Chapter 5

What happens when a new recruit successfully completes probation?

Usually, there’s a small celebration and some gifts.

I just hadn’t expected the same from a conglomerate in a ghost story.

[“Let’s see... Good heavens! We have twenty-two graduates this time, everyone! Wow, I wonder what HR will think of that?”]

I couldn’t care less.

The recruits sitting beside me probably felt the same.

[“No, this really is an incredible record. Unless we messed up the difficulty settings, you’re an elite class. Elite!”]

Silence settled over the lecture hall.

Unfazed, the emcee cheerfully called out,

[“Then shall we pick the best of the best among our elite employees?”]

[“The top recruit of this year’s new Field Exploration Team class! One of those who completed the assessment and escaped in the shortest time, with the highest overall evaluation score!”]

The emcee raised a hand.

[“Congratulations, Kim Soleum!”]

Me?

[“Mr. Kim Soleum?”]

[“We can’t wrap up this ceremony until we’ve handed out the gifts! Come get yours!”]

Was this for real?

‘Why...’

I got up anyway.

I’d just been trapped in a ghost story where ignoring announcements got you killed. I’d be an idiot to stay seated after hearing those instructions.

[“Ah, it’s reassuring to see you come right up. With such a quick grasp of the situation, I think you’d do excellent work in our department too. What a shame. Such a shame.”]

Apparently, he was a manager in another department. Somehow, that made him look even more obnoxious and ridiculous.

I went up onto the stage and stood before him.

[“Here you go, your gift!”]

He held out a stiff-sided paper bag.

Inside the silver shopping bag bearing the <Daydream Inc.> logo, I caught a brief glimpse of a plaque that looked like a certificate of appointment, along with some other items.

[“Don’t be too disappointed that you didn’t get anything special for being top recruit.”]

I wasn’t remotely happy to begin with.

I took the shopping bag and gave a small nod to keep myself from glaring at him, then started to leave...

“Take a good look inside.”

What?

“What...”

[“Now, I’ll call up our next recruit!”]

The emcee already had the microphone in hand and was calling the next person’s name.

As though he’d never made that private aside.

“...”

Hmm.

I left the stage without wasting any more time.

After that, Go Youngeun and the others from our car went up to collect their gifts too.

Not that it meant much, but Baek Saheon was called right after me.

“...”

“...”

He was still sitting beside me, but we didn’t exchange a word.

To be precise, we didn’t even make eye contact. Judging by the way he was pressing his left eye, though, it seemed clear he’d returned the “lost item.”

‘He’ll get himself to a hospital.’

[“Next up, Kim Jiwon!”]

The farther down the list he went, the stranger the people coming up for gifts looked—their clothes, their gait, or the look in their eyes was somehow off.

‘... Were they in the ghost story for a long time?’

We’d seemingly regained consciousness in the lecture hall all at once, but there had definitely been differences in when we escaped the ghost story.

Trying to imagine just how long they’d been trapped sent a chill down my spine.

Still, perhaps they were better off than the other seventy-eight, in that they’d escaped at all.

[“Everyone received their gifts, yes?”]

At last, the presentation ceremony ended.

Nobody answered, but a strange tension, something like anticipation, quietly filled the hall.

The hope that they might finally let us leave.

To be honest, I was waiting for that too. Surely this was almost over.

But then.

[“However... our company doesn’t hire everyone who completes probation.”]

“...?!”

[“You see, there are always people who pass through sheer luck.”]

No way.

[“But Daydream Inc. is a company that never forgets the great social value of fairness.”]

[“Such probationary employees receive substantial deductions in their criterion-based evaluations.”]

The emcee did absolutely nothing.

No clichéd snap of the fingers, no pointed stare. Not even a theatrical blackout in the lecture hall.

And yet...

[“As I said, we catch all freeloaders.”]

People began to melt.

“...!”

Here and there, several people began melting, their silhouettes collapsing into shapeless masses.

There were no screams. No movement.

‘Fuck!’

The person in front of me clamped a hand over their mouth to stifle a scream.

I hurriedly turned away too.

But my eyes had already seen it.

‘They’re gone.’

Half the people from our car had disappeared.

Everyone except me, Go Youngeun, Baek Saheon, and the recruit Baek Saheon had attacked.

“...”

[“To our thirteen remaining recruits: congratulations! Your excellent performance has earned you full-time positions!”]

Not a single person applauded with joy.

In the icy silence, one person merely stammered in panic.

“I quit, I’m quitting... I’ll resign.”

The emcee remained perfectly relaxed.

[“Huh? Give up such a wonderful job? Oh, come on, at least hear about the benefits before you decide.”]

Behind me, Go Youngeun cried out as though retching up the words.

“Then once we’ve heard about the benefits, we can resign? Without any repercussions?”

[“That’s right. Every one of you can resign without so much as a hair on your head being harmed!”]

His delivery was smooth and full of confidence.

That was when I realized.

‘Here it comes.’

The stick was over and done with.

Now came the carrot.

... Those “benefits” I knew about.

[“Now, allow me to introduce our signature employee benefit!”]

The reason employees kept working for the Field Exploration Team despite enduring this insanity the moment they joined.

[Employee Benefits]

Wish Coupon

Something appeared on the lecture hall’s enormous screen.

A beautiful, sleekly curved crystal bottle.

PLOP.

Inside, a strange liquid shimmered in five colors, ripples spreading across its surface.

It undulated.

Every color and texture, even the ripples formed by the waves, was so beautiful and strange that it felt unsettlingly out of place.

Silence followed.

[“Shall we take a closer look?”]

The emcee pressed a button, and the projector screen rose, revealing a table hidden behind it.

On the black table sat the actual bottle we’d seen on-screen, radiant with color.

“...!”

The liquid inside moved of its own accord, scattering beautiful light bright enough to illuminate the entire hall.

That strange thing, which made you question whether it could really exist...

[“You all joined knowing our company is famous as a highly successful pharmaceutical firm, yes? Imagine how advanced our technology must be for us to have developed a hair-loss treatment.”]

[“But in fact, our main product is a different medicine... this one right here.”]

The emcee steadied his trembling hands and put on white gloves.

Then he carefully picked up the crystal bottle from the table and held it out so the employees could see it better.

[“The medicine is called a ‘Wish Coupon.’”]

[“Its effect is... exactly what the name suggests. Drink this medicine, and any wish you have will come true.”]

“...!”

[“You don’t believe me? Well, there are truckloads of your senior colleagues and superiors who’ve actually taken this medicine and had their wishes granted.”]

[“First, let me give you a demonstration.”]

The emcee broke open the packaging of the medicine on display... and downed it in one go!

[“Today happened to be the day I received my Wish Coupon. Haha!”]

Everyone in the lecture hall immediately understood what his “wish” had been.

The instant he drank the Wish Coupon, the emcee’s face, which had looked to be in its mid-to-late forties, rapidly grew taut and began to glow with a healthy flush.

His body firmed up, and his hair regained its thickness and sheen.

Yes, he had returned.

To his younger days, when he was still growing and brimming with vitality!

[“Yahoo!”]

Now looking like a high school student, the emcee thrust a fist into the air in excitement.

[“What do you think? Ahem, to put it simply, rejuvenation!”]

Even his voice had grown young and boyish.

A shocked silence filled the hall, different from before.

This was... the silence of wavering resolve.

The emcee pointed at the recruits.

[“Your department, the Field Exploration Team, always receives excellent performance evaluations. On average, its employees earn their Wish Coupons in half the time other teams take, or even less...”]

[“The ten fastest recipients of Wish Coupons were all from the Field Exploration Team!”]

GULP.

Somewhere, I heard someone swallow.

Of course, it was all wordplay.

In reality, it was little more than hazard pay.

‘Dozens, hundreds of people must have died in the line of duty before those ten record-holders.’

In other words, it was bait. Something that looked far better than it really was.

But...

‘Some people have definitely earned one.’

It wasn’t a scam.

[“Now, I’ll take quest—oh, yes, you!”]

One of the recruits quietly raised a hand and asked in a rough voice,

“Can it bring back the dead?”

He was a tall, brown-haired man.

[“Ah. You know what you always hear in stories like this? ‘That is the one wish that is fundamentally impossible...’”]

[“... Is what you thought I’d say!”]

The emcee flung up his hand.

[“A Wish Coupon will grant the wish of whoever drinks it. Without exception.”]

“...!”

[“Provided, of course, you use the correct method. Please consult the Employee Welfare Mall for detailed instructions.”]

“...”

The questioner fell silent again. But the recruits’ wavering resolve began to spread more intensely.

The emcee seized the moment.

[“For the other benefits, please check the screen and the information leaflet enclosed in your gift bag... Shall we make our decisions now?”]

WHOOSH.

With a brief sound, the doors at the back of the hall flew open.

[“Anyone who wishes to decline employment may leave and collect the paperwork at the desk.”]

[“But if you’re thinking you might as well give this job you’ve landed a proper try...”]

The emcee gestured.

[“Put on the mask inside your gift bag.”]

A mask? Oh.

‘Right, this was when they handed those out.’

[“Customization, isn’t that what they call it these days? It lets you express your own unique personality perfectly.”]

[“Well... this version doesn’t have any special functions. That’s all it does.”]

I gripped my smartphone.

There were too many eyes around for me to check, but if I could look at the <Records of Dark Exploration> page reconstructed by the Memorial Griptok, I was certain it would say this.

* * *

Records of Dark Exploration / Daydream Inc.

/ Departments

Trivia

Employees of the Field Exploration Team wear masks during fieldwork. These masks are reportedly issued after new employee orientation.

According to Employee D, the theme of the masks is determined by the year an employee joins.

For example, an agent wearing an ant mask and an agent wearing a mantis mask are likely to have joined in the same year.

* * *

In short, they were something of a symbol of Daydream Inc.’s Field Exploration Team.

‘I never thought I’d see the day I got one.’

It felt strange in more ways than one.

Of course, ninety percent of me wanted to run out of here right now, throw the mask away, and shout that I wasn’t taking the job.

Please, just let me live.

‘But... even if I quit, this whole universe is a cesspit.’

Those damned “Darkness phenomena” were already scattered everywhere.

It would be all too easy to enjoy the rare experience of becoming a ghost-story extra and having my life cut short.

‘Ha...’

So perhaps I’d have a better chance of survival working as an employee, with issued equipment, a salary, and an ultimate reward, while aiming for a transfer to another department.

‘Besides, that Wish Coupon looks like my best shot at getting back to my own world.’

A coward like me was doomed in this universe anyway. Finding a way out of the world altogether was the right call.

So, rationally—as rationally as possible—if I chose the option most likely to work...

‘I have to take the job.’

It was driving me insane, but there was no other way. Damn it.

In the end, I swallowed my tears and opened the bag.

Then I reached in to take out the mask.

“...?”

Something came out with it.

───

If needed

010-0153-24865

───

A business card?

It looked as though the name and position had been covered with correction fluid, then those words scrawled in their place.

‘... Did the emcee put this in?’

I glanced around, but no one else seemed to have anything like a business card attached to their mask.

‘I’ll deal with it later.’

I detached the card, put it back in the bag, and took out just the mask.

Smooth to the touch, it had a simple shape that looked as though it would cover only the area above my nose.

What surprised me was that everyone around me was already trying to put theirs on.

Without a single exception.

‘... After everything that happened, not one person is running away?’

There was really only one factor that could account for it.

The Wish Coupon.

‘Did they only select people who’d stake their lives on a Wish Coupon in the first place?’

I looked around the hall, where everyone was silently putting on their masks without a word about resigning, and felt something I couldn’t describe.

Because I was about to join them.

‘No other choice.’

I brought my mask to my face.

And its shape really did change.

Against my cheeks and forehead, I felt it stretching and growing uneven...

“...”

I felt it with my hands.

It was a fierce-looking mask with protruding antlers and strange patterns like wood grain.

Wait, tree-shaped antlers?

‘... Velvet antlers? A deer?’

It looked awfully strange for a deer.

Feeling dubious, I looked around with my mask on. Go Youngeun, wearing a sheep-like mask, gave me an awkward look when our eyes met.

The sight of the other recruits sitting there in suits and all manner of masks, from elephants to goats, was deeply strange and eerie.

Fitting for employees of a company that managed ghost stories.

[“Once again, our heartfelt congratulations on joining the company!”]

CLAP, CLAP, CLAP.

The slide advanced, playing recorded applause.

[Employment Confirmed]

‘So this is how it ends up...’

Masks be damned. Just as the thought of what lay ahead was making my head swim, a notepad abruptly appeared in midair again.

“...!”

The same notepad that had spat out my Memorial Griptok merchandise...

[Records of Dark Exploration Real Goods Box]

-Usage rights for new merchandise unlocked! (!)

Huh?