Chapter 77

I was currently climbing the stairs of a nightmare school with a Disaster Management Bureau agent.

... Dragging him along, bound like a prisoner.

For the record, I had betrayed him and tied him up with an item he had handed me himself.

“...”

What a shitshow.

'This can't go on.'

I had a feeling I had crossed a line here.

By tomorrow, I might be on the Bureau's blacklist, liable to be requisitioned for the Scales of Evil at the slightest excuse.

The company would probably protect me, but I did not want to deal with the insane prospect of owing Daydream Inc. a debt...!

'I-I have to rehabilitate my image somehow.'

The cold sweat on my back never had a chance to dry....

First, I spoke solemnly.

“If you swear not to shout, I'll remove the gag. Just nod.”

The murderous glare in the agent's eyes subsided. Then, with extraordinary stillness, he gave a slight nod.

'... You're lying.'

If you were going to trick me, at least make it less obvious...!

In the end, I sighed and said,

“I have absolutely no intention of harming you, or deceiving you to steal Bureau intelligence and report it to the company.”

“...”

“And... I felt no pain whatsoever while making that statement.”

“...!”

“I know that caramel you gave me is a truth serum used for torture.”

The agent's pupils trembled.

“Of course, I don't believe you meant me any harm. It's just...”

I gazed into space with a slightly melancholy look.

“I wanted you to know that, even though I didn't volunteer that I work for Daydream Inc., I never intended to lie to you....”

Strictly speaking, that was bullshit.

If things went south, I had intended to jab myself with the painkillers express-delivered from the Alien Shop and spew whatever lies would keep me alive.

Sure enough, an unpleasant pain welled up inside me.

'Urgh.'

It felt like my insides were being wrung out, like a stomach ulcer.

But keeping up appearances was crucial here.

'I can endure this much without even showing it now.'

The more malicious or deliberate the lie, the worse the pain. What I had just said was closer to evasion, so it probably didn't even qualify as level one.

Bear with it.

'Next comes... trust.'

At the same time, I discreetly masked my expression as I unfastened a small silver badge with one hand inside my pocket.

Then I openly showed the agent the item: the Silver Heart Badge.

“I'm telling you this without relying on an effect like this.”

“...”

“I'll ask again. ... If you swear not to shout, I'll remove the gag. Just nod.”

An indescribable conflict clouded the agent's eyes.

And by the time we stopped on the landing, he gave the slightest nod.

“...”

Without another word, I removed his gag.

True to his promise, the agent did not make a scene.

'Hmm.'

Good. Next step.

I returned the confiscated flashlight and pistol to his hands, then loosened the restraints around his arms as well.

“What is this...?”

“You'll need to defend yourself in a situation this dangerous.”

'That pistol barely works on anything other than ghosts or supernatural phenomena anyway.'

Depending on the ammunition, it could supposedly work on evildoers too, but however I looked at it, neither Jang Heoun nor I seemed evil enough to qualify.

'There haven't been any rumors of Mr. Jang Heoun doing anything crazy over the past three months.'

Still, I couldn't let this agent run off before I finished winning him over, so I left the restraints on.

I attached a plausible excuse to that, too.

“This place is too dangerous for you to flee alone, so I'll keep you restrained just until you're capable of rational judgment again.”

“...”

We were nearing the top of the stairs, moving slowly and watching our surroundings, when the agent abruptly asked,

“Is Roe Deer your alias?”

“...”

“You operate in teams and address one another by aliases based on your masks, don't you?”

“... That's right.”

“Are you a team leader?”

“No. Just a new recruit. And he... joined at the same time I did.”

With a slightly bitter smile, I took the half mask from my pocket and placed it over my face.

The familiar texture, like tree bark sprouting antlers, covered my skin.

For some reason, the agent looked shocked.

Then I heard Jang Heoun's crestfallen voice.

“... I'm sorry, Mr. Roe Deer. You were only trying to help me....”

“It's all right. You must have been quite startled.”

Honestly, compared to Baek Saheon trying his damnedest to fuck me over, this much was something I had been prepared for ever since I started pretending to be a provisional agent....

Besides, Jang Heoun even defended me to the agent.

“Um, Mr. Roe Deer really is a kind, decent person. Even when we first met, he risked his life trying to save me from a Darkness....”

“I-it wasn't that much.”

Nice shot!

“We just... helped each other. So we could both survive the Darkness.”

“Mr. Roe Deer....”

“...”

The agent shut his mouth, his expression more complicated than ever.

But let's focus on the fact that he hadn't tried to bash my head in with the grip of his little pistol.

“... Entering the fourth floor.”

And we reached the top.

[4F]

“...”

We had made it, but...

'This is scary.'

In this ghost story, things began to grow more twisted from the fourth floor onward.

For starters, there were no announcements even when students died....

And it was extremely dark.

BZZT...

Most of the lights were already broken or burned out, and all but a few of those that remained were flickering.

And the bigger problem was...

“...!!”

“Gah!”

Dozens of students stood crowded in the hallway.

And they were already staring straight at us.

'Ha.'

Those students stood in rows on either side of the dark school hallway like mannequins.

The student entities on the fourth floor were all third-years, and every exploration that had reached this floor had confirmed more than a hundred of them.

Hearing just that, you would think we were being told to die.

But.

“... It's all right.”

The agent offered some information, albeit stiffly.

“They can't leave those spots.”

Right.

The fourth floor is seriously weird. We can't actually see those “students” move in the first place, but we do see them change positions, right?

But the fourth-floor students can't move.

It's like their feet are stuck to the classroom floor.

—From the recording of Exploration Record #9

They stood still instead of charging, so we only needed to stay outside the radius of their reach.

If we had to approach them, we would keep watching to stop them from moving at all.

'The problem is, it's easy to lose sight of them in the dark.'

And they were very... very cunning.

They often tried to catch people off guard through psychological tricks.

'... Hmm.'

So that's how it was.

After confirming that Jang Heoun had a name tag taken from one of the school's students pinned to his blazer, I spoke solemnly.

“Then let's take our time searching the fourth floor, very carefully.”

No one objected.

We stepped into the gaps between the students.

* * *

'Whew.'

Jang Heoun swallowed.

It felt truly bizarre, trembling as he passed so close to the “student” entities that their uniform sleeves nearly brushed him.

But he gritted his teeth.

'I have to be useful.'

He felt he had ruined this exploration for Kim Soleum, the fellow recruit to whom he owed so much.

What had Soleum been trying to accomplish by accompanying an agent?

'He must have been aiming for a high-scoring... clear, right?'

But according to the manual, the longer they survived here and the more name tags they gathered, the more concentrated the solution in their Dream Essence Collectors tended to become....

Perhaps because it was too dangerous, Kim Soleum wasn't even glancing at the name tags attached to the fourth-floor students.

'... I don't know.'

Jang Heoun decided not to jump to conclusions.

Relying on his own intelligence wasn't a good habit.

He simply did his best to stare at the students as they drew near, persistently training his flashlight on them whenever they entered an area where all the lights were broken or flickering.

STEP, STEP.

“Mr. Bison, please watch our rear.”

“Yes.”

His voice trembled faintly.

Jang Heoun walked backward, looking behind them.

Where they had passed, he could see dozens of students with their heads turned toward them, arms stretched straight out....

“I can see the music room over there. Let's hang in there until we reach it.”

They kept moving.

Soon, they reached a section with no lights at all.

'Whew.'

The students stood motionless in the suffocating darkness, still watching them with an uncanny gleam in their eyes.

They were picking their way through them by flashlight when it happened.

A flicker.

A light flickered somewhere. There must have been a power outage...

'Huh?'

Wait.

Something was wrong.

'How could a light flicker when there aren't any lights here?'

Then Jang Heoun realized, a moment too late.

It wasn't a power outage.

What had flickered... was the flashlight of someone ahead of him.

Just now, someone had lost their line of sight.

“...!”

Jang Heoun nearly turned around. But a calm voice reached him from behind first.

“Don't turn around.”

“You...!”

“For now, we have to... keep walking.”

Kim Soleum's voice was breathless.

And then...

The smell of iron.

DRIP, DRIP...

As Jang Heoun continued walking backward, he noticed red liquid dripping onto the floor.

He couldn't look properly because he had to watch the students, but it was slippery under his shoes.

And he saw a student's hand extended so far into the middle of the hallway that it nearly struck his waist.

It was stained red and dripping blood.

Jang Heoun fought back the urge to retch.

“M-Mr. Roe Deer...!”

When they finally made it through the students and he turned around, Kim Soleum was clutching his abdomen, his face deathly pale.

And the flashlight in his hand flickered once more.

He smiled, white-faced.

“... The battery,”

-Effective illumination time: 60 minutes

That was right.

Emergency flashlights didn't last all that long.

'Ah...!'

The other two had brought equipment in advance and kept their emergency flashlights as backups for actual emergencies. Neither had thought to account for how long his flashlight had been running...!

“J-just a moment... Urgh.”

“D-don't speak!”

Fighting his own urge to retch, Jang Heoun tried desperately to support Kim Soleum. The agent reflexively joined him.

Together, the Daydream Inc. employee and the Disaster Management Bureau civil servant hurried into the classroom, supporting one man between them.

A few students were looking in there as well, but they lowered the man they had struggled to carry somewhere out of the students' reach.

Seated on the floor, Kim Soleum pressed down on his wound and spoke.

“You two.”

“...”

“Leave me behind.”

The man in the antlered mask managed a strained smile as he held his wound closed.

“Oh, wait a moment.”

With the hand not clutching his abdomen, Kim Soleum reached out and completely released the Bureau agent's restraints.

“I forgot. Now you can go...”

Ignoring him entirely, the agent rummaged through his pocket, pulled out a spare name tag, and shoved it into Kim Soleum's pocket.

But...

“You don't have to give me that. Didn't you have a use for it?”

“...”

“Go on. There must be others on this floor. You can, ugh, join them.”

Kim Soleum started to grimace, then smoothed his expression.

“Actually, dying like this shouldn't cause much trouble with my job. The company should be satisfied with this much...”

“That damned company!”

The agent clenched his fists.

“Why on earth do you people trust such an absurd, disgusting organization?”

It seemed Soleum had touched a nerve.

“Do you really think a company that places so little value on human life will grant your wishes?”

“...!”

Jang Heoun stared at the agent in surprise.

The agent spoke through gritted teeth.

“I know you're working there for Wish Coupons. Do you truly believe in that ridiculous illusion? That a magic potion will grant any wish?”

Kim Soleum gazed up at the agent.

“It will.”

“...”

“This system couldn't sustain itself if Wish Coupons were a lie. Once you get one, it will grant any wish.”

“... Hah.”

The civil servant sighed as though the frustration might drive him mad, then spoke as if repeating a long-established argument.

“Think about it. Suppose someone wishes for world peace and someone else wishes for humanity's extinction. How could it grant both of those contradictory wishes?”

Behind his bison mask, Jang Heoun flinched.

But Kim Soleum remained composed.

“From the perspective of the person making the wish, yes. It comes true.”

“What... does that,”

“I mean that Wish Coupons aren't meant to change the world. They're objects that omnipotently grant an individual's wish.”

What on earth did that mean?

It sounded like some cult's doctrine of salvation.

Yet Kim Soleum's attitude wasn't religious fanaticism. It was more like the resignation of someone who had verified the situation inductively, over and over....

The agent looked at him in confusion, but Kim Soleum merely shrugged.

“Anyway, I think this is as far as I go.”

“...!”

Blood gushed from beneath the hand pressed against his abdomen.

The bleeding hadn't stopped at all.

Kim Soleum returned the name tag to Agent Bronze's hand.

There was blood on it.

The agent gritted his teeth.

“Even if you're dragged here every new-moon night and keep giving away your name tags, that company will never help you.”

“Maybe not.”

Kim Soleum started to shrug again, then smiled despite a slight grimace, perhaps from the pain.

“But someday the Disaster Management Bureau will put an end to this Darkness... this disaster, I mean. Then I'll be completely free, too.”

“...!!”

The agent stared at Kim Soleum as though he had been struck.

“Go on, both of you. It could be dangerous to keep looking back like this.”

Kim Soleum raised his head and shone his still-functioning emergency flashlight outside the classroom.

“I'll keep watching the way ahead for as long as I can while you go.”

“...”

“Oh, and Mr. Bison is a new recruit, so he really hasn't done anything wrong. If possible, I'd appreciate it if you could keep him safe with you, at least for a while.”

“Mr. Roe Deer....”

The agent wrestled with himself.

But in the end, he gritted his teeth, turned around, and started walking with his flashlight raised.

“Follow me.”

“Ah...”

Jang Heoun hesitated, but finally made his decision.

'There's nothing I can do even if I stay beside him....'

Perhaps it would be easier on Kim Soleum if he simply left quickly.

But he couldn't just leave, so he secretly slipped something into Kim Soleum's clothes.

“Mr. Roe Deer, um... this is my spare name tag.”

“...!”

“I lived longer thanks to you... And I don't have anyone else to save. It won't be enough, but even one more... Thank you.”

Then he left after the agent without waiting for an answer.

He couldn't bring himself to look back.

“...”

As promised, Kim Soleum watched the agent and Jang Heoun leave for a little while.

And then...

'Yes!'

As soon as they disappeared around the corner, he hastily pulled the item he had prepared from his pocket.

A single hard candy, individually wrapped in plastic.

Those warm days of old,

Magic candy!

A large, old-fashioned red, yellow, and white hard candy sat inside the nostalgic wrapper.

Nostalgia Can-dy

The emergency healing remedy Kim Soleum had purchased.

He tore open the wrapper with bloodstained hands, popped the candy into his mouth, and began rolling it around.

Then things began to change.

“...!”

The wounds on his body closed.

The blood he had shed was reabsorbed, and broken bones naturally knit back into their original shapes.

As though time were rewinding.

Roll the candy around in your mouth,

And bring old memories back to life!

While the hard candy dissolved in the user's mouth, it fixed their body and mind in the healthiest state they had experienced over the past ten years.

'It's a dream anyway, so a stopgap like this is enough.'

He felt unbelievably better, his mind growing clear.

His brain whirred into gear.

'It worked...!'

Kim Soleum sighed in relief.

His gambit had paid off.

The most effective method available in a situation like this.

'Nothing beats bowing out with a death scene.'

He had barely seized the opportunity to gain both freedom to explore and a rehabilitated image.

'I was scared shitless I wouldn't time the emergency flashlight going out right.'

He got to his feet, brushing himself off, and let out another deep sigh of relief.

His heart was pounding so hard.