WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 111: Bible Camp (3)
──────
Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost.
It was also the protagonist of one of Japan's most famous urban legends.
But twenty years ago, the original underlying the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost urban legend was destroyed by a Korean exorcist.
The root of an urban legend was, in the end, a story.
When a tale circulated among people and negative emotions gathered around it, an anomaly, the protagonist of that urban legend, came into being.
Normally, the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost should have reappeared even after the original was destroyed.
The story itself, which formed the foundation of the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost urban legend, had not disappeared.
But the craze for discussing urban legends in Japan had faded long ago.
New urban legends and anomalies emerged every now and then, but to trend-conscious modern people, the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost had become an old, boring story.
However.
The arrival of one website changed the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost's fate.
The Eight-Foot Moe Ghost.
On a site that uploaded pirated adult manga, this character of an eight-foot “woman” who was “large,” “big,” and “huge” became a strangely popular trend.
The anomalies of urban legends were born through stories.
Even if it was a lewd, twisted take on the original, an anomaly could be born if enough people talked about it and gave it form.
“Gasp! Huff! Gasp!”
Ri Myeonghui and Kim Jinhyeok fled desperately from the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost that had suddenly appeared.
They scattered talismans, and Kim Jinhyeok even threw out enchanted artifacts he had been saving to buy time.
“Wasn't there only one Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost?!”
“Isn't the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost one of the highest-ranking urban legends?! You can command several of those things?!”
They might not compare to the original, but derivative urban legend or not, an Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost was still an Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost.
It was undoubtedly among the most powerful familiars a person could command.
Even Cha Hyeran's fire snake had not been a match for a single one of those Eight-Foot-Tall Ghosts.
“This isn't the time! The Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost's traits are pursuit and abduction! It always chases the target it picks!”
“H-how far?!”
“The Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost that chased that bastard Pastor Kim Gwang-o followed him all the way from the Japanese archipelago to Seoul. That was the original, but it'll at least keep chasing us until we leave this country.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Huff...!”
Ri Myeonghui caught her breath and looked around.
An open field at the campgrounds.
Several old containers stood in a row at one end.
Rusty steel walls. Dented doors.
They were perfectly ordinary containers, but Ri Myeonghui saw them differently.
“There.”
“There means...?”
Kim Jinhyeok momentarily flinched.
“We need an enclosed space! Get inside!”
Frustrated, Ri Myeonghui practically shoved Kim Jinhyeok inside before following him.
She immediately pulled yellow demon paper and a brush from her clothes.
“The Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost is an anomaly that follows its target. What matters isn't where we are. We need to make a space it can't enter.”
Scratch.
Her brush moved across the talisman.
Red cinnabar ink, mixed with something like rouge, began forming an intricate pattern.
Ri Myeonghui stuck the talisman to the container's steel door.
But that was not the end of it.
“Major Kim Jinhyeok! Take out everything you have!”
“Everything?”
“Everything!”
Kim Jinhyeok didn't ask again. He pulled out a bundle of talismans.
Ri Myeonghui selected several and tossed them onto the ground.
Around the container, one to the east, west, south, and north.
One at each of the four corners as well.
“This is a place ghosts cannot enter. It is a Human Gate, not a Ghost Gate.”
Ri Myeonghui's eyes turned cold, and her incantation flowed into the talismans.
“Ghost Gate Closure.”
A surge of spiritual power swept through the container.
“D-did it work?”
“Shh.”
Ri Myeonghui pressed a finger to her lips.
Then something scraped against steel in the distance.
Screeeeeech!
“Gulp!”
Kim Jinhyeok's face stiffened as he swallowed hard.
“It came.”
Inside the cramped container, surrounded by talismans, they held back even the sound of their breathing and listened.
Then.
Boom!
The container shook violently.
Had it found them? No. It wasn't their container.
The one across from them. The Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost had torn another container apart.
Boom!
This time, it was louder.
It was getting closer.
Boom!
Then.
Silence.
Neither of them could breathe.
Beyond the steel door, a huge shadow was visible through a narrow, slanted gap.
Something was standing there.
Very close.
【Po...】
Kim Jinhyeok's eyes widened.
Ri Myeonghui immediately grabbed his wrist.
Don't react. No matter what.
Screeeech!
Something slowly scraped along the container.
The sound gradually grew sharper.
Skreeeeeeek!
Long fingernails scraped across the steel.
But the red writing on the talismans attached to the container began to glow one by one.
The Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost's hand pulled away, but its presence lingered outside the door.
It didn't enter.
More precisely, it couldn't.
“...”
How much time had passed?
The shadow beyond the door slowly moved away.
Ri Myeonghui finally spoke once the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost's footsteps had completely faded.
“One hour... The talismans will lose their effect in one hour.”
Just as she said, the talisman on the door was blackening and burning from the edges.
Considering they had cobbled this together with talismans acquired in a hurry, it was an impressive result.
“We need to figure out this urban legend.”
“How?”
“All urban legends have rules. Figure them out, and we can drive it away. Didn't you see anything on that Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost?”
“Other than it being covered in fur like an animal...”
Right. That Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost had been covered in fur instead of looking human.
Its head was that of an animal, so it should be surprisingly easy to narrow down.
“Major Kim Jinhyeok! Search for the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost first!”
“O-okay!”
Kim Jinhyeok hurriedly took out his phone and searched for the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost.
Ri Myeonghui smacked the back of his head.
“Get a grip! That's a damn Japanese ghost! You think searching on Naver will get us anything?!”
“M-my mistake!”
They went to Yahoo! Japan and searched for the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost.
They weren't fluent in Japanese and had to reinstall the keyboard, but North Korean infiltrators were also trained to use smart devices and the internet.
“Why's there so much? Is this right?”
They somehow managed to search, but the two of them were drowning in a flood of results.
Still, the internet was the most likely place for a modern story to become an urban legend.
“How about this? It's got a detailed explanation of the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost...”
“Ignore posts from small-time bloggers with no views! People have to read it for it to become an issue. Posts with a hundred or two hundred views are worthless!”
Following Ri Myeonghui's advice, they ruled out posts based on view counts, comments, and visitor numbers. A few posts had especially high view counts.
“C-comrade Ri Myeonghui.”
“What? I'm busy!”
“I know this isn't the time to say this...”
Kim Jinhyeok cautiously showed her his phone screen.
Ri Myeonghui saw it and slapped him across the face, her own face turning red.
“How obscene! What are you showing an unmarried woman?!”
“L-look! This is a massive site! If stories spread on a place like this, couldn't they turn into an urban legend?”
“...”
Ri Myeonghui thought it sounded plausible.
That furry Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost had been fairly pretty. If it was merely an anomaly, it had the kind of appearance that could entice men.
That was right.
Ri Myeonghui found it doable.
“Then hurry up and look!”
“O-okay! Uh... Hmm! Oh...”
Smack!
“Why did you hit me again?!”
“Get a grip! Our lives are on the line!”
“I know!”
Holding his stinging cheek, Kim Jinhyeok sank into Hitomi's World.
Good heavens.
A whole new world existed.
There was even a section that collected only Korean translations. Once he returned North...
Smack!
“Get a grip!!”
“IknowIneverlookedanywhereelse!!”
Kim Jinhyeok desperately searched for material about the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost.
But he didn't know how to search by tags. He only knew how to search by title.
Crackle!
At that moment, the talismans on the container began visibly burning away.
“C-comrade Ri Myeonghui! The talismans...!”
“A-already?! H-hurry up and find it!”
“Damn it, there's too much!”
“We just need to find the animal Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost!”
“I'm looking!”
He had searched for the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost in Japanese, but why were there so many results?
The same material also appeared repeatedly in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, English, Spanish, and other languages, making it take even longer.
“Comrade Kim Jinhyeok! Look carefully! An urban legend's rules are always hidden in how its story plays out. If it's low-grade smut like this, it'll be even simpler!”
Kim Jinhyeok was forcing himself to search through Hitomi's World when it happened.
Craaaack!
The container's roof was ripped open.
A furry Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost with an animal head looked down at them through the roof it had torn off with brute force.
【Po~】
“Aaah!”
Ri Myeonghui was snatched up in an instant.
She reached toward Kim Jinhyeok, but...
“Aaaah!”
Kim Jinhyeok abandoned the captured Ri Myeonghui and fled to save himself.
“You... bastard!”
Ri Myeonghui turned her head with a hollow look.
【Po!】
An Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost.
An Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost with animal fur and an animal head.
The rules of this urban legend had to be hidden in those traits.
What was it?
What was the rule?
What did she need to do to survive this anomaly...?
In truth, Ri Myeonghui had unknowingly fulfilled one of the conditions for safely passing through this urban legend.
A “taste” she had never realized she possessed, having lived her entire life in a closed country like North Korea.
【Po.】
But she wasn't the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost's preferred type.
Slash!
* * *
Kim Jinhyeok ran desperately after abandoning his comrade.
The mission no longer mattered.
His only goal was survival.
“Huff! Gasp! Huff!”
Ri Myeonghui was probably dead.
That meant the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost would pursue him as its next target.
Before then, he had to find the urban legend's rules, a way to pass through it safely.
Kim Jinhyeok frantically stared at his phone even as he ran.
It was definitely here.
No, it had to be here.
Damn it, there were too many duplicates.
Even when he tried to find the furry Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost, there were too many other Eight-Foot-Tall Ghosts.
What was with an Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost that liked young boys? And why was a ghost auditioning to become an idol?
How could he have known?
Hitomi's World, where traitors to the world gathered to indulge every conceivable taste, was an infinite and incomprehensible realm.
Then Kim Jinhyeok saw it.
A cover showing thick fur and a fox's head.
“T-this is it!”
Kim Jinhyeok hurriedly clicked the page and immersed himself in Hitomi's World.
Of all things, it was an English version, so it took him time to understand. He had to keep looking at the pictures.
He felt like his mind was rotting.
But seeing the fox Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost tear someone to death shocked him awake.
If he couldn't understand this smut, he would be torn to death like that too.
“Why? Why did the next guy survive? What is it? What's the difference?!”
Both were adult men.
The difference between the two adult men, when the fox Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost caught them, was...
“A blush?”
Fear and embarrassment... so...
Sexual arousal?
“What are you talking about? How can I feel sexual desire for an animal that isn't even human?!”
Something rushed out and snatched Kim Jinhyeok up in an instant.
It was the fox Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost.
“Eek!”
Caught in its grip, Kim Jinhyeok met the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost's gaze as it looked at him with desire-filled eyes.
He understood.
The rules of this urban legend.
To survive this urban legend, he needed two things.
First.
He had to be the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost's type.
Second.
He had to be doable.
“Ah...”
Impossible.
At that moment, Kim Jinhyeok's limbs began stretching longer and longer.
* * *
“Senior Lieutenant Park Cheol! Major Ri Myeonghui! Major Kim Jinhyeok! Respond!!”
Ri Gicheol gripped the silent radio tightly enough to crush it.
He had not heard from his subordinates since Park Cheol's scream came over the radio.
He thought he had heard something about the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost...
“We'd already confirmed the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost's location...”
Ri Gicheol waited for a reply as he sank into thought.
He could not understand what had happened.
Gugu! Gugu!
“Don't tell me...”
Had they known they were being followed? How?
“Cha Hyeran?”
Had that girl leaked information about them?
No, that traitor didn't know her betrayal had been discovered. Then how?
Rustle.
“Who's there?!”
Ri Gicheol aimed his pistol toward the sound, then lowered it.
It was Park Cheol.
“Comrade Senior Lieutenant. What happened?”
“Ah... I was chased by a tiger, but I dealt with it and came back.”
“If you dealt with it, shouldn't you have continued the mission or contacted us first?”
“My radio was destroyed during the fight... I wasn't sure whether to continue the mission, so I came looking for you. Are you all right, Lieutenant Colonel?”
“...I'm fine.”
In that case, he would continue the mission with Park Cheol.
Ri Gicheol made that decision and turned around, but then he felt that something was wrong.
Moonlight shone over the grass.
Yet the shadow of Park Cheol, standing there...
was not there.
Footnotes:
“Doable” renders 가능, Korean internet slang for finding someone sexually appealing.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
