Chapter 276
Chapter 276
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 276
Chapter Title: Midnight Station (Hanbit Library)
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Segwang Industrial High School.
A high school within a bizarre horror game that you enter by falling asleep on a night with a full moon.
I figured its name must be connected to Segwang Special City somehow.
But I didn't expect to run into it quite this soon.
"...Should we go?"
"Yes."
We got off the train first.
The platform was clean and cool, with no bizarre phenomena immediately visible.
There was only one peculiar thing.
Segwang Polytechnic Graduation Ceremony
4th Exit →
This A4 sheet of paper stuck to the platform pillar.
A printed notice.
The problem was that this one A4 sheet wasn't alone.
2nd Exit Escalator Under Construction. Please Use Another Exit.
Hydrant Water Supply Notice
Train Malfunction / G155■
If You've Lost a Cat Wallet, Please Come to the Station Office
A4 sheets and sticky notes were plastered all over the pillars and walls.
Too neat and informational to be advertisements, written in various handwriting and formats for different reasons.
Printed directives.
The wiki updates.
...Cryptic, as expected from a ghost story.
But.
"At least there's no description about anyone dying horribly."
"Yes."
The team seemed slightly relieved after hearing the 'info on this station' I relayed.
"The part about 'bestowing knowledge and information' feels a bit iffy... Getting info from the darkness isn't always a good thing. Hmm."
"If it doesn't feel creepy, it's not a ghost story, Deputy Manager."
"True, Badger's got a point."
We're a project team formed based on Hoyu-won's goal of grasping Segwang Special City's situation in the first place, so we might find something useful here in various ways.
And besides.
"There's another advantage."
"Hm?"
"The entry fee seems to be free."
"...!"
Ghost stories are usually influenced by their original concepts, and the same goes for the rules...
"Right. A public library wouldn't charge money."
"Yes."
We climbed the platform stairs.
Having already gone through a forest with corpses hanging like nooses and a casino that took body parts.
The two security team members had already heard the related stories, so no one had high expectations for what the concourse above the stairs might look like.
'Maybe a subway facility wallpapered with A4 sheets.'
But the moment we stepped forward, tense and on guard...
"...!"
...we were met with an unexpected sight.
"...A cave?"
From the top of the stairs extended a small cave lined with countless bookshelves.
'My god.'
It was like something out of a classic fantasy novel illustration.
An artificial cave made of bookshelves.
Though the materials were from a 21st-century library.
Bookshelves of synthetic materials, processed wood, and aluminum interlocked like puzzle pieces to form the cave.
'From different shelves...?'
Small mood lights cast red, warm glows on the stacks here and there, while densely packed books filled the walls of the rectangular passage, casting shadows and darkness...
Bookshelves reaching all the way to the ceiling!
Exactly.
Looking back at the realistic facilities below the platform only heightened the sense of dissonance.
"Hold position."
Manager Lee Jaheon, with a rope tied around him, advanced into the bookshelf cave, turned a corner...
and walked back out unscathed.
"No traps detected."
"Phew."
We decided to enter.
Instead of a rope, we tied thread to the railing at the end of the passage and slowly unspooled it as we went in.
Those with Field Exploration Team masks put them on side by side, just in case.
And...
"I brought yours too."
"...Yes!"
Deputy Manager Eun Ha-je smiled and handed a Field Exploration Team mask to Foreman Park Minseong.
Foreman Park responded in a slightly hoarse voice, took the mask, and put it on.
The familiar Badger mask.
It tugged at my heartstrings somehow...
'But then...'
I turned to the one person without a mask.
"It's fine... This..."
The security captain refused the identification-lowering mask from Manager Lee Jaheon and instead pulled out a worn dental mask to cover his face.
'...'
Anyway, with preparations complete, we began entering the 'library cave'...
"Just in case, let's communicate based on pen and paper first."
"Libraries are usually quiet, right?"
"Yes."
The group, equipped with pens and paper, moved silently.
I brought up the rear, slowly unspooling the thread to mark our way back while advancing.
Thud, thud...
The path through the stacks twisted around corners and continued.
Forks sometimes appeared, but they were often openings too small for us to pass through.
-Shall we make a rule to always go right?
-Yes.
Manager Lee Jaheon even positioned himself to block the group near those ambush-prone small holes.
We pressed on like that—advancing, stopping, scanning the surroundings.
In the midst of it, the only anomaly I noted was one thing.
Through a small gap between the dense bookshelves, where no books were...
A window.
"...!"
I carefully checked it out.
Outside the window was pitch black.
Nothing visible, like the dead of night where you couldn't see an inch ahead. Like a cloudy night without a single streetlight.
But one lone light source visible beyond.
Segwang Industrial High School
The nameplate at the high school main gate.
Oddly visible.
I strained for a moment to peer past my reflection into the dark outside, but soon stopped.
Because Manager Lee Jaheon had grabbed the back of my neck from behind.
"..."
-Stop.
Yep.
Right. In a ghost story, excessive curiosity is madness.
'Unless I want to collect another bad ending.'
Even if I wake up in reality no matter how I die, going missing is game over. Not something the research team would enjoy.
So I gave the group a brief report and kept moving.
...With lingering unease in my mind.
"..."
"..."
But no other anomalies appeared.
No signs, no floor indicators, not even exit markings.
'...How vast is this place?'
An endless expanse that made you lose your sense of reality, filling you with dread and overwhelm.
A stuffy haziness like a strange dream.
And then.
-Why aren't there any library rules or anything?
We'd been exploring for at least 40 minutes since starting, yet there were no signs at all. Suspiciously so.
Not even bloodstained shelves or book spines with warped letters.
Just the endless cave of impossibly ceiling-high fitted bookshelves, defying physics.
-Badger, you take one for the team and touch a book.
-Joking, right, Deputy Manager?
-Of course.
Yeah. Can't just go wild either.
At least it was fortunate that Foreman Park Minseong, past the initial tension, confusion, and excitement, now showed an almost familiar demeanor.
However...
'...Just like back in D Squad.'
As if unconsciously ignoring that he's security team in reality, Foreman Park was acting exactly like he did in the old D Squad days.
Like returning to the past.
'...'
The security captain was nagging at me for no reason.
I kept checking on the security captain, who was walking slowly while staring at the floor, and nearly bumped into him.
Phew.
But the security captain was still looking down.
'...!'
-Is there something on the floor?
"..."
The security captain slowly scrawled in messy handwriting.
-Seems like it.
I reflexively ducked my head.
In the dark passage, faintly visible between the shadows of bookshelves and books, scanning the floor path...
There was a strange pattern.
"...!"
I tapped the group's shoulders to say wait a moment, then hurriedly shifted nearby books aside to fully reveal and check the pattern on the floor.
Revealed in the mood light and shadows...