Chapter 78

The dark fourth-floor hallway. Students lined up like mannequins. And me, moving between them after calculating exactly how far their hands could reach.

'Whew.'

First, I unfolded the item I had neatly tucked into my pocket and wrapped it around my vital areas. The “armor” I had bought from the Alien Shop.

Wrapping Paper 12B357na

The loose wrapping paper settled beneath my old high school uniform.

'The Nostalgia series doesn't heal injuries or contamination you acquire while it's active.'

I needed to be more careful from now on.

I moved cautiously, avoiding spots where the dolls' reach overlapped as much as possible. Taking up less space actually made some things easier. Traveling alone like this might even offer better odds of surviving the fourth floor.

“...”

Had Agent Bronze and Jang Heoun gotten away safely?

'They'll probably prioritize joining up with other people.'

The agent wasn't stupid enough to attempt the fifth floor with only two people, so they would probably look for others on the fourth. Judging by the mood when they left, I doubted he would take Jang Heoun prisoner.

'Even if he does, I've really done everything I can for you, my fellow recruit...'

I walked all the way to the end of the hallway.

“Whew.”

I reached the stairs I had climbed with my fellow recruit and the agent earlier.

And then...

I started back down.

[3F]

I was retracing my steps.

Why?

To be perfectly honest, I didn't really need the information items scattered around this school.

'It's all in my head already.'

It was no different from having collected and examined them all. I knew everything, right up to the moment this ghost story ended. Why the school had become like this, what the theme of this ghost story was, and just what these students were.

So there was only one thing I actually needed.

'The key item that will unlock the highest-grade clear.'

And that was what I was going to get.

'By now... what I need has probably been “made.”'

I stopped on the landing. The third floor below was very quiet.

“...”

Because everyone had become a corpse.

Under the bright lights, blood-soaked bodies lay exposed, horrifically hacked apart. Most of the people in school uniforms on this floor seemed to have died.

'Any agents who survived must have gone somewhere else.'

And at least among the students who had swarmed the faculty office, it seemed almost all had been deemed incapable of moving and featured in the fatal-incident announcements.

“Whew.”

Beyond the revulsion, there was the awful feeling of standing at the center of a disaster scene where dozens of people had died.

'Calm down.'

This was a dream... All of it was a dream...

Repeating that to myself, I continued down the stairs, constantly checking both ends of the hallway and the faculty office opposite in quick succession.

Then I spotted my target.

A blink.

In that brief instant when I looked away, a student inside the faculty office had changed position.

“...!”

Of course, the student hadn't come after me. The entity was already in far too wretched a state for that. Both arms were broken, one leg had an open fracture, and the abdomen was drenched in blood.

Still, there seemed to be enough “consciousness” left to tilt and turn their head toward me...

“...”

I looked around.

'No sign of any other students showing up...'

Good.

I headed into the faculty office and walked right up to the student collapsed near the front door. Bleached hair and piercings—the classic delinquent look, though the injuries were so bad that the impression their appearance gave barely registered anymore.

“...”

Wow. This really felt insane, but...

I grabbed the “student” with both hands and hoisted them up.

“Whew.”

A piggyback ride would put them out of my sight, so I carried them over my shoulder like a sack.

'This is nuts.'

Carrying a killing machine weighing several dozen kilograms like this was no small mental strain. Physically, though, it was quite manageable. The Nostalgia Candy was still rolling around in my mouth.

'And... this is where I'm headed.'

I had mapped out a route in my head. There probably weren't many students left on the third floor after this mess, but I should hurry anyway, just in case.

Holding the flashlight in my mouth, I advanced with a hand against the wall. The high-powered flashlight lit up the whole hallway, blackout or no damn blackout. Not that it helped much when everything was so bloody I could barely breathe.

Still.

[Infirmary]

My destination came into view.

RATTLE

I let the name tag my fellow recruit had slipped me drop soundlessly to the floor, then quietly opened the door and entered the infirmary.

Three curtained beds stood side by side near the windows. Human shadows were already visible behind the curtains of two of them.

“...”

I moved slowly. As I passed, I noticed the message on the whiteboard attached to the infirmary door.

Students injured during exercise: lie down on a bed and wait for the school nurse!

“...”

It felt strange.

'So that's it.'

That was the very clue that had prompted me to continue writing the exploration records for this ghost story. The twelfth exploration record, left by the previous contributor.

Exploration Record #12

Deputy Kang Jiu entered the infirmary and, following the instructions, laid the injured person (Supervisor Park Chaon) on an empty bed.

Nothing unusual occurred.

Subsequently cleared with all participants dead after a student entity pursued them into the infirmary.

Ever since reading it, I had noticed an opening.

'It felt like the previous writer had left it deliberately.'

Within this ghost story's setting, explorers were “students from other schools.” Outsiders, in other words.

So...

-What would have happened if they had laid an actual Segwang Technical High School student on the bed?

The possibilities branching out from that question had given me the urge to write the thirteenth exploration record...

'It made my heart race.'

And my heart was racing now, too. With something I couldn't identify as tension, fear, or anticipation.

Taking a deep breath, I drew back the curtain around the one remaining bed without a shadow behind it. Then I laid the student on the clean cot it revealed.

The words of the exploration record I had written overlapped with the scene in my mind.

Exploration Record #13

(Excerpt omitted)

Employee ■■■, together with a civilian, successfully lured away a single injured student entity.

After restraining the entity, they entered the infirmary and laid it on a bed.

The entity's name tag was not removed during this process.

I might have been able to move the student's joints if I forced them, but their posture was still awkward. I covered them with a blanket and briefly left the infirmary. Then I waited several dozen seconds in the blood-soaked hallway, trying to still my pounding heart.

'And after this.'

Once I finished waiting, knocked lightly, and entered the infirmary...

The injured student entity was observed lying on the bed in gym clothes, having received appropriate first aid.

It was exactly as written.

“...”

Feeling something between wonder and terror, I approached the only bed whose curtain was open. The bleached-haired student I had brought in lay sprawled on it in gym clothes, fitted with bandages and splints.

They weren't even looking at me.

'Now...'

In the original exploration record, I had written that it was discovered “during a thorough search of the surroundings,” but...

RATTLE

I immediately opened the bedside drawer. Inside was a neatly folded school uniform.

[Segwang Technical High School]

It belonged to the student lying on the bed. Missing buttons and worn patches were beyond repair, but strangely, all the blood and filth appeared to have been washed clean...

'Ha.'

My heart pounded violently. Without looking back at the student on the bed, I hurriedly fetched a sheet of A4 paper provided in the infirmary and wrote:

Let me borrow your uniform for a bit.

-The transfer student who brought you to the infirmary

I folded the paper neatly and placed it in the drawer, taking the uniform out in exchange.

“...”

When I turned my head, the student was still lying there in gym clothes, eyes closed. They looked sound asleep.

'Good.'

I quickly undressed. After throwing my old high school uniform out the infirmary window, I began pulling on the “borrowed” Segwang Technical High School uniform. Our builds were similar, so it fit reasonably well.

Once I had finished putting on the old-fashioned uniform...

RATTLE

“...”

A drawer opened behind me. Turning around, I found a reply to the note I had left inside.

What year and class are you in?

“...”

Swallowing, I wrote with a trembling hand. The same profile I had written on the back of my high school photograph to enter this place. And the name of the class where I had opened my eyes.

First Year, Class 5.

At that moment, the whole world went dark.

“...!”

Darkness seemingly devoid of any light briefly blinded me. Then my eyes adjusted, gradually revealing the faint outlines of the world.

The school infirmary... where dim lights from things like the emergency light and LED clock barely allowed me to make out the space.

And then.

PAT, PAT

“...!”

Someone tapped my shoulder. I turned my head.

The student sitting on the bed with a bored expression was tapping me. The bleached-haired student withdrew their hand from my shoulder and moved naturally.

Yes. Naturally.

With utterly human movements, they took the A4 paper and pen from my hands, moved their bandaged arm to scribble something, and held it out.

You're a transfer student?

Unlucky bastard.

Then they lay back down on the bed. As naturally as a person settling down to sleep.

“...”

I stood up, my face stiff.

RATTLE

I stepped out of the infirmary. The world was still dark. Yet everything seemed uncannily clear...

A state of heightened awareness in which I felt I could even see dust floating in the air. A strange certainty seemed to seep out of the uniform and settle into my mind.

“...”

As I walked into the hallway, I picked up the name tag I had dropped on my way into the infirmary and tucked it into my pocket.

[■■■]

Unlike before, the name tag seemed to glow strangely. And despite the darkness and the blood and filth splattered everywhere, I felt strangely unafraid.

But...

I could see something at the far end.

“...!”

Things were peeking out of the Second Year, Class 7 classroom. Their silhouettes were unmistakably human. But their entire bodies were writhing grotesquely. As though broken pixels had been rendered in reality, they were as hideous as ghouls in a horror movie.

Draped in various rotting approximations of school uniforms, they looked like errors improperly rendered into the world...

And the instant they looked at me...

“...!”

I stopped.

mark

Something surged backward inside me, as though my stomach were turning inside out.

A blink.

“...!!”

Suddenly, like a thunderbolt, the whole world lit up.

Before I knew it, I was running forward into the brightness. The glitch-like monsters couldn't look at me, as though blinded by the brilliant light! Now they moved so very, very slowly...

I could eliminate them here!

“...”

'No.'

I barely managed to stop. I barely suppressed the urge to chase them. The sweetness of the candy rolling against my tongue brought me back to my senses...

And then, the next instant.

A blink.

The world was pitch-black again. And when my eyes met the monsters' once more, they were already far away, running slowly down the stairs at the opposite end of the hallway...

Keeping me frozen in place.

“...”

My entire body was drenched in sweat. My clenched fists trembled as though I had barely endured some terrible withdrawal symptoms. But I could bear it because I was only experiencing in reality what I had already read in words.

There was no confusion.

I had merely confirmed it.

'... So this was it.'

Had you noticed?

Those monsters I had just seen were the explorers. The people drawn into this ghost story, who had been in the same position as me until a moment ago.

'And I...'

If an explorer receives and wears a Segwang Technical High School uniform with its student's permission, they too can take on the role of a student in this ghost story.

I was now a student of Segwang Technical High School.