WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Alyo
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving Among the Anomalies ◈
Chapter 11: Toy Well (1)
──────
It did not take Shin Yeong-mun long to regain his senses.
“Urgh! Urrgh! S-stop! S-Seung-hoon! I’m awake!”
They said a beating was good medicine, but that only applied to beasts. Perhaps Shin Yeong-mun had been closer to a beast when his eyes went black, because after I kept hitting him, he quickly came back to his senses.
“What’s with that person? Why’s he acting like that?”
“Must be a lunatic. Ignore him.”
“Hey, move. Let’s go around. He might have a knife.”
The passersby’s reactions made me take Shin Yeong-mun away from there.
“Are you clear-headed now?”
“Yes! Yes, I’m completely awake!”
“Do you still think you’re skilled?”
“N-no! I’m trash! I’m a complete sucker! I’m a fucking idiot who can’t play Mahjong!”
“You do not have to be so hard on yourself. More importantly, do you still wish to move on?”
“Ugh...”
Shin Yeong-mun groaned and shook his head.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like I can move on, and I don’t feel anything.”
“Hmm, I see. Then come with me.”
“Huh? W-where?”
“I’ll take you to my home.”
“Why?”
“We need to experiment. To find out how you can move on.”
For the first time, I learned that a ghost’s face could turn pale.
“...Do I have to go?”
I learned something new.
“You do.”
＊＊＊
In conclusion, I failed to help Shin Yeong-mun move on.
“Sniff, sniff... Please, no more experiments...”
I tried attaching talismans obtained from a supposedly powerful shaman and scattering salt on him.
I dragged him to a temple with a renowned monk, pressed a cross against him, and took him to church.
I threw red beans at him, drew magic circles said to drive away ghosts, and even read the Bible, but none of it helped him move on.
“It hurts so much!”
Still, the methods were not completely ineffective. Shin Yeong-mun suffered every time, and for a while, his body would fade until even I could not touch him.
‘A state that completely blocks outside stimuli.’
It was a kind of protective mechanism.
Just as a living creature reflexively pulled its hand away from something hot, ghosts also possessed a survival instinct.
‘Death isn’t the end.’
Considering some Anomalies, it was not particularly strange.
“I won’t conduct any more experiments.”
“R-really?”
“Yes. You may go wherever you want now.”
“Y-yahoo!”
I stopped Shin Yeong-mun as he hurriedly tried to leave my room.
“B-but you said I could go!”
“I have one request.”
“W-what is it?!”
“If you see anything strange while wandering around, let me know.”
“...Something strange?”
“Anything is fine. Ghosts, monsters, psychics, aliens, holes opening in empty space, books that eat people, anything.”
“D-does that kind of thing exist in the world?”
“Yes.”
Smiling, I sent off Shin Yeong-mun, whom I had grown attached to.
“It does.”
＊＊＊
‘That makes two.’
The studio apartment that had felt warm over the past few days became chilly again.
‘Knowledge of Anomalies through Notebook in My Head.’
It was not perfect, but I had gained at least all the knowledge of the Anomalies I knew.
‘The minimum combat capability needed for survival, gained through The Girl with Her Eyes Closed.’
I had acquired enough Physical Ability to run away, along with the strength to resist spiritual entities.
‘Three things remain.’
A way to identify dangers in the future.
A status that would let me go anywhere without inconvenience.
And the wealth to maintain my life and easily obtain what I needed.
‘Set that one aside for now.’
Identifying future dangers meant foreseeing the future.
Several such Anomalies existed, but most were dangerous and could not be handled easily.
‘The relatively safe ones appear at random, so I can’t obtain them now.’
For the moment, I had been checking every secondhand trading community online, but there was no telling when one would appear.
‘So I’ll focus on the other two.’
I already knew how to acquire both status and wealth.
‘But the methods that come to mind so easily are dangerous.’
All those methods involved using Anomalies. Not Safety Grade Anomalies, either, but symbiotic or dangerous Anomalies. The risk was too high, and there was a good chance I myself would be destroyed while trying to escape destruction.
‘And none of the Safety Grade Anomalies are particularly useful.’
A duck doll that occasionally went “Quack” when no one was looking.
A tree that bore a random fruit with a random flavor once a month.
Nail polish that cured ingrown toenails when applied.
Safety Grade Anomalies that appeared at Fixed Locations were mostly collectibles and not very useful.
‘The useful ones appear at random, so I don’t know where they are.’
There was nothing more foolish than clinging to something that could not be solved right away.
‘Let’s do what I can now.’
Thinking of Safety Grade Anomalies reminded me of one that appeared at a Fixed Location and might be more useful than expected.
“Toy Portal.”
I prepared to go out.
“It’s worth experimenting with.”
＊＊＊
This trip was not particularly long. Unlike last time, when I had gone all the way to Gangwon Province to obtain two Anomalies, I only had to find a shuttered daycare center in Osan, Gyeonggi Province. After asking around a little, I found it in less than a day.
‘This is the place.’
Late at night, I climbed over the wall of the abandoned daycare center with a flashlight in hand.
‘It went out of business three years ago, from what I heard.’
It had not been demolished due to issues involving management rights and had been left as an eyesore ever since. Even its name, Sehwa Kindergarten, matched what I knew.
‘Where is it?’
Inside the daycare’s playroom, littered with all kinds of toys, I found what I was looking for.
“Is this it?”
A small well assembled from building blocks. Built atop a large base block, it was large enough for my face to fit inside.
To check whether it was the Anomaly I wanted, I threw it onto the ground. Building blocks normally broke easily from an impact like that, but this did not.
Next, I punched it, but only my hand hurt. There should not have been a building-block toy that my enhanced Physical Ability could not break, so this was definitely an Anomaly.
“Then let’s experiment.”
After taking a late-night taxi home, I looked at the Toy Well and recalled its information.
[Toy Well]
[Grade: Safety]
[A well made from toy blocks, measuring 45 cm wide, 45 cm long, and 20 cm high. If something is placed inside the well, it disappears somewhere, but where it goes is unknown.]
It was a Safety Grade Anomaly introduced early in the game. It did little beyond unnerve people with the mystery of things disappearing somewhere, while its lore was sparse and its wiki entry was short.
‘They probably made this one as a collectible too.’
I looked inside the well. Its bottom was only about a palm deep, but it was far too black, not a natural color at all. It felt like looking into an abyss.
“My hand can’t go in.”
I tried inserting my fingers, but they touched a hard block floor.
“Next, something alive.”
I went outside, found an ant in the flower bed, and placed it inside. The ant scurried up the well wall and crawled back out.
“Living things cannot be transported.”
The information matched what I knew. Next, I put in dirt, stones, twigs, and other things I had picked up from the flower bed.
“Things that can be transported are not alive.”
Everything I put inside vanished without a trace.
“Are cut branches considered nonliving? Do the microorganisms in the soil remain behind because they can’t be transported? Or can microorganisms and severed parts of living things be transported?”
It was rather interesting, so I continued putting different things inside.
Eggs stored in the refrigerator: transported.
Cake: transported.
Fingernails, toenails, and hair: transported.
Twelve kinds of fruit and vegetables bought from the supermarket: transported.
Fertilized eggs that had not been refrigerated: could not be transported.
Moldy bread: the bread was transported, but the mold remained in the well.
A goldfish placed in the freezer and put into suspended animation: could not be transported.
“In conclusion, living organisms mold-sized or larger cannot pass through.”
The same applied to living things in suspended animation. Only nonliving things or microorganisms could pass through.
‘I’m not certain about the microorganisms, either. They may be unable to pass through and simply remain behind.’
Once the experiment ended, I had more to think about. I had brought this here because I wondered whether I could use it to dispose of small, dangerous Anomalies.
‘There won’t be a problem if it can dispose of them.’
The question was whether it would work on Anomalies as well.
“I can experiment with that too, but...”
My eyes turned to the notebook on my desk. All I had to do was tear off a small piece of Notebook in My Head and put it inside, but would that really be all right?
“You never know until you try.”
I immediately began the experiment. I tore out part of the notebook, then wrote on the torn paper.
[For Experimentation]
The words I wrote were stored in my head. This proved that Notebook in My Head could still be used even after being torn.
‘It might actually have a will and might have sent me a warning for tearing it.’
I checked every page of the notebook. There was no warning anywhere, and when I returned to the original page, the torn section had returned to normal.
‘So there’s no problem with tearing it.’
At the top of the very first page, I checked the doodle I had made at the beginning.
[1+1=?]
There was still no answer.
‘Then let’s put it in.’
The torn paper still retained its anomalous properties, so it could be considered part of the Anomaly.
The moment I placed it inside the well, it vanished.
‘It worked!’
Now I had a way to deal with dangerous Anomalies that were small in size.
“?”
At that moment, objects began flying out of the well.
Small stones and all kinds of minerals, including copper, iron, and zinc, burst out of the well in an instant and dirtied my room.
‘This wasn’t written on the wiki, either.’
It was a phenomenon I had never encountered in the game. To investigate it, I wrote on a small piece of paper and placed it inside the well.
After quite some time had passed, a note flew out of the well while I was preparing dinner.
[Hello? If someone is reading this note, please find a hole nearby. It will either be a small Toy Well or a hole measuring 45 cm wide, 45 cm long, and 20 cm high. Then please write a reply and place it inside.]
It was the message I had written on the note.
The paper had been reused, and another message was written on the back.
[Who are you? What does this do? Is this a prank?]
The note was written in Korean. Unlike my ballpoint pen writing, the other words were written in graphite. The moment I saw them, I abandoned my plan to use the well to dispose of Anomalies.
I immediately tore out another piece of paper and made a new note.
[Hello? My name is Lee Seung-hoon. I am an ordinary man in my twenties living in the Republic of Korea. If you do not mind, where are you, and who are you?]
I placed the note inside and waited again. After some time, the note returned. Once again, the reply had been written on the back of the paper I had used for the note.
[Uh, my name is Shingu Hoerang. I am a citizen of the Unified Asian Union and an ordinary Sebulum in my twenties. But what is a man? And what exactly is this hole?]
I had become the first human to speak with an Otherworlder.
Footnotes:
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