Chapter 128.1
Dream Essence Collector.
As the name suggests, it was a piece of equipment issued by Daydream Inc. to the Field Exploration Team members, designed to collect the liquid known as âDream Essenceâ from within ghost stories.
The concentration of the liquid collected depended on the grade of the ghost story cleared.
And the highest-grade liquid I had ever seen with my own eyes wasâŠ
âA-grade.â
During the anomalous manifestation of <Chorus of the Sacrificial Lambs> in Tuesday Talk Show, and inside Sekwang Technical High School when dealing with <Within the Shadow of Darkness>.
Both times, the liquid had been a brilliant, luminous gold.
But the one I was holding right nowâŠ
âGood lord.â
On top of its golden glow, it had an iridescent holographic sheen.
The way its radiance shimmered made it look almost like some kind of elixir.
ââŠIt reminds me of that Wish Ticket potion I saw when I first joined the company.â
It was eerie how similar it felt. Maybe because this was raw Dream Essence?
Noâthis wasnât the time to focus on that.
The important thing wasâŠ
âDoes this mean this is S-gradeâŠ?â
I turned the cylinder in my hand. Its glow flickered, gleaming.
It didnât feel real.
âThat grade isnât just arbitrarily assigned to dangerous ghost stories.â
Abyss (S) Grade.
The creators of the Wiki had all agreed on one thing.
âFor something to be given an S-grade, shouldnât there be a more special criterion?â
Until then, Daydream Inc.âs ghost stories had always been ranked based on an unspoken consensusâsomething like, âIf itâs this extreme, it should probably be graded high.â
Factors like danger level, uncertainty, ominousness, scaleâall the things one would naturally associate with ghost storiesâwere used to determine grades.
But when it came to A-grade and above, something more was needed.
Thatâs why they came up with this condition.
Who exactly do you meet in the darkness?
A story wasnât just cosmic horror-themedâit had to be cosmic horror itself.
Only when a ghost story forced you to confront an existence beyond human comprehensionânot just its atmosphere, but the horror itselfâcould it surpass the A-grade threshold and be classified as Abyssal (S) Grade.
âBut was Braunâs Late-Night Talk Show seriously on that level?â
Sure, I worked there for a whole month as a crew member before escaping, but this felt like overkill.
Braun was definitely a deranged talk show host and an incredibly powerful supernatural entity, but did he really qualify as a cosmic horror? If anything, he seemed oddly close to a human being.
Maybe the Dream Essence in my collector hadnât been gathered during my time thereâmaybe it was just a bonus feature attached to the merch itself.
âAnd the reason I got this merch nowâŠâ
Since I cleared a high-grade ghost story without a Dream Essence Collector, the system probably decided I had earned the right to be issued a new one.
But more importantlyâŠ
ââŠIf this really is S-grade, how much would it be worth in company points?â
A corporate payout memo flashed in my mind.
S-Grade: Subject to special review.
I swallowed hard.
A-grade was worth 100,000 points.
Given the increasing trend in rewardsâŠ
This could be worth 500,000 points.
ââŠThatâs enough to exchange for a Wish Ticket immediately.â
Holy shit.
That meant I didnât even need to worry about whether Iâd been sacked.
If I just submitted this collector, the company wouldâ
âŠâŠ
Oh.
âFuck.â
My whole body sagged.
Thereâs no way to submit it.
– Make sure you donât lose itâthose things have serial numbers, and itâll be a nightmare to explain if anythingâs off.
I remembered Assistant Manager Eun Haje telling me that once.
Itâs exactly as she said.
Every single Dream Essence Collector was serialized and individually registered to an employee.
Meaning that having a spare was not just weirdâit was downright suspicious.
This would be the equivalent of finding an extra bullet casing during an inventory check and cheerfully reporting, âOh hey, I found another one!â
âTheyâd demand an explanation, and I⊠had none.â
There was no way I could just say, I bought it at a pop-up merch store.
Especially not this Dream Essence Collector.
“âŠHaa.”
The Elite Team Edition was smaller and fancier than a standard collector, too.
I silently peeled off the product sticker from its side.
Dream Essence Collector (Elite Team Edition)
It wasnât a regular collectorâit had been released as merch for a reason.
âBecause it came from a famous game based on the <Dark Exploration Records>âŠ!â
It was a game adaptation of a certain exploration log, where the Elite Team Cylinder served multiple roles: as an identifier for important NPCs, a collectible required to unlock the true ending, and an item crucial to gameplay.
To avoid lore conflicts with the wiki, the game developers even came up with this backstory.
Elite Team Cylinder
A special piece of equipment once produced for the Elite Team, but discontinued due to budget constraints as the design was standardized for all team members.
So, if that in-game lore applied hereâŠ
– A piece of equipment, originally produced in limited quantity and owned by only a select few, suddenly appears in the hands of a rookie employee who had been missing for a month.
Thatâs insane.
âAnd if this wasnât based on the in-game lore, thatâs an even bigger problem.â
Bringing back a Dream Essence Collector that doesnât match the companyâs standardized models?
Anyone would see that as a tech leak. The Development Department would have a complete meltdown.
âTheyâd think I was a corporate spy.â
Or worse, they might start suspecting I was some kind of parallel-world anomaly.
A missing employee, presumed terminated, suddenly reappears with unknown technology?
I could see my future clearly⊠as a test subjectâŠ
CHELY_
All that sounds fun LOL Why don’t you try returning it to the company? đđ