Warning. This novel is a horror novel rated 15+ and might include content that’s not suitable for all readers, read at your own risk
“Manual ghost story……”
“Are you hearing it for the first time? Both of you are ignorant.”
“Yeah. It’s the first time I am hearing about it…”
“Then it would be quicker to show it in person. If you give me your number, I’ll send it to you via Kakao Talk.”
“Okay.”
The three of us exchanged cell phone numbers with each other.
“Okay, my number is 010……”
“I……”
One of us seemed noticeably excited about exchanging numbers.
It was Seonah.
Was she happy to make friends so easily from the first day of the new semester?
With a flushed smile, she entered her number on my phone.
“Well, I just copied and sent it to you. If you’re curious, read it.”
The manual ghost story that Gyeongwon sent was an application guide for a company that provided apartment accommodation with the concept of an in-house dormitory for new employees who joined the company.
<<Recruitment Guide>>
Welcome to Clover Enterprises.
If you wish to apply for an in-house apartment, please follow the guidelines.
ㅁ Eligible People: Those who are physically healthy among those who joined the company in 2019.
ㅁ In-house apartment application period: From 2019.1.28 (Mon) to 2.22 (Fri), strictly keep up with the deadline.
ㅁ Required documents: ① Health certificate (tuberculosis, hepatitis B), 1 photo each
Submit fax to the Clover Pharmaceutical Department upon entering the company (Fill).
ㅁ Submission method: Application Clover – Employee Menu – In-house apartment – In-house apartment application.
New employees can apply by phone after verifying data registration with the HR department.
□ Precautions when applying
※ This apartment was purchased and built by Clover Corporation for its own employees only. Always be grateful.
※ If there is a religious person in the family, the examination will be rejected.
※ When visiting the department in charge to submit documents, please return all belongings that can check the time to the security guard before visiting.
ㅁ Precautions after moving in
※ After moving into this apartment, you are not allowed to return the application due to auditory hallucinations, hallucinations, or health reasons.
※ For security reasons, the house at the end of each hallway is always empty. If the lights are on or you hear sounds, ignore them.
※ This apartment does not have the 4th floor for religious reasons. If the elevator stops on the 4th floor, kill yourself before you are caught.
※ Entering the stairs at night is prohibited. If you can’t avoid using the stairs, be sure to crawl.
Other inquiries:
In-house Welfare Team 0xx)xxx-XXXX
Clover Pharmaceutical Oxx)xxx-XXXX
At first glance, there were not one or two suspicious corners, but an official document.
After It looked like I read everything, Gyeongwon looked at me and asked.
“Did you notice where it is strange?”
“Hmm, wait a minute…”
First of all, it was suspicious why one has to visit the Pharmaceutical Department when accommodation is provided for the in-house welfare.
Needless to say, the contents below were full of strange cautions.
“…Are they conducting physical experiments on new employees entering the dormitory?”
“Oh!”
Gyeongwon was surprised as his glasses shined.
“You are pretty sharp considering it’s your first time reading it.”
“Haha, well… I just guessed it, but I don’t think it’s the right answer.”
“It’s up to you to think whatever you want.”
Is it true that hiding mysterious sentences in official notices like this is a popular manual ghost story?
Seonah also stared at her cell phone and scrolled up and down here and there.
“Gyeongwon, you sure know a lot of ghost stories like the announcement one last time.”
After hearing my words, he raised his glasses and smiled.
“Originally, I liked mystery and reasoning, but after digging, I only learned a lot about the next genre, horror.”
“I see……”
Once again, I carefully read the manual ghost story.
“So, what’s the answer to this?”
“…answer?”
He flinched as if he was embarrassed.
“Yeah. It’s a strange official notice. What’s the conclusion?”
“Well……”
Seonah, who stood in front of him, also looked at Gyeongwon curiously.
That’s right.
Shouldn’t there be a conclusion to this story?
There were some odd corners here and there, but was this what the official notice wanted to say?
“Even if you ask me that……”
Gyeongwon looked like he was struggling with something.
“Listen carefully. It’s not that I can’t answer because I don’t know, and it’s not that I can’t tell since it’s a ghost story…”
“…Really?”
“Really.”
He firmly nodded his head.
“This official document was taken secretly by someone who joined the Clover Company and uploaded to the internet. So it’s not exactly a made up story……”
“Ah, someone took the picture and uploaded it.”
“So it’s difficult to ask the conclusion. It’s not because I don’t know…”
He was troubled.
He kept emphasizing that the reason he couldn’t answer wasn’t because he didn’t know, perhaps because of his pride in his knowledge.
But I understand.
Since I didn’t have much knowledge about genres such as ghosts or horror, it was difficult to convince me when I asked a very rudimentary question.
“Ghost stories are just fragmentary stories floating around the Internet or somewhere, so it’s difficult to ask for it’s conclusion……”
I waved my hand as if I understood to stop the guy who kept repeating himself.
“Okay, I understand. Sorry, sorry. I have no interest in this kind of thing, so that’s why I asked.”
“Yeah… I wasn’t embarrassed because I didn’t know the answer, it was just difficult to explain because there was no answer……”
“So, you’re saying a manual ghost story puts subtle warnings in official documents like this?”
When I cut off his words and shared my conclusion, Gyeongwon’s eyes twinkle as if he was interested.
“For a beginner, you grasped the key point well. It’s accurate. That’s the horror point of the manual ghost story.”
“Hmmm.”
The clover company was a big company that dominated the world, and if you spread ghost stories like these, wouldn’t you get sued……
Well, on the other hand, the admission notice that the school just handed out.
The fact that there were also suspicious contents written in the form of a manual ghost story was a key point that was worth thinking about now.
‘Watch out for the smiling girl.’
When I returned to my seat after chatting with Gyeongwon and Seonah for a while, they began distributing the textbooks.
‘It’s a new feeling.’
When I received the textbooks and was learning about first year again, I felt a strange feeling.
‘There were hardly any books that were helpful for the CSAT.’
Except for some Math stuff, the things we learned were basically mentioned in the CSAT.
‘……No, now that I think back to it, it wasn’t just the CSAT.’
In fact, even beyond the CSAT, there was barely any content here that was helpful in life.
I remember trying to start a part-time job during the winter break of high school, but I was at a loss because I didn’t know anything.
It would have been much more beneficial if I had even learned labor law.
Soon after, the homeroom teacher came in and ended the class.
Everyone stood up after packing up.
Freshmen whined as they stuffed the heavy textbooks onto their backs.
”As expected, you don’t know anything. Cute little kids.’
The textbooks I received today.
There was nothing to prepare for or review at home, haa
Instead of taking the books home, I put them all in my locker.
I picked up my lighter bag and slowly prepared to leave school.
Looking at the time, it was still 11 o’clock, so it wasn’t even time for lunch yet.
Maybe it ended early because today was the day of the entrance ceremony.
As I was about to leave the classroom door, I saw Seonah looking at me and hesitating.
“…excuse me.”
“Oh, yes.”
Seonah looked at me restlessly.
Perhaps she was looking for a friend to go with.
‘I was planning on going home by myself to organise my thoughts.’
I felt a little annoyed, but still, I made a new friend today.
There was no need to be rude.
“Seonah, let’s go together. What about Gyeongwon?”
“He is with another kid……”
When I looked in the direction Seonah was pointing at, I saw Gyeongwon talking with someone with big glasses+acne+pig.
Did Otakus get along with Otakus?
Perhaps they were passionately sharing stories about minor hobbies that I was not familiar with.
“……”
Seonah’s eyes looking at me while holding her bag were pitiful.
I spoke cheerfully to Seonah.
“Let’s go! You said that your house was in the Jugong Apartment?”
“That’s right……”
“The direction is different once we leave the school. What a pity.”
“Yeah…….”
As I skillfully led the conversation, Seonah immediately smiled as if she was relieved.
Somehow, I ended up leaving school alone with a girl, but the students around me don’t seem to care much.
Since it was the first day of high school, everyone was busy taking care of their own image.
I guess it’s because we didn’t know who each other yet.
Even after turning our face off, if I walked around with Seonah by myself there might be gossip wondering if we are dating or not.
‘The school meals are really light.’
I didn’t graduate, but I came back with a college acceptance letter in my hand, so I looked down on them with the hope that they wouldn’t fall into the category of school meals.
“Let’s go this way, across the playground.”
“Yeah……. “
Me and Seonah naturally walked along the same pace.
In fact, it’s only high school students who see women and men thoroughly as the opposite sex and gossip.
When you go to university, everyone naturally eats and hangs out together, but It’s unfortunate since I never got to experience that……
First of all, Nakseong High School is a coeducational school.
Even in the midst of incomprehensible things, such as ghost stories, demon kings, and regressions, it was exciting to be friends with a cute girl like Seonah from the first day at a coeducational school and go home together.
“What do you think about our homeroom teacher?”
“W-well…”
“He seems like a fun person.”
“Yeah…….”
Just like I expected, Seonah wasn’t really a talkative person.
I mainly led the conversation, and Seonah stuttered and answered.
Anyway, as we continued the conversation and talked about stuff like that, we passed by the playground and reached the main gate.
Near the main gate, I could see the security guard walking and looking around.
‘… It’s been 3 years since I have seen that person.’
Should I say we had a bad relationship?
He was an old man who had lots of connections with me.
At that time, I was in a hurry to survive, so I was just annoyed.
It felt nice to see him again after three years in an ordinary situation.
I passed by thinking, ‘Of course, that person doesn’t know me.’
I left the main gate and said goodbye to Seonah shortly after.
“Bye! See you tomorrow~”
“Yeah, goodbye~”
Seonah walked toward Jugong Apartment next to the school, showing her lonely back with a bag on.
That apartment had been built for more than 30 years and was almost collapsing.
Although there were rumors of reconstruction, it was really like a haunted house where only the elderly would live.
Wooden vines swarmed all over the outer walls of the building, and asphalt was broken with grass growing in it…….
I had never been inside, but it must be terrible.
I suddenly remembered something while feeling that Seonah lived in such a place.
The understanding system.
Although I wasn’t sure, I remembered that even if I just thought about it or made a guess in my mind it would be put in there.
‘I think I can guess something about Seonah from what I observed so far.’
I cleared my mind for a moment and thought of a sentence in my mind.
‘Yoon Seonah is poor.’
There was no response.
‘Yoon Seonah lives poorly.’
There was once again no response.
I wondered if I should think about something more serious.
I was sorry for Seonah, but to figure out the system, I had to guess some stuff.
I don’t think it mattered since she couldn’t hear me anyways.
‘Yoon Seonah is a dirt spoon. Yoon Seonah has no money. Yoon Seonah is a beggar. Yoon Seonah is broke. Yoon Seonah is……’
I tried saying anything that came to mind, but there was no response.
Was it wrong because I was guessing too roughly?
I looked at Seonah’s back as she walked away one more time and reorganised my thoughts again.
‘Let’s see, first of all, Seonah is slow in speaking and actions.’
No, apart from simply being slow, she looked like she was having a hard time building relationships.
She often looked like she was hesitating over trivial matters.
‘Has she been alone for a long time?’
I don’t think her personality was originally like that.
This was because there are people who are not good at building relationships because they are comfortable alone, while Seonah clearly showed that she liked having friends.
If so, the reason why Seonah was having a hard time building relationships means that there was a reason behind it.
‘Could it be that the reason is because of her family circumstances?’
Anyway, it was a matter of guessing in my mind alone in order to learn the understanding of the system by myself.
So would I have to feel guilty for jumping into conclusions?
I decided to draw a conclusion.
‘Yoon Seonah’s family is poor. So, during her school days, she must have had many difficulties in relationships with her friends. It took away Seonah’s self-esteem and became the cause of her shy personality.’
Ding~
[Your understanding of Yoon Seonah has increased by 30.]
“……!”
We succeeded!
Not only that, but it went up a lot!
“……This works.”
It seems that I accidentally got it right by sprinting backwards.
I wanted to turn on Seonah’s status window to see what might have changed.
However I couldn’t open Seonah’s status window since she had already entered the apartment complex and could no longer be seen.
‘I should check it out at school tomorrow.’
First of all, I decided that it would be my job to quickly understand this system in detail, and with that decided, I also headed towards my house.
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