Chapter 38

The first thing I felt was dampness.

SQUELCH.

As I slipped my saltwater-soaked hand into the snake hole, a strange chill washed over it, as though I had plunged it into ink.

Then I was sucked inside.

"...!"

The suction began at my hand and soon swallowed my entire body.

'I-I can't breathe.'

It felt like wet paper clinging to my whole body, squeezing me tight.

With my vision and senses engulfed in blackness, everything spun round and round...

"Gasp!"

THUMP.

Out in the cool air, I could breathe again.

I opened my eyes.

The nighttime panorama of a provincial city spread before me, neon signs twinkling in place of stars.

An autumn night in Korea.

'... I'm alive.'

This was reality.

"Whew."

I tried to get up on trembling legs and nearly fell.

Dark red ink was oozing beneath my feet.

"..."

I followed the trail of ink upward with my eyes.

There sat an ink-wash painting on old hanji paper, its image entirely blurred and faded.

I could hardly make out a shape, as though time had worn away the whole picture, only for someone to pour fresh ink over it...

'... That must be one of the paintings leading into that insane mountain.'

An inexplicable chill made me look away at once. Instead, I turned to the people sprawled on the ground.

One, two, three, four... seven. Everyone was here.

The painting seemed to have spat them out after me.

"Ughhh..."

"Are you all right?"

"Ugh... Huh?! O-outside!!"

Section Chief Lee Byeongjin shouted as he stared into the open air.

"Haha!! W-we're alive!! We made it!!"

Then he turned to me, his face brimming with joy and tears, and bowed deeply.

"Th-thank you. For saving me..."

"You saved yourself, sir. You're the one who conducted the ritual, aren't you?"

"... Haha, goodness, you're so modest... You put me to shame. Truly."

For some reason, he looked deeply moved as he bowed his head.

It was closer to flattery than modesty, but I might as well let him think the best of me.

"Uh, wh-whoa!?"

The middle schoolers came to next. As I checked on them, I learned something surprising.

"This is where you're staying for your school trip?"

"Yes!!"

Come to think of it, this place did fit their description of a pavilion on the mountain behind their lodgings perfectly.

'Looks like it spat us all out here.'

... It was a relief that we hadn't woken up among those bizarre offices in the company's basement.

The children hugged one another, crying with relief, and tried to hurry straight down the mountain. I didn't stop them, only warned them to be careful.

"Watch your step. As soon as you get down, find an adult and call your parents. Got it?"

But that seemed to frighten them instead.

"You're not coming with us...??"

Uh... probably not?

Whether I was mistaken for a kidnapper or hailed as the good Samaritan who had saved them, the company wouldn't be too happy once I set foot in a police station...

'As long as the kids get back safely, that's enough.'

I slowly shook my head and said,

"We grown-ups have somewhere else to go. You kids go straight down from here. Don't look back."

They might trip, after all.

"...! Okay."

For some reason, the children seemed to muster their courage, as though they'd made some momentous decision. Following my instructions, they carefully made their way down the mountain, supporting one another.

'Good.'

It was a low mountain with well-maintained walking trails, so they should reach the bottom in five minutes.

I was watching to make sure they were getting down safely when it happened.

TAP TAP.

"Excuse me..."

The security chief, who had staggered to his feet a while ago, tapped my shoulder.

"Take this..."

"Oh."

He held out the wooden stick with the bluish wild ginseng hanging from it.

'You could've just left that there.'

At any rate, once I'd taken the unconscious ginseng from him almost without thinking, he turned and began trudging away.

"... Where are you going?"

"Work... I'm still on the clock..."

Oh.

'But we're in Gyeongju.'

Wouldn't his shift be over by the time he got back anyway?

Still, I followed him. I did need to get back to Seoul.

With the graduate student, Go Seonha, who was still out cold, slung over my back.

'I'll leave them outside a police station on the way.'

That was when I heard it.

"Ahh, you two need to hurry back because you're with security! I-I'll come along! Haha! The missing person you were looking for ought to go too, shouldn't he? Let's go together!"

I looked back at Section Chief Lee Byeongjin.

The way he hurried after us reminded me of a sycophant afraid of losing his patron.

Hmm. Now that we were out... perhaps it was time he learned the truth.

"And, uh, once everything's settled, I'll visit your workplace to thank you both again. Hehe, where does the security team work, exactly...?"

"No need."

"...?"

"You won't find me at the security team."

"Pardon?"

"I'm with the Field Exploration Team."

A profound silence fell.

"But y-your clothes are security—"

"I lent him those..."

"...!?"

At the security chief's words, confusion flooded Lee Byeongjin's face, but he soon seemed to piece together some explanation for himself.

"Ahh! Ah! I-I see. Huh? But I've never seen you before... Don't you come through Administrative Support? Oh! Are you in some sort of special team? Hence the security uniform..."

"I'm a new recruit."

"...?"

"A new recruit on Team D."

"...???"

* * *

Things moved fairly quickly after that.

Section Chief Lee Byeongjin kept crying, "You're lying," all the way from Gyeongju back to the company. But once he arrived and even checked my personnel records, his expression went blank again.

Then, as might be expected, he changed his attitude... except he didn't.

'Why?'

I'd expected him to immediately look down on me as a Field Exploration Team rookie. Instead, he remained surprisingly civil and kept watching my reactions.

Though he did drop the formalities, trying hard to act jovial.

"Oh, Soleum, did you hear? Those kids and the graduate student. Apparently, they all made it home safely."

A few days later, he told me that the people who'd escaped with us had been registered as civilian survivors with <Daydream Inc.>.

He also let slip that they would have received a fairly generous payment for providing information.

"In a way, their luck with money really did improve. Ironic, isn't it? Huh? That's life for you."

And that irony came my way too.

"Anyway, all you have to do now is put your trust in me, Soleum!"

"... Um, yes."

"Hahaha!"

Section Chief Lee Byeongjin pushed the manual reviews through at lightning speed.

... Only mine.

'Can he really get away with that after showing up from a week of unauthorized absence?'

Either way, it was good news for me.

The hanging-scroll rod that served as a gateway to the "Lord of the Mountain" ghost story was quickly collected as a Darkness under <Daydream Inc.>'s control. In the process, my solo escape method was accepted into a manual yet again.

On top of that, the pending review of my manual revision from when I'd assisted Team A sailed through too.

And so, the amount deposited into my account was...

Review Payment ₩100,000,000

"..."

'This is insane.'

The figure made my hands tremble.

With two Darkness reviews approved, an amount I'd never imagined seeing had appeared in my banking app.

Since these hadn't been officially assigned tasks, I wasn't eligible for points and got money as a fallback instead. But when the sum was this large, it was hard not to lose your head.

'With the manual reviewer this well-disposed toward me, shouldn't I be clearing as many new Darknesses as I can...?'

But I couldn't bring myself to voluntarily wander around alone meeting all sorts of ghosts and monsters. So, for now...

'Let's put this hundred million to good use.'

What could I spend it on that would really be worth it?

Well, thirty percent of it was already spoken for.

The thing that had started this whole goddamn ordeal.

"Congratulations, Braun."

"Ooooh!"

Blood Bathtub - ₩29,999,999

= ₩29,999,999

Ready to purchase.

Fortunately, the Blood Bathtub was still available in the Alien Shop, and I could keep my promise to the moving plush doll.

'Will it come by parcel delivery again?'

Recalling the postal-service packages that had abruptly been spat out of thin air left me a little stunned.

As far as I knew, the Blood Bathtub was a claw-foot tub... about the size of a built-in bathtub in a fairly large home.

Its legs were even decorated with gold leaf, making it quite ornate. And that was going to drop into my studio-sized private room in company housing?

'... Should I order it in the bathroom?'

F-for now, I decided to push the bed and desk aside to make some room, then try pressing the order button here. There just wasn't enough space in the bathroom.

"... Okay. I'm ordering it now."

"How exciting! My heart is pounding."

In a room lit by a single flashlight so I could talk with a plush doll that couldn't possibly have a beating heart, I finally clicked "Order."

HISS.

Space tore open, just as it had the last few times. My tension rose.

But the opening was... smaller than I'd expected?

THUD.

It spat out a parcel.

The parcel was... small too...?

"...?"

I opened the postal-service parcel, which was less than a quarter of the size I'd expected.

A product box came into view.

[Bathtub of Youth – Foot Massage Edition]

"..."

No wonder it was cheap.

Come to think of it, these things originated in a home-shopping ghost story, so I seemed to remember all sorts of editions and versions in the records...

Except for a select few cases, there weren't any major functional differences. Mostly, they were just fun little details.

'Still, I never dreamed there'd be a footbath version.'

It must have been some kind of special edition, because it came with a shiny gold-foil sticker and even a warranty certificate.

[10-Year Free Repair Service]

Utterly pointless...

'As if I'd ever request repairs for this.'

Still, I went ahead and unpacked it.

There weren't any reports in <Records of Dark Exploration> of people having their blood automatically drained just from touching a Blood Bathtub.

Opening the rectangular box, much like the packaging for an ordinary electronic device, revealed an object wrapped in the expensive packaging favored by brands that billed themselves as luxurious.

And once I removed that wrapping, it finally emerged.

'... The Bathtub of Youth.'

Also known as the Blood Bathtub.

It was a glossy black-and-white checkered bathtub that looked as though it had been made from gleaming ceramic.

The entire tub curved elegantly, supported easily at all four corners by golden cat-paw feet.

It did look rather impressive.

'... Except for the fact that it's a footbath.'

But someone who happened to fit perfectly inside it seemed tremendously excited.

"Mr. Roe Deer! Put me in there! Along with the bath additive..."

Wait. The bath additive for a Blood Bathtub would be...

"... You want my blood?"

"Precisely! Very perceptive, Mr. Roe Deer."

Holy shit.

For a moment, I debated between talking him out of it and running away, but...

"Haha! I'm joking, my friend!"

"..."

"With neither an audience nor a camera present, I would never make such an unreasonable demand of a friend!"

And what about when there was an audience and a camera?

But I didn't say that aloud. The one who needed the other more had to bite their tongue.

Still, I couldn't hold back one remark.

"I'd rather you didn't make jokes like that. They're not funny. They're scary."

"Oh dear, understood. Humor is heavily influenced by culture, so one must always handle it with care!"

That was his idea of handling it with care...?

"Anyway, to return to the matter at hand... isn't there something more suitable for use as a bath additive right here in this room?"

"Oh, shall we see if our Mr. Roe Deer can guess what it is?"

There was something like that in company housing?

I turned my head.

'Surely he doesn't mean Baek Saheon in the next room...'

No. He couldn't. He'd better not.

Setting that possibility aside... one thing did catch my eye.

With a dubious look, I pointed at the thing that had occupied a corner of my desk for the past few days.

"... This wild ginseng?"

"Excellent!"

Yes.

That corrupt-looking, purple wild-ginseng thing I'd inadvertently stolen from the "Lord of the Mountain" ghost story.

'Sap, I suppose? It definitely seemed to have something like blood flowing through it.'

For days now, though, it had been exactly like ordinary wild ginseng, apart from the purple color.

I'd planned to grind up a whole apple and feed it the juice the moment it woke up, then hand it over to the company if it proved too much to handle. Surprisingly, it hadn't woken at all.

'To the point that being awake, tense as a wire, at sunrise that day felt stupid...'

Braun had even offered this assessment.

["I doubt it will wake up in the future, either. After all, isn't playing dead what weak animals do when threatened?"]

I would take that to mean it was because we'd dragged it into the real world from that space belonging to the tiger-devoured ghosts, the so-called burial ground of the Lord of the Mountain.

["At any rate, my friend, if you're that worried, I'll keep a close eye on it from now on."]

And no problems had occurred so far.

Anyway, he wanted me to use this wild ginseng?

'Hmm. That might be worth a try.'

Without a ghost possessing it, I would just be preparing some juicy ginseng.

Besides... honestly, I did want to see the Blood Bathtub in action.

'It is pretty fascinating.'

I had a curious streak too. Presumably that was why I'd spent my spare moments at work browsing the Ghost Story Wiki...

There weren't many ghost stories I could comfortably observe, even through pictures.

I did want to make use of this chance to see it run on plant juice instead of blood.

"Ooooh!"

I fetched rubber gloves and scissors from the kitchen.

A low, excited voice came from the monster-under-the-bed plush doll.

"Now, put me in the bathtub!"

"Hold on."

There was something I needed to say first.

"This bathtub is supposed to rejuvenate you, but do you need rejuvenating? Um... you look young enough already."

I wanted to start by questioning whether that concept could even apply to a doll, but held back.

But the plush doll laughed heartily. The sound was as crisp as a recorded sound effect on a show.

"Hahaha! You're taking a rather narrow view of rejuvenation, my friend! Not to worry. You have me here, an understanding soul and a gifted conversationalist!"

"'Rejuvenation' means... let's see. In cultures that use Chinese characters, the term means 'the return of spring.' So, strictly speaking, it means 'regaining the abilities of one's prime.'"

"With my body strangely heavy and my balance so difficult to maintain, that's precisely the effect I need!"

Well... but you're a stuffed doll.

Besides, the instructions said it was effective for "healing wounds, relieving fatigue, treating arthritis, improving skin, and more."

'... Who knows.'

If he was that insistent...

There hadn't really been any cases in <Records of Dark Exploration> of someone being harmed for treating the plush doll well and giving it power in the Good Friend ghost story.

The catastrophes happened when people mistreated it.

I decided to stop before I thought any further. I was only scaring myself for no reason.

Instead, I put on the rubber gloves, taking the scissors in one hand and the wild ginseng in the other.

'Let's give it a try.'

Then I reached toward the Blood Bathtub.