WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 17: Tracking Ghost Stories

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Tracking Team 1.

In other words, every elite gathered for this urban legend tracking operation was far from ordinary.

First up...

"I'm Gagaram. I'm driving for this operation, so leave the transportation to me."

A tough leather jacket, even though it was thirty degrees out.

Sunglasses, even though it was nighttime.

He was so stylish that, rather than an exorcist, he looked like they had dragged in some rapper.

Next to him stood a woman in a modified hanbok. I thought she might be a shaman, but what she said while opening her fan was the complete opposite.

"...Cheonghak. Call me Scholar Yoo."

Her face was blank, her eyes unfocused. Half-lidded, like she was sleepy.

Scholar Yoo hid a yawn behind her open fan, her expression impossible to read.

"Cheonghak... You mean the Cheonghak from Cheonghak Village?"

"Yeah. I run a village school. Want to come study?"

"...No."

Did anyone even go to Cheonghak Village these days?

Gagaram grinned as if he was happy to hear the name.

"Wow, it's been a while since I heard Cheonghak Village. My parents sent me there in high school."

"Our student?"

"Only for summer vacation."

"Oh, how was it?"

"I nearly got beaten to death."

"..."

Ah, Cheonghak Village. Come to think of it, hadn't it made the news because its instructors beat students?

"I stole a horse from the ranch and rode it into a rampage. It was a mad, frenzied run."

"You deserved to get hit."

"...So it was you. The high schooler who stole a horse and rode it around in the middle of the night."

"My life's greatest moments keep getting updated, but that peak has held strong for ten years now."

Snap!

Scholar Yoo opened her fan, hiding the frown that crossed her face.

For someone so expressionless, she was surprisingly clear about showing her emotions.

Then there was Park Bokrye, who kept her dead husband as a shikigami...

"Are you going to eat before we go?"

"Ma'am, can you actually fight?"

"It's fine. I said let's eat first."

Was our team really going to be okay?

* * *

Tracking Team 1, the high-risk urban legend tracking team, immediately began discussing the operation.

When I saw how they planned to track the urban legends scattered across Seoul, it was more specialized than I expected.

"The route taken by the ghost story smuggler who entered through Incheon Port covers a wider area than expected. We'll have to start around Yeonsu-gu, Incheon."

Several red pins were stuck into the map.

The smuggler's route was marked with a solid black line, and every area around it was an urban legend search zone.

"Isn't this too broad? We can't check every place one by one."

"That's why we need to make deductions. We need to find places suitable for urban legends to grow."

"Places like that exist?"

Gagaram glanced at me and shrugged.

"Urban legends feed on emotions and grow."

They fed on emotions?

"When resentment builds up, it turns into a ghost, right? It's similar. When stories accumulate and people become emotionally invested, it stays in a place and a new anomaly is born."

"That's why urban legend anomalies reveal themselves. They want to scare people and spread rumors, so they can grow stronger."

I see. I hadn't known that.

"With that in mind, schools are our strongest candidates. Strong emotions tend to linger there."

He said emotions often intensified through rumors in places shared by many people.

As we drove, we turned on the navigation and searched for schools along the smuggler's route.

"Scholar Yoo, Gari Bodhisattva, have you found any schools?"

"Too many."

"There really are a lot. It feels like there's one on every block."

There were way too many schools in twenty-first-century Korean cities.

That was especially true if you counted everything from elementary schools to high schools and universities.

Then Scholar Yoo glanced at my phone and pointed her fan at one of the schools.

"Don't look for elementary schools, boys' middle schools, or boys' high schools."

"Huh? Why not?"

"Elementary school kids don't spread rumors much among themselves, and their yang energy is too strong for ghosts to settle down easily."

"That's right. Sometimes they solve an Ill-Omened Site that has become a Ghost Residence by building an elementary school on it."

"Then what about boys' middle and high schools?"

"Boys leave behind fewer rumors and lingering emotions. They're too busy running around and playing."

Because of general differences in temperament between the genders, urban legends were more likely to develop at girls' middle schools and girls' high schools.

Come to think of it, I'd heard of girls' high school urban legends, but not boys' high school urban legends.

"Of course, coed schools are an exception. Boys' schools have a lower chance, not zero chance."

There were plenty of other environments where strange spirits and monsters could thrive.

Old residential areas, foggy docks, abandoned houses in old downtown districts. The experts exchanged opinions, while I had nothing to contribute.

"Grandma, are you asleep?"

"...Sleepy."

Was our team really okay?

"All right, shall we start here?"

We arrived at a girls' high school in Juan-dong, Incheon, in Gagaram's SUV.

The school looked bleak and desolate.

It definitely looked like the kind of place ghosts would show up.

"Perfect atmosphere for ghosts."

"Hurry. We need to check as many schools as possible."

Scholar Yoo pulled out a brush.

She began writing characters in midair, and the ink remained suspended there.

"Those outside may not enter. No Entry Beyond This Boundary."

At that moment, a faint line of light appeared across the school's main gate, and a transparent barrier shot up into the sky.

"I've blocked entry. Even if the security company notices something strange, they won't be able to get in."

What kind of spell was that?

I'd learned that magic and sorcery existed after meeting a wizard and Wolryeong Bodhisattva, but seeing it in person was still amazing.

"Grandma, aren't you coming?"

"..."

Park Bokrye stayed in Gagaram's car.

Her eyes were tightly shut as she muttered to herself.

"Forget it. Let's leave the old lady alone."

"Filial piety and brotherly respect are the foundation of humanity. Respect your elders."

"Ha, only someone from Cheonghak would say that. I know the old-before-young hierarchy too, you know."

We left Park Bokrye behind and headed into the school.

"Mm."

I couldn't smell anything in particular.

Maybe urban legends belonged to a different category from evil spirits?

In the end, we found no urban legend at the girls' high school in Juan-dong.

"A wasted trip."

"I couldn't expect everything to work on the first try."

The two of them searched the school thoroughly, and so did I, but none of us found anything even close to an urban legend.

"It isn't hiding somewhere, is it?"

"Urban legends usually reveal themselves. They have to follow the structure of their story."

"That's right. A being turned into an urban legend has to follow the urban legend it belongs to. The details can differ, but it must follow rules like 'appearing in front of people.'"

That was necessary for the urban legend to grow.

Just like evil spirits showed blind aggression toward me, urban legends seemed to be highly aggressive too.

"Still, searching schools takes forever. At this rate, it'll take weeks."

"A gentleman does not walk lightly. A gentleman's steps ought to be weighty."

"Didn't Confucius say you should run when you're catching ghosts?"

"...The Book of Rites wasn't written by Confucius."

Scholar Yoo furrowed her brow, but Gagaram ignored her and started the car.

Park Bokrye was still asleep in the car, hugging her cane like it was a body pillow.

"Oh, grandma. If you sleep here, you'll wake up with your face all crooked."

"Old man... He can't leave. Even after dying..."

That had been a little creepy just now...

Anyway, we got back in the car and headed for the next candidate.

We were about to get out and search that place too when I spoke up.

"It isn't here."

"Hm?"

"Gari Bodhisattva?"

The two of them tilted their heads and looked back at me. Park Bokrye was still sleeping with her cane in her arms.

"What do you mean?"

"It isn't here. We should go somewhere else."

They both looked like they couldn't understand what I was saying.

"What's your basis?"

"Um... A feeling?"

"Instinct is important in our line of work, but..."

"It's difficult to follow a claim with no basis. Especially if it's from a novice with nothing but strong spiritual power."

Mm, apparently I didn't sound credible.

Well, if all I could claim was that I had a feeling, it wasn't exactly convincing.

"My spiritual ability is related to that, but I can't explain the details."

Wolryeong Bodhisattva had told me not to reveal my hand unless I had to.

She said Gari alone would cause a stir in this field if exposed.

If a sorcerer who controlled familiars learned about it, they might even risk their life trying to steal it.

So I should hide what I could of my abilities.

It was good advice, so I tried to keep my abilities hidden whenever possible.

"Is it the ring's ability?"

Gagaram stared at my ring then, the brass ring.

"Uh..."

"Certainly. Its aura is far from ordinary. A gentleman does not discuss strange strength or supernatural phenomena..."

Scholar Yoo added her own comment. It seemed the brass ring felt unusual to her too.

【Old lady... Run. I told you, that thing is dangerous as hell...】

Sir, you shouldn't keep slandering me like that.

When I casually touched Gari in warning, the old man flinched and hid behind Park Bokrye.

Anyway, since they had misunderstood something, there was no need to correct them.

"Well... Interpret it however you want."

"Hmph. At least a Grade 1 artifact."

"We'll follow what you said, Gari Bodhisattva."

That was how I ended up taking charge of tracking the urban legends.

"Oh? Here! Here! The terminal! This is it!"

On the way to another school, I found an urban legend at a bus terminal the smuggler was believed to have passed through.

The urban legend itself was the bus.

It was a Shinagawa 98 bus that did not exist.

"When the mind is still, the vital energy is still. Let righteous energy become a boundary. Do not move against propriety!"

Snap! Scholar Yoo opened her fan, and the bus, which had been about to race away, stopped in place.

The next moment, Gagaram leaped onto the bus and raised his fist.

"Malice shall burn, and purification shall remain. Eastern Azure Fire, lend me your blue flame!"

Blue fire surged from Gagaram's fist and crashed down.

Boom!

His flaming punch struck the bus, and the fire spread over it. The urban legend bus was engulfed in flames in an instant.

"Wow."

A flaming punch.

That was seriously cool.

When I stared in admiration, Gagaram caught my eye and gave me a wink.

"Still, it really was here. I didn't expect an urban legend about 'a bus that picks up passengers and takes them to a station that doesn't exist' to be hiding here."

"It's an urban legend found in every region. That's why there are so many variations."

Still, urban legends smelled bad just like evil spirits did.

This bus urban legend also had a clearer clue.

"These letters are Japanese, right?"

"Pumcheon. The Japanese read it as Shinagawa."

The bus number plate was in a format that couldn't exist in Korea, making it easy to identify.

Since it was an urban legend brought over from Japan, it seemed unable to hide differences like that.

Either way, urban legends had to keep to their established settings.

"I'll report this to the Association."

While Gagaram returned to the vehicle to make his report, I watched the urban legend bus burn.

Scholar Yoo watched it too.

"Strange."

"What is?"

"I thought the bus would move farther before I recited the scripture... but it stopped dead. Like it didn't want to touch something."

There was something, just as Scholar Yoo said.

I'd sprayed holy oil on it.

While I was looking for urban legends, the bus locked eyes with Gari, convulsed, and started its engine. So I sprayed it first.

"Cinnamon scent?"

Scholar Yoo even identified the smell.

Soon, her gaze turned to me.

"Gari Bodhisattva, did you do it?"

"Yes."

I admitted it honestly.

Holy oil and holy water were basic equipment now.

"Amazing. You stopped an urban legend just by spraying it, without even deploying a spell."

"I used... pretty good ingredients."

Cinnamon sticks from the supermarket, collective outcry prayer, and an angel's feather?

That counted as good ingredients, right?

"I'm done reporting it. Let's hurry and find the next target."

Gagaram returned then, with Park Bokrye yawning beside him.

In the end, Park Bokrye hadn't done anything.

【Good heavens! Dangerous, dangerous... Old lady, won't you run already? That ring... I told you, it's extremely dangerous.】

The old man's words sounded serious. The ring?

At that moment, something flowed out of the burning urban legend bus. It was a limp mass like tangled threads, and it slipped into the ring.

The ring had absorbed something from the urban legend bus!

At the same time...

Crack!

The eye-studded ring around Gari began to rotate.

An eyeball embedded in the ring opened.

【Shishim ve-Tesha. Samekh-Tet... Decarabia.】

Footnotes:

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