The Exhibition Comes Alive
The exhibition is alive. Paat! “Hweup!!”
The familiar sensation of regression washed over me after so long. Damn it—I’d let my guard down these past few days, never dying once while dealing with ghost stories.
Back once more, I first groped at my chest, but of course, there was no wound. That jeweled armor bastard. Did it get pissed because I dismissed it inwardly? The memory of that jeweled sword piercing my chest was still vivid. Recalling how it had stabbed through my back and jutted out from my front, I broke out in cold sweat at the chilling sensation.
Still, I was back, so first things first—calm down. The point I’d returned to was right before we’d set off for the exhibition.
“Kyaaak!!”
“Uwaak!!”
“Hweaak!!”
Screams erupted from the students beside me. Had they regained their senses too?
“Uh, uhh… Haa. Looks like the regression worked normally, thank goodness.”
“Haa, haa. I thought I was done for. No, I did die, but…”
“Kyaaaak!! My neck!! My neck!! The pearl necklace is strangling me—I can’t breathe!!”
Elaine and Rone quickly grasped the situation and calmed down. Unlike them, Rozalia clutched at her throat, writhing in agony. Elaine and Rone had died once before during the Misfortune Letter ghost story, so even as fear gripped them, they rationally assessed things. Rozalia, however, hadn’t even realized she’d regressed to the club room and was lost in full panic.
“Rozalia. Calm down. It’s already over.”
“O-over…? Heuk! Does that mean this is heaven!?”
“…No. It’s the club room. We all died once, and regression brought us back to before heading to the exhibition.”
“R-regression? Ah… I see…. Uwaa. Of all things, I got strangled to death by the pearl necklace I was looking forward to most at this exhibition.”
“Don’t sweat it. Stuff like this happens all the time in club activities.”
“…That’s not comforting at all.”
After soothing Rozalia, I approached the one person who might know something—Aurora, who’d stayed in the club room to study.
“So, Aurora. Any idea what’s going on?”
“No. I don’t know what happened either…. I was studying in the club room when screams started coming from the exhibition hall. A huge crowd of people came running toward the academy, screaming their heads off. It looked like a wave, there were so many.”
Her face paled as memories of the pre-regression scene resurfaced, and she described what she’d seen.
“And then?”
“A ton of things chased after them toward the academy.”
“A ton of things? What exactly?”
“…I’m not sure. Some looked like living creatures, others like dead animal bones. There were even knights in armor and just plain objects. They killed people as they passed…. It was like hell. At first, I didn’t know what was happening, but the screams got closer and closer…. I panicked, didn’t know what to do, and only remembered late that I needed to regress. I triggered it desperately…”
Aurora’s face drained of color further as she recalled it, unable to continue.
“That’s enough. Thanks for telling me.”
I calmed the trembling Aurora and sank into thought. For someone who knew nothing, she’d described it in detail. Roughly speaking, what she’d seen matched the final scene I’d witnessed before dying.
“…So, what’s the situation?”
“There’s only one ghost story that fits this.”
The exhibition setting, filled with rare artifacts you wouldn’t see in everyday life. There was one famous ghost story about them coming to life.
“You know it too, Teacher.”
“No surprise there. Stories about stuffed animals, statues, empty suits of armor moving on their own are so famous they don’t even have proper names half the time. If it’s that well-known, of course I know it.”
Yeah. How famous does a ghost story have to be to trend not just in this life, but my previous one too? Honestly, my knowledge came from my past life on Earth.
The Museum Comes Alive. Or in this case, The Exhibition Comes Alive. That was the ghost story’s identity. Technically, it was just the title of a famous pre-reincarnation movie, not the ghost story’s official name—but that didn’t mean such stories didn’t exist. Schools had tales of statues coming alive at night, like Joseon-era general sculptures; science labs had human models moving; art rooms had plaster busts. Museums and galleries were the same. Some dramas even had episodes where a weeping angel statue turned out to be an alien. Globally, it was a standard ghost story.
Rozalia looked at me with eager eyes at my fluent explanation.
“So you know how to solve it too!?”
Feeling burdened by her sparkling gaze, I answered honestly.
“Honestly, the solution’s probably simple. Just smash the moving objects.”
Rozalia’s expression twisted momentarily. She fidgeted anxiously.
“J-just smash them…? But… what about the exhibition? It’s got historical artifacts and treasures from all over the world…. Are we just going to ruin it?”
Her words carried genuine worry for the event. It must have taken massive effort, so of course she was concerned. Smashing every exhibit, even to resolve a ghost story, was daunting.
Rone didn’t speak up directly but gazed up at me with uneasy eyes. Then Elaine nodded in agreement.
“Rozalia. Teacher’s right. People’s lives matter more than the exhibition getting ruined. But if people die, they can’t come back.”
“I-I know that, but…”
“Don’t worry. We resolve the ghost story, regress once more, and it’ll all be undone—like a normal exhibition.”
“Ah, right. Defeated ghost stories don’t return even after regression.”
“Then we can solve this one quick! Let’s purge the resentment and get it over with!”
Buoyed by my words, the group lit up as if it’d be easy, urging we head out immediately. But I knew this ghost story wouldn’t resolve so simply.
Or rather, the opposite. It was too simple. That was the problem.
“It’s not that easy. The real issue’s elsewhere.”
“Eh? Elsewhere…?”
The students froze, unease rippling through them at my words.
“There’s too many. The exhibits aren’t just one or two.”
Smashing a couple moving objects? Easy. But nearly every exhibit at the exhibition? Destroying them one by one wouldn’t finish in a day.
“…Yeah, if there’s that many to smash, the labor’s one thing—but the other exhibits will wake up and kill us first.”
“And it’s not just the exhibits that are too many. People too.”
“Ah…”
In a way, an even bigger problem than the number of exhibits. It wasn’t just the possessed objects. People were everywhere.
Until now, I’d lured ghost stories away from prying eyes before engaging, minimizing recognition. But this time was different. The ghost story hit a crowded place at peak hours.
Ghost stories grow stronger with recognition. So what happens when it feeds on hundreds at the exhibition?
The answer was the pre-regression end: hundreds turned to corpses in an instant. And it spread to the academy. If Aurora had been even a bit slower, everyone there would’ve been massacred.
No way to stop that. So resolving it meant one more condition: destroy every exhibit at the exhibition—without others noticing, before they fully awaken.
The group’s faces darkened as realization dawned: this wasn’t simple.
“Haa… It had to come at us like this.”
This assault was my perfect counter. My method had always been avoiding eyes to starve recognition, then exploit weaknesses. This felt like a direct retort: brute force with sheer numbers and tight time.
Sometimes, that dumb brute force is most effective. Unwelcome for me, though.