I am currently walking up the stairs in a school within a nightmare with a Disaster Management Bureau agent.
…While dragging the other person like a prisoner after binding them.
For the record, I blindsided and bound him using an item he had given me.
“…….”
What a mess.
‘I can’t let it stay like this.’
It felt like I had crossed a line.
By tomorrow, I might end up on the Disaster Management Bureau’s blacklist, and if things went south, I could even be requisitioned by the Scales of Evil.
I felt like the company might protect me, but I didn't want to deal with the insane situation of being indebted to Daydream Inc…!
‘I have to improve my image somehow.’
The cold sweat on my back never seems to dry….
First, I spoke with a serious tone.
“If you swear not to scream, I will loosen the gag. Just nod your head.”
the eyes of the agent, who had been glaring as if he wanted to kill me, settled down.
Then, very quietly, he gave a slight nod.
‘…That’s a lie.’
If you’re going to deceive me, at least make it less obvious…!
In the end, I sighed and said,
“I have no intention of harming you, Agent, nor do I have any intention of deceiving you to leak the Bureau’s information to the company.”
“…….”
“And… while making that statement, I felt no pain at all.”
“…!”
“The caramel you gave me, I know it’s a truth serum for torture.”
The agent's pupils trembled.
“Of course, I don’t think you had any ill will. It’s just….”
I looked into the air with a slightly melancholy gaze.
“Even if I didn’t explicitly mention that I work for Daydream Inc., I wanted to convey that I had no intention of lying….”
Strictly speaking, that was a lie.
If things went wrong, I had planned to inject myself with painkillers delivered via rocket-delivery from the Alien Shop and spout survival-based lies.
Sure enough, an uncomfortable pain surged from within.
‘Ugh.’
A sensation like my stomach was being scraped raw, like a gastric ulcer.
But here, momentum was key.
‘I can endure this much now without letting it show.’
The more malicious or intentional the lie, the stronger the pain. Since the statement I just made was closer to an evasion, it probably wasn't even level 1.
Endure it.
‘Next is….’
Trust.
At the same time, I unfastened the small Silver Heart from inside my pocket with one hand, slightly hiding my expression.
Then, I openly showed that item, the ‘Silver Heart,’ to the agent.
“I am saying this without relying on such effects.”
“…….”
“I’ll say it again. …If you swear not to scream, I will loosen the gag. Just nod your head.”
An indescribable conflict flickered in the agent's eyes.
And by the time we reached the landing of the stairs.
Very slightly, he nodded.
“…….”
Without a word, I loosened the gag.
As promised, the agent did not cause a scene.
‘Hmm.’
Good. Next step.
I returned the agent's confiscated flashlight and pistol to his hands.
And I also loosened the bindings on his arms.
“This is….”
“You’ll need to protect yourself in such an urgent situation.”
‘Anyway, that pistol is almost useless against anything other than ghosts or supernatural phenomena.’
If the target is an evil person, it might work depending on the bullet, but no matter how I thought about it, neither I nor Jang Heowoon seemed to be the kind of evil people who
would meet that criteria.
‘Jang Heowoon… there were no rumors of him doing anything crazy for the past three months.’
However, since the agent shouldn't run away before I finished building rapport, I didn't fully untie the bindings.
I attached a plausible excuse to that as well.
“This place is too dangerous for you to flee alone, so I will keep you bound only until your rational judgment returns.”
“…….”
It was just as we finished climbing the stairs, slowly keeping a lookout in all directions.
Suddenly, the agent asked.
“Is Roe Deer your alias?”
“…….”
“You guys move in teams and call each other by aliases taken from your masks, don’t you?”
“…That’s correct.”
“Are you the team leader?”
“No. I’m just a newbie. And this person is… my colleague.”
I smiled somewhat bitterly as I took the half-mask out of my pocket and held it against my face.
Immediately, a familiar texture, like tree bark with horns, covered my skin.
The agent looked at me with an expression that was somehow shocked.
Then, Jang Heowoon’s dejected voice was heard.
“…I’m sorry. Mr. Roe Deer. Because you were trying to help me…….”
“No. You must have been very flustered.”
Compared to Baek Saheon, who tried to screw me over no matter what, I had been prepared for this kind of situation since I started acting as a temporary agent….
Furthermore, Jang Heowoon even made excuses to the agent for me.
“Um, Mr. Roe Deer is a truly kind and good person. Even when we first met, he risked his life to save me from the darkness…….”
“I-It wasn’t that much.”
Nice shot!
“We just… helped each other. To survive the darkness together.”
“Mr. Roe Deer…….”
“…….”
The agent fell silent with an even more complicated expression.
But let’s find significance in the fact that he didn't try to bash my head in with the handle of his small pistol.
“…Entering the 4th floor.”
And we finished climbing the floor.
[4F]
“…….”
We made it, but….
‘I’m nervous.’
From the 4th floor onwards, this ghost story begins to warp even more.
First of all, even if a student dies, no announcement broadcast is made….
And it is extremely dark.
Bzzt…
Most of the lights had already shattered and gone out, and even the few remaining ones were all flickering, except for a portion of them.
And the bigger problem was….
“…!!”
“Gasp,”
Dozens of students were standing in a swarm in the hallway.
And they were already staring intently in this direction.
‘Ha.’
Those students standing lined up on both sides of the dark school hallway, like mannequins.
The student entities on the 4th floor are all 3rd-year students, and in every exploration round that reached that floor, more than 100 entities were confirmed.
If you only hear this far, it feels like they’re just telling you to die.
However.
“……It’s alright.”
The agent provided information, albeit in a stiff voice.
“They cannot leave those spots.”
Yes.
The 4th floor is truly too strange. To begin with, we can’t actually witness those ‘students’ moving, but we still see them changing positions, right?
But the 4th-floor students can’t move.
It’s like their feet are glued to the classroom floor.
-From the 9th Exploration Records recording
Since they stand still without lunging, you just have to avoid entering the radius of a student's territory.
If you have to approach near them, you must keep staring at them to keep their movement itself halted.
‘The problem is that it’s easy to lose sight of them because it’s so dark.’
And they were very… very cunning.
There were many cases where they tried to catch you off guard with psychological warfare.
‘……Hmm.’
So that’s how it is.
After confirming that Jang Heowoon was wearing the name tag he obtained from a student of this school on his blazer, I spoke seriously.
“Then let’s investigate the 4th floor slowly, being very careful.”
There were no objections.
We stepped into the gaps between the students.
‘Whew.’
Jang Heowoon swallowed hard.
The feeling was truly strange.
To pass right next to the ‘student’ entities, so close that their uniform sleeves might brush, while trembling.
But he bit his lip.
‘I have to be helpful.’
It seemed like he had ruined this exploration for his grateful colleague, Kim Soleum.
What was he trying to do by accompanying the agent?
‘He was probably aiming for a… high-score clear, right?’
But according to the manual, the longer you survive here and the more name tags you collect, the higher the concentration of the liquid in the Dream Collector tends to be…….
Perhaps because it was too dangerous, Kim Soleum didn't even glance at the name tags attached to the students on the 4th floor.
‘…I don’t know.’
Jang Heowoon decided not to judge unnecessarily.
Relying on his own intellect was not a good habit.
He simply stared intently at the students who were getting close.
Especially when entering areas where the lights were all broken or flickering, he persistently shone his flashlight.
Thump, thump.
“Mr. Bison, please watch the rear.”
“Yes.”
His voice trembled thinly.
Jang Heowoon walked backward while looking behind.
In the place they had passed, dozens of students could be seen turning their heads this way and stretching their hands out far….
“I see the music room over there. Let’s hang in there until we reach it.”
They moved their feet.
Soon, a section with no lights at all appeared.
‘Whew.’
Within the suffocating darkness, the students stood still, still looking into them eerily.
It was the moment they were pushing through that gap, shining their flashlights.
Flicker.
A light somewhere flickered. It seemed like a power outage had occurr….
‘Eh?’
Wait a minute.
Something was strange.
‘How did a light flicker when there are no lamps?’
And Jang Heowoon realized a moment too late.
It wasn't a power outage.
What flickered was….
The flashlight of someone walking in front.
Just now, someone failed to secure their field of vision.
“…!”
Jang Heowoon almost turned around. But a calm voice struck his back first.
“Don’t look back.”
“You…!”
“For now, we have to… walk.”
Gasps were mixed into Kim Soleum’s voice.
And….
The smell of iron.
Drip, drip….
In the field of vision of Jang Heowoon, who was walking backward, the sight of red liquid dripping onto the floor began to enter from a certain point.
He couldn't see properly because he was watching the students, but the bottom of his shoes was slippery.
And,
Jang Heowoon also saw a student’s hand thrust out toward the center of the hallway, enough to bump into his waist.
It was stained red, and blood was dripping from it.
Jang Heowoon suppressed the urge to vomit.
“Mr. R-Roe Deer…!”
When they barely pushed through the gaps of the students and he turned around.
Kim Soleum was clutching his stomach with a face turned pale white.
And the flashlight held in his hand flickered once more.
He smiled with a pale face.
“……The battery,”
-Effective lighting time: 60 minutes
That was right.
The usable time for something called an emergency flashlight wasn't that long.
‘Ah…!’
The two, who had prepared supplies in advance and carried the emergency flashlight as a spare for true emergencies, had failed to consider the remaining time of the flashlight the other was holding…!
“Ju, just a moment… ugh.”
“D-Don’t speak!”
While suppressing his nausea, Jang Heowoon tried to support Kim Soleum somehow. The agent also joined in reflexively.
In that way, the Daydream Inc. employee and the Disaster Management Bureau official hurriedly supported one person and entered a classroom.
A few students were looking in there as well, but they set down the person they were laboriously carrying in a range where the students couldn't reach.
And Kim Soleum, while sitting, said as he applied pressure to the wound.
“You two.”
“…….”
“Please leave me and go.”
Wearing the horned mask, he covered the wound and managed a forced smile.
“Ah, wait a moment.”
Kim Soleum reached out with the hand that wasn't clutching his stomach and completely released the Disaster Management Bureau agent’s bindings.
“I forgot. Now if you go….”
Ignoring him completely, the agent rummaged through his pockets, pulled out a spare name tag, and shoved it into Kim Soleum’s pocket.
But….
“You don’t have to give it to me. Didn’t you have a place to use it?”
“…….”
“Go. There are surely other people on this floor. If you join up with them, ugh, you’ll be fine.”
Kim Soleum’s expression briefly crumpled before smoothing out.
“Actually, even if I die like this, there won’t be much problem with me attending the company. The company will be satisfied with this much….”
“That damn company!”
The agent clenched his fists tightly.
“Why on earth do you people believe in such a nonsensical, disgusting organization!”
It was as if a sore spot had been touched.
“Do you really think that a company that treats human life so insignificantly will really grant your wishes?”
“…!”
Jang Heowoon looked at the agent in surprise.
The agent said through gritted teeth.
“I know all about you working for the wish tickets. Do you really believe in that nonsensical illusion? That a magic potion will grant any wish?”
Kim Soleum looked up at the agent blankly.
“It grants them.”
“…….”
“If the wish ticket were a lie, this structure couldn't be maintained. Once you just get it, it grants any wish.”
“……Sigh.”
The official sighed as if he were going crazy from frustration, and then said as if repeating a logic that had been built up for a very long time.
“Think about it. Let’s say someone wished for world peace, and someone else wished for the extinction of humanity. How can both of those contradictory wishes be fulfilled?”
Jang Heowoon, wearing the Bison mask, flinched.
But Kim Soleum was composed.
“Based on the person who makes the wish themselves, yes. It is fulfilled.”
“What… does that,”
“It means the wish ticket isn't for the purpose of changing the world, but it’s an object that omnipotently fulfills an individual’s wish.”
What on earth does that mean?
It sounded like some pseudo-religious theory of salvation.
However, Kim Soleum’s attitude wasn't religious fanaticism, but rather like the resignation of someone who had inductively verified the situation several times….
The agent looked at the other with a confused feeling, but Kim Soleum just shrugged.
“Anyway, I think this is it for me.”
“…!”
From beneath the hand pressing on his stomach, blood poured out with a surge.
The bleeding wasn't being controlled at all.
Kim Soleum handed the name tag back into Agent Bronze’s hand.
There was blood on the name tag.
The agent grit his teeth.
“Even if you are dragged here every dark night and keep giving up your name tags, that company will never help you.”
“Perhaps so.”
Kim Soleum started to shrug again, but then he smiled even as his expression crumpled slightly, perhaps due to the pain.
“Even so, the Disaster Management Bureau will one day be able to end this darkness… I mean, the disaster. Then I’ll be completely free too.”
“……!!”
The agent looked at Kim Soleum like a person who had been struck.
“Please go, you two. It could be dangerous if you keep looking back like this.”
Kim Soleum raised his head and shone his emergency flashlight, which was still working, outside the classroom.
“While you go, I will look forward as much as possible.”
“…….”
“Um, and Mr. Bison is a newbie so he really hasn't done anything wrong, so I’d appreciate it if you could travel together safely for a while, if possible.”
“Mr. Roe Deer….”
The agent was conflicted.
But in the end, he grit his teeth, turned around, and walked while holding his flashlight.
“Follow me.”
“Ah….”
Jang Heowoon agonized, but finally made up his mind.
‘There’s nothing I can do even if I stay by his side….’
Rather, it might be easier for Kim Soleum if he disappeared quickly.
But since he couldn't just leave, he secretly shoved something into Kim Soleum’s arms.
“Mr. Roe Deer, this… this is my spare name tag.”
“…!”
“I lived longer thanks to you… and I don’t have anyone else to save. It might be insufficient, but even just one…, thank you.”
And before even hearing a reply, he left, following the agent.
Unable to bring himself to look back.
“…….”
Kim Soleum watched the agent and Jang Heowoon leave for a moment, as promised.
And….
‘It worked!’
As soon as they disappeared around the corner, he hurriedly pulled out the item he had prepared from his pocket.
A single eyeball candy in a small plastic wrapper.
That warm era,
The magic candy!
A large, old-fashioned eyeball candy—red, yellow, and white—was inside that nostalgic wrapper.
Nostalgia Candy
An emergency recovery medicine purchased by Kim Soleum.
He unwrapped it with his bloodstained hands, put one piece in his mouth, and began to roll it around.
Then, a change began to occur.
“…!”
The wounds on his body closed.
The spilled blood was reabsorbed, and broken bones naturally reconnected into their original forms.
As if time were being rewound.
While rolling the candy in your mouth,
Old memories come back to life!
While the eyeball candy is melting in the mouth, it fixes the consumer's state to that of the period when their body and mind were healthiest during the past 10 years.
‘Since it’s a dream anyway, this kind of stopgap measure is enough.’
His condition improved insanely, and his mind became clear.
His brain started working at full speed.
‘I succeeded…!’
Kim Soleum let out a sigh of relief.
The calculated move had worked perfectly.
The most effective method that could be used in this kind of situation.
‘As expected, it’s a death retirement.’
He had narrowly snatched the opportunity to simultaneously aim for freedom of exploration and a reputation reset.
‘I was so nervous that I wouldn't be able to time the emergency flashlight turning off correctly.’
He brushed himself off and stood up, letting out another large sigh of relief.
His heart was racing.
A sense of liberation and fear.
‘…Good.’
Now I know what I have to do.
Kim Soleum stood up, checked the tattoo that had reappeared, and then pulled a spare high-powered flashlight from within it and gripped it in his hand.
Then, after taking a deep breath, he left the classroom and took a single step alone into the dark 4th-floor hallway.
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