I Became A Ghost In A Horror Game-Chapter 91: Let’s analyze the ghost story

"Is this the place?"

"Yes, Director Carol."

Carol stepped off the helicopter.

She kicked aside a piece of debris left behind from the battle between Pinocchio and Alice.

That thick wall had been completely shattered—what a spectacular mess.

"Quite the flashy job they’ve done. Not as extreme as when Alice dropped that nuke last time, but still..."

Carol pulled a detector from inside her coat.

Sifting through the rubble piece by piece to find what she needed would be far too inefficient.

However, the detector’s readings were... off.

The signal was weak.

"Ugh! Reality manipulation has distorted the area so much that the damn thing isn’t working properly!"

Carol snapped irritably, making the attendant beside her flinch.

Noticing this, she awkwardly twisted a strand of her hair.

"Sorry, it’s just... with everything going on lately, even the smallest things are pissing me off. And it’s all Mephisto’s fault.

That bastard loves stirring things up but never bothers to clean up his mess!

Look at this! If Alice hadn’t stopped Pinocchio, whether Dominator or not, everything would’ve gone to complete hell!"

Even while apologizing, Carol didn’t hold back her complaints.

It was evident how much stress she had been under.

The attendant, sensing the need to lighten the mood, offered a comment.

"Still, this gives us an opportunity to collect materials."

"That is good news, at least..." Carol sighed, finally dropping her rant.

She resumed searching through the wreckage, holding the detector over different areas.

Five minutes later, a red light blinked on the device.

Immediately, Carol donned a pair of specialized gloves and pushed aside the debris, extracting a broken gear.

"Alright. We’ve got what we need, and we reported to the higher-ups. Now we can go check on Alice."

"Um, and... about her punishment?"

The attendant asked hesitantly—then instantly regretted it, covering his mouth.

He had assumed Alice would at least be sentenced to separation, so he was surprised by Carol’s words.

But orders from the higher-ups were classified.

Asking about them so casually... was dangerous.

He braced himself for a scolding.

However, Carol didn’t seem to mind.

"Well... you could say there was no punishment. But they did give me a bunch of demands.

Details? Secret. Heh. The higher-ups are such a mess.

The fact that their orders are this vague means they still can’t decide whether to approve or condemn whatever Mephistopheles is planning."

"..."

She had said it was a secret, but even so, those words alone carried heavy implications.

Even mentioning Mephistopheles was classified at the highest level.

The attendant debated whether he should just take a memory erasure pill.

Carol, watching his silent struggle, smirked.

‘No matter what conclusion the Organization and Mephistopheles come to... I have no intention of following it.’

"Let’s head back."

Carol boarded the helicopter.

As the pilot set their course, she gazed out the window.

They soon left the base, and a cityscape spread before them.

A peaceful, ordinary sight.

But what kind of monsters lurked within it?

The thought made Carol furrow her brows slightly.

—Don’t you see it yet, Carol? The world is the funniest joke of all! So don’t hate it too much, alright?

Updat𝓮d from freewēbnoveℓ.com.

"......"

Why did that suddenly come to mind?

Carol shifted her gaze away from the window and looked at her attendant.

He was smiling faintly as he sent a message on his phone.

Carol asked.

"If you don’t mind me asking, what’s so amusing?"

"Ah, my daughter just asked me what I’m planning for Halloween a few months from now."

"I see. You do realize we don’t get holidays, right? If you want time off, you’d better request it early."

"Yes, I understand."

The brief conversation ended.

Carol returned to staring out the window.

For some reason, she looked... lonely.

‘Halloween, huh... That reminds me of an old friend. Where did you disappear to, leaving only those words behind...?’

-----

"Alice! Try this! It’s a new spicy ramen flavor!"

After school.

A pair of chopsticks, coated in fiery red sauce, attempted to invade my mouth.

I resisted with my teeth, fending them off.

But when I finally managed to push Eun-jung away, I had to ask.

"...I can eat spicy food, but why do you keep trying to feed me this stuff?"

"Because I want to see you gasp from the heat!"

"You’re not even trying to hide it anymore?!"

"Eek!"

I grabbed Eun-jung’s cheeks and stretched them as payback.

She really thought she could bully me forever? What a massive miscalculation.

But when she started sniffling, my guilt got the better of me, and I patted her head.

At that moment, Ha-rim spoke up.

"So... did you settle that problem you mentioned before?"

"Hmm... well, yeah. I wonder how she’s doing now."

Ever since Pinocchio was ejected from her consciousness, she had still seemed uncertain.

When I looked at her, she noticed my gaze—then quickly muttered "See you next time" and disappeared.

"I just couldn’t grab hold of her."

Hmm... I could have stopped her, but I had a feeling I’d see her again soon.

She no longer seemed interested in ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) fighting me.

Nor did she have any intention of attacking the Organization anymore.

Just like Peter Pan, I had let her go.

What happens next... I’d just have to wait and see.

They were like me in their own way—I didn’t want to be too harsh on them.

"So, what are we doing today?"

At Ha-rim’s question, I pondered.

Something lighthearted, perhaps?

"Hmm~ Let’s take it easy today. How about... doing the homework our teacher assigned?"

I pulled my textbook from my bag and held it up.

The reaction was... ice cold.

"Alice... I’m disappointed in you."

"I-It was just a joke!"

I hurriedly stuffed the textbook away and resumed thinking.

Should I give them a tour of the Mirror World?

"I have an idea! Let’s analyze ghost stories!"

Ha-rim suggested.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

"Analyze ghost stories?"

I repeated, and Ha-rim nodded.

"Ghost stories... I used to think they were 90% fiction and only 10% truth.

But there really are terrifying things in this world.

Do you get what I mean?"

Kyung-min, who had been listening quietly, nodded.

"Ah, I see where you’re going with this.

You’re saying that some ghost stories might actually be true?

So by analyzing them, we can track down the real ones?"

"Exactly!"

James had also mentioned that ghost stories might be a result of the Organization’s memory erasure and information control not being entirely perfect.

Mary, for example—her true form had turned out to be some kind of insectoid creature.

"Well, it sounds like a fun way to kill time. But let’s not actually go looking for ghost story monsters, alright? Today, I just want a peaceful day."

"Why are you so obsessed with a ‘peaceful’ day?"

"Because I went through a big ordeal yesterday. Remember that hunk of scrap metal Dominator I mentioned before? I smashed it."

"Ehhh?! You went without us?!"

Ha-rim pouted, and it was kind of cute.

I chuckled and reassured her.

"Fufufu... Sorry, but it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you guys. Don’t be too disappointed, alright?"

Since it was me saying it, Ha-rim seemed to accept the answer.

She then walked over to the chalkboard.

"Alright. We don’t have any official materials, so let’s all think of ghost stories off the top of our heads and analyze them. Anyone got one?"

"Hmm... How about the Doppelgänger story?"

I expected Kyung-min or Ha-rim to speak first, but surprisingly, Soo-ho was the one to raise his hand.

"Doppelgängers, huh..."

"Didn’t you run into one before?"

The Doppelgänger anomaly had been one of the ones I encountered back when I was still Ella.

A particularly unsettling one.

And now that I thought about it, it had even given me some cryptic warnings about the distorted timeline caused by a half-formed demon.

...Would things have been different if I had realized it back then?

"Yeah, I did. But the one we met wasn’t the original legend’s Doppelgänger—it was something that came from the ghost story itself.

If the ghost story is a chicken, then the anomaly is the egg."

"Hmm... anyway, my question is this—why does the legend say that if you meet your Doppelgänger, one of you will die?

What if something that could be called a Doppelgänger is actually killing its target?"

"That’s a good point. Maybe it was just a creepy tale, but if the ghost story is true, why does one of them have to die?"

As I echoed Soo-ho’s thought, the mirror tucked beneath my skirt started to tremble.

Twitch. Twitch.

"Tch. That damn Doppelgänger—it’s trying to come out just because we’re talking about it."

Smack.

I gave the mirror a light tap to warn it to stay put.

It quickly went still again.

Kind of pitiful, but I wasn’t about to invite unnecessary trouble.

"You’re annoying because you don’t just copy appearances—you copy memories, too, and you don’t even realize you’re an anomaly."

"If this ghost story isn’t just spooky nonsense, then there must be some reason why the legend says one of them has to die.

Just having a lookalike in the world isn’t a reason for one of them to drop dead.

Unless it actually happened at some point."

"Hmm..."

As Soo-ho’s questions piled up, the others started to think deeply.

That’s when Eun-jung, still struggling with her spicy ramen, spoke up.

"Wait, how do they die? Heart attack?"

"Usually, one of them dies from a heart attack... or one of them kills the other!"

"Then... what if it’s just a murderer in disguise?"

Ha-rim suggested that the original Doppelgänger legend might have come from a killer who was skilled in disguise.

Of course, this assumed that the Doppelgänger had a clear and specific identity.

"Ohhh..."

I was intrigued by her take, but then Eun-jung threw out another idea.

"What if the Doppelgänger eats people?"

"Eats them?"

"Yeah... to replace them? Like in that story about rats eating fingernails and replacing them with their own."

This one was a bit less convincing than Ha-rim’s theory.

But in a world crawling with bizarre monsters, it was still worth considering.

"Both interesting theories. Alright, let’s go with both."

Ha-rim nodded and wrote them on the chalkboard.

Doppelgänger Identity:

– A creature that replaces humans

– A killer skilled in disguise

The ghost story might have just come from people getting creeped out by their own reflections in dark places.

Or maybe someone had a heart attack after getting startled by their own mirror image, leading to the rumor.

But theorizing about it was fun, so we left it at that.

"This is kind of exciting. Next up... Kyung-min, your turn."

"The ghost story I was thinking of is... werewolves."

Now that was unexpected.

Eun-jung tilted her head in confusion.

"Werewolves? That’s not really a ghost story, though..."

Werewolves, like vampires, were the kind of monster you’d find in old movies.

They were closer to legends than urban myths.

Half-human, half-beast creatures had always been a popular concept in folklore.

"It’s a legend, sure. But at its core, isn’t it the same thing?"

Ha-rim backed up Kyung-min’s claim.

Broadly speaking, legends also fell within the scope of humanity’s eerie imaginings.

But Kyung-min shook his head.

"No, it is a ghost story. It’s been making a comeback recently."

He pulled out his phone and showed us screenshots of various online posts.

There were a lot.

No actual photos, of course—just blurry, ambiguous images that could have been anything, along with people claiming they had heard howling at night.

"Isn't it strange? Old legends don’t usually resurface like this."

Kyung-min voiced his skepticism, and I responded simply.

"That’s because it’s real."

"Huh? I was thinking it might just be some lunatic in a wolf costume, but you’re saying it’s the real deal?"

"Yeah. I’ve seen something similar before. I even fought one myself."

Back when I first met the kids in this form, I had encountered a wolf-like monster.

It was weak on its own, but there were likely many of them.

The Organization must have missed a few, leading to the current wave of sightings.

But what fascinated me was how the simple rumor of werewolves was actually connected to something much bigger.

It wasn’t just a case of some endangered species surviving in hiding.

No—an entire foreign region had been transformed into a forest, and from it emerged thousands of wolf creatures.

The true cause of that catastrophe was still an unsolved mystery.

"Fufufu... I’ll have to unravel that one later~"

"Wow. So this ghost story was actually true?"

Kyung-min sounded amazed, so I gave him a light warning.

"There might be even more of them out there, so if you hear animal noises at night, be careful."

"That’s creepy as hell."

"Alright, next!"

Ha-rim added a new entry to the chalkboard.

Werewolves: Real. Seem to exist in large numbers.

This time, after only writing things down, Ha-rim raised her hand.

I gestured for her to speak.

"Do you guys know about ‘This Man’?"

Kyung-min nodded knowingly.

Of course, I knew about that ghost story too.

"Yeah. The ‘man that everyone has supposedly seen in their dreams.’"

‘This Man’ was a ghost story that originated from a website featuring a bizarrely uncanny drawing of a man’s face.

The text asked: "Have you ever seen this man in your dreams?"

That’s how the legend started.

In Korea, it was known as Dis Man due to its vague phonetic similarity.

What made this ghost story interesting was that many people claimed to have seen him before.

Whether it was due to manipulation by some hidden entity or simply a mass delusion, the eerie story quickly gained popularity.

"But wasn’t that exposed as a hoax by a marketing strategist?"

"Ah."

Yeah, that was true...

"Aw, but that makes it boring. I mean, there are secret organizations that control information, right? How do we know it was really fake?"

"Good point."

"Geez, Soo-ho’s the only one taking this too seriously~"

Eun-jung teased him, then yelped as Soo-ho retaliated—shoving more spicy ramen into her mouth.

"Ugh, fine~ But even if it was real, I’ve never seen that guy in my dreams."

"Honestly, neither have I."

"Same! So it’s probably fake after all."

Ghost stories that fizzle out tend to do so for a reason.

Even if some people claimed to have seen ‘This Man,’ my guess was that no one actually had.

"I once thought it could be the work of a psychic with mind-control abilities. But I’d never even heard of ‘This Man’ before the ghost story spread, so I think it’s probably fake."

"That’s disappointing."

Ha-rim sighed in disappointment.

Compared to the last ones, this was a pretty dull conclusion.

"Then what about the 200-won coin?" Kyung-min asked.

The 200-won coin legend was a ghost story that had circulated on internet forums.

People claimed that long ago, Korea actually had a 200-won coin in circulation, but it had mysteriously disappeared from history.

A few users backed up the claim, saying they remembered it, and soon, it spread as a modern mystery.

Similar to Dis Man, the intrigue came from the idea of a false memory being shared by multiple people.

"Ah, now that one’s interesting. But I don’t know anything about a 200-won coin."

None of the other kids had ever seen one either.

It seemed like another case of mistaken memory, probably from people confusing it with old toy coins.

It was about to be dismissed—until Eun-jung spoke up again.

"...Then what about the Laughing Girl ghost story?"

"Huh?"

"Oh, right! That one!"

I was about to ask what that was, but before I could, the others reacted.

I had never heard of this ghost story before.

A big, invisible question mark floated over my head.

"Unlike Dis Man or the 200-won coin, I think I might have actually seen her before...?"

Soo-ho and Kyung-min were unsure, but Eun-jung and Ha-rim seemed certain that they had.

There was a strange inconsistency in their responses.

Unlike the previous urban legends, this one had a much stronger reaction.

The very idea sent a chill down my spine.

Was this some kind of mass brainwashing?

"Hold on, guys. What are you even talking about?"

"Huh? Alice, you’ve never seen her?"

"..."

When I asked for an explanation, they described her:

A girl with brown hair. A ribbon in her hair. A bright, cheerful laugh.

And every time they tried to recall her, an inexplicable sense of unease washed over them.

It was too specific for a dream.

And most disturbingly—nearly everyone in the room knew about her.

We tested it out by messaging some other people.

Out of five, three also remembered the Laughing Girl.

With a ratio like this, shouldn’t it be a more well-known ghost story?

Yet it was only known by certain people, never openly discussed in online communities.

That in itself was suspicious.

Could the Organization be suppressing information about it?

If something had happened in the past, wouldn’t it have been simpler to just erase memories altogether?

Unless...

Maybe there’s something about human memory that even erasure drugs can’t fully erase.

"The other ghost stories all seemed fake, but the fact that all of us remember this brown-haired girl? That’s seriously suspicious."

"What if everyone in the world has met her at least once?"

"No way. That’s ridiculous."

"Maybe it was in a past life! A memory so strong it carried over into this one!"

"But why is Alice the only one who doesn’t know about her?"

Everyone debated wildly, but no solid conclusion emerged.

What was supposed to be a fun little ghost story discussion had turned into something much, much creepier.

Honestly... wasn’t this the perfect way for a ghost story session to end?

And if this particular tale was the result of some anomalous phenomenon, then—

It might just be the biggest mystery I had ever stumbled upon.