He talked me into it... '

["It's fine. Field Exploration Team members sometimes come to help out, too..."]

Wasn't that a disciplinary assignment?

Unfortunately, he'd established that even if word got out about my going underground, it wouldn't turn into a major issue.

I'd also doggedly contacted Team D and had this registered as an official support assignment, so there shouldn't be any disciplinary problems...

Should I be grateful my efforts to stay on my superiors' good side had paid off?

'My head's still spinning, though.'

I'd come this far just to buy one Blood Bathtub.

At this point, Braun ought to give me credit even if I couldn't secure the fifty million.

DING

The doors opened with the elevator's chime.

Basement level two.

It was exactly the same sound, yet somehow it sounded sinister. What came into view was...

A corridor lined with ordinary offices.

"..."

Why... were there offices in the basement?

'Shouldn't there be safety equipment or facilities here...?'

The dimly lit office corridor was utterly quiet, with opaque glass doors all around.

Office A, B, C... Each had a nameplate.

The security chief whispered.

"Don't open any doors..."

"Yes."

Even without that warning, I hadn't intended to lay a single fingertip on them.

I walked slowly, looking only at his back.

Then it happened.

"Mr. Roe Deer?"

"...!"

"To think you'd even put on such shabby clothes to give me, Braun, a gift! I'm truly touched, but it pains me too. Must my friend do such menial work?"

What a kind thing to say.

But there was one problem.

'... How are you talking to me?'

Good Friend could only speak and move inside a ghost story... Which meant:

I was already inside one.

"Oh, we're here."

The security chief stopped.

Before a restroom door leaking pale light.

"I'll open it..."

"Wait—"

But he opened the restroom door before he even heard me.

BANG

Amid the flickering lights, the space beyond the door came into view...

"..."

'Holy shit.'

The restroom was drenched in dark red ink.

It had burst forth as if an artery had been stabbed, covering the restroom mirror like blood.

I froze completely.

I couldn't even scream.

But a moment later, my sense of smell roused my reason.

'There's hardly any metallic smell.'

That wasn't all blood.

But it didn't smell like ordinary ink either. This was...

'... Traditional ink?'

Braun tapped me twice from inside my pocket.

'A warning.'

I snapped to attention.

The security chief looked around the restroom and reached out.

"Don't tou—"

He poked it.

"Yes...?"

We were fucked.

The moment the security chief dipped his index finger into the ink,

the dark red liquid began surging through the restroom like a wave.

"...!!"

I immediately tried to turn and run, but the thick black liquid shot toward me like countless hands, engulfing my feet and pulling.

Aaaaargh!!

'Fck, fck...!'

I barely managed to lower myself onto my stomach rather than fall flat on my face. My struggles splashed liquid up onto my chin. Curses rose in my throat.

As I turned my head, trying desperately to work out what was happening, I spotted the source.

"The scroll!"

On the restroom mirror was a scroll with its center slashed to ribbons.

The bloodlike ink was being sucked into the hollow, knife-slashed interior.

Which meant my feet were being dragged toward it too.

As though a living creature were pulling me... Wait. Living?

Like blood?

'The Blood-Drinking Tableware...!'

I pulled out the fork and drove it into the floor.

The bright silver fork shuddered, then began greedily absorbing the ink around it.

"Ah!"

It was doing something!

But a finger-sized dessert fork wasn't enough to hold out.

TING

The utensil sprang loose.

'Fck!' *

And I was sucked straight into the scroll.

* * *

"Haaah!"

I lifted my head.

Through my dark, hazy vision, I could make out old wallpaper covered in dense, tiny patterns.

An unfamiliar place.

'... An abandoned house?'

I steadied my breathing and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark.

And then, then...

I realized.

What I'd seen wasn't wallpaper.

Talismans.

Every wall of rotten wood was plastered thickly with decrepit talismans.

"...!"

Heavy.

A strange pressure dominated the dark, chilly room, as though the air were weighing down on my shoulders.

... Something was wrong.

I felt like a rat that had crept into the wrong place in the wrong way.

"..."

I clenched my trembling hand.

But there was nothing in it.

'... It's gone.'

The Blood-Drinking Tableware had disappeared.

Breaking into a cold sweat, I tried to breathe slowly, slowly, to keep myself from hyperventilating...

"Excuse me...!"

I thought I would faint.

"Y-you there! Are you a police officer...??"

I looked up.

I wasn't alone in the dark, abandoned house.

Small figures huddled in a distant corner were staring at me.

They were... children.

'Middle school uniforms.'

The tearful students cried out.

"Please help us! W-we touched some kind of strange picture, and now we can't get out of here!"