The Foreigner on the Periphery

Ha Eun-seong obeyed the woman’s request. She was able to recite details that she would never have remembered if she were alive. What was the level of security you encountered while entering the entrance, how the passages were connected, where the cash was stored and what items were stored in the VIP warehouse. It came out as if a video was playing in her head.  

This was a common phenomenon experienced by Gunghosts whose memory improved after death. It was difficult to conclude that the reason was that most of the day was spent on observation and thinking. It was such a rapid improvement in functionality. Thanks to such a Ghost, most people on Earth now know that the memory of the soul was much stronger than the memory of the body.  

=Rare… can I think about it a little more and tell you?=  

Instead of urging, the woman answered with a relaxed smile.  

‘Yeah, give yourself plenty of time to ponder it as long as you want.’  

She had said that her chances of getting caught were close to zero, but she was stunned by her words that she was a dragon’s rare. He asked for advice from his only ghost friend, Koh Deok-hwan, whom he could confide in.

= Hmm, that would certainly be a concern. =  

How was it at the bank?  

= Ha Eun-seong recalled her memories and answered. =  

It felt stronger than the exorcism in a normal building, but it was still worth passing by. The alarm didn’t go off.  

= Yes, that’s important. I mean, you didn’t get it anyway. =  

He searched in his head for all kinds of knowledge he had picked up for 15 years after becoming a ghost. Most of them ended up getting preserved without being forgotten or distorted.  

= It was said that the principle of exorcism-based magic is the same whether it is used by humans or dragons. In other words, the difference between being eaten strong or being eaten weakly is meaningless to you anyway, right? =  

He pointed to Ha Eun-seong and spoke once more. =So you are, simply put, the Munchkin ghost. It’s said to be ‘out of standard’. =  

= By the way….=

He said this with a little bit of envy.  

= Why doesn’t it work only for you? =  

= I don’t know. How about you?=  

= Me, what?=  

= No matter how much I think about it, I don’t know why I have to be special. Maybe it’s not just me, it’s a phenomenon that appears sequentially to multiple ghosts? Since hyung has been with me the longest, if I change, maybe hyung will be next…=  

= Ding. I’ve already tried it.=  

It seemed that Ha Eun-seong wanted to see. Koh Deok-hwan also slightly touched the spirit body to the weak exorcism, but he said he felt the same pain as before.  

= I don’t think you’ve changed at all. In the first place, he became a ghost with these unique characteristics. Aww, I’m envious. A ghost that can go anywhere you want to go.=

  He said these while looking through the examples in his head.  

= As expected, does the way he died affect him? =  

Why, even ghosts who died terribly have strong spiritual powers. The same went for ghosts. If one were to listen to the stories of children who endured the exorcism even a little longer and fly away even if they are hit by a shock wave, there are no ordinary stories. Everything was special.  

= Ah, well… If I am special, I am special, but in the end, I am a nerd. =

He lived a life like an ordinary Korean office worker for the years before his death. It meant that he had repeated the days of going to work looking at the stars in the morning and leaving work after the sun went down. The working conditions couldn't get any worse than this, so if one were to promise to hold on, they would be surprised the next year even more like a beggar.  

Under the motto of organizational efficiency, the number of people continued to decrease, but the work remained the same. Every time someone was cut, Koh Deok-hwan breathed a sigh of relief, but immediately afterward, he had to get more work, even the retiree’s share.  

He had no option to leave the company. The labor market had already contracted considerably. Such was a society where once you fall off a ladder, and where one could not climb back up. He knew that after taking a step back, he had to find his next room in the orc community. He just had to avoid it.  

This was because he himself had to be a better person than them. He returned to the studio one late night after he had been working overtime for several months without paying a penny. Would it have been different if he had just slept in bed without turning on the computer?  

In any case, he decided to have some alone time, thinking that it would be unfortunate for him to be like this. And a few minutes later, he collapsed, feeling dizzy and dizzy running through his head.  

He desperately raised his underwear in the shimmering consciousness. At that time, he could not have imagined that he would die, just because he thought that if he was found by 119 as it is, he would be sold.  

At this, Koh Deok-hwan collapsed and crawled towards the computer, but in the end, he could not turn off the power and died. A few days later, the bereaved family who came to clean the room had no choice but to look at the monitor and make a very bewildered expression.  

‘If it wasn’t for 2D at all… No, even the character was a bit normal…’  

Koh Deok-hwan, who barely escaped from remorse, asked Ha Eun-seong.  

=By the way, was the person who killed you caught?=  

=I don’t know. I haven’t even looked for it these days.=  

He had a knife stuck in Ha Eun-seong’s neck. At this, he looked carefully at the handle.  

= No matter how you look at it, it is not an ordinary gray knife…=  

= Yes, it is a gray knife. It had not been long since his death, and the memories were still terribly traumatic. And when one died, the sword would be removed. But why is it left in the spirit body?=  

= I don’t know.=  

If Koh Deok-hwan regretted that he should have just slept that day, Ha Eun-seong regretted not having to go to a part-time job wearing a doll that day. It was a gruesome paradox that as a result, he was able to give his younger brothers more support than he had ever lived. he muttered to himself alongside his self-pity.  

‘You make more money by dying than alive. Poor bastard.'  

Immediately after saying those words, Ha Eun-seong felt offended. His emotions tended to build up and rise faster than his memories. He soon knew why his mood had suddenly changed. It was because he remembered the words that someone whispered to him just before he died.  

‘You’re more useful in death than alive?’  

= Ugh! =  

Shaking off his bad memories, he made a vow.  

=Yeah… It’s great if the dragon or the devil doesn’t get caught!=  

Ha Eun-seong made a decision.  

=Hyung, I’ll go first!= Koh Deok-hwan said bluntly.  

= I support you. =

In other words, it was said that luxurious restaurants, entertainment facilities, and some of the best hotels in Seoul were gathered on her rare roof. The reason was simple. This was because the entire site was owned by Changcheon.  

Even the dragons swung their tongues in their greedy greed to earn money even to the land where her sanctuary was located. Even though this was a dragon's instinct, it was said that they didn't know where they were going to spend the money by doing it that way.  

‘It's crazy when you come here.'  

Through the dazzling lights emitted by tall buildings and towers, and the sound of music resonating heavily in the air, Ha Eun-seong dug into the ground floor. A spirit body that did not receive any resistance from matter passed through the ground and sunk.  

The deeper they went, the more the scenery continued to change, until finally, an empty space appeared.  

‘Come on, my ghost compatriot. Where the hell are you…’  

At first, I was very nervous, but as I lightly passed through the exorcism surrounding the barrier, my atrophied heart melted. Koh Deok-hwan was right. Even the dragon’s magic did not respond to Ha Eun-seong’s spirit body.

Then all that was left of her was a piece of cake. ‘Shall we go this way first?'  

The more he poked around the rare, the more he realized one thing. It was impossible for a living person to penetrate and search this place.  

‘Ah… this place is too wide even though it's wide!'  

The dragon rare he expected was close to a crypt with only his size. This was a cave large enough for a huge dragon to lie down. When the body was spread out, the tip of the wing or the horns touch the ceiling and the wall.  

In other words, it was just imagining the habitat of the beast, which only increased in size. However, such a rare was close to a room in a gosiwon where only one small bed could be placed in human terms. And, of course, chaebols didn't live there.  

So rare in Changcheon was a mansion with more than a few hundred rooms. Of course, the mansion was built with consideration for the case where the occupant was an ancient dragon, not a human. It was large enough to hold a party for hundreds of dragons of the same size as Changcheon, and there were countless spaces isolated by thick walls and barriers.  

Ha Eun-seong could not understand how such a huge underground space could hold up without collapsing.  

‘I think this will take quite a while.'  

As Red Star had figured out beforehand, Changcheon was about to empty the rare. Ha Eun-seong was able to search relatively leisurely, as it was said that it was rare to return before all the scheduled schedules were completed.  

He had heard of the spiritual wave he was accustomed to, right after he indifferently passed the thirty-fifth treasury, where various kinds of gold and silver treasures were piled up.  

‘Why is this room so small?'  

The interior of the room attached to the treasure trove was probably a space to welcome outside visitors, and furniture and other items were arranged based on human standards. He glanced at it and tried to move on to the next room.  

= · · · · · · · ·Give me!=  

At this, Ha Eun-seong stopped moving. Now, he clearly heard it!  

‘I found it!'  

It was obviously a person who did not have a physical body, i.e. It was a mental wave sent by the spirit body. Ha Eun-seong didn’t respond because there might be people with spiritual sensitivity around. Instead, he moved in the direction of the wave that was flowing faintly.  

Every time one was to break through a wall, their vision flashed!  

After a moment of darkness, a vault full of flashing artifacts appears, and after a brief moment of darkness, a library of books stacked high above a building emerges. As it penetrated dozens of walls in that way, the mental waves were heard more clearly.  

= · · ·Huge!=  

Ha Eun-seong finally arrived at the source of the wave. The ghost’s rescue signal was unstable and harbored a deep emotion. It was heartbreaking to imagine how miserable the situation would be.  

‘Wait a minute! Once I’ve identified the location, the Red Star people will do their best…’  

The moment he broke through the last wall.  

= · · · · · · · ·!=  

Ha Eun-seong’s spiritual body hardened.  

Whoops! The first thing he felt was his suffocating heat. Physical phenomena could not affect him, so now this was not the heat caused by a real fire. It is a spiritual phenomenon.  

= Let me live!=  

Ha Eun-seong couldn’t take her eyes off the scenery that unfolded in front of me. The barriers here were exactly the same as those placed at the bank’s headquarters. In other words, the most powerful exorcism that Changcheon could mobilize was there.  

However, the difference from banks was that there was no physical barrier, so one could see inside. Inside the huge magic circle, a certain spirit body was struggling as if in pain. Ha Eun-seong saw the spiritual flames surrounding him. With that, the fire raged, much like a wild beast.

‘That's not magic!'  

Many spirit bodies reproduced their appearance as they were when they died. In addition to this, the stronger the spiritual power, the more precise the representation and the stronger the influence could be. Ha Eun-seong thought that if a living person approached this place, he would not feel even the slightest heat, but most spirit bodies would have a hard time holding on for long.  

= It’s hot… It’s hot… Save me…!=  

Hearing the mental waves that sounded more clearly, Ha Eun-seong was able to be sure. Ghosts like him or Koh Deok-hwan wouldn't say ‘save me’ when sending a rescue signal.  

This was because he knew very well that he was already dead and could not come back to life. After all, a spirit body that utters such words was…  

= It’s not a ghost… isn’t it a ghost?=  

Ha Eun-seong was unable to leave despite not being a rescue target. This was because the appearance of the ghost was so bizarre. Burning the inside of the magic circle was a hellfire enough to make one afraid to imagine how the other person died.  

No, it was more like a flash than a flame. A ghost trapped in a heat that constantly destroyed its form. The ghost that twisted her fuzzy body was not the human Ha Eun-seong was looking for.  

Its body length was about 3 meters. The horns on his head were curved in a strange shape. Both wings had been burned and only the skeleton remained, covering the wrinkled skin. The scales fell in half, revealing the burnt flesh.

It was much smaller than what he saw on TV, but there was no way to confuse that race.  

= · · · · · · · Dragon?=  

Why was there a dragon ghost in the rare that Red Star sent to find the human ghost? In the first place, Ha Eun-seong also knew that a dragon can become a ghost after it were to die. While he was hesitating, the demon, who was sure to have died at a young age for a dragon, blew out his mind as if screaming.  

= Save me! Please, it’s hot…=  

The ghost screamed pathetically at someone who wasn’t here.  

=It’s too hot… Please, please, me… Changcheon!=  

***  

"Is it evaporated? The moment you touch the ghost?"  

Hearing the words of the Red Star executive, Minjun was taken aback.  

"These bastards are lying…"  

"Gee, it's true!" Minjun snorted his nose and asked several people in a more rough way, but all the testimonies he screamed and vomited proved to be consistent.

A high-ranking executive, who was not present at this moment, proceeded to join hands with a ghost, and the ghost showed a strange ability to not react at all to the exorcism. It was quite hard to believe.  

‘Certainly, I never imagined the ghost side.'  

It was not good reasoning to assume another abnormal situation to determine the cause of the abnormal phenomenon. This was because, if one were to approach it that way, they would have to imagine all sorts of bizarre phenomena that didn't exist or had never been proven.  

A ghost that didn't respond to the exorcism. It was a bizarre fantasy that would never be mentioned when listing hypothetical suspects. Did such a concept exist?  

"So, who are you? Where are you now?"  

As he listened to the statement, he learned that the police information that Cathy received was not 100% accurate. They thought this was Red Star’s headquarters, but they were right that it was the place where the most gang members gathered.  

However, there was no high-ranking person who could be called the backbone. The executives Minjun interrogated mentioned the existence of a certain woman among them. They said that they were the highest-ranking executives shrouded in a veil, who did not even know their current location.  

"Hey, this operation. She barely rolls her tongue, hardened by her fear and pain, and says: They, too, were aware of fragmentary information. It was mutually beneficial."

However, after hearing the description of the ghost’s characteristics, Minjun was once again perplexed.  

‘A penguin with a sword stuck in its neck?'  

But, should he say that it was fortunate that this was enough to not confuse it with other ghosts?  

"So where are you now?" The reply that came back contained content that made me wonder if they were really crazy.  

"By now, Changcheon… that old dragon's rare has arrived…!"

Minjun then thrust his tongue out inwardly. He did not believe in the concept of ‘complete immunity to exorcism' that the executives were talking about. There must have been some trick. And as if he had mobilized in any way, he thought that in the end, he had no choice but to catch his tail.  

In addition to this, he did not believe that all the talents had evaporated.  

‘The barrier in the safe was working properly. Just because one spirit body touched it, a million evaporated at once? Nonsense. Moreover…’ T

he most convincing evidence that it did not evaporate was the traces of the site. There was no sign that the wall between the physical and spiritual worlds had collapsed. If it had been taken out of the safe without evaporating it, there was a high probability that it had been stored well until now.

In the end, the words that the executives truly believed and appealed were mixed with lies that they did not even recognize themselves. It was Minjun’s job to show how much of it was true.  

After calling and asking the immigration office to clean up the scene, Minjun moved right away.  

‘No matter what the ghost is, I'll have to catch it first and then start.'  

And with that, the next destination proved to be Changcheon.