A Hell Called School [2]

"You— you actually figured out the entry conditions for the Other Side?"

Kang In-hyuk asked, his face full of astonishment.

"Yes. It was simpler ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠than you'd think."

"Um... is it the thing I've been thinking of, by any chance?"

"Which is?"

"Well, the place that fell into the Other Side is a school, right? So maybe only people wearing school uniforms can get in..."

At Yoon Soo-ah's suggestion, Kang In-hyuk shook his head vigorously.

"Officer Yoon Soo-ah, the people who fell into the Other Side weren't just students. Teachers, administrative staff, even the school meal service workers — everyone who was at the school that day fell."

"Ah... right. Of course."

Yoon Soo-ah scratched her head, embarrassed. Just like during the Corner Man case, the woman had a certain offbeat streak to her.

"This may be late in coming, but what does the Paranormal Administration Bureau believe the entry conditions to be?"

"...Our working assumption was that spatial proximity was the most important factor."

Not a bad approach — but an answer worth fifty points out of a hundred.

"Would you take a look at this?"

"This is..."

True to form for a national institution, the dossier was far more detailed than anything Lee Ha-ram had managed to gather on her own.

The people of Seonhwa High School had fallen into the Other Side at around 9:10 a.m. on October 12th.

And what had caught my attention was a message sent by a student named Jung Seong-ho at 9:03.

"What exactly is this message supposed to tell us?"

It was the kind of message any late high schooler might fire off to a friend. Perfectly ordinary.

"The road from that pharmacy intersection this student mentioned to Seonhwa High School is currently under construction. And as it happens, construction on that road began on October 12th — the very day the school fell into the Other Side."

The road had been blocked off, so there was no conceivable way he could have reached the school by 9:10.

The problem was...

"And yet Jung Seong-ho disappeared anyway."

I pointed at Jung Seong-ho's face on the list of missing persons from Seonhwa High School.

He had fallen into the Other Side even though he was nowhere on the school grounds.

"...In other words, spatial proximity wasn't the trigger."

"Exactly. Next, take a look at this."

What I produced next was a summary of collateral anomaly damage in the vicinity of Seonhwa High School.

When a powerful anomaly manifests, its influence spawns lesser derivative anomalies around it, widening the circle of damage.

And the collateral damage record for the Seonhwa High incident was strangely thick with disappearances.

The one that caught my eye was the case of a carpenter who ran a workshop nearby and had gone missing.

"The Bureau seems to have filed it under one of the secondary anomalies, but I disagree."

"Could you explain why?"

"Take a look at this."

"This is..."

A report filed by a Seonhwa High School administrative clerk.

"The missing carpenter was most likely one of the outside workers being called in. Let's verify, shall we?"

"Y-yes, of course!"

Kang In-hyuk hurriedly called the company in question, and the result was exactly what I'd expected.

"Mr. Kim Yi-yeon, you were right! On the day Seonhwa High School fell into the Other Side, a carpenter named Park Cheol-won was scheduled to visit the school. But... as you can see from the report, that same day, while driving to the job, he simply vanished from the road — as if he'd evaporated. What on earth does that have to do with the Seonhwa High case...?"

"You don't see the common denominator between Jung Seong-ho and Park Cheol-won?"

"Common denominator?"

"On the day Seonhwa High fell into the Other Side, they were both people who were supposed to be at the school."

"Ah... AH! Then the condition for falling into the Other Side isn't the physical space of the school — it's—!"

Yoon Soo-ah grasped the meaning of my words and cried out.

The students, teachers, and staff had all fallen into the Other Side not because they were physically inside the school.

It was because, by principle, they were people who were supposed to be there that day.

This also explained the strangely high number of disappearances among the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠collateral damage.

After all — hadn't you sometimes seen adults strolling or exercising on school playgrounds in the evening?

And Seonhwa High, being a private school, even had grass laid down on its athletic field.

It would have been the perfect place to come work out.

'Which, of course, is exactly what's been feeding the damage now.'

"Check with the families of the missing who were tallied as collateral damage. Most of them will be people who came to exercise on the school grounds in the evenings."

"B-but... doesn't that still mean there's no way to get into the Other Side at all?"

"The Paranormal Administration Bureau is a national agency, isn't it? There are any number of ways."

Kang In-hyuk, who had been listening quietly to my explanation, spoke up.

"Hmm. If the condition is truly 'people who should have been at the school that day,' then drafting official documents backdated to the date of the incident and sending people in under the pretext of, say, a Ministry of Education audit would..."

For a team leader, the man's head worked better than I'd given him credit for.

Having organized his thoughts, Kang In-hyuk raised his head and extended a hand.

"Thank you for your cooperation. Thanks to you, we can at least avoid the worst-case scenario of someone tearing down the boundary of the Other Side."

"I get paid for this work. I have to deliver value for the money."

My creed, unchanged then and now.

Regardless, Kang In-hyuk heaped flowery praise upon my performance.

"There's no need for humility. When Deva tried to drag the President into this, my heart nearly stopped. What you've accomplished, Mr. Kim Dosa, is far too great to be compensated with a handful of money. Which is why..."

And having apparently decided he'd laid down enough groundwork, he came to the point.

"...Mr. Kim Yi-yeon, would you perhaps be interested in joining the assault on the Seonhwa High Other Side?"

"I'll decline."

He was welcome for the flattery, but I had no intention of getting cozy with the Paranormal Administration Bureau.

Above all — did he really expect me to charge blindly into an Other Side that had swallowed an entire high school, without knowing what was inside?

I'm not exactly a genius, but I'm not an idiot either.

"A shame..."

I tossed a small bait toward Kang In-hyuk, who clicked his tongue in disappointment.

"By the way, does the Bureau have any means of staying in contact with the people going into the Other Side?"

"Yes. We plan to use a copy of the spirit-realm communicator held in the Bureau's storage. There are only two in the country, so getting authorization will be something of an ordeal."

"Oh ho?"

Apparently that "spirit-realm communicator" was a device capable of reaching across into the Other Side.

"Then it seems my work here is done. Good luck."

Tap-tap.

I rapped the floor twice with the tips of my toes and stepped out of the temporary headquarters tent.

"W-wait, just a moment!"

Yoon Soo-ah hurried out after me.

"Is there something you need?"

"Um... have we met somewhere before? Before all this?"

"...We met at Yoon Chang-sik's mansion."

"No, not then! I mean even earlier than that... I feel like we've met before..."

"You must be imagining it."

I left without giving her another chance to speak.

'Damn it. She recognized ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me after all, didn't she?'

Even blind in both eyes and deaf in one ear, a week spent side by side is bound to leave an impression.

No matter how curt I acted, if we kept crossing paths, she might eventually realize that Kim Ji-woo was me.

'I'll have to avoid running into Yoon Soo-ah from now on, whatever it takes.'

Imagine it: I go to all this trouble playing the mysterious master of the occult, and it comes out that I'm a rookie psychic with no backing who's been in the game for less than a month.

'I'd be getting jerked around by every faction in existence.'

That much, at least, I had to avoid.

"Next up, then..."

Far from the Bureau's temporary headquarters, I could see a tent that had only just been erected.

That would be Deva's forward operations base, presumably.

And this wasn't a hunch — it was a certainty.

Because from inside that tent, I felt the most overwhelming power of any psychic I'd encountered so far.

At present, there was exactly one psychic at Seonhwa High who outranked Kang In-hyuk.

A Deva executive — the one planning to leverage the President's backing and seize control of this operation. Faye Merlion.

"Figures a private outfit would outclass a state-run one."

As I approached the Deva tent, two burly men blocked my path.

I wrinkled my nose at the stench wafting off them.

"State your business."

"This is Deva property—"

I reached into my coat for the Post-it talisman hidden there.

"Let me through."

But before I could draw the talisman, a woman's voice drifted from inside the tent.

The men, without so much as a reply, parted to let me pass, their faces utterly blank.

"Excuse me, then."

Stepping inside, I found a space far larger and far more comfortable than the tent's exterior had suggested.

"The Other Side?"

"My, please don't compare it to something so vulgar."

The interior, expanded beyond its true dimensions, held a large and garish sofa, and upon it sprawled a dusky-skinned beauty like a cat in repose.

As our eyes met, Faye Merlion greeted me warmly.

So friendly it was, frankly, chilling.

"A pleasure, Kim Dosa. I'm Faye Merlion, an executive of Deva."

"Kim Dosa. You already know of me, I see."

"Heh. Giselle and Miss Shin Han-hee made quite the fuss. 'A mysterious master has appeared — we must recruit them into Deva at all costs'..."

Those big-mouthed bastards...

"So, the famed Kim Dosa. What brings you here?"

"...Information, for sale. Or call it an exchange, if you like."

"Oh ho?"

Faye Merlion straightened up and sat properly on the sofa.

"Might I ask what kind of information?"

"The entry conditions for the Seonhwa High Other Side."

"Hmm... interesting. Then do you also know this? Deva's purpose is to dismantle the Other Side itself."

"...To reveal the existence of anomalies and psychics to the world?"

"My, what a quick mind you have."

I'd more or less anticipated as much.

"I hate to disappoint, but I already sold the entry information to the Paranormal Administration Bureau."

In other words: if Deva didn't want to lose the negotiation, they'd have to buy it from me. Pressure, wordlessly delivered.

"Well, that's troublesome~."

Faye Merlion said it playfully, curling her lips into a sly smile.

"So what would you want in exchange? Money, as expected?"

"...I want information on the anomaly that swallowed Seonhwa High."

"Hmm..."

I couldn't be certain, but there was a high probability Deva already possessed intel on the entity. If they didn't have even that much, they never would have dared propose the extreme option of breaching the Other Side's boundary.

"Very well. That much makes for a fair trade."

After a moment's consideration, Faye Merlion readily agreed to the deal.

"The anomaly that swallowed Seonhwa High is presumed to be built on a school ghost story, with some far more powerful entity layered on top."

"A powerful entity?"

"A yokai, a demon — or perhaps an aged vengeful spirit. The classification is unknown, but an anomaly that devoured hundreds of people could hardly have been born from a mere school rumor alone."

"...Could I see that list of Seonhwa High's ghost stories?"

"As much as you like."

Faye Merlion handed over the list of Seonhwa High's ghost stories without hesitation.

The trade had gone more smoothly than expected.

"...Well then, I'll be off."

"Oh? You're not going to share that information with me, I take it?"

"Playing innocent right to the end, huh."

I swept my hand through the empty air.

Gotcha.

Something like an invisible lump of flesh landed in my grip.

Once caught, it revealed itself: a bizarre creature — a human ear with bat's wings.

Squish.

I crushed the thing without ceremony.

"Ow..."

Blood trickled from Faye Merlion's right ear.

"That was wasteful of you... Do you have any idea how much labor goes into creating a single Igwi — an Ear Ghost?"

This Ear Ghost had been planted in the Bureau's temporary headquarters.

Once I'd deduced the entry conditions for the Other Side, it had begun tailing me.

Which, naturally, meant my entire deduction had gone straight into Faye Merlion's ear.

The real reason I'd sought her out at all — the woman I'd never intended to meet — was this Ear Ghost.

"Consider this your payment for everything you eavesdropped on."

"My, how generous of you."

"But I'd advise you not to try it again. From that point on, I'll treat it as hostile action."

"Ooh, scary. Though aren't you being a bit of a busybody? If I may offer one excuse that isn't quite an excuse: we had a fair idea of the entry conditions ourselves. Your deduction merely confirmed it."

"A peeping tom who talks a lot, I see."

"One must clear up misunderstandings. Hmm... since it's come to this, I'll be honest — the whole 'dismantle the Other Side' plan was an overreach, a bargaining chip meant to lower the Bureau's defenses. We're not quite that reckless."

"A ladder strategy, then? So what's the real objective?"

"Hehehe. You catch on fast — I like that. Our true goal was to extract certain concessions from the Bureau in exchange for revealing the entry conditions."

"Concessions..."

I had no idea what Deva's desired concessions might be...

'The "concessions" Deva wanted, converted into my money for free? You wish, human.'

"Well, I suppose we'll have to change strategy. By the way, Mr. Kim Dosa — any interest in joining Deva?"

"...Sorry. I work better alone."

"A pity. But don't forget: Deva's door is always open to exceptional psychics."

Faye Merlion said so with a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

"...Then let me offer one piece of advice before I go."

"Oh?"

"Isn't it poor taste to station dead men as doormen? This is a school, not a graveyard."

"Hm? AH, AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Magnificent! You're the first person to see through my jiangshi on sight!"

Leaving Faye Merlion behind in a fit of roaring laughter, I stepped out of the tent.

Outside the entrance, the jiangshi — still playing at being human — stood guarding the flaps.

"Not an easy opponent, that one."

I opened my hand. It was soaked through with sweat.

Cold sweat.

That woman was no half-baked psychic like Giselle Breed or Shin Han-hee.

Lowballing it, she was my equal. Possibly a step beyond.

'And here I'd thought training had made me pretty damn strong...'

Apparently Deva was something far more than a simple psychic union.

"Now then, let's have a listen to how the other side is doing."

I left the school grounds and settled into a nearby café.

Then, through the ear I'd planted with the Heaven-Ear Voice Transmission Technique, I eavesdropped on the goings-on at the Bureau's temporary headquarters.

The Heaven-Ear Voice Transmission Technique was a spell that planted a conjured ear to overhear conversations — one of the techniques I'd only recently learned.

What Faye Merlion had meant by "aren't you being a busybody" was, of course, this.

'A useful technique, but it has one small flaw: I can only plant two ears, and for every ear planted, I lose hearing in one of my own...'

The reason I'd been so slow to react whenever Faye Merlion addressed me was the blocked ear.

'Honestly, I'd have liked to plant one in that Merlion woman's tent too...'

But her opponent-read was too sharp, and I'd aborted mid-attempt.

Vrrrrmmm.

I collected my ordered vanilla latte and kept monitoring headquarters through the planted ear.

Thankfully, my information had prevented the worst outcome — the Bureau tearing down the Other Side's boundary to force entry.

Though judging by Faye Merlion's words, that too had merely been a negotiating feint...

'...And how much can I really trust the word "feint" coming from her?'

Anyway, Faye Merlion hadn't been the least bit rattled, since she'd already eavesdropped on everything through her Ear Ghost.

In the end, after negotiation, the two factions reached an accord: a joint team drawn from both the Bureau and Deva would enter the Other Side.

Suppression Team 2 from the Bureau; hand-picked elite psychics from Deva, chosen by Faye Merlion herself.

The assembled roster was then dispatched, in the Ministry of Education's name, as student teachers for the same time slot as the day of the incident.

Granted, it was brute-force paperwork that steamrolled every procedure in existence — but it was more than enough to satisfy the Other Side's entry rule.

And that was the end of it.

Suppression Team 2, dispatched by the Bureau, was annihilated without ever managing to leave the staff room where they'd first dropped in.

The surviving Deva sorcerers scattered to the winds.

An utter disaster.

'Good thing I stayed out of it.'

I downed the vanilla latte in one shot and headed back toward the school.

And I found myself thinking.

'In an environment where the Bureau's suppression team was wiped out in seconds — how has SIGISIGI survived for over a week?'

Suppression Team 2 had been elites, armed with both modern firepower and sorcerous force.

So how had a mere student like SIGISIGI survived in a place where they'd been annihilated within ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠roughly ten minutes of arrival?

Then I remembered something the team's radio had broadcast.

"Presumed to be transformed teachers and staff!"

"Teachers and staff... and students — the rules apply differently to each?"

It was possible.

Suppression Team 2 and Deva's elites had both entered the Other Side as student teachers.

"...Does everyone who isn't a student turn into a monster?"

As with the Corner Man, strong psychic power can override the rules and the narrative compulsion to some degree.

The problem is that it burns through that much more psychic energy in exchange.

If that was the cause of Suppression Team 2 and Deva's psychics deteriorating, everything fit.

In other words...

"Anyone who wants to avoid the transformation force has to enter the Other Side as a student."

That bit of information should prove quite useful to the next assault team.

But as I was walking back to the school with that thought, a strange sensation seized my body and began pulling at it.

A sensation I'd already felt several times before.

The sensation of being dragged into the Other Side.

"What!?"

The epicenter was the school.

The anomaly that had swallowed the students and staff of Seonhwa High was surging again.

'Because new people were being inserted from outside? Or was there some other trigger I missed!?'

The surging anomaly had exactly one purpose.

To swallow new prey.

'It's rewriting the entry conditions!'

Getting out was already off the table.

Because I was now, as of today, someone who visited Seonhwa High School.

Which meant that, at the very least, I had to fall in with student status.

Ignoring the panicked people sensing the anomaly's rampage, I sprinted into the school building.

Then I ducked into the nearest classroom.

Seonhwa High had been preserved exactly as it was on the day of the incident.

On the teacher's desk sat a class roster — it seemed roll call had been moments away when everything happened.

"Analog relics like this keep vanishing these days, and yet this thing survived. Lucky me."

Fortune had smiled.

I hastily wrote my name into the student roster.

Because the roster had been sitting right there in the classroom, I'd bought myself a sliver of breathing room.

And in that stolen moment, I wrote several more names into the student roster as well.

Thud.

A fan tumbled off the teacher's desk and rolled across the floor.

Kim Yi-yeon was nowhere to be seen in the classroom.

And Kim Yi-yeon was not the only one who had vanished.

The police officers, the Bureau personnel, and even Deva's psychics on the school grounds — every one of them disappeared in an instant, as if they'd evaporated.

The anomaly that had consumed nearly all 412 souls beyond the original students and staff of Seonhwa High had pushed its new prey down into the pit of its stomach.