Episode 243:
Every time the underworld preyed on the survivors, it did not devour all the crazy people in the world. It was a system in which a limited space, such as an area or a room in a building, was arbitrarily designated as a rider nearing annihilation and the people inside were devoured. No matter how qualified you are, if you stay out of bounds and don’t get eaten, you won’t become a regular member of the underworld.
Also, the number of talented people who can be preyed upon by the underworld is limited. No matter how close a regular member is, if the quality of the psychopath is significantly low, he or she will not be eaten.
“…uh?”
However, in the case of Eonhak High School, where the Park siblings are enrolled.
“What what what?”
“Uh…? uh? uh? uh? uh? uh?”
“Where the fuck am I!”
Last time, it was not a space designated by the secret world, and Park Da-young and Park Da-hoon were not in it. They went out of their way to celebrate Park Da-hoon’s birthday and stopped by a cafe in another area.
However, at this time, the Park siblings were taking classes at Eonhak High School, and there were definitely friends there who had the qualifications to become regular or sub members.
“…Oh crazy.”
Park Da-hoon, who had been swallowed up by the underworld while sleeping face down, looked around.
The total number of students in the 2nd grade class 10 he was in was 22. Among them, there are about 10 friends who came to the underworld along with Park Da-hoon. No, I counted correctly again and there were 9 people. There were people I was close with, there were people who were embarrassed, and there were people whose faces turned red, but out of those 9 people, there were only 2 who came to their senses to some extent
.
“….”
Park Da-hoon’s gaze immediately turned to the phrase in the frame decorated on the blackboard. I didn’t look there with any particular intention, but it was the result of avoiding my gaze from the strange harmony created by the students fluttering around like crazy and the dressed mannequins staring at them intently.
And in the frame that had written [Class motto: Let’s eat a good breakfast.] until just a moment ago, there was a new phrase in a neat font. It was a phrase so neat that it made me sick.
[Rule 2. Please remain seated during class.]
“…Holly.”
Please save me.
Da-hoon Park quietly closed his eyes as he watched the monster that looked like a teacher rushing towards the rampaging students. With the sound of bones breaking and flesh splashing, something lukewarm splashed onto his cheek. There was nothing more to see than blood.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
…?
“Hee hee hee hee hee…”
Even in the meantime, I can hear a moaning sound, so it looks like he’s not dead.
‘It looks like I’m going to die soon.’
He carefully opened his eyes and, as if he had grasped the situation, muttered softly as he looked at the two people sitting in place with their mouths closed, the classmates tied tightly to chairs with their limbs broken and their bones exposed, and the mannequins continuing their work as if nothing had happened.
“Fuck you….”
Mayday, Mayday.
Are you alive, my little bastard?
* * *
A total of 16 people were somehow gathered together using the classic method of starting a fire and making smoke. The survivors moved steadily and moved to Eonhak High School, where Park Da-young and Park Da-hoon would be.
Hong Gyeong-jun looked at Lee Jae-heon and asked.
“Are you saying there is a place where communication is possible?”
He nodded in response to a question from a detective he hadn’t seen in a long time.
“When you say that, the other side of the world seems like a remote mountainous area where no radio waves can reach, but… it does exist. “It’s crazy hard to find.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s school.”
Although it is one-way, once you make a call within the school, you can communicate anywhere. If the timing was right and I contacted the survivors I had not currently met within the school, I would be able to clarify who had not been eaten by the underworld this time.
“…Are you sure you’re talking about where we’re going now?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Jaeheon Lee rubbed the corner of his mouth and added a word.
“Of course, the place I am going now is not the same building as the one I know, but the purpose of its construction is the same, so I think I will be able to talk on the phone.”
Of course, it was a story that he made up appropriately by recalling the contents of the novel rather than something he learned from his own experience, but Hong Gyeong-jun and Jeong In-ho, Ha Seong-yoon, and Kang Min-ah, who were listening to the story nearby, nodded.
“Then… if you call there, you might be able to find people who are in the other world but haven’t joined us.”
“There are definitely a lot of loopholes in the method of confirming the location by making smoke. In fact, even now, some survivors are worried that it’s not that they didn’t come to the other side of the world, but that they couldn’t join because we couldn’t find them.”
“I’m also worried about my boots.”
As Kang Min-ah said that, she looked at Vivian, who was at the back of the survivors.
The people who gathered around Jeong In-ho, excluding Ohseong employees and Yoon Garam and Ha Seong-yoon, who were members of the existing team, were not as many as expected. The youngest Choi Min-hong and Jang Seo-ah. Lee Yoon-byeol and Jindal-rae Munsan-gun take care of them. Even though he doesn’t say anything, Kim Ki-jeong walks cautiously, looking around intently as if he is worried about them. Hong Gyeong-jun and Kim Yeon-woo visited right before Ha Seong-yoon joined. And Vivian.
Seo Jang-hwa, who always accompanied him, was nowhere to be seen.
“If you listen to the story, it seems true that he wasn’t a regular member, but he was still anxious.”
“Bian also seemed very anxious. “How can he be a regular member and not Janghwa?”
Yes, surprisingly, Seo Janghwa was a sub member.
‘Song In-myeong is my friend and he has a difficult family life, so I thought he might be crazy.’
Lee Jae-heon savored his appetite.
I thought it wasn’t normal to quickly make up your mind after finding out that you had a serial killer as a close friend, but I never thought that he wouldn’t be a regular member. As Vivian said, the words ‘She’s a regular member, why aren’t you?’ come out naturally.
To be honest, Vivian, who always talks about ‘pretty and kind words’, is a crazier person than Seo Jang-hwa. It’s a really bad world. Vivian’s face was pale as she stood at the back of the group, wary of her surroundings, wondering if Lee Jae-heon was the only one who thought that way.
“But if he was in the hallway right in front of the classroom and disappeared… it would definitely be difficult to say he was a regular member. “They also said that the door was open and they were checking to see if it had been there the whole time.”
“Bian and Janghwa were probably very surprised. “When I asked at the last meeting, what should Bian do if he is left alone in reality… we were talking about that topic.”
During the conversation between In-ho Jeong and Min-ah Kang, Jae-heon Lee blinked at Vivian.
‘…even though I was very surprised…’
I think I was too well prepared.
“…I think the manager is also looking at that weapon.”
“…Ha Seong-yoon too?”
“It’s a visual that you can’t help but look at.”
Ha Seong-yoon and Lee Jae-heon’s eyes were focused on the ridiculously large saw Vivian was holding. In addition, the hatchet held by Kim Ki-jeong and the blue hammer held by Munsan were all weapons brought by Vivian. I was even more curious about how those heavy things were carried and why they were with Vivian.
And when we listen, the answer that comes out is spectacular.
“I heard they were using something borrowed from the craft and sculpture department.”
“…Vivian clearly said you majored in Western painting.”
“That’s right, student Janghwa was like that too. The crazy friend that started with Song was also a Western painting. “In the first place, weren’t you wearing an apron with paint on it last time?”
“I thought it was decoration. Honestly, it’s really just decoration. If you look at the three students’ ferocious physical appearance, no matter how much you think about it, it definitely does not belong to Western painting…”
“There are various people in the world.”
“What on earth is there to use saws, axes, and hammers in a Western painting class?”
“You said you have a lot of close friends in the plastic arts department.”
“What does that have to do with using tools like that in Western paintings?”
“For Western painting, there is no law that requires you to use only brushes and paints.”
“Could it be…?”
The two men’s questions were resolved when Vivian, who heard their story, answered them herself.
“Oh, I was weaving a canvas. Starting with the wooden frame and covering it with fabric on top… They say to make it now and use it later. “It’s a graduation exhibition.”
“Do you usually use a big hammer like that when making canvas? “Isn’t it for polishing stains?”
“Yes, I know that’s not true, but there weren’t enough hammers in the Western painting building for the number of students, so I brought those at least.”
“Do you normally learn how to make canvas in Western painting classes?”
“No matter what, I usually don’t start with wood as a frame… but I sometimes do work that vaguely overlaps with the formative side. Perhaps because the professors were close to each other, they tried various things with each other. That doesn’t mean it’s completely outside the genre of Western painting itself, but it feels like it’s not really ‘at all’…”
“Oh my god.”
“You’re already receiving a lot of criticism among students. “You still don’t understand.”
His face was still calm, but his voice was that of someone who had a lot of resentment toward the professor. They say that the complaint reaches the head of the department, but they are all in the same situation and are just ignoring it.
‘It’s good that Song In-myeong didn’t kill the professor or the department head.’
I heard that before he dropped out, he was a little out of the ordinary, but he lived as an ordinary student earning credits. To be honest, it wouldn’t have been easier for him to kill everyone and accept a new professor. Although it could not have been done due to practical problems.
“It’s okay because we are interested in this area, but other motivations are dying out.”
“….”
Well, it looks like this person is just satisfied. It’s not that there are no complaints, but should I say that I have accepted the reality? Jaeheon Lee nodded without saying a word.
As we walked and talked like that, the survivors had already reached Eonhak High School.
“…Something….”
“It looks like you can’t get out if you go in.”
“That’s it.”
The last time I came to see the Park siblings, I didn’t know where the neat and shiny building had gone, but in its place stood an ugly building that looked like it wouldn’t be strange to call it a prison.
The clean white paint on the school’s walls had peeled off and stood high in the sky, the end of which was pointed as if it were a spear. The beige bricks that made up the school building were stained with all kinds of dust and moss and crumbling here and there, and the modern rectangular building was curved in odd curves, making it difficult to even find the entrance.
“….”
Jaeheon Lee raised his head and looked at the sky.
“…is the sun setting?”
The sky is gradually turning gray, increasing the anxiety of the survivors.
“No matter how much I think about it… I don’t think it will be easy to get out once you get in. The same goes for that mannequin dressed as a security guard standing at the front door. “It seems like it would be a burdensome space for everyone to enter at once.”
“Then shall we divide into a standby team and an exploration team? I also need a place to rest. “Everyone is exhausted because they walked quite a distance.”
“Then let’s split into teams. The standby team will find a shelter and build a fire to prepare for the night, while the search team will check if there are any survivors inside the school. “If you can make a phone call, we will contact you quickly.”
The members of the search team that were selected were Lee Jae-heon, Yoon Garam, Ha Seong-yoon, and Hong Gyeong-jun.
“…is it okay if I stay in the standby group? As expected, the manager must protect these people….”
“I can’t be left out in a situation where I don’t know how the rules of Unhak High School work. However, no one can keep the standby level. We also have kindergarten students. “There are more non-combat personnel, so I hope In-ho Jeong can protect them.”
The protagonist nodded his head at those words, but had a disapproving expression. I thought it was probably due to the excessive sacrificial spirit that Jaeheon Lee showed last time and the injury this time. Lee Jae-heon, who was planning to keep his wits about him this time, cursed internally at the protagonist’s reaction.
‘Who cares about whom when it comes to chicks?’
Lee Jae-heon, who was about to criticize the worry by saying it was nonsense, immediately changed his mind. Isn’t it said that no one knows the future? Although he simulated all kinds of situations in his head, he did not show the protagonist at all.
“Do not worry too much. “If I can, I will contact you as soon as I have time.”
“All right.”
“If we ask for help, please organize an additional search team to enter the school in advance… If not, just….” “….” “No, no. I’ll be back right away
.
”
In the world, this is called a ‘death flag.’
Approximately 30 minutes after entering Eonhak High School, Jaeheon Lee successfully retrieves this flag.
