Chapter 38
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: Reunion
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Encounter
Dayeon scanned her surroundings with a dazed look.
“It's too dark to see.”
The basement hallway was pitch-black, making it hard to see ahead. She was careful not to trip.
An old fluorescent light had somehow survived, casting a faint glow. It dimly illuminated the basement hallway. She walked aimlessly, following the path.
“Huh?”
She spotted a box against the wall. Opening it, she found an axe inside. She stealthily took it, gripping it tightly with both hands.
“It's heavy.”
The axe was heavier than she expected. Holding it with both hands made her arms ache. She set it on the floor and dragged it behind her as she walked.
Following the dim light, she headed deeper into the basement hallway. Just then, a familiar voice boomed from a distance.
-Jin Dayeon! Can you hear me!
The voice came from above the basement stairs. Her steps, which had been heading down the hall, naturally faltered.
“...He actually found me.”
She knew who it was immediately. Someone who naively believed what others said, a coward with no courage to speak of, yet had guts in his own way—
in short, a fool.
Still, she didn't dislike him. In fact, that was part of his charm.
Hearing his voice lifted her sunken spirits a little. But it wasn't all good.
Dayeon hesitated. She was afraid her secret would be exposed. She wanted to maintain their current relationship.
Even if it meant being left alone in the end.
Things having come to this, she had no choice but to make the decision she had long been dreading.
It was entirely for his sake.
And so, Dayeon,
“I have no choice.”
resolved to betray him.
-Answer if you can hear me!
The clamorous shout, accompanied by the loud banging on the metal shutter, filled her ears.
Dayeon wondered what to do. It would be better not to run into him.
“Still, just showing my face for a moment should be fine.”
She could sense a strange restlessness in the booming voice from the distance.
Dayeon felt an obligation to ease his worries. It was to reassure him.
Of course, there were no selfish motives involved.
She was just going to see him to show her face and let him know the current situation, killing two birds with one stone.
Thinking this, Dayeon approached the basement stairs with light steps.
To meet Lee Hyeon.
**
After somehow dealing with the fake, I immediately ran to the main entrance.
No ghosts jumped out along the way. However, a new problem arose.
“It's locked.”
The basement stairs were locked again. The shutter was firmly shut. I tried to lift it with all my might, but it didn't budge.
“Why won't it open...”
The padlock that had locked the basement shutter lay on the floor.
The guard must have opened it. But the shutter still wouldn't open.
It seemed like something was blocking it from the other side. At this rate, I couldn't get into the basement. The fact that I could do nothing was frustrating.
“Dammit...”
I pounded uselessly on the shutter.
Hoping she might hear me, I bent down to the gap and called out for Dayeon at the top of my lungs.
“Are you in there!”
The last time I saw Dayeon, she was unconscious. A normal shout wouldn't be nearly enough.
“Answer if you can hear me!”
I raised my voice even louder, hoping to wake Dayeon. Besides, the guard was in the basement too, right?
There was no fear of being caught for making a commotion. I was in the middle of shouting thunderously into the basement.
-Knock, knock.
A knock came from the other side of the shutter. Startled, I stumbled back.
I thought it might be the guard. I swallowed hard and put my guard up.
Then, someone on the other side spoke. Their tone was remarkably relaxed and cheerful.
“Guess who?”
Anyone could tell it was Dayeon. But there was no way to know if this Dayeon was the fake or the real one.
Acting rashly was out of the question.
First, I tried to start a conversation carefully.
“...Jin Dayeon.”
“Correct. Should I give you a prize?”
“No thanks. Anyway, explain what's going on right now.”
“I'm trapped. That's it.”
“...”
Such a simple and clear answer.
The way her every word made me want to explode seemed to confirm she was the real Dayeon.
Still, I needed concrete proof. I passed an item under the shutter.
“Here, take this.”
“A present?”
“You'll know when you see it.”
“A love letter? How romantic.”
Contrary to Dayeon's hopes, what I gave her was the ‘Jin Dayeon Award’. If she was really the real one, she would have a meaningful reaction.
“Do you know what this is?”
“Of course, it's the prize I gave you. Is this not enough?”
“No, it's fine.”
She was about to say something weird again.
I quickly cut her off to prevent it.
“Heeey, you don't need another prize?”
“Not really.”
Anyway, this convinced me. The Dayeon on the other side was the real one, not the fake.
But the situation was still a huge headache.
Because the basement shutter was firmly down, we couldn't meet even if we wanted to.
I wondered how I could open this ridiculously sturdy metal shutter.
“Try opening the shutter from your side.”
“Hmm, it won't open. It's locked with a latch.”
According to Dayeon, the inside of the shutter was secured with a latch, preventing it from opening.
It seemed the guard had bolted it when he went into the basement.
‘That's strange.’
I suddenly recalled the last playthrough.
After finding the basement key in the blue book, I used the key to open the padlock.
Back then, the basement stairs were definitely secured with a padlock. But now it was different.
It was locked from the inside with a latch.
It was as if... the shutter's locking mechanism was changing from moment to moment.
It was too strange to dismiss as just a feeling.
Maybe it was because of all the precedents.
Everything was suspicious.
And the most suspicious of all was the fake pretending to be Dayeon.
‘Could it be that the fake...’
...is roaming the whole school, obstructing us in real time?
An ominous thought struck me. I had to meet Dayeon quickly before we were in danger.
“The latch is stuck tight and won't move.”
“What?”
Of all things, the latch was firmly fixed and wouldn't work. Without breaking it, opening the shutter was next to impossible.
“Damn it...”
As I was despairing, Dayeon asked an out-of-the-blue question.
“Hmm, should I break it?”
“With your strength, you won't even make a dent. You'll just get hurt, so don't even think about it.”
This was Dayeon, after all. I assumed she was just saying it for fun and treated it as a joke. But for some reason, her reaction was different from usual.
“I'll just give it a try.”
“What on earth could you possibly do?”
“Well, I found an axe.”
“An axe?”
I remembered the Dayeon from the last playthrough.
She had been holding an axe.
It seemed to be the same axe from back then.
“There's an axe in the basement?”
“Yeah, I found it in a box.”
A box.
She must have meant the fire axe case in the basement.
‘No wonder the case was empty back then.’
Now the situation in the basement made sense.
Dayeon, who had entered the basement before me, had taken the axe from the case.
“So, I'm breaking it?”
“Be careful not to get hurt.”
“Heeey, are you worrying about me now?”
“...Whether you live or die is your own business.”
I cautiously took a step back.
Soon after, a powerful noise erupted from the other side.
The unpleasant sound of metal striking metal rang out.
*CRACK!*
I heard something shattering from beyond the shutter. Dayeon had succeeded in breaking the latch with the axe.
*Rumble!*
The firmly locked shutter finally opened.
Dayeon, whom I hadn't seen since we were separated at the school store, appeared.
“Hi.”
“...Yeah.”
Though it had only been about an hour since I'd been separated from Dayeon, for me, who had been through the last playthrough, the reunion felt strangely emotional.
“Were you scared being all alone? Want a hug?”
“No thanks.”
She subtly tried to open her arms, so I quickly dodged. There was no time to fool around. I got straight to the point.
“There's a strange person hiding in the school.”
“Huh?”
Dayeon tilted her head. Maybe because she hadn't encountered the fake. She looked like she didn't understand what I was saying.
“Just listen quietly. I'll explain everything that happened from the beginning.”
I explained the whole story. Of course, I left out the experience from my last playthrough.
There was no way she'd believe me if I told her I regress when I die. And I couldn't completely trust Dayeon.
‘She tried to kill me in the last playthrough, after all.’
Dayeon is hiding something.
Until that secret was revealed, I couldn't fully trust her.
“...That's everything I saw.”
I explained everything except for the regression.
Dayeon listened to my words in silence.
She wore her usual expressionless face, but she seemed to be lost in thought.
“So, while I was gone, a fake that looks just like me was going around pretending to be me?”
“Yeah, she looked exactly the same.”
“Hmm.”
After a short pause, she asked in a serious tone.
“So if you had to choose just one of us, would it be the fake? Or me?”
“Is that really something you should be asking right now...”
Dayeon was as carefree as ever.
She was the type of person who would probably just yawn leisurely even if the world was ending.
“I don't know. We don't have time to mess around.”
“So which one is it?”
“You're tens of thousands of times better. Happy now?”
“Heeey, I'm touched.”
It was then, as we were having this meaningless chat, that I spotted someone down the hall.
...It was Dayeon.
She waved at us. It was a taunting gesture, as if daring us to catch her.
“Is she telling us to come this way?”
“That bitch...”
I immediately grabbed Dayeon's wrist and ran toward the fake. I couldn't let her get away.
I had to catch her and find out her identity, whether by punching her or striking her with the axe.
The fake saw us approaching and quickly darted into a classroom.
It was none other than the classroom where I had first woken up.
I chased breathlessly after the fake. Panting heavily, I threw open the classroom door, but,
“Where did she go?”
The classroom was empty. There wasn't even a trace of anyone having been there.
I scanned the room, wondering if she was hiding, but there was no sign of her.
Only a deep silence filled the air. The fake had vanished without a sound.
I lost her.
It was a complete failure. A sigh of disappointment escaped my lips and dissipated into the air.
“Where could she have gone...”
Just as I was about to give up and turn away, something in the classroom caught my eye.
“A locker?”
The red locker that had been firmly shut was now wide open. On the dangling door, I could see a faint nameplate.
[Jin Dayeon]
“Did the fake open it?”
I was about to head toward the red locker.
“What is it?”
“...Don't go.”
Dayeon suddenly grabbed my arm tightly.
Her face, unlike usual, had grown pale.
“You can't go over there...”
Seeing the red locker in the classroom, she began to react violently.
“Let's go back, okay?”
“You, what's gotten into you all of a sudden?”
“I'll answer later. For now, let's just go somewhere else.”
Dayeon pulled on my arm with her weak strength. This reaction was clearly strange.
It was as if there was some reason I absolutely could not look inside that red locker.
“I'll do anything. So please...”
Dayeon even clung to me, pleading. It was the first time I'd ever seen her like this, and it felt surreal.
‘What on earth is in there?’
It seemed that the secret Dayeon was so desperate to hide was inside that red locker.
Could the reason she tried to kill me in the last playthrough be in there too?
“Don't go, I'm begging you.”
Dayeon buried her face in my chest and rubbed against me. It was a desperate plea. But I had to refuse.
In order to uncover the hidden secrets of this school, I needed to know Dayeon's secret.
“...I'm sorry.”
I shook off Dayeon's hand and strode toward the red locker.
The red locker was already wide open, its interior in plain sight.
I stood before it and checked to see what was inside.
“This is...?”
I froze.
Inside was something I never could have imagined.