Chapter 18

Hwaae High School (14)

“Ugh...!”

I reflexively rolled aside, and the box-cutter blade buried itself in the floor tile where I had just been. My injured ribs, which I had nearly forgotten about, screamed in pain, but thanks to the painkiller, it was bearable.

“Eliminated! Eliminated!”

What elimination? It meant killing us.

As though frustrated that it had failed to stab me, the teddy bear swung its blade wildly through the air.

“Duck!”

Sensing something, Team Leader Yong grabbed Haebin and me by the head and forced us down. At the same moment, the desks and chairs we had so carefully stacked came crashing down as if to bury us alive.

Chair legs slammed against the tiled floor. Desks toppled over and rolled, only for more chairs to fall on top of them.

It took a long time for the practical training room to finally settle into a heavy silence.

Clink. Click.

The shards of glass embedded in the teddy bear’s feet made a sound each time they touched the floor.

“...Hide well, hide well~”

The teddy bear hummed in an excited, almost ecstatic voice as it skipped across the mound of desks and chairs. It struck its knife against anything within reach while gradually sliding down the pile.

“Found you!”

Its head snapped downward, and its pitch-black button eyes peered beneath the kitchen counter.

Those eyes met mine.

“You’re the one who got caught.”

I had expected it to come.

Aiming at the teddy bear, I tightly squeezed the plastic bottle in my hand. The salt water inside shot out forcefully, thoroughly drenching it.

“Aaaaaaargh!!”

The teddy bear thrashed about with an earsplitting scream. The salt water running down its cotton-filled body had turned pitch-black.

“The game is over.”

“No! I don’t want it to be! Do it again! Again!”

The teddy bear wiped itself with its short limbs and rubbed against a table leg. Before we could grab it, it squeezed through a narrow gap and bolted out of the room.

Team Leader Yong cautiously raised his head from beneath the counter on the opposite side.

“What happened?”

“It ran away.”

The door through which the teddy bear had escaped had been smashed off its hinges and lay toppled outward into the hallway.

“Is it over? That’s strange. We followed the instructions, so why is it still alive and moving?”

“I’ve never dismantled a ghost story this way, so I don’t know. Maybe we should’ve stuck a dismantling marker on it.”

I thought I knew the reason.

The completion requirement for this ghost story was to clean up One-Man Hide-and-Seek.

A pool of black, soot-like filth remained where the teddy bear had been drenched in salt water. Judging from how violently it had resisted and protested, the salt water was undoubtedly effective.

“Let’s completely submerge it in salt water.”

We would clean the teddy bear with salt water.

If I had my way, I would blast it with a high-pressure washer filled with salt water, but there was no chance this place had equipment like that.

That left only one option.

We have to wash it.

Bzzzt—

The app updated.

[Completion Requirement: Launder the One-Man Hide-and-Seek ghost story at Hwaae High School.]

The final blank space, which had not been visible before, was filled in.

It was as if the app were confirming that the answer I had come up with was correct.

But this app seemed slightly more advanced than it had been last time. Was it just my imagination?

“Ah! Senior, are you planning to wash it?”

A beat later, Myeong Haebin figured out what I meant and clapped one palm with the other.

“That’s right. I’m going to launder it.”

Team Leader Yong, however, still seemed unable to understand and pretended to clean out his ear.

“Is there something wrong with my hearing?”

“Honestly, I keep telling you to clean the wax out of your ears.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

Team Leader Yong let out a deep sigh and lifted the now-empty saltwater bottle.

“Rookie, I know you’re ridiculously good at cleaning. But this is too much.”

It was the sincere warning of an older man who was genuinely concerned about me.

Or perhaps he was more concerned about my sanity.

“You promised you would give me a chance.”

“I’m sure I also told you that we’d stop immediately if it looked like you might end up being dragged to the nurse’s office. Look at yourself.”

I had lost one kidney. My sense of balance and one of my ears had both been damaged. My ribs were cracked, and giant staples were still embedded in both hands.

“How can I go to the nurse’s office? The nurse must have gone home by now.”

“Do you think this is the time for jokes?”

Team Leader Yong looked genuinely furious. But my goal was to persuade him, not provoke him further.

“If this doesn’t work either, I’ll give up. I promise.”

Team Leader Yong bit his lip in thought, then raised his wrist and tapped the face of his analog watch.

“If it isn’t done by then, we wait quietly until evening self-study ends and clock out.”

It was conditional, but he had still agreed. I immediately nodded.

“Do you trust me?”

“Why the hell would I trust a green little chick like you, punk?”

Despite what he said, Team Leader Yong began pushing the desks aside and crawled out from beneath the cramped kitchen counter.

“So, what exactly are you planning to do?”

What an amusing man.

“I’m going to pour all the remaining salt into this sink. Then I’ll mix it with water and—”

“There’s a problem!”

Myeong Haebin shot her hand into the air.

“What?”

“We used all the salt. There isn’t any left.”

Myeong Haebin pulled the bag of salt out from beneath the desk and held it up. It really was completely empty and shriveled flat.

“You used all of it in that half bottle?”

“Of course not! There was hardly any left to begin with.”

Now that she mentioned it, I vaguely remembered the bag feeling unusually light when I cleaned this room.

I looked at Team Leader Yong.

“Please go to the cafeteria.”

“The cafeteria? You nearly died there, and you still want me to go back?”

“It’s nighttime. No one should be there.”

There had to be salt in the kitchen. Admittedly, the food we had been served looked as though no human seasoning had ever touched it, but it was still our last hope of finding some.

“What if there isn’t any?”

“Then I’ll do as you say.”

Either way, we might die.

There was no second plan. We simply had to wash the teddy bear in salt water.

“I’ll go!”

“You can’t, Haebin. There’s something else I need you to do.”

“What is it?”

Myeong Haebin was quicker than either Team Leader Yong or me. The fact that she had managed to avoid the teacher on her own proved it.

“The teddy bear must still be somewhere in this school. We need to bring it here.”

“Why do both at once? Let’s take our time getting the salt first, then lure it here.”

“Because I don’t think I’ll last that long.”

Both Team Leader Yong and I had already lost too much blood.

The backs of my hands, where the metal staples were embedded, were turning blue. Since the hands were among the most frequently moving parts of the body, the bleeding refused to stop.

The painkiller was the only thing allowing me to cling to consciousness, and I had no idea how much longer I could endure.

“Ah, damn it. Fine. Just don’t do anything dangerous while I’m gone.”

“You only need to hurry back.”

Team Leader Yong looked as though he wanted to punch me in the mouth if he could. But apparently, I looked so terrible that he restrained himself, stepped through the broken doorway, and headed downstairs.

“Will you be able to do it with those hands?”

“I have to try. Besides, you’ll help me, won’t you? I’m sorry I didn’t believe you earlier.”

“Come on, you weren’t in your right mind. It’s fine.”

Myeong Haebin could sometimes be frighteningly inhuman, but I could at least trust that she genuinely cared about me.

“I’ll be back! Fill the sinks with water!”

It wasn’t as if I had ever washed a stuffed animal using only salt water before.

There was a method of cleaning stuffed animals with salt alone. You put the toy and coarse salt in a bag and shook them together. It provided mild disinfection and removed dust.

Of course, I doubt any bag could withstand that teddy bear. And we need salt water, not just salt.

Salt water was not normally used for laundry. Its salinity could make the fur and stuffing stiff, cause the colors to fade, and even lead to mold if handled improperly.

Yet that was exactly what I had to use.

“Let’s do this.”

There were three sinks in the practical training room.

I plugged all three and turned the faucets on at a low flow. I didn’t want the noise to attract a teacher.

If I could, I would have used sodium percarbonate. Its strong alkalinity made it exceptionally effective at disinfection and bleaching.

But it probably wouldn’t work well with salt water. It might even neutralize whatever effect the salt water has.

I didn’t know exactly how salt worked against ghost stories, so I couldn’t afford to experiment.

A neutral detergent would be better. It was the kind commonly used in wool shampoo and dishwashing liquid. Since it was nonionic, it would not interfere with the sodium’s properties, making it ideal.

I poured a small amount of neutral detergent into one of the half-filled sinks and stirred the water.

The water stung terribly when it touched my wounds, but compared to what was coming, this would be nothing. I had to endure it.

First, I would wash the teddy bear in the detergent solution in Sink One. Then I would completely submerge it in the salt water in Sink Two and draw out the black filth. Finally, I would rinse it in Sink Three.

The plan itself was perfect.

Why are they taking so long?

I knew I had to be careful because the missing door left the room wide open, allowing a teacher to enter at any moment. Even so, I couldn’t stop myself from peering into the hallway.

Nothing was certain.

There might not be any salt in the cafeteria. The teddy bear might have hidden itself for good. Or the other two might have been caught on the way and dragged back to the self-study room.

Had waiting always been this painful?

Every minute felt like an eternity.

Blood ran from my tightly clenched fists, dripping again and again until it formed large stains on the floor.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to go out and look for Myeong Haebin.

The moment that thought occurred to me, she ran through the front entrance of the practical training room.

Was I hallucinating from losing too much blood?

“Senior!”

Of course not.

Her bangs were soaked in sweat and plastered to her forehead, but it was unmistakably Myeong Haebin.

“I took a little too long, didn’t I? Whew, you wouldn’t believe how well this thing hid. It only came out after I stabbed at it with the knife and told it that it was the seeker—”

“So where is it?”

“Right behind me!”

Behind her?

My body moved before my mind did, and I hurled myself toward her.

The teddy bear had leaped at Haebin with its box cutter raised, the blade gleaming coldly.

I snatched it out of the air and hit the floor with a heavy thud, rolling once from the impact.

“You ran away before, but here we are again. Huh?”

“Be eliminated! I won this time!”

“You really are one stubborn bastard.”

By that logic, I had already won when I sprayed it with salt water.

But this thing’s strength was no joke.

Every time it thrashed with strength surpassing that of an adult man, my entire body staggered.

“Ugh...!”

Apparently realizing that keeping it away from my body was all I could manage, the teddy bear began wildly slashing my arms with the box cutter.

The thick blade stabbed into my flesh, sliced through muscle, and tore free again. Blood spurted from the severed vessels.

Myeong Haebin joined the struggle and helped me pull away the arm holding the box cutter.

“It’s wrapped up really tightly...! Senior, I don’t think I can take the knife away immediately. Can we put it in the water first?”

“Good idea.”

“No... Blub!”

We plunged the entire teddy bear into the ice-cold water.

Every time it thrashed, water splashed out of the sink. As its stuffing absorbed water, the blows from its flailing arms became heavier, but I did not budge.

“Tsk.”

The detergent solution mixed with my blood and turned reddish.

The soap seeped into my countless wounds, piercing even the painkiller’s effects and sending jolts of agony through my head. Still, I put even more strength into my arms.

“...! ...!!”

Without mercy, I scrubbed the teddy bear’s face with one hand while pressing down on its stomach with the other, forcing it to absorb the detergent solution.

Sensing the danger, the teddy bear began struggling even more violently.

Creeeak...

The kitchen counters, which had been sitting quietly in place, began rattling as though trying to move.

I tightly squeezed and kneaded its ears, face, and arms so the detergent could seep into every corner. Little by little, pitch-black soot began to bleed into the water.

The amount was nowhere near what had come out when the bear was drenched in salt water, but it proved that the washing was working.

“Haebin, I’m taking it out.”

“Okay! I’ve got the knife! And I put the brush beside you.”

The box cutter had practically been bound to the teddy bear’s hand by coils of red thread, but Myeong Haebin finally managed to wrench it free. She triumphantly showed it to me, then shoved it into her own pocket so the bear could not reach it again.

“No!”

I pulled the struggling teddy bear out of the soapy water and placed it on the counter. Pressing my elbow firmly into its stomach, I pinned it in place.

Using the fine-bristled brush Haebin had prepared, I vigorously scrubbed its especially filthy feet until they foamed, pulling out the embedded shards of glass as I worked.

Now it was nothing more than a self-aware teddy bear with slightly greater strength than normal.

All that remained was to submerge it in the detergent solution one more time and—

“Haebin, did you drain the water?”

“Huh...?”

The sink I had been about to use to soak the teddy bear again was empty.

The water that had filled it to the brim had vanished without a trace.