Chapter 81
Chapter 81
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 81
Chapter Title: Tomatoes and the Graduation Ceremony
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Tattoo sticker.
It was something they'd given me as a complimentary service at the [Moonlight Tattoo Shop].
-Is there a symbol in here related to courage, or perhaps the boldness to step forward without fear?
In response to that question, the tattoo artist had recommended a design of a tomato tree...
And they'd reproduced it perfectly on this sticker.
This tattoo I'm wearing on my neck right now.
"......"
In truth, it had somewhat the effect I'd hoped for.
It was like the fear center in my brain was numbed—supernatural things just weren't scary anymore.
Just like D Squad... yeah.
...Like Deputy Manager Eun Ha-je and Foreman Park Minseong from before.
I wanted to explore this horrifying supernatural phenomenon with the kind of composure where my guts felt like they'd spilled out.
But.
"...?"
I blinked inside the locker.
'No... effect at all?'
I recalled the students chasing me.
Fucking terrifying.
I thought of the crazy rabbit mascot from the theme park ghost story.
Goosebumps.
I recalled the ghost from the window ghost story, sobbing like a person while knocking on the door.
'......Scary!!'
Everything I thought of sent chills down my spine.
'N-No way it's a scam?'
Or maybe I applied the sticker wrong? I'd never used one before, so who knows.
But either way, I couldn't check right now.
"......"
Damn it.
I still had to move according to plan.
This was my chance now that the 'teacher' had vanished from the fourth floor.
'They went downstairs.'
In the end, I swallowed hard and stepped out of the locker.
...Of course, the sight ahead would be gruesome.
There'd be bloodstains and chunks from the D Squad foreman who died just before, so I braced myself and stepped out...
......
"...?"
'Tomato?'
Hold on.
I quickly left the staff room and headed up to the fifth floor.
There was...
The exact reason I'd been avoiding the fifth floor, laid out in stark clarity.
The fifth-floor walls were now plastered with pages torn from old yearbooks.
And the students in those photos were reaching out toward the outside with agonized expressions.
Behind the scraps of yearbook paper, wriggling lumps of flesh were visible.
A factor that inflicted enormous mental strain and panic on anyone entering the fifth floor.
It was less a school and more like a bizarrely twisted otherworld, blatantly on display.
Where there should have been lights, a red glow pulsed.
But...
Tomatoes.
Ha.
Hahaha!
'No, this is insane!'
Everywhere there should have been human heads, tomatoes were hanging instead!
No, they didn't exactly look inhuman.
The people in the yearbook photos? They looked human. Faces twisted in screams of agony!
But they just felt like tomatoes.
There was no need to link that sensation to fear—it was a rational voice that fully became emotion.
Yeah, exactly that kind of feeling...
Nothing at all.
'Hahaha...'
The further I walked the corridor, the older the yearbooks became, and the graduates melted into more horrific, inhuman shapes, solidified into the walls.
On the walls and ceiling, bizarre talismans and flesh lumps throbrobbed.
And the voices.
Game world-building lore.
Hearing it now wouldn't change anything.
I walked the corridor with the casualness of a street stroll—or maybe even more cheerfully.
Everything being tomatoes was kinda funny.
And at the end of the corridor, I stopped before the massive door on the right.
A neat teal iron door.
In the grotesquely transformed fifth floor, this door alone retained its original shape.
It led to the auditorium.
The stage for this game's finale.
I read the printed A4 notice.
I'm set as first-year class 5, so not a graduate, right?
'This is the kind of gimmick that opens with an item.'
And I already had it.
An item normally only obtainable in the final chapter after playing the whole game.
Of course.
Knock knock.
I pinned the nameplate ornament to my chest and knocked on the auditorium door.
Then the massive door before my eyes slid open smoothly.
"......"
Hundreds of third-years seated in hundreds of seats turned to look at me.
This year's graduates.
Half-melted into their chairs, unable to leave their seats, pouring out black ink-like tears without eyes.
But...
No emotions beyond pity welled up.
In this situation, pity was all that fit.
'They can't hurt me anyway.'
The irrational fear had been replaced by tomatoes, and I walked the path between the chairs.
Toward the massive stage opposite, draped with the graduation ceremony banner.
Step by step.
The graduates behind me turned their heads, staring expressionlessly...
I ascended the auditorium stage.
And grabbing the standing mic in the center, I shouted.
"We will begin the graduation ceremony."
As if they'd been waiting, bright and grand ceremonial background music began to flow in time with my declaration.
Graduation music came on...
That instant.
Screams swirled through the auditorium.
Like a shell peeling away, the auditorium's normal appearance shed to reveal grotesque otherworldly forms.
The horrific scenes from the fifth-floor corridor manifested.
Like a final spasm, as if desperate to ruin everything, the images assaulted me to punish the one trying to thwart it.
But I felt nothing.
All tomatoes.
And the greater danger started now.
'It's coming.'
To seat the student who arbitrarily started the graduation ceremony alone, down below the stage.
Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud
Mad footsteps climbing from below.
'Teacher's coming.'
It's fine.
'I'll finish everything before they arrive.'
I pulled a stick-shaped auto-injector from my pocket and jabbed it into my forearm.
Happy Maker.
That ultra-potent disposable painkiller let out a cutesy, artificial ding~ effect sound as the glow-in-the-dark liquid from the vial entered my bloodstream.
A comfortable, refreshing, impossibly light vitality coursed through my body along my veins.
Like magic.
'Good.'
At the same time, I popped two Nostalgia Candies into my mouth.
Right. Following dosage instructions.
Now I was in the most comfortable, perfect state imaginable.
'Whew.'
Now time was up.
Thud.
Something squeezed through the gap in the auditorium door.
The 'teacher' shoved in a hand fused with a blackboard, twisting the metal and tearing the door itself apart.
Creeeak craaack.
The door crumpled and fell away.
And the revealed form.
A massive human silhouette.
But only the outline.
Like several teachers crumpled and mashed together, forcibly shoved back into a human mold.
Arms on the head, head on the shoulder, shoulder on the knee—a flesh monster.
Entering the auditorium with strangely neat footsteps...
Thud thud thud thud thud thud
Blackboards, textbooks, student rosters, chalk, glasses, and such attached haphazardly to wrong body parts, dangling.
Seeing that thrillingly grotesque form from the opposite stage...
"......"
Only my fighting spirit bubbled up.
I had to break through that to go home and fill the Dream Essence Collector...
'Right.'
This situation called not for fear, but persistence!
The tattoo on my neck burned hot, boiling my gut, heart, and brain.
'Ah.'
Now I got it.
This tattoo sticker's effect was...
'Hype.'
Overflowing adrenaline.
The kind of hype that makes you flip your eyes and charge when you have something you want to do, a goal!
And supporting it, the sensation turning everything into tomatoes!
'I can do this.'
I boldly grabbed the auditorium mic and glared ahead.
S L A S H!
I dodged. Well, I was hit, but instead of losing my head, only half of my right hand was severed.
"......!"
I was a bit surprised, but there was no pain. No mental shock at all! It felt no different from watching a tomato get crushed.
The courage to let reason triumph over instinct. And a burning determination.
'I'll succeed no matter what.'
Did you know?
This horror game isn't action-based. While basic reflexes are necessary for the chase sequences, the core gameplay actually revolves around puzzles and deduction.
As the player progresses through the game, they acquire various abilities to use in the final chapter. To counter the teacher's attacks, they must solve puzzles and endure at the microphone until the graduation song concludes.
But as an explorer, such progression was impossible for me.
'I only borrowed a uniform. I'm not a real student.'
However.
'I can handle it like this.'
I pulled out my glass handgun and fired.
The transparent, small-caliber weapon I'd received from the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau agent worked with decent effect.
A bullet struck the teacher's shoulder, eliciting a pained scream. But it didn't seem to inflict significant damage.
'Well, it wasn't exactly top-tier equipment.'
It didn't matter.
'The goal was just to throw off its aim...!'
S L A S H!
The rusty blackboard slammed into me, severing my left foot.
"......!"
Still, I didn't move. I just stood there, clutching the microphone.
Blood gushed from my wounds, soaking the stage.
"......"
Right. With mere human strength, it was impossible to evade or overpower that monster's attacks. After all, I wasn't Chief Lizard.
But that didn't mean there was no way.
'I just have to stop caring.'
Thunk.
The rest of my right hand disappeared up to the wrist.
Unbothered, I aimed the glass-handled pistol with my left hand and fired again.
And again.
My left thigh exploded. I held on.
S L A S H!
Both legs were gone now.
'I'm out of bullets.'
I slid downward, still gripping the standing microphone.
S L A S H!
The left hand holding the pistol was severed, but I clung to the microphone stand with the rest of my body.
S L A S H!
Using my remaining left elbow, I dragged myself up the microphone stand. Blood spattered violently.
"......"
And then...
Huh?
The graduation music stopped.
'Now!'
Just as the 'teacher' raised its grotesque blackboard-hand to strike again, I shouted into the microphone.
"Congratulations on your graduation!"
......
At that moment, the auditorium filled with a pixelated holographic shower of flowers.
The monstrous teacher let out a final scream before melting away.
The grotesque shapes that had overtaken the auditorium vanished as if consumed by flames. Even the chairs that had trapped the students melted down...
"WAAAAAAHHH!"
The now-liberated third-year students exploded out of the auditorium, racing toward freedom. Tears of joy and relief streamed from their faces.
In the original 'Bad Ending', they would have all turned into the teacher's zombified minions, killing any remaining explorers...
'But this time, the ending is different.'
I looked up.
The curtains of the auditorium drew back, revealing soft yellow and red light streaming in from outside. Dawn had arrived.
"......"
A popup appeared.
So, this is the ending.
Next, an evaluation of my performance during the final chapter appeared below.
[Happy Ending 02: Graduation of Liberation]
Score: A
I checked the Dream Essence Collector. Golden liquid sparkled inside, rich and dazzling, as vibrant as during the Tuesday talk show.
'Grade A or higher.'
'I did it.'
A thrilling sense of accomplishment washed over me.
As I swallowed the last fragment of candy lingering on my tongue, my consciousness began to fade, a smile curling my lips.
Now I would wake up. No, I would return to my body lying in bed, having successfully cleared the ghost story and escaped!
'Good.'
I would drift into a restful sleep and wake up in the morning...
......
......
......
......Am I back?
Huh?
'The handbook's still inside my tattoo inventory, it seems! Should I take it out? Hold on... since when have I been hearing this voice? No, it's not that I'm hearing it... I'm the one speaking.'
......
'Since when has the handbook been in my tattoo this whole time? Why have I been casually brushing aside the teacher's intrusive thoughts, treating them as natural? Why did I suddenly feel indifferent about visiting the Fox Counseling Room after the next exploration, despite previously being concerned about side effects? Why do I now think of the eerie, incomprehensible entity I once called a "Good Friend" as my most comforting confidant? Without any inherent unease or sense of caution?'
......
'......!!!'
'No.'
'I can't allow myself to be consumed now!'
But already, my doubts were fading.
As the Nostalgia Candy's effects wore off, the present version of me was reclaiming its place.
The contamination is creeping in...!!
In the hazy sensation of floating on the edge of wakefulness, I struggled.
'Kim Soleum!!'
'Remember. Remember!! You are being contamina...'
***
"Huuuhk!"
Whoa.
"I thought I died."
I woke up drenched in cold sweat. A deep sigh of relief escaped my lips.
'Anyway, I made it.'
But at the same time, a faint chill of unease lingered, as if I'd forgotten something...
—......
—You're awake..., Friend.
......
......!!
'AAACK!'
In a panic, I bolted upright and rescued Brown from beneath my pillow, just before he was about to get squashed flat.
'That was close.'
"Sorry!"
Then, I flopped back onto the bed, arms spread wide.
Exhaustion and comfort overlapped as a grin spread across my face.
Anyway... it seems I've made it back safely!