Chapter 34
“Trespassing is a serious crime. Should I report you, or not?”
“……”
What’s with this crazy woman again!
Not only did she suddenly push someone who was just standing still, but now she’s treating me like a criminal.
I couldn’t just let this situation slide.
“What’s the meaning of this!”
“Oh my, is our criminal oppa angry?”
The term ‘oppa’ now had a prefix attached to it.
A voice full of mischief, and an expression that seemed to be enjoying the situation.
…Ah, I feel like flicking her forehead.
But the woman, after seeing my crumpled face, walked through the gate into the house as if she didn’t care.
“It’s a joke, just a joke. Cool down a bit, and since we’ve met like this by fate, would you like to eat something before you go?”
“…What?”
“This is my house, you know.”
The woman with red hair who confidently walked in while introducing it as her house.
With an appearance that looked like a high school girl.
Someone who obviously looked much younger than me.
As I was thinking about whether I should teach her a stern adult lesson.
Pause.
The high school girl suddenly stopped walking.
And then she looked at me once more with a triumphant expression.
“…Maybe I should charge for a dinner date with an ultra-beauty like me?”
“……”
“Oppa, you should know you’re blessed. I’m surprisingly popular with guys, you know? So go ahead and brag about it.”
“……”
“But don’t get any weird ideas. Today I’m really just going to eat with you… well, if you pay, I might reconsider?”
Hehe.
The high school girl smiled as if amused while looking at my dumbfounded face.
As I watched her footsteps moving toward the kitchen, I thought.
She’s crazy.
And somehow, I have a bad feeling.
At <Ghost Story Record Storage>, characters with a few screws loose are always like passive traits of notable figures.
I felt the same sensation from that high school girl just now.
Moreover, that high school girl seemed like an extraordinary nutcase with not just one, but two or three screws loose.
…Though probably not as much as Kim Ha-eun.
Anyway, let’s just eat and get out of here.
Of course, the best option would have been to leave this place right now, but.
Growl—
My stomach clock let out a fierce roar.
This is like a warning sign to me.
A warning that says, if you don’t eat here, you’ll soon die of starvation!
And originally, you need to eat to gather strength to escape from here.
Peek!
While I was sitting on the ground, I made a big resolution in my heart. The crazy high school girl poked her head out from the kitchen.
“…Oppa, do you like the floor? Or… are you standing at attention?”
“……”
I’m not sure what she meant by ‘standing at attention.‘
But one thing was clear: staying with that high school girl would only accumulate stress like airline miles.
“Want me to help you out?”
…Let me correct myself.
This girl is on the same level as Kim Ha-eun.
Someone with a strange talent for making people uncomfortable.
Also, that visual that has ‘I’m a high school girl’ blatantly stamped all over her face.
The discomfort coming from her confidence in casually spitting out vulgar words that should never come out of a girl’s mouth at that age.
“If you don’t need it, forget it, no more talk!”
It made me resolve to stay very alert in this place.
By now, I had moved to the wooden platform in the yard.
And not long after.
The high school girl brought soybean paste stew and some simple side dishes.
Sniff, sniff.
The savory smell brushing past my nose.
Growl—
“Oppa, are you starving yourself?”
“…I just didn’t have time to eat.”
“Really? If you want something else, just tell me.”
“Something else?”
Is there something else prepared in the kitchen?
That’s what I thought, but.
“…You’re naughty♥.”
???
Let’s just not talk to her.
I feel like I’m the only one looking stupid.
I decided not to pay attention to whatever nonsense this high school girl in front of me said from now on.
“I’m ‘Jeong Da-ram.’ What about you?”
“……”
“Going for the taciturn concept? Well, I don’t dislike that either.”
“……”
“But which department are you in at the GRA agency? Somehow, I don’t think we’ve ever met…”
“Cough, cough!”
“Would you like some water?”
Excuse me?
What did you say?
What agency?
“Here, water.”
Jeong Da-ram handed me water so calmly.
But there was something more important right now.
The mention of the GRA agency that just came out of Jeong Da-ram’s mouth.
I thought maybe, just maybe.
Sure enough, she was also a GRA employee.
Actually, if someone with this level of crazy personality wasn’t from the GRA agency, that would have been more surprising.
Gulp!
After downing the water Jeong Da-ram handed me in one go, I tried my best to hide my trembling.
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Suddenly pretending not to know? But for that…”
Jeong Da-ram leaned her upper body toward me and immediately touched the employee ID hanging around Park Yeon-jeong’s neck.
“When you’re wearing such a distinctive employee ID, your words lose credibility, don’t they? Right, oppa?”
“!!”
It was because of this employee ID!
This girl has a good eye.
I started to quickly deduce information about the person in front of me based on what I knew.
-High school girl-like appearance.
-Red hair.
-Mischievous face.
-High-level wordplay.
-GRA agency person.
-Jeong Da-ram.
…This person, could it be.
———=
/GRA employee.
Employee: Deputy/Final position ‘Department head’.
Title: Troublemaker.
Employee Jeong Da-ram could be summarized in one simple line:
‘Troublemaker.’
Doing things she shouldn’t.
Creating discord within the team.
Promoting inappropriate relationships in the company, literally a problem employee.
Skilled at sowing discord, many employees have been hurt by her meddling, and many have lost their lives in haunted investigations.
An employee who is such a headache that even the agency discussed disciplinary measures against her.
But she always brought back useful information from haunted site investigation records.
High situational analysis skills and discovering anomalies in unexplored haunted phenomena.
Perhaps because of her overwhelming performance?
Jeong Da-ram has never gone through proper disciplinary procedures.
Special note.
If possible, refuse if employee Jeong Da-ram proposes a joint haunted site investigation. (I won’t elaborate on the reason.)
FYI. Employee Jeong Da-ram claims to be a high school girl, but this is completely untrue.
She shows surprisingly strong aversion to physical contact. (Multiple male employees who attempted physical contact with her woke up in the hospital.)
=======
I never expected to meet a GRA agency employee in such a remote rural area.
Especially to meet Jeong Da-ram, who always competes with Kim Ha-eun for first and second place in popularity polls.
“So which team are you on, oppa? L team? R team? Or don’t tell me, A team!”
“……”
This is bad.
Of all the agency people, I ran into the most awkward one.
“Which team are you on, tell me! It’s good for company employees to get along well. Don’t you think so?”
Jeong Da-ram gradually moved closer to me, twisting her body, and started flirting with her whole body.
“Let’s get along well, op-pa.”
“……”
No thank you!
After Kim Ha-eun, you were the person I least wanted to meet, Jeong Da-ram!
Clack.
I immediately put down the spoon I was eating with on the table. Then without saying anything, I got up.
I hurriedly put on the dress shoes I had taken off earlier.
“Huh? You’re leaving like this? I even laid out bedding in my room, stay overnight.”
“It’s okay. I’m quite busy. But the soybean paste stew was really delicious.”
I thanked Jeong Da-ram for making soybean paste stew, my favorite food, and immediately tried to leave through her house gate.
The longer I stay with Jeong Da-ram, the more disadvantageous it becomes for me.
But
Park Yeon-jeong didn’t yet properly know what kind of person this woman Jeong Da-ram was.
“…Park Yeon-jeong.”
“!!”
“That’s your name, right? I saw it on your employee ID.”
She saw my name in that short time?
She’s really a tenacious woman.
“Well, since you don’t want to tell me, I’ll have to find out for myself……”
“A team intern Park Yeon-jeong!”
“……A team? You? Really?”
I said it.
I told a lie that I could never take back.
And I even mentioned ‘A team’ out loud, not just any ordinary team.
But if I just left through the gate now, I could already see that woman Jeong Da-ram spreading my name all over the agency.
I had to prevent that at all costs.
So I mentioned A team.
A team that receives special treatment unlike other teams within the agency.
“You’re in that A team?”
“……”
“……..”
She’s suspicious.
But I need to push through with this brazenness now.
“I answered as you asked.”
“……..”
The cheerful smile from just a moment ago disappeared, and a heavily sinking atmosphere endlessly lingered around.
And I didn’t think this woman Jeong Da-ram would believe just those words from a moment ago.
“Wow! Our oppa was such an amazing person!”
“……What?”
“You should have told me earlier! Then I would have brought beef to cook for you.”
“……”
Does she believe this?
Hop!
Jeong Da-ram immediately jumped down from the wooden platform and approached me, taking a provocative pose showing the cleavage between her sleeveless top.
“What’s your type, oppa?”
“…Why suddenly ask that.”
“Really. Are you still going to pretend to be innocent? You already saw it just now.”
“Saw what exactly?”
“My chest.”
“……”
“Is this some kind of innocent concept this time? I prefer men who are more straightforward than those types.”
“……”
Jeong Da-ram looked at me with that unique seductive, lewd expression on her face.
But
I’m not falling for it.
———-
FYI. Employee Jeong Da-ram claims to be a high school girl, but this is completely untrue.
She shows surprisingly strong aversion to physical contact. (Multiple male employees who attempted physical contact with her woke up in the hospital.)
———-
I immediately put distance between myself and Jeong Da-ram.
“??”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d stop with such high-level jokes.”
“Why……? Ah! Don’t tell me, rather than my chest, my lower body……”
This woman pretends not to know until the end.
Park Yeon-jeong, after holding back and holding back, finally blurted it out.
“I already know that you’re not interested in men. And that you’re Team J’s Assistant Department head Jeong Da-ram.”
“……..”
“I really enjoyed the meal you prepared today. But please don’t acknowledge me at work.”
“……Oh ho.”
Jeong Da-ram looks at me with narrowed eyes.
But I need to draw a clear line here.
I needed to create the impression of ‘that bastard Park Yeon-jeong’ to the point where she wouldn’t want to look for a man named Park Yeon-jeong in the agency again.
“And I apologize in advance. I prefer women with larger breasts rather than flat-chested women like you.”
The kind of style where you flirt with every man like that is the worst.”
For a moment, Jeong Da-ram’s brow furrowed ever so slightly.
“……Is this some kind of boldness from a mere Group A intern these days? Daring to speak like that to someone at my level? Do you even realize this is a blatant act of insubordination, Oppa?”
Flinch.
I know.
I know it all too well.
There’s no way I wouldn’t know, considering I’ve studied the knowledge of this world as if I were preparing for a college entrance exam.
That’s why Park Yeon-jeong knows.
“It should be clearly stated that ‘Group A operates under an independent hierarchical structure.’”
“…Even an intern is considered part of Group A? You’re quite sharp, Oppa.”
“If you’re done talking, I’ll be leaving now.”
A slight bow.
I gave Jeong Da-ram the minimum courtesy and stepped out of her house.
I thought she wouldn’t stop me anymore.
“…Still, it’s late at night. Why don’t you stay and sleep before you go, Intern Oppa?”
“……I’m fine.”
“At this hour, there are no buses running nearby. And of course, you won’t be able to catch a taxi.”
“…….”
“Well, if you insist on going out and sleeping on the streets, I won’t stop you. But there are a lot of wild animals around here. Recently, I think I even saw a bear or two?”
……Excuse me?
A bear?
Not a deer, not a wild boar, but a bear?
The scenery outside Jeong Da-ram’s front gate suddenly exudes an eerie, unsettling atmosphere.
—Bears rip people apart.
“………Then, I’ll really just sleep and leave.”
“Smart choice.”
“I’m really only going to sleep!”
“Did I say otherwise?”
Because of Jeong Da-ram’s so-called insider knowledge about wild bears, I ended up staying the night at her house.
The inside of the thatched house was cosier than expected.
A warm heated floor and silk blankets in vivid colours spread across it.
Just as I was feeling quite satisfied with the unexpectedly decent sleeping arrangement—
“Then, good night, Intern Oppa.”
—until Jeong Da-ram slid under the only blanket there was.
“Where’s my blanket?”
“…….”
At my words, a sly smile spread across Jeong Da-ram’s lips.
And as if she had been waiting for this moment—
Fwoosh!
She lifted the blanket she had been covering herself with, her narrow eyes fixed on me with unmistakable mischief.
“Oppa, I’m cold. Hurry and come inside to warm me up. Make other places warm too… Oppa♥”
“……….”
Here we go again.
That night, I squeezed myself into the furthest corner of the room.
Pressing myself as close as possible to the wall, where I wouldn’t feel a trace of Jeong Da-ram’s breath, I endured a most uncomfortable sleep.
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