Cheongdong.
The executive who likely knows more about Jang Heowoon than anyone else in this company.
“I figured you must have a lot of questions.”
Yet an untrustworthy person smiles at me.
In this hallway turned into a ghost story, charred to ruin with flame and smoke, piled with corpses.
He asks me if I have anything I want to ask.
...In that case.
I can approach it this way.
I conjured smoke.
Proposal: One-on-one Q&A Ritual
“Hmm?”
Conditions: Two participants
▶ Questions and answers alternate in order.
▶ One must answer the other’s question truthfully.
▶ If a question cannot be answered, one must verbally declare “unable to answer” and then receive the next question.
▶ A response may not be delayed more than 96 seconds.
[Ah, how amusing. Meaninglessly specific rules. It has a faintly ritualistic feel to it....]
That was intentional. Because this was something I was doing with a being that isn’t human.
And besides—
He must have questions for me too.
When formalized like this, as a structured exchange of questions, he wouldn’t be able to resist.
And—
▶ If one intentionally conceals the truth during the ritual, they will be punished.
“...Haha! Are you copying me now?”
Yes. Now you get to feel what it’s like.
Cheongdong laughed a few times, then answered coolly.
“But I like it.”
Yet a faint glimmer crossed his eyes.
“It’s fair, after all. I could place a taboo seal to enforce punishment... but I won’t. I want to trust you, Mr. Deer.”
A lie.
He’s only saying that because he knows he can’t cast it so easily.
He tried placing a taboo on me and got hit for it.
But it didn’t matter.
Agreement: One-on-One Q&A Ritual
From this moment—
Ritual Commences
Clap.
“Alright then... Since it was your proposal, I’ll let you go first, Mr. Deer.”
And so, on the 96th underground floor, in the bizarre fire site of the Yukhoe Research Lab, two ghost stories began exchanging questions and answers.
[Friend, what truth do you want to know first?]
Start with the most central one.
Question:
Everything Cheongdong knows about Jang Heowoon.
“You’re starting with quite a broad one, Mr. Deer.”
Cheongdong replied.
“Here’s what I know. Male, twenties, no family. Grew up in a religious social welfare facility in the countryside. Three years ago, the entire facility burned down in a fire, and he was the sole survivor.”
.......
That matched the testimony I once heard from the contaminated Jang Heowoon.
“So his wish is probably related to that fire. Maybe to bring back the dead, or to erase the fire altogether.”
Accurate.
Did he look into it more thoroughly when selecting him as a spy?
“Well then, it’s my turn now, Mr. Deer.”
Cheongdong looked at me.
“If you already knew the information I just shared, who did you hear it from?”
...!
“Specifically, what kind of being?”
.......
Answer:
Employee of Flower Golden Resort – Bison
“Ah, I thought so.”
The rekindled flames cast Cheongdong’s face into silhouette.
“I read about the story in the field team’s report—about someone who died in a theme park and came back to life as a resort staff member... But to think you actually heard that directly.”
.......
“So not only did he help you with resurrection... it seems you’re bound to him now, Mr. Deer?”
Hoo...
“Ah, that’s not a question. That’s a certainty. ...You really are human, Mr. Deer. Making choices you’ll regret.”
It was an ominous thing to say, but there was a faint air of remorse in it.
I didn’t respond with anger. I simply looked at Cheongdong.
“Anyway, you’re curious about the three other ‘Heowoons’ with different surnames, right? I’m curious too. Maybe we can work it out through this exchange. ...Shall we continue?”
Without hesitation, onto the next—
Question:
Everything Cheongdong knows about the new employee Kim Heowoon.
“...This is where things get a little interesting.”
Interesting?
“He has the exact same background as Jang Heowoon.”
“...!!”
Male, twenties, no family. Raised in a rural religious welfare facility. Fire trauma.
“To call it ‘similar circumstances’ is a stretch. The keywords are too identical. Almost as if they were assigned the same role in a game.”
.......
The pieces start to come together in my mind.
“Then it’s my turn to ask. ...Mr. Deer, did you distribute the wish tickets you received to other Baekilmong employees who infiltrated the SDRA with you? Specifically, to whom and how many?”
Answer: Two bottles to Staffer Mountain Goat
—With instructions to deliver them later to Staffer Bison.
“Ah... I figured.”
Wait. Figured?
That sounded like he already knew. No way—
Question: Has he tracked the usage history of the three wish tickets?
“Oh. I wouldn’t say tracked—more like I just know.”
...!
“The wish tickets I gave you were actually from my personal collection. So I added a little touch to them... just enough to know whether they’ve been used.”
Cheongdong smiled.
“And all three of the tickets I gave you, Mr. Deer, have now been used. ...One of them was yours, right?”
Which meant—
Even the two that went to Ko Yeongeun had been used.
A prickling chill ran down my back.
Ko Yeongeun used both of them?
If they weren’t stolen... No, the odds of theft were low.
Ko Yeongeun is the type to handle danger carefully.
And he certainly wasn’t someone who would use Jang Heowoon’s wish ticket recklessly.
Which meant, most likely, he used them for Jang Heowoon.
But then...
Why was the Jang Heowoon I saw still the same?
“Then we can make an intriguing guess here. ...Did someone make a mistake when wishing?”
Cheongdong smiled with mock pity.
“After six months passed with poor Bison showing no signs of recovery from contamination... he must’ve panicked and used the tickets at will.”
.......
“But perhaps, due to some error, it wasn’t ‘Jang Heowoon’ who was restored—but ‘Kim Heowoon’ who appeared in this world instead, fulfilling the wish.”
A chilling theory.
[Hmm. Is that so? Then let’s think this through more concretely.]
In other words...
If Ko Yeongeun wished something like “Please let Heowoon live as a person in this world,”
Then instead of bringing the contaminated Jang Heowoon back to humanity, the wish could have created someone in the world who Ko Yeongeun could accept as “Heowoon”...!
Wish tickets are personally omnipotent. So such a bizarre, ghost-story-like outcome is entirely plausible...
Skeptical: Judgment reserved
“Ah?”
There’s a piece that doesn’t fit.
The person on this Yukhoe Research Lab employee ID.
Yukhoe Researcher
Lee Heowoon
This Lee Heowoon stands apart.
He seems to be someone who existed long ago in the original Yukhoe Research Lab—unrelated to the wish tickets that were used just now.
...There’s definitely something else going on.
Heowoon, Heowoon, Heowoon...
It gives me an uncanny feeling.
Even the “fire” keyword overlaps.
Someone whose entire facility burned down, leaving them the only survivor.
Given the current state of this 96th underground floor... this Yukhoe researcher fits that description too, doesn’t he? How did he come to share such a similar background with Jang Heowoon—wait a second.
No—that’s backwards.
If we think chronologically...
Then it’s Jang Heowoon and Kim Heowoon who came to resemble this Yukhoe researcher’s background...
Rustle.
.......
Rustle.
“Mr. Deer.”
.......
“Did you see it?”
I did.
Just now.
The pile of corpses moved.
No—
More precisely, it looked like the heap in front of the elevator had shifted.
Because something buried underneath it moved.
Who's there?
"So there was still a living entity left. Haha..."
A staff member of the Yukhoe Research Lab had recognized us.
Something unseen, something unheard, pushed through the pile of corpses and rose—its body twisted as it turned to face the intruders who did not belong in this time and space.
...The corridor began to warp.
Flickering distortions—beyond the offices, space itself wavered and jumbled within my field of vision...
Through the blinking haze, something began to take shape—
a twisted lower body in a researcher’s lab coat,
revealing itself at last, unseen until now.
Who’s there,
Who, who, who who who who who who who who who is it who who who who who who who who who who is it is it me too help me help please help is someone there? You’re here right? Someone’s here right here right right right here someone here
You are in this place.
My senses were being pulled in.
Dragged into some time-space projected onto the 96th underground floor.
And then I understood.
If I get caught, I’ll disappear.
[Quite the rough invitation. Seems there’s no need to decline politely, friend.]
I slipped Lee Heowoon’s employee ID into my pocket.
Then, confirming the movement of the unseen being pushing through the corpse pile at the far end of the corridor—
I used the smoke to launch forward, like a bullet toward the elevator.
And grabbed Cheongdong by the scruff of the neck, throwing him upward.
“...!”
His body arced through the air, landing atop the corpses in the right elevator with a crushing impact.
At the same moment, I arrived at the elevator myself.
Securing space between the doors
Cheongdong and I shoved the corpses wedged in the elevator door out into the hallway. As much as we could—just enough for the doors to close.
Hurry.
Fortunately, the elevator—already screaming a warning from prolonged forced door opening—closed automatically the moment the gap cleared, without the need to press the button.
Ding.
Between the closing doors, I saw the surviving entity collapse—
Having spent the last of its strength, it too became a corpse.
.......
Inside the elevator, it was once again just Cheongdong and me.
...Along with a dozen or so researcher corpses.
“You really didn’t have to help me, you know... But I’ll accept the sentiment anyway. Thank you, Mr. Deer.”
Hypothetical outcome if I hadn’t helped:
Reproducible immediately.
“.......”
Please shut up before I open the doors and throw you back out...
Hoo.
At last, some peace and quiet.
I looked at the elevator’s control panel.
This was the reason the Yukhoe Research Lab had been explorable by so many Security Teams.
When using the right elevator, you could always return to the 1st basement main building, regardless of which floor you were on.
I pressed B1.
Ding.
With a bright, retro chime, the elevator began to ascend.
Toward reality.
And as it did, the corpses filling the elevator began to disintegrate and vanish—like time itself was dissolving them.
“...Looks like we can’t bring the bodies up with us? Ahh, I suppose it’s because we’re no longer in darkness.”
Cheongdong, who’d been standing nonchalantly on a dead researcher’s shoulder blade, checked to see whether his shoes had gotten dirty.
...My head throbbed.
Still, I had to confirm something.
Question: Whether today’s exploration partner will be reported to HQ
“You mean whether I’ll reveal that we explored together? How about this—let’s just say we teamed up briefly, but exclude the part about going to the 96th floor?”
I agreed.
Cheongdong smiled brightly and said:
“Then it’s my turn to ask a question.”
What?
“That counted as a question too, didn’t it? Right?”
.......
I could feel it in his tone.
He’s not just trying to push my buttons.
It felt strangely calculated.
As if every question until now had been asked willingly—for the sake of asking the next one.
...I could refuse if I really wanted to avoid trouble.
But I nodded.
“Yes. Go ahead.”
Cheongdong smiled like a painting, but before I could say anything else, he opened his mouth quickly—as if he wanted the answer before I could interrupt.
It was...
“What kind of place is Saekwang Special City?”
......!
“Please tell me everything you know.”
The ghost story I’d been asked to extract from SDRA.
I met Cheongdong’s eyes—and in them, I saw something unsettlingly still, sunken.
.......
I sent the smoke.
Answer:
Saekwang Special City is a deleted region of Korea.
“...!”
A population that has been censored out of existence.
Its location is a 552 km² area near the border between Chungcheong and Gyeonggi Provinces. As of now, no one can perceive this region through natural means.
In a way, it’s a cliché space—especially within the concept of a ghost-story-management wiki.
Also known as the “final resort.”
Some ghost stories become so uncontrollably harmful—so many people die—that it’s determined they cannot be contained or ended by peaceful means.
And so, the government approves a drastic and shocking countermeasure...
Due to a Level-Extermination-Class supernatural disaster with mass casualties, the region is sealed off to prevent further loss.
Rescue attempts and outside access are completely cut off. Nationwide memory erasure is authorized. Perceptual blackout is approved.
And yet—
Conclusion: Saekwang Special City still exists in Korea.
“.......”
Cheongdong’s lips parted.
“How do you kn—”
Unable to answer.
“...!”
Question turn: Mine.
“Ask me anything.”
In that case—
Question: Why are you interested in Saekwang Special City?
“.......”
Silence dragged on.
I expected a response of “unable to answer.”
But an unexpected answer came instead.
“I left something behind in Saekwang Special City.”
Left something behind?
That meant... he’d once been in Saekwang.
Was this executive originally from Saekwang?
Maybe that’s why Baekilmong had pushed so obsessively to assign personnel to that project.
So that’s how it was.
Hearing a private story that wasn’t written anywhere in the wiki gave me a strange feeling...
Ding.
[Ah, we’ve arrived!]
At that moment, the elevator reached its destination: B1.
Beyond the elevator doors—now returned to a space of reality—I could hear the ambient noise of the Baekilmong headquarters.
......But then.
“Mr. Deer. Now that you’ve heard, it’s my turn to—”
Recommendation: Conversation temporarily suspended
“.......”
I looked at the door.
A person standing at the elevator entrance.
The doors opened.
And standing before me—
“Hello, sir.”
It was the new employee, Kim Heowoon.
“I’ve come back.”