Translator: Nox

Chapter 22

I Still Have to Go to Work Even if I Fall into a Ghost Story

I Still Have to Go to Work Even if I Fall into a Ghost Story, Episode 22

I Still Have to Go to Work Even if I Fall into a Ghost Story, Episode 022

The four of them burst out of the exit of the ‘Fantasy Train’ and ran.

“Huff, huff!”

The distinct, ragged gasps of those running for their lives echoed from both sides.

They had no choice.

Mascots were pouring out.

D I E

“Aaaaah!”

“Heugh, huff….”

At every attraction entrance, every shop, and every signpost, alien and grotesque bubbles seethed and churned, vomiting out slimy mascots.

And those mascots, their snouts peeled back to reveal countless teeth embedded in their guts, were pursuing us in bizarre contortions.

Their bodies shook intermittently as melted, tentacle-like appendages sprouted from drooping ears and limbs.

-♩♪♬♬~♩♬♬~♩♪♪♩♪♬♬~♩♬♬~♩♪♪♩♪♬♬~♩♬♬~♩♪♪♩♪♬♬~♩♬♬~♩♪♪♩♪♬♬~♩♬♬~♩♪♪

-Ahahahaha! Hahahaha! Ahahahaha! Hahahaha! Ahahahaha! Hahahaha!

It was noisy everywhere.

The theme park’s music and laughter overlapped in a spinning cycle, creating a grotesque cacophony from all directions.

Loud, terrifying, confusing, and horrific sounds!!

Every element made one’s head ache and sense of direction vanish. However….

“This way! Over here!”

I gritted my teeth and turned, following the coordinates etched into my mind.

In that instant.

Swish.

Splat.

The slime at the tip of a flying tentacle narrowly grazed my head.

Sizzle.

“……Whew.”

I could feel the singed smell as the hair touched by the slime melted away.

‘This is insane.’

Cold sweat poured down my face.

But my feet didn’t stop. No, they couldn’t stop.

‘The moment I stop, it’s over.’

I’d die. No, the intuition that something even more terrible would happen sent shivers down my spine.

The only saving grace was that the destination was very close!

Even the Researcher, instead of whining, ran with drool dripping from his mouth.

B O R I N G

“G-get away! Get away from meeee!!”

“Shut up!”

Butterfly Mask shouted. Her eyes burned with a desperate regret that she couldn’t throw the Researcher as bait to buy time.

It was inevitable.

‘They’re too close.’

The mascots swarming like zombies were multiplying at a frantic pace, and some were beginning to get dangerously near.

And they were fast.

Faster than humans!

‘Damn it, damn it, damn it!!’

Just as the terror made the hair on my neck stand up.

“Urgh!”

Eventually, someone was caught.

“Kugh, blegh….”

Roe Deer collapsed.

‘Shit.’

Without even looking back, I somehow flicked a coin from my pocket and summoned the gloves.

Then, I tossed several five-hundred-won coins like projectiles, manifesting translucent shadow hands in the air.

Whoosh.

The shadow hand flying through the air shoved the head of a hideous mascot away.

“Run!”

The Y Team Newbie, who had narrowly escaped with numerous holes in his shoulder, began to crawl and scramble away on all fours.

“Huff, huff, th-thank you….”

“Later!”

There was no time to stop the bleeding. Dedicated equipment or not, there was no room to care about that!

‘The shadow hand will disappear once it goes beyond a 3-meter radius anyway….’

A sudden, excruciating agony struck my left hand.

“~!!!”

I almost collapsed, clutching my hand and sobbing.

This feeling, as if my hand were being crushed and melted alive in a sharp press….

‘The dedicated equipment!’

I realized instinctively.

The hand I had just summoned in the air had met some horrific end—whether by a mascot’s mouth or a tentacle.

It was the first time I realized the weakness of my dedicated equipment.

If the hand created by the glove is destroyed, my own hand hurts just as much!

But there was no time to scream. I ran like a madman.

And I shouted.

“There!”

The target point was in sight.

It was a massive gate.

Painted in vibrant colors, following the typical theme park style….

[Fantasyland (Westside Gate)]

A decoration.

It was a decorative gate attached to the fortress wall surrounding the west side of the theme park.

“It’s blocked!!”

“Get under it!”

I was the first to step unhesitatingly beneath the decorative gate and look back.

Almost simultaneously, two others tried to step in. The Team A Deputy and the Y Team Newbie.

The Researcher was behind them, in a potentially dangerous position….

“Move, you fucker!”

“Ugh!”

Thud.

The Researcher shoved the Team A employee with all his might, using the recoil to propel himself forward.

“…!”

The slender body, caught off guard, was sent flying into a mascot.

D I E

Dark red slime poured from the eyes of the half-melted mascot crawling toward her, splashing onto the Butterfly Mask.

“Aaaaah!”

Sizzle.

The sound of burning echoed in my ears.

“Deputy Manager!”

The Team A employee lay pinned under a mascot of indescribable horror, her limbs trembling.

Her face, parts not covered by the Butterfly Mask, was already a mess of rising bubbles.

What I saw in her eyes was resignation.

The eyes of someone who had calculated with certainty that rescue was impossible.

The moment our eyes met.

“The nails!”

I shouted.

“Deputy Manager, aim the nails here!”

At the same time, I opened my left hand and thrust it forward. The Team A Deputy’s eyes widened, and she reached out her right hand, extending her index finger.

Zip!

A nail shot out and pierced the center of my palm.

“…!”

But I didn’t flinch.

‘It already hurts like hell anyway!’

My grip, ignoring this new pain in favor of the greater agony I’d already felt, firmly grasped the nail without trembling.

And then, I pulled.

Whoosh.

With a short sound, the body wearing the Butterfly Mask came flying toward me.

B O R I N G

The teeth of the mascots slammed into the empty space where she had been just a second ago, and slime poured down.

“Huff, huff, huff….”

“Phew…….”

I collapsed onto the floor beneath the gate and caught my breath.

And right in front of us.

Countless rabbit mascots, dripping slime like tears of blood, stood frozen with empty pupils.

“Hiek!”

It was as if an invisible wall was blocking them.

======================

Joyful Theme Park User Guide (Applicable up to Exploration Record No. 64)

5. Enjoy the various zones!

Did the appearance of the mascots and the color of the attractions change? You are standing in a new zone.

Regrettably, mascots from other zones cannot exist in a new zone.

Please say goodbye. Kindly!

======================

I looked at the floor.

‘…The brick color was different.’

As if by magic, there were exactly two rows of white bricks beneath the decorative gate.

The mascots stood there, unable to cross over from the red brick floor beyond.

B O R I N G

I looked down at the boarding pass.

[(Joyful) Fantasyland Boarding Pass ■□□]

[(Joyful) Fantasyland Boarding Pass
■
□□]

N O T
F U N

The voices vanished.

The mascots huddled in front of us stood motionless for a moment, and then, in the blink of an eye….

They were gone.

“…….”

“…….”

Only the sound of gasping breath flowed through the now-silent air.

I swallowed hard.

“…It seems Magic Bunny’s Fantasyland ends here.”

We lived.

“We succeeded in escaping.”

“Ah…!”

“Heuuuuu….”

The Y Team Newbie collapsed, clutching his shoulder and letting out groans of relief and pain.

I also leaned my head against the wall and caught my breath while looking at the sky.

‘I thought I was going to die….’

My heart was pounding too fast.

I actually survived this.

The Team A Deputy glared with terrifying coldness at the Researcher who had shoved her, but after glancing at my palm, where the flesh was gouged in the shape of her nail equipment, she regained her composure.

In any case, they were alive, and she seemed to judge that she didn’t have the luxury to make a scene about killing the Researcher right now.

It was impressive that she remained calm despite the immense pain she must have been in from having acidic liquid poured over her head.

“First of all.”

“Yes?”

The Team A Deputy took a deep breath.

“Thanks. I’m alive because of you.”

“…….”

That was unexpected.

“No. It was thanks to your dedicated equipment, Deputy Manager….”

“There’s no point in being humble here. Just accept it. You played your cards right.”

Ah, yes.

“Unlike some piece of shit.”

“…….”

The Researcher desperately avoided her gaze.

The Team A Deputy stared at him for a moment before turning the conversation back to the task at hand.

“This place seems like some sort of leftover space. Is this what you were aiming for? But it’s too narrow to just stand here… what are you planning to do?”

“This isn’t the destination.”

“Hmm?”

After catching my breath completely, I turned around and faced the decorative gate.

“Did you know? Large theme parks usually have other things besides the amusement park.”

“…Other things?”

“Yes.”

Strictly speaking, the area under this gate is a void—belonging neither to Magic Bunny’s domain nor the domain of any other mascot.

Since it’s a sort of gap within the theme park, they probably won’t come chasing to kill us for damaging the property.

I tapped the wall that formed the gate with my hand.

Thump.

It sounded hollow.

“Deputy Manager. Can you tear this down with your dedicated equipment?”

“…….”

The Deputy silently raised her hand and extracted the nail on her index finger again.

Then, she wedged it into a crack in the wall and gave it a sharp pull.

“Gasp!”

Rattle.

A brick-shaped panel was ripped away, and a breeze rushed in.

What drifted in was… the smell of water.

-Ahahahaha!

“…!!”

The sound of water splashing refreshingly, the blare of a ship’s horn, the cries of seagulls, and a cheerful march played.

Through the gap in the bricks, I could see sunlight pouring into an open space.

Giant cylindrical slides winding through the air were all various shades of blue, spewing out water and tubes.

[Blue Dream Waterland]

“This is…!”

A water park.

A summer space that serves as one of the main pillars of a large-scale theme park.

“It’s the Blue Zone.”

The Y Team Newbie turned his head so sharply it looked like it might snap, staring at me with an expression of shock.

“H-how? !”

“On the Fantasyland color map we saw earlier, there wasn’t a single attraction that used water.”

“…!”

“So, I interpreted that as there being a separate large section elsewhere.”

I took a deep breath.

“I also deduced that normal access would be difficult. Usually, you have to buy a separate ticket for these places.”

“…So, you tore down the wall?”

“Yes.”

I recalled the phone conversation I had with Section Chief Lee Ja-heon earlier.

-It’s the west side….

The west side.

Of course, the Section Chief must have meant the west side inside that Waterland.

But because we happened to be at the western edge of ‘Magic Bunny’s Fantasyland,’ I was able to deduce that the Blue Zone was separate.

‘The east was blocked by forest, the north had the entrance, and the south was a cliff….’

The only place where there could be space beyond ‘Magic Bunny’s Fantasyland’ was the west.

That was my interpretation….

‘And I was right.’

“The Blue Mascot, who was kicked out of Fantasyland, must have created a new zone here.”

“Ah…….”

“For now, let’s cross over quickly.”

“Y-yes, let’s do that!”

Hands were busy tearing away the rest of the panels. Even the Y Team Newbie, despite his shoulder injury, tried to help with one hand.

Meanwhile, the Researcher stood in the corner, his eyes darting around, but the slyness had returned to his face.

It seemed he realized things were turning around.

And a few seconds later.

“I-it’s done!”

One by one, they began to squeeze through the opening in the wall panel, now large enough for a person to pass.

As the last one out, I stood on both feet in Waterland, looking at the blue pools and the blue sky.

A moist breeze blew past.

‘The sunlight is….’

Incredibly good.

Just as a strange sense of liberation was about to set in,

I saw people in the distance who spotted me and came running, waving their hands.

“Roe Deer!!”

“…!”

It was the people from Team D.

“Are you okay? !”

“Section Chief!”

The members of Team D, each carrying bulky luggage—perhaps tubes—hurried closer.

Perhaps because we had spent a month together, a wave of relief washed over me.

“Have you been well? !”

I also greeted them warmly as I approached.

I was contemplating whether I should take some of the load off the Section Chief’s shoulders to show my initiative as a newbie….

Wait.

‘That’s a human body.’

It wasn’t luggage.

Slung over the Lizard’s shoulder was a limp human body.

‘…A hunt?’

Looking closer, the person was wearing a Mallard Duck Mask.

It was the A Team Leader.

“…….”

No.

No!!