Chapter 43
"Ha Young-won. Have you seen anything like this before?"
Jung-seok asked for my opinion, looking at the large hole in the broadcasting room floor.
"No. This is my first time seeing this too. It's my first time in this broadcasting room."
The hole in the broadcasting room was a first discovery for me as well.
The hole going straight through the floor was so dark that we couldn't gauge its depth with just the lighter's flame.
But logically thinking, it must be a hole leading to the first basement level. The basement of the old school building.
Wasn't that the place where we got the magic wand with Yoo Dahee and Jung-seok?
Anyway, we now had a new choice.
Go down.
Don't go down.
As I was deeply considering these two options, a sound rang in my ears.
Jingle-! Jingle-! Jingle-!
It was the sharp ringing of bells.
"Aaaaargh!"
A scream boiling with hatred followed.
The shaman ghost, pissed off after being stabbed by Yang Juhee, must have already come this far.
Click-
Creak-!
The sound of doors opening was also loud.
Is it checking and opening all the rooms in the corridor one by one?
I wasn't the only one who noticed this, as Jung-seok asked in an anxious voice,
"Hey. What should we do? If we hide here, it'll just be another dead end. Make a decision."
After much consideration, I made a decision.
"Alright. What the hell. Let's go! What's the worst that could happen? We'll just die, right? Let's go! Let's do this!"
Just surviving in this terrifying place isn't meaningful enough.
If there's a game called Nightmare Corridor, it would be more meaningful to progress and conquer it rather than just survive. Jung-seok nodded at my conclusion.
"Good idea. But how do we get in?"
Jung-seok threw a box lying in the broadcasting room into the hole.
Thud-
The sound immediately came from the floor.
"If we drop an object of about 1kg and it takes about 1 second for the sound to reach us, calculating with gravitational acceleration... it's about 2 meters. The height seems to be about 2 meters?"
2 meters. Is there a ladder or foothold?
As I was looking around, Yang Juhee said.
"Hey! If it's 2 meters, you won't get hurt jumping down! I know because I jumped from the second floor in middle school!"
Apparently, Yang Juhee had jumped from the second floor when she was in middle school.
I had a lot I wanted to say, but Yang Juhee, seemingly frustrated with my and Jung-seok's conversation, stretched her limbs and sat on the edge of the hole.
Then, as if making a big decision, she jumped down!
Whoosh-!
"Ack!"
Yang Juhee screamed as she landed on the floor.
I asked,
"Hey! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine! Hey! It's not as high as I thought!"
She seems to be okay.
Jung-seok and I were impressed by Yang Juhee's recklessly bold courage.
Now it's the next person's turn. I said,
"I'll go."
Phew-
After taking a deep breath, I jumped down with all my might!
2 meters.
It was a bit scary because it was an awkward height, but the bell sound coming from behind was even scarier.
"Made it!"
Yang Juhee caught me.
Now it's the last one, Jung-seok's turn.
"Hey! I'm coming down! Catch me!"
Jung-seok, sitting on the edge of the hole, jumped towards us.
Yang Juhee and I caught him well, and we all managed to get down to the basement without major injuries.
Flick-
Yang Juhee looked around using the lighter's flame.
Unlike what we thought, the basement wasn't chilly but very hot. It was sweltering, and a fishy, pungent smell was wafting from all directions.
"Help me" "Help me" "Help me"
"Help me" "Help me" "Help me"
"Help me" "Help me" "Help me"
"Ghosts live here"
The walls were full of scribbled writing. It was similar to the ghost-infested first floor, but even more chilling.
"Look at that."
Yang Juhee pointed at something she discovered.
It looked like black thread.
But as we got closer, we saw it wasn't thread but human hair. Fallen hair was everywhere.
Judging by the length, it seemed to be from a woman, but we couldn't be sure.
"So what should we do now?"
Yang Juhee asked, looking around with the lighter.
We came down to the first basement to escape the enraged shaman ghost, but we didn't have a clear goal of what to do here.
I thought intensely for a very short time and made a decision.
"For now, let's look around and find anything that could be a hint or helpful."
This was our first time in the basement of the Nightmare Corridor.
We needed to acquire anything that could help somehow and then escape this place alive.
Yes, we need to find an escape route.
***
How long have we been walking?
It feels like we've been walking for about 5 minutes.
"But... is this corridor normally this straight?"
Yang Juhee, who had been walking for a while holding the lighter, asked us. She must be questioning the straight corridor structure of the first basement.
Jung-seok said,
"I don't think the basement corridor we went to with Yoo Dahee was like this. That was reality, and this is inside a nightmare, so there might be differences."
Step. Step.
Only the sound of our footsteps could be heard in the basement. Just as we were starting to wonder if we were repeating the same place, something strange appeared in front of us.
"It's a bag. Wow, it's a Louis Vuitton school bag!"
Yang Juhee fearlessly picked up something lying on the floor.
What could it be?
"This must cost over 3 million won! I've always wanted one!"
It's an incredibly expensive designer school bag.
Zip-
Yang Juhee opened the bag's zipper.
Then, she took out school supplies and textbooks that were inside.
Flick-
The textbooks illuminated by the lighter's flame seemed to be for Yeongji High School's first year.
There was a name written on them.
"Gu Hyena".
As I was thinking I'd heard that name somewhere, Jung-seok said,
"Isn't Gu Hyena... the girl who went missing at the beginning of the semester?"
That's right! Jung-seok was correct!
The name of the girl who caused a stir by disappearing at the start of the semester was Gu Hyena!
Why are her things here?
"Sweet. Got some loot."
Yang Juhee rummaged through the Louis Vuitton bag. She doesn't seem to mind that it belongs to a missing person.
Flutter-
Just then, a piece of paper fell out of the Louis Vuitton bag.
It looked like part of a torn notebook. There was writing on it.
"Shaman - No eyes. Hears well. Carries bells. Doesn't seem too dangerous if not provoked. But once spotted, it chases endlessly. Can't leave the first floor."
"It looks like notes about the ghosts!"
Jung-seok exclaimed in surprise. We decided to read the rest of what was written below.
"Escape Talisman - Can escape by burning this talisman. One talisman per person. One is definitely attached to the front of the sacred statue. There's one sacred statue on each floor."
There was also a drawing that seemed to describe the talisman.
It looked like an object with "出" (exit) written on it.
"I can do it. I can do this. The longer I stay, the more I feel like I'm being swallowed by this place. I need to find it quickly and get out. But is it really possible? I don't know how long I've been here. I'm a prisoner trapped in an eternal cave... My name is... what was it?"
It was someone's journal. The writing became harder to read towards the end, but it was valuable information!
Jung-seok shouted,
"It looks like we can escape if we just find this 'Escape Talisman'!"
"At least one of us must definitely escape. If we die here, we'll lose our memories. This information must be remembered by at least one person who escapes. Absolutely!"
We finally got some high-quality information.
We couldn't lose it all by everyone getting wiped out.
Flutter-
Then, Yang Juhee turned the notebook over. There was writing on the back of the notebook too.
"The rotting flesh is buried at Gaeryong Mountain's rocky area. Only the head is needed. I am the jailer and liberator. I will faithfully carry out my assigned duty."
Yang Juhee said.
"...Is this written by the missing Gu Hyena? No, it doesn't look like a girl's handwriting, does it? And the content at the end. It's creepy. Who would write something like this?"
Creepy. I thought so too.
I had planned to thoroughly explore this Nightmare Corridor today, but the more we learned, the more I just wanted to get out of this place immediately.
Jung-seok said.
"...What did they bury at Gaeryong Mountain's rocky area? Am I the only one bothered by this?"
...I don't know, damn it. Honestly, I thought we had gathered enough information for today.
This should be enough to escape. I looked around and spoke casually, trying to shake off the chills.
"So where can we get this 'Escape Talisman'? It says there's definitely one in front of the sacred statue... but where's the sacred statue? By sacred statue, they probably mean something like a statue, right?"
There was nothing around that could be called a sacred statue.
"Since it says there's one on each floor, there should be one in this basement too."
We should probably keep going for now.
We continued down the corridor like that and finally reached a dead end.
"The path is blocked."
Jung-seok tapped the wall. The wall looked thick and solid.
That's when Yang Juhee discovered something in the corner.
"Hey! Here! There's a dog hole!"
True to her experience as a delinquent who often used dog holes, Yang Juhee was practically an expert at finding holes in the floor.
We crawled through that dog hole.
Fortunately, the dog hole wasn't too long, and finally, a wide cave-like space appeared.
"What's this cave doing here?"
Splash- Splash-
It was a cave submerged in water up to our ankles.
And in that cave, among burning candles, there was a strange figure.
It looked like a headless Buddha statue, sitting in a half-lotus position like a half-seated Buddha, with a head placed between its legs.
But that head didn't seem to be the Buddha statue's head.
After all, it had black hair spreading in all directions.
Although its eyes were closed as if sleeping and its expression was calm, I couldn't forget that face.
"Damn it, it's the head ghost..."
Honestly, I had been feeling puzzled.
I was wondering where the head ghost was while the shaman ghost was running rampant. I thought it was fortunate that it hadn't appeared, but to think it was in a place like this.
"...Is that the head ghost?"
Yang Juhee trembled.
Soon, Jung-seok also frowned, breathing heavily.
"Young-won. Is that the head ghost you talked about? Is that Bong Se-yeon's head?"
Jung-seok seemed to be trying to face the phenomenon before his eyes, despite his fear. But Jung-seok soon shook his head.
"No. That's not Se-yeon's head. That sister had a big mole near her eye, so her nickname was Mole Girl! This head doesn't have... a mole! There's no mole!"
"What?"
...Is this for real?
Soon, Yang Juhee also spoke,
"If it's Se-yeon, I know her too. That's not Se-yeon."
Ah-
I realized I had made a critical mistake in my deduction.
Yang Juhee knew Bong Se-yeon, Bong Ji-yeon's older sister. And Yang Juhee had also encountered the head ghost in the first entry.
But Yang Juhee didn't act like she recognized the head ghost in the first entry!
Why am I only realizing this now?
"Damn it, then what the hell is that head?"
I was almost in panic.
As Yang Juhee was looking around as if at a loss, Jung-seok exhaled roughly and said.
"I got it. That's... Gu Hyena. The first-year Gu Hyena who went missing a few months ago! I know because we went to the same academy in middle school! That's Gu Hyena! The owner of the bag we found!"
It was the moment the identity of the head ghost was revealed. Its identity was the Yeongji High School female student who went missing at the beginning of this year.
"...Hey. Gu Hyena or whatever. Look at that! There's a talisman attached to the Buddha statue! Isn't that the escape talisman!?"
The bold Yang Juhee pointed at the Buddha statue. Just as Yang Juhee said, there was a talisman attached to the palm of the Buddha statue.
"But... how do we approach it?"
The head ghost's hair was spread out in all directions.
The head ghost was a ghost that spread its hair like a spider web and killed horribly anyone who touched it.
It looks calm now, but if we touch it... something terrible would happen.
At times like this, we need to aim for a variable. And fortunately, Yang Juhee had that variable.
"Yang Juhee. You have the magic wand, right? I think it's time to use it. They say you can create some kind of barrier if you use that wand. Try using the magic wand while I jump to get that talisman."
"You mean this magic wand?"
"And Jung-seok. If we get the talisman, you escape since you have the best memory. As soon as you wake up, write down everything you remember in a notebook! Got it? Alright, Yang Juhee! Now chant the spell!"
"Spell? What spell! Magic wand spell? What kind of spell?"
"I don't know! Me neither! Spell! Anything you can think of! Isn't there some Princess something spell?"