Chapter 79
Chapter 79
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 79
Chapter Title: Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story, I Have to Go to Work
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My added Exploration Record #13.
-If you acquire and wear the school uniform in the proper way, you will be treated as a student.
In truth, it was quite a radical addition.
After all, it was a choice that could potentially alter the flavor of the existing ghost story if mishandled.
A school ghost story.
A monster that only moves when no one is looking.
'Beneath the Black Shadow' was a classic 'terror of the pursued' themed ghost story, remixing those two clichés.
The nightmare of familiar, everyday places and people turning into incomprehensible monstrosities that chase you relentlessly until they kill you.
But once the Exploration Records pile up past #10, they start building subtle layers.
'It adds the fun of vividly imagining the world's backstory.'
Clues like that get layered on bit by bit.
After 12 rounds of just accumulation—and since this ghost story was pretty popular—it felt like it would keep 'just accumulating' indefinitely.
'That starts to feel frustrating.'
It's hard to maintain the theme of fear from informational voids.
But here's the thing.
'If you can explore as an insider student, you get the thrill of collecting all those clues...!'
The 13th Exploration Record I added perfectly matched what the ghost story creators wanted.
And so, the 'Beneath the Black Shadow' ghost story reached a new turning point.
From the mid-to-late Exploration Records onward, all the eerie backstory clues scattered throughout get collected, revealing shocking twists.
The latter half fills up with deeper, more story-heavy Exploration Records...
It was a truly wondrous indirect experience.
Watching the seed I planted grow into a bigger, newer story through everyone else's participation.
'But to actually experience it myself.'
Yeah.
Right now, I was planning to experience the punchline of that story a bit earlier.
'Let's go.'
I walked the dark hallway on the third floor of Sekwang Industrial High School in the guise of a student.
In the distance, 'monsters' gripped by terror slowly vanished around the corridor corners...
The urge to chase surged up fiercely, then faded.
'Whew.'
Playing the role of a student within the school felt strangely comfortable.
Like I was standing where I belonged.
Which made the revulsion and destructive impulse even stronger when witnessing these alien 'monsters' wandering the school.
Especially.
The moment I first heard that announcement, my heart plummeted.
A stinging sadness and chilling emptiness.
And the duty to find the cause of the accident!
I wanted to dash out into the school, now bright as daylight, and gladly eliminate the source of this error before 'observing silence'...
'I'm not a student.'
I couldn't forget that.
Kim Sol-eum had a lot to do.
First, I needed to head to the fourth floor. I stepped onto the stairs...
'Ah.'
Huh?
The classroom for my Class 1-5 is on the second floor.
No reason to go up to the third floor.
A popup thought floated up.
"......"
That's why the students have the setting of 'not straying far from their floors.'
Of course, it's not unbeatable. I'm just borrowing the uniform; I'm not actually a student here.
'Whew.'
I moved my feet again.
One step, one step.
Long before the dazzling 'light of silence' filling the hallway faded, I reached the fourth floor.
That place where bulbs were shattered and flickering, dark and dim.
The fourth floor where dozens of students had stood frozen like mannequins, staring at people.
Now... it was lively.
"...!"
The students were now exchanging lively glances and gestures, silently chatting with each other.
I bit my tongue to avoid making any sound.
Students of Sekwang Industrial High School have no voices.
If you speak out loud while just borrowing the uniform, ■■■ ■■■■.
You wake up from the dream, regaining consciousness.
Who knew I'd be bound by the very lines I wrote.
I walked through the students who glanced at me curiously then looked away indifferently, or gave an awkward smile when our eyes met.
Don't look awkward...
'Naturally...'
I passed the corner of the hallway and stopped right before the stairs near the third-year staff room.
There was a small iron door.
A leftover space in a typical school for storing cleaning supplies and such.
And right in front of it, five or six students were gathered, sitting in a tight formation that no one without a Sekwang Industrial High uniform could approach...
'Now I can enter.'
I stepped inside.
The students looked at me with puzzled expressions.
Why has a first-year come all the way up here?
It was as if they were saying that. I pulled out an A4 sheet from the nurse's office and slowly wrote.
Seniors told me to get a ladder from the storage.
Can I take one out?
One student smiled, took my pen, and replied.
OK lol
Jingle.
I looked up, and another student was already dangling a keyring in front of me.
I took the ring.
And used the key marked '4th Floor Storage' to open the storage door and enter...
A place only students could access.
Creeeak.
A flash of light stabbed my eyes through the door crack.
Because items inside the storage were sparkling everywhere, as if radiating their presence.
Just like the nameplate Jang Heo-un gave me.
'My god.'
I'd expected it, but it was even more bizarre than imagined. After carefully closing the storage door, I reached straight for the items...
Seemed like I couldn't take them yet.
Ignoring the popup thought once more, I pushed through the glittering assortment—buckets, mops, small whiteboards, etc.—and rummaged in the back...
And finally found what I was looking for.
"......"
It was a decorative brooch.
A slightly amateurish handmade one, made by coating thick paper.
I pocketed the shiniest 'Nameplate Decoration' securely.
'Good.'
Now I had the essential item to 'clear' this ghost story.
After that, I visited various places only students could access, confirming nothing deviated from the Exploration Records I knew.
Like checking out books from the library or tapping a few piano keys in the music room...
'One wrong move, and dying quick to wake up is better.'
But fortunately, everything matched.
'...Alright.'
In this process, I absolutely did not go up to the fifth floor, where the auditorium preparing for the 'graduation ceremony' was.
It wasn't time yet.
'Wonder when the alert will come.'
I steadied my tense breathing and waited slowly...
That's when it happened.
A colossal roar assaulted my ears.
"...!"
Is this what a glitch turning into sound feels like?
Like hundreds scraping blackboards with nails—this insane noise!!
I knew what it was.
'...The monsters!'
It was clearly the voices of the explorers who looked like glitched monsters to me!
Whatever they were chattering about downstairs, the massive noise hammered my ears—no, my brain.
An enormous impulse wrapped around my body.
'That's why they prioritize tracking noisy people first!'
At least wanted to silence the sound...
'...! Calm down, calm down...'
Instead of rushing down the stairs uncontrollably, I suppressed the impulse for a few seconds as much as possible.
'Go now.'
Only after sufficiently calming down did I move, checking the monsters at the far end of the fourth-floor hallway.
The monsters were confronting students.
No, it was almost over. The students were pinned immobile on the floor.
But not all the monsters had retired.
'Damn.'
I prepared.
The sole surviving monster, unscathed.
It looked at the student sprawled on the floor...
Then turned to me.
It froze me.
......
I looked at the monster that had frozen me from afar. A horrific silhouette with a pixel-smeared, melting face.
But one difference from the others.
'It's wearing a mask.'
And the shape of that mask...
A mountain goat!
'...Go Yeongeun!'
"Whoa."
I'm the only one left.
Go Yeongeun caught her breath, leaning against the hallway wall.
In front of her was (probably) the last student on this third floor, sprawled immobile.
Seemed still alive, but she had no desire to kill it.
'Killing it would just cause a blackout and summon more... sigh.'
The civilian companions who'd been with her were already all dead.
'At least the last three made it out with nameplates...'
According to the company manual, you could live normally in reality even if you died here, but it bugged her that the Dream Essence Collector's solution only filled upon acquiring a 'nameplate.'
'...Something's there.'
Go Yeongeun had given up a bit on scraping together nameplates for a high-grade clear, casually mentioning them to her group so they'd share.
And those people had just died.
'Whew...'
Whether from growing accustomed to these gory slaughter scenes, monsters, and ghosts after working at the company, she wasn't overwhelmed.
She'd handled cadaver dissections fine in anatomy class anyway, so she'd always been tough.
'Good thing they're not really dead...'
She could even think that fairly calmly now.
'...Time to head upstairs.'
The moment Go Yeongeun judged she'd caught her breath enough to move.
Flicker.
"...!!"
From the end of the hallway.
Another student appeared.
Tall stature, school uniform worn in a somewhat delinquent style—a Sekwang Industrial High student.
'Ha.'
Wow...
Can't take anymore!
'Just go.'
She figured surviving this long would be fine for her performance review.
Go Yeongeun felt like ripping off the ultra-bright headlamp strapped to her head amid her exhaustion.
Just prepare to wake from this shitty nightmare...
Flicker.
...Huh?
'W-Wait a sec.'
Under the dark lights, the student's features faintly appeared.
A cool, composed, neat impression.
"...Deer?"
It's Kim Sol-eum.
She wondered if it was just a similar-looking student, but even slightly younger-looking than usual, it was definitely him.
It was him.
A chill ran up Go Yeongeun's spine.
'W-Wait...!'
What the hell was this situation?
No way! Does satisfying certain conditions in this ghost story 'corrupt' you into one of those student monsters...?
"Ah......"
Having worked for months and learned about ghost story corruption, terror flooded her...
But the next moment, she resolved herself.
'Let's check.'
If she woke up now and something was really wrong, she'd hate herself for running midway.
'Dying here and waking from the dream is fine anyway.'
She strained not to blink both eyes at once as she approached the hallway.
The frozen student's appearance only grew more certainly Kim Sol-eum the closer she got...
'...No rabbit doll either.'
Not seeing the stuffed doll keychain he always carried—whether it had a story or not—Go Yeongeun felt some bittersweet, gloomy emotion as she advanced further.
Flicker.
The light flickered, but her headlamp handled it.
'A bit more.'
Get closer.
But.
Thud.
Suddenly, a flash like lightning stabbed Go Yeongeun's eyes.
"...!!"
Her vision blanked temporarily.
The cause: a flashlight in Kim Sol-eum's hand.
Set on a timer to burst after a few seconds.
To temporarily blind approaching foes.
Go Yeongeun couldn't identify the exact item, but grasped the situation and was stunned.
'Set it up in advance...?!'
It was a trap.
She felt a dizzying shock, but quickly composed herself.
'Can't be helped.'
Just regretting not grasping exactly what bizarre event this was.
But she wouldn't dwell long. Those monsters were insanely fast.
The next instant, she'd die...
"......??"
Not dead?
No pain, no floating sensation of waking.
...Perfectly fine!
'What?'
Adapting to the flash's aftereffects, Go Yeongeun looked up at the 'student' in confusion, freezing him.
......
Kim Sol-eum, wearing Sekwang Industrial High's uniform, wasn't looking at Go Yeongeun.
Instead, he stared at the floor.
'The floor?'
Go Yeongeun stepped back slightly to see both him and the floor...
"...!"
Words appeared on the floor.
An A4 sheet placed there sometime, with writing on it.