The Aunt From Hell #1

The system message flashed before my eyes.

Another message followed immediately.

The settlement had started. A sharp metallic clatter rang out like countless coins spilling across a table, and lines of text floated up in front of me like an ending credit scroll.

Whoa! Holy shit!

I’d been feeling pretty down just moments ago, but that melancholy was completely washed away. I felt refreshed, almost euphoric. Three hundred and ten points!

Thanks to the Broken Clock trait, I had been scraping together a measly two points a day. Now I’d earned three hundred and ten in one go. Normally it would have taken me a hundred and fifty-five days to reach that amount. It felt like I’d just won the lottery and become rich overnight.

Hell yeah. This is what life is all about!

Since I had opened the shop not long ago, there were tons of things I could do with these points. I should head straight to the shop and go on a shopping spree. That was exactly what I was thinking when another unfamiliar message appeared, as if the settlement still wasn’t finished.

Acquiring a Quirk after death. It seemed that some kind of anomaly occurred to those who died inside the Nightmare Corridor. In this strange situation, seeing Yang Ju-hui’s name listed among them left me deeply confused.

Did Yang Ju-hui actually die…?

I wanted to ask what had happened, but Yang Ju-hui herself didn’t seem to remember anything about the corridor at all.

“Hey, who’s that girlfriend you said you dumped? Is she from our school? She’s gotta be ugly, right?”

“……”

“Alright, alright, let’s start class. Everyone take your seats. Class president Sojin… ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I mean, ahem. Shall we have the vice president, Jeong Seok, lead the greeting and begin today’s lesson? Seok-ah, go ahead.”

The middle-aged, balding math teacher for first period had entered the classroom. Yang Ju-hui couldn’t keep pestering me anymore and finally shut her mouth.

I was curious about what exactly a Quirk was, so I decided to use today’s Advice function.

“Advice.”

Die.

The word made my whole body tremble. So if you died in the Nightmare Corridor, you gained a Quirk, and if that process repeated, you would eventually die in the real world too. Could the fact that everyone except me had lost their memories be related to survival and death?

If I had died as well, I might have lost my memories and gained a Quirk. Once I reached that conclusion, my next course of action after earning those points became crystal clear.

Clink.

That was a relief. If I ever gained a Quirk, I could immediately spend 100 P at the Treatment Center to cure it. It seemed wise to stockpile as many points as possible.

More importantly… what was going to happen to that “Nightmare Corridor” that had given me so many points?

I opened my status window and checked.

Oh, I can go again. I wasn’t sure whether I should be happy or terrified about that.

The existence of a matching cooldown made it feel like a dungeon with time and date restrictions on entry.

“Hey!!!! Apologize right now!!!!”

In the middle of a boring math class, a girl’s sharp voice cut through the air like a dagger. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned their heads. Jeong Sojin had shot up from her seat like some kind of warrior and was glaring at her deskmate, Ahn Young-mi.

“Ahn Young-mi, you just said I smelled! You said I smelled like night flowers! Apologize right now!”

“W-what? What are you talking about, Sojin? Why are you acting like this all of a sudden? Night flowers? What night flowers? What did I even say…? You’re scaring me…”

What the hell was going on?

The classroom began to buzz with whispers. Jeong Sojin, unable to contain her rage any longer, spun around and stormed out of the room.

I tapped on Jeong Sojin’s name in the Quirk settlement window to check the result.

Paranoia. The tendency to arbitrarily imagine that others are trying to harm you. It suddenly made perfect sense why Jeong Sojin had acted that way.

What about the others? I had just finished checking Kim Geon-ho’s Quirk and was about to look at Yang Ju-hui’s when—

Creak.

The classroom door opened again. I thought Jeong Sojin had come back already, but the person standing in the doorway wasn’t a fresh-faced girl in a school uniform. It was a rather old, fierce-looking middle-aged woman.

“Who’s that?”

“Who is she?”

With all the strange events happening during class, I was quite startled too. The woman wearing a white dress had a face twisted with such ferocious anger that she looked like a ghost.

Looking closer, she was gripping a pair of scissors in her hand—stained with something dark, ominous, and filthy.

“Uh… isn’t that the lady who was handing out flyers in front of the school yesterday?”

“The Glory Church lady? The one who keeps telling everyone to come to church?”

“What’s with the scissors?!”

The church lady strode boldly into the classroom and headed straight toward me.

What? Why is she coming this way? What the hell is this?

For a brief moment I wondered in terror if I still hadn’t escaped the nightmare—

“You fucking bitch! You lost your damn mind and spent the night with a boy?! You worthless slut! You demonic whore! Get over here right now!”

“Kyaaah!”

Yang Ju-hui screamed. The woman had grabbed a fistful of her long yellow hair and was dragging her out of the room as if she were about to topple over.

“L-let go! Let go and talk to me! Outside! Let go! Aaaah!”

“You demon-possessed bitch! You filthy whore! You need to repent before the Lord! Let’s go! While we’re at it, we’re cutting off your phone and the internet completely. We’ll shave your head bald too! You demonic whore!”

“Ah! Just go outside first, please!”

“How dare you speak to your mother like that?! It really is a demon from Satan. In the name of the Lord, I command you, evil demon, depart! In the name of Jesus, I command you, Satan’s demon, depart!”

The commotion was so loud it echoed down the hallway. Even the young English teacher from the neighboring class came over to stare at the spectacle.

“Hmm… Should we call the police, math teacher?”

“No, no. The school atmosphere is already chaotic because of the missing persons case at the start of the semester. Let’s handle this internally for now…”

“What’s going on? What is it?”

Students from other classes had all gathered to watch the chaos. I felt so embarrassed I wanted to cover my ears and scream at the top of my lungs.

###

“Wasn’t Yang Ju-hui’s family supposed to be rich? This is creepy.”

“She never talked about her home life at all. She wouldn’t even let anyone visit.”

“Totally busted. No wonder she only used cheap shoes and cosmetics.”

It was after school, once seventh period had ended. The students were still gossiping nonstop about everything that had happened that morning. About someone staying out all night. About Jeong Sojin causing a scene in the middle of class. And about the outrageous behavior of Yang Ju-hui and her violent mother.

Honestly, every single thing was shocking. It was hard to believe it had all happened in just one day.

“Wow, so that cult bitch was acting all high and mighty this whole time? What a fucking joke.”

“I heard the girls from Class C are already sharpening their knives to stomp on Yang Ju-hui. I’m gonna go watch. I’m pretty close with Jiyeon from Class C, you know.”

“She got on Bong Jiyeon’s bad side? Yang Ju-hui is seriously screwed. I should go record it too.”

First-year high school students were neither children nor adults. That unstable middle ground often made it hard for them to recognize any lines that should not be crossed. And in a trash school like Yeongji High, the bottom-feeders were even worse.

Kim Young-ho. Lee Jin-seong. Park In-bae. Those lackeys of Kim Geon-ho—I’d have to throw them into the Nightmare Corridor later.

It wasn’t that I had some strong sense of justice. But Yang Ju-hui had been my girlfriend, even if only for a short time. Seeing other kids badmouth her honestly pissed me off.

I guess I was a bit of a romantic without realizing it.

Besides, now that I knew sending people into the Nightmare Corridor would earn me points, there were plenty of things I wanted to test and confirm.

If you didn’t want to be messed with, you should’ve lived decently.

“Honestly, every single person in Class D deserves to be thrown into the corridor as test subjects. I wouldn’t care at all.”

Because everyone in Class D was either a perpetrator or a bystander. Especially that bastard Kim Geon-ho…

…Well, since he’d gained that kind of Quirk, it was only a matter of time before he quieted down.

With those thoughts in mind, I sat down in the library and unpacked my things.

I was the library committee member, so after all classes ended and I had free time, I would manage the books or clean the floors here at Yeongji High’s library. Even though the school itself was trash, the library facilities were surprisingly decent. And since almost no one in this school actually read books, the study environment was quite pleasant.

In other words, this place was my oasis.

The “literature girl” I secretly had a crush on would also come here from time to time to read difficult books like Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal or Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

“I wonder which class she’s in.”

She wasn’t here today. It was always fun watching her when she came to the library. What a shame.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Anyway.

I had a lot of questions about the old school building. What exactly was it, and why did ghosts come out of the corridor? Were there any books about the school’s history or something like that?

I was searching for such books when—

“Yeong-won-ah.”

A soft, gentle voice called my name. When I turned my head, a woman in a black suit was looking at me. It was Kang Haneul, the Korean language teacher.

“Teacher would like to talk with you for a moment. Is that okay?”

“Yes, of course.”

I moved with her to a quiet corner of the library and sat down across from her. A few students kept glancing in our direction.

Kang Haneul was beautiful. If the girls my age had a fresh, youthful charm, then this thirty-one-year-old teacher had… how should I put it… a mature, well-ripened allure. Or maybe it was the confident aura of a real adult woman. Either way, it was a charm my limited vocabulary couldn’t properly describe. She was popular with the other teachers and male students alike and had received quite a few confessions.

Honestly, if I’d had the courage, I might have jokingly confessed to her once myself.

“Yeong-won-ah, have you been having any hard times lately?”

“No. Not really?”

“Really? You’ve been walking around with bandages on your face quite often these days.”

“I just fell.”

“Then can you tell me what this is?”

She slid a piece of paper toward ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me. On it was written in neat handwriting: “Bullying is occurring in Class D.” Even the period at the end was perfectly placed.

“…I don’t know anything about that.”

I really didn’t. Who wrote this? Was it the same person who left that letter in the staff room yesterday?

“Yeong-won-ah. You can tell me the truth. Teacher can help you. We can hold a faculty meeting, open a school violence committee, even contact the police.”

“No, really, there’s no need. Seriously. There’s no problem in Class D at all.”

“Teacher thinks you’re an honest and kind boy. The poem you wrote last time was really good too… So won’t you tell me the truth?”

Poem. At the beginning of the semester, Kang Haneul had assigned the class to write a poem as homework. She had really liked the one I wrote called “Babbling Brook,” praised it highly, and even read it aloud in front of everyone. She was also the one who had recommended me as the library committee member.

“Teacher. I’m really not being bullied or anything. And I’m not the honest, kind kid you think I am, okay?”

“Is it because of your mother? Are you worried she’ll get stressed if this blows up? But Yeong-won-ah, thinking about your mother who raised you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all by herself, it would be better to be honest rather than hide it…”

“I’m telling you, nothing like that is happening! Teacher, this is honestly making me uncomfortable. By the way, you said you were a Yeongji High graduate, right?”

“Yes. Technically, that makes you my junior. I was a high school student once too. So I can give you advice on any worries or difficulties you’re having…”

“Then… do you happen to know if anything strange ever happened in the old school building back in the day? Like maybe a shaman with a bell came or something…? If you tell me, it might help me think a little more.”