Gathering Information — Neapolitan, the Hand Mirror, and the Rulebook
After a solid night's sleep I could feel my mind recovering, at least a little. I sat blankly on the bed for a while before crossing the narrow room and settling in front of the computer.
I'd only managed to escape twice so far, but one thing the horror stories had already taught me was just how ignorant I still was about Neapolitan tales.
I powered on the computer to dig up some research.
A familiar information site popped up in the search results, so I clicked it. Reading through the entries, I learned that Neapolitan horror was a genre built around the unknown—stories you follow without understanding anything until the very end, when a lingering unease finally settles in.
I spotted a line claiming the origin of Neapolitan horror was written below and scrolled down.
Oh. Hmm…
I read it several times, then checked the interpretations listed underneath. The branching explanations covered a whole range of possibilities. The more I read, the more hooked I became, so I decided to dig a little deeper into the genre.
Wandering from site to site, I found an overwhelming flood of information. After working through various classic tales, the algorithm seemed to lock in; Neapolitan-related horror started surfacing on social media as well. Once I'd gone through enough of them, I could see how the form had evolved.
At first the stories maintained a faintly uncanny atmosphere throughout, only delivering a sharp jolt of discomfort at the very end. Gradually they shifted toward describing spaces haunted by unknown, bizarre entities.
One piece I came across online—the "Motel Horror"—was a rulebook-style tale so widely known that even I had seen it before. Back then I'd thought it was just another entertaining internet ghost story. Realizing it was actually a Neapolitan rulebook horror left me with a strangely fresh sense of recognition.
This time I searched specifically for rulebook horror and found far more entries than I'd expected. Reading through them, I decided the genre was surprisingly inventive and even fun… until the sudden awareness hit me that for me this was reality. A weird feeling settled in my chest.
I kept browsing a little longer and eventually landed on a Neapolitan post titled "Do Not Click This." The moment I saw it, I knew.
Ah. This one's dangerous in its own way.
After hours of hunting down horror stories, I also learned there were pieces built around the concept of reading an online tale and then being pulled into it. Most were pure fiction, of course, but having just barely escaped one myself, I had zero desire to roll the dice on another trip inside a story right now.
The research felt thorough enough. I stretched my stiff body and glanced at the bottom of the screen. I'd only meant to look around a little, yet more than three hours had already passed since I turned the computer on.
Still, the information I'd gathered was genuinely valuable.
First: Neapolitan horror could erupt in almost any location. The possibilities were nearly endless—mazes, schools, forests, basements, cafés, buildings, entire districts, even spaces in the sky or future settings.
After identifying the most dangerous places among them, I made a firm resolution.
Under no circumstances would I go near amusement parks, motels, or hotels. I carved the vow into my heart: I would avoid them no matter what, even if it killed me. Until I had more experience or some kind of reliable tools, those places were absolute no-go zones.
Most of what I'd read was probably pure imagination, yet the sheer strangeness and terror of those settings stood on a completely different level from ordinary locations. Even skimming them left me with the impression of inhuman hellscapes. I couldn't help wondering whether those were exactly the kind of stories my Rulebook had warned me to be careful of.
Next item on the list: the hand mirror.
I looked up at the bookshelf. The box sealing the hand mirror still sat there quietly. I already had a method in mind for learning its true nature.
I summoned the Rulebook. The now-familiar texture wrapped around my hand. Opening it at my leisure, I found the moment of my escape from the Neapolitan school recorded there.
Back then, stuck for hours with nothing else to do, I'd started fiddling with the Rulebook and discovered a few things. The text that was normally just written out would, if I focused my thoughts, squirm and rewrite itself. The way blanked-out death sections had expanded the instant I wanted to know more—I could deliberately draw out the information I needed. So I concentrated on the open pages.
The contents began to shift, expanding as if someone were writing an explanation after the fact.
…You have successfully escaped the school! What exactly were the entities inside? Even after entering with a penalty, you made it out safely! Though you could not fully uncover the truth, you carried out a clue to its origin—and as a reward, the Hand Mirror is granted to you!
Among the narration-like lines, I focused on the hand mirror. Fresh text bloomed beneath the existing sentences.
Hmm… Is there anything more I can learn?
I glared at the Rulebook a little longer, but no further details appeared.
So this is another kind of Neapolitan, huh? Is it telling me to uncover the hidden information and uses myself? Or is the information sparse because I only grasped an incomplete piece of the origin?
Ah. It still has potential, so I'd better keep it on hand. At least this time it doesn't appear out of nowhere—I can call it whenever I want. That's a relief.
I took the hand mirror out of the box, slipped it into the side pocket of my bag, and zipped it shut securely.
Once my thoughts were more or less sorted, a little free time opened up. I picked up my phone.
"…"
Is this really the right move?
I hesitated the moment I was about to dial, then squeezed my eyes shut and found the number in my contacts. The call connected before the ringtone had even finished a few seconds.
"Whoa! Hyung! What made you call me? This is almost our first phone call ever, right?! Oh yeah! I heard you left early today!"
…Maybe this was a mistake.
I seriously considered hanging up, but since I'd already dialed I forced myself to keep talking.
"Ah, uh. Word already got around?"
"Huh? No. I just walked past your class earlier, looked for you, and you weren't there. Then your homeroom teacher happened to be going by, so I asked—"
He rattled on without a single pause, already past the part about me leaving sick and now deep into the topic of a new student teacher who'd just arrived in the faculty office.
"So it was only the student teacher's second day, and get this—he showed up first thing, accidentally set off the alarm system, and the siren just blasted everywhere—"
"…"
"—and the security guard was yelling to open up, but the door was locked from inside, so the guard tried to peek in to figure out what was going on—"
"…"
"—and that's how it all went down. Oh right! Why'd you call, though?"
I pulled my face away from the phone, which had grown hot against my ear, and checked the screen. The brightly lit display showed the call had already been going for thirty minutes.
Thirty minutes… of him talking by himself…
"…Nah, nothing big. Just that exercise stuff you mentioned? Thought I might give it a try."
"Whoa! Great idea! But… all of a sudden? Something happen?"
Yeom Sang-hyeon, who'd been chatting harmlessly, suddenly stabbed in with a sharp question.
"Uh, no, nothing happened. Just… felt like building up my stamina, I guess."
More accurately, I want to make better use of what I already have.
Whether it was 666 Village last time or the school horror this time, raw strength didn't solve everything—but it definitely gave you the power to push through most situations. If I got strong enough to drop a "ghost" with one punch, escaping would become a whole lot easier, wouldn't it?
Either way, to raise the effectiveness of the mental abilities I possessed and the physical instincts that still lingered unconsciously, I needed to boost my body's overall durability and activation. That was the conclusion I'd reached.
"Ah… well, sure! So starting today? Right now? Want me to come by your place around evening? What kind of workout were you thinking?? The ones I mentioned this morning sound good?"
"Ah… no, today's a bit rough. Let's start tomorrow."
"What? Stuff like this you gotta start the second the idea hits you! If you've got nothing special going on today, we should just jump in! And—"
Absolutely not!
Today was rest, no exceptions!
I floundered under the endless stream of words, dragging out how terrible I felt and how I'd left school early, until Yeom Sang-hyeon finally backed off after a few more cheerful attempts to persuade me. He said he understood, and the call ended.
…Yeah. Definitely the wrong choice.
Faced with Yeom Sang-hyeon's overwhelming enthusiasm, a quiet regret began to creep up from somewhere deep in my chest.