GDCG c280

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Chapter 280

I looked at the student.

A teenager with bleached hair and piercings.

Inside this high school ghost story—one that could only be entered through dreams on the night of the new moon—a being that killed people when unseen and froze when observed.

And yet, if you figured out the method, it was something that could communicate with intelligence and emotion ….

'A person.'

High school students—citizens trapped within Segwang Special City.

My head spun.

Then that meant… every single one of those entities that died miserably every new moon, at the hands of Daydream Inc. employees and Disaster Management Bureau agents….

'.......'

I placed a hand over my uniform.

The state I was in—contaminated by Segwang Technical High School—didn’t allow overwhelming terror. Instead, I remained trapped in a strange rigidity, unable to break out of a certain frame.

Unless anger was triggered, I stayed in a fundamentally hollow state.

It was fortunate. 

That this dizziness was dulled. 

And that I could continue asking questions. 

How are you moving right now?

Everyone else is lying on the floor

But then—

It’s because of you

Because of me?

Yeah

The ill-tempered student glanced at me, frowned, and wrote on the paper.

You moved me into the infirmary

After that, even when it’s not the graduation ceremony

I wake up

'...!'

I had moved this classmate onto an empty infirmary bed and let them receive treatment.

And I had borrowed their uniform….

'That affected it.'

Was it because this wasn’t a mechanic that existed in the original 'Within the Black Shadow' game?

Or because the intruding error had been formally registered as a student, creating a gap?

…Wait. 

Are you the only one who can move?

Maybe there were more

But right now, it’s just me 

There were gaps

between the students lying on the floor 

Were those the spots where the ones who could move used to be? 

Maybe 

Sometimes there’s graffiti left by students 

in the library

Names and stuff 

After the graduation ceremony starts

have you ever seen those students?

The rough-looking classmate wrote calmly.

No

When the ceremony starts 

those ones are in the auditorium as corpses 

'......'

They had been consumed by Hanbit Library. 

Those who couldn’t leave the library wandered endlessly, searching for clues that didn’t exist—until they broke some wrong rule. And then… all of them.

A sharp pain stabbed my chest.

A strange ache, like a close friend had been brutally murdered. As if sharing hatred. As if urging aggression.

The collective mourning of Segwang Technical High School’s students.

'No.'

I steadied myself, forcing a breath, and asked another question.

Why did this school become like this?

Don’t know

If I did, I wouldn't be like this

Even suspicions are fine

Anything strange

Before this happened

weren’t there any signs?

Don’t know

I just came to school the day before the graduation ceremony

And then… I don’t know

I just fell asleep during class

Then suddenly it’s night

And the ceremony starts

And the teacher turned into a monster

kills everyone

And it just keeps repeating

The classmate’s eyes had sunk into darkness.

A calmness—almost boredom, almost resignation—so deep it didn’t match their rebellious appearance.

Anyway

I’ll forget all of this when the ceremony starts again

…….

You don’t remember anything at all?

I remember being trapped here

And that it repeats

That's it

The student pressed the pencil harder into the paper.

So, transfer student

Just leave

Their gaze shifted to the book I was holding.

<Masterpiece Horror Short Stories of the 2000s>.

Looks like you found that book too

No matter how much you read it, nothing changes

Something that changes.

…….

Wait.

Do you know that I handled

the last graduation ceremony differently?

I killed the teacher

What?

Think carefully

After the ceremony where I appeared

was there any other change?

The student’s pupils widened slightly.

As if comparing past ceremonies.

As if recalling something.

Then—

There was

'...!'

The teacher leaves the auditorium faster

The teacher.

—To penalize students who did not attend, the teacher is now departing from the auditorium.

A monster formed from the upper bodies and organs of all the teachers in the school. A vengeful spirit straight out of the final stage of a horror game.

That thing… was appearing faster?

'That’s not a good sign.'

I swallowed.

And…

And?

This might just be coincidence

But after that

it never came into the infirmary again

'...!!'

'The teacher doesn’t enter the infirmary.'

And the infirmary… was the only place with a window leading to the backyard.]

'.......'

Wait.

Does that teacher

have something like a paper slip?

A paper slip?

Like a library checkout card!

It’s torn in half

and has something like a talisman drawn on it

I’ve never checked

The classmate met my eyes.

If you want

we can check right now

The teachers are around the auditorium

…….

Let’s do it

Please

Alright

Follow me

And then, the classmate rose from the infirmary floor—

Thud.

A black silhouette subdued the classmate.

'…!'

I reflexively moved to attack the silhouette—then realized.

'It’s the wolf team leader.'

Right.

The wolf team leader… looked like a black silhouette.

Like a shadow.

Unlike when seeing explorers who had entered the school through errors on the night of the new moon, I didn’t feel disgust or violent impulses rising.

Just—something foreign.

Dangerous.

Something from the outside.

Something impossible to communicate with ….

'So that’s why they tried to run.'

No—running was the natural reaction.

Suppressing my instinct to recoil from the black shape presumed to be the wolf team leader, I unfolded the paper containing our conversation and showed it to him.

Then I added a line.

We plan to investigate around the auditorium.

It is a dangerous area

Please exercise caution.

Then, the silhouette restraining the classmate disappeared.

'Phew.'

As the classmate walked out of the infirmary, I followed behind—and behind me, the black silhouette trailed us….

'.......'

We slowly climbed the stairs toward the fifth floor.

Upon reaching the fourth floor, there were many empty spaces between the third-year students laid out across the ground.

The classmate stepped forward as if used to it, but I endured the sharp pain in my chest and moved toward the stairs again. To the fifth floor.

And then—

[Oh my.] 

The moment I stepped onto the fifth floor,

I understood why the classmate had referred to them as “teachers.”

[Quite… aesthetic.]

What was arranged across the fifth-floor floor were not students.

Adults.

And in this school, there was only one kind of being that took on the appearance of adults.

Teachers.

…Teachers.

And they were nothing like the intact forms of the students.

'.......'

Melted upper bodies and exposed organs.

Faces half dissolved, or shriveled dry—bodies that could not possibly be alive—grotesque human forms lying neatly across the floor with their eyes open….

As if they had been separated and stored from a mass of “teachers.”

Among them were ones reduced to meaningless fragments—just a piece of flesh, a single eye, a clump of hair, or a mass of organs.

…As a student of Segwang Technical High School, instead of nausea, fear and sorrow surged within me.

Do they ever wake up?

No

They don’t even fall off the floor

And then I noticed.

'They’re holding hands ….'

The bodies that still had hands were all tightly clasping one another.

As if resisting something.

'.......'

The fifth floor, like before, was covered in flesh and talismans—but the flesh had lost all vitality, dried into something like the throat of a mummy.

The talismans…

As I looked at their shapes, I became certain.

'It’s that talisman.'

The shattered glass lantern buried in the backyard. The torn half of the talisman there.

It was as if its complete form had been projected here.

I reached toward one of the talismans.

If there had been a properly trained Disaster Management Bureau agent, they might have been able to read its meaning. But I could only finally recognize its full shape.

A mutated Chinese character written in brushstroke.

護

Protection.

[Hm. Doesn’t that look like a familiar character, Mr. Roe Deer?]

……!

I remembered.

—Something that had been covering my body spilled onto the floor.

—They were transparent beads that looked like they could be loaded into a glass lantern.

—So this is the final-stage clear reward of the game!

Glass beads engraved with the same character.

The moment I killed the teacher, completed the graduation ceremony, and cleared 'Within the Black Shadow' with an A-rank—

The reward items scattered across my bed when I woke up.

'......'

That meant—

'They really were meant to be loaded into the glass lantern …!'

They had to be possessions of the agents who buried the glass lantern here to protect the students. At the very least, they were connected.

And the fact that they were given as rewards to someone who cleared this ghost story “by saving the students,” and brought outside…

…….

'Could they be necessary for rescuing the students?'

I had to confirm it.

I needed to get out and talk to the agents.

'Of course, first priority is gathering all possible clues and escaping.'

Steadying my breath, I surveyed the fifth floor once more while forming a plan.

And then I saw it.

'…… that.'

At the far end of the dim fifth floor—

The auditorium doors.

In front of those massive double doors—shut tight and smeared with handprints and bloodstains—something was hanging.

Arms stretched unnaturally by flesh.

A grotesque torso with only its upper half remaining.

'It’s not a student.'

The clothing was clearly not a uniform.

But from this distance, I couldn’t make out the details….

Could that be a teacher too?

Don’t know

We can’t go in to check

We can’t go in?

Thinking it might just be unease, I cautiously stepped forward, trying to place my foot on the dried flesh of the fifth floor.

But at that moment—

'...!'

An overwhelming repulsion rebounded through my body.

'What—'

I immediately realized the source.

'…The talismans.'

The talismans plastered all over the fifth-floor walls were preventing students from approaching.

'.......'

I stepped back. 

I don’t see any paper slips

on the teachers

The rough-looking classmate glanced toward the far end of the fifth floor and scribbled quickly.

If that thing over there is a teacher

then during the ceremony

we can check—

Then they hesitated.

As if they had once again realized that once the graduation ceremony began, they wouldn’t remember this moment—starting from when the 'Within the Black Shadow' ghost story activated.

Carefully, I replied.

Then can you write it on your palm?

My palm?

Yeah

If you write it there

maybe it’ll still be there when you wake up during the ceremony

The classmate looked down at their palm.

It might bother you enough

that you check it once?

Yeah

The classmate agreed surprisingly quickly.

They even seemed slightly excited—but that expression quickly faded.

As if they didn’t want to hold onto hope.

'.......'

Then, indifferently, they wrote on the paper.

You’re not really a transfer student, are you?

That’s right.

Why did you come to our school?

The question felt as though all expectations had been abandoned—yet there was still something faintly lingering within it.

A trace of awareness that I might say I came to rescue them.

'.......'

Honestly, I don’t know

I just kind of ended up here

through a dream

I could feel the incredulous stare.

Still

I’ll try to figure out why this happened

and do whatever I can

to put an end to it

As an honorary Segwang student, I tapped the uniform I was wearing.

You lent me this, after all

For a moment, the classmate let out a silent, deflating laugh.

Do whatever you want

Then they asked.

Come to think of it

what’s your name?

…….

In a ghost story, revealing your real name was against the rules.

But—

'At Segwang Technical High School, you have to write your name when you enter anyway.'

And building trust with a student who could remain awake like this would be important in uncovering the truth.

So I wrote it down.

Kim Soleum

That’s a weird name

What’s yours?

You saw my name tag

Lee Gyeol

Class 1-4

Alright

Lee Gyeol, nice to meet you

And just like that, I formally introduced myself to Lee Gyeol.

***

After returning to the infirmary,

I pushed the contamination I had drawn out back into the heart tattoo, returning to my original form.

"Phew."

Even if I look like a black silhouette like that…

can I still keep communicating through writing like this?

As if answering yes to that question, the student stared at me expressionlessly—but didn’t attack or run away.

And the wolf team leader had returned from a black silhouette back to his normal form.

"I read everything. You asked calmly and well. So it seems that on the night of the new moon, a special condition occurs within this darkness. Care to explain?"

"……Yes."

I gave him a reasonably detailed explanation about Segwang Technical High School.

But what caught his attention the most was probably this—

The fact that I had suddenly transformed into a resident of a high school ghost story.

"Interesting method. You’re using contamination, aren’t you?"

"......"

"I figured our company would evolve in that direction eventually."

The eyes behind the wolf mask scanned me.

Then he stroked his chin.

"Still, it’s progress compared to now. Right now, it’s basically a chicken race."

"…Whether you become contaminated before obtaining a Wish Ticket, or obtain the Wish Ticket first. Is that what you mean?"

"Exactly. Clever, Employee Dragon."

A smile curved beneath the wolf mask.

"Of course, those with some skill manage it privately within those limits."

"......"

Including himself, most likely.

"Alright. Shall we head back to the library? That student seems to know the way—if we ask for guidance, escaping should be easier."

"……Yes."

I asked Lee Gyeol how to get to another section of the library.

More precisely, how to reach the section where <Masterpiece Horror Short Stories of the 2000s> was located.

Come this way

Fortunately, he guided us willingly. Following him, we realized we could exit into another section of Hanbit Library through the school’s library….

"Pretty intuitive method, isn’t it?"

"……Yes."

And then, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.

What is the wolf team leader’s wish?

He was someone who clearly understood Wish Tickets—enough to call it a “chicken race.” If I asked now, I might get an answer….

But asking him that felt, for some reason, like a breach of respect toward the head of security.

So I kept my mouth shut and continued walking.

And at last, we returned to where we had started.

The tangled corridors of bookshelves, now knotted three times over.

The section of Hanbit Library where <Masterpiece Horror Short Stories of the 2000s> was placed.

And just as I bent down to check the empty space where the book should be—

"Now, let’s return the book—"

My voice stopped.

"Shh."

“...!”

The wolf team leader grabbed me and, in an instant, pulled me around the corner of the shelf, hiding behind it.

…He traced letters onto my back with his finger.

—Another entity is coming.

“…!"

And then—

From the opposite corner, someone began to emerge.

“.....!!”

I stared blankly at the figure. It was—

"This place… has the most yarn……."

The head of security.

And—

Good job

The Golden Mascot.

It was me.

 

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