WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How to Rewrite Ghost Stories ◈
Episode 51: Radio Mountain Lodge Murder Case (2)
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The smell of old, moldy wood mingled with the scents of stale medicinal herbs, blood, and greasy oil, filling the mountain lodge.
There were five people.
One dining table. Five chairs, five plates.
And five people.
“...There are exactly five of us.”
Chaeyeong muttered. Hwang Dogeon frowned and looked around.
“But there’s an uninvited person here? Then don’t we just need to find someone who isn’t one of us?”
“How do we tell who was invited?”
“Weren’t we invited? I mean, this is closer to kidnapping, but...”
“If this counts as an invitation, then going to prison must count too!”
“W, what if sitting in one of these seats means you’re chosen as an invited guest...?”
Lee Eunseong cautiously offered an opinion.
“Sit down? Are you crazy?! We need to get out of here!”
Kim Minjae, who had been losing their temper nonstop, shouted again.
“Then don’t sit down! Why are you yelling at a kid?!”
“Let’s not fight among ourselves!”
“Who are you to start throwing your weight around, mister?!”
They began pointing fingers at one another more fiercely. As though their anxiety had turned to violence, Kim Minjae, who had been floundering in panic, shoved Lee Eunseong hard in a burst of anger.
“Ah!”
Lee Eunseong staggered backward, lost their balance, grabbed a dining chair, and fell. As the chair scraped across the floor and slid away from the table,
Ding...
A chime imitating a grandfather clock came from the radio.
“W, what was that sound?!”
“That came from the radio, right?”
“Y, you bumped the chair and caused this, didn’t you?!”
Lee Eunseong was on the verge of tears. Still trembling on the floor, they were helped up by Im Hojun and Hwang Dogeon.
“Stop crying and making such a fuss! You think you’re the only victim here?!”
“They might’ve just been startled. This isn’t the time to blame someone else!”
“Then come up with a way out instead of bawling!”
“And all you know how to do is lose your temper?!”
“Now, now, enough. You’re supposed to be an educated student. You’ll scare the kid to death.”
Only after Im Hojun intervened did Kim Minjae take a step back.
“I don’t even know what’s happening, but then they go and cause trouble...!”
“If you keep losing your temper, you’ll cause an accident that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Let’s stop, all right?”
“...F, fine.”
“There, there. Don’t cry, student. Get up. It’s all right. Anyone could react that way when they’re scared. Are you hurt?”
“N, no... Sniff, I’m sorry. I’m sorry...”
While Im Hojun and Hwang Dogeon took turns comforting Lee Eunseong, Chaeyeong tapped at the radio. It was an old-fashioned model, the sort one might see in a museum, with a microphone and antenna attached.
“Huh? There’s a piece of paper stuck in here.”
Chaeyeong carefully pulled a slip of paper from between the radio’s casing.
Invited guests must always observe proper etiquette.
The radio crackled again.
“Tick! Tock! The first bell has rung! Two more to go! Before then, get one person onto the table! Dance your way up, one step here and one step there!”
Chaeyeong backed away several more steps. The radio made no more sound.
“W, would breaking it make it stop?”
Hwang Dogeon suggested.
“What if we get cursed and die...?”
Im Hojun disagreed.
“There’s no such thing as curses!”
Kim Minjae snapped again, and Hwang Dogeon finally raised their voice too.
“Then why don’t you try breaking it? Instead of just yapping at us!”
The two glared at each other as though they were about to grab each other by the collar. Im Hojun stepped between them.
“Let’s not do this to each other. We’re the invited people, aren’t we? Wouldn’t it be faster to look for the other person?”
“R, right. I saw what looked like stairs leading to the second floor earlier!”
Kim Minjae rushed toward them. They were acting like frightened people often did, panicking so badly they charged ahead without thinking.
Before making it up even two steps, Kim Minjae began kicking at the air.
Thump. Thump.
Their feet struck something rubbery in the empty space.
“W, what? Why can’t I go up?!”
“Could it be blocked off with resin or something?”
The others joined in, kicking at the stairs and pounding on empty air, but it was useless. After struggling with it for a long while in a ridiculous display that looked like pantomime, they gave up on the second floor.
They had no choice but to accept it.
Only the dining room and kitchen stood open, urging them to exclude someone.
Park Chaeyeong stayed behind to look after Lee Eunseong, who did not want to move, while the others headed deeper into the kitchen.
“Ugh... What is that smell?”
The stench of blood and disinfectant hung thick in the air. Unlike the crumbling mountain lodge, the kitchen was filled wall to wall with a modern range, preparation counters, and an enormous double-door commercial refrigerator.
Hanging from the utensil rack and shelves were tools of every size, from enormous Chinese cleavers to butchering knives, hammers, saws, and rope.
Everything was as clean as new, and sharp enough to cut paper at a touch.
“...What the hell is this?”
No one could bring themselves to say it aloud, but it was obvious.
A set prepared openly for killing someone.
Even the sound of someone swallowing rang clearly in their ears.
“...Fuck, what is this? A cookbook?”
Kim Minjae, looking anywhere but the vicious tools, began reading a book as though possessed.
On How to Perfectly Prepare Your Banquet
“Strangulation, stabbing, dismemberment, shooting, poisoning, crushing...”
“Minjae, what are you doing? Why are you reading that?”
“I, I don’t know! Fuck, it’s not that I want to read it...! Today’s recommended banquet menu... My mouth, it’s moving on its own! ...Chopped meat. Recommended tools are... Damn it, make it stop!! ...The bone saw displayed on kitchen shelf number three...!”
“W, we need to make them put the book down...!”
Hwang Dogeon grabbed the book while Im Hojun grabbed Kim Minjae, and they pulled in opposite directions.
“Agh, aaah!! Let go! Let go!! ...Mince the meat finely! Fuck! ...When cutting it, take care to wash it...”
Crack.
With the sound of something twisting, the book came free.
Kim Minjae’s wrist had turned backward, dislocating and hanging limp.
“Hhk, huff... H, huuu...!”
“Hojun, throw that book away! Don’t read it!”
Im Hojun flung the book away. A giggling sound came from where it lay on the floor.
Kim Minjae clutched their wrist and gasped for breath. It was already swelling purple.
“M, my hand... My hand...! What did it do to me... Hhk...!”
“Y, your wrist looks dislocated...! Stay still. We need to tie it up somehow...!”
Lee Eunseong, drawn in by the commotion, hesitantly began helping Kim Minjae alongside Park Chaeyeong.
“Don’t touch the book, and... let’s avoid touching those things as much as we can.”
Ding...
“Tick! Tock! It rang once more. Hurry, hurry, bring the guest over.”
“That was... the second one, right?”
“We have to find the uninvited person before the next one...”
“But where is there anyone? There are five of us in all.”
“...Could there be someone who still hasn’t woken up?”
“Where? The doors won’t open, so even if someone is inside, we have no way to get them out.”
“...There is one door that opens.”
Lee Eunseong pointed with a trembling hand.
The other four turned to look.
At the refrigerator.
“...Could that open? It’s the kitchen, so...”
They only looked at each other, unable to step forward easily.
“...Are you going to open it?”
“H, how would I know what’s in there?”
“I’ll do it.”
Park Chaeyeong took hold of the refrigerator door. Their shaking hand tightened around the handle and pulled.
White light spilled out, and red filled their vision.
Vegetables, fish, grains, seasonings...
And fresh chunks of meat.
Long limbs, rounded ribs, a large heart, black hair.
The unbutchered pieces began fitting together into a familiar shape like a puzzle. At the end of a long, outstretched leg were five long bits of flesh. Reversed fingernails clung to their tips.
The unmistakable shoulder blades, spread wide to either side, were familiar.
No one needed to say it first.
They understood what it was.
“Ah, aaah, aaaah!!”
Screams erupted. Someone fled far back into the living room.
Unfortunately, a large shadow fell over Chaeyeong, who still held the refrigerator handle.
“Aahhh!! Get it off! Get it off me!!!”
“W, wait. It’s a person! A person!!”
He was frozen stiff. A bloodstain marked his head, as though he had been struck hard by something, and his fingertips were blue with frostbite.
“Ugh...”
“He’s... He’s alive!”
Amazingly, he was alive. His joints, cramped from the cold, trembled as his body slowly twitched back into motion.
The group hurriedly wrapped him in layers of rotten carpet, jackets, and blankets. After breathing shallowly for several minutes, his tongue finally loosened enough for him to speak.
“Ah, I feel like I can finally live again. It wouldn’t open from the inside.”
“Do you remember how you got here?”
“Ah, well... I don’t really remember.”
“What do you do for work?”
“I’m a civil servant. I was working overtime...”
The five looked at one another.
Who was the uninvited person?
Wasn’t it only natural to see this person, who had been hanging there like an ingredient, as the sixth?
But how would they exclude him?
By using one of the countless things laid out so invitingly here.
Wouldn’t one of us be able to do it?
If I do it, I become a murderer.
No, if we all keep quiet, wouldn’t we just be accomplices?
Why did we open that refrigerator now? If we had left him there a little longer, he might have frozen to death on his own.
Then the person who was not a guest would have been excluded automatically.
Yes, that was right. We opened it too soon. We were too moral.
And he said he was a civil servant. If he was a civil servant, didn’t he have a duty to take responsibility for a situation like this?
If just one person disappeared, we could escape this horrible experience.
None of us wanted to die, but shouldn’t one person, someone responsible, have come prepared for that?
If he was a civil servant, he must know why this happened to us. Maybe he knew a way not to die even if he died.
Wouldn’t it be all right to kill him?
He was taking responsibility, wasn’t he? And he fit the condition demanded here perfectly.
This was not murder. Wasn’t it an emergency necessity?
It was all right. This was all right.
I wanted to get out of here quickly.
Maybe even this was a dream. Something like this should not happen to decent, ordinary people like us! Yes, this was not against the lawwewereactinginselfdefensesothiswasallright!
Someone picked up a knife.
The vicious tools made sounds on their own, announcing their locations to the people.
“...No, I don’t think doing this would be very good...”
Everyone looked at each other.
Between them, the self-proclaimed civil servant took another step back.
“Can I take a look around too?”
“It’s no use. There was no way out. Even that door...”
Creeeak.
The front door, which had been tightly locked, opened slowly with a scream.
“...?”
All eyes turned toward it.
The murderous atmosphere that had gripped the entire lodge vanished in an instant.
“The door opened...”
Thick fog rolled in like dry ice, and someone’s silhouette wavered within it.
It was a young man dressed lightly as though he had come camping, wearing only a backpack and holding a phone.
Seon Jaehyeon turned off his phone and spoke calmly.
“Ah, good thing I made it before the banquet. Hello.”
❖ ❖ ❖
“Wow, that’s vicious. Put the knife down. You people have never even killed anyone before. You’ll hurt yourselves acting like that.”
It was a strange sight.
A decrepit, collapsing mountain lodge. Five civilians who had been dragged into this without knowing why, and me.
And...
‘Why the hell is that person here?’
Of course, I had expected it to some extent.
I mean, assuming ghost stories mixed together however they pleased and even interacted among themselves, then if someone bought a D Corporation item from Night Dream Home Shopping...
No. Maybe I should have remembered.
I had considered the possibility of things getting mixed up ever since they started selling similar items together.
But I never expected them to mix like this!
‘Why is an SOSA big name here?!’
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