Walking Into Hell #1
I stared at Yu Da-hui in disbelief. “The second floor? You can’t get to the second floor. The stairs are blocked by some kind of transparent barrier.”
Yu Da-hui looked at me like I’d lost my mind when I said I wanted to head up there. I met her gaze and asked, “Da-hui. Do you trust me?”
“Yeah. I do.”
She nodded without the slightest hesitation or doubt. It was the kind of easy certainty you’d show toward a longtime friend or lover. Suddenly, I was curious. Why did Yu Da-hui trust me this much? Why would she hand over her own escape talisman without a second thought? Was it just because I’d found her cat, Snow White? Could something that small really be enough? Or was there something about me that she knew and I didn’t?
In the end, her unwavering faith made me want to test it. If the suspicious girl named Yu Da-hui became my true ally, there would be nothing more reassuring.
“Da-hui, listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you. And you can never, ever repeat any of this to anyone else. The truth is… I have a mysterious ability just like you.”
“…A mysterious ability?”
“It means I can enter this Nightmare Corridor whenever I want, the same as you.”
“……!”
Yu Da-hui’s eyes widened in shock. “Whenever you want? I get dragged in here whether I like it or not.”
So that was it. Just as I suspected. It seemed Yu Da-hui was something like a fixed irregular player who was pulled into the Nightmare Corridor every time it opened.
I couldn’t help asking, “Why? Why does that happen to you?”
“I… don’t really know. But my grandfather says he loves me because of this constitution. He wants me to find a special object somewhere in this corridor.”
“A special object? Like that luxury bag?”
“No. I don’t even know if it’s an object at all. He just said that if I obtain it… I can make any wish come true. That’s why everyone wants to come into this corridor.”
There were actually people who wanted to enter this ghost-infested hallway? They had to be completely insane. I wouldn’t come here even if someone paid me. Still, I finally understood why Hong Miri had been so ecstatic about becoming a player in this place. So at the end of the corridor there was some kind of treasure that granted wishes like a magic lamp.
According to Hong Miri, the shaman ghost and the hair ghost were guardians. Maybe they were protecting that very treasure.
“Yeong-won… if you really can enter this corridor whenever you want, that’s incredible. And obviously you should keep it a secret. It could put your life in danger.”
As expected of a Class 1-A student from the special class, she caught on quickly. She even shared information I hadn’t known. I should have been honest with her from the start. The only reason I hadn’t was because I lacked the confidence to fully trust her—until I saw her willing to sacrifice herself for me. Even now, there was no absolute guarantee I could trust her completely. But I simply wanted to believe in her.
The same went for Jeong Seok and Yang Ju-hui. I chose to trust them. It was a kind of faith.
Anyway, I explained everything to Yu Da-hui. It took quite a while. Finally, I gave her a brief summary of what had happened today—including the fight between Hong Miri and Kwon Su-ho, and everything I’d learned from them.
“If I fail to escape and end up forgetting everything that happened today, make sure you tell me about this conversation.”
Telling her the truth was my insurance policy. A backup plan in case my gamble failed and I lost all my memories.
“For now, let’s head back to 1-4 and come up with a plan.”
Jingle—jingle—.
That was when the sound of bells began.
“Da-hui, we should probably hide.”
I opened the map. There was a snack shop nearby. So the old building’s snack shop was on the first floor of the main building. We tried to slip inside, but the moment we approached we discovered the entire shop was covered in thick, pitch-black hair.
The hair ghost, Gu Hye-na, was lurking inside.
“…….”
We were screwed. The only place we could hide was already occupied by the hair ghost? That bitch Gu Hye-na! Fine, she died tragically, but why did she have to become a ghost and cause so much trouble?! If Yang Ju-hui were here, she would’ve sliced us some breathing room with her box cutter.
Jingle—jingle—.
The bell sounds grew closer. Soon the shaman ghost’s candlelight flickered into view. Da-hui and I crouched in the hallway, holding our breath.
Jingle—jingle—.
The shaman ghost finally brushed past us, then slowly turned its head in our direction.
“Here she is, here she is, here here hee hee hee hee hee hee!”
Fuck, how did it know? Was it the smell of all the blood on me?
“Kyaaaak!”
I screamed in pure terror. Right away, Da-hui charged at the shaman ghost.
“Yeong-won! Run!”
Thud!
Yu Da-hui’s desperate body slam. The shaman ghost staggered, but then it grabbed her and began frantically rubbing its fingers across her face. Its hand suddenly plunged straight into her left eye socket.
Squelch—!
“Kyaaaaaaaah!”
Yu Da-hui’s scream echoed as the shaman ghost ripped out her eye and shoved it into its own hollow eye socket.
“Kee hee hee hee hee hee! Found it, found it, found it, found it!”
The shaman ghost now had one working eye.
“It fits perfectly!”
I could only stare in horror. Wasn’t Yu Da-hui supposed to be the shaman ghost’s daughter?! What kind of insane mother rips out her own daughter’s eyeball?! Or maybe the shaman ghost wasn’t Yu In-na after all!
One thing was certain—if we stayed like this, Yu Da-hui was going to die.
“Da-hui! Escape! Tear the talisman! Rip it and get out of here!”
“B-but… Yeong-won, you’ll be left… alone…”
“I’ll be fine! I’ll figure something out! Just escape! If you die here it’ll be a disaster! You’ll turn into a high school girl ghost! I can’t handle that! Get out of here, Da-hui!”
My heart felt like it was being torn apart as I shouted. Maybe my desperation got through to her, because Yu Da-hui finally tore the talisman clutched tightly in her hand.
Srrrrr—.
Her body crumbled away like dust. Now only the shaman ghost, the hair ghost, and I remained.
Regret was already crashing over me.
The shaman ghost rolled its single eye and stared at me. Its torn mouth and long protruding tongue looked so horrifying that I nearly pissed myself.
“You give it to meeee!”
The shaman ghost finally lunged at me. With nothing left to lose, I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“Yu In-na! Yu In-na! Take this! The ring! The engagement ring you matched with Kang Ba-da! The jewel toy ring!”
What I pulled from my pocket was the jewel toy ring my mother had given me. The shaman ghost, who had been charging at me like a madwoman, suddenly froze mid-step. Slowly, it reached out and took the ring from my palm with its bony fingers.
“…Found it. The ring I lost… my treasure…”
Just as I thought! The ring belonged to the bell girl! So this was what the bell girl had been searching for!
This was the moment the shaman ghost’s true identity became clear. The woman I had vaguely suspected—Yu In-na—was indeed the shaman ghost!
Now what would happen?
I watched with a hint of expectation when the bell girl’s body began to crumble away like dust.
Clink.
All that remained was the bell she had been carrying.
“Oh. Free loot.”
I was happy to have defeated the shaman woman and gained an item. But there was a problem.
“Yu In-na Yu In-na Yu In-na Yu In-na Yu In-na Yu In-na Yu In-na Yu In-na—”
The insane hair ghost had begun moving on its own.
Roll roll roll—.
“You fucking bitch! This is cheating!”
Why?! I hadn’t even stepped on any hair! The hair ghost was rolling straight toward me! Why?!
I held back the piss that threatened to escape and desperately searched for a logical reason. Everything had cause and effect. Maybe because the shaman ghost had been purified and disappeared, this hair ghost had gone into some kind of berserk state?
I didn’t know! Fuck! The important thing was that if I stayed here, I might get brutally murdered by the hair ghost.
“Fuck this!”
I really, really didn’t want to die. I was a coward. Even if this was a nightmare, dying here might cause me to have a real heart attack and die in reality. I was dead serious—I could absolutely die of a heart attack.
Run first! I’d think of a plan while running!
Then it hit me.
“Status Window!”
I still had the Mercenary Group! Even though my ultimate skill, Placebo Dinosaur Ghost, was gone, I had other ghosts!
1. The Curse That Turns You Into a Ghost After Three Answers
2. Death Game
3. Speak of the Devil and He Shall Appear
4. Elevator of Death
5. Fan Ghost Story
6. Headless Rider
Out of these… the one that could help me most right now was obviously—!
“Headless Rider!”
I dispatched Gu Hye-na’s body as a mercenary. Now what would happen?!
While I was running like crazy with that thought in mind, I began to feel an eerie presence coming from the dark hallway of 1-4 up ahead. It was a headless torso. The headless body and the bodiless head were finally meeting.
Now what the hell was going to happen?!
My heart was pounding like it was broken. I clutched it and watched as the body of Gu Hye-na that I’d picked up from the Gaeryong Mountain lodge slowly reached out and grabbed the hair ghost!
And then the hair ghost’s hair began to slither into the gaping hole in Gu Hye-na’s neck. It looked like they were fusing. The head gained a body, and the body gained a head. Perfect unity.
Soon the hair ghost’s cracked eyes, which had been twitching erratically, turned to look at me. It opened its mouth and spoke.
“That feels much better.”
The fusion of the hair ghost and the torso ghost had resulted in the birth of a real high school girl ghost.
It was absurd, but it was actually happening right before my eyes.
“Who are you?”
The high school girl ghost, Gu Hye-na, asked me. Her voice was slightly cold. Arrogant. She didn’t seem openly hostile, but there was no telling when the high school girl ghost might suddenly lose her shit and attack me. As someone who had grown up as a lackey to the school bullies, I decided to fully display the groveling, harmless attitude I had cultivated.
“I’m… Ha Yeong-won.”
“Never heard that name. More importantly, why is it so dark in here?”
Flick.
I lit my lighter. The visual of the high school girl ghost Gu Hye-na was so shocking that my legs nearly gave out.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
…You’re not even human anymore. If I said that out loud, the ghost version of Gu Hye-na might go berserk and kill me, so I kept my mouth shut.
Soon she asked, “Hey. Isn’t that my bag? Why are you carrying my bag?”
“…Ah. This. I picked it up on the way. I’ll give it back to you.”
I handed her the luxury bag. Gu Hye-na let out a soft laugh.
“This is the first bag I bought with my own money. I thought I’d never see it again.”
She was speaking more normally than I expected…? I felt a little braver.
“Um… you’re Hye-na, right…?”
“And?”
“Do you remember what happened? Why you’re here, or…”
“Hmm…”
Gu Hye-na frowned. It was genuinely terrifying.
“I don’t know.”
You don’t know? Does she not even realize she died and became a ghost?
Gu Hye-na continued, “But why have you been staring at me with those eyes this whole time? Why do you keep looking at me like that? Why! Why! Why why! Why!”
“Uwaaaaah!”
I swear I’m not lying—I jumped nearly three meters high. No one in the world could have stayed calm when a high school girl ghost suddenly went crazy, her eyes turning pure white as she screamed with her mouth wide open.
Then Gu Hye-na burst out laughing.
“Hey! I was kidding. I actually know everything. I died and became a ghost, right? It felt like I was half-asleep in a dream, but I remember clearly. It was so uncomfortable not having a body. Sigh. I feel so much better now. The back of my head was itchy but I couldn’t scratch it—”