WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ How to Rewrite Ghost Stories ◈

Episode 28: The Scales of Equivalent Exchange (1)

──────

“...M-Monster.”

“No. N-No. I’m a person. Please save me.”

He did not look human. His body was twisted and blackened as though it had been burned, and one leg was gone. The hand clutching my pants had only a few fingers left and could exert no strength at all.

‘A discard.’

Naturally, they would not maintain a passage like this just to burn a single stripped priest’s robe.

People who had failed to become believers, had something taken from them, or wandered in here by mistake from the market.

People stripped of everything, even their value as human beings, then thrown away. They were called discards.

「When you encounter a discard, you must ignore them. They do not make fair trades. They will bite into your body, extort your flesh, and try to leave the alley. They have already given up being human.」

“P-Please take me out of here. Please. Please, please...”

What should I do?

“I just went out to buy food. Then all of a sudden, the way home changed, and I ended up here. I can’t, can’t communicate with anyone.”

That was not a person.

But it was speaking like one. Even though it was not human.

“They suddenly started demanding my arms and legs...”

It was already a dead monster.

No, I had found it in a ghost story. It was not even a real person. It was a fake from a ghost story.

“I-I really am a person. Please save me. My home address is XX, Jahadong, Dong District, Busan, and my phone number is 010-4827...”

The few nails left on the hand gripping my pants bent backward and broke. In a desperate, groping voice, he recited his personal information like an incantation.

His resident registration number. The university he attended. The names of close friends. His family. His bank account number. He said he would give me money. The date he vanished. That he had somewhere to return to.

Save me.

Please save me.

I’m a person too.

“...”

I clenched my teeth. I did not have time to waste here. The ten thousand steps I had to take after finding a marker would not wait forever.

Usually, if you could not get out within four hours, at most half a day, the passage would vanish and leave you wandering here.

That did not mean I could easily bring him along.

Even if I did, he could change at any moment. They said people who became discards would seize any opening to steal a body or possessions and repay their debt.

Who was I to look after someone else right now?

In my head, the value of a life weighed against self-preservation. Even if he was still human, getting him out would not change the fact that he might already be dead or listed as missing.

He had nothing to do with me. I should ignore him.

I should ignore him...

“...What is your name?”

The person who had only been begging for help lifted his head sharply. Fear, longing, and faint hope remained in his one eye. The fierce human desire to live.

I had watched someone die. And I could save this person now. I had been so disgusted by it all, but if I backed away here, what had that feeling been but hypocrisy?

“...Y-You’ll save me?”

“...Yes. Let’s try to get out together. Can you move?”

With a dry rustle, he barely lifted his upper body and grabbed my shoulder. Most of his body was dried out and grotesquely shriveled.

‘I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.’

Once I had decided he was a person, how could I just walk past? I liked ghost stories, but I could not become some heartless brute.

“Th-Thank you, thank you... I really thought I was going to die here...”

“Save the thanks for later. Could you tell me your name again? I’m Seon Jaehyeon.”

“...Ah, my name... Choi Seongun.”

Perhaps because so much of his body was missing, Choi Seongun was light enough that I could carry him and run as though he were a backpack.

Half supporting him, I moved toward the driest place I could find.

‘It would be a disaster if I had to walk ten thousand steps again.’

I glanced in the direction the marker pointed. The red was still clear. When I looked behind me, the path I had come down stretched black into the distance.

“Mr. Seongun, when did you come here?”

“Ah, um. Maybe a week ago. It’s been a week, but I can’t remember clearly...”

“Do you remember the last place you stopped at?”

“Ah, um, some shop. They, they forced something on me.”

It was a miracle that he had survived for a week amid piles of discards. Judging by the people I had found in the previous alleys, it was amazing that he had fallen here alive and still retained a human form, even if he was burned black.

“Haa... Hngh...”

“A-Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Just keep talking. Keep talking about anything...”

Even if he was light, a person was still a person. Without the eyeball in my mouth, I would probably have collapsed into the swamp long ago and added another coffin beneath it.

The air grew murkier and colder. Every breath felt as if oily moisture were filling my alveoli.

“...”

“...Mr. Jaehyeon?”

Choi Seongun, who had been mumbling as he tried to remember more about his major, called to me from behind. I stopped walking and looked around.

‘This is bad.’

The red that should have served as a signpost was gradually fading.

‘...Is it not counting my steps?’

Ten thousand steps. The absolute number needed to escape this hollow. The only difference from when I had walked alone was whether Choi Seongun was with me.

If the steps were being counted properly, the color should have remained vivid. The less I walked, the more it faded until it disappeared.

“...What’s wrong?”

“...It looks like this ghost story is being unreasonable again.”

The thing I was carrying could speak and think, so he was a person.

But while a person should walk, he was not walking, so it either could not recognize him as a person or could not recognize his steps.

I was angry at this ghost story for being so inflexible at a time like this. How much of Seongun’s body was even left, for it to insist so stubbornly on treating him as a person?

“...It’s because I’m being carried, isn’t it?”

Choi Seongun’s voice trembled. I set him down for a moment, and when we leaned on each other and took a few steps, the color began to brighten again.

Choi Seongun seemed to see it too. The life faded from his one eye, leaving it rippling with fear and terror.

At this rate, we would not get out before the time limit.

‘What do I do?’

“Mr. Jaehyeon... Just leave me behind.”

Choi Seongun muttered as if he had quickly resigned himself.

“What?”

“You can’t fail to get out because of me too...”

“...That won’t happen. Don’t say things like that.”

I gritted my teeth, supported him again, and began walking slowly. Each step became heavier and heavier. It reached the point where only one step registered for every three we took.

Eventually, I reached my limit. My weakening knees buckled, and I pitched forward onto the ground. Gasping for breath, I laid Choi Seongun on a patch of relatively dry ground and lay down beside him.

“...Are you okay?”

“No.”

“I really...”

“Stop saying that.”

Something hard pressed against my back. When I sat up, the object that had been taking up space in one corner of my backpack rolled out.

‘Ah, the random box.’

The little toy box I had received as a form of change from the place where I bought the eyeball. It made no sound when I shook it.

Maybe it would turn out to be a winning lottery ticket.

I pressed my nail into the seal and opened the box. When I turned it upside down and shook it, something heavy and metallic dropped into my hand.

The box had been tiny, but what came out was so large and heavy that I could hardly believe it had fit inside.

“...A scale?”

It was a primitive brass balance scale, the sort of thing I might see on a courthouse logo.

The central pillar bore a carved statue's face with no pupils. Two branches extending from its mouth formed the bar that suspended the scales on either side.

Each side held a flat, reddish dish.

‘Rusted Justice... the Scales of Equivalent Exchange.’

I knew this item.

At the same time, it belonged neither to the Twilight Market Ghost Story Series nor to the Goblin’s items.

It came from a creepypasta that began with a thread titled, “Let’s collect cursed items.”

It was an important item in a collectible ghost story series built around objects scattered all over the world, because gathering them all would bring about a terrible ending.

It was literally a scale that forced “equivalent exchange,” not one used for measuring weight. There had to be one user on each side of the scale, and once registered as a user, you could not leave until the equivalent exchange was complete.

Anything placed on the scale had to be exchanged, and anything could be offered for exchange.

‘An item that can enforce equivalent exchanges of memories, bodies, recollections, wealth, even real estate you cannot immediately move.’

The question was, why had this rolled out here?

‘Like the pop-up event, did ghost stories with similar properties overlap temporarily?’

If so, there might be a way out using the cursed item series.

The problem, either way, was Choi Seongun. What did a person need to count as one person?

‘Silicon, carbon, water... No, I’m not trying to perform alchemy.’

Was there a reason this scale had appeared now? If I exchanged a person...

“What if we trade?”

“What?”

I touched the eyeball I had been biting so hard that the inside of my mouth tingled with the tip of my tongue. The last point at which my condition had been fixed was my healthiest state, just before escaping the cult.

As long as one of the Eyeballs That Never Sleep remained in my mouth, it endlessly returned my body to what it had been when I put it in.

That was why I could be fine after crossing this swamp, a perfect breeding ground for tetanus and infection. Why I could endure the cold and rotten water. Then what about injuries?

As a test, I pressed a finger against a sharp piece of scrap sticking out nearby. A stabbing pain shot through me, and a chunk of flesh was cut away deeply enough that white bone showed.

“M-Mr. Jaehyeon?!”

Choi Seongun’s one eye widened. A faint salty taste spread through my mouth, and mucus began to cover my finger. The pain soon faded, and the bleeding stopped.

“...Even serious injuries disappear quickly.”

“W-What just happened? How did that happen?”

An utterly insane idea flashed through my mind. I set the scale down between Choi Seongun and me.

“Mr. Seongun, do you have anything on you right now?”

“What?”

“Let’s make an equivalent exchange.”

Kiiing!

The scale gave a metallic shudder. It settled itself in perfect balance between Choi Seongun and me.

『For a fair trade, declare what you will exchange.』

“W-What is that? What are you trying to do?”

“Mr. Seongun. Listen carefully. It may sound crazy, but I think this is our only option.”

The premise was that Choi Seongun lacked the mass of a human being, so he was not judged to count as one person on his own.

My body could return to its original state even if I cut away pieces of it.

And the scale could exchange things with mass, such as a body, for abstract emotions, so long as they were “equivalent.”

“A-Are you crazy?!”

“I’m not.”

Perhaps he realized my plan, because Choi Seongun screamed.

It was a crazy idea, though.

“I don’t have anything.”

“You must have something. Take out everything you have. You said it earlier. They forced an item on you.”

Choi Seongun searched through his ruined body. After rummaging for a long time, he finally found something.

“...They demanded my leg just for touching this. They said that if I wanted to take it, I had to give up everything. It’s probably the most valuable thing I have.”

“...That’s enough. Thank you.”

Now I only had to make up my mind. I looked around and found a sharp metal fragment I could grip. It was thick and sharp enough to cut through flesh and bone.

“M-Mr. Jaehyeon. Really...”

“It’s okay. Let’s think of it as playing a game.”

If he asked one more time, the insane mindset I had barely managed to build up would return to reason, and I might give up. It was better to make Choi Seongun shut up entirely.

I rolled the eyeball in my mouth over my tongue once more, then pressed it firmly between my cheek and teeth so I would not swallow it. The scale glowed red again.

“...All right. Put it on.”

With a trembling hand, Choi Seongun placed a small coin on the scale. It was an old silver coin bearing the image of a screaming fairy.

Before I could identify what item it was, the scale tipped toward Choi Seongun with a Bang! It sank entirely to one side as though it would bore into the floor.

『The price. Pay a price fit for a fair trade.』

Now it was my turn.

‘Can I do this?’

The Eyeball That Never Sleeps was numbing my fear and sense of reality. So I knew this was insane, something I would never do in my right mind.

But the exhilaration before a jump, the baseless adrenaline telling me it would somehow work out, whispered that it was okay.

I wrapped the metal I would use as a blade in a handkerchief and gripped it tightly. Then, in one motion, I drove the metal fragment deep into my left thigh.

“...!!!”

I could not even scream. Agonizing pain, like being burned, spread from my thigh through my pelvis and up my spine.

I nearly spat out the eyeball. I clenched my teeth as though I meant to crush my molars.

Hot blood soaked the swamp. My vision blurred with heat. With the sound of bone breaking, my body tipped to one side and grew lighter.

“...The blood and flesh that came from my body, as part of the trade... I will offer them now.”

The human-faced statue in the center of the scale opened its mouth. The part of my leg below where the sharp fragment was lodged tore itself away and transformed into a red mass that fell onto the scale with a Clunk.

Creeeak...

“...It worked.”

The scale began to tip.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried