Chapter 9

Hwaae High School (5)

Team Leader Yong tapped his lips with a finger. At that, Jeong Dohyeon withdrew the hand he had been reaching toward the early-leave pass.

“I can finish the rest of my classes. I don’t necessarily have to leave right away....”

Jeong Dohyeon sounded quite convincing, but the “school nurse” tapped the early-leave pass.

[You are ordered to leave school immediately.]

A red underline appeared beneath the words for emphasis.

Then the “school nurse” looked at us and placed a finger vertically against its lips.

“Do not encourage him.”

Its intention was imprinted directly into our minds. I instinctively knew that something bad would happen if we refused any further.

Jeong Dohyeon seemed to feel the same way, because he slowly nodded.

“I’ll see you again later.”

Was there really no other way? Did we have no choice but to let him leave like this?

But my phone remained silent, and I didn’t have spare lives dangling from me like trinkets either, so I looked away from him.

Still, Jeong Dohyeon must have taken hold of the early-leave pass.

Slide.

When I blinked, we were standing in front of the nurse’s office. By “we,” I meant Team Leader Yong, Myeong Haebin, and me.

“What happened to Mr. Dohyeon?”

“He disappeared. I suppose he was processed as having left early.”

“I’m asking what happened to him.”

For the briefest moment, I thought I saw Team Leader Yong’s face contort. But he wiped a hand over his face and lightly pushed my shoulder.

“Don’t think about it. Save that for after we get out. Just be careful not to get hurt. Got it?”

There was no way he could remain calm after losing a team member.

Team Leader Yong was pretending to be fine, but he clearly wasn’t. I didn’t want to make things any harder for him.

Rather than pressing him further, I silently headed for the stairs. Third period would begin soon.

Damn it. It was still only third period.

“Here. Take this.”

Team Leader Yong tossed me something small. I caught it without thinking and only then realized what it was.

A green name tag marked Class 3-2.

Unlike ours, it had no name on it.

“This is....”

“I swiped it. I was going to find one more and give them to you and Dohyeon together, but that’s not happening now.”

The pin on the name tag replaced my second-year tag without the slightest resistance, and the blank space filled itself with my name.

Class 3-2. Kim Hanmu.

“What are you doing, sunbae? We need to get out of here. I promise I’ll get you out.”

“...Yeah.”

Don’t think about it. Three people are better than one. Whatever shock I need to process, whatever else I need to do—I’ll do it after we get out.

Clenching my teeth, I hurried down the stairs after Team Leader Yong’s retreating back.

The Class 3-2 classroom welcomed me as though I had always been one of its students.

“It’s no different from Class 2-3.”

It looked like the exact same classroom with nothing but the timetable changed. Perhaps because the bell had not rung yet, there wasn’t a single student in sight.

I reached into the desk to find the materials I needed for class and pulled out a textbook.

Come to think of it, what happened to the student who originally sat here?

“What happened to the student who was wearing this name tag?”

“I saw it! The moment we removed the name tag, the student disappeared!”

“It just disappeared? It didn’t attack you?”

“No. How should I put it? It felt like a scarecrow.”

Now that I thought about it, none of the students had ever threatened our lives. They also vanished during breaks. The wording felt a little strange, but maybe we could regard them as harmless anomalies.

“Maybe the main anomalies in this ghost story are the ‘teachers.’ Teachers are always the scariest people in school, after all.”

“That does make sense.”

As I spoke with Myeong Haebin, who was sitting directly behind me, Team Leader Yong abruptly cut into the conversation.

“Enough. We only need to hold out until seventh period. Then we clock out.”

“Will that be enough? What about this ghost story?”

“Our team will handle it. Forget about it.”

There was an edge to Team Leader Yong, who was usually so easygoing.

Of course there was. One of his team members had vanished without a trace.

But I couldn’t simply leave this ghost story.

[Completion Requirement: ■ the ghost story, Hwaae High School ■■■■.]

[Reward: Two questions]

[Penalty for Failure: Death]

The reward was tempting, but more importantly, this app had a knife to my throat.

“Are you giving up on dismantling this ghost story today?”

“Yeah.”

His judgment wasn’t wrong. In fact, it was the best and least reckless choice he could make.

But even if he could give up, I couldn’t.

“Please give me a chance. I want to try cleaning up this ghost story.”

Team Leader Yong stopped rummaging through his desk for a textbook. He turned toward me, one eyebrow raised.

“Rookie, I like the enthusiasm. I do. But if you die doing this, no one’s going to recognize your sacrifice.”

His gaze held what could only be described as frost.

Unfazed, I met his eyes.

“Do you think I don’t value my own life? I’m only asking for a chance.”

Myeong Haebin, who had gone quiet, promptly jumped in to support me.

“If sunbae gets into danger, you can help him, mister! My sunbae is really good at cleaning!”

I had no idea where that boundless faith came from, but Myeong Haebin gave me a thumbs-up.

“Haebin, you... Haah. Didn’t I tell you not to butt in when adults are talking?”

“I’m an adult too. And we’re all students here, aren’t we~? Since you’re giving up on dismantling it this time anyway, we might as well let him try.”

Team Leader Yong looked back and forth between Myeong Haebin, who had widened her eyes innocently while saying everything she wanted, and me. Then he clicked his tongue.

“If it looks like you’re about to get dragged to the nurse’s office too, we’re stopping immediately. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Team Leader Yong still seemed to view me as a chick that had only just hatched, but at least I had his permission.

Now, then. What did I need to do to clean up this ghost story?

The clue should be somewhere in the app.

[3. Conduct unrelated to academic activities is subject to disciplinary action.]

Most of the places we had visited so far were classrooms—places related to academic activities. No matter how thoroughly we searched the classrooms, we couldn’t find any clues about nonacademic conduct.

There might be a separate place where the school’s rules could be avoided.

“Is there anywhere students can do things out of the teachers’ sight?”

“Why are you suddenly looking for a place like that?”

“Because all we’ve done so far is go back and forth between classrooms and the lounge. If you want to place dismantling markers in a wider variety of locations, shouldn’t you try changing your perspective like this?”

I had prepared an excuse in case he asked why I was suddenly interested in dismantling after saying I wanted to clean the ghost story, but Team Leader Yong merely folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

“Yeah. That’s not a bad idea.”

“I think I saw an abandoned classroom. It looked like it used to be the home economics lab.”

The home economics lab?

Rule number two on the app came to mind.

[2. Do not store unauthorized items on school premises. (Uncooked food, bladed implements such as knives or scissors, etc.)]

That would be the perfect place to hide uncooked food or knives.

“Let’s go there during the next break.”

“Okay.”

Whether it was connected to rule two or rule three, the chances that we would find something there had just risen dramatically.

Ding-dong-dang-dong.

“The bell rang. Watch what you say.”

“What should we call you, Team Leader?”

I gestured at him. He was so clearly middle-aged that calling him our classmate—or even a mature student—would have been a stretch. Team Leader Yong gave a hollow laugh.

“Big brother? Forget it. Just leave out the title. I do have a conscience.”

What did conscience have to do with doing your job?

But that thought was driven from my mind when the teacher and students abruptly materialized again.

“Where did we leave off yesterday?”

The teacher turned its back and resumed writing on the board along with those unwelcome words. That was all it did, yet something felt strange.

“Where is this sense of wrongness coming from...? Huh?”

Team Leader Yong and I had different textbooks.

[Math]

The lettering was distorted and difficult to read, but that was the textbook on Team Leader Yong’s desk.

That wasn’t the important part, however.

“Isn’t this period Korean language...? Or is it?”

It was awkward as hell suddenly having to stop speaking formally to him. Yet the other two sounded astonishingly natural.

“You got a different textbook? Isn’t it math?”

“Mine’s physics. It was in the desk.”

No matter how many times I checked, the timetable on the noticeboard said Korean language.

Feeling eyes on me, I turned my head. The students sitting at their desks hurriedly looked away before our gazes could meet.

“We used the textbooks in our desks last period too... Huh?”

“Yeah. Last period was world history, and I definitely had the correct textbook then. I should’ve looked ahead.”

They had received world history textbooks last period, but now different subjects had appeared in each of their desks?

That meant the textbooks had changed.

Team Leader Yong stealthily reached toward a student’s desk across the aisle, but the faceless student quickly pulled its Korean-language textbook close and hid it.

Because it had surrendered its name tag without a fight, I’d assumed it was nothing more than a scarecrow.

Apparently, it knew how to resist.

“Why, you little—”

“What’s going on over there?”

The minor commotion drew the attention of the “teacher,” which had been focused solely on writing on the board.

This was bad.

“Students must attend class in their classrooms.”

Instead of ignoring the compulsive warning hammering through my head, I hurriedly addressed Team Leader Yong.

“Hey.”

“I know, I know. It’s nothing, ma’am.”

At this rate, two of the three of us would face the teacher’s questions without the proper textbook.

Team Leader Yong clearly understood that too, because he began anxiously tapping his foot against the floor.

Why was I the only one with the Korean-language textbook?

I remembered what Jeong Dohyeon had said about ghost stories being cunning.

“Originally, a student anomaly should have occupied this seat. But I took its place.”

The other two were different. What if they had already used up their single “textbook from the desk” during the previous period?

“Then it makes sense that only I, the newcomer, received the correct textbook.”

There was something peculiar about the atmosphere.

It felt as though we were sitting inside a trap laid specifically for us.

A line of cold sweat ran down my back as my gaze settled on the student seated in front of me.

“It’s a little risky, but I’ll distract them. See that thing up front? Can you do it?”

A textbook protruded slightly from beside the student, who was sitting calmly and facing forward—probably because we were behind it rather than beside it.

It didn’t seem to have eyes in the back of its head. What if Team Leader Yong snatched the book quickly?

We weren’t the only students here. The anomalies were students too. That meant it might be unable to make a scene even if someone stole its textbook.

Whatever we tried, it would be better than doing nothing.

“What are you going to do?”

To steal it safely, however, I needed to draw everyone’s attention properly.

But I couldn’t cross the line either. Flipping over a desk or causing a disturbance was out of the question.

I quietly raised my hand.

“Student Kim Hanmu? Do you have a question?”

The teacher’s back should have been turned, yet the instant my hand went up, its neck twisted around a full 180 degrees.

The students, meanwhile, kept their heads bowed in silence like wooden statues.

“They offer minimal resistance, but they’re still obedient scarecrows.”

I needed to provoke a reaction from those students—or at least send some kind of ripple through the deathly quiet classroom.

And so, I decided to draw aggro.

“I thought the performance-assessment assignment was due today. I was wondering why you weren’t collecting it.”

Even after all these years, the greatest villain in any classroom was still the kid who reminded the teacher about homework.

Yet I spoke cautiously, with my hands folded politely, as if I were genuinely curious and had only barely worked up the courage to ask.

Was it true?

Why would that matter? What I wanted to know was whether this ghost story was truly wearing the skin of a proper school.

If it was a school, it would have exam periods. And if it had those, surely it would also have homework—or rather, performance assessments.

“?”

A boulder-sized provocation had just crashed into the classroom, and a restless murmur spread through the students. They whispered to one another in incomprehensible voices, turned to look at me, and began rummaging through their desks.

“I do feel a little bad.”

I wasn’t particularly curious about what they were saying. They were probably asking whether there really was a performance assessment, whether it was due today, and whether anyone else had heard about it.

“What are you talking about?”

But naturally, there was no way the performance assessment was actually due today. I wasn’t a shaman, nor was I an anomaly that lived around here.

The “teacher’s” backward-turned head tilted sideways.

Cold sweat ran down my skin at the grotesque sight of its lidless eyeballs, but I tried to answer calmly.

“At my previous school, I think we had a performance assessment around this time. I thought I heard something about it in the hallway too. Did I hear wrong?”

“The performance assessment is scheduled for next week. It seems you were mistaken.”

The “teacher” merely said those words while looking at me, but as though they had been a signal, the classroom instantly fell silent.

“I must have gotten confused. Thank you for telling me.”

I collapsed into my seat.

I had exchanged only a few sentences, yet it had drained all my strength.

Even when I attended a real school, I had always been the victim of this kind of aggro—not the one drawing it.

“Did you get it?”

“Of course. Who do you think I am?”

Apparently, I had succeeded in drawing everyone’s attention. Team Leader Yong tapped the Korean-language textbook on his desk and grinned.

The student in front glanced around in confusion, but perhaps unwilling to cause a commotion, it soon settled down again.

Now a successful textbook thief, Team Leader Yong held out his palm. Pretending reluctance, I silently gave him a high five.

We only needed to acquire one more textbook, and then all three of us would be safe.

Click. Click.

But before we could even choose our final victim, the “teacher” began walking toward us.

“No. If Myeong Haebin gets caught...”

She probably wouldn’t die.

But she would suffer enough to wish she had.

I already knew that, yet my body refused to move.

“Hmm.”

I was safe because I had my Korean-language textbook open.

Then who...?

Click.

The sound of its shoes stopped.

“Why don’t you answer this question?”

Its target was Team Leader Yong.

I almost felt relieved—until I saw that the only thing on his desk was a mathematics textbook.

What the hell had he done with the Korean-language textbook that had been sitting there just a moment ago?