Two Rewards
A searingly bright light flooded my eyes.
It was a clear blue sky.
I cracked my eyes open and stared blankly upward, only to be so startled by how light my body felt that I bolted upright in an instant.
Laughter and the sound of people milling about drifted in from every side.
I turned my head this way and that and saw students in our school uniform walking past, occasionally covering their mouths as they laughed.
Only then did my mind seem to snap back into place.
I was lying right in front of the main gate of our school.
Even after everything I had just endured—blood-soaked, unimaginable horror that should have made something this trivial feel like nothing at all—I still felt an inexplicable flush of embarrassment as I scrambled to my feet.
I blankly brought my wrist up in front of me and checked the time. It was eight minutes before the start of school.
No way.
I hurriedly dug into my pocket, pulled out the phone I had stashed there, and pressed the power button.
The date and time were exactly the same as when I had entered the Neapolitan school ghost story.
I made it back…
I let out a long breath of relief.
I stood there for a moment, then the laughter still ringing around me jolted me fully awake, and I fled through the school gate as if running from something.
Only a few seconds earlier I had been desperate enough to die just to get out of that gate. Now I wanted nothing more than to get inside it as fast as possible. The irony was almost absurd.
.
.
.
…On second thought, I really didn’t want to go in after all.
I shook my head hard and trudged across the athletic field, brushing the dirt and dust from my clothes with my hands as I checked my body.
Every wound I had taken was gone without a trace.
Even the wrist that had been torn clean off right before I escaped was attached again as if nothing had ever happened.
I gave my fingers a light wiggle; they flexed obediently, exactly as I willed them to.
The only thing left was a faint burning sensation right along the seam where the severed stump and the newly reattached hand met.
I carefully rotated my hand a few times and decided it must be phantom pain.
I was walking the familiar path toward the stairs when I suddenly stopped cold.
"…"
…It would probably be fine once a little time passed…
But right now I couldn’t even bring myself to set foot on those stairs.
I kept imagining dozens of heavy footsteps thudding down at any second to drag me upward.
A full-body shudder of revulsion ran through me.
I stood there trembling for a moment and even dry-heaved. Just recalling that nightmare was enough to wrap my whole body in a nameless disgust.
And if it was still morning arrival time… did that mean I still had to sit through all seven periods?
"…"
After a stretch of silence I made a firm decision.
Today I was taking the day off. That was the right call.
If you counted pure hours, it was basically asking me to sit through nearly twenty-four hours of continuous class…
The memory of all those endless hours of sitting rose up unbidden and made me shudder all over again.
After everything I’d already endured, they wanted me to sit through more?
For the sake of my own mental health, resting today was the correct choice.
I deserved at least that much of a reward.
I had earned it.
While I was still shuddering and steeling my resolve, fortune smiled on me: I spotted my homeroom teacher, Yu Na-ye, crossing the first-floor hallway.
"Teacher!"
"Oh! Han-seong! Why are you still down here? You know if you come in later than me it counts as being late, right?"
She added the last part playfully.
Normally a student who was late would at least pretend to scramble upstairs when she said something like that. Today’s me was different.
Before I could even invent an excuse she walked right up to me—still standing motionless—and studied my ashen face.
"…But why do you look so… Oh my! Why are you covered in cold sweat? And what happened to your uniform? Look at all these tears!"
…Tears?
I hurriedly looked down at myself. My dress shirt was filthy and roughly shredded in places; the vest was completely gone.
The clothes themselves seemed to be reminding me that none of it had been a dream.
The vest is probably still on the stairs of the Neapolitan ghost-story school…
…Guess I have to buy a new one.
The belated realization hit me as I spoke.
"Teacher… I… I really don’t feel well… Could I maybe… rest at home today…?"
Physically I was fine—aside from the tattoo near my shoulder and the phantom pain in my wrist, my body felt brand-new—but the mental exhaustion and the deliberately lowered voice made me look convincingly sick.
"Uh… well… that…"
She seemed to hesitate for a moment.
…I hesitated too.
Is this actually okay to do?
If it works I’ll get an instant early-dismissal free pass… but nothing weird is going to happen, right?
My body had fully recovered, but my mind had only partially healed.
Thinking about it, that made sense. After the events in 666 Village a lot of my memories had simply vanished as my mind recovered.
This time, with the school ghost story, the mental damage remained—but every single memory had stayed intact.
And the remaining mental damage felt like it would clean itself up completely as long as I didn’t do anything stupid.
…As long as I didn’t do anything stupid.
I had learned that from the occasional crackling, static-like jolt that still flickered through my head. After a brief hesitation I carefully, deliberately stirred that searing sensation just a little.
Just a tiny bit. Really only a little.
I repeated it to myself as I called the feeling up.
…Oh… is it okay?
For a few seconds nothing happened—then suddenly:
—Gush.
Bright red blood poured from my nose.
"Ahhhh! Blood! Han-seong! You’re bleeding!"
Her panicked shout stretched and warped; her figure seemed to pull apart sideways like rubber and then overlap itself.
Ah. Hallucination.
My condition plummeted so hard I felt like I was hitting the floor. I shook my head several times, trying to clear the dizziness.
"So… maybe…"
"Yes! Yes yes! Of course rest! Rest! Do you want tomorrow off too? No—wait, the nurse’s office first? No no, an ambulance?"
She was so flustered she kept stuffing her hand into her pocket, pulling out her phone, pointing toward the nurse’s office, then opening the phone again—like a broken machine.
"No… I think I’ll be fine if I just rest at home a little… Thank you…"
"Okay okay! Yes yes! Get home and rest right away!"
"Yes… thank you…"
I turned weakly and started walking.
"Um… Han-seong!"
The call from behind made me stop.
…Did she figure out I was faking? But I literally bled…
I turned with a pale face. She continued.
"Th-th-that… should I walk you home?"
"What? Don’t you have morning classes, Teacher?"
"Ah… right, I do. What am I saying. Okay! Be careful on the way! And if you’re still not feeling well tomorrow, just call me first!"
"Yes… thank you…"
I kept the exhausted shuffle going all the way out the gate, just in case anyone was watching. Only after I rounded the corner of an apartment building and the school was completely out of sight did I finally straighten up from the hunched posture.
Then I headed home with light steps.
…Honestly, after escaping a ghost story… taking one day off is fine, right?
I decided I was going to thoroughly enjoy the reward I had given myself.
Back in my room I dragged my perfectly fine body into the bathroom.
I showered quickly, checked myself in the mirror, and let out a breath of relief at the sight of skin without a single scratch. Then I stepped out and changed clothes.
Once I was in soft, clean clothes I threw myself onto the bed.
I buried myself in the soft blankets and mattress for a while, rolling around, until a belated thought made me drag my bag over with effort.
I opened it and discovered that—whether lucky or unlucky—every cigarette that had been inside had completely vanished.
…What the hell am I talking about. Of course it’s lucky.
I organized my thoughts for a moment, then rummaged through the bag and pulled out various items.
As expected, nothing I had put in during the ghost story had come back with me to reality.
None of the things I had taken from the lockers were there.
As I pulled things out one by one, my fingers brushed against glass that felt strangely cold.
I froze for a second, then carefully drew it out of the bag.
It was a hand mirror.
"…"
Something about the mirror felt unnerving. I thoroughly searched the bottom of the bag, but of the countless hand mirrors that had been there, only this single one remained.
…There were still at least ten left that I hadn’t used before I passed through the gate…
I carefully set it face-down far away on the desk so my reflection wouldn’t appear in it, then returned to the bed.
I turned the strange situation over in my mind until something occurred to me, and I summoned the Rule Book.
By now the motion was familiar. I focused for a moment and opened it to the page I wanted.
I spent a moment thinking about the still-unsolved identity of the ■■, then remembered that wasn’t what I had opened the book for and checked the second paragraph again.
…Additional rewards…
…But I still don’t really understand what that “origin” is supposed to be.
Wait—could some of the things I talked about with that blood-soaked male student have been clues to the “origin” of the ghost story?
Anyway, this strange hand mirror seems to be the additional reward…
After thinking it over I found a small box that had been lying around the house, placed the mirror inside with the reflective side facing down so it couldn’t be seen, carefully sealed it with tape, and set it on the very top shelf of the study.
If I put in the effort I could probably learn more, but the mental fatigue was heavy.
Rest first.
I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes.