Ryu Jaegwan looked at his superior.
An agent from the Black Tortoise 1 Team who had timed the intrusion perfectly to slip into the Gangwon Branch’s Restricted Archives and read material that wasn’t meant to be seen.
...That was a dangerous choice.
That was what he thought.
But he couldn’t stop him.
Investigating a supernatural disaster that had been officially sealed by the Agency was a dangerous act in itself.
And now he was collaborating with a Baekilmong director.
Even Ryu Jaegwan, cautious as he was, would never have done something so reckless—if things hadn’t developed this way.
Enough to warrant disciplinary action.
And so, once it had come to this, he decided it was better to have more information rather than less.
And then... once he knew, he would decide.
...Whether to let this expedition continue at all.
To weigh the danger of repeatedly entering a ghost story that had once demanded the sacrifice of an entire city.
It was a reasonable line of thought.
And yet the result they got was—“We’ve forgotten something big.”
“...You mean about that city?”
“No. It’s not just that. Our team—our team leader...”
Team leader?
Why bring him up now...?
Agent Choi broke off midsentence, suddenly lifting his head to look straight at Ryu Jaegwan.
In that gaze, Ryu caught a fleeting sign of something heavy, something dimmed—
“...Hmm. We should leave the archives first. Safer that way.”
Agent Choi quickly returned to his usual unbothered manner.
He shrugged, exchanged a few familiar gestures with the will-o’-the-wisp, and finished packing up.
As they exited the archives, the will-o’-the-wisp, delighted by the buckwheat jelly it had been given, floated behind them to see them off.
“Thank you~ See you next time!”
That tone—calm, casual—was deliberate.
It’s better to make this look light. Just like usual.
Pretend you cut corners because the paperwork’s a hassle and you didn’t want the delay.
He was aiming for the effect of “Agent Choi being Agent Choi.”
No one would think he’d actually broken into a sealed extinction-level disaster to examine records of memory erasure.
He had already deceived Agent Podo in much the same way.
See? I told you if you said you were skipping this one because people were starting to suspect we take too much leave, I’d believe it myself.
Ha...
I’m telling you, Podo’s got a soft side.
...Phew.
Of course, the fact that the only ones joining this expedition were cult-linked corporate employees—some of them contaminated—bothered him deeply.
Ryu Jaegwan couldn’t shake the feeling that one of them, either himself or his superior, should have remained on the expedition site. But his superior seemed unconcerned.
Well, there were decent people among them. It’s good to see how they operate on their own for once.
Ryu wondered if the current Agent Choi still felt the same.
If, after reading the records on Se-gwang Special City, his superior was merely pretending to stay calm.
Well, Podo’s probably managing fine.
***
“Agent Yong, we should move.”
“Just... give me a moment, please.”
I stopped, trying not to be swallowed by the storm of realizations crashing through my head.
So—
The Emergency Rescue Unit was originally the Azure Dragon Team.
And when the Azure Dragon Team vanished during the Se-gwang disaster... their position was filled by the Black Tortoise Team.
And the Black Tortoise Team was the one responsible for closing disasters.
...
But then why wasn’t that in the Wiki?
No.
I couldn’t afford to get lost in that now.
We were inside a ghost story, and my teammates were missing. This wasn’t the time to dwell on mysteries with no answer.
Do what I can.
Right. Start with what I can do. That was—
“...Let me see that again.”
“Hm?”
The torn talisman.
I took the book loan card the Wolf Leader had found inside the glass lantern and examined the back carefully—every stroke, every line, every curve.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m memorizing it.”
The talisman’s design.
“Ah, you’re planning to request a new one from the Agency.”
“...!”
“You’re thinking the trouble started when this one was torn.”
“......”
“So you still have ties to the Agency, huh?”
I only nodded slowly.
Was this suspicion resurfacing again?
“Be careful. The company wouldn’t like that. Still, if it’s about saving the kids in a single school, well... people have hearts.”
“...!”
He chuckled softly and patted my back.
“Got it memorized? Then let’s move. We still need to find a way out.”
“...Yes.”
I put the torn talisman back into the broken lantern and reburied it in the garden soil. Even damaged, it might still serve a purpose.
But I picked up something else.
“A shard, huh.”
“Yes.”
A fragment of the shattered lantern glass.
I wrapped it carefully in tissue and slipped it into my pocket.
“Need a handkerchief? For sample collection, I mean.”
“I’m fine. I brought some supplies.”
Then a thought struck me.
“Do you collect samples from the darkness itself, too?”
“If there’s time before we escape, yes. The researchers ask for it.”
Wait. If there’s a researcher who’d ask a field team to do that...
“Does his name start with K-w-a-k?”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“......”
“He’s still with them?”
‘Still with them’? More like ‘you’re still with them.’
But I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
The Wolf Leader spoke on, his tone unexpectedly calm and genial.
In a direction I hadn’t expected.
“Hmm, if he’s still around... is Agent Haegeum still with the Agency?”
“...!?”
Wait—
“You mean Agent Haegeum?”
“Yeah. Bold, gutsy, good at making decisive moves—and lucky, too.”
“......”
“She would’ve done well on Team B.”
A keen light flashed through the eyeholes of the wolf mask.
“Anyway, a passionate young agent like that—I figured she’d still be serving.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Though it felt strange imagining Agent Haegeum as a bright-eyed rookie.
For a moment, I almost showed him the bell she’d given me, but I stopped myself—remembering that the man before me might not be the real past Team B Leader.
Still, one question burned at the root of it all.
If he believed me, at least somewhat, that I was from the future—then why...
“...Don’t you want to ask what became of Baekilmong in the future?”
Didn’t he want to know his own fate?
“Of course.”
“......”
“There’s no need.”
He smiled silently.
Then, preparing to climb back toward the infirmary, he asked softly:
“Have you heard of Oedipus?”
“...The Greek myth?”
“Right. The man who was fated to kill his father and marry his mother—and the prophecy came true. Do you know why?”
His low voice drifted up the wall as he climbed.
“Because people heard that prophecy. Like a butterfly effect, it fulfilled itself.”
“......”
“Knowing the future might lead me straight into it. Why invite that kind of headache? You understand?”
“...Yes.”
A remarkable restraint.
[A self-fulfilling prophecy, huh? Quite an elegant excuse. Far better shape than that pathetic old beast, I’ll grant him that...*]
[Oh, indeed. Mr. Roe Deer, would you care to hear a bit of advice from Brown after all this time?]
...What is it?
The voice, cheerful and theatrical, dropped to a smooth, almost tender murmur.
[What if you killed him right now?]
What?
[Then maybe you’d wake up in the real world with him still looking just like that.]
...!
[Just as your dull former superior who regrew both hands in this dream of a sealed city might awaken in reality with both hands restored.]
Like Chief Park Minseong...?
No, impossible.
The Wolf Leader was nothing but a projection born from the ghost story—
[Perhaps. Perhaps not. Who can say? Guesses are never certainties! But if there’s even the slightest chance...]
......
[It’s worth a try. Nothing to lose. A safe gamble, don’t you think?]
I looked at the Wolf Leader.
Remembering him from the annex—driving a stone into his own abdomen.
[He’d thank you for it. What actor wouldn’t want to return to his best form?]
“......”
[Merely a suggestion, Mr. Roe Deer. Your good friend Brown is only offering another path!]
[So think about it.]
“Come on up.”
“Yes.”
I gave Brown no answer.
I just followed the Wolf Leader, grabbed the third-floor infirmary windowsill, and hauled myself up.
I set aside the thought that Brown’s reasoning, disturbingly enough, wasn’t entirely illogical.
But the next moment—
As I lifted my head toward the infirmary—
“Oh dear. We have company.”
“...!”
The confusion was blown away in an instant.
There was a student in the infirmary.
A black silhouette standing by the door.
The figure in a school uniform stared at us as we climbed through the window.
And the next second—
“...!”
The student turned to flee. The Wolf Leader and I lunged at once and caught them.
Thud.
The dark shape fell before it could escape. I grabbed the curtain, trying to bind them, but then—
I recognized the appearance.
Bleached hair. Piercings.
The transfer student.
The unlucky kid whose uniform I’d borrowed.
“......!”
While I hesitated, the Wolf Leader pinned the student effortlessly.
“Can you speak?” he asked.
No reply. The student only stared up at him, expressionless—no trace of human recognition.
Wait.
Students of Segwang Industrial High School perceive outsiders as monsters.
Because we’d entered the story through a system error.
Even if we’d gotten in by reading the book instead of hacking the text, we still wouldn’t be accepted as part of the school.
Because—
We’re not wearing the uniform.
And I could.
“......”
Thump, thump.
My heart pounded. I touched my chest.
The tattoo.
That circular, intricate structure purging contamination still marked my skin.
I focused on one sigil—like a word broken by corrupted font.
“...Leader.”
I asked permission.
“I’ll try something else.”
I pressed my palm to the mark.
And then—
The school bell rang.
I was standing in the infirmary wearing an old school uniform.
“...!!”
The pinned student’s pupils shrank—shock.
And now I knew.
We don’t use our voices here.
Only written words were allowed.
I took a sheet of A4 paper, wrote with a pencil:
Thanks for lending me your uniform last time.
I’m the transfer student who brought you to the infirmary.
Do you remember?
I handed the paper over.
The wolf-masked man loosened his grip slightly, and the student scrawled furiously in reply:
Who are you?
Why did you come back?
I want to know about this school.
There were many things I wanted to ask.
How do you move? What do you know about the torn talisman?
But the first question I chose was something entirely different—drawn by intuition.
Why can’t we speak?
Why?
Because we have to be quiet.
Why do we have to be quiet?
As if stifled and furious, the student’s pencil scratched across the page:
Because we’re in a library, you idiot!
......
Of course.
The realization slammed through my head.
The reason the school’s surroundings were always pitch-black.
The reason every window in the Hanbit Library maze looked out only onto this school.
It was simple.
Because they weren’t real windows.
This high school was inside the library.
The darkness outside wasn’t emptiness—it was bookshelves.
So the Segwang Industrial High School had become part of the Hanbit Library.
It existed whole, swallowed by the library itself.
......
The Wiki updated.
Strange High School
A bizarre school facility accessible by triggering a special condition inside the Hanbit Library.
Once a nearby public high school cooperating with the library, it appears to have been absorbed into it.
......
After the Day of Disaster, certain SDRA agents trapped within Se-gwang Special City made a decision—to preserve the students until they could be rescued.
As a result, the high school where the students were was taken into the Hanbit Library, sheltered under the protection of ■■, and exists there as a special annex of the library.
The Azure Dragon Team had put the school inside the library.
And that meant—
Right. So if you can get out, do it now.
Every student of Segwang Industrial High School had once been human.