WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ Surviving as an Office Worker at the Anomaly Management Bureau ◈
Chapter 34: Find the Hidden Picture
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Unlike the change I had seen, Park Ho-seong, the lodge owner, simply handed us six keys to the rooms on the second floor, gave the same hearty laugh as before, and left.
“Are you really sure you don’t feel anything?”
“I’m telling you, I don’t.”
I kept pressing the team leader as we walked down the old hallway.
“Doesn’t something feel strange? Forget a nice lodge, you brought us to a haunted mountain lodge, and the atmosphere feels awful. You really don’t feel anything?”
“Hey, if I felt something, I’d say so. Since when did you rely on my instincts so much that you keep asking?”
The team leader pounded his chest as if he had been wronged.
I was frustrated to death too.
Looking at the team leader, who was still protesting his innocence, I recalled the words I had seen earlier.
[You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.]
That was not the weakness I had seen at first.
What had the earlier weakness been?
I searched my memory and recalled when I had first met the man.
[If you shoot him in the head, he dies.]
His weakness had changed.
But I had no idea why it had changed.
Had something altered without our knowledge while we were driving along that road?
“What are you thinking so hard about?”
Song A-rin stood beside me and held out her hand.
“What?”
“Hand over the keys. We need them to get into our rooms.”
“Oh.”
Right, the keys.
As I lowered my head to hand them over, Song A-rin bent down and met my eyes.
“Is something wrong?”
“Hmm.”
Could I tell her this?
“I have a bad feeling.”
“There you go again, saying unlucky things.”
Song A-rin clicked her tongue and took four of the keys.
“...I’ll look around too and tell the others to stay alert, so don’t worry too much. It’s a workshop. We should eat meat, drink, and have fun.”
“Are you worried about me?”
“It’s because I can’t have fun if you’re the only one looking like death. Don’t read too much into it.”
After taking the keys, Song A-rin passed me and began handing them out to the others.
Right. Song A-rin would keep watch too, so we should at least notice the warning signs before anything major happened.
Should I tell the others as well?
After considering it for a moment, I only gestured to Yoo Da-on. She soon noticed and trotted over to me.
“What is it?”
“If you smell that strange scent again, please tell me.”
“Okay, well...”
Yoo Da-on closed her eyes and sniffed.
“I don’t smell it right now. You must have a reason for asking. Okay. I’ll let you know.”
With that, Yoo Da-on went into her room.
“Team Leader, please contact me right away if you feel anything off too.”
“You’re old enough to know better. Why do you worry so much?”
The team leader clicked his tongue and went into his room.
“...”
“...”
“What about me?”
“Huh?”
“You don’t have anything to say to me?”
“Uh... Hmm. No, I don’t.”
Jang Chae-yeon looked deeply disappointed before walking into her room.
I had three alarms in place, so there should not be any major problems.
Holding the remaining two keys, I headed into my room.
Compared to the haunted mountain lodge outside, the room at least looked like somewhere people could live.
There was a worn-out bed, a bedside table, no chairs, an old radio that looked too broken to work, and an unusually large window with curtains.
Just in case, I turned on the radio, but as if it were only natural for it to be broken, it did not even produce static.
I set the keys on the bedside table, sat on the bed, and looked out the window. Unlike the Basement incident, there was nothing unusual I could see about the lodge itself.
Maybe I was only overreacting because I had gone through too much in such a short time. Honestly, I would be happy if that were all it was.
-Knock, knock.
As I tried to force my thoughts elsewhere, someone knocked on the door.
“Yes.”
Who could it be? Song A-rin or Yoo Da-on? Or had Jang Chae-yeon come because she was sulking? It could not possibly be the team leader.
Holding a key, I opened the door.
Someone I had never seen before stood there.
Her back was strangely hunched, and her neck, while not grotesquely so, was clearly much longer than an ordinary person’s.
Her hair covered her face like wildly overgrown weeds. Between the strands that swayed here and there, I could see two bloodshot eyes that made me uneasy.
“Guest.”
A hoarse woman’s voice came out.
“...Yes.”
I answered tensely and looked above the woman’s head.
[Name: Park Ju-mi]
[Age: 50]
[Trait: Long Neck]
[Talent: X]
[Background: For over forty years, she has been with the village. Only this village knows her.]
[Weakness: If you shoot her in the head, she dies.]
“It is nearly dinnertime. We have prepared meat for you to grill on the first floor, so you may go down there to eat.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
“Then...”
The woman answered in her hoarse voice, stepped back, and closed the door.
Only after the door closed with an eerie creak did I realize what the sense of familiarity I had felt was.
‘Only this village knows her.’
Not a person knowing a village, but a village knowing a person.
Was the village the problem?
I remembered what Jang Chae-yeon had said on the train.
‘A Mountain God is sleeping nearby.’
I needed to discuss this with Jang Chae-yeon.
I picked up the key and opened the door to speak with her.
“Guest.”
I met the eyes of the woman, who was still standing in front of the door.
“Where are you going?”
“...To a colleague’s room.”
She looked up at me in an unnatural posture.
Her spine wriggled, and just as her bloodshot eyes turned toward me...
“Mr. Jae-heon?”
Yoo Da-on’s voice came from behind the woman.
As if nothing had happened, the woman’s back lowered. Yoo Da-on poked only her upper body out from behind the woman and met my eyes.
“Is something wrong?”
“Well...”
“I’ll be going.”
The woman spoke in her hoarse voice, then walked past Yoo Da-on and me down the hallway.
“That person is kind of strange.”
Yoo Da-on frowned as she watched the woman’s back disappear.
“Ms. Da-on.”
“Yes?”
“Do you happen to know which room Ms. Chae-yeon and Ms. Song are in?”
“I do! So...”
Yoo Da-on confidently opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“...Huh?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Uh... no. What about you, Mr. Jae-heon?”
“That’s why I asked.”
Rather than not remembering, it felt more accurate to say that the information about their rooms had never entered my mind at all.
“Do you remember the team leader’s room?”
“Not at all...”
“How did you know where my room was?”
“Uh, well. I was not actually trying to go to your room, but somehow I ended up here?”
Yoo Da-on scratched her cheek with an embarrassed smile, then looked around and began stretching.
“Could this be an anomalous situation?”
“I’m not sure. It probably isn’t normal.”
Yoo Da-on nodded and took a pair of black gloves from inside her clothes.
“Did you get those from the Research Team too?”
“No, they’re just stab-resistant gloves.”
Were stab-resistant gloves really that easy to get?
Leaving my question behind, Yoo Da-on clenched her fists and declared confidently.
“I’m ready! Shall we go?”
“Sounds good.”
As always, Yoo Da-on led the way, and I slowly followed behind her.
“Mr. Jae-heon, do you have a gun?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t.”
Who would have expected to need to bring a gun to a workshop?
At this rate, was I going to develop a real neurosis and start carrying a gun every day?
“Let’s check the nearby rooms first.”
The moment I finished speaking, Yoo Da-on knocked on the door beside us.
-Knock, knock.
There was no answer.
“Should I break it down?”
“You’re not Ms. Chae-yeon. If the two of us break it down, it’ll make too much noise.”
So Yoo Da-on and I began walking down the hallway, knocking on each door one by one.
We went all the way around the hallway and knocked on every door. Surprisingly, or perhaps naturally, no one answered.
“Let’s go downstairs.”
“I’ll lead.”
After doing this together about three times, we had started to understand each other.
Yoo Da-on nodded with a solemn expression and began going down the stairs.
The wooden stairs creaked loudly with every step, lending even more credibility to my assessment that this was a haunted mountain lodge.
As we slowly went down the creaking stairs, a strong smell soon hit my nose.
This was...
“It smells like grilled meat.”
“It does.”
Feeling uneasy, I hurriedly ran down the stairs.
The team leader, Jang Chae-yeon, and Song A-rin were standing in front of the grill.
“...What are you three doing there?”
I called to them, full of tension. Jang Chae-yeon turned toward me, her face red from the fire, and held out a plate.
“I was grilling meat for you.”
Were Yoo Da-on and I the only ones taking this seriously?
“Why didn’t you call us?”
“We knocked on your door, but you didn’t answer.”
“You knew which room I was in?”
“Yeah.”
You knew?
“Where was it?”
“The second room on the right after leaving my room.”
“...Really?”
Why could I not remember anything?
“Why aren’t you drinking!”
The team leader cracked open a can of beer, handed it to me, and shouted cheerfully.
“Ah, yes. I’ll drink.”
“Me too!”
“Ms. Da-on, drink cola.”
Things would get tiring if Yoo Da-on got drunk here.
At my words, Yoo Da-on obediently began sipping cola. Song A-rin came over and whispered beside me.
“Nothing so far.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. If anything happens, I’ll come to your room.”
After saying that, Song A-rin went back to her seat and focused on eating.
I had told Song A-rin this as well, but Yoo Da-on could not hold her liquor despite having a regenerating body.
On the other hand, Jang Chae-yeon was not merely good at drinking. She could have been called an alcohol storage unit.
Song A-rin was... normal. She could drink about as much as I could.
As the atmosphere gradually warmed up, the team leader’s phone rang in his pocket. He hurriedly answered it.
“Yeah, honey. Of course. I haven’t had much to drink! Don’t worry!”
It must have been his wife.
The team leader nervously took the call, gestured to us, and ran up the stairs.
There was no sound at all as the team leader went upstairs.
“I’ll go too.”
Song A-rin, who had quietly been eating, also stood up and silently went up the stairs.
There was no sound as Song A-rin went upstairs either.
Jang Chae-yeon quietly watched them, looked at me, then Yoo Da-on, emptied her glass, and spoke.
“Something is going on.”
“...”
“...”
Yoo Da-on and I watched Jang Chae-yeon carefully.
“And you suspect me.”
Jang Chae-yeon nodded as if she understood, then stood up.
“I’ll stay in my room for now. I’ll prepare myself, so call me if you need me. I’ll wait.”
Having said only that, Jang Chae-yeon also walked up the stairs.
-Creak, creak!
The sound of Jang Chae-yeon going upstairs echoed loudly.
“...The smell.”
Yoo Da-on covered her nose and frowned.
“You smell it again?”
“...Yes. What is this?”
“What kind of smell is it?”
“It’s... Hmm. A slightly unpleasant sweet smell...”
“Guests! Have you finished eating?”
That startled me.
I had no idea when he had arrived, but the lodge owner was smiling at Yoo Da-on and me.
“If you are finished eating, we will clean up! Come on, you must be tired from the trip. Hurry back to your rooms.”
“Uh...”
“And the forest at night is a magnificent sight! Looking at the forest under the moonlight, feeling inspired, and listening to music on the radio, now isn’t that elegant?”
“Yes. Understood.”
“Then I hope you two have a pleasant time together!”
The man smiled brightly and waved. Yoo Da-on and I had no choice but to go upstairs as if we were being chased away.
As we climbed the loudly creaking stairs, Yoo Da-on looked at me.
“Should we each go to our rooms?”
“Come to my room.”
At times like this, staying together was best.
Yoo Da-on nodded. I brought her into my room and drew the curtains.
“The curtains?”
“Shh.”
I silenced Yoo Da-on, drew the curtains, and quietly looked at her.
How long had I been meeting Yoo Da-on’s confused eyes in the dark room when...
-Knock, knock.
Someone knocked on the door.
“It’s me. Open the door, quickly.”
It was Song A-rin’s voice.
I grabbed Yoo Da-on’s shoulder as she tried to stand, forced her to sit back down, and shook my head.
We could not make a sound.
-Knock, knock.
“You’re in there. Open the door. Are you messing with me?”
-Knock, knock, knock.
“Hey. Do you think I’m joking?”
-Knock, knock, knock, knock.
“This kind of joke isn’t funny.”
-Bang!
“Open the door!”
Song A-rin’s furious voice rang out, then soon settled again.
Her footsteps moved away.
“...What was that?”
“I think it may already be too late.”
Perhaps we had been inside a containment object’s stomach from the moment we arrived at the lodge.
“Let’s find Ms. Chae-yeon.”
I stood up and looked at the broken radio.
This would be difficult without any combat ability.
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