Chapter 12

Hwaae High School (8)

The cafeteria doors were obscured by hot, faintly pink steam. The place looked suspicious at a glance, yet the students filed inside as though they were riding a factory conveyor belt.

“How is that supposed to be a cafeteria?”

I felt the stiffness in my body gradually easing until I could move my fingers again.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. Myeong Haebin cautiously took hold of my sleeve.

“Sunbae, should we run?”

Right. If we were lucky, we might be able to escape.

But I could feel a chilling gaze from the cafeteria behind us.

“...I’m not sure.”

The “nutritionist” stood beside the cafeteria entrance, dressed entirely in white and wearing a white mask. Only the eerie gleam of its eyes was visible.

Normally, one would assume that a nutritionist standing there was welcoming students arriving for lunch.

So why did it seem as though it was watching to make sure no one escaped?

“It’s staring at the line.”

Perhaps that was because it was watching the queue rather than the cafeteria entrance.

I didn’t know whether the nutritionist technically counted as one of this school’s “teachers,” but I had no desire to experiment.

“Both of you, stop getting distracted and follow me.”

Team Leader Yong’s voice was tense, and his jaw was clenched.

“Yes.”

I wasn’t obeying merely because Team Leader Yong had ordered me to. With our line practically pressed against the wall, slipping away unnoticed would be nearly impossible.

I steeled myself before entering, but the cafeteria’s interior was even more grotesque than I had imagined.

As though imitating a real school, the students appeared to have chosen their own seats. But they all sat with their backs perfectly straight, said the same words, and began eating in the same sequence.

—Thank you for the meal.

—Thank you for the meal.

—Thank you for the meal.

Every time a spoon entered and withdrew from the gaping holes in their faces, dark red liquid poured out.

They were spilling blood.

It flowed from mouths, noses, eyes, and ears that could no longer be distinguished from one another.

The tables, chairs, and floor were drenched in blood. The entire cafeteria was filled with such a powerful metallic stench that it was difficult to breathe.

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

It was a sight I could neither bear to look at nor force myself to ignore.

When my turn came, I picked up a stainless-steel tray.

Squelching, gruel-like rice, side dishes that looked like mixed and deep-fried entrails, and a thick soup were ladled onto it.

The selection was enough to make anyone retch.

“Urgh....”

Hold it in.

I couldn’t draw attention to myself.

I followed Team Leader Yong with my eyes practically fixed on his back, refusing to look at my tray or anything beside me.

But when I reached the seat he had chosen, I hit my limit.

“Urk!”

“Oh, do you want to switch places with Haebin?”

“That’s not the problem...!”

Team Leader Yong had chosen a spot some distance from the student anomalies.

Unfortunately, it was between two corpses.

There was a genuine dead body beside Team Leader Yong and another beside me.

Instead of waiting for me to close my jaw after it dropped in horror, Team Leader Yong turned the head of the corpse slumped face-first over its tray and pulled open its mouth.

“Was that person part of an exploration team?”

“Yeah. Check the one beside you too. Look inside its mouth.”

Both bodies wore familiar uniforms.

The corpse beside Team Leader Yong was shriveled as though nothing remained but skin. The one beside me appeared to have bled from every opening in its head, leaving it covered in dried, dark-red blood.

“Why do I need to look inside its mouth?”

“Here.”

Team Leader Yong handed me a tightly rolled slip of paper.

[Failure to consume school lunch before the end of the lunch period]

The words looked as though they had been typed onto a strip cut from a sheet of A4 paper.

“That’s the cause of death.”

“How was this inside the body?”

“You don’t have a capsule?”

A capsule?

What was that supposed to be?

When I didn’t answer, Team Leader Yong opened his mouth and pulled one cheek aside. I thought I could see something resembling a blue pill beside one of his molars.

“Oh, right. The cleaning team’s office isn’t ready yet, so sunbae hasn’t received one.”

“Do you have one, Haebin?”

“I’m part of the cleaning team now too, remember? Of course I don’t. It’s standard company equipment.”

“We just call them capsules. When you die, the outer shell dissolves and reveals your cause of death.”

So the cause-of-death note I had found on the person when we first entered the school had come from one of these capsules.

“It keeps the next person from making the same mistake. Though if your entire head gets blown off, there’s nothing it can do.”

Because this unknown person had died, we now knew that failing to leave the cafeteria on time would kill us.

It was a strange feeling.

“Hurry up and check. More of them are coming.”

“Would you like me to do it?”

“No.”

The student anomalies who had received their lunches were approaching us in search of empty seats. If I wanted to act naturally, I had to examine the corpse beside me quickly.

“It’s not as though this is my first time seeing a corpse. Calm down.”

When cleaning hoarder houses, I had occasionally encountered one.

And how many had I seen between yesterday and today alone?

“Excuse me.”

Even so, I briefly closed my eyes and prayed for the deceased before carefully pulling open the corpse’s jaw.

Its stiffened mouth opened with a crack. Beside one of its molars, mixed with blood and saliva that had not yet fully dried, was a partially dissolved capsule.

[School lunch]

The achievement warning had said that eating the school lunch and escaping could cause irreversible injury.

Did that mean the injury came from eating the food?

If it was enough to kill someone, “irreversible injury” hardly seemed like the right—

No. I supposed death was technically included.

“What does it say?”

The newly arrived students sat around us, practically surrounding our group. I handed the capsule’s note to Myeong Haebin, then naturally straightened my back in my seat.

—Thank you for the meal.

We should probably imitate them for now.

I glanced aside and met Team Leader Yong’s eyes. Apparently, he had reached the same conclusion.

“Thank you for the meal.”

“Thank you for the meal.”

“Thank you for the meal!”

Myeong Haebin caught on and joined us. None of the students gave us any strange looks.

For the moment, we could breathe a little easier.

The corpse beside me had apparently died because it hadn’t eaten before lunch ended. Fortunately, that meant we didn’t necessarily have to begin eating immediately.

“You checked both of them, right?”

It seemed possible to connect the two notes to what had happened to the two victims.

“So the person beside me ate the school lunch. The other one saw what happened and refused to eat until time ran out.”

“Then the outcome is the same whether we eat or not.”

We put our heads together and slowly surveyed the cafeteria.

The “nutritionist” remained outside, and students continued entering without pause.

The cafeteria had limited seating. Students who completely emptied their trays stood up and headed toward the tray-return station.

Another “teacher” was standing there.

“Why is that teacher stationed there?”

I couldn’t determine the reason.

Every student simply struck their empty tray twice against the disposal counter, then walked past the teacher and left.

“Hanmu, I have a good idea. What if we don’t eat and just walk out?”

“The teacher is watching.”

Hadn’t there been graffiti in the lab asking whether they were confident they wouldn’t get caught leaving food behind?

“Ah!”

Myeong Haebin’s eyes lit up as an idea occurred to her. Without a hint of fear, she tapped the student anomaly beside her.

—?

Blood streamed down the anomaly’s face as it turned toward her, but she remained undaunted.

“Hey, I have too much food. Would you mind eating some for me?”

The anomaly stared at her silently, then turned back to its tray.

None of us knew whether that meant permission or refusal. Myeong Haebin nevertheless scooped up a large spoonful of crimson rice—though “a spoonful” was generous, since it was almost half the tray—and placed it on the anomaly’s tray.

“Thanks so much!”

I whispered to Team Leader Yong as I watched her.

“Is she allowed to do that?”

“There was no time to stop her. Be ready in case something happens.”

Be ready?

How was I supposed to do that?

But contrary to our anxious gazes, which resembled those of parents watching a child beside the water, the student anomaly merely began shoveling down the bloody rice.

The serving must have been too large, however. It left half of the additional food uneaten, stood up, and joined the line leading to the tray-return station.

“Hey. Why would you dump your food on an anomaly—on a kid you’ve never even met?”

“The students at our school are ‘nice.’ I thought one might help if I asked politely. Hehe.”

It had been the same in the classroom. The student anomalies were always quiet and resembled obedient scarecrows.

I had known that too, but still—

“And you just went ahead and gave it to them?”

“Hanmu suddenly raised his hand in class earlier too!”

“True. Hanmu did do that.”

That had been an emergency.

Still, I couldn’t exactly argue.

Wait. Team Leader, you helped me plan that whole thing. How could you casually remove yourself from the blame now?

“Stop bickering and look over there. The kid’s leaving.”

I had been glaring disapprovingly at the shameless duo, but I sighed and pointed past Myeong Haebin with my chopsticks.

What would happen?

The student carried its tray to the return station and attempted to discard its leftovers like the others.

However, the “teacher” stepped forward and stopped it. They appeared to exchange a few words before the anomaly left the line, returned to a nearby empty seat, and forced down the rest of its food.

“Looks like they aren’t allowed to leave anything behind.”

“At least it wasn’t punished.”

Was that why the corpse beside me had eaten its meal?

Because it couldn’t leave without doing so?

“Still, it seems we’re allowed to give food to other students. Let’s try that.”

—Thirty minutes remain in the lunch period.

Our current seating arrangement wasn’t ideal. There were corpses on either side of Team Leader Yong and me, and we had three trays to empty.

I still didn’t like it, but—

“Let’s split up. We’ll move to separate empty seats and meet again afterward.”

“Agreed. Ugh, why is it so cramped here?”

“That seems best. See you later, Hanmu!”

The clock’s second hand continued moving as the three of us naturally stood and targeted empty seats throughout the cafeteria.

“Mind if I sit here?”

—......

The student anomalies didn’t answer, but I was getting used to that.

Twenty minutes remained.

Naturally, I had no intention of eating. I merely fiddled with my spoon while watching the students around me, then spoke to the anomaly seated beside me.

“This is too much food for me. Do you want some of mine?”

The student anomaly turned its gaze toward me.

Good. This was no different from what Myeong Haebin had done.

Now I could quietly transfer my food—

Slide.

But the student anomaly pushed its tray to the side away from me.

Why?

Its head moved up and down as it looked at me, as though saying, You can’t even finish that tiny amount of food?

The cafeteria food looked so grotesque that I had taken only a small portion of the rice—the only item we had been allowed to serve ourselves.

“My stomach isn’t feeling well today. Please do me a favor.”

But the anomaly refused to budge.

Instead, it quickly finished its entire meal, sprang to its feet, and walked away.

“Picky little bastard.”

In my imagination, I had already unloaded my entire meal and left the cafeteria.

As I considered what other method I could try, a finger tapped my shoulder from behind.

“Hanmu, I’m leaving first.”

“Already?”

Myeong Haebin stood there holding an empty tray and smiling awkwardly.

“I wanted to leave with you, but they told me to get up because they need to clean the table. I’ll wait for you outside, so hurry, okay?”

She appeared to want to say more, but the student behind her poked her in the back with its tray. With no other choice, she moved away from me.

I watched her receding back as she passed the tray-return station without the slightest disturbance.

The corpse of the exploration-team employee flashed through my mind—the one whose jaw had been so stiff I could barely pry it open to retrieve the capsule.

“Don’t get sentimental. You’ve always managed perfectly well alone. Focus.”

If only I had my cleaning bag, I could have swept these grotesque leftovers into a garbage bag and pretended I had eaten everything.

But because my body had moved on its own, I had arrived completely empty-handed.

Fifteen minutes remained.

Lunch was nearing its end, and the number of students in the cafeteria was steadily dwindling.

My tray remained completely untouched.