Chapter 29
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: Für Elise
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Für Elise.
I couldn't believe my ears. Meanwhile, the knocking from beyond the door continued.
*Knock, knock.*
“I’m here.”
From her voice and the back of her head on the CCTV, it was definitely Dayeon.
But logically, it was impossible for Dayeon to have reached the broadcasting room by now.
Wasn't she just on the first-floor hallway CCTV? And yet, her back was visible on the second floor as well. It was simply bizarre.
At some point, there were two Dayeons.
But I couldn't be fooled.
The real Dayeon I knew was on the first floor.
The owner of the voice calling to me from the other side had to be a fake.
Whatever trick this was, it had appeared again to meet me.
My heart pounded in my chest. The one saving grace was the state of the broadcasting room's door.
The broadcasting room was locked tight and couldn't be opened easily. For me, it was a stroke of luck.
It was safe to assume the fake Dayeon wouldn't be able to get in here.
*Knock, knock.*
“Can I come in?”
Go ahead and try.
I used the ironclad door as my shield.
As long as this firmly shut door protected me, I had nothing to fear.
Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, feeling smug, I heard a rattling sound from the other side.
“I found the key to the broadcasting room on my way up. I’ll open it for you in a sec, just wait a little.”
*Click.*
I heard something being inserted into the broadcasting room's doorknob. With a clunk, the handle turned.
The door was opening.
I'm so screwed!
Every hair on my body stood on end, and my first thought was that I couldn't let it in.
What was the fake Dayeon's ploy?
There was something more to it than simply trying to kill me.
So, for now, evasion was the best policy. I shot toward the door like an arrow. I quickly blocked the slowly opening gap.
*Clunk.*
“Huh, it’s not opening.”
The fake Dayeon sounded puzzled as she turned the doorknob. I could feel a powerful force from the other side of the door.
I instinctively knew this was something other than human.
Just as the fake Dayeon was about to force the door open, I wedged a chair diagonally against the handle.
The propped-up chair acted as a latch, firmly barricading the door.
*Jiggle, jiggle.*
In the end, the fake Dayeon couldn't open the door.
Seemingly concluding that it couldn't enter on its own, it tried to talk to me.
“It won’t open. Can you open it for me?”
The fake shamelessly pretended to be Dayeon.
From its tone, it hadn't realized that I was the one keeping the door shut.
An eye for an eye.
I responded in kind, with my own act.
“It won’t open from the inside either. Looks like we’re trapped.”
“Really? That’s strange.”
The fake Dayeon sounded uncertain.
I made my excuse and turned my attention back to the monitors.
The Dayeon on the first floor had reached the main entrance and was coming up the stairs.
A question suddenly occurred to me. What would happen if Dayeon encountered the fake?
‘No, can they even meet in the first place?’
The fake had approached me when Dayeon was trapped in the school store. It was the same now.
If its goal was to confuse me, it had already failed. Or was there another reason?
For instance, could it only appear when the real one wasn't around?
If so, what would happen if I just let things play out?
How would Dayeon react upon seeing the fake, and what would happen to the fake itself?
I held my breath and watched the monitor. Dayeon had already climbed the stairs and arrived in the second-floor hallway.
Her figure began to appear faintly on the second-floor hallway CCTV.
On the other hand, the fake was standing right in front of the broadcasting room door.
‘Here she comes...’
Soon, Dayeon and the fake Dayeon would meet.
I watched the monitor, my heart pounding, wondering what would happen. At that moment—
*Bzzzzzt—*
The second-floor hallway CCTV suddenly turned off.
Static crackled as colorful bars lined the screen.
“...What the.”
Soon, the monitor returned to normal.
But the CCTV feed showed only one Dayeon.
The other one had vanished in an instant. I stared at the sole Dayeon left on the screen.
She was standing stock-still in front of the broadcasting room door.
A knock came from the other side.
*Knock, knock.*
“The champion has arrived.”
It was Dayeon’s voice.
But I couldn't tell if it was the real one or the fake. I couldn't bring myself to trust it.
I spoke softly to the door.
“Are you... the real Jin Dayeon?”
“Huh?”
The Dayeon beyond the door sounded as if she was asking what on earth I was talking about. But my suspicion lingered.
“Fake or real. Tell me the truth.”
“Hmm... Am I the fake Jin Dayeon?”
“How can you not know that yourself...”
That stupid joke confirmed it was Dayeon. Still, just in case, I decided to press her with a sharp question about what she'd been doing.
“Tell me where you were and what you did until now.”
“Well, I was just hanging around the school store... then I heard the broadcast and did what it said.”
It matched Dayeon's actions to a T, not a single word out of place. At last, I was certain. The Dayeon here now was not the fake.
Then where did the fake go?
It appeared without a sound and vanished without a trace. It was downright bizarre.
“I guess you’re the real one.”
“I told you so.”
Now that I had confirmed it was the real Dayeon, there was no reason to block the door.
I removed the chair that had been wedged diagonally against the doorknob, holding it shut like a sturdy latch.
*Creeak.*
The tightly locked door swung open, revealing Dayeon.
“Hey, I’m here to rescue the princess captured by the demon.”
“Is that so...”
Dayeon stepped into the broadcasting room and gazed at the monitors lined up in a row. Her eyes lingered on the CCTV feed of the school store.
Was it because that's where she had been trapped?
A moment later, an expression of what looked like contempt crossed her face, and she looked at me.
“So you used these to watch my every single move?”
“It wasn't like that.”
I knew this would happen. Staying here any longer would just be a headache for me.
Now that the door was open, I took Dayeon and left the broadcasting room.
“So, where are we going?”
“The computer room. There’s a hidden clue.”
It was the classroom right next door, so we reached the computer room in no time. I turned on a computer to check the diary I hadn't had a chance to open.
[Which file would you like to open?]
[1. Student X Disap... Article.pdf]
[2. Group Dis... Article.pdf]
[3. Sacrifice's Diary #6.txt]
I opened the file "Sacrifice's Diary #6."
*Fwoosh!*
[Sacrifice's Diary #6]
【We searched high and low to escape the school.
Of course, only a few of us who had kept our sanity were moving.
Some of my friends seemed mentally unstable. They lay face down, sobbing, or burst into tears filled with despair.
For their sake, we had to find a way to escape this school.
So we searched the entire school. But we found no clues, let alone a way out.
It was truly hopeless.
Steeling our resolve, we headed to a classroom to investigate. It was the place where Gyeong-gyun had died.
Just getting near it made my stomach churn. Still, I forced myself to take heavy steps forward.
I carefully looked around the classroom. But something was strange. Gyeong-gyun's body was gone.
The blood-soaked traces where his head and torso had been rolling around were wiped clean.
I was dumbfounded, wondering what was going on.
As I searched for Gyeong-gyun's body, disbelieving my own eyes, I felt a presence behind me.
I turned my head and was shocked to see Gyeong-gyun standing there. Not only were his neck and torso properly attached, but he was also alive.
...Why?】
That was all the text file diary contained. I was puzzled as to what it was trying to imply.
Still, given the previous "Group Disappearance Article.pdf," the contents of the diary were clearly based on true events.
The problem was what it meant.
I was deep in thought.
“Doppelgänger.”
Dayeon, who had been looking at the diary's contents, suddenly uttered the unexpected word.
“What did you say?”
“Someone who died showed up looking exactly the same, right? Then it’s a doppelgänger.”
The doppelgänger Dayeon described was as follows:
Something that perfectly imitates you.
It’s said to perfectly mimic someone's appearance and take their place.
It was a perfect match for the contents of this diary entry.
“What do you think? Plausible, isn't it?”
“...But how do you know about that?”
“I read it in a book.”
Dayeon's theory was plausible.
Moreover, it was closely related to the strange phenomenon I had just experienced.
‘A doppelgänger.’
If the situation from the diary was repeating itself now,
then that doppelgänger must also exist in this reality.
...in the form of Dayeon.
As I suspected, the fake Dayeon I just met was different from the ghosts I'd encountered so far.
There was definitely some other scheme hidden behind it, besides just killing me.
“We should probably stick together.”
“Why, you like me that much?”
“Yeah. So don’t wander off.”
“...Huh?”
A doppelgänger is lurking somewhere in this school, gearing up for some kind of scheme.
So, to avoid being tricked, I had to stick with Dayeon.
“Got it?”
“...”
For some reason, Dayeon didn't answer. She just looked at me with a hesitant expression.
“Did something happen while I was gone?”
“Something did, but you wouldn't understand even if I told you.”
Based on my experiences so far, Dayeon could never meet the fake Dayeon.
The fact that it only appeared before me when we were separated, and that it vanished in an instant just as Dayeon was about to show up, was proof.
It felt like the fake Dayeon was deliberately avoiding the real one.
So, even if I told her the truth about the doppelgänger, she clearly wouldn't be able to accept it.
“Heeey, are you hiding something?”
“Something like that.”
“Okay, I’ll trust you.”
For once, Dayeon was being cooperative.
She feels strangely more obedient than before. Did I just misspeak or something?
I wracked my brain but couldn't find anything odd.
Maybe being alone in the school store made Dayeon realize how precious I am, and now she’s being more agreeable.
‘Well, if that’s the case, it’s good for me.’
With the Sacrifice's Diary #6, I had examined all the data on the computer.
I hadn't found any clues about escaping the school, but I realized that someone else was newly hiding in this school besides us.
I had a vague premonition that searching the school from now on wouldn't be easy.
“Where are we off to now?”
“I don’t know. We don’t have any items, either.”
If we had a key, maybe, but all we got from the computer room were data files, so we were empty-handed.
Perhaps there was a hidden item in the broadcasting room. I was about to head there with a sliver of hope when—
*♪♬♬♪♬*
A sudden melody drifted from somewhere far down the hall.
My ears naturally perked up in that direction.
The sound was coming from a classroom not far from the computer room.
I focused all my senses on my hearing.
It was none other than the sound of a piano.
The beautiful melody of the piano flowed down the hallway to our ears.
“A piano?”
“To be precise, it’s Beethoven’s classical piece, ‘Für Elise’.”
I thought it sounded familiar, and then I realized it was the song that plays when a car is backing up.
Still, hearing it on a piano was a first for me, so it felt a little awkward.
“Why is this song playing all of a sudden?”
“Hmm, maybe it’s a sign for us to listen to some classical music and find some peace of mind?”
There was absolutely no way. This school was anything but kind to us.
It was the kind of place that would tell you to come to the broadcasting room and then trap you inside if you went without suspicion.
A bizarre rule like, ‘You die if you hear this song four times,’ would be more fitting.
But we had no other choice.
What more could we do without a key?
With no other option, we walked toward the source of the piano music.
The classical music echoing through the school at midnight felt less beautiful and more eerie and grotesque.
On top of that, the piano melody grew louder and more intense the closer we got.
Finally, we reached the classroom from which the music was flowing. Sure enough, the door was wide open.
An invitation for us to come in, I suppose.
Before entering, I checked the sign to see what kind of room it was.
[Music Room]
The music room, huh.
I had actually anticipated it, more or less.
The only place in this school likely to have a piano was the music room.
“Anyway, who do you think is playing? People who play the piano well seem so cool.”
“I don’t know who it is, but I doubt it’s human.”
The music room door was wide open.
Before going in, I peeked my head through the open doorway.
A quick peek revealed the scene inside the music room.
*♪♬♬♪♬*
The melody of Für Elise was flowing from a grand piano.
But there was no one playing it.
...The piano was playing by itself.