My head feels hollow.
Beyond the classroom window—on the corridor side—was the monster. A grotesque abomination of mismatched human parts, fused into a wretched, skin-crawling mass. The upper body lodged in the split center was staring directly at us.
And the owner of that gaze—
The Team Leader of Black Tortoise Team One.
The elder’s shattered upper body.
AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!
Why here?
The answer hit me as if responding directly to my thought.
It was Se-gwang Special City.
The ghost story where the elder lost her upper body was here.
Among the agents who had submitted their leave forms and entered Se-gwang Special City unofficially—Team Leader Park Hongrim had been one of them.
She had been the one who used her Will-o’-the-wisp to create the talisman.
It was the Team Leader.
Maybe she had even chosen to “lose” her upper body.
Hastily crafting a talisman using the Hanbit Library’s book loan card, offering her torso as the price.
And the teachers who lay on the fifth floor...
Perhaps they had performed a ritual—something like a protective formation—to keep the students safe.
But something had gone wrong.
The paper talisman and the glass lantern buried in the rear garden had been damaged—
And this... was the result.
fInIsHeD iTs OvEr HuRrY hUrRy
It’s there
The shape of the contamination approached.
Students in uniform running through the corridor were crushed and killed, out of order—before the usual timing of the game’s sequence.
As if the “horror game structure” could no longer contain the corruption.
The hallway was swallowed by flesh, twisting.
The school lost its shape and was devoured.
AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!
It’s coming.
It’s coming, right now—
Whud.
I turned.
Inside the classroom, Agent Lee Jahaeon was killing people.
“!”
Over half of them already had their necks broken.
A reflexive chill shot through me—then I understood.
I asked him to.
Before the teacher could kill them—
We have to kill everyone ourselves.
Cold water crashed over my thoughts, snapping me fully awake.
This is a nightmare. This is a dream. If we die normally, we wake up. Remember that.
But if the teacher kills us, we are erased from reality—no, even that horror-game structure may no longer apply...!
We have to move quickly.
“Agents,”
I grabbed the closest arm and whispered urgently.
“Agent Haegeum, I only need the glass lantern. And everyone—take one name tag each and hurry and suicide—”
But at that same time, I realized—
AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!
These people would never do that.
If they were the kind of people who could choose that route, they would never have become agents. Even if they agreed with the Disaster Agency’s recent “agent-first” survival protocol—
“Podo.”
Not after seeing that.
“It’s a difficult request... but help me get some of these people out of here. Even just a few. Please.”
Wait.
“We’ll just stay long enough for Cheongdong to trace the talisman stroke onto the lantern. Got it? ...Haegeum.”
“Here.”
Agent Haegeum lifted the glass lantern and set it on the desk. The Will-o’-the-wisp inside trembled as if frightened, then wound around her neck and vanished into her body.
“Podo, now. There’s no time.”
I passed the broken lantern I’d brought from the rear garden to Agent Cheongdong.
“The rear garden—”
“We’ll handle it. Go!”
And at that moment—
There is no graduation ceremony
...in the corridor window.
It’s coming it’s here it’s breaking through the game is over it’s here
It was pressed right up against the glass, watching us.
A human face with half its head missing.
The upper body of Team Leader Park Hongrim, swaying, peering into the classroom.
“...Hong-unni.”
Who is Hong-unni?
Found.
Who is Haegeum?
“.......”
Beside me, Agent Haegeum’s hand tightened around her sword.
And then—
Fwoosh.
Will-o’-the-wisp fire spilled from Haegeum’s body, wrapping the classroom.
A deceptive acrobatics of shadow and blue flame.
Why is it still here why is it not releasing why won’t it release why won’t it release why won’t it release—
Thud. Thud.
Its shadow paced before the door, searching for the entrance.
“Hey. Your Team Leader is fine. She’s an elder at Blue Hope Hospital.”
“.......”
“Whatever that thing says—remember, that’s a supernatural disaster. Understand?”
“.......”
“Do you understand?”
“...Yes.”
And Agent Cheongdong gritted his teeth and lowered his gaze to the lantern, searching the broken glass for meaningful strokes.
But the goblin-fire illusion cast by Agent Haegeum was already flickering.
It’s breaking.
They couldn’t hold something like that long—not even with stronger goblin illusions.
“Unni, with the Marked Sword—”
“The conditions aren’t met. I can’t use it.”
Then Agent Haegeum shouted urgently to me and Agent Lee Jahaeon:
“It’s about to break. Wait at the back door. The two of you go and get people out!”
And then—
It broke.
Darkness swallowed the shadows of the goblin illusion.
“.......”
Thud. Thud.
Footsteps.
it’s here it’s here it’s here move move
The front door opened.
“Podo, now!”
I bolted out through the doorway.
“...!”
Thud. A severed hand—one with a screaming human face fused to it—hit the wall inches from me as I slid past.
“You idiot, not the back door—”
But I yelled while running:
“Teacher!”
“...!”
“I’ll go conduct the graduation ceremony! Try and stop me if you can!”
“Hey!!”
No question.
I intend to die.
If left alone, the agents would gladly die here. So—
I have to lure it.
I ran. Behind me, Agent Lee Jahaeon ripped off the teacher’s hand with impossible strength and—
Insane.
It didn’t work.
The teacher’s arm regrew explosively and tried to swallow Lee Jahaeon’s hand in return.
Like the flesh coating the corridor.
Physical attacks did not work anymore.
Damn it!
I dug into my pocket and threw whatever I could grasp.
Just in case.
Something I had been given back by Section Chief Lee Jahaeon.
One of the glass beads marked with 護 (Protection), a clear reward from the previous graduation ceremony.
When the bead struck the teacher—
“...!”
Tok.
The bead bounced away, glowing faintly blue. A shadow cast across the flesh and floor, revealing for a moment the real school hallway beneath—
But it vanished quickly.
“...!”
But in that instant, Lee Jahaeon tore himself free of the flesh.
“Run!”
“Yes.”
He followed in my wake.
Don’t follow me!
But there was no time to argue—I just ran upward like a madman.
Thud. Thud.
I have to draw it away.
I can do it.
I’ve done this once before.
Before the school, or Se-gwang, or Hanbit Library is fully devoured—
While it still retains the form of a horror game—
The graduation ceremony...!
If I reach the ending, the monster will be repelled, even if only temporarily.
That would buy time to reconstruct the talisman.
Yes. I can ask any student to set it in the rear garden later—
AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!
I threw another glass bead behind me.
Whenever it got too close.
When I didn’t, Lee {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} Jahaeon intercepted and hurled the beads with impossible power—but from his hands, they did nothing special. Just raw force, like bullets.
Why?
Because I cleared it?
No time to think.
It’s here.
The next moment, I stumbled onto the fifth floor.
“Haa—”
Catching my breath—then I froze.
Damn.
The fifth floor.
The hallway leading to the auditorium already looked like the inside of a body.
The talisman patterns that once covered the walls were gone.
And where they had been, dense writing filled every empty space—
Date of Implementation
We found a way to protect the students.
One of the supernatural phenomena recorded in Hanbit Library uses a school as its setting, so we will use it.
This will let us endure until rescue arrives.
There are too few agents left in the school to perform the ritual, so we accepted the resources of the teachers.
We will sleep.
For as long as we can endure.
I forced myself to keep running.
Day 1
Success.
The problem is, my lower body is gone.
It seems Headquarters’ rescue agreement activated, extracting the remaining half of my body. The Will-o’-the-wisp fled with it.
Good. I’m glad it escaped.
The portion of me bound to this place—the upper body—remains here.
The center of the talisman cracked.
But it will hold if I keep it here.
My upper body is here.
My heartbeat wavered, unstable.
Day 12
It’s safe. The children are peaceful.
Day 23
Looks like we can hold out for quite a while.
Watching the sleeping people, I too find myself falling asleep more often.
The neatly written lines continued here and there.
Calm, orderly language—like administrative journal entries—written on the contaminated wall where it didn’t belong, half-buried and worn.
But the moment I stepped toward the middle of the fifth-floor corridor—
No.
The writing changed.
Found outno no no no
They found the rear gardennonono how did they get inside why does a student have thatno using In the Black Shadow it came inside no the game is proceeding protection is falling ap
Chaotic, jagged handwriting buckled across the wall, filling an entire stretch.
None of it was swallowed by flesh—left branded into the surface like a scar.
And then—
Suddenly, calm returned.
Day ■■■
Use In the Black Shadow.
Until we are all spent as wards.
Until the Rescue Unit arrives.
We will send a signal and hold out.
We will. Absolutely.
But that was the last of the neat handwriting.
From that point onward, the letters grew harder to decipher—warped.
The closer to the auditorium, the more bizarre the phrases became, subjects twisted, muttering how to devour the school, how to unravel the Will-o’-the-wisp’s protection, whispering in a damp, hungry tone.
It was waiting. For the right moment.
And finally, near the entrance to the auditorium, the last wall—
It’s all undone.
Gooseflesh rose to the top of my head.
But I had to keep moving.
I have to.
Breath ragged, I took hold of the auditorium door. It should have been locked tight—but the lock was corroded, ripped apart, hanging useless.
I hurriedly pulled the door open.
And I saw.
The auditorium had already collapsed.
No stage.
No chairs.
No graduating students still alive.
Only ruined space, eaten by flesh.
“......”
“Roe Deer.”
AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!
The graduation ceremony cannot be held.
Everything is already over.
“Do you require euthanasia?”
I turned toward Section Chief Lee Jahaeon.
Appearing as a boy in a neat blazer uniform with a lizard mask.
Can I run?
But the moment to escape by death had already passed, hadn’t it?
AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!
It had reached the auditorium.
The game is over.
I saw the thing once called Teacher.
Park Hongrim Team Leader’s upper body, finally overtaken by the corruption it had been holding back—
now fused with the forms of agents and teachers.
No longer something I could call contamination.
No longer describable at all.
The supernatural disaster itself.
The horror-game mask peeling off.
I found them all.
The torn talisman fragment on the torso had turned black, the strokes swallowed beyond recognition.
At that moment—
Click.
A rupturing sound—flesh recoiling slightly.
A bullet.
“Podo!”
I turned.
“You crazy bastard.”
Agent Choi had chased all the way to the fifth floor, firing the Glass Hand-Cannon at it.
But he neither yelled nor told me to run.
He understood—
it was already too late.
Who are you?
The creature did not even flinch where the bullet struck.
“These aren’t my organs anyway.”
Agent Choi fired several more times.
But Park Hongrim’s half-body simply turned and approached him steadily.
Crushing the spent bullets underfoot—
Who is Choi■■?
It doesn’t work anymore.
I tried to run toward him—only then realizing my feet would not move.
“...!”
Flesh from the floor had wrapped around my feet.
No—
My own flesh was growing downward, merging into the floor.
Thud.
Something poured from my eyes and mouth.
Spilling.
Being devoured.
In the Black Shadow was ending.
Thud.
We would not even become pixel fragments.
We would simply be consumed, wholly, by the corrupted thing that had overrun the school—
And then—
Jingle.
“Let’s do fireworks.”
I lifted my head.
Beyond the ruined auditorium, Agent Haegeum was using the Will-o’-the-wisp again—
Jingle.
Agent Choi shook the bell tied to the execution blade.
Time stretched.
Everything elongated.
A moment became perceptible like a thread being pulled taut.
The shadows of Will-o’-the-wisp fire and the bell’s ringing wrapped around us, granting the smallest sliver of time.
A deception lasting only a breath.
Jingle.
Where the blue flame rose—
Haegeum’s empty right sleeve swayed.
“Agent....”
“Now.”
The agent who had given up a hand for that moment spoke quietly.
“Cheongdong is tracing the strokes.”
“.......”
“Think about what we can do. Quickly.”
What we could do.
To buy time.
What worked—even for a moment...!
I reached into my pocket and gripped the glass beads.
“It only worked briefly, but this—”
......
Wait.
Use In the Black Shadow.
Until we are spent.
Until the Rescue Unit arrives.
Send the signal and endure.
If that was a signal for rescue—
Then Park Hongrim Team Leader believed rescue was possible.
Meaning there was a method.
And if she sent a signal—
Then the hint for rescue is inside that signal.
I looked down at the glass bead again.
It had worked.
If this was a rescue hint—
Then the correct usage was—
“Agent.”
I lifted my head.
“This is a Glass Hand-Cannon round.”
—It was a transparent glass bead shaped exactly like it could be loaded into the Glass Hand-Cannon.
If it was an item intended for the Rescue Unit—
Then the proper usage was already prepared.
“A round...?”
Agent Choi’s expression changed.
I immediately tossed the remaining beads to him.
He caught them and began loading the Glass Hand-Cannon—
And then—
AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!
The moment ended.
The teacher’s hand—bearing a screaming human face—dropped toward Agent Choi’s head.
He barely dodged—
“So this is it.”
He fired into the floor of the auditorium.
With a concussive blast, the rounds from the Hand-Cannon embedded themselves into the flesh-coated floor, shining with an auspicious light.
They embedded in precise positions—
linking together to alter the space—
exactly like in Jisan Village.
Following Black Tortoise Team sealing procedure.
First: Purification of the ritual space.
Drive out the environment where corruption can take hold.
The blessed rounds revealed the auditorium.
The real auditorium.
The original, uncorrupted form of this school.
“...!”
There were no students—so graduation still could not proceed.
But we could now hold it within the form of a horror-game entity.
A state where banishment could work.
But now how—?
The next stages were binding and sealing—
“Agent Podo!”
“...!!”
I turned.
A gleam of silver arced toward me.
By reflex, I caught it.
A bladeless sword.
“Hold it!”
The Marked Sword.
Agent Haegeum’s weapon.
“I’m betting you really are an agent. Grip it with both hands—hold it as if bracing your mind!”
Why—
But the answer hit me like a strike.
The Marked Sword’s usage conditions:
—A wicked, corrupted being directly invading in the form of a calamity or ghost.
That thing was a corruption invading the school.
And I—
I was currently a student of this school.
“Recite the sword-proclamation! Repeat after me!”
The heavens send Essence, and the earth
assists with Spirit—
I raised the sword.
Unbearable forces gathered.
The sun and moon take form, and mountain and water
find their shape
thunder and lightning surge—
“Hold—!”
The order of the world
is governed within me—
My palms felt seared raw.
Something impossible was burning through my hands.
My index and ring finger broke.
But I raised it.