WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
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◈ How to Rewrite Ghost Stories ◈
Episode 66: Looking for You
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“Stay tuned and order now...!”
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Next movie »» Begins in 60 seconds
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“Why don't you understand why I'm still like this? We have to forget now...!”
Click.
“Hi! I really like you! Let's make another fun fairy tale today!”
Click.
Click.
Click.
Whoosh.
The remote flew onto the sofa. It traced a neat arc, bounced once off a cushion, then clattered to the floor as its batteries came loose.
“...”
After staring blankly at it, I pulled the blanket over my head and curled up.
Partner.
The large radio beside the TV switched on by itself. Familiar old jazz played in the background as a worried voice flowed softly from it.
Partner, Jaehyeon.
“...Leave me alone, Hertz.”
People need to eat properly, sleep, and rest. I'm only reminding you because you seem to have forgotten.
“I'll handle it myself.”
How about having a meal, at least?
A crumpled tissue flew weakly toward the radio. I irritably mashed the remote buttons to lower its volume. But the radio, which had stopped having anything to do with the remote long ago, only became louder.
You aren't all right at all right now.
“Then what else am I supposed to do...?”
Wait. Wait, and seek answers. What you do best.
“...”
Oh, Partner. Jaehyeon. You. You are shocked and exhausted. You only pushed yourself too hard through something you had never experienced before. Does that make it your fault? No. Is it something you can solve? No, it isn't. Then will staying like this make anything better? That won't help either. What you need to do now is let it go.
“...Will it be resolved?”
You said they were doing their best. Trust them.
A deep breath.
Inhale.
Exhale.
The edges of my vision were blurred and raw. I scrubbed hard at my eyes.
Hertz's words still did not truly reach me. But they certainly sounded much kinder and gentler than they had a few days ago, or even yesterday.
They said there was a psychological phenomenon where repeatedly telling yourself you were okay could actually make you feel okay. Even if you were not all right, the brain was stupid enough to believe the words.
It's all right. You... are getting better.
Yeah. Maybe it would be all right. Nothing would be solved by wallowing in depression.
Cheer up.
I switched on the phone I had tossed aside. From among the piled-up emails, I pulled up the report I had read over and over.
I also opened the file that had automatically recorded and organized the conversation. Relying on my memory, I slowly began sorting through the mixed-up voices and reading it again.
After the train departed, the coordinates began to lock in completely. This is the original data, and this is the test data.
There's one more function I didn't mention, coordinate tracking. If there is someone Seon Jaehyeon repeatedly meets or encounters for a long time, it records that person's reactions and coordinates as well.
Why attach that feature? We don't know who we'll meet or where we'll be sent flying. Of course we need one. Even if we have more than one life, you can't work public servants like that.
(Brief commotion and noise. Three or more voices.)
Right, that. There are three people registered in the coordinates: Lee Gangrim, Ryu Hyeon-u, and Mok Inha. Looking at the flow here, their coordinates diverged at a certain point. The readings disappeared, see?
(Were they different from their original coordinates?)
Original coordinates don't move. They would simply show a nice, steady trip from Seoul to Busan. They show that they never entered the Distortion, but this changed.
But from this point on, several people's coordinates appeared and disappeared as they passed through these sections. Here, and here.
(Is it possible they were thrown out of the Distortion?)
What? No. No. If anything, it's closer to them becoming trackable after they weren't. And the reason I brought this up is that there is something those points when coordinates appeared have in common.
Coordinates were recorded whenever Seon Jaehyeon encountered a record target again.
(Does that mean Seon Jaehyeon is an entity that allows coordinates to be recognized?)
That is my conclusion. Cognitive erasure doesn't work on him, and he goes in and out of Distortions as he pleases. Yet Ansi's physical examination said he doesn't have an abnormal constitution.
(It could be a connection through bloodline.)
If there were a bloodline like that, they would have devoted themselves to public service for generations. At least, there is no record of one. He's like a novel protagonist. You know, Only I Get a Stat Boost, only I know this ghost story's secret. Something like that.
(A voice tells Seon-u In to be careful.)
I know, I know. Let's get back to the important part. A life response appeared every time coordinates were recorded. And when one of them was temporarily recorded, it showed a response close to death.
Based on the coordinate location and testimony, this one must be Ryu Hyeon-u. Seon Jaehyeon said he passed through some bizarre living human wallpaper, right? Ryu Hyeon-u must have been stuck to it as one of them, and the coordinates were recorded together when Ryu Hyeon-u stopped.
Ryu Hyeon-u's testimony: Around Day 7,391,049, after leaving my final record, I sustained severe damage while searching for the engine room. I encountered two armed individuals, and it escalated into a physical conflict.
I suffered a major stab wound to the abdomen from their weapon, but there was also a phenomenon in which blood did not flow and my internal organs did not spill out.
I successfully seized the key during that conflict, but for approximately 399,291 days afterward, physical conflicts continuously occurred as they tried to reclaim it.
The first through the 210th incidents involved two people, but afterward, perhaps they changed their approach and preached religion aboard the train, causing their group to split completely.
During the final fight, I hid the key in the PDA. My body then came apart and was thrown among the people.
As time passed, the open wounds showed a tendency to fuse with other wounds and exposed organs. I submit the opinion that this may have been a tendency toward cellular self-healing rather than the effect of the Distortion.
(The scratching sound stopped briefly.)
I'll hear the detailed testimony properly later. Thank you. Then the other one, whose life response was continually observed, must be Lee Gangrim. His was recorded quite steadily in the horizontal coordinate system.
Then the last one must be Mok Inha. She disappeared after everyone was first gathered and observed together... It seems the second time her coordinates were recorded was when she met Seon Jaehyeon.
(Is that recorded coordinate still being tracked?)
That's the thing. The coordinates are showing up. Since the train Distortion was processed as resolved, there are two possibilities if coordinates are appearing. Either the person returned to reality, or they entered another Distortion while carrying a horizontal coordinate system.
(Seon Jaehyeon's new horizontal coordinate system has been returned.)
Exactly. That means she is in reality. But Mok Inha isn't anywhere at the real-world location indicated by those coordinates.
(Was there anything unusual there?)
No, nothing at all. It looked like an ordinary abandoned building. We even dug through everything down to the basement.
They said they dug twenty meters underground last month while disguised as gas workers and found nothing. Then she isn't there. She can't be hanging in the sky, can she? Though it isn't as if there are no Distortions like that.
(Has a Distortion ever existed in that space?)
No. Well, there was one, but it was already resolved, so the Corporation finished processing the report. Would you like to see it?
(Materials regarding record H-Pl-exd-1982 were attached.)
My hand moved to the PDF document, dozens of megabytes long. I had read it many times already, but I could not stop reading it again and again, as though a dead ghost story might come back to life if I did.
Then the phone rang.
“...Hello?”
[Rookie. How are you?]
It was Lee Gangrim.
[You didn't come to the center last week. Our Section Chief was worried, so I called.]
“I was busy working overtime last week... You know I'm not a public servant.”
[They won't even let you take a half day?]
“I've taken them fairly often lately, so I need to watch myself for a while.”
[Still, you really need to come for next week's examination. You know that, right? Cognitive erasure doesn't properly work on you like it does on ordinary people, so you need a thorough examination.]
“I'll definitely come next week.”
I said that, but I had no intention of going next week, either. For now, I did not want to go anywhere. I had even put aside the blog I loved so much, doing nothing but repeat the trip between home and work.
When I returned home, I would leave the TV on meaninglessly and stare at the screen. I could not even be bothered to go out and buy food, so I got through my meals with lunch boxes delivered every morning, then went to bed around midnight.
Every time I lay down, a head and skin flickered through my mind. Mok Inha's face came to me.
“...Can't she come back?”
[If we had even a strand of hair, we could try something... But when the entire body has disappeared, it is difficult.]
“...”
[Rookie. I know it's hard, but you have to learn to give up, too.]
“Can you give up that easily?”
[No, of course not. We'll do everything we can. We are trying, and we will keep trying. If she's dead, we'll at least recover her body.]
“Then why are you telling me to give...”
I briefly rubbed my face with dry hands. My mouth felt parched. I could not finish the question because I already knew, to some degree, what the answer would be.
Because an Irregular phenomenon had occurred.
Because it was something they had never dealt with before.
And because it had occurred because I was there.
I had saved people. But even without me, they would have been saved anyway.
I had resolved the train and brought the Corporation a great deal. But Section Chief Mok Inha had not returned.
Then was that a meaningful success? What made me any different from the protagonist of a horror movie who went to undo a cursed box's curse, lost every teammate, and returned alone?
If I had never started, nothing bad would have happened.
And once bad thoughts began, they rolled again. They swelled and rolled like a snowball, crushing everything beneath them...
Have you forgotten something? Have you lost something?!
Had I left the TV on? I had been on the phone, so I should have turned it off. My eyes naturally turned toward the flashing screen.
We will find anything. There is nothing we don't have!!
You haven't lost anything? That can't be true. Perhaps you have forgotten that you lost it?
Then come. Find it here.
An advertisement with thick, painted 1950s colors flickered across a battered, distorted 3:4 screen.
From your memories to a lost toy, the body of someone you killed and cannot remember burying, or a utility bill you pinched.
The advertisement flashed through images of an old refrigerator opening to reveal a crumpled person inside, someone picking up a billiard ball that had fallen from a table, and a hammer striking items flowing along a conveyor belt.
It's all here! Just pay a small usage fee!
※ For valued customers, we are currently offering the Reverse-Lost and Found Coverage Promotion, allowing you to store items at a reasonable, special discounted rate!
A person passed by. Objects passed by.
An abandoned stroller.
A broken robot tin can.
Someone's leg.
An animal curled tightly into a ball.
An unidentified basket of thread.
A photograph.
A person.
An arm.
An eye.
A head.
Ah. A ghost story.
Another ghost story was luring people in reality.
I should turn it off. Whether it was a home shopping channel or a lost-and-found, I did not want to watch it right now. The light that had always been on in my mind since I began to love ghost stories felt as though it had gone out for a moment.
“...Oh.”
[Rookie?]
A voice called through the phone.
“...I found it.”
[What? Who?]
“Section Chief... I think I found her.”
[What? Where? Where are you right now? How?]
I could not take my eyes off the screen. I clung to the flashing advertisement, desperately trying to make the screen run backward.
Tilting the TV should not have made the image flow in reverse, but it streamed downward as I shook it. The conveyor belt that had moved right poured down toward the left.
Then a familiar face came rolling down with everything else.
Mok Inha's head, eyes closed as though asleep, dropped atop it with a thud.
“...Section Chief Mok Inha... is inside a ghost story.”
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