Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work

“…A more powerful, fundamental potion-manufacturing function! Since it originates from the Darkness, I’m sure it has even more extreme, incomprehensible rules! Can I touch it? Or at least observe it?”

I allowed Kwak Jaekang to stand up, but closely monitored everything he did as he touched the incubator.

Even as he broke out in a cold sweat, he couldn’t hide his excitement and busily examined and tapped all over the incubator.

“It’s crude… but more complicated than the completed company manufacturing machine. Well, I guess that’s obvious. There are fewer buttons… But, emojis? What’s this? It’s…”

Then he pressed the side of the incubator.

…A pipe similar to the one where I’d poured in the essence appeared.

There was something like that too.

‘Does that mean you can draw out the essence from there?’

I should remember this. If necessary, I could extract all the Dream Essence from there in an emergency.

Even as I thought this, Kwak Jaekang, as if possessed, examined everything, even peering into the glass container where the Dream Essence was stored.

Specifically, at the faint silhouette visible inside the Dream Essence.

A lump about five times the size of an egg, glowing a reddish-orange.

“That thing in the center! What is that? That wasn’t in the company’s manufacturing machine!”

I didn’t say anything.

Because I didn’t know, either…

But thanks to the scenario I’d set up, it seemed Kwak Jaekang took it as a hint that ‘this isn’t something I’ll tell you’.

He licked his lips and withdrew his hand, but his gaze still greedily swept over the incubator.

Then his eyes stopped at the very bottom.

Where a button had been removed.

◎

“Ahh, here… this looks like the spot for the Wish Ticket.”

……!

“Is that right? I think so. Ah, did you remove it so I wouldn’t press it by accident?”

Wait a second.

That spot… is where a Wish Ticket button is supposed to go?

Even a prototype had a Wish Ticket output function?

‘Then, originally… the Wish Tickets were even more powerful than they are now.’

Just what had the Cheerful Research Institute been trying to make?

And…

‘If I find and restore that button, I might even be able to get the Cheerful Research Institute version of a Wish Ticket?’

Thump, thump.

My head spun with the sound of my pounding heart.

No, no… calm down.

This is only Kwak Jaekang’s speculation.

And even if that speculation is correct, all the Wish Tickets I know about are based on what Daydream Inc. refined.

As for the ‘original’ produced by the Cheerful Research Institute… who knows what kind of insane effect it might have. No one could say for sure.

Don’t get swept up by the temptation of a gamble when I have clear answers in front of me!

‘Huu.’

“If you gave me a little more time, I feel like I could learn even more. I don’t know who you are, but if you let me join this project…”

Kwak Jaekang spoke suggestively, looking at me.

I stared back at him in silence.

Black smoke stretched toward him like a line.

Kwak Jaekang flinched.

The black smoke circled him, as if warning him not to do anything foolish, or perhaps as if appraising him, then, as I inhaled, it was sucked back into my body.

“Ha.”

I reached out and activated ‘All the Things the Carrot Can Do’ again.

Time to wrap this up.

‘If I get greedy, he might catch on.’

And the final touch… is for a perfect setup.

[What did you want to hide during today’s Truth or Dare?]

“…!”

It’s the question that the Security Team always asks at the very end of an interrogation.

A direct hit that leaves those who’ve been skirting the truth in despair, thinking, ‘As long as I don’t lie, I’ll be fine.’

But Kwak Jaekang just smiled.

“Nothing in particular. Haha!”

He really seemed off his rocker.

“Anyway, it feels like you already know and are ignoring all the disciplinary issues I was trying to hide, so what’s there to keep secret?”

He smacked his lips.

“It’s just disappointing. I guess I’m not the type of talent that this team is looking for? Hm, then who would be on that team… Confidential team, missing persons, hm.”

And then.

“Supervisor Kim Soleum?”

I almost jumped off the floor.

“Seeing it this way, your build seems pretty similar… Now that I think about it, right, Supervisor Kim Soleum’s mask also had horns, didn’t it? Did you perhaps abduct that employee from the train to use as your vessel?”

What the actual hell.

“No wonder it felt strange! That train Darkness wasn’t the type to just disappear like that, but now the puzzle pieces fit. Hahaha.”

Wait.

He said the train Darkness wasn’t the type to just disappear like that?

That makes it sound as if.

‘He already knew about the Tamra Express ghost story!’

At that moment, it hit me.

‘This bastard set it up!’

The sudden business trip, and getting caught up in the train ghost story along the way.

It wasn’t just bad luck, this guy orchestrated it.

‘He’d already gathered information about Tamra Express.’

Right, Kwak Jaekang can mess around in ways not recorded in <Exploration Records of Darkness>.

Because of the variable called ‘me’!

“A morally upright and cowardly newcomer. Wow, even just listing it out, that sounds like the perfect candidate for a human sacrifice…”

And from the way he spoke, it seemed he’d looked into me, ‘Kim Soleum’, much more than I expected.

…He knew?

My personality?

“Anyway. Now I really want to confirm if my hypothesis is right! Is that Security Team uniform made from the leather of that unfortunate employee? Was it a match?”

Stay calm.

I deliberately gave no reaction.

Whether he spouted nonsense or deduced the truth, I wouldn’t give him any information.

As if I had no meaning or interest outside the task I was assigned.

Then, as if suddenly thinking of it, I picked up the carrot recorder and gave it a small shake.

“…Tsk. So silent…”

Just then.

The sergeant who’d been hiding behind the desk leaped out and struck Kwak Jaekang in the back of the neck, knocking him out.

“Mmf.”

With a short thud, the guy’s body collapsed to the floor.

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