Chapter 2
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Escape and Confinement
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Escape and Confinement
“Ugh…”
I scrambled to my feet.
My whole body ached from the shock of the fall.
A sharp, tingling pain shot through me with every movement.
It felt like I’d cracked or broken a bone or two.
Normally, I would’ve just lain there, groaning in agony, but my survival instinct barely managed to get my body moving.
The security guard watched my pathetic state through the window. He stood stiff as a board, not moving an inch.
‘Can he not enter the classroom either?’
Soon, the guard approached the front door.
He rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a key.
Without hesitation, he inserted it into the lock.
*Click.*
The firmly locked front door opened with far too much ease.
‘Shit.’
The guard entered the classroom without any hindrance. His eyes were still unfocused.
Then, life flooded into his pupils, and his eyes flew wide open. The guard began to twitch and spasm erratically.
I couldn’t help but stare in horror as his forearm bent backward a full 180 degrees in an acrobatic twist.
The guard started contorting his body like a twisted marionette, putting on a bizarre strength act as if auditioning for Cirque du Soleil.
A moment later, his head rotated a full 360 degrees. With creaking limbs, the guard took a step.
One step, then two. His pace gradually quickened, growing uncontrollably fast, until he was suddenly charging at me at a breakneck speed.
‘What do I do?’
My mind went blank.
A terror I had never experienced before consumed me.
Still, the determination to survive, no matter what, forced my legs to move.
“Get away!”
I grabbed the nearest chair and gripped it tightly. I swung it at the back of the head of the guard who was charging me indiscriminately.
*THWACK!*
A rather dull thud filled the classroom. It was a blow that would have left any normal person in critical condition, at the very least. But not the guard.
He didn't scream, nor did he fall. He just froze mid-charge.
His gaze was fixed solely on me.
“Ba-hella!”
I swung the chair again. This time, I landed a solid blow on the guard’s head.
The end.
That was a twelve-week-hospital-stay kind of strike.
But something felt off.
The impact felt different from hitting a person's head. It was like striking a solid block of iron.
Then, with a splintering crack, the chair collapsed. What shattered wasn't the guard's head, but the chair and my sanity.
Game over.
“Fuck…”
I threw the broken chair leg aside and bolted. Soon, I heard pounding footsteps right behind me.
The guard was chasing me. At this rate, he would definitely catch me.
I weaved between the desks, trying to put some distance between us.
But the guard plowed through the desks as if they were minor annoyances and continued his pursuit.
There was only one escape route.
The front door. But it was too far from where I was. The chances of getting caught by the guard before I reached it were high.
‘Over there!’
I searched for a new escape route. I grabbed a random overturned chair and hurled it toward the window.
If the window was locked, I intended to shatter the glass and escape.
*CLANG!*
The chair sailed in an arc, hit the window, and bounced off with a loud noise.
I couldn't believe my eyes. The glass was perfectly fine, without a single scratch. This goddamn school even had bulletproof windows.
‘Shit…’
I stared blankly at the ridiculously sturdy window. By now, the guard was right behind me.
In that moment, time seemed to slow down. A chilling fear ran down my spine.
Even as I kept making futile attempts, my desperate will to live made me run blindly. I used a chair as a stepping stone to get on top of the desks and sprinted across them.
The guard, not expecting this, hesitated for a moment, and I slipped past him.
‘I did it!’
I immediately ran for the wide-open front door. It was a chance that wouldn't come again.
I forced my legs, which felt like they could give out at any moment, to keep moving.
Leaping over the desks, I reached the front door in no time.
“Almost there!”
The moment I was just one step away from leaving the classroom.
*Crunch.*
My leading left foot stepped on the threshold. At the same time, a sharp pain shot through my toes.
‘Wait a minute.’
By the time I realized something was wrong, I was already stepping out of the classroom.
My mind screamed for me to stop, but my exhausted legs were beyond my control. I couldn't stop myself from running out.
As I finally left the classroom completely, I had a gut feeling that I had crossed a river of no return.
Soon, my toes began to turn a ghastly shade of red. My blood vessels, looking ready to burst, started to swell and spread up my body.
Like threads crawling over my skin, the bulging blood vessels covered my body. A sharp, searing pain washed over me.
I lost my balance and collapsed. My legs were numb. My lower body was mangled beyond recognition.
Bright red blood splattered everywhere, forming droplets. The pooling blood soaked my lower half. It was not a pleasant feeling.
I couldn't even tell if the dampness was from pissing myself or from the blood.
I writhed pathetically on the hallway floor. My lower body was mangled beyond recognition.
My legs were gone, just a bloody mess of flesh. Only a few tough muscles clung precariously to the bones.
They had completely lost their function as limbs. Crawling was the best I could do.
Tears streamed from my eyes. Not from sadness or injustice, but from pure pain.
It was too far to go back to the classroom now. The blood vessels were already crawling up my torso.
I was a grotesque sight, as if a skein of red yarn had been unraveled all over my body.
The swelling vessels ruptured my skin, and a burning pain consumed my entire being.
My mind grew hazy. All I could do was stare blankly at the horrific scene.
[Escape the classroom within the time limit.]
[Penalty for failure: Death]
Simply escaping the classroom wasn't enough to survive. If I truly wanted to live, I should have escaped within the time limit as the message instructed.
But I hadn't.
I had dismissed the timer that warned of the time limit's danger as nothing serious.
This was the result.
“Hhuk.”
My throat burned as if it were on fire.
A suffocating pain seized me, my head spun, and—
*Pop.*
With the sensation of a bundle of nerves snapping, my consciousness faded.
[You have died.]
[Restarting from the checkpoint.]
**
I slowly opened my eyes.
A familiar scene came into view.
The classroom was deathly silent. The school at midnight was pitch-black, without a single source of light.
“…”
For a moment, my mind went blank, as if my soul had left my body. I couldn't forget what had just happened.
‘A dream?’
As I sat there dumbfounded, something on the desk caught my eye.
It was a notebook. Laid open, it had a string of incomprehensible numbers written on it.
[00:00]
Seeing this sent a shiver down my spine, a wave of déjà vu washing over me.
I quickly checked the clock. To my surprise, it was exactly 12:00 AM. The same time as when I had just woken up.
Then, a message appeared in the air.
*Fwaah.*
[The tutorial will now begin.]
[Escape the classroom within the time limit.]
[Time remaining: 9:59]
[Reward: Status Window]
[Penalty for failure: Death]
…No way.
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I couldn't get a single word out.
[9:48]
Unfortunately for me, the timer had already begun. I stared at the relentlessly falling numbers, frozen in place.
My mind was a whirlwind of confusion.
What would happen if I let the time run out? Would that nightmare play out again?
I swallowed hard and looked down at myself. Thankfully, my lower body was intact. Both legs were perfectly fine.
But I knew, deep down, that it was only a matter of time.
If I dawdled, I'd end up writhing on the floor again.
If I wanted to live, I had to escape this damn classroom in ten minutes.
[9:32]
Nine minutes and thirty-two seconds, to be exact.
My thoughts concluded, I shot up and looked around the classroom.
The scene was no different from before. The position of the lockers and the arrangement of the desks were identical.
The locked front and back doors and the red locker were all the same.
‘…Nothing seems to have changed.’
Maybe I’d missed something before, having only given the room a quick glance.
This time, aware that my life was on the line, I searched the classroom with hawk-like intensity.
First, I approached the nearest desk to see if anything was hidden.
[It's an empty desk.]
A message popped up out of nowhere, explaining the situation as if it were my own inner monologue.
‘Sheesh, this isn't some RPG Maker game.’
It was a ridiculous sight. I let out a silent sigh and continued my search.
Then, I noticed something shiny between the desks. It was a piece of paper.
A torn page from a notebook was wedged between the legs of a desk. Strangely, it was glowing. As I reached for it, the light faded.
[You have obtained a Note.]
A new message appeared.
The reaction was similar to acquiring an item in an RPG Maker game.
Does that mean I have to check the item like in a game, too?
“Inventory.”
I muttered quietly, feeling a bit embarrassed. A large window materialized in the air.
[Owned Items]
1. Note
Wow, it actually works.
The item window showed the note I had just picked up. I immediately knew this wasn't just a piece of trash.
‘Do I do it like this?’
I made a clicking motion in the air, and a detailed description of the note appeared.
[Note]
【A note that was stuck under a desk. It's heavily crumpled and torn. There's a memo on it that looks like it was written in a hurry.】
A memo written in a hurry?
It sounded too suspicious to ignore. It had to be a clue to escaping the classroom.
As I started to unfold the note, another message appeared.
[Use the Note?]
The situation was a carbon copy of an RPG Maker game, so the interaction method was similar as well.
I clicked the ‘Yes’ button, and with the sound of paper unfolding, the note opened.
-0134
As the description said, the crumpled note had a number scrawled on it in messy handwriting.
Terrible handwriting, at that.
If the numbers had been something ambiguous like a 2 or a 5, I wouldn't have been able to read it.
Fortunately, I could just make out the numbers because they were composed of intuitively recognizable digits like 0 and 1. The fact that it was four digits was also significant.
‘Wait, a password?’
A four-digit number naturally brought a password to mind. Four-digit password puzzles were a staple of RPG Maker games.
You combine clues from your surroundings to find a four-digit number, then enter it into a keypad to unlock something.
It was a common type of puzzle in RPG Maker games, popular across all ages and cultures.
So, this four-digit number on the note had to be a password.
‘If so, a password for what?’
The red locker used a key, not a keypad.
That left only one possibility.
The lock on the classroom's back door.
[Please enter the password.]
I headed to the back door, hoping against hope.
“Please work…”
I entered the numbers from the note.
It was a little suspicious that the four-digit number was laid out so blatantly, but I didn't care.
That's how most crappy games are, anyway.
They make the maps unnecessarily long to piss off the player, or even create puzzles that are impossible to progress past.
Considering that, a puzzle that my five-year-old nephew could solve was entirely plausible in the world of RPG Maker games.
I would hang on to that sliver of hope.
I was betting on the fact that the creator of this real-life RPG Maker game was a brain-dead, shit-for-brains idiot who couldn't make a sophisticated puzzle.
[0134]
After entering the password into the lock, I slowly pulled on it.
*Thunk.*