'A clue? That card?'
I examined the card Gam Doyeong was holding.
A rectangular red card with nothing but brief text.
In this space with only us, at this timing—a card? It really did seem like a clue.
'Wait—then the staff who went missing might have gotten the same treatment?'
"Just like she turned to gold dust, the missing staff might have been transformed into something too...! And if so, the same kind of card might've dropped for them!"
"Everyone scatter and find them!"
At Gam Doyeong's shout, everyone except Attendant A—whose hand was steadily dissolving into powder—split up and searched frantically for any cards.
[Do not cause a disturbance. —Suspicious activity has been detected.—]
[This item is for sale. Do not test it. —Suspected ■■ activity has been identified.—]
[Unauthorized personnel are not permitted in restricted areas. —'Suspected ■■ activity' has been identified as 'suspected shoplifting.'—]
Every place these cards had been found was near jewelry.
All different stores, but they'd been near gold earrings, gold bracelets, gold rings.
And Attendant A's fingers had turned to gold dust—the common thread was all gold.
"Then, does that mean I'm going to... end up like that too...?"
SSSSSSSS—
Attendant A, who'd touched the bag, had already lost everything from her fingers past her wrist. Her hand was now fine, glittering powder.
The gold dust sparkled beautifully, but Attendant A's face had turned ashen as she trembled with fear.
"The 3-hour time limit in the report... it seems like after that, you're fully turned to gold."
"Hmm, then there's only one option."
Gam Doyeong curled his lips into a smirk and pointed at Attendant B—Attendant A's colleague.
"You. Go grab one of those bags or cosmetics or whatever."
"......Excuse me?"
"Excuse me?"
Attendant B and I both stared, wide-eyed at the incomprehensible order.
"This ghost story has its own set of rules. And when you break those rules, a card with a clue drops. But these four cards aren't enough to tell us exactly what we need to know. So let's collect more."
"If, if I touch something, won't I turn to gold too?"
"Obviously."
"Huh, huh......"
The absurd and outrageous order sent Attendant B into hyperventilation, shaking her head over and over.
"I c-can't, I can't do it!"
"Then you want to sit back and watch your colleague turn completely into gold dust?"
"Y-you should do it yourself, sir!"
Attendant C, who'd been watching quietly, spoke up boldly. Gam Doyeong looked at her as if she'd lost her mind.
"Tell me how many times you've failed a ghost story processing since joining."
"What? That's... about four times...."
Gam Doyeong let out a scoff.
"I entered as Class 25 and haven't failed a single ghost story—training or reconstructions included. Meanwhile, Class 31 over here has failed four times?"
"......"
Gam Doyeong's expression didn't waver an inch. Attendant B and C looked stunned.
"So, would it make more sense to put the two of you aside and send this newbie who isn't even official yet?"
Gam Doyeong jerked his thumb vaguely in my direction.
"B-but, even so...!"
"One hour of our 3-hour limit is almost gone. Her elbow's next—soon the powder will spread past it to her entire upper body."
"Ngh......"
Just as Gam Doyeong said, the transformation was poised to sweep past her elbow and race up her upper body at any moment.
Attendant A kept crying, and her legs gave out as she slumped to the floor.
"I will get us through this, so trust your senior. Besides, this newbie here ranked first in his class. The odds of failure are practically zero."
"......"
'Practically' zero? That's supposed to be convincing...?
But honestly, given everything so far, he was right. There really was no other way.
Attendant B stared at me with tears brimming in her eyes, then—as if steeling herself—squeezed her eyes shut, opened them, and immediately grabbed a lipstick from the nearest display.
CRACK, CRACKLE-CRACKLE—
"AAARGH!"
The back of the hand gripping the lipstick split apart like drought-cracked earth.
CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH.
Then the skin peeled away, and beneath it, yellow gold scales began to sprout.
And as expected—
Tap—.
Another clue card dropped.
As I reached down to pick it up, something from the briefing report flashed belatedly through my mind.
This is Type 1...
'Can they actually come back?'
I quickly looked up at Gam Doyeong.
He read the card, smiled with satisfaction, then looked at me.
"Read it."
"This is..."
[Do not tamper with merchandise. —Items reported as stolen have been confirmed to be replaced with counterfeits.—]
The answer to breaking through the Duty-Free Luxury Hall Ghost Story had arrived.
The key word here was 'counterfeits.'
Laying out the final lines of each card: suspicious activity was detected, multiple instances were flagged and reported, and the stolen items had been swapped with counterfeits.
The long-awaited answer had appeared.
But the fact that 'merchandise' was what had been reported—
...the question was how many we needed to find.
"Got the answer?"
"The breakthrough for this ghost story seems to be identifying the counterfeits swapped in among the genuine luxury goods."
"Quick on the uptake."
CRACK, CRACKLE, CRACK-CRACK.
Attendant B's hand, which had grabbed the lipstick, was now densely covered in gold scales across the back and palm.
The sight—like reptile skin—made Attendant B hide her hand behind her back, refusing to look.
Her shoulders shook violently as she wept.
Gam Doyeong walked straight over to Attendant C, whose face had gone equally pale.
"My turn now, I suppose...?"
"We've nearly got the answer. We'll break through soon. This is the last time."
"Ugh— no, I refuse! I don't want to!"
C whipped her body away, and in doing so stepped on the gold dust and gold scales pooled on the floor.
"Oops!?"
Her heel slipped, and she stumbled—brushing against a garment on display before catching herself against the wall.
"Oh boy."
Even Gam Doyeong looked mildly startled as he looked down at Attendant C. I couldn't hide my shock either.
It had happened so fast that C didn't even realize it at first.
"No— please, no...!"
Just from that brief graze against her shoulder, a gleaming yellow streak had drawn itself across the back of her hand.
"AAAAAAAH!"
"Senior!"
I grabbed Gam Doyeong's arm and pulled him aside slightly.
"The hell? You lost your mind?"
"Senior, you read the report."
Then I spoke in a voice low enough for only the two of us to hear.
"Of course I read the report."
"That's not what I mean—this is Type 1, not Type 2. A real-world ghost story. How can you be certain that people turned to gold can come back...!"
Gam Doyeong let out a short "oh," seeming mildly surprised.
"Smarter than I thought."
"...What!?"
Was he— was he actually messing around? The nerve of this man!
My incredulous expression earned me a light smack on the head from Gam Doyeong.
"Focus on the word 'disappearance' in the report. If they disappeared, that implies they can be found again."
"But what if they can't come ba—"
"Damn, you really love talking back. Even with a ghost story that has no known details, the report is one hundred percent accurate based on what it does state. You'll learn this later, but it's not written by a human."
"What do you mean by that...?"
"If turning to gold meant there was no coming back, it'd say 'unrecoverable.' It doesn't."
"Ah."
Gam Doyeong dismissed me as if I weren't worth his time, flicking a word over his shoulder as he turned.
"I'll tolerate that boldness exactly up to here."
He brushed past my shoulder and picked up a newly dropped paper.
This time it wasn't a card but two stapled A4 sheets.
=============================
[Shoplifting Report Filing]
Date: May 27, 20XX.
Details: 12 counterfeit item reports filed to date. 7 recovered, 5 outstanding.
Filing locations: Brand D Cosmetics, Brand A Handbags, Brand T Jewelry, Brand K Character Pop-Up Store.
※Staff: please be vigilant for counterfeits during sales. If a product's logo, stitching quality, color, or scent differs from the original, report it as a suspected counterfeit.
Report Filing: Use the phone at the security checkpoint.
=============================
And on the back page was a full floor map of the luxury hall—an extremely helpful hint.
"See that? This ghost story's crafty. It won't cough up hints without a sacrifice."
At Gam Doyeong's words, Attendant C glared at him with resentment-filled eyes.
'He didn't exactly push her, but he definitely goaded her into it....'
By now, a long gold streak ran vertically across her face.
No matter how much Attendant C scrubbed at it with her hands, it wouldn't come off. She looked utterly defeated.
"It's 4 o'clock sharp. Exactly two hours left—let's move."
Whether Attendant C glared or not, Gam Doyeong was lighter on his feet now that a path to victory had emerged. He took the lead.
We headed to the nearest target—Brand D Cosmetics.
"Don't touch the genuine items. You'll turn to gold. Then again, you two are already transforming, so maybe it wouldn't matter."
"...Ha."
Attendant C turned away with an expression of utter disgust and left the store.
"And don't think I went too far. When you learned what Cheonsu Airlines really is and didn't walk out on your own two feet—that's on you."
Gam Doyeong spotted a compact powder among the display where Brand D's silver logo coating had subtly peeled.
Without hesitation, he picked it up.
'!'
"It didn't turn him to gold...!"
"Then that means...."
"...It's definitely a counterfeit."
Attendants A and B stared, wide-eyed.
"One down—four to go. You two, head to the jewelry store and the handbag store respectively. You'd know better than I would."
"...Understood."
With Gam Doyeong's answer confirmed, the other attendants saw a glimmer of hope and immediately set off for the other stores.
Gam Doyeong and I stayed to examine the rest of the cosmetics.
A short while later...
"Found one!"
Among the perfume bottles in their transparent cases, one stood out—its color oddly faded compared to the rest.
After getting Gam Doyeong's approval, I reached out with trembling hands.
Sure enough, my body didn't change.
"We're done here."
Gam Doyeong gathered the counterfeit compact and perfume and left the store to regroup with the other attendants.
"I'm fine... actually, no...."
Less than 30 minutes after everyone split up to find counterfeits, Attendant A's entire right arm had dissolved into gold dust and vanished. Her empty sleeve fluttered loosely.
In her remaining hand she clutched the scarf, now heavy and bulging with gold powder.
Attendant B's hands were now rough, coarse gold scales—grotesque, like alligator skin. The transformation had spread to her elbows, tearing through her shirt to reveal scales dotting her forearms.
Both their faces were ashen with shock and terror.
"You found them...."
There was nothing I could say to comfort them, so I turned my attention to what they'd brought back.
A handbag with crooked stitching inside, and a crudely assembled fake necklace with shoddy clasps and links.
Now, the only one left was...
'Brand K Character Pop-Up Store.'
The Brand K Character Pop-Up Store sat at the far end of the duty-free zone.
With a farm theme, it featured colorful posters and life-size cutouts of cute animal characters—cows, pigs, chickens, and more.
"But, wait...."
"No way......"
"Shit—didn't see this coming."
When we entered the pop-up store and saw the products, all of us could only stare in disbelief.
Every single product was sealed in boxes or bags—'blind box' format.
Meaning we couldn't compare anything, and the contents were impossible to know without physically opening them.
'To open them you'd have to touch them, and we can't exactly rip them all open!'
The only things we could examine were five display keychains sitting in front of a large character plushie.
"The display keychains are all different types, so there's nothing to compare...."
"Can't eyeball it, can't touch anything."
"Then, then... oh no......"
Attendant A's eyes reddened again with the blow.
"...What time is it?"
"Currently 4:45."
"Lovely."
Upon hearing the time, Attendants A and B started crying again—tears they'd been desperately holding back.
Really, truly—
'We just need to find one last counterfeit...!'
Hitting this wall made my brain feel like it was overheating.
I circled the character pop-up store slowly, then stopped in front of the display keychains again. Their fluffy fur was matted and grubby—clearly from customers constantly handling them.
From left to right: cow, pig, chicken, sheep, dog. All farm characters.
"Hmm?"
While Gam Doyeong and the other attendants racked their brains over how to identify the counterfeit, one particular character caught my eye with an oddly familiar look.
That pig holding a tangerine...
"I feel like I've seen this somewhere...."
"What?"
Gam Doyeong, hearing me mutter, approached from behind.
"Oh, it's nothing major... it's just that pig with the farm concept—it looks familiar."
"Think hard. Could be a lead. Where did you see it?"
That was when Attendant C—her face now streaked entirely in glinting gold—spoke up.
"These characters got popular about a year ago when a famous male idol started using them. Back then, even resale prices skyrocketed. Now they've released a new fruit version."
"Ah!"
Attendant C's words triggered something.
'I knew I'd seen it somewhere!'
"I remember now—I bought that pig as a birthday present for my cousin last year! It was hard to get my hands on."
"H-how is that relevant...?"
"Like she said, these farm characters were insanely popular at one point, and that popularity led to a flood of knockoffs. There was a viral video on social media about it."
The 'authentic vs. counterfeit' identification guide!
Videos had circulated breaking down the visual differences and distinguishing features for each of the five characters—genuine versus fake.
When I'd painstakingly tracked down the pig character plushie for my cousin, she'd watched the video and identified it as a fake.
"But... since these are display keychains, people have handled them so much that the fur is all matted and grimy. And the new products are all sealed in boxes."
"That's fine."
Among the five characters, each with different species and features, there was one universal tell for spotting a genuine product.
'But to do this, I'll need...'
"Senior Gam Doyeong. Would it be all right if I made one unreasonable request?"
"Let's hear it."
I took a short breath, then looked Gam Doyeong straight in the eye.
"The report is one hundred percent accurate—you said so yourself."
"And?"
"If the item field were supposed to be unusable, I believe it would've been marked with an 'X.' So..."
"I'm requesting an item."