WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How to Rewrite Ghost Stories ◈
Episode 35: Feature Update Inspection
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The exit had appeared on the first floor, disappointingly enough. Perfectly ordinary and textbook-like. Beyond it was total darkness.
“An exit appeared because operating hours ended. Do you think it’s safe?”
“We met the basic conditions, so it should be. Is your tongue feeling all right?”
At that, Baek Gangmin opened their mouth wide and flicked out their tongue. A long, curled tongue, rough with bumps where the insect had clung to it, popped out and curled back in.
“I got used to it fast!”
‘A nice employee at a crazy company is still crazy...’
After Baek Gangmin’s team leader was eaten by the Princess of Langwidere wearing Lee Daeun’s head, Baek Gangmin used the money received in exchange for their tongue to buy another one.
I thought they would get their own body part back intact, but instead, they immediately chose a tongue from some creature I did not even recognize.
‘What happened to your own tongue...?’
‘Oh? Well, I can cut this one out and sell it after I get back to the company.’
‘You just got it back, and you’re going to cut it out again?’
‘Something better will come along.’
They looked utterly casual, as though nothing were wrong. My sanity took more of a hit than theirs. If they liked it, what could I do?
Baek Gangmin had been a little short on money, so I added my change and paid the difference.
“Are you two going back to the company?”
“We should. We’re both rookies, and we’re under binding employment contracts.”
“Since we survived, maybe we can expect a bonus? If we had enough money, we could pick up the other team members too...”
Once I got out of here, I was never getting involved with them again. The SOSA setting was seriously insane.
A place where those above saw those below as numbers, while those below quickly joked, “At least it’s not me,” whether those above died or not. Under the names of efficiency and results, human dignity was worth less than a tin can on the street.
The real problem was that even characters who seemed nice could say things like that without batting an eye.
Just look at Lee Daeun, who was staring at Baek Gangmin in disbelief beside me. Her head had flown off once, and she had been thoroughly consumed by an anomalous phenomenon, yet she had only one thing to say about it.
“Yes, I’m fine. It’s just... absurd. I can’t believe someone with a head like that was our team leader.”
‘We probably won’t meet again once we leave this ghost story anyway...’
There were plenty of ghost stories in the world, and the odds of getting caught in the same one again were lower than the odds of ghosts turning up on the next project.
I held out my hand to the two of them for a handshake.
“Then I hope we meet again in better health.”
I added a socially polite remark, too.
“Thanks to you, I’ll be going back in one piece. If we meet outside, let me buy you a meal sometime.”
Lee Daeun’s hand was warm.
“Sure. Let me know if you ever want to apply to Da’at.”
Like I would. I shook hands with Baek Gangmin too, and the two of them walked through the exit first. Something like a black curtain swallowed them.
My turn.
Only after they had completely vanished did I step outside. Gravel crunched underfoot, and a moment of uncertainty came over me as I pushed through the blackness.
“...Ugh.”
The world brightened before my eyes. Fluorescent lights stabbed straight into them. Tables and chairs pushed aside to one end of the room came into view.
I was lying on a cafe sofa in a conference room.
“They’re awake!!”
“Section Chief Mok, they woke up!! Call the medical team!”
The shouting pierced my ears. My mind swam. Amid the noisy rush of people crowding around me, my body was placed on a stretcher.
‘I’m fine.’
As I tried to gesture that I was all right, dizziness hit me hard. I had been fine inside the gallery, hadn’t I...? The thought barely had time to form before my body swayed, and my consciousness sank with it.
❖ ❖ ❖
When I opened my eyes again, quite a bit of time seemed to have passed. I was lying in a private hospital room.
Thankfully, no one had been watching over me, waiting to run for a nurse. That meant I was alone.
Instead, there were several dumplings that still held some warmth, a bottle of water, and a note on the bedside table.
- Call me when you wake up.
“Must be Section Chief Mok Inha.”
The moment I saw the dumplings, hunger rushed over me. I shoved about two into my mouth at once. Only when something warm settled in my stomach did reality finally begin to return.
[A new update is available!]
[A new reward has been unlocked for reaching a depth milestone!]
Then my phone notifications started going off as if they had been waiting.
“Hertz?”
The radio app opened on its own. A radio in a 1940s style, as if it had somehow crossed over from five years in the past, filled the screen.
“Partner, have you been safe?”
A warm voice crackling with static had never sounded so welcome.
“You were out of it this whole time. What happened?”
“Oh, did I perhaps worry you? If so, I’m sorry. My radio station... right, it needed some maintenance.”
“Because of that high-frequency signal?”
“Let me say this first. It wasn’t your fault, so please don’t worry. The radio antenna simply wasn’t sturdy enough.”
“Is it all right now? I won’t ask for something again and make you pass out, will I?”
“Not at all! Partner, there is no need to worry. From now on, Hertz’s ThreeAM PM Radio will be by your side at any time, in any place, and in any situation. I guarantee it.”
A lively fanfare played from the radio.
I guess Hertz had fully recovered. They had helped me a lot, one way or another.
“So, Partner, if you don’t mind, would you tell me what happened while I was inactive? Then it will be easier for me to discuss our new ‘Advantage’ with you...”
I condensed everything that had happened since Hertz fired the high-frequency signal and disrupted the cult. The method I used to escape the sewers, meeting Choi Seongun, the new items I acquired, and even the gallery ghost story.
Even after cutting it down, it took quite a while. My faithful partner made for an enthusiastic audience.
“...and that’s how I woke up here.”
“My goodness, my partner’s adventure is truly award-worthy!”
My phone vibrated as cheers and applause burst out. The reaction was so excessive that I almost felt embarrassed.
“It would have been a great help if I could have seen that gallery. But then I’m sure we would never have come up with the wonderful method you used, switching heads to seal off the team leader and the exit at once.”
“Come to think of it, Hertz. You’re a radio station. Can you see what I go through?”
The frequency rippled strangely.
“Of course. Radio waves and sound waves are physical phenomena, after all.”
“And the Depth Gauge updates work even without you?”
“They have to. It is a separate system made for our good cooperation. If you have time, would you like me to explain everything again?”
“I’d like that. Thanks.”
Hertz explained the respective functions of the radio app and the Depth Gauge, along with the new update, kindly, neatly, and in a way that was incredibly easy to understand.
First, the radio app was divided into the Depth Gauge and the radio.
I needed the app to communicate with Hertz within ghost stories and to access my blog even while inside one.
The app also helped me enter ghost stories easily. I had to experience ghost stories to fill the Depth Gauge, so it made me more likely to get swept into one even when I had not perfectly met the conditions.
“There are always losses when there are gains. Of course, I would always like to give my partner only good things...”
Hertz’s radio, the ThreeAM PM Radio, was our main means of communication.
I could speak freely in places where I was alone, like my home, but normally I could only communicate through the phone with the app installed when my surroundings were quiet.
Inside ghost stories, I could communicate by thinking to myself. There was also a listener letter feature that let me send messages one-sidedly, but I still did not know how to make good use of it.
“My frequency is always open to you! Still, a skilled host must always solicit listener letters.”
The feature updated at the market warned me of nearby danger like a radio broadcast.
It intuitively informed me, in broadcast form, of the name and traits of the ghost story I was currently in, as far as I knew. But at the market, Hertz had lost consciousness because of the cult problem, so I had not been able to use it.
“I should have been more helpful, yet I had to miss a broadcast as a radio host. It is deeply embarrassing...”
Hertz sounded truly dejected while explaining that. What did it matter? They could do better from now on.
The important part was the Depth Gauge.
Whenever I entered an independent ghost story, something called depth accumulated. Even when ghost stories overlapped, if one story was dominant enough to establish the rules of the world, it seemed to be judged as having sufficiently high anomalous depth.
There were currently five registered names: Bloodwater Valley, Mangnyang Tunnel No. 2, Twilight Market, the Helical Cult, and the Langwidere Gallery.
“The cult got registered even though I barely experienced any of it?”
“Names can be registered at any time. But it seems its depth is still insufficient to fill and read its internal data.”
“So it’s a warning, like with Mangnyang Tunnel.”
Second, as the Depth Gauge filled, the quality, quantity, and range of ghost stories I could call up through my blog increased.
At first, my blog could only show posts I had written. At Twilight Market, it had even pulled up deleted wikis, pages I had not saved, and comment pages.
“In short, if a ghost story’s depth is sufficiently filled, you can find out anything about it!”
That was Hertz’s additional explanation. Ghost stories registered in the Depth Gauge would automatically display various related information.
The function that filtered out garbage among the tips sent to my Guestbook also seemed to be part of a filtering function for finding genuine, in-depth ghost stories.
“And this new feature will definitely be right up my partner’s alley!”
Hertz urged me in a fairly confident tone to quickly press the new button beside the Depth Gauge. Along with a list of the objects I had acquired from ghost stories, a new list marked ??? appeared.
“If you have collected and used a ghost story enough, you will be able to use certain things through your own power. I created this feature after much thought, so it could help you even if I lost my strength!”
“...For example?”
“If you collected enough depth from ghost stories that involve seeing the future, perhaps you could tell fortunes?”
Sorry. I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do with that. But Hertz looked so excited that I did not argue. I just thanked them.
What I liked more was the organized list that let me see the names, forms, and explanations of my belongings all at once.
Goblin Fire Blue-and-Red Lantern, Eyeballs That Never Sleep (21 ea.), Black & White, Proof of a Diligent Tomorrow, Judgment of Equivalent Exchange...
“...What is this?”
The thing that had suddenly been put over my head before I was dragged into the gallery looked less like a mask and more like a paper bag. Its surface was densely covered in writing, like a talisman.
“?”
A strange Ppyong! sounded from inside the bag, then something crawled out.
“...A hedgehog?”
It was a tiny hedgehog, about the size of a ping-pong ball.
Pishoo!
“...!”
The hedgehog sneezed and moved. Its round, distorted little form was pathetically cute.
It could not even walk straight. It rolled forward once, suddenly flipped over, flailed around, then made a noise like a motorcycle engine.
“Ha ha, what is this silly thing?”
When I rolled it half a turn with my fingertip to help it up, the hedgehog lowered the spikes it had raised. Then it crawled over to my phone. It curled into a ball around the ring where a keychain could be attached.
“Uh... hey? You can’t hang there.”
As if that had been its proper place from the start, the hedgehog turned into a hedgehog keychain. A new item was added to the app’s inventory.
06. Eager Correction
It visualizes you, making you appear to be the being you ought to be.
“...This isn’t another case of someone misappropriating company property without permission, is it?”
“Think of it as a gift!”
Right. That was better.
At that point, Hertz fell quiet.
The door flew open, and familiar faces appeared.
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