STRGS 09

Chapter 9

Mangryang Tunnel No. 2 (4)

What I pulled out from the inner pocket of the coat, which was tangled together as the flesh had melted down, was a small bundle wrapped in paper.

“W-What is that?”

“It’s probably a stone. A stone that the bus driver must carry when passing through the tunnel.”

If we set the premise that the ghost story is real, the method to survive the ghost story must exist as an actual entity, whether it is a shamanic ritual or a set of rules.

If it is a ghost story world where problems occur every time someone passes through Mangryang Tunnel, I formed a deductive argument that there must be an item that the inhabitants inside the ghost story need to possess in order to pass through the tunnel safely.

“Ah, oh no.”

When I slightly lifted the paper, a stone split in half was revealed. I found one of the triggers that caused the ghost story to occur. The destruction of the stone meant for devotion, which asks for safe passage. The fact that the bus driver was the first to break down and melt away was probably due to this as well.

The driver of the bus company inside the ghost story world must have possessed this stone every time they passed through a tunnel that could turn into Mangryang Tunnel.

Since they couldn’t give a stone to every customer each time, they could simply create a solution where the bus, the driver, and the passengers are treated as a whole unit, and as long as the driver carries the stone, the issue is resolved.

Assuming that, the difference between general vehicles—where the vehicle remained while the people disappeared, or where problems arose after looking in the mirror—is also explained. Having a stone or two stuck in a tire is a common occurrence. That is why ghost story occurrences are bound to be fewer in military vehicles.

“What’s wrong with the broken stone?”

“To be exact, the problem probably happened because the stone broke. I think we need to make or find something that can replace this……”

Even during the Bloodwater Valley incident, a fake doll made like a person worked, so if we can just figure out the original form of this stone and make something similar, we can buy enough time to escape.

I touch the blood-stained paper with my fingertips. This texture, it feels like Hanji (Korean traditional paper)……

“Isn’t that a talisman? The color looks a bit yellow.”

“This part right here, it looks like letters rather than blood.”

Unfolding the paper as carefully as possible so it wouldn’t tear and bringing the phone light close, its appearance was revealed.

“The letters are smudged, so I can’t tell accurately.”

“Let’s assume that because the letters were smudged, the stone broke, and because the stone broke, a problem occurred. Then, let’s find a way to remake this talisman.”

The five remaining people began to discuss among themselves regarding the talisman. Perhaps because a clear goal had formed, fear was pushed back in priority, and the search inside the bus became a bit more active as well.

Beep. Beep.

“…?”

The radio app brings up the Morse code frequency again. This time, a linear frequency was drawing the Morse code as an image.

‘A mirror?’

Suddenly a mirror? Why a mirror?

‘What you see isn’t everything……’

Usually it means not to blindly believe what you see, but if it’s a cliché in this kind of ghost story,

‘Does the reflection in the mirror show ghosts?’

Like how if the 8th image reflected in an elevator mirror moves, it’s a ghost, or if you make eye contact with that ghost, it comes running from a parallel world, or if you look into a mirror holding a knife, your future spouse is reflected.

I type hashtags into the blog, skim through the titles, and look for cases that can be fitted into my reasoning. If there is even a single place to lean on, I have to try it.

Box, curse, offering, temple, apartment, academy

I quickly flip through the posts. It is definitely there. I just need to match the logic. A story depends on how you interpret it. Proof is possible. All I need are the materials to support the proof.

[ |] The Curse of the Broken Mirror

I walk holding a mirror. I walk without looking at the mirror. I shine light on the mirror. I need a light that can recognize me. Now I look at the mirror. I proceed along the path inside the mirror. I must not look at myself inside the mirror. The me inside the mirror is chopped to pieces and completely bright red. I am fine. The me inside the mirror smiles. I end up dropping the mirror. At that moment, I realize. My face is reflected according to the shape of the broken mirror. I begin to break……

‘Found it.’

A ghost story where the image reflected in the mirror broke along with the mirror, causing the actual body to be destroyed as well. If so, the reverse can also work.

Recover the original letters of the talisman.

Believe the image inside the mirror instead of what is visible to the eye.

In a tunnel dangerous enough to require carrying a stone, a single easily fragile stone cannot be the sole preparation.

Even in folktales, doesn’t the protagonist disobey the warning three times, yet a backup plan is provided every time? If there must be a backup other than the stone, that must be a mirror.

The mirror in a vehicle that never changes and can be trusted is……

“A vehicle mirror!”

“W-What?!”

I must have shouted too loudly. The eyes of all five people turned to me at once.

“It’s a mirror, a mirror.”

Instead of explaining, I headed back toward the driver’s seat.

It is standard for large buses to be equipped with side mirrors, auxiliary wide-angle mirrors, and a rear-view mirror. It is the optimal setup for installing a mirror that needs to be looked at continuously, and it won’t draw suspicion either.

Just as expected.

Among the mirrors bearing the phrase “Objects are closer than they appear,” there was one that stood out alone.

[When entering on a green light, adjust the angle of this mirror so that its reflective surface faces the ceiling.]

The mirror, with letters firmly written in red, was cracked. I began searching around the driver’s seat carefully again, and soon found a few more items I wanted.

「Must enter on a green light.」 「Check the items in the auxiliary box at every rest stop before departure. If there is a problem, report it and wait for the following bus.」 「When entering on a green light, turn on the rear headlights as brightly as possible and turn off the front lights.」 「In case of emergency, check the rear so that a ‘person suitable for company rules’ can perform the duty again.」

It was none other than the manual for bus drivers. The rules to be kept were written in large print on a single sheet of A4 paper. Fortunately, it was real, not some strange manual like popular rule-based ghost stories! Behind the manual, extra yellow talisman paper and red ink paste—clearly placed there to be used in times like this—were attached.

I turned back to the people carrying those items.

“Because this mirror cracked, problems sequentially reached the bus driver as well. If we place an unbroken mirror in this mirror’s spot, we can figure out what to do with the stone.”

“I have a mirror.”

A woman raised her hand. It was a compact travel mirror, but its size was roughly similar to the broken mirror. I carefully detached the broken mirror and mounted the hand mirror in its place.

When I tilted the reflective surface of the mirror so that it faced the ceiling, the bus scenery reflected in the mirror changed in a single instant. When I brought the blood-stained talisman close to it,

The original letters of the talisman were revealed.

[Heaven knows it is unfair, so let the one holding the offering stone pass.]

Now I need to transcribe this onto the yellow talisman paper. What kind of person is a ‘person suitable for company rules’? What is considered most when doing shamanic practices in our country?

Name. Four Pillars of Destiny (Saju). Date and time of birth. Gender.

Information rapidly popped out in my mind and was repeatedly filed into the archive. Naming a child according to their birth time, clearing out bad omens based on their fortune—I haven’t learned Four Pillars, but I recall storing stuff like name analysis as part of my data collection.

‘But I’ve never learned Four Pillars deeply enough to distinguish between the Four Pillars and bad omens. And there’s no time.’

In the first place, hiring someone based on their Four Pillars would lead to a lawsuit against the company. Then, a name? Because with just a name, I wouldn’t know by what structure they disqualified people.

“Ah, the operation log.”

A management record that a bus obviously has. I pulled out a file folder from the box beside the driver’s seat. An analog yet magnificent system of responsibility sharing, where items are inspected and signed for operation reporting. Though the paper was bloody, recognizable names remained.

Park In-seok. Kim Eun-cheol, Seo Jin-gyeong, Choi Tae-seok, Kim Jeong-seok, Lee Seok-gi……

I have to find a commonality in these names. Otherwise, it’s back to square one. Remember. There are multiple people inside the bus. Recombine what is needed when taking them all through.

“There are a lot of Kims.”

“There are also many with ‘Seok’ in their names.”

Found it. The commonality. Indeed, when there are many cooks, the boat can even drive on a mountain. My voice became thoroughly excited.

“By any chance, is there anyone whose name contains the Chinese character for stone (石)? I don’t have it.”

Faces showing that they had no idea what was going on. I continued my explanation.

“Even if your surname isn’t Seok, it’s fine as long as it contains it as a radical. To transcribe the sentence found with this mirror onto the new talisman, it seems that a person whose name contains a Chinese character meaning stone or iron will be judged as suitable.”

“A stone in the name?”

“In the Four Pillars, gold means iron, and iron carries the meaning of hardness and solidness, just like a stone. In name analysis, they tried to maximize the inherent qualities using the Chinese characters in a name. So that even if a problem occurs with the stone, it can be handled in the tunnel.”

People began pulling out their IDs to check. There must be at least one person. Surely.

“U-Um, I have the stone radical in mine.”

A man raised his hand. On his resident registration card, the three characters of his name, Joo Jae-gyeong (駐材硬), were distinct. That stone character, attached thinly and vertically, could not have been more welcome.

“Mr. Joo Jae-gyeong, please write the talisman.”

“I-I am not very good at calligraphy……”

“Even so, I beg of you. I know it sounds absurd, but looking at what has happened so far…… Mr. Joo Jae-gyeong seems to be the only person who fits.”

Joo Jae-gyeong, who suddenly went from Passenger 1 inside the bus to the chosen one, held the talisman with a determined face while sweating profusely. Using a flat briefcase as a support, he carefully wrote down each and every character.

Transcribing the characters onto two talismans took longer than expected. It was probably due to the tension that a single mistake would sever our lifeline. By the time Joo Jae-gyeong was writing the last character, people were even holding their breath.

“I-It’s done!”

“!!”

“It worked……!”

The talisman was completed. While everyone brightened up, I carefully placed the split stone on top of that talisman.

‘Please, let us pass through safely.’

As I took my hand off along with an earnest prayer, the rustling paper stuck to the stone as if it were flesh. The talisman crumpled and attached itself on its own, and the split stone became a single mass without a trace.

The offering stone that would allow us to leave was completed.

“I-It worked!”

“We just need to hold this and go out now, right?!”

“No. We are not going out.”

“Huh?”

I shoved the stone deep into the place where it originally belonged.

The engine, which had only been making quiet idling sounds, began to rev up.

Then the headlights turned off, and the rear lights flared up brightly.

It was not a light intensity that could come from an ordinary bus. The bright rear lights illuminated the place where the black thing lurked.

“Eaaargh!!”

“What is that?!”

Screams. Terror. Astonishment. And a curse that almost popped out of my mouth.

Darkness? Shadows? Black thing?

Those were far too gentle expressions. No, those were plain, uninteresting modifiers that failed to express even 1% of that thing’s true form.

The moment the light shone on it, it was no longer a shadow. It was a sticky mass of dozens, hundreds of people tangled together. Things that used to be human squirmed while melted and stuck together, with eyeballs and fingers intertwined. Bloodwater and fat slowly trickled down.

Limbs and body parts of different shapes were attached in a mess like clothes hangers popping out of a trash can. Some legs were severed from the middle of the thigh, with other arms growing out from their ends, while feet sprouted from shoulders and bellies, groping in midair.

Through the gaps opened like mouths, fingers crawled out, relentlessly scratching flesh, squirming like tongues, and groping outward. They endlessly pushed the things caught by their fingertips into the inside of their bodies.

Every time that happened, a human face popped out like a shape pressed into mud, then swelled like boiling meat and vomited bubbles. Familiar faces popped out. Crunch. Crunch, crunch. The sound of bones being chewed echoed again.

“Th-That face…… just now…… earlier, that……”

The distorted faces of the college students, with their eyes, noses, and mouths mixed together, boiled up and melted inside a single mass, endlessly repeating an incomplete birth as it were. Suppressed screams leaked out as sticky breath instead of air. Inside it, as if dozens of voices were crying, laughing, whispering, grieving, raging, yearning, and shrieking at the same time…… They were whispering, muttering, lamenting, raging, craving, and crying out……

I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I am looking at you I hear you I cannot hear you I am going there where are you to catch you open the door right now I see you I see you I see you I see you

“I-It’s moving!”

“It’s coming this way!!”

Even though there was nowhere to go inside the bus, the people in the back crowded toward the front. There was no time now. I grabbed Mr. Joo Jae-gyeong by the nape of his neck, seated him in the passenger seat, and sat in the driver’s seat.

“W-What are you going to do?!”

“From now on, we are going to escape by car.”

“What?”

“With this bus.”

“D-Do you have a driver’s license?”

“Is a license important right now?! Everyone, take your seats! Mr. Joo Jae-gyeong, next to me!”

Before people could even sit down in their seats, I started the engine and slammed down on the accelerator.

Vrooooom!!

The bus, which looked like it would never move, burst forward. The inside of the tunnel instantly filled with a roaring sound, and along with ear-splitting wails behind the bus, the monster began to chase after us.

“Hold on tight, we’re going to break out of this tunnel just like this!!”