Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Goblin Freeze Tag (1)
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"The lottery's starting?"
The moment Dokgo Hyun tensed up.
Bang!
A small capsule popped up right in front of him.
It looked just like one of those cheap prize capsules you see outside stationery stores.
"Hm."
He twisted open the plastic lid.
Pop!
"Staff Room 1, huh..."
Staff Room 1 was the office for the 3rd-year liberal arts teachers.
Dokgo Hyun had been in there a few times himself.
He pulled a bottle of water from his bag and took a swig to rehydrate.
"..."
Dokgo Hyun gave the classroom one last look around.
The gruesome scene of his classmates' deaths.
The bodies had all turned into colorful blocks, making the whole place a dizzying mess.
Someone with a bizarre sense of aesthetics might even find a strange beauty in it.
But for Dokgo Hyun, who knew what had really happened here, it was nothing but a brutal reality.
'We weren't super close or anything.'
He closed his eyes for three seconds in silent prayer for his fallen classmates.
After a moment of remembrance, he stepped out into the hallway.
Other 3rd-year players were emerging from their classrooms too.
"Guys..."
"Sniff... sob..."
"What are we gonna do..."
The survivors checked on each other in the corridor or hugged and cried.
Dokgo Hyun scratched the back of his head.
'Other classes have way more survivors than I expected.'
He'd survived alone from Class 4, so he'd assumed most other classes had been wiped out too.
But that wasn't the case.
"Dokgo Hyun!"
It was a girl from Class 5.
"Oh, Baek Seonghui."
Dokgo Hyun didn't have many close friends, but he did have one good female friend.
That was Baek Seonghui.
A model student beauty with a bob haircut, sharp jawline, piercing eyebrows, and round eyes.
He and Baek Seonghui had history going back to elementary school.
Both whiz kids, they'd even represented the school in the math Olympiad as the top boy and girl picks.
Back then, rivalry made them snippy with each other, but they eventually came to respect one another and stayed close ever since.
By high school, they were the classic guy-best-friend, girl-best-friend duo.
'Especially when my parents passed... she was there for me.'
Cool-headed as he was, Dokgo Hyun held Baek Seonghui in high regard.
'Smart and kind like her? Rare breed.'
"Dokgo Hyun. You okay?"
"As you can see. And looks like you made it through fine too, Baek Seonghui."
"Yeah. What about the others in your class?"
"I'm the only survivor from Class 4."
"Oh..."
Baek Seonghui's face fell.
"What about other classes?"
"Quite a few made it."
"How many?"
"Ten from my class. Maybe around 70 from all of 3rd year."
"Around 70..."
"If we figure 1st and 2nd years have similar numbers, plus staff, that's gotta be about 230 survivors total, right?"
"Yeah."
It might jinx it to say "surprisingly," but more had made it than he'd thought.
'Problem is, numbers don't mean we have a plan.'
No clue why this death game started or what the culprits wanted.
For now, all he could do was rack his brain for survival.
"That's why I was thinking."
Baek Seonghui shared her idea.
"What if we all team up, smash through the fence, or dig under the floor to escape?"
It sounded like a wild jailbreak straight out of a delinquent's playbook—not her usual model-student vibe.
But it piqued Dokgo Hyun's interest.
"The whole school's wrapped in that bluish barrier."
Defied physics entirely. No way to punch through.
Baek Seonghui knew that too.
"True. But we don't know if it's sealed tight underground or inside the walls. Worth a shot, don't you think?"
She clung to that hope, but Dokgo Hyun thought it over and shook his head.
"Won't work."
"Why not?"
"Your plan needs a bunch of hands. That means unity. But right now? Impossible. So escape like that? Too tough."
"...You're such a pessimist, from elementary school to now."
"Can't agree there."
"Why not?"
"Forgot how I hunted down delinquents, shook 'em down, invested in Bitcoin and stocks, and made bank? A pessimist would've blown it all. But I built assets for the future. Proven: not a pessimist."
Baek Seonghui was dumbfounded by his ironclad logic.
Dokgo Hyun pressed on.
"You're wasting that brilliant brain, Baek Seonghui. Even an optimist like me isn't sure I'll survive. Focus on your own skin here."
"What? In a crisis like this, we should band together!"
Dokgo Hyun and Baek Seonghui saw it differently.
Partly personality clash, but more than that...
'She missed the hint.'
The hint said killing other players nets 100 coins.
Meaning this tutorial allowed—no, maybe encouraged—player kills.
'I saw it early thanks to special clear rewards. She doesn't know, so she's talking teamwork and unity.'
The system urged them to hurry.
"Shoot! Gotta go. Survive this, and we'll talk. Hang in there!"
Baek Seonghui dashed off toward Staff Room 2.
'Man. Was gonna clue her in on the hint.'
But forcing it now would just upset her.
No one wants to hear killing friends pays off.
Dokgo Hyun took a deep breath and headed for Staff Room 1.
3rd-year Staff Room 1 was about the size of two classrooms combined.
Including Dokgo Hyun, 30 players had gathered there.
"Where are the teachers?"
"Yeah, weird. No adults around."
"That's not the issue. There's nothing in here."
Not just the teachers—desks, chairs, cabinets, all gone.
That alone had everyone feeling uneasy.
'Hm. Don't recognize many faces.'
Dokgo Hyun focused on the people, not the room.
'Can't underestimate these guys.'
They'd survived the absurd sitting and block-stacking game.
Meant they grasped rules at least basically, had the grit and focus to stack without cheap tricks.
They'd sized up the situation and judged coldly.
Mixed from various 3rd-year classes, the vibe was awkward and standoffish.
Naturally, boys clustered with boys, girls with girls.
'Wonder what the mission'll be.'
Dokgo Hyun hoped for something quick, whatever it was.
'Brother's got me antsy again.'
His brother lying in a hospital bed, suddenly forced into a death game?
Dokgo Hyun would claw his way through, but his brother? No.
'Gotta clear fast. No matter what.'
"Whoa, check that guy's eyes. Pure killer instinct."
A girl said it loud enough for him to hear while staring.
Dokgo Hyun glanced over, and the girl with dyed yellow hair sneered in contempt.
'Who was she again?'
Digging through memories: the delinquent's girlfriend.
The one who'd yelled "Violence! Stop!" first outside school.
Her boyfriend's grudge rubbed off, apparently.
'Name escapes me. Delinquent Girl it is.'
Her tough aura had the other girls glancing nervously and staying quiet.
'Should I go teach her to keep her eyes straight?'
Dokgo Hyun considered, then dropped it.
'Nah. Could be a team mission.'
Right then.
And the mission window appeared.
Goblin Freeze Tag
Goal: Follow the rules. Survive by the rules to succeed. Anything else is failure.
Rules:
• Stage is the staff room. Leaving = instant failure.
• Goblin supervisor is the tagger. Players are runners.
• Tagger catches and brutally kills runners.
• Runners can flee freely and yell "Freeze!" anytime. This encases you and your surroundings in unbreakable ice pillars, safe from the tagger.
• But frozen runners are fully encased, unable to act.
• If all runners freeze, everyone fails and dies.
• Unfrozen runners can touch frozen ones to thaw them.
• Survive until time's up = success.
📍 Success Bonus: Inventory Window unlocked. Healing Potion x1. 600 Coins.
💀 Failure Penalty: Death.
⏰ Time Limit: 15 minutes.
💡 Hint: Cooperate or betray? That's the question. Killing the tagger unlocks a hidden bonus—team up and try it!
"Freeze tag...?"
"Dodge for 15 minutes?"
"If there's just one tagger, maybe we can hold out..."
"Hang on. We've got about 30 in here."
Players glanced around, murmuring.
Some were already jogging in place for warm-ups.
Dokgo Hyun stared hard at the mission window.
'Healing Potion on success, huh. Wonder if it's as good as in games.'
Right then.
Clang!
The staff room door flew open.
Tap, tap...
A goblin straight out of a folktale appeared—like a pint-sized one.
About 6th-grader height, horns included reaching average middle-school boy stature.
Slam!
The door shut and locked on its own.
"Hehe. I'm the supervisor for Tutorial Mission 3—and your tagger."
The goblin bobbed its head in greeting.
All 30 players shuffled back a few steps.
"Won't start right away—you'd freak. I'll give you 10 seconds."
The goblin counted slowly, like a generous tagger.
"Kinda looks weak..."
A boy muttered.
Flash!
Thud!!
In a blink, the goblin had headbutted the boy's gut.
"Urk...!!"
"Weak now? Hehe."
It had charged like a bull, horns first.
'That charge was barely visible.'
Dokgo Hyun's Speed stat was 24.
High for a high schooler, yet the goblin's move was just traceable to him.
For others? Probably just a blur.
"Hup!"
The goblin roughly flicked its horns upward on purpose.
Crack!
Something snapped, and it tossed the dead boy to the floor.
"Agh!"
"Eek!"
"You said 10 seconds!!"
The remaining 29, Dokgo Hyun included, didn't hide their shock as they scrambled to the opposite wall.
"Hehe. Ever seen an honest tagger? First time freeze tag, huh? You naive brats. I'll kill you nice and slow over 15 minutes. But first..."
The goblin crouched by the corpse and gaped its mouth.
Whoooosh...!
As it sucked, the body turned to white vapor and flowed into its maw.
The other players were too horrified to even scream properly.
"Nyam! Tasty. Burp."
Having vaporized and absorbed the body, the goblin rubbed its belly and eyed the rest.
"As you saw, full tummy makes me lenient. Anyone volunteer to be lunch?"
It asked with a lazy grin.
Bloody horns and head made it extra chilling.
"P.S., I like girls. Hehe. One volunteers, and I'll... yeah, chill for about a minute."
In a 15-minute game, one minute goblin-free boosted survival odds big time.
"H-how can we trust that?"
A boy asked.
"Hehe. Don't. Your call."
The goblin smacked its lips.
"One of the 14 girls, step up. Vote, rock-paper-scissors, whatever. Pick your sacrifice. You get exactly 30 seconds."