Chapter 80

All right. Let’s sort this out.

That monster in front of me... in other words, that person whose pixels were smeared into a horrific shape, was definitely my fellow recruit, Go Youngeun.

I could clearly see her mountain-goat mask.

‘Now I feel bad about setting off a high-powered flashlight right in her face...’

I gritted my teeth and tried to focus on the mask rather than my revulsion.

The problem was that normal communication was impossible!

I couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t properly hear what she said, either...

mark

‘Ugh.’

It felt as though errors were filling even my brain. This was driving me crazy.

After pondering how to communicate, I finally took the pen I had brought from my pocket and wrote on the floor, avoiding looking at her as much as possible.

Ms. Mountain Goat?

Then I waited in silence.

The moment “Go Youngeun” looked at me again and I froze, a reply came on the sheet of A4 paper on the floor.

Mr. Roe Deer?? Are you still yourself? Can you move of your own free will?

‘Whew.’

It worked.

Watching the monster... no, “Go Youngeun” turn her head away, I wrote my answer.

Yes, I can.

Don’t worry. I’m not contaminated. Although I’m a little worried about how that sounds, since a contaminated person would probably say the same thing...

I used a mechanic within the ghost story.

A mechanic?

Yes.

How should I explain this?

‘I suppose... giving her the answer straight is best here.’

My fellow recruit was clearly intelligent. After some deliberation, I wrote it down without beating around the bush.

The solution to this ghost story, toward which every piece of lore pointed.

This is a school where a horror game has become reality.

<In the Black Shadows>.

The name under which this ghost story was registered on the wiki, and the title of the game responsible for everything happening in this nightmare’s Segwang Technical High School.

The clues were in the Exploration Records that uncovered pieces of lore in the faculty offices and certain classrooms.

Confiscated Items, ■■/■: Game console

When retrieved from the first-year faculty office and switched on, the console briefly displays a pixel image of a school at midnight before shutting off.

Note in the right-hand corner of the blackboard in Third Year, Class 2:

That’s supposed to be a teacher?

Notebook lying on the music room floor:

There is a small doodle in the corner.

-Why am I at school when I just woke up? (Doodle of a startled puppy) Preparing for graduation? What are you talking about? It’s May!

Notes and items like those.

If you even tracked down the classroom and seat of the student whose console had been confiscated and searched their bag, you could find an empty game case with a plot synopsis on the back...

* * *

The day before graduation.

The students who volunteered to prepare the graduation ceremony at ■■■■ High School spend the night on campus.

Of course, preparing for the ceremony is little more than an excuse, and the students enjoy the atmosphere of an overnight camping trip.

As new couples form, best friends fight, and someone’s secrets are exposed...

An announcement suddenly comes over the school PA.

[The graduation ceremony has begun.]

[The teacher is now leaving the auditorium to assign penalty points to absent students.]

A bloody graduation ceremony begins.

Can they escape this nightmare school in the dead of night unharmed??

* * *

And that naturally revealed the truth.

This ghost story was a nightmare in which that horror game had swallowed a real school, its gameplay repeating endlessly.

That was why the students never spoke.

‘The game has no voice acting.’

That was why the third-years on the fourth floor couldn’t leave their positions.

‘The main game hasn’t started yet.’

That was why... the students couldn’t move while explorers watched them.

‘... Because we’re bugs that never existed in the original game.’

That’s right.

The explorers hadn’t even entered this game as participants.

‘We aren’t even playing the game.’

They had simply been dragged in while trying to get a peek at its story through a text file downloaded from an unofficial source...

‘Whew.’

Of course, I didn’t explain all of that to my fellow recruit at length. I picked out a few suitable clues and conveyed the logic behind it.

This was the main point.

I obtained a student’s uniform in a rather unusual way and tried becoming a participant in this horror game.

And for now, it seems to have worked.

A game? Oh, this sounds like that one! That horror game where you’re trapped at school the night before White Day!

But wouldn’t becoming a participant in a game inside a ghost story be even more dangerous? Besides, you don’t know what might happen if you keep wearing that uniform for too long.

Go Youngeun’s handwriting started out looking slightly excited, but became an increasingly hurried scrawl toward the end.

It was a reasonable concern.

You’re right. If it gets dangerous, I’ll stop immediately.

I, too, intended to bolt if things didn’t go as expected.

But so far, everything had gone according to plan...

Still, this could turn out to be the clearest route to completing this ghost story that we can put in the manual.

I’ll give it a try.

After a brief silence:

Well, all right. You’re exceptionally good at handling ghost stories, Mr. Roe Deer...

“...”

Really, you have the wrong idea...

Still, I hope you won’t do anything too dangerous.

I’d like that too, but life just won’t go the way I want...

Oh, the other students might get suspicious if you stay with me like this, so I’ll get going.

Huhhh?

Please do take care of yourself!

That was her last written message.

The moment I could move again, I saw Go Youngeun already walking away down the far end of the hallway, her back turned, moving slowly.

W-wait, Youngeun...!

‘I still have something to ask you!’

Please, help me out!

I quickly chased after Go Youngeun, tapped her ever so lightly on the back, and hastily wrote a new message.

Please wait. There’s something I’d like to ask you, Ms. Mountain Goat.

It requires expertise that probably only you have out of everyone here.

Of course! Ask me anything!

Fortunately, Go Youngeun turned around and kindly answered.

Whew!

Gratefully, I hurried to write my question.

Please tell me where each organ is located in the human body.

What??

Oh. Oops.

* * *

Fortunately, Go Youngeun didn’t cut ties with me...

She simply asked me about concrete details from reality, such as office life and accounting, calmly and rigorously checking my sanity several times.

Once she was certain that I hadn’t become some utterly contaminated science-class student with a peculiar taste for dissection, she became friendly again.

All right! I’ll tell you everything I know, haha.

Thank you... Sniff.

And so I spent the time remaining in an intense exchange of questions and answers with Go Youngeun.

Thanks to her, my “preparations for clearing the ghost story” were completed in an even safer, more reliable way than I had anticipated.

Good luck.

You too. Thank you!

... Hmm.

Just in case, I added one more thing.

If you intend to stay in this dream any longer, I think it would be best to remain on the first floor if possible.

Because very soon, “In the Black Shadows” would begin in the truest sense.

“...”

And so, a few minutes after I saw Go Youngeun off...

[DING-DONG-DING-DONG]

[The graduation ceremony has begun.]

A new announcement played.

... Just as in the thirteenth Exploration Record I had written.

Exploration Record #13

Two hours and thirteen minutes elapsed on campus while wearing a Segwang Technical High School uniform.

A new school announcement, not described in previous records, plays. Its content matches the plot synopsis on the back of the game “In the Black Shadows.”

I went up to the fourth floor.

The countless third-year students who had packed its hallway...

Were all gone.

“...”

The announcement echoed through the empty fourth-floor hallway.

[The teacher is now leaving the auditorium to assign penalty points to absent students.]

The Exploration Record I had written was, word for word...

The main storyline of the horror game begins.

Coming true.

“...”

I swallowed.

First, the atmosphere inside the school changed completely.

The school that had felt utterly comfortable to me as a student was now filled with an ominous, unsettling air.

No...

I could actually hear background music...!

Classic eight-bit game music began to settle over my ears in an eerie, sharply pitched minor key.

And pop-ups, too.

Something feels strange.

Let’s find the other students before it’s too late.

‘No.’

I wasn’t going to do that.

I knew a faster route, so I braced myself, and first...

‘Hide.’

I ran to the third-year faculty office.

The standard approach was to hide in one of the lockers in here first...

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“...!!”

Again.

‘A monster!’

Reeling from the insane, ear-splitting noise, I quickly climbed inside a faculty-office locker.

The problem was that a monster was in one of the fourth-floor classrooms right beside the faculty office.

It opened the door, came hesitantly outside, and looked straight at me.

At my shadowed face behind the locker door.

‘... It looks like it’s wearing a mask.’

Frozen in place, I couldn’t move my head, and the locker door blocked too much of my view to make out which mask it was.

‘At any rate, it’s definitely one of our employees.’

But it must have collected a huge number of name tags. Their light made it almost impossible to recognize the figure as an error.

‘... Wait.’

Light?

If that stood out so much...

STEP.

“...”

There.

A sound both small and large came from upstairs.

In other words, in other words, it was the sound of something large walking with small footsteps.

STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP.

It was coming down, coming, coming this way!!

... The “teacher”!!

‘Shit.’

I was out of my mind with fear. I held my breath.

But the error was rapidly approaching my frozen figure, perhaps after my name tag as well...

‘Can’t you hear that??’

No, of course it couldn’t. It wasn’t a player!

‘Errors can’t even perceive the teacher, or be attacked by it...!’

The premise was that they couldn’t even notice the game had started.

However...

A word of caution.

In this game, one of the ways the “teacher”—the monstrous entity pursuing the players—identified students was by their name tags.

But because explorers were fundamentally errors, having a name tag or two rarely caused them to be recognized as players.

In other words, unless an explorer got particularly greedy, they wouldn’t get caught.

... For example.

By collecting an enormous number of name tags, the symbols of a player.

STEP.

I held my breath, frozen.

The error approached and grabbed the door of the locker where I was hiding.

Then pulled it op—

SLICE.

An enormous, sharp iron plate slammed down onto the masked error.

The smeared shape split apart.

THUD.

Blood splashed onto my face.

Right before me, on the other side of the locker door, an employee wearing glasses fell, split lengthwise in two.

A human body whose pixel smearing had vanished now that it had become an object—a corpse.

If an explorer, an error in the game, remains on campus until the game starts and is discovered and eliminated by the “teacher”...

‘... Oh.’

I knew that face.

The supervisor newly assigned to Team D.

They are eliminated in reality as well.

He had just died.

“...”

STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP.

The “teacher” left the faculty office.

Dragging what remained of the supervisor’s corpse across the floor.

“...!”

I clamped a hand over my mouth.

It was the first time I had watched someone assigned to my own team get sliced in half right in front of me.

‘Stay calm.’

Nothing you do now will change anything.

What you have to do from here on won’t change, either...

“...”

Kim Soleum.

Do you remember?

How the explorers used to obtain high yields before my Exploration Record?

They collected lots of items like name tags to influence the game, or endured for a long time to increase their presence.

‘Loopholes.’

Then what would a participant have to do to properly “clear” the game?

‘... Reach the ending.’

And usually, in a game, the ending comes...

After the boss fight.

“...”

The time had come.

... The time when I couldn’t afford to be a coward.

‘Let’s go.’

I took out the temporary tattoo with a tomato tree on it.

And with trembling hands, I pressed it onto my neck.