Early dawn.
Awakening from sleep, Taeseong headed to the bathroom. As he stepped out after taking care of his business, he heard the sound of a woman sobbing.
“…….”
Taeseong paused, focusing on the sound.
It was clear.
He hadn’t misheard.
Taeseong’s physical abilities were developed to a level that even high-ranking administrators found astonishing. There was no way someone like him could mishear a sound.
‘Come to think of it, didn’t I hear something like this when I was drinking with Oh Haeyoung in the past?’
A sense of déjà vu struck him—he recalled hearing the same kind of sound before.
“Yeah. Back then, I definitely heard something like this too.”
At the time, he had dismissed it as his imagination.
After all, Oh Haeyoung, who managed the registry on the third floor, had explicitly stated that Room 302 was unoccupied.
But now, he knew better.
The woman’s sobbing grew louder and louder. It was desperate, sorrowful, filled with resentment.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Taeseong made his decision.
Step. Step.
He marched to Room 302 and pressed the doorbell.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
“…….”
No response.
He pressed the bell again.
Still nothing.
This time, he knocked on the door.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
It was a rather forceful knock, attached with irritation.
Yet, there was still no answer.
Feeling his patience wear thin, Taeseong grabbed the doorknob and yanked it.
The entire door came off its hinges.
Without a second’s hesitation, he walked inside and scanned the dormitory room.
The shoe rack was neatly organized.
So was the hallway.
There were no signs of anyone in the kitchen either.
And then—
“What the hell.”
A woman was on the ceiling.
She was clinging to it like a spider, her limbs arranged in a grotesque, unnatural fashion, as if a rag doll had been assembled incorrectly.
Where her shoulders should have been, there were legs.
Where her legs should have been, there were arms.
Her head was attached to her belly.
It was a sight terrifying enough to make someone piss themselves.
Yet, Taeseong merely stared at her with an expressionless face.
“What are you?”
To his surprise, it was the woman who looked startled by his confidence.
[H-Huh?]
“Are you deaf?”
[N-No…]
Taeseong released a tiny amount of his yoki aura.
The woman on the ceiling convulsed violently before plummeting to the floor.
[Aaaaaaah! A ghost!]
She scurried backward at an incredible speed, like a cockroach.
When Taeseong took a step closer, she fell to her knees, bowed her head, and desperately pleaded.
[P-Please! Have mercy!]
Watching her tremble like a leaf, Taeseong muttered in disbelief.
“The hell is this nonsense?”
[B-Because you’re terrifying… Someone with yoki of this level could only be an ancestral god or a great yokai… I-I’m not tasty. Even if you eat me, I won’t fill you up.]
Taeseong found himself agreeing.
With a face like that, there was no way she’d taste good.
“If you say one more useless thing, I’ll erase you from existence right now. So answer properly. Got it?”
[Y-Yes…!]
“What are you? Why are you here? Are you a classified entity?”
[M-My name is Kim Minji!]
“Kim Minji?”
[Y-Yes! I used to be an administrator at Tree! My rank was Epsilon, and I lived in Room 302.]
“And why do you look like that?”
[Well… because I died.]
So, she was saying she became a ghost.
‘Then shouldn’t she be classified as an entity? There’s no way Tree wasn’t aware of her existence. Why didn’t they take any action? Is there another reason?’
Taeseong asked, “So that makes you an entity. Has Tree never sent a manager to deal with you?”
Still unable to lift her head, Minji mumbled in a barely hearable voice.
[They did come… but they said there was no need to contain me and just told me to live as I pleased.]
Now that he thought about it, for an Epsilon-ranked entity, containment might not be necessary. Aside from her creepy appearance, she didn’t seem like much of a threat.
Taeseong scoffed.
“So you’ve just been living here?”
[I don’t really have anywhere else to go… but, um… I’m actually bound to this place. I can’t move freely even if I want to. But I got along fine with the previous managers!]
A bound spirit, huh?
Taeseong let out a hollow laugh.
“So how did you die? Did you get killed during entity management?”
As Taeseong withdrew his yoki, Minji, finally able to breathe, slowly lifted her head.
[……No. I was murdered.]
“Murdered? By another administrator?”
Minji shook her head.
[……By a civilian.]
For a moment, his thoughts froze.
An Epsilon-ranked administrator, killed by a civilian?
Sure, Epsilon was the lowest rank in Tree’s hierarchy, but a civilian overpowering an administrator was unheard of.
No matter how strong an ant might be, could it possibly kill a lion?
The gap between an administrator and a civilian was far greater than that.
Even in the most extreme scenarios, nothing changed.
If the civilian had been a top-tier professional fighter with years of training, the probability of success might rise to 0.0001%.
And that would only be if they caught her off guard—like attacking in her sleep or using poison.
“A civilian? Are you sure you’re not mistaken? How could a civilian possibly kill an administrator?”
With a confused expression, Minji replied.
[I was wondering the same thing. No matter how weak I was as an Epsilon, there’s no way I’d lose to an ordinary adult male… But that person was different. He was listed as a civilian, but physically, he wasn’t one…?]
At the sound of those words, Taeseong immediately attempted a shift in perspective.
For example, the possibility that a high-ranking figure from the Tree could be living as an ordinary person.
Although the Tree wielded influence worldwide, it was unlikely that they had recruited every single powerful individual as administrators, leading to this line of reasoning.
‘I should ask Choi Harin about this too.’
Moreover, massive corporations like Ilseong were already aware of the Tree’s existence and had even deployed administrators as personal security personnel.
This meant that the man presumed to be an ordinary person might, in fact, have been an administrator as well.
Intrigued, Taeseong asked,
“Can you explain in more detail?”
[Yes…….]
Seventeen years ago.
Kim Minji had been drinking at a high-end bar in Gangnam, celebrating her birthday with friends.
In the midst of their lively drinking, a woman’s scream rang out from one of the inner rooms.
Being the type who couldn’t stand injustice, she immediately rose from her seat and rushed into the room, where she found a man attempting to assault a woman.
Due to her intervention, the situation was quickly resolved, and Kim Minji returned to her table to continue enjoying her birthday.
Later that night.
Heavily intoxicated, Kim Minji took a taxi home. However, on the way, the taxi was involved in a major accident.
As an administrator, Kim Minji was unharmed, but the crash was so severe that the taxi driver died instantly.
The moment she stepped out of the car to assess the situation, a man attacked her.
It was the same man from the bar.
Kim Minji immediately fought back, but for some reason, she couldn’t even lay a finger on him.
After being overpowered, she was subjected to……
a form of revenge too horrifying to put into words.
[My body was cut into twenty-eight pieces and dumped in the mountains.]
But the story didn’t end there.
Her father, an employee at the Korea Mint Corporation, desperately searched for his missing daughter.
Pouring everything he had into the search, he eventually found her—though by then, she had long since been reduced to shredded remains.
Consumed by fury, he appealed to the media and the police, but no one took his side.
In the end, he honored his daughter by engraving pieces of her body onto currency notes.
The money, imbued with his grief, resentment, and rage, resurrected Kim Minji as a bound spirit.
Shortly afterward, her father died in a mysterious accident.
“……I can’t believe that urban legend was actually true.”
[Oh! People talk about it?]
“Yeah…… Apparently, it was a pretty popular urban legend when I was a kid. But now I know it’s not just a story. Though, I have one question.”
[What is it?]
“Why did the police and media stay silent despite your father’s appeals?”
Kim Minji’s face—positioned on her abdomen—began to weep, crimson tears streaming from her eyes.
[Because…… the man who killed me was Ilseong Group’s second son, Park Ilhwan.
When the number-one conglomerate in South Korea moves to silence something, who could possibly stand against it?]
For a moment, Taeseong’s expression hardened.
Then, his face contorted into something monstrous, twisted with wrath.
“You’re telling me Park Ilhwan from Ilseong killed you?”
The sheer killing intent he unconsciously exuded made Kim Minji tremble violently.
[……Ugh. Y-yes. Um…… could you maybe…… tone it down a little……?]
Taking a deep breath, Taeseong forced himself to calm down before asking again.
“You’re saying the second son of Ilseong Group, Park Ilhwan—one of the major corporations under M10—was the one who killed you?”
[Yes. I’m absolutely certain. His face has been all over the news multiple times—there’s no way I wouldn’t recognize him. I’m sure of it.]
If Kim Minji wasn’t mistaken, then Park Ilhwan……at the very least, possessed power surpassing that of an Epsilon-class administrator.
‘So he wasn’t just some chaebol heir?’
Taeseong didn’t know the full extent of Ilseong Group’s ties to the Tree, but now that he had learned Park Ilhwan could overpower an Epsilon-class administrator, he couldn’t let this slide.
“Those filthy bastards.”
[……Do you have a grudge against them too?]
“Yeah. It hasn’t been fully confirmed yet, but it will be soon.”
[……Then, could I ask you for a favor?]
Taeseong asked,
“What kind of favor?”
[If, by any chance—just by chance—you ever get the opportunity to talk to Park Ilhwan, could you ask him why he killed my father?]
After a brief pause, Taeseong asked,
“You’re not curious about your own death, but your father’s?”
[Yes. I don’t really care about my own death. But I can’t stop wondering if my father truly had to die like that……. ]
“Are you certain that bastard was the one who killed your father?”
[Yes.]
Taeseong nodded.
“Alright. If I get the chance, I’ll ask.”
[Thank you!]
“And what are you going to give me in return?”
[……Huh?]
“What do you mean, ‘huh’? If I’m granting your request, it’s only natural that you compensate me appropriately, don’t you think?”
[Uh…… Then, I……]
Just then.
From behind, a voice rang out.
“Oppa. What are you doing th—”
Sooah, upon spotting Kim Minji, let out a bloodcurdling scream before promptly fainting.
“Ahhhhhh! G-g-g-ghost!”
TL : Dang this is also a real life urban legend called The Currency Ghost. Read about it here
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