Corridor Strategy #2
I hadn't invited Yu Da-hui into the corridor. But there she was, standing inside the Nightmare Corridor. And she was shouting at us to get out of 1-4 right now.
Having turned so many crises into opportunities before, I understood exactly what this situation meant. Yu Da-hui's true identity. It was probably…
“Da-hui. Yu Da-hui. I’ve got a favor to ask. Can you come inside Class 4 for a second?”
I invited her into the classroom to confirm her identity once and for all. Ghosts couldn’t enter this room—it was covered in talismans. If Yu Da-hui was a ghost, she wouldn’t be able to step inside either.
The sharp-minded Jeong Seok seemed to catch on to my train of thought and added, “That’s right! Yu Da-hui! Hurry up and come in here!”
“Come in! Come in!”
“…You guys, this isn’t the time to be messing around in there! You need to get out of that place right now!”
We were trying to lure Yu Da-hui inside while she was desperately trying to get us out of the classroom. The meaning of this standoff was painfully clear.
“The third ghost’s identity was Yu Da-hui all along! The reason no one had ever seen the ghost that killed everyone it met was because the person telling the story was the third ghost!”
Yu Da-hui’s identity. She was undoubtedly the third ghost that appeared in the corridor—the ??? Ghost! The third ghost was a female high school ghost!
“Yu Da-hui, how could you trick us like this?! I trusted you! I actually trusted you! You evil bitch!”
“G-get away from me!”
Both Jeong Seok and I screamed at her, pouring every ounce of rage and terror we felt at having been deceived all this time.
Please just leave! If Yu Da-hui stayed right outside Class 4, we couldn’t run away! If she kept guarding the door, we’d be trapped like rats!
“…….”
At that moment, Yu Da-hui glanced around. Then, as if she’d noticed something or spotted whatever she was looking for, she suddenly spun around and dashed off.
“She’s gone!”
“Yeong-won! We drove the ghost away!”
Just as Jeong Seok and I were hugging each other and jumping around in celebration, the clear sound of bells rang out.
Clink. Clink.
Jeong Seok’s body went rigid. “Hey… that sound…”
“Yeah. It’s the shaman ghost we met during the feng shui ghost event.”
Clink.Clink.
Something was approaching from the far end of the corridor, shaking a bundle of bells in one hand. In the other hand it held a lit candle, so its figure was clearly visible. It was a woman wearing colorful traditional robes. Even from a distance, her face looked grotesque, and her tongue hung unnaturally long.
“Ugh, fuck, that’s terrifying.”
Clatter. I quickly slid the classroom door shut. I knew the shaman ghost couldn’t enter 1-4, but better safe than sorry.
Clink-clink. The sound of the bells grew closer. Soon the distance had shrunk enough that we could hear the shaman ghost’s creepy muttering.
“Where are you I can’t see I can’t see where are you I can’t see I can’t see where where where.”
It still sounded like it was searching for something. What on earth was the shaman ghost looking for?
While I was thinking that, Jeong Seok, who had hidden under a desk, whispered curiously, “Yeong-won. Yu Da-hui just ran off somewhere, right? Didn’t it look like she was specifically running away from this shaman ghost? I thought ghosts didn’t hurt each other?”
Now that he mentioned it, Yu Da-hui’s behavior really had looked like she’d known the shaman ghost was coming from far away and had cleared out on purpose. I didn’t know what that meant, but the important thing right now was to get rid of the shaman ghost and regroup with Yang Ju-hui.
Clatter.
That was when the door to 1-4 opened.
A chill shot up my spine and my breath caught in my throat.
“It’s here it’s here it’s here it’s here.”
The shaman ghost had opened the door to 1-4…? Weren’t ghosts supposed to be unable to enter 1-4? Yu Da-hui hadn’t been able to come in earlier either!
While I was panicking—
Jingle. Jingle.
The shaman ghost stepped into the classroom of 1-4, one bell-ringing step at a time.
Jeong Seok and I must have had the exact same thought at that moment.
We’re fucked.
We both crouched under separate desks. We held our breath, covered our mouths and noses, and stayed perfectly still so not even the tiniest sound would escape.
Jingle. Jingle.
“Where are you it’s here where it’s here can’t see can’t see it’s dark come out quickly.”
Shuffle. Shuffle.
The shaman ghost circled the classroom on sock-covered feet. I had no idea how it could avoid bumping into desks and chairs when it clearly couldn’t see.
Jingle. Jingle.
The shaman ghost finally passed right by the desk I was hiding under. The electric jolt of goosebumps racing from my tailbone to the top of my head nearly made me dizzy. It was the feeling of barely escaping death.
The one saving grace was that, just as we’d predicted, the shaman ghost really couldn’t see.
Please just leave like this—
That was what I was thinking when something changed.
“Ugh.”
A stench so powerful it made me want to vomit suddenly assaulted my nose. It was exactly like what had happened near the talisman-covered lockers and trash cans earlier.
I desperately held back the urge to gag. The problem was Jeong Seok. He had grown up as a rich young master and had zero tolerance for this kind of smell.
“Uweeegh!”
Jeong Seok finally couldn’t take it anymore and let out a loud retch.
At that exact moment—
Jingle—!
The bell rang sharply. The shaman ghost, which had been walking as if about to leave the classroom, whipped its shoulders around. It looked straight at Jeong Seok and smiled with that horrifying face.
“Foooouuuund yooooouuuuuuu! Kihihihihihihi! Hihihihihihihi!”
It was an utterly terrifying scene. A woman with her mouth ripped open all the way to her ears, tongue lolling out, charging straight at Jeong Seok.
Jeong Seok was so startled he fell backward with a loud thud. If things stayed like this, I had no idea what would happen to him.
I… had to make a decision.
“Hey! Hey! Hey! Over here! Here! You shaman bitch! You fucking crazy bitch! I’m right here! Waaaaagh! Waaaaagh!”
I jumped up from my hiding spot and deliberately made as much noise as possible. I slammed desks and screamed at the top of my lungs. Honestly, I was terrified. It felt like my heart might stop any second, but thanks to my new trait Strong Heart, I somehow held on.
“Why the hell did you kill yourself at school and become a ghost, you massive pain in the ass?! Aaaaaagh!”
Jinglejinglejingle—!
“Kihihihihihihi! Hihihihihihihi!”
The shaman ghost started running toward me, mouth stretched open impossibly wide. The tear in its mouth was so huge it looked like it could swallow my entire head in one bite. How could a woman with no eyes run this fast?!
I ran too. If I stopped for even a moment, it would catch me, and I didn’t want to imagine what would happen after that. One thing was certain—if I stopped, I was dead!
“Uwaaaaagh! Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”
I screamed my lungs out while desperately trying not to piss my pants. Right now I was basically a walking siren.
Of course, there was a reason I was screaming like this.
“Hey! What the hell?! What’s going on?! That’s you, Ha Yeong-won, isn’t it?! What’s happening?!”
Yang Ju-hui! Yang Ju-hui had appeared from the other end of the corridor! The sight of her holding a lighter’s flame was nothing short of pure light! I finally understood how the people of Gondor felt when they saw Rohan’s cavalry!
“Ju-hui! Help me! Help! Stab it with the knife! Shove that knife into the shaman bitch!!!”
I’d screamed on purpose not only to pull the shaman ghost’s aggro away from Jeong Seok, but also to lure Yang Ju-hui over. I figured that if she heard me, she’d definitely come running!
“You… you… you fucking bitch!”
Thudthudthudthud—
Yang Ju-hui sprinted toward me, then immediately charged the shaman ghost and slammed her cutter knife straight into its face!
Jingle—!
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh——!!!!”
The shaman ghost screamed in rage and pain, clutching its face.
“Nice! Ju-hui, well done! Let’s go! Hurry! Grab Jeong Seok and let’s get out of here!”
When Yang Ju-hui had stabbed the elevator head ghost earlier, the ghost had been incapacitated by pain for roughly twenty seconds. We had to use those twenty seconds to retrieve Jeong Seok and run to the safest place possible.
Of course, now that 1-4 was ruined by that stench, I wasn’t sure where a “safe place” even was anymore!
“Hey! Jeong Seok! You there?!”
“Y-yeah!”
Jeong Seok had barely made it out of the vicinity of 1-4 before collapsing. He was a total super coward. But for us, that was actually lucky! If he had run too far, regrouping would have been difficult!
Flutter—!
After Jeong Seok joined us, I used the light from Yang Ju-hui’s lighter as a light source and unfolded the map. We needed to find a place to hide first!
“The staff room! There’s a staff room!”
Jeong Seok pointed at the staff room marked on the map. But from what I remembered, the staff room was locked.
“The staff room is locked!”
“Locked? Then nearby… the broadcast room! There’s a broadcast room!”
Thanks to Jeong Seok quickly reading the map, we were able to set a new destination.
###
Luckily, the broadcast room wasn’t locked. It had various soundproofing setups, so the moment we closed the door, the surroundings felt momentarily quiet.
Riiiiing riiiiing riiiiing—!
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”
But from outside we could still hear the maddening sound of bells and a woman’s screams. The muttering that had sounded like it was searching for something had, after taking Yang Ju-hui’s Knife Stab, turned into nothing but screams full of malice, hatred, and murderous intent.
If we got caught… we’d be fucked.
“Ha Yeong-won. I took a look at the map. It seems the parts with red lines drawn on this map indicate locked doors. The staff room has a red door, right? This broadcast room has a blue door.”
“Oh. Now that you mention it.”
He hadn’t been any help at all when we actually encountered ghosts, but when it came to planning operations or analyzing situations, Jeong Seok was incredibly useful—almost like he was flying. So this map let us know in advance which places were locked and which were open. The map was fucking amazing!
From now on I needed to send Class President Jeong So-jin into the corridor more often and have her fetch even better items!
“Haa…”
My legs gave out and I collapsed onto the floor of the broadcast room. Yang Ju-hui soon asked, “Hey. What the hell happened?”
“We don’t know the full details either. A ghost got into 1-4. Before that, Yu Da-hui was there.”
I gave her a brief explanation of the situation. Yang Ju-hui got extremely angry.
“That fucking Yu Da-hui bitch! She was a ghost?! I knew something was off about her!”
So Yu Da-hui really had been a ghost… That was an important revelation, but there was something even more important.
Why had the shaman ghost been able to enter 1-4, and why had that stench started spreading? That was what mattered most to me.
“…Maybe the talismans aren’t actually a barrier?”
I had imagined that when ghosts saw talismans, they’d go “Tsk, a barrier?” and stay away. But the shaman ghost had just walked straight into 1-4, which was full of them.
Jeong Seok said, “Yeong-won. Maybe it’s similar to the Faint Perfume you had before. Perhaps the talismans reduce our presence as much as possible? They don’t completely hide us.”
So the talismans didn’t block ghosts—they only hid our presence while we were near them. I had thought having talismans made us invincible, so I’d shouted loudly inside 1-4 to call Yang Ju-hui over. As a result, I’d pulled the shaman ghost’s aggro and the talismans had become useless.
It was a plausible theory.
“When a ghost is nearby, the talismans seem to emit a stench. Like that trash can we hid in before. So it would’ve been better not to let any ghosts into 1-4 from the start.”
Jeong Seok reached that conclusion. I agreed with him and felt like I had done something incredibly stupid. Because I’d believed the talismans made us invincible, I’d done something idiotic and lost our only safe zone.
“…Then did Yu Da-hui already know about this? Is that why she kept trying to get us to come outside?”
I recalled the moment Yu Da-hui had shouted that we needed to get out of 1-4. What if her actions hadn’t been an attempt to lure us out to kill us, but rather an effort to help us because she knew this would happen?
Ah—I didn’t know anymore.
Just then, Yang Ju-hui, who had been rummaging around the room as usual, seemed to find something.
“Hey. You guys. Have you seen something like this before?”
Where she was pointing, there was a large hole. A hole drilled into the floor. A hole leading underground. Its size—just by coincidence or perhaps by fate—was just big enough for one person to fit through.