“That could be the case.”
Still, I took the note back from Agent Choi and held onto it.
“Oh~ you’re keeping it?”
“Yes.”
I lowered my head, slightly embarrassed.
“There might really be a hidden distress call in it somewhere… I figured I’d at least take it and check it out myself.”
“……”
Agent Choi didn’t ask why I wasn’t reporting it to my superiors, either.
The Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau wasn’t the kind of organization that had the luxury to leisurely analyze a mysterious note left behind by some unknown person after five years of abandonment.
Even a brand-new rookie would know that vague cases like this would always be deprioritized.
Agent Choi himself had literally just said so.
Still… I made one last move.
After hesitating, I held the note back out to him.
“Um, sunbae-nim, if you happen to have time later… would you mind checking it just one more time…?”
“…!”
Truth was, as long as I memorized the contents, the note itself wasn’t essential.
And because of its nature, there was no issue entrusting it to a bureau agent capable of identifying ghost stories.
“Sure. I’ll take another look.”
“Ah, thank you, sir…!”
I handed it over without hesitation. Hopefully, this would move me further out of the circle of suspicion.
After that, the atmosphere between us softened a bit.
“Not bad, right?”
“Yes. Thank you…”
Under Agent Choi’s watch, I barely managed to acquire one of the items I’d wanted to buy.
That was rough.
Not just because of the surveillance. Choosing the item itself was hard too.
Most of what you could get here came from standard ghost story settings.
Which meant, these weren’t items refined by a major corporation or filtered for customer safety by aliens.
They come with horrific side effects.
That was the premise.
They weren’t objects made for humans to use conveniently in the first place.
And plenty of the sellers weren’t in their right mind either, so the things they offered often weren’t sane, either…
What was surprising was that Agent Choi wasn’t just supervising—he genuinely tried to help me.
“This place is exactly like Hanyang. [1] The kind where you get robbed in broad daylight, you know? If you watch how your sunbae-nim does it and follow along…”
…Didn’t always work, of course.
“…Someone already bought it.”
“……”
“N-No worries! The next one’s good too! Onward to the next arm~”
Still, true to his veteran status, he knew the origin or specific side effects of items I didn’t, and helped me make careful ‘purchases’.
Yeah. That was all great, but.
He made me buy something he knew.
In the end, he guided my actions under his control.
Whether that was a strong sign of suspicion or genuine concern… even I, who’d tracked Agent Choi’s entire history in the <Dark Exploration Records>, couldn’t tell.
‘Honestly though, I was pretty much playing into it since I’d wanted that item anyway…’
The scary part was that, even if he hadn’t guided me, I probably would’ve ended up buying it while crying inside.
I touched the item in my pocket and let out a sigh.
‘Huu…’
Agent Choi stayed with me until right before his time limit ran out, and even saw me off afterward.
Waving the piece of paper I’d bought as he did.
“Then I’ll take another look at this note and return it to you later, okay?”
“Yes. Thank you…”
Honestly, there was no need for him to return it. I’d already memorized it.
And there wasn’t even a point in him checking it either.
Because…
That note wasn’t related to any ghost story to begin with.
‘A psychological trap.’
Because it was a marketplace frequented by ghost-story-related figures, of course you’d assume any message was ghost-related.
But it wasn’t.
If anything… yeah.
It’s a ‘legacy’.
Let’s go back to that note again.
The ‘here’ that was mentioned referred to an actual location in the real world.
In other words, a ‘location’.
And the next line…
공감하고 주목하는
장난감이 있다
The grammar was strange, the phrasing unnatural.
It had clearly been forced together.
‘So let’s break it apart.’
What’s left would be…
공감하고 주목하는
장난감이 있다
Three words.
And if you have three words and a ‘location’, it’s the perfect hint for deduction.
Like the address system ‘what3words’, which expresses a 3mX3m location with three words. [2]
‘If I plug those words into a search…’
Immediately, a small location in the old city center of Seoul comes up.
And I’m standing there now.
“……”
The word coordinates pointed to a location that slightly veered off from the building itself, spot tucked awkwardly between a cluster of small commercial buildings.
And what was there was…
A manhole.
More precisely, an old manhole cover propped up next to the wall of a vacant unit.
As if someone had just leaned it there.
As if to hint at something.
“……”
I pushed the manhole cover.
Creeeaak.
Surprisingly, it moved more easily than expected. And behind it…
A stairwell leading down to a semi-basement.
“……”
A hidden place.
Why did the hand without a pinky finger lead me here?
And why did it only accept items from the early days of Daydream Inc. as payment?
It was simple.
Because it was connected to Daydream Inc.
‘Huu.’
I descended all the way down the stairs and looked up.
[Dream Incubation Room]
Daydream Inc.’s Dream Essence Synthesizer.
The prototype laboratory, built long ago, now stood revealed before my eyes.
Note/s:
[1] Hanyang : What Seoul was called during the Joseon period. ↩
[2] what3words : Check out what3words.com if you wanna see the location~ ///공감.주목.장난감 ↩