The Ghost Story Office Worker Chapter 208
The iridescent potion ripples in my hands.
The color of Dream Essence.
The Wish-Granting Potion.
…The introduction is engraved into the transparent glass bottle, revealing itself whenever the liquid inside shifts the light like a wave.
I stared into it.
: Daydream Potion :
Wish
EX (miraculous)
Lift the bottle with both hands.
Express your earnest wish in a single sentence, and then…
With your eyes closed, consume the liquid in the bottle all at once.
Whatever the wish, it will be granted.
I had known this method for a long time.
That was why I had been pondering from the start.
What sentence should I use?
When I use the Wish Ticket, with what single sentence should I express the wish I would make?
I thought about it every time I tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep; every time I wrote an exploration report in the office; every time I barely survived a ghost story and walked home from work.
The first thing that came to mind was that.
A primal urge.
-Please send me home.
It was earnest.
But I put it on hold.
‘Home’ is too abstract a concept.
I’ve lived in more than one or two residential spaces up until now, and there was no telling what criteria the Wish Ticket would use to trigger.
If I wasn't careful, it was a phrase that could send me to the Daydream employee dormitory.
…The fact that I drifted from motel to motel as much as possible, avoiding a ‘home’ while infiltrated at the Disaster Management Bureau, was likely a manifestation of the aversion stemming from this.
Anyway, that was why I thought again.
Because I had to block off all room for error.
‘I can’t make a mistake.’
I must not let the Wish Ticket grant my wish in some unintended way.
‘Please send me back to the place where I originally lived’? Similarly abstract. Rejected.
‘Please send me to a world without ghost stories’? There’s no guarantee that would be the place I was from. If I’m unlucky, a crazy interpretation like… if you die and go to heaven, it’s a world without ghost stories… might be possible.
Discarding options time and time again, I chose so carefully.
One perfect sentence that could accurately designate time and space.
And then I decided.
Clutching the potion tightly with both hands, I opened my mouth and spoke.
“My wish is.”
Simply.
“To return to the place where I was one day before I joined Daydream Inc.”
The world where I originally lived, at a point in time before I spun the roulette at the pop-up store.
It was a perfect designation.
[Excellent!]
‘It worked.’
Hearing the Host’s admiration, I calmly opened the cap of the Wish-Granting Potion.
Light burst out, but I blocked it with my hand and closed my eyes.
And then, I poured the potion into my mouth.
“……!”
A dream being swallowed.
That was the only way to describe it.
A strange, synesthetic liquid I had never experienced before slid down my throat.
Something brilliant filled my stomach.
Intangible power, transcendental authority, overflowing mystery.
Ecstasy and wonder led me.
Yes. I am moving!
‘Oh my god.’
My entire body was being sucked in somewhere.
Very deep, very far….
To the place where my wish reaches.
It felt as if I were making a journey to fulfill a lifelong desire. A transcendental power was transporting me.
Yes.
Yes!
I’ll return to my safe home just like this and….
…….
…….
……?
“Cough.”
I collapsed onto the floor.
My body rolled across the dirty, dust-covered floor, and a cough erupted from me.
Musty air.
Even when I opened my eyes, I saw only pitch-black darkness. Even when I blinked, no outlines appeared.
Silence.
Silence.
What is this?
The fantastical sensation had ended. The Wish Ticket had vanished. Which meant….
This was my destination.
“…….”
The blood drained from my head.
I felt dazed.
“Ugh.”
I twisted my body on the floor and stood up. A sharp fragment scraped my arm and hand, leaving a stinging pain.
Gasping for breath, I held up the empty bottle still in my hand. One or two drops of the remaining Wish Ticket liquid cast a faint, residual light.
The space I was in revealed itself.
…Atop shards of broken glass.
“…!”
Turning my head, I saw the spot where I had fallen.
An empty glass tube was shattered.
I had fallen from there onto the shards of glass in a pit of dust.
‘…Why?’
Was I… moved inside there?
My heart throbbed with anxiety. Before foreboding could consume my mind, I desperately checked the silhouette of the device in the darkness.
It looked like a device used for storing a large volume of liquid. But….
…The device looked familiar.
An old, 2000s-style experimental machine with buttons and a keyboard panel beneath a glass tube that was empty because the power was out.
That was, that was…….
A dream incubator.
The broken, shattered dream incubator of the Cheerful Research Institute.
…….
I stared blankly around me.
My eyes, having adjusted to the darkness, finally identified the surroundings with the help of the Wish Ticket residue.
This was.
The Prototype Dream Incubation Room of the Cheerful Research Institute.
“……!”
Something was wrong.
Something was wrong.
Why did I come here?
“No.”
Let’s be calm. Calm. I clearly asked to be sent back to the place I was one day before I joined—why here? Wait. No, that’s not it.
“This isn’t the place!”
It’s different!
Yes. The structure was the same as that laboratory, but it was different. The silhouette was subtly different.
I saw other machines and documents. Even recording tapes and empty reagent bottles. And computers too….
‘There’s no dust on the computers.’
……It’s strange.
I staggered and turned my head. A hint, I needed a hint.
And then I found it.
An experiment log.
“…….”
The one that had been soaked in blood and filth, with every record meticulously erased, and only the words ‘We were deceived’ repeated like madness.
It was next to the shattered glass tube of the dream incubator.
Just as I had found it in the Dream Incubation Room last time.
“…….”
I approached it.
The old paper wasn't soaked in blood and filth, but it was scorched brown.
I turned the page with trembling hands.
Though there were charred spots as if it had been burned, it was readable.
Starting from the title on the first page.
Ireum-nim Invitation Research
I inhaled sharply.
Research Purpose: Confirmation of the targeted …….
…Ascension of an entity into the physical world and progression of the contract.
The sub-title of this research was taken from the name of a god worshipped by a certain cult currently thriving as a derivative of previous research.
This will be the final research of the Cheerful Research Institute.
My heart pounded ominously.
I turned the pages frantically.
Numerous experiment records were written.
Because they weren't registered as data, the formats were varied, and there were several practitioners.
Various attempts and preparations.
Failure, Dream Incubator No. 21 discarded.
Failure, failure.
Horrible ingredients I didn't recognize and extreme methods remained, with more than half erased.
Things that had been birthed, summoned, and then discarded.
And then….
Success.
Some meaningful result had come out.
Experiment #316
Input Liquid Volume: 1200L
Ingredients: Qterw-A-4…'s …Dragon, ……-…326, human blood, ……, and 13 other synthetic elements.
Succeeded in awakening Ireum-nim’s spirit inside the glass tube.
Contract failed. Form collapsed within the liquid.
Assumed to be due to insufficient liquid; will adjust variables based on this research.
And it gradually became more sophisticated.
Experiment #322
Input Liquid Volume: 2300L
Awakened Ireum-nim let out a shriek inside the glass tube, and after …… ………, life signs vanished.
Assumed that after perceiving their own physical tissue mutation, the rejection reaction caused the material bonds to collapse and clump.
Requesting change in material ratios to prepare a medium that accurately reflects Ireum-nim’s appearance.
Checking Darkness related to shapeshifting.
My hands trembled.
An ominous deduction swirled in my head.
The experiments repeated over and over, and the conditions became more specific.
The necessary conditions for invitation and contract confirmed so far are as follows:
Through a powerful Binding Restriction, it is believed these conditions can be fulfilled, and various plans are being proposed.
And….
An existing invention of the Cheerful Research Institute was mentioned.
It was a product, currently discarded, that requested an entity from the Otherworld to partially dwell in a doll and perform a friendly role for the contractor.
A limited version was being distributed as a souvenir in a certain board game, and it was—
It was called by the product name ‘Good Friend.’
“…….”
I barely managed to turn to the next page.
The final experiment record.
Experiment #444
Input Liquid Volume: 39999L
Ingredients: Same as #443.
Result: Success.
Using the ritual from the discarded invention, the complete invitation of Ireum-nim was achieved.
Dwelling in ……. Stabilization.
Immediately upon awakening, scheduled to be separated from the Dream Essence Liquid for a simple Q&A.
The pages ended there.
However.
“…….”
As I turned the final page, I saw a torn piece of paper tucked inside.
Traces as if it had been crumpled up into a ball.
It was as if someone had taken a discarded piece of paper, smoothed it out well, and placed it back into the experiment records.
And on it, there was scribbled writing.
The handwriting, which had been as precise as a document, was completely ruined.
Daydream found out they're raiding it was another trick before Ireum-nim is taken I’ve smuggled them out and hidden them in the place where there will be the most people
Please
The writing cut off unnaturally there.
And beneath the words ‘place where there will be the most people,’ someone had drawn a thick line and written words in a different handwriting.
New employee orientation?
As if they had deduced it after seeing the text.
“…….”
No.
My mind rejected it.
But the deduction was already finished.
No, there was nothing to deduce.
It was too clear.
In response to my wish to ‘return to the place I was in one day before I joined Daydream Inc.’
I had awakened inside this shattered dream incubator.
So.
I….
Was the research target of this experiment log.
A Good Friend.
Something synthesized, inhabited by an entity from the Otherworld invited by the Cheerful Research Institute.
Just like the Host, Braun, who was projected into a plush doll.
Kim Soleum’s consciousness, existing in another world, projected into ‘something’ created in a dream incubator.
…Is that what this is?
“……No.”
It’s not.
There must be some other deduction I can make.
What did it say about the Binding Restriction earlier? That doesn't apply to me. Because I want to go home, I want to go back to my home and meet my family and friends.
So….
Who exactly are those people?
“…….”
I can’t remember.
I mean.
Clearly, even when I first joined, I remembered them clearly.
I even remembered the conversations I had with my parents and friends. And with my friends, and family, I checked my contacts and searched through records and found out…….
……Did I?
Did I just think to myself that I ‘found out’ and moved on?
Specifically, what contacts did I check, and what previous address did I visit?
I don’t know.
I don’t remember.
Only the certainty that I had done it….
“…….”
Then, am I,
Is this body I’m in,
Not Kim Soleum?
If the place I was before joining was here.
If I returned to the place where this body was.
If I was created in the dream incubation lab.
Am I… not human?
“No.”
I looked down at my hands.
[No]
No!
S t o p I t
Keekekekekekeekdkekeke
My body began to bulge and protrude.
The tattoos began to collapse.
I was disappearing. My human body was breaking down.
The ego that realized the truth rejected the form of a human body. The body tried to return to its original form.
Something divine and bizarre and synthesized burst out from within me.
Scales and horns, hooves and thorns, pierced through my ribs….
“No!”
My voice echoed strangely through the space. But there was nothing I could do. I had organized all my items. My tattoos were empty…!
N o
At that moment.
I realized.
One piece of equipment remained inside the tattoos.
Not mine, but borrowed equipment.
“…!”
I frantically shoved my mutating hand into the tattoo and pulled out the equipment.
The Security Team suit.
And I began to madly pull that suit on.
My mutating body was shoved into a human form and fixed in place. With a bizarre sound, black smoke enveloped my entire body.
In that way, I barely regained my human limbs.
I had to run.
Staggering, I searched for the lab door. Eyes like yellow lanterns flashed. The light found the doorknob.
Barely grabbing it and leaning against it as I stepped outside….
I saw indoor lights.
“……!”
An ordinary office hallway.
A scenery I had seen once before.
‘…Daydream’s Underground.’
The place the Sergeant had told me about, the one located in the company’s basement… the Cheerful Research Institute.
-The Cheerful Research Institute… it’s still in our company’s basement…….
-Even if you go further down into the basement… the same office hallways… just keep repeating….
Just what basement floor was this?
How do I get out?
‘The elevator….’
My head and my body were heavy.
Strange, intense pain flooded my entire body.
Dragging my feet, I tried to move toward the end of the hallway no matter what.
Just then.
“Excellent.”
…….
“Your loyalty to the company is remarkable. To think you’d return.”
I lifted my head.
Someone in a suit, who had appeared out of nowhere, was staring at me from the front.
An impression whose age couldn't be guessed, a cold and tidy appearance, dark blue hair, wearing a perfectly fitted three-button suit….
Director Cheong Dallae.
“You’re already wearing the uniform. It looks very good on you.”
Black pupils peered into me.
“But that isn't the appropriate uniform….”
I opened my mouth.
But no words came out. It felt as if my vocal cords were crumpled inside the suit.
The insanely uncomfortable, tightening sensation grew stronger, more… painful.
“Yes. That seems to make a human look like a monster. Is it a newly developed version?”
“…….”
“But when a real monster wears it, it’s just a frame that forcibly crushes the body. As you know, there are many programs in society that only take effect once a contract is signed. It’s like that.”
It was a declaration.
“If you stay like that, you will soon suffer necrosis.”
“…….”
“If you don’t like that, there is this path.”
Director Cheong Dallae pulled a neat sheet of paper from her pocket.
“It’s a contract.”
…….
“All you have to do is sign. I promise very humane treatment. It will be a satisfying job…. In the Security Team, that is.”
Blood began to flow from my body. Blood dripped down my fingers.
“Now.”
“…….”
“Choose.”
I felt like I was going to die.
As my collapsed body was crushed, my consciousness began to be crushed as well. Now, I couldn't even stagger forward.
I didn't even have the strength to think of another option.
A dead end.
“…….”
I raised my trembling hand.
And on that contract, I signed with my flowing blood.
“Good.”
The moment the signature was finished,
My body rapidly began to feel at ease.
As if I were wearing perfectly fitting clothes, as if a promise had been kept, as if the exact right amount of water had been poured into a glass.
Peace and an unknown power spread throughout my entire body.
And… along with a Binding Restriction clearer than anything else.
“…….”
I looked at my boss.
“From now on, you will be entrusted with a very excellent duty.”
And just like that.
I began to commute to the company again.
<End of Part 1>
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