Daydream Inc.’s interrogation room.
In the unprecedented situation of a potion-manufacturing machine going missing, the interrogator’s jaw dropped at my explosive statement on-site.
“You said you s-saw a bomb in the elevator?”
“Yes.”
I nodded with a blank face. Then I declared flatly:
“I’m telling you it was there.”
And chaos broke loose.
But the staff who dragged me along to the elevator confirmed a spotless, empty interior.
“Uh, it’s gone. It was definitely here.”
“......”
“Anyway, I saw it.”
A truth detector appeared.
At Daydream, “haunted items that discover the truth” are a stock staple. This time it was a Dusk-grade knitted doll.
The big-eyed knitted doll asked in ventriloquism:
“Was there really a bomb?”
“I’m telling you it was there.”
......
“It’s true.”
The interrogation room fell into confusion!
And from that point, I started spouting every kind of bull I could scoop up.
“Ah, I also saw a staffer with a cult background in the elevator.”
“I saw researchers sprinting down the alley.”
“I saw the dragon and the fox from the new-hire training video getting beaten up by a rabbit.”
“I saw the security team hitting the Director.”
“It’s true.”
Every last one came back as true!
“Confession potion! We need a confession potion!”
“Why waste a confession potion on some lunatic! Does any of that even make sense?”
Yep.
“Nonsense!”
It’s real.
But the practical, seasoned interrogators arrived at a very appropriate guess.
“Even if it’s not truly the truth, if he believes it’s true, it’ll register as truth.”
“Ah...!”
Verdict: I’m a lunatic.
In the end, whispering with fed-up looks, the interrogation staff declared:
“Let’s check whether that researcher’s contaminated.”
“......!”
“My thought is....”
Murmuring.
“I think somebody released a darkness in here.”
“Then could the missing machine also be....”
“Exactly.”
I heard someone swallow.
“It’s likely the work of a darkness that failed isolation. People may be getting contaminated; that researcher looks like the first symptomatic case.”
[...so they’re saying, friend!]
Mm.
Sitting in a cozy interrogation room, I listened—via Brown—to the company staff outside, who’d handled my questioning, feverishly develop their deductions.
Now, what follows is....
“We need to test that researcher for contamination. And put in a proper renewed request to inspect whether there’s a darkness in the Annex that’s failed isolation.”
And so, thirty minutes later—
“Take him.”
“Yes....”
My custody was transferred to the security team.
To verify my “contamination state,” I was being transported to an isolation room.
Just like that, after drawing all the aggro in the interrogation room, I made a natural exit.
New researchers still corralled on the 10th floor looked at me like they were seeing a madman.
Goodbye, Researcher Park Kyunghwan’s brilliant career.
[Watching them all panic was so comical—oh, it was a sketch show unto itself!]
“Whoever stole it should be thanking me.”
Thanks to me, they just bought an hour or two. Plus, with another hypothesis to verify, the pursuit will hit more snags.
Of course, I paid an equivalent price.
“This researcher’s bright office life....”
In an unprecedented incident where a potion machine vanished, I made them squander administrative capacity like this; contaminated or whatever, I’ll have made myself truly hated.
And with the peers, too.
“You’re... really not cut out to work here....”
Just quit.
I’m going to consider it a good deed for the countless Field Survey Team members and civilians who died or got wrecked because of you. Hm.
With a shrug in my heart, I followed the lanky, stooped security team staffer who was escorting me.
Annex traffic was shut down due to the theft.
With the security staffer, I took the elevator and was moved to a temporary isolation zone on the Annex’s 2nd floor.
“.......”
“.......”
Thunk.
The lanky security staffer, once I entered the isolation room and the door closed so we were alone, pressed the wall-mounted device and stopped the recording function.
“...Excuse me.”
I watched as, in the CCTV blind spot, they raised their mask.
Guard Captain J3 blinked at me.
“Mr. Noru... right....”
Ah.
“...What makes you think that?”
“Mm... the smell’s the same...?”
Body scent.
I’d done deodorizing to my own standards and even sprayed the perfume this researcher used, yet it still tripped him.
Must be the Guard Captain’s contamination trait.
In the end, I stifled a sigh and gave a small nod.
“Yes. That’s right.”
I’d planned to talk with the Guard Captain anyway—so this was actually better.
But the Guard Captain just stared at me in a daze.
“You’re... talking.”
......Ah.
“Yes.”
I smiled faintly.
“I’ve recovered.”
“......!”
“It’s not that I can do it because of a disguise—I can really do it.”
I waved my hand as I spoke.
His gaze tracked the movement of my bare hand.
No gloves, no black smoke, no flesh sloughing off—clean.
A human hand.
“I can eat, too. I couldn’t even when we were on the same team—next time, it’d be nice if we did.”
“...Mm.”
The Guard Captain slowly nodded.
And likewise slowly, a faint smile spread across that face.
“That’s good....”
“...Thank you.”
[Even so, this has-been knows his place. Oh, in the entertainment market there are grains of sand’s worth of people who, having sunk to rock bottom, wallow in their station and spew useless jealousy....]
...Because he has no expectation of recovering himself.
Maybe that’s it.
“Uh... should I bring snacks....”
“Ah, I’m fine for now. I’ll buy some later.”
“Mm, thank you....”
Watching the Guard Captain seeming oddly a bit less bothered by everything than earlier, a thought struck me.
If you drink a Wish-Voucher... can’t you wish for full recovery from contamination?
Has no one ever wished for that?
...Ah, they said only full-timers can take it.
And the Field Survey Team “full-timers,” if they had a Wish-Voucher to spend on recovering from their own contamination, would blow it first on their “earnest wish,” the very reason they joined here.
So recovery from contamination via Wish-Voucher is a near-never event, situationally.
But listen.
...If someone else wished for you?
What would happen.
Like Ms. Ko Yeongeun, who made a wish on behalf of Jang Heoun.
...Has literally no one ever done that?
[An intriguing question, Mr. Noru. Hard to resolve right now, though!]
I shelved that question in my head for now.
There was a pressing topic at hand.
We were able to continue talking in a lighter mood.
The disappearance of Daydream’s potion-manufacturing machine!
“Uh... the machine, did you steal it...?”
“Absolutely not.”
Granted, I had planned to.
“Was it you, Captain?”
“No....”
“.......”
“.......”
We both felt a little awkward.
“Uh, the elevator... you said you saw a bomb....”
“Ah.”
I nodded solemnly.
“I meant I am the bomb.”
“.......”
No, seriously, I do have a similar item in my inventory.
The other lines were similar, too.
A prank dropping the subject or object.
I’ve truly witnessed or experienced those things, but I didn’t say I saw them now.
But when everything pings as true, it drives people mad.
If it had come down to a confession potion, I had a different plan—but anyway.
“Then it’s neither of us.”
“Yes....”
Two would-be thieves who’d been preempted blinked at each other.
“...Do you think someone else stole it?”
“I don’t know....”
R-right....
“Then was there anything strange?”
“Something strange...?”
“Yes. Anyone suspicious, or anything that felt off.”
The Guard Captain seemed to sink into thought, then answered slowly.
“Mm... somehow... right now... feels a little weird.”
...Right now?
“In what way?”
“Uh.......”
The Guard Captain wore a face that said even thinking is bothersome, but slowly turned his gaze outside the isolation room.
“Feels like someone’s dead....”
“...Pardon?”
At that moment—
Flick.
“...!”
The room lights flickered.
As if my vision had gone, every light source died at once....
Then came back on.
“.......”
“.......”
Ding-dong.
—Attention, everyone in the Annex: please do not be alarmed by the sudden power outage and remain where you are....
A voice came from the wall speaker.
It was the Orientation Presenter’s voice.
—Until we recover the dream-solution processor, the Annex lockdown will not be liiiiftedzzachknggrrrrrgkzzajgizahgijaaaggzzzzgzzgddkkiiiigidigikikikik—
—.......
—.......
—Lockdown is in effect.
Click.
The announcement cut off.
“.......”
“Shh.”
Creeeak.
At some point, the Guard Captain had raised his mask and reopened the temporary isolation room door. Then he looked back ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) at me and said:
“Stay quietly here.... I’ll go check....”
“......Yes.”
“If it’s dangerous... lock it.”
Thunk.
Leaving the door with only the tiniest crack open, the Guard Captain went out.
Soon I heard his footsteps walking down the corridor outside....
“.......”
I waited a bit.
Stay calm.
I’m infiltrating under someone else’s identity. Don’t waste this advantage.
Information matters, so I planned to wait until the Guard Captain came back with a report.
But a chill in the air made my hands go cold.
And a few dozen seconds later—
Flick.
“...!”
My vision vanished.
Blackout.
Everything went pitch-black without a single point of light, leaving only a cold darkness.
“.......”
Frozen, I sat in the chair, keeping still and letting my eyes adapt to the dark....
This time, the lights didn’t return.
And then—
—.......
...I thought I heard a voice from outside, beyond the crack of the isolation room door.
“...Captain?”
But there was no reply.
Carefully, I rose, took a deep, steadying breath to calm myself, and put my eye to the door crack....
My hands trembled, about to do something you only try in a horror movie.
And to eyes finished adapting to the dark, a very faint silhouette appeared.
...A dark corridor.
—2F—
“.......”
No one.
Is this... a ghost story?
Could a ghost story really be why the potion-manufacturing machine disappeared?
If so, I might have helped the deduction in reverse.
[Well then, what will you do, friend?]
I scanned beyond the door crack again.
Then I realized this corridor wasn’t completely empty.
Something—a black rectangular device—lay dropped on the floor.
...What’s that?
But I couldn’t make it out well in the dark.
After a moment’s thought, instead of drawing out contamination, I quietly stepped outside.
If someone saw me like this, they’d just think the crazy researcher was acting up again.
And very carefully, I walked the dark corridor toward the object on the floor....
Halt.
As I stopped close by and bent down, I understood what it was.
...A camcorder.
No matter how I looked at it, the worn camcorder didn’t feel like something used in this day and age.
A handy camcorder with a side-opening screen.
[Oh, a rather atmospheric filming tool. Though it’s quite shabby.]
“.......”
Camcorder ghost story.
A few candidates flashed through my head. After thinking it over, I started to straighten without touching the camcorder—
“You there....”
“...! Captain.”
It was J3.
I barely avoided slipping the wrong title as Guard Captain J3 came walking from the far end of the corridor.
“Are you all right?”
“Mm... nothing happened....”
The Guard Captain walked toward me.
I let out a sigh of relief, looked at him—and dropped my gaze to the camcorder.
“What’s that...?”
“Ah, it was on the floo—”
There’s no shadow.
“.......”
Even though the Guard Captain had come right up in front of me, there was no shadow under him.
In the dark, I hadn’t noticed from a distance.
“Um....”
“......”
Cold sweat trickled down my back.
In my head, I frantically rifled through the Darkness Exploration Record to find the matching ghost story. So this, this is....
“......!!”
I snatched the camcorder off the floor.
The instant I flipped the side screen open, the camcorder powered on and the display came alive.
I trained the camcorder on the “Guard Captain.”
“What... are you doing?”
In the camcorder screen—
A face that wasn’t the Guard Captain’s was looking at me.
Grinning.
Grinning with eyes rolling, filling the screen—hair wild, cheekbones sticking out.
A shabby hospital gown.
...And below those baggy pants, in place of legs, only nerves and blood vessels swayed in midair.
But if I lifted my head, the Guard Captain stood there with a puzzled look.
“What’s wrong...?”
“......”
F***.
I spun and ran.
A crazed pursuit pounded after me.
Damn,
Damn, damn damn!!
It’s a hospital ghost story...!
======================
Darkness Exploration Record / Ghost Story
We record our last moments
: Ghost story appearing in Darkness Exploration Record, Daydream Inc.’s identifier code Qterw-C-1004.
■■Recorded footage on a camcorder capturing something that happened at a convalescent hospital once located in North-■■ Province.
The moment someone checks this recorded footage inside a sealed building five floors or higher, the events of the last operating day at that convalescent hospital are reenacted.
For incident/accident records of that closed hospital, see the appendix.
Exploration logged up to a total of 43 runs.
======================
Was that in the Annex?
No—why was this even released in the first place. No....
Get a grip!
Be grateful you’ve already got the camcorder since it’s started!
When viewed through the camcorder’s screen acquired at random (4F excluded) in the mutated space, you can see the truth of what’s actually happening.
I almost added one more contamination type by mistake.
...Still a risk, even now.
tatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatata
Damn, damn!
I felt the thing “that looked like the Guard Captain” doggedly sticking to my back, chasing me.
Footfalls of something reenacting what happened to it.
No—not feet... the sound of something lashing walls and floor like a whip!
Ha.
Gooseflesh crawled up to my scalp.
But for now, watching my view through the camcorder in the dark, I sketched a plan.
I’ll shake it off at this corner and—
Something shoved me.
“...!!”
No—dragged me at the same time.
With my mouth smothered, I tumbled into one of the offices. Someone pushed me under a desk.
I almost counterattacked on reflex, then stopped, because the behavior pattern was off for a ghost story.
Who?
I lifted my head to see who did it....
It was Baek Saheon.
“...!”
I reflexively raised the camcorder—but nothing appeared in it....
The real Baek Saheon.
With a face showing rising irritation, Baek grabbed my camcorder.
Light!
I hastily folded the camcorder and lowered my body.
The guy who’d tried to snatch the camcorder finally gave me a shut-up look and crouched himself.
...No.
How is this bastard in the Annex?
And....
Did he just try to save me?
Why? Reflexively, I focused on reading his facial expression more. Baek met my stare like, what are you looking at. But—
Creeeeak.
“.......”
“.......”
Both of us froze.
“...Excuse me?”
The door opened.
“Where is he.... I’m sure he came this way....”
......Footsteps.
The shadowless “Guard Captain,” walking.
Not ordinary footsteps, but strangely—thin strands sticking to the floor and peeling off....
Ssscrape, ssssscraaape—
Curses surged to my throat and sweat ran.
Baek and I kept our mouths shut and curled under the desk. In a space sunk in darkness, we held our breath and kept still....
“Is he in this ward....”
...Ward?
And then I realized, slowly.
The air had changed.
Between the paper and diffuser scent unique to an office, there was a peculiar odor.
Cool and unpleasant.
......The smell of disinfectant.
I realized.
At some point, we weren’t under a desk—we were tucked under a hospital bed.
“.......”
I lowered my gaze.
The camcorder had powered on automatically, its red light blinking and—
“He’s here.”
A patient’s hand clamped down on my camcorder.
