I Activated Cheat Mode in a Bizarre Game

And just like that, our first mission ended anticlimactically with the moving of a single desk.
I wondered if this was really all there was to it, but according to Younghee, most item retrieval jobs usually involved just one or two objects like this.
Hearing that, I realized just how used I’d become to the high-stakes, brutal missions from big organizations like Dongto and Baekho.

Regardless, Cheolsu and Younghee seemed very satisfied with how we handled everything.
From then on, we agreed to report daily to their office and work alongside them.
It was a successful infiltration.

Unlike Baekho or Dongto, this office worked on a five-day schedule—but since the work finished much earlier each day, it wasn’t so bad.
More than anything, the office atmosphere was peaceful, and I liked that.
"Well then, we’ll get going."
"Yes! Thank you for your hard work today!"

After clocking out, Shun and I headed home and chatted about the two of them.
"For now, based on today alone, they don’t seem connected to that weird religious group or Dongto at all..."
They hadn’t even once used the word “Nature” in conversation, and neither their office nor vehicle had shown anything suspicious when we checked.

Shun nodded in agreement.
Then he added a personal observation.
"Cheolsu. Frustrating."
"Huh?"
"They like each other. But they’re not dating. Frustrating."

Then he muttered a word I had no idea where he’d learned.
"Cholbo." (Scaredy-cat.)
"..."

Sometimes, I really wondered where Shun was picking up this bizarre and unbalanced Korean vocabulary.
Still, I had a general idea of what he meant.
I also contacted other Team 10 members who’d been assigned to different groups.
Everyone seemed to be in similar situations. The small offices under surveillance all appeared peaceful, with no signs or clues related to that suspicious religious group.

Then again, if it were something that easy to uncover, Baekho wouldn’t have dispatched so many exploration teams at once.
"Ah. Maybe..."
I reached out once again to my trusty informant, Choi Yerim.

I asked her to look into that enigmatic religion preaching nature worship.
If it was Yerim, she’d definitely find something useful.
***

"I'm back."
When I got home, the moment I opened the front door, I could tell the atmosphere inside had changed noticeably.
It felt… cozier, I guess. Every corner of the living room now had charming little decorations that were clearly handmade by Bianca.

Even my bed had been changed—now covered with that soft bedding I’d mentioned liking last time: a fluffy mattress and comforter made by Bianca herself.
And even more surprising was that there’d been a change in our two cats as well.
Both of them were wearing what looked like makeshift clothes, albeit clumsily done.

Leo didn’t seem to mind, just calmly watching me even in the outfit, but Daeho was different.
The clothes he was wearing seemed to pinch around his neck, scrunching up his thick neck folds into a double chin.
"Keng..."

Daeho let out a weird groan, clearly uncomfortable.
When I laughed and pointed it out, Bianca flusteredly explained,
"I was told not to force it off or it would get stuck…"
"Grrowl!"

Daeho mewled in protest, looking indignant.
I helped him take off the clothes myself.
Bianca looked disappointed.

"But he looked so cute, like a doll..."
Daeho glared daggers at her.
It looked like it was still going to take time for these two monsters to warm up to each other.

***
The next day, I once again reported to Cheolsu and Younghee’s monster office.
When I opened the creaky door and stepped inside, the familiar sight of the office and a faintly sweet smell greeted me.

Shun was already seated on the sofa, silently staring at one spot—specifically, toward the break room where Cheolsu and Younghee stood.
There was a faint crease in his brow.
"Ah, Cheolsu! The lid on this is too tight! Can you open it?"
"Huh? Oh, just a sec. I’ll—ugh, what the? Why won’t this open?"
"Sigh, I’ll just do it with brute force. Move over."

The office echoed with the sound of Cheolsu and Younghee bickering affectionately over a jam jar.
I could see Shun’s eyebrow twitch, and I understood exactly why he looked so exasperated.
Suppressing a sigh, I sat down next to him and asked the two what kind of request we had today.

Only then did they finally notice us and hurried over.
This time, Younghee pointed at a map app on her phone.
"Today we’re heading to an old cemetery nearby. The request is to retrieve a specific keepsake located there, but the problem is… we’ve never been to this site before either."

A cemetery.
I didn’t know a thing about geomancy, but even to me, it was the kind of shady, ominous location where monsters seemed likely to show up.
"But there was one little detail in the request form."

Younghee pointed to a spot on the app.
"It said that ‘ghost lights’ are sometimes seen around there."
Ghost lights.

I’d heard of them in stories, but this would be my first time seeing one in real life.
Though I had met a goblin before—actually, a little goblin fan who’d recognized me at Hwamoo Station and even asked for my autograph, along with his parents.
I remembered them vividly.

Still, ghost lights didn’t strike me as the type to attack people on sight.
But I couldn’t jump to conclusions.
We’d have to see the site for ourselves first.

"Let’s go then. It’s not far from here."
We piled into the van and set off.
It wasn’t far in terms of distance, just like Cheolsu had said, but since the cemetery was located in the mountains, we had to take a winding detour up the slopes.

Vroooom.
The van rattled along the narrow mountain road for a while before finally stopping at the entrance to a cemetery perched on the hillside.
As we stepped out of the car, the cool mountain air greeted us along with the sight of an endless spread of tombs before us.

The entire mountain was packed with graves—a breathtaking and at the same time, eerie scene.
The forest was thick with tall trees, and even though it was still broad daylight, the surroundings were already growing dim.
Cheolsu and Younghee couldn’t hide their nerves, both swallowing dryly at the sight.

Younghee # Nоvеlight # glanced at her phone again and repeated our objective.
"Among all these graves… we’re looking for the one belonging to someone named Lee Yeondong. The keepsake should be there."
We started moving inward, reading the worn tombstones one by one, searching for the name Lee Yeondong.

And when we reached a relatively deep part of the cemetery, the phenomenon described in the request finally appeared.
In the dark forest, faint blue flames began flickering to life in the air around us.
"Look—over there!"

Fwoosh.
The flames danced like living creatures, gracefully swaying through the air.
That had to be the ghost lights. As they appeared, the dim cemetery lit up with an eerie, dreamlike blue glow.

It was beautiful, but also surreal.
"Wow… that’s so pretty."
"It looks like something straight out of a fairy tale."
Younghee and Cheolsu gazed in awe at the ghost lights.

I checked the map just in case.
And in that moment, I realized something important. These beautiful dancing lights were being marked on my map—as tiny red dots.
They were, without a doubt, monsters.

And more importantly…
Among the cluster of tiny red dots was one that stood out—larger and much more distinct.
Hidden within the soft blue light of the ghost lights, something was lurking in the shadows, watching us.

I silently fixed my gaze on that location.
I focused my eyes, trying to make out the thing camouflaged between the flickering lights and the darkness.
And finally, the outline began to take shape—slowly, very slowly.

"…"
The first thing I saw was its massive mouth, gaping wide open like a cave, or a patch of shadow between the trees.
As if waiting for someone to be lured in by the lovely lights and step in of their own accord, the thing sat there, pitch black, its jaws opened unnaturally wide.

Suddenly, an old documentary image came to mind.
A deep-sea fish called the anglerfish—one that used a glowing lure to attract prey, then swallowed them whole with its gaping mouth.
The creature before me looked just like that, in both appearance and hunting method.

The beautiful ghost lights—it had been using them as bait to lure in victims.
Of course, there were some key differences.
For one, we weren’t in the deep sea—we were on land, surrounded by damp earth and tombstones.

And this thing was far more grotesque and unimaginably larger than any anglerfish I’d seen in a video.
While Cheolsu and Younghee were distracted by the other ghost lights, I quietly pulled a talisman out of my inventory.
I had originally meant to show it to Bora first, but now felt like the right moment to test its effects.

Fwooosh, fwoosh.
As soon as I raised the talisman—glowing with an ominous red light—the ghost lights scattered away from me.
"...?"

Did Bora ever mention this function?
Was this part of what the talisman could do?