Chapter 10
“Report for work starting tomorrow.”
The dium was calm.
It was a bizarre situation—visiting at night and ending up employed—and I felt strange about it too.
I had beco connected to this bizarre world of urban legends. Not that I had actually wanted this, though.
“Should I call you ‘Boss’ from now on?”
“No, that makes sound old.”
“Then should I call you Ms. Lee Yeon-hwa?”
“I hate that even more.”
After thinking for a mont, she decided on a title.
“Call Noona.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“It makes us look too close.”
Both of us were sensitive enough to be picky about titles. Titles were a major issue.
“Should I call you ‘Miss dium’?”
“If you call that, people will think it’s weird. And it’s a pain to explain it every ti.”
“Do you actually care about things like that? People only wear hanbok these days when visiting palaces or on holidays.”
“I only wear it at ho for a bit. I wear suits outside too, you know?”
The dium turned dead serious.
“Then what should I call you?”
“How about Sunbae?”
“I’m not feeling it.”
After bickering back and forth, it was settled. I would call her Miss dium inside and Sunbae outside. The awkward titling was finally sorted out.
“And you?”
“‘Hubae’ is fine, or you can just call by my na.”
[N: Hubae = Junior, Sunbae = Senior]
“Kim Yu-chan. Right?”
“You know it.”
“I told you I saw the application you dropped.”
She held up the crumpled application and flicked it with her finger.
“Satisfied now?”
The night had grown deep. The night of the full moon was getting darker.
“Work starts at 9:00 AM.”
“Yes.”
“No being late.”
“I’ll be here on ti.”
“Even if you’re going to sleep, co here and do it.”
She turned around and headed back inside. As I was about to leave, I felt the lingering sensation still left in my body.
“Wait a mont.”
“Hmm?”
“What was that dream I saw exactly?”
She stopped in her tracks.
“The dream? The urban legend? The one where I died?”
“Yes, the dream I had.”
I spoke cautiously.
“I ca here thinking that maybe I saw the future.”
“What? A precognitive dream?”
She laughed softly.
“Of course, there are people who have precognitive dreams. But that’s not you. And I’m not dead.”
“Then what was the dream I had? What was it?”
“Do I really have to tell you?”
The dium let out a short breath.
“A nonsense dream.”
Ah, I see.
I bowed my head in farewell and hurried away.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Don’t be late.”
I ran off to get out of there as quickly as I could. Left alone in the street for a mont, she stared blankly at my retreating figure.
Soon after.
Creeak.
She opened the gate and stepped inside.
In the pitch-black courtyard, there was a sharp object reflecting the moonlight. It was a dagger.
“But how did he know?”
The ghost’s dagger lay in the courtyard.
“That I was fighting a ghost.”
Thirty minutes before Yu-chan arrived.
Sothing had appeared out of nowhere.
Having sensed a strange presence while resting in her room, she had rushed out to the courtyard and shouted.
“Co out.”
In the dark of night, she scanned the surroundings quickly, searching for an illusory presence that looked like a silhouette in the shadows.
And then, she discovered a suspicious entity. She stared it down as it hid within the air, as if locked in a staring contest.
“Who are you?”
It did not answer. However, an energy that could never be hidden was visible beyond the illusion.
“I can see you.”
She spoke again.
“Don’t pretend otherwise.”
An intangible being visible to the dium’s eyes. It was likely a ghost or a spirit. The energy radiating from it was malice. It was an evil spirit.
[You who interfere with urban legends.]
Urban legends? , interfering?
“Are you talking to ? Interfering?”
[This is a warning.]
[Do not intervene any further.]
[This is an affair that humans must not ddle in. Do not act rashly.]
‘Acting rashly.’
Acting thoughtlessly and recklessly like soone abnormal? She refused imdiately.
“It is the ghosts who should be going to that world. Don’t linger in the human world, targeting people with your urban legends.”
[I said it is a warning.]
A dium is a human who catches urban legends. To an evil spirit, she is like a natural predator, yet it had the audacity to seek out the dium’s house and speak to her directly.
This was no ordinary evil spirit.
[Know that if you refuse, I can kill you first at any ti.]
Flash!
It was then. A sharp hidden weapon appeared. A dagger flew through the air like an arrow, slicing through the void.
“…….”
The dium did not dodge. With a powerful gaze, she stared directly at the dagger.
If it is a ‘sal’ (lethal energy) thrown by a ghost, it is like a curse that can never be dodged. There were many such cases within urban legends.
‘If you try to dodge, you die.’
There was only one way to survive. The sole ans was to confront it with the resolution to die.
“………”
A ‘sal’ thrown by a ghost. She had experienced it many tis in urban legends, but she had never faced it in reality.
The blowing spring breeze turned violent. It was a biting wind that brushed past as if to sharply slice her skin.
Swish!
The dium did not waver in the slightest. She didn't even move her pupils. Instead, the strength in her gaze grew even more intense.
‘The ghost’s dagger.’
If her concentration wavered even slightly. If she closed her eyes here or if her focus slipped for even a second, that ghost’s dagger would fly in and sharply pierce through her.
‘If you fall into fear, you lose your life.’
Even as the biting wind blew, the dium faced the sharp blade. The place she was looking was not at the ‘ghost’s dagger.’
Because in the void behind it, there was a being clutching and thrusting the ‘ghost’s dagger.’
“…….”
A contest between the blade and the eyes. A decisive battle where human spiritual power clashed with a ghost’s spectral energy. The tense confrontation continued.
‘A death darker than the night.’
And then, sothing began to shake slowly. The dium’s eyes remained fixed. The ‘ghost’s dagger’ was trembling violently.
It was at that mont. Just as she thought she might win, the ghost’s form closed in instantly like mist.
Grab!
The ghost’s hand seized the dium’s wrist. It was a hand that radiated a bone-chilling cold.
The ghost’s grip tightened, as if aiming for her very life. Before her eyes, the ‘ghost’s dagger’ was still hurtling toward her.
[Rember.]
A voice sounded in the dium’s ear. It was the ghost’s whisper. The evil spirit, manifested in reality, muttered like a low breath.
[Interfere any further, and I will kill you with my own hands.]
The dium did not panic. She had never been afraid or felt terror even within urban legends; that was how she had survived until now.
She replied.
“Begone.”
For now, that was all she could manage.
“…….”
The biting wind subsided. Blades of grass scattered. The tension that had spread to every cell in her body also began to ebb away.
“Is it gone?”
Only silence remained.
The ghost that had surged like a wave of terror had vanished without a trace, leaving only the ‘ghost’s dagger’ stuck in the ground with a dull thud.
“Phew.”
She smoothed her pure white hanbok and tidied her appearance. When she rolled up her sleeve, there was a dark handprint on her wrist.
The mark left on her wrist where the ghost had gripped her so tightly was stained red, as if she had been burned. It wasn't just the dagger that was real.
An urban legend was a manifestation of malice—the grudge of the dead appearing in the human world.
It seed the ghost had reached its limit for now, but its core was likely a killer spirit possessed of intense malice.
“Could it be….”
If it was a ghost with such strong hostility toward her, one that went as far as to warn her not to interfere, it ant they were already acquainted.
“Naksha?”
The designer of the elevator urban legend she had reproduced today.
That killer bastard had attacked her in reality, not just within a legend?
This was a significant threat.
“The worst killer spirit.”
The worst ghost in history, one that had lived within urban legends for seven hundred years.
It was a killer spirit that reveled in slaughter, tornting and murdering people.
An existence of absolute evil, it was often called a ‘massacre spirit’ because even the title of ‘killer spirit’—reserved for ghosts that commit mass murder—was insufficient.
There had been countless cases where even the diums who attempted to capture it were toyed with and ultimately murdered.
“That bastard... ?!”
Was this rely a warning? For now, it had stopped at the level of a threat in reality rather than within a legend.
But what if it grew stronger?
What if its malice deepened?
It might go beyond the individual sacrifices claid by Naksha’s legends over the last seven hundred years and target lives on a massive scale all at once.
That would be a catastrophe.
“Phew.”
The dium stared blankly at the ghost’s dagger lying on the ground.
It wasn't just a simple object.
“Is it a spiritual object?”
She looked at the dim aura emanating from the ghost's dagger. It was an object that would be misused if it fell into the wrong hands.
“It was the worst.”
Lost in thought, she couldn't move. How much ti had passed while she stood there, motionless? Eventually, she felt soone enter the house.
“You?”
The person who suddenly appeared just as it was reaching 9:00.
The guy who said he had seen this very scene in advance in a dream. The person with narcolepsy.
What was his na again? It should be written on the application he dropped earlier today.
But it was him who called out a na first.
“Ms. Lee Yeon-hwa.”
Her na?!
Because she used an alias, she never told anyone her real na. She didn't even rember the last ti soone had called her by her na.
How did soone she had t for the first ti today know it?
“…I had a dream.”
The man spoke. He said that she would encounter an evil spirit here. That he saw a future where a sharp knife flew in and stabbed her to death.
He even knew her real na. It was chillingly accurate.
How? How did he see a future that even she couldn't?
In a dream? Did he really have a dream that sees the future?
The probability of a person having such a talent was barely one in billions.
“A precognitive dream? No, that wasn't it.”
The sight the man saw in his dream wasn't the future; it was reality. However, he was seeing the real-ti situation the dium was experiencing through a dream. Not a precognitive dream, but...
“A reality dream?”
Did he truly possess such a talent? She caught a glimpse of his expression as he spoke. It was quite serious, carrying a weight of sincerity. He had even co here knowing that a ghost might be present.
Even though he could have run away in fear. Even though he could have tried to ignore it as just a dream. There are almost no people like that—people who would co all the way here.
“…….”
Did he really see this in a dream? This exact scene? Really?
“How did he see it?”
She had been thinking of hiring the applicant with narcolepsy as an assistant. Now, her thoughts had changed.
“He might have spiritual energy.”
Whether it was talent or re coincidence, she couldn't be sure, but she needed to verify it properly.
“I’ll have to watch him from up close.”
Humans dream dreams, and ghosts dream urban legends.
A dream is nothing more than an urban legend to an evil spirit, but to a human, it can be a path in life.
If he could grow properly, or awaken, he might have the talent to figure out a ghost's urban legend in advance.
Kim Yu-chan. The dreams that the young man with narcolepsy sees.
She was curious about what kind of dreams he would see in the future.
“Fine.”
The dium rolled up her sleeves. She reached out and gripped the ghost's dagger that had fallen to the floor.
The mont it touched her fingers, she suppressed the chill spreading through her whole body and picked it up.
It was malice—sharp, intense, and as hot as lava.
“It’s hot.”
At the sa ti, it held a cold, icy bitterness and a profound sorrow.
“And cold.”
It felt as if she were holding fire and water at once. Perhaps the complex emotions of that killer spirit, that evil entity, were imbued within it.
She didn't know what that ghost's deep-seated grudge could possibly be, but it could never be left alone.
“It’s him.”
The dium knew one thing about that evil spirit's identity.
“The only ghost I ever missed...”
Creating countless urban legends and subtly humiliating people. Cruelly killing them...
“Naksha.”
It was the only evil spirit she had failed to capture in the past. They had fought most fiercely.
They had confronted each other as if to the death. And this ti, it had directly targeted her life with the ‘ghost’s dagger.’
It was that very ‘elevator ghost.’
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