Chapter 1: The Shitty Game and the Vengeful Spirit

Unable to contain my rage at the absurd story, I slammed my phone onto the table as if throwing it.

“You exorcise a vengeful spirit this easily? Is this a joke?”

“Hey, Lee Jae-yoon. What are you doing?”

“Ah, this game is f*cking garbage!”

The game I’ve been obsessed with lately is [Late Night at School]. As the straightforward title suggests, it’s a mobile puzzle game where students gather at school at night, find clues to exorcise ghosts, and escape.

Normally, I’m crazy about these kinds of games, so of course I’d pre-ordered and eagerly awaited its release. On the day it launched, I immediately bought the starter package and played, even sacrificing my sleep.

Needless to say, I also made some in-app purchases here and there.

It just so happened that after the regular admission results came out and I got into my desired university, I had plenty of time to spare. The game was released right on schedule, as if forcing me to become a shut-in.

Two weeks passed. Yeah, I spent nearly a hundred thousand won on microtransactions in two weeks.

It’s already been three days since I entered the university I’d longed for. And I just finished the second boss fight of this game. f*ck, the play speed was so slow that curses naturally came out.

“My money…”

“You spent money on a phone game?”

“Wanna chip in?”

There are always guys like this wherever you go. They don’t spend money on games themselves, but they begrudge others for doing so.

When I begged like a beggar, the guy who had been nagging me finally shut up.

He should have done that from the start. I lowered my phone under the table and checked the string of small-amount payment notification texts that kept coming.

“Ten…”

“Why are you swearing?”

“Don’t look at me and just drink your alcohol.”

How much did I spend last month? A deep sense of regret washed over me.

Why did I spend money? Wasn’t it to clear the game faster and more easily than others? But then what’s with this snail-paced speed? If I, a paying player, am like this, where the hell are the free players in the game?

Moreover, that wasn’t the only problem. Suppose the play speed was intentionally set this way to prevent rapid content depletion.

But if you’re going to make a horror game that talks about exorcism, you should at least do some basic research!

As someone born as the son of a renowned shaman whom politicians visited so often they wore down the threshold, I couldn’t contain my indignation at this nonsensical development.

The first ghost, a hungry ghost. I should have realized it when the otherworldly story came out that we could make this bastard ascend by giving him braised ribs from the cafeteria.

No wonder the title felt so half-assed…

Maybe all the invested money went into drawing illustrations. That was a reasonable suspicion given how messed up the balance and story were.

Finding the clues and items needed to exorcise required way too much grinding. Even more so because the school setting was unnecessarily large.

It pretended to have substance and greatness, but when it came to the exorcism—the boss fight—it was pathetically underwhelming.

Still, I rationalized: the hungry ghost exorcism was the first boss, an introduction, so they must have considered newbies trying such a game for the first time. I desperately rationalized and turned a blind eye. I was a total sucker.

And today, at the freshman orientation held on the first Friday of the first week of school, I exorcised the second boss, the vengeful spirit, while sipping alcohol.

A vengeful spirit is a ghost that lingers in one place for a long time. Even if it’s not the place where they died, they can haunt a place with a special story from their lifetime or a place they cherished.

Since they’re bound to a location, my mother taught me that even the most skilled shaman can’t easily get rid of a vengeful spirit. Especially if it harbors resentment, it’s best to avoid them.

Occasionally, there are ghosts that can’t leave the place where they were murdered or committed suicide. Such ghosts harbor immense grudges and often take out their anger on people who enter their territory. If they just grab your ankle and trip you, that’s cute.

But a vengeful spirit that was murdered—setting aside how the hell they were murdered in the middle of a school—ascending just by showing a family photo like that? Resolving their grudge and ascending?

Why would there be a family photo at school in the first place—and I had to run all over the place to find it—and what the hell was with that last forced emotional dialogue?

“Ha… f*ck. Shit game…”

“If you’re gonna curse like that, why did you spend money?”

Lee Ji-hoon, who had become my seatmate in the mandatory Business Principles class for first-year business students just because we shared the same last name and our first names started with ‘J’, clicked his tongue at me.

“We’re all drinking together, and you’re not embarrassed playing alone?”

“I’ve had enough to drink.”

There were three empty soju bottles lying in front of me. I was starting to feel tipsy. Besides, these group social gatherings weren’t my style. I wasn’t even planning to attend, but Lee Ji-hoon dragged me here and forced me to sit.

At my answer, Lee Ji-hoon frowned and put his arm around my shoulder. Then he whispered in a gnawing tone.

“You bastard, you ruined the atmosphere at our table.”

“Is it my fault I can’t play drinking games?”

“Even if you can’t, there’s a limit… At least pretend to try.”

“You want me to do that ‘cutely~ adorably~’ bullshit? Do it for me.”

“Hey! The girls all flocked to our table to see you do that crap, you crazy bastard!”

He shouted right next to my ear, making my eardrum ring. I muttered curses and roughly pushed his head away.

Atmosphere…

Sure, the table I was sitting at had a noticeably higher ratio of women. And at the beginning of the drinking party, everyone was squealing and trying to make me play ridiculous drinking games like Baskin Robbins 31 or the carrot-rabbit game.

Of course, each time I kept my mouth shut and only drank penalty shots, one by one they got tired and gave up. But they still looked at me with sparkling eyes, expecting something.

“I’m going first.”

Seeing them band together just to watch one person make a fool of themselves was cute, but it also sparked a rebellious feeling in me that I didn’t want to play along.

And it was already midnight—I thought I’d stayed long enough, so I grabbed my bag and stood up.

Reacting to that, Lee Ji-hoon clung to my waist and let out an uncharacteristically nasal voice.

“Aww, Jae-yoon. Just play on your phone! I won’t say anything!”

“Get off. I’ll miss the bus.”

“Where do you live?”

“Suyu.”

Actually, I was living in a studio near the school, but if I said that, he would probably hold me until dawn. So I lied calmly.

Hearing that it was far, Lee Ji-hoon, who had been holding me, reluctantly released my shirt with a disappointed look.

“Can’t be helped. See you on Monday.”

“Yeah, everyone drink moderately and go home safely.”

I needed to go wash up and continue this shitty game. Luckily, tomorrow was the weekend. I was secretly excited to turn on the electric blanket and roll around in bed all day playing this crappy game.

As I burst out of the bar, the quiet early-spring night breeze wrapped around me, as if the noisy atmosphere had never existed. A faint crescent moon hung in the sky, making the mood even more eerie. Perfect night for ghosts to appear.

Better not go down the alley. In case I saw something sinister and got attached. Thinking that, I deliberately walked toward the main street.

But as soon as I reached the main street and stood in front of the crosswalk, that sinister thing came into full view.

Standing in the middle of the road like a paper doll fluttering, a woman in white clothes with long hair swaying gently. Cars were passing right through her body.

“Ah… damn.”

Why is my luck so bad? I lowered my head as if to fix my hair, glancing at the ghost out of the corner of my eye.

At a glance, I could tell it was an evil spirit. When the crosswalk light turned green, she pressed her face against the windows of stopped cars and muttered incomprehensible curses—undeniably a ghost harboring a grudge.

Was she a hit-and-run victim here?

If she noticed I could see her, it would be a hassle in many ways. Without giving the ghost any attention, I deliberately took out my phone and opened the shitty game I had paused earlier.

I’m completely absorbed in the game, not interested in my surroundings. I made this very obvious and started walking slowly across the crosswalk. Fortunately, the ghost was too busy looking at the drivers’ faces.

With about ten steps left to the opposite sidewalk, I thought it was safe enough and glanced back. Then, the woman’s face with a crushed head filled my vision.

“You can see me, can’t you? Can you help me?”

When the woman smiled widely, her mouth split ear to ear. The dangling eyeball fell out and rolled away as soon as she opened her mouth. The eyeball disappeared under a car.

A gore movie was playing right before my eyes. Startled, my body naturally froze.

And at that moment, a bright headlight shone into my eyes, and my body was lifted into the air.