A phone clutched in one hand.
A plain black T-shirt.
The man had drawn the attention of every team member.
With both arms raised high, he wore an aggrieved expression.
"Identify yourself. What kind of ghost story are you?"
One of the team members stepped forward and asked.
He was the very team member who had been badmouthing Seoyun outside earlier.
"I’m a person."
"I told you to stop lying."
"…"
As the man glared at the team member with displeased eyes,
the team member gave him a once-over.
Two eyes. One nose. One mouth. His hair isn’t animal-like, and he has no spikes or tentacles on his body.
He looked unquestionably human.
If he had to force himself to name something, it was that the man’s face was abnormally handsome.
Which was exactly why he became even more suspicious.
Anomalies were always trying to lure in and deceive humans.
…It absolutely was not because of an inferiority complex.
"Why are you staring at me like that?"
While the team member was scanning the man’s looks,
the man scratched the back of his head and asked.
"…That’s none of your business."
"You can tell I’m not a ghost story, can’t you? I’m telling you, I’m a person."
His voice was pleasant and beautiful.
It sounded far too human to belong to a ghost story.
Normal appearance, normal voice.
He could converse, and he displayed no aggression.
Every trait pointed to him not being an anomaly, but there was a reasonable basis for the team member’s suspicions.
"No, you’re a ghost story. Ordinary people can’t enter this place."
"What?"
This place was inside a ghost story.
And it was a ghost story the Bureau had secured immediately after its discovery.
Naturally, the Bureau had locked down the surrounding area, and the entrance had long since been sealed off.
There was no way a civilian could have gotten in.
"When I opened my eyes, I was here."
"The ghost story swallowed you?"
"Probably."
"…It still doesn’t make sense. The fact that you’re alive in the first place is a contradiction."
Let’s say he had somehow managed to enter.
There were occasional cases where a ghost story itself abducted people.
But if that were the case, the man’s survival made no sense.
"This is a Disaster-rank ghost story, a place where thirteen elite exploration team members lost their lives. It isn’t somewhere a civilian can survive."
"But I survived?"
"Which means you’re an anomaly."
Click!
Was that the end of the small talk?
The team member chambered his rifle and aimed it at the man’s head.
"By protocol, any anomaly that can be killed is to be eliminated immediately."
"Huh."
"I’ll make it painless."
The team member gave a nasty smile and shut one eye.
Just before his finger pulled the trigger—
Tap.
"…Team Leader?"
Someone placed a hand on the team member’s shoulder and stopped him.
It was the exploration team leader.
"Assistant Seo. I think killing him would be a bit hasty."
The team leader waved a hand.
It meant he should calm down and lower his gun first.
He couldn’t understand why, but he slung his rifle over his back and retreated for now.
"…Why? The protocol is to kill anomalies that can be eliminated."
"That’s right. Anomalies that can be eliminated."
The team leader whispered quietly enough that only the team members could hear.
"Isn’t it strange? An anomaly acting that clueless inside a Disaster-rank ghost story."
"Yes, which is why I was about to kill him."
"Wouldn’t the advance team have thought exactly as you did?"
"…!"
The team member let out a brief groan from inside his helmet.
Seoyun answered in place of the speechless man.
"Of course they would have tried to kill that man. He doesn’t look like he has either the will or the ability to fight."
"But what happened to the advance team?"
"…They died. All twelve of them."
The moment Seoyun finished speaking,
cold sweat trickled down everyone’s backs.
If the team leader had not stopped him—
if that gun had been fired at that man—
it was easy to imagine what would have happened afterward.
"Whew, that was close."
"Team Leader, you saved our lives…"
"Assistant Seo, you’ll need to write an incident report when we return."
"Urgh…!!"
The team members each expressed their relief in their own way.
Assistant Seo bit his lip as he looked at them.
"So, we’re not killing it?"
He had just lost an opportunity to earn recognition and achievements by killing an anomaly.
All because of that one humanoid anomaly.
Assistant Seo couldn’t understand what was dangerous about a guy who looked as frail as some pretty boy.
"Of course! We seem to have had a brief misunderstanding on our end."
"Is that so?"
The team leader bowed to the man in apology.
"I’m sorry. If there is anything you would like as compensation, please name it!"
Pathetic. He’s a team leader, yet he’s groveling before some monster.
Assistant Seo clicked his tongue inwardly.
He pretended not to care while listening closely.
The situation had already gone to hell. He intended to hear what the man wanted as compensation, at least.
"Compensation…"
The man stroked his chin in thought.
Swish.
Then, after a moment, he pointed toward Assistant Seo and said,
"Then please get that person out of my sight. I feel uncomfortable around someone who pointed a gun at me."
"…What?"
Assistant Seo wished he could disappear from sight.
Was he talking about me just now? That monster…?
It was absurd.
Rather than be grateful for not being killed, the creature had the gall to give an order to a human. The arrogance made his teeth grind.
Assistant Seo pulled his rifle from behind his back again.
Just as he approached the man to give him a piece of his mind—
"Hey, who the hell do you think you’re—"
KRAAAASH!!!
A pillar dropped from the ceiling, crushing Assistant Seo in an instant.
"…"
His words cut off.
Blood and flesh splattered in every direction.
Fragments of his reinforced suit rolled across the floor.
Taking it all in with their five senses, everyone
eventually turned their gazes in one direction.
"…Why are you looking at me?"
At someone who was unnervingly calm.
**
Silence filled the yellow room.
Only the fluorescent lights’ bzzzz filled the air.
Countless eyes stared at me from within their helmets.
Were they flustered? No, were they afraid?
"I think you all have the wrong idea, but I didn’t do that."
"…"
"No, really."
When I stepped forward to defend myself,
the team members flinched and backed away.
Whenever I took a step toward them, they took a step back.
They were plainly on guard against me.
As a strange sense of distance formed between the two sides—
Clatter.
One of the retreating team members stepped on something.
It was a bloodied fragment of reinforced armor.
"Ghk…!"
The team member hunched over and desperately held back a scream.
The other team members did not show it, but
they, too, had gone stiff and could not take their eyes off the fragment.
Tap, tap-tap.
Then footsteps sounded from all around.
"A-ahhh…!!"
"Run! If we stay in front of that bastard, we’re all going to die!!"
Taking that as their signal, the team members screamed and fled in every direction.
From whom?
Well, obviously, me.
"Hey, I seriously didn’t do it…"
"Everyone regroup! The entire exploration team is withdrawing immediately!!"
"No, will you at least listen to what I’m—"
"S-stay calm, everyone, and gather around the Team Leader…!!"
As though they could not hear a word I said, the panic-stricken team members gathered in one place, dragging their trembling legs behind them.
Just as I smacked my forehead in frustration,
the man called Team Leader took something out of his pocket.
A red button labeled, "For Return to Reality."
"W-wait, take me too!"
Before I could stop him, the team leader slammed the button down.
Wooooong.
Leaving behind nothing but blue mist, he vanished from the spot.
The other team members vanished with him, naturally.
"…Please take me with you."
[Ghost Story Name: Second Exploration Report on Void (虛無)]
Exploration Lead: Exploration Team Leader Seo Dohyeon
Report Submitted By: Exploration Team Leader Seo Dohyeon
Overview:
The second exploration of Void, whose classification was changed to Disaster-rank.
Objective:
Determine why the twelve B-rank exploration team members from the first expedition went missing, and whether they are alive or dead.
Result:
Objective completed.
The exploration team members are presumed to have been killed by a subordinate ghost story of Void.
An A-rank exploration team member died during the expedition.
Other Notes and Special Findings:
Judging from the subordinate ghost story’s power, its danger rating was clearly set incorrectly.
A danger-rank upgrade is requested.
Void: Disaster-rank → Catastrophe-rank
Registration of a new ghost story is requested.
The Untouchable: No Rank → Nightmare-rank
**
[Story][★]: A legendary home intruder showed up, holy shit
Author: Anonymous (999.1)
I was reading the notices when I suddenly got attacked by some crazy bastards;;
A bunch of guys decked out head to toe in red suits came through the wall,
started talking shit to me, pointed guns at me, and caused a huge scene.
I still have no idea what the hell happened..
Then the guy who pointed a gun at me died, and they all disappeared. I’m seriously confused.
Could those guys be the Bureau I read about in the notices?
[Total Comments - 12]
EightSpiderLegs: What showed up?? What died???
└ RockPaperScissorsGuy: How long has it been since those insane Bureau bastards had a death?
└ Archivera: By Earth’s standards, it’s been fifteen years since a direct fatality..
└ Archivera: Recently they’ve only gone missing, nobody was dying, but this is a major incident.
FairPrice: Hah, serves those Bureau bastards right!!
└ BeQuiet: Exactly, they should’ve known better than to go around acting up lol.
└ AshesMimic: For real, locking down all of Seoul crossed the line.
CleanlinessKing: The Bureau is kind of pitiful too.. How do you manage to mess with the newcomer of all things?
└ PureCombatManiac: Pitiful my ass lol. If they didn’t want this, they should’ve picked their anomalies more carefully before starting a fight.
└ MidnightBus: I think that’s right.
└ MidnightBus: Looking at it, they just threw the first punch, yeah.
└ BloodFader: This is pain they must endure..
Anonymous (220.3):
crazycrazycrazycrazycrazy
└ CleanlinessKing: What’s with this guy? His notoriety is strangely high.
"Good. Just as explosive as expected."
I lay on the floor, watching the anomalies’ reactions.
Just as expected, the comments were in complete uproar.
My phone was still noisy with comment notifications.
Freeze.
My finger, endlessly scrolling down, stopped on the word "Bureau."
"…I still can’t believe it. Why did they just come and go as they pleased?"
Those people just now must have been Bureau employees.
The anomalies said so too, so it was probably true.
I had realized it as soon as I saw them.
Guns that looked like they could take down an elephant in one shot, and stylish suits.
They practically appeared with a flashing sign saying, We’re Bureau agents!
Naturally, I thought they had come to rescue me from the Backrooms.
"I never thought even the Bureau would mistake me for a ghost story."
Then they went ahead and pointed a gun at me.
If the team leader had not stopped them, wouldn’t I be in heaven by now?
Thinking about it gave me the chills.
Thump, thump!
"That’s why you shouldn’t have done that. If you’d been nice to me, I wouldn’t have said such a thing either."
I unnecessarily struck the pillar with the back of my hand.
The very pillar beneath which the team member who tried to shoot me had been crushed to death.
Honestly, this was the part I understood least of all.
The instant I asked them to get him out of my sight, the team member had been reduced to pulp.
In other words, it had responded to what I said.
The Backrooms itself, not anyone else.
"Well, it’s a ghost story in the end. It wouldn’t be strange if it had an ego."
Maybe the Backrooms did not like that guy either.
It was common sense for ghost stories to hunt humans.
It probably hated watching one meal swagger around like he was something special.
I, too, felt more refreshed than afraid.
It was strange. Normally, I should have been too scared to do anything but collapse to the floor.
"Thanks for helping me, but don’t you think that was a little excessive…?"
Just in case, I tried talking to empty air.
But only an echo came back.
The Backrooms remained quiet, giving no response.
"Yeah, of course. What kind of ego would the Backrooms have?"
Just as I wondered whether I had been overthinking it—
「SOR RY」
"What?"
Letters appeared, carved into the wall.
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