The Beginning of Hell (2)

Some kind of bullshit materialized right in front of my face.

No matter how hard I squeezed the trigger, the pistol refused to fire. I couldn't make sense of it. Why the hell wouldn't it shoot?

Kieeek! Squeak!

While I was still wrestling with the gun, the Giant Rat I'd knocked down shoved itself back onto its feet. It bared those massive teeth like it was showing them off, then locked its enormous eyes on me.

"Hey! Which one of you got a class related to this gun?!" I shouted, waving the pistol at the kids who'd all scrambled to the back of the room to get away from the thing. Not a single one of them answered.

The terrified students just stood there, hoping someone — anyone — would somehow fix this for them.

Squeak-squeak!

Before I knew it, the Giant Rat had crept right up to my face. And then came the eye contact.

"What, am I your girlfriend?"

I was already miserable enough not having one. The last thing I ever expected was to be locking eyes this intensely with a Giant Rat.

Squeak-squeak!

I tried to slip around it and run, but there was nowhere to go. The Giant Rat watched me squirm, decided its meal was as good as caught, and charged.

Goddamn it!

I flung the useless pistol to the floor, snatched up a desk beside me, and swung it with everything I had at the Giant Rat leaping toward my face.

WHAM!

Kieeek! THUD!

A satisfying crack rang out. The Giant Rat took the desk full-on and went flying into the blackboard.

Is it dead?

For a moment the thing didn't move. Then it twitched — as if to prove it was still very much alive — and scrambled back to its feet.

"Alright, bring it on, you bastard!"

This was more doable than I'd thought. As long as I didn't get caught by those giant teeth, I could handle it.

"Hoo."

I tightened my grip on the desk. The Giant Rat came at me again. It had learned from getting smashed mid-leap last time — this round, it came in low.

"Coming in low? Then you're done for."

I brought the desk down with both hands.

CRACK!

The sound thundered through the classroom. The force of the blow transferred straight through, and the Giant Rat's body folded at a grotesque angle.

Squeak-squeak!

It still wasn't dead. Some kind of noise spilled from its mouth — and the second I heard it, I started slamming the corner of the desk into its skull without mercy.

THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

Bright red blood sprayed in every direction. Some of it flew into my mouth.

Gulp.

I'd swallowed it without meaning to. And in that instant, a message bloomed in front of my eyes.

What the hell is this?

Unintelligible text floating in midair. Had this triggered because I'd swallowed a little of the Giant Rat's blood?

Huh? This tastes like soda, though?

The Giant Rat's blood had definitely splashed into my mouth. But what I was tasting was orange soda — like Fanta. And then another message stacked itself on top of the last.

Coin? Now what the hell is that.

A Coin, awarded for the Giant Rat's death. The messages felt exactly like a game system, and I couldn't help being thrown by it.

After killing the thing, I slowly got to my feet and looked around. Only then did the students who'd been plastered against the windows start to stir.

"Is it… is it dead?"

"What the hell even was that?!"

"Ssaem! That thing's actually dead, right?"

None of them could believe the Giant Rat was gone. They wanted me to confirm it. Judging by the message from a moment ago, it was definitely dead — but just in case, I gave the corpse a few pokes with the desk. Not a twitch.

"Yeah. It's dead. Everyone just stay calm."

I was trying to get a handle on the situation and settle the kids down when the universe made it clear it had no intention of letting things go that easily. Another Giant Rat appeared in the doorway.

Squeak!

And once again, I found myself locking eyes with a Giant Rat's bright, glittering stare. Its target had already been chosen. It coiled itself like it was about to come at me, and I tightened my grip on the desk all over again.

How many of these things are there? If this many Giant Rats were already in our hallway, it stood to reason the whole school could be crawling with them.

"Hey! Did any of you get a gun-related class just now?! This pistol will only work for that class!"

Only then did one of them raise a hand, hesitant and trembling. Min-cheol. The kid who'd been timid about everything his entire life. Acting shy even now — what was he planning to do, exactly?

"Min-cheol! Catch!"

Keeping my eyes on the Giant Rat in front of me, I kicked the fallen pistol across the floor toward him. Min-cheol picked it up like it might explode.

The Giant Rat in the hallway crept through the open door, easing its way into the classroom.

"Don't hesitate — shoot! This thing is a real monster!" I urged him as the Giant Rat closed in on me.

But Min-cheol's hands were shaking so hard he couldn't pull the trigger.

Damn it. Still too scared.

Fair enough. My own legs were still trembling — I couldn't expect the students to be any different. In the meantime, the Giant Rat lunged at me.

I already knew a desk could kill one of these. I wasn't about to die here. I swung with everything I had.

WHAM!

The Giant Rat took the hit and went sailing. It slammed into the wall by the front door and crumpled to the floor. If it had just stayed down, that would've been perfect. Instead it started twitching again, still alive.

And then—

BANG!

A gunshot cracked through the entire classroom. Min-cheol had fired. The bullet crossed the room in a blink and punched straight into the Giant Rat's skull.

Is it dead?

A bullet in the head should've done it — but treating these monsters like people was a mistake. Blood began pouring from the Giant Rat's head, soaking the classroom floor, and the monster didn't move again.

"It's… it's dead, right?"

"What the hell is even happening?!"

"We have to run! It's dangerous if we stay here!"

"Yeah! Let's get outside and call for help!"

A few of the kids had apparently decided that staying put was suicide. They bolted through the open door.

"Kids, stop! We have no idea how many of those monsters are out there!"

My shouting didn't matter. Once a few of them slipped out, most of the others piled after them, shoving each other to escape this hell of a classroom. They seemed to believe that getting outside would solve everything. I didn't share that belief.

If anything, it could get worse. If the monsters in here weren't the last of them, then our classroom — tucked at the far end of the top floor, the fourth — was the safest place in the building. One wall was a dead end, and compared to the other floors where things could move freely up and down, far fewer Giant Rats would be circulating through here.

"AAAAAH!"

"S-save me!"

"R-run! AAAAH!"

Screams erupted from every direction. So it hadn't just been our classroom. Giant Rats had clearly spread through the entire school.

"Jin-hwan! Lock the back door, now!"

I barked it at Jin-hwan, who was still here, then sprinted to the front door and bolted it shut. I climbed back in through a window and locked every pane as fast as I could.

The only people left in the classroom were me, Jin-hwan, and Min-cheol. Everyone else had fled.

"This is insane. What the hell is even going on!" I stared at the Giant Rat corpses sprawled across the floor, trying to make sense of it, but ordinary common sense couldn't even begin to explain this.

"Ss-Ssaem. What do we do now?" Min-cheol approached me timidly.

Honestly, this wasn't a situation we could solve on our own. Which left one thought in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my head.

"The police! We need to call the police!"

I yanked out my phone and punched in 112.

"Damn it!"

Was the network down? The police station wouldn't connect. It was looking more and more likely that this wasn't just our school — that the same thing was happening everywhere else.

"What the hell is going on out there."

I forced myself to stay as calm as I could and walked through everything that had happened, step by step, looking for a way out. The voice we'd heard before the monsters appeared. The classes. Those two things had to be connected to this.

"Min-cheol. You got a class too, right?"

"Yes. Mine's Gunslinger."

"When you killed the Giant Rat with the gun just now, a message popped up, didn't it?"

"Ah — yeah! Something about my pistol proficiency going up, and something about Coins."

Proficiency going up. Strange Coins. Messages that appeared when you killed a Giant Rat. It was all starting to feel a lot like a game.

"Jin-hwan, you said you got one too, right?"

"I'm a Healer."

So the idea was to take the class you'd been given, pick up the matching weapon, and hunt these monsters?

Min-cheol's weapon is that pistol. Jin-hwan's looks like that Bible-like tome sitting on his desk. Then mine is… that fork?

Jin-hwan's class was Healer, so he'd received that tome. Min-cheol's class was Gunslinger, so he'd received the pistol. My class was Predator — so a fork? I couldn't wrap my head around it. What was I supposed to do with a fork? It couldn't possibly mean I was supposed to beat monsters to death with the thing.

Back there, it said my ability activated when I swallowed the Giant Rat's blood.

The Giant Rat's blood. Sweet and sharp, like soda. I didn't know if that was really how it tasted, but it had to be tied to my ability somehow.

Don't tell me eating monsters is my ability?

Analyzing the earlier messages, that was the impression I got.

Where was it?

I walked over to where the fork had been sitting. The tines were honed to a vicious point, as if daring me to spear a monster and eat it.

Is this really the only way out of this?

If my class was about eating monsters to get stronger, the way the messages described, then surviving this situation left me with no other option. I picked up the fork and approached the dead Giant Rat.

Ugh.

The visual ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠alone made it impossible. Regular rats were disgusting enough — this thing was bigger than a wild boar. I'd almost rather die than eat it. I had my doubts about the ability, too, but just in case, I crouched down in front of the Giant Rat.

Blood first.

I dabbed a finger in the blood and touched it to my tongue.

"Ssaem! Have you lost it? What are you doing?!"

The students stared at me in horror. But as if to prove I hadn't gone insane, another window appeared.

And the Giant Rat's blood was far more delicious than it had any right to be. The moment I started, a ravenous hunger boiled up through my body. An appetite that insisted I had to eat the monster sitting right in front of me.

What… what is this feeling?

My hands moved on their own. I drove the fork down into the Giant Rat's body. The instant I lifted it, chunks of flesh came ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠away in perfect bite-sized pieces, as if the fork had been made for this.

Drip. Drip.

It hadn't been dead long. Unclotted blood ran off the meat and hit the floor. I shoved a piece into my mouth and started ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a Giant Rat mukbang.

Chomp. Chomp.

Jin-hwan, watching this, managed one sentence.

"Damn it! I'm going insane. Ssaem's lost his mind!"