Chapter 107: The Restorer (3)

Having realized one thing, Su-myeon once again began a full-scale follow-up investigation.

The point Su-myeon found strange was this.

The way to bring a ghost story to an end was to eliminate both the humans inside it and the master of the ghost story.

And naturally, he had assumed that the way to eliminate them was either to bring them out of the ghost story or kill them.

'So there was no need to necessarily kill the master of the ghost story.'

If even a state of suspended animation counted as having disappeared, then there were more methods he could try.

He had thought the apple was strangely expensive, and now he understood why.

For a ghost story, the disappearance of an existence meant losing its influence.

Even if it was not truly dead, knocking it unconscious, or something else.

There might be all kinds of ways to make use of that.

There were two major advantages he had additionally confirmed through this incident.

First, shamans could detect the entrance to a ghost story.

Second, disappearance inside a ghost story did not mean the end of life, but the moment an existence lost its influence.

Then what if they somehow knocked everyone inside a ghost story unconscious?

Or obtained and spread some kind of poison that could put them into suspended animation, like what they had done to the wolf parasite this time?

'It might actually be possible to bring ghost stories to an end fairly easily....'

With that in mind, Su-myeon was currently investigating ghost stories where something like this might be applicable.

If he could establish a reliable method before the date they had agreed to go to Alice Hotel.

It would undoubtedly allow them to secure a meaningful degree of safety.

Not the UTG that was the name of the organization he was currently in, but the UTG game from the world no one else remembered, which only Su-myeon remembered.

Using that as a basis, he was searching for the next ghost story worth entering.

There had definitely been ghost stories whose locations could be pinpointed....

"......What is this?"

Inside his special computer.

Su-myeon frowned when he discovered a file he had never downloaded.

He had no idea how long it had been there.

But the icon hidden among the others and the program name were familiar.

[Dokkaebi AI-Evil Spirits.apk]

That program was on his computer too.

***

Baek Sa-rin, who had disappeared after making a spectacle of herself, appeared at the Governance again exactly three days later.

This time, she had been formally invited by Su-myeon.

In the meantime, it seemed she had been busy in her own way, checking the energy around the hospital and doing various other things.

"Anyway, I definitely understand what kind of situation this is now."

The relationship between the strange energy she sensed as a shaman and ghost stories.

She seemed to have understood it in her own way as well, which made it easier for Su-myeon to talk with her.

"What you said you did to resolve the ghost story is definitely having a positive effect on the energy around here."

If before it had felt like a sunny patch of land covered only in soft soil without even a single blade of grass.

Now, she said, it felt as though all sorts of wildflowers and grasses had begun freely sprouting.

Listening to Sa-rin, Su-myeon nodded.

In conclusion, Sa-rin too had confirmed through the changed environment that Su-myeon had accomplished something.

Now that they had more or less grasped each other's usefulness and abilities, it was time to make use of them without holding back.

"Then from now on, I’d like you to continue helping me resolve ghost stories."

When Sa-rin nodded, Su-myeon continued.

"You remember what I asked you about the dokkaebi before, right?"

Dokkaebi AI, Evil Spirits.

Su-myeon finally began explaining it to her in detail.

Things like the Heartphone inside ghost stories and the strange items and concepts were somewhat difficult to explain.

"Well, it does sound kind of like a game."

Was it because she was young and familiar with internet culture?

She accepted the situation relatively simply.

Su-myeon was grateful that it saved him from having to give a long-winded explanation.

Anyway, the help he had received from the dokkaebi and the concept of tribute through which it operated.

Sa-rin listened to all of it quite seriously, then nodded.

"......Definitely. It could actually be the work of a real dokkaebi. They are naturally very curious beings."

Now that ghost stories had suddenly begun establishing themselves throughout South Korea and causing unnatural phenomena.

Supernatural beings. Things that had transcended nature while still existing as part of it were being pushed aside, their place threatened.

If a dokkaebi that had lost its territory and found itself in a situation where it had to do something had first contacted Bell, an existence inside a ghost story?

If direct contact had been difficult, and it had transplanted its data indirectly in the form of an AI program?

"Then if you see it directly, do you think you’ll be able to tell what it is?"

***

Not long afterward, Su-myeon and Sa-rin were heading together to the storage room on the fifth floor of the Governance, carrying a large amount of food.

They were menu items Sa-rin had recommended after hearing that the dokkaebi always demanded tribute.

"Prepare buckwheat jelly and makgeolli."

Apparently dokkaebi liked those things or something.

"......But you use a storage room as your personal office?"

Sa-rin asked after seeing the words openly written at the entrance.

Su-myeon shrugged.

"Yes. Well, I don’t have much power."

It was an excuse he made because explaining it was bothersome.

Besides, even from Sa-rin’s perspective, he was someone standing at the very top of the Governance’s power structure.

She did not believe him in the slightest and shook her head.

"Uh."

But at the threshold, Sa-rin suddenly stopped.

Her reaction was so much like she had run into some kind of barrier that Su-myeon, who had already gone inside, stopped and turned around.

"I don’t want to go in."

All of a sudden?

When Su-myeon turned around with a baffled expression, Sa-rin rubbed her own arm with a deeply uneasy look.

Seeing the goosebumps rising across the forearm exposed beneath her short sleeve.

She genuinely seemed to be sensing something and did not want to enter.

"Doors carry a pretty significant meaning."

People in the old days used to say you should not even step on a threshold....

Muttering things that made Su-myeon wonder what on earth she was talking about, Sa-rin continued making excuses.

"Just like ghost stories use stairs to separate things, something created for the purpose of dividing one thing from another gains power in itself."

In the end, she was simply saying she did not want to come inside.

But after hearing all kinds of things about ghost stories and ghosts, Su-myeon decided to respect Sa-rin’s feelings.

While they were using a computer affected by a ghost story in order to speak with a dokkaebi.

Was it really so hard to understand that she did not want to cross the threshold?

'Is this really right....'

It felt as though he was gradually becoming accustomed to things that were either unreal or supernatural. In any case, strange.

For now, Su-myeon installed a mobile emulator on the computer and ran the Dokkaebi.apk file.

The screen that opened normally was identical to the application he had seen inside the ghost story.

Su-myeon turned the screen toward Sa-rin and showed it to her.

"Hmm......."

Could she not tell what it was just by looking?

The way Sa-rin stretched only her head past the doorway and stared over from the other side while making an ambiguous sound looked rather stupid.

But what Su-myeon had to do next looked even more stupid.

He lightly tapped the monitor with the bowl of buckwheat jelly and the bottle of makgeolli he had brought.

Inside ghost stories, giving food through the screen of a phone or putting things into and taking them out of the inventory had been standard.

There was at least a reason behind his bizarre behavior.

Of course, doing this in reality somehow felt unpleasant....

Tap-

Tap tap-

Whether it should have been called obvious or unexpected.

The food did not go in, and he simply became a man stupidly hitting a monitor with a bowl.

He tried it on the computer tower too, but it was the same.

Thinking maybe...? Su-myeon picked up a piece of buckwheat jelly with chopsticks and lightly pressed it against the monitor.

That produced the same result.

"Pfft."

Sa-rin, who had been watching from outside the doorway, could not hold back and burst out laughing.

What kind of idiot duo did they look like?

Feeling even more unpleasant about the whole situation, Su-myeon thought for a moment and set the food down.

'......Let’s ask as brief a question as possible.'

[Please answer only if there is still tribute remaining. Did you deliberately approach me because you need me too?]

A brief and direct question.

A loading indicator was spinning on the screen.

Just as the impatient Korean in him was about to jump to the conclusion that this was not working.

That is both true and untrue.

I merely sought the Restorer.

An answer appeared.

He did not know what it meant, but for now, what mattered was that he had received an answer at all.

Sa-rin, who was squinting through the doorway and staring at the monitor, asked,

"What does it say?"

Apparently, she could not see it very well from there.

"......It says that’s both true and untrue?"

Su-myeon then asked Sa-rin,

"Do you know what 'Restorer' means?"

"What does 'Restorer' mean?"

......I asked you first because I don’t know.

The conversation felt so stupid that even their minds seemed to have turned into Dumb and Dumber, and Su-myeon pressed a hand to his forehead.

He had asked because he wondered whether the word might have some meaning in shamanism.

But outside the category of being a shaman, Sa-rin somehow seemed like the type who was not particularly helpful.

He was about to move on since he still had no idea what this business about a Restorer meant, when Sa-rin suddenly spoke.

"Grandma says to ask where you are."

"Grandma...."

Su-myeon still could not get used to Sa-rin’s way of speaking, as though she were simply repeating what someone beside her was telling her.

For now, he nodded.

[Where are you right now?]

The tribute has been consumed.

"......."

That meant it had answered up through his last question before being consumed, right?

Su-myeon reflexively looked over his arms and legs to make sure they were all still attached.

He was probably fine....

Ding-

Something appeared on the screen, but his vision suddenly blurred, making it difficult to see.

At the same time, Su-myeon felt a powerful wave of dizziness and collapsed where he stood.

His knee slammed hard into the floor and began to hurt, but he could not react to it.

Su-myeon clutched his face with both hands.

Almost throwing his glasses off, Su-myeon remained curled up, clutching his face.

"Huh? Why, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Hey!"

Thump. Thump. Thump.

He needed to answer Sa-rin somehow.

But Su-myeon suddenly felt as though the violent pounding of his own heart was roaring directly in his ears.

In the end, Sa-rin stamped her feet in panic before rushing inside and grabbing Su-myeon.

But Su-myeon could only break out in a cold sweat from pain unlike anything he had ever felt before.

He could not answer or react in any way.

***

Su-myeon had not actually lost consciousness.

Drenched in cold sweat from the excruciating pain, he was supported to the infirmary by the people who had rushed out after hearing Sa-rin screaming at the top of her lungs.

Only after he was finally laid on a bed and forcibly given painkillers and sedatives did Su-myeon barely manage to regain some composure.

"What happened all of a sudden?"

Jae-hak and Young-cheol were also examining Su-myeon with faces gone pale from the sudden incident.

From the outside, Su-myeon showed no injuries or visible problems.

He merely held the area around his eye, more precisely his left eye, and occasionally groaned in pain.

"I don’t know. It suddenly hurt like someone had stabbed an awl straight into my eye."

Su-myeon spoke while lying there like someone in a daze.

It had gotten somewhat better now, but the afterimage of the pain still remained, making the area around his eye throb.

At Su-myeon’s words, Young-cheol brought over a medical flashlight and examined Su-myeon’s eye.

"......!"

Young-cheol visibly flinched in shock, checked Su-myeon’s eye again several times, then called Jae-hak over.

"......What is it?"

Why were these doctors acting like this and making him nervous?

Even when Su-myeon asked, Jae-hak merely showed the exact same reaction as Young-cheol.

"What the hell is it!"

The impatient Ju-hee raised her voice and asked again.

Only then did Young-cheol and Jae-hak seem to snap out of it and answer with deeply shaken expressions.

"......We can’t see your pupil behind the lens."