Chapter 64: Men in Love (1)

The identity of the body that danced the tap dance with us in the rainy lodge. It was Gu Hyena, a female student who went missing at the beginning of the semester.

No wonder the school was in an uproar before the final exams, with a student people had been searching for suddenly appearing headless.

Boom- boom-

Whoosh-

As if an early rainy season had arrived, rain continued to pour outside the school windows, with final exams just around the corner.

Gloomy days. It’s perfect for quiet self-study.

Of course, since our Yeongji High was a delinquent high school, not many students actually studied even when teachers told them to.

I didn't study either.

Probably only top students like Jung-seok or Jung Sojin were seriously studying in our class right now.

Swish-

I glanced at Ms. Hong Mi-ri, sitting near the teacher's desk, constantly tapping on her phone.

It had been quite some time since I put the English teacher Hong Mi-ri into the "Nightmare Corridor".

We'd had three English classes since then.

I watched closely for any changes in English teacher Hong Mi-ri during those three classes. There weren't any big changes.

She didn't act familiar with me like before. But there was something slightly concerning.

"The teacher keeps making us do self-study and just looks at her phone these days."

"But she looks happy. Did she get a boyfriend or something?"

High school students are sensitive, standing between adults and children. The kids seemed to have noticed Hong Mi-ri's change too.

Teacher Hong Mi-ri seemed to be in a good mood recently. She often hummed for no apparent reason or responded to students' calls with smiles.

Other kids might not know, but I was sure she had undergone some change of heart after entering the "Nightmare Corridor" as a player.

Then what about Jung Sojin? I glanced at Jung Sojin.

Jung Sojin was also a "Player" who survived the corridor. You could call her a 'survivor'.

Buzz-

Just then, my phone vibrated softly.

「Jungle Jung-seok: I heard Kim Hae-il's investigation is ongoing. I asked some prosecutor uncles who were my dad's colleagues. Seems like it'll be hard for him to get away this time because the evidence is too clear.」

So Jung-seok wasn't studying during this self-study period either. It made sense.

Jung-seok hated Kim Hae-il, the prime suspect in the 'Bong Se-yeon murder case'. Jung-seok was passionate about punishing criminals.

「Jungle Jung-seok: And the uncles said they'd keep our identities secret. I guess it'd get noisy if students were exposed to the media.」

Having connections in high society is really good. It's nice to get information right away.

Anyway, it seemed best to wait for the Korean authorities to squeeze information out of 'Kim Hae-il', the man who turned Gu Hyena into a head ghost.

But according to Jung-seok, Kim Hae-il had been exercising his right to remain silent since the day after his arrest.

「Jungle Jung-seok: Also, they say there were traces of drugs in Gu Hyena's body.」

"......"

Drugs? The world is scary. A high school girl doing drugs?

Is this also the work of Kim Hae-il, the facility deacon at Glory Church?

By the way, Glory Church was also suffering because of Kim Hae-il, the culprit of the bizarre murder case. It's only natural for controversy to arise when a murderer was brazenly attending church.

「Jungle Jung-seok: This is a secret I'm only telling you. They say Kim Hae-il said we'd all drown in the Sea of Aion when he was arrested. That the Sea of Aion would rise and drown us all.」

The Sea of Aion. That's new to me.

Fortunately, Jung-seok was the type who liked to explain things.

「Jungle Jung-seok: Aion is a concept from Gnosticism, an ancient religion or school of thought. Gnosticism reveres a dualistic worldview, believing that the material world we live in is evil and the spiritual world is good.」

「It's similar to Plato's Theory of Forms.」

I'm a high school student too. I knew about Plato's Theory of Forms.

Plato argued for the existence of 'Forms', perfect concepts, and said that the world we live in is nothing but shadows of these Forms.

In other words, the "phone" I'm looking at is actually just a shadow of a phone, and there's a "real phone" in some far-off higher-dimensional world.

「Jungle Jung-seok: As expected, you get it. Speaking of Plato, there's also the 'Allegory of the Cave'. Remember the note we found?」

Photo.

[I can do it. I can. The longer I stay, the more I feel I'm being swallowed by this place. I need to find it and get out quickly. But is it really possible? I don't know how long I've been here. I'm a prisoner trapped in an eternal cave... What was my name again?]

Jung-seok showed me a photo of a notebook.

The 'Allegory of the Cave' is one of Plato's explanations, comparing humans to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to move.

The prisoners can't even turn their heads, forced to look at the cave wall their entire lives. There's a fire behind the prisoners, casting shadows on the wall, and the prisoners can only see these shadows.

Let's say animals or various people occasionally pass in front of the fire.

Animal shadows. Human shadows. To the prisoners who've seen these shadows all their lives, these shadows would be real people and animals.

But what if, for some reason, a prisoner's chains were loosened?

What if the prisoner discovered that the shadows they'd been seeing were just 'shadows', and that there were actually humans and animals with real forms?

The prisoner would want to seek out this higher-dimensional reality.

This reality is the conceptual world of Forms, and the shadows are the imperfect material world - this was Plato's Theory of Forms...

If you ask whether the mention of 'cave prisoner' in the note we found in the corridor is related to Plato's Forms, well... I can't be sure, but.

Jung-seok said,

「 Jungle Jung-seok: By the way, Gnosticism with its dualistic worldview was heavily influenced by Plato. Gnostics see the material world as evil and consider the spiritual world supreme. They said the path to this spiritual world is opened by spiritual knowledge called gnosis.」

"Hmm."

「Jungle Jung-seok: This spiritual knowledge, gnosis, was sometimes combined with Christianity and passed down as the gospel of Christ, and during the time when alchemy was popular, it was seen as something like the Philosopher's Stone or Elixir.」

「So what's the conclusion? Don't be long-winded, just tell me the point"」

「Jungle Jung-seok: The name of our high school is Yeongji High School, right? And the Cheon family, the foundation's founders, made money through alchemy in the past. Don't you think there might be a connection?」

Now that I hear it, it did seem that way. It was more like they took the name from there rather than just being connected.

「Jungle Jung-seok: And as I said before, these beings of the spiritual world are called Aions. And the original meaning of Aion is quite interesting. Aion means 'eternity' in Greek.」

"......"

「Jungle Jung-seok: Then what could the Sea of Aion be? It doesn't seem like Kim Hae-il is just spouting nonsense because he's gone crazy.」

At Jung-seok's words, I quietly closed my eyes.

A massive water vein flowing beneath Gaeryong City, a sea- It was to try and feel the eternity of that unfathomable depth.

Of course, I couldn't feel anything like that at all.

***

The whole school was nothing but self-study. The vice principal and principal were busy dealing with reporters, and Yeongji High's teachers never had any passion for academics to begin with.

The students were just as pathetic in their standards.

"Hey."

For instance, Bong Ji-yeon was a nasty delinquent.

After school, Bong Ji-yeon came to our Class D and called for someone.

"You. I mean you. Yang Juhee's lackey. Ha Young-won."

"What?"

Since our exciting tap dance at the Gaeryong lodge, Bong Ji-yeon had been keeping her distance from us, as if scared. But today, she was waiting for me after school.

"...That wasn't a dream we had back then, right?"

Bong Ji-yeon asked quietly. It seemed she still couldn't believe our experience fighting Gu Hyena's body.

The police said we had hallucinations from gas produced by the bonfire in the enclosed lodge. Of course, what we experienced was undoubtedly real. But Bong Ji-yeon still seemed unsure.

"...Now that they've caught the culprit again, we can finally get my sister back, right? By making him confess where he hid the head. My sister too..."

"I... don't know much about that. Wouldn't it be better to ask Jung-seok about that? Of course, I hope everything works out well."

Bong Ji-yeon narrowed her eyes and glared at me slightly. Her attitude suggested she had a lot to say but was holding back. Soon, Yang Juhee, finished preparing to go home, burst into the corridor.

"What are you two whispering about? Getting chummy?"

"What are you talking about? I like rich people. I heard Young-won's family is super poor."

"That's true. My family is a bit poor."

I nodded, terrified at the thought of Bong Ji-yeon possibly liking me. But Bong Ji-yeon grabbed my hand and looked at my palm.

"Still, your wealth line is really long and straight. You might become rich later, who knows?"

Palm reading. What's with the palm reading? Soon, Yang Juhee frowned and said a few words.

"Hey. Bong Ji-yeon. What's with the palm reading nonsense? More importantly, what's up with you? Waiting for us in the corridor? Feeling lonely because you're being ostracized in Class C? Does this unnie need to play with you?"

Yang Juhee and Bong Ji-yeon bickered as usual. They really get along well.

Bong Ji-yeon said,

"Hey. Let's wait a bit more and go with Da-hee from Class A. We're going to look at cosmetics on the way home today. And Da-hee knows a place that's great at tarot! They say it's amazing for love fortunes too!"

"Tarot, my ass. Bong Ji-yeon, you've gone crazy with palm reading and now tarot. It's all bullshit. Just to scam empty-headed girls like you!"

"What are you saying? Don't you know about statistics? Face reading, fortune-telling, it's all statistics!"

Bong Ji-yeon seemed to have started trusting in superstitions like palm reading and tarot in the few days we hadn't seen her.

No, most girls are just crazy about things like MBTI, fortune-telling, and horoscopes.

Anyway. It's a girls' gathering, so there's no room for me, a guy, to butt in.

Actually, tonight was a night we could enter the "Nightmare Corridor". It would be nice if we could discuss this in advance... but we'll have to talk about it in the group chat since we have phones.

Jung-seok had already gone home quickly to further investigate the 'Kim Hae-il' case on his own.

I had to go home alone for the first time in a while and got caught by a scary older girl right in front of the school gate.

"Hey. You."

"Me?"

"Yeah. You. It's you, right?"

She was the ugliest girl in Kwon Suho's group. Park Eun-jeong. A delinquent with a plain face without makeup.

"It's you, right? The one who found Gu Hyena. Gu Hyena was a friend of my acquaintance's cousin."

...That's practically a stranger at that point.

But it seemed the information that I was the one who discovered Gu Hyena's body had spread somewhere.

Sigh- This is going to be a pain.

"I... don't know much about that."

"Don't even think about lying. You know Suho oppa, right? Suho oppa is incredibly good at detecting lies. Come with me to see Suho oppa."

Park Eun-jeong suddenly grabbed my hand. Her hand was soft and warm, which made me even more flustered.

"Me? Why?"

What would happen if I went with her? Would I get beaten up badly? No, it didn't seem like that kind of atmosphere.

"Gu Hyena was one of Suho's acquaintances. He seems to have a lot he wants to ask you. By the way, Suho oppa has a ton of girlfriends and acquaintances. From what I've seen, there must be about ten. There was even a celebrity."

Impressive. Is that how third-generation chaebol are? And this Park Eun-jeong kept spewing TMI without a break.

[Park Eun-jeong: 《Loose Lips》 - An anxious mind can't accept silence and stillness. It ends up blabbing about anything. The problem is it doesn't discriminate between time and place.]

It must be because of this quirk. For me, this was actually a good opportunity.

"What do you mean when you say that Suho oppa... hyung? Suho hyung can detect all lies?"

"It's true. Can't believe it? He can figure out every single lie, I'm telling you. He's like a master. He's never been wrong. Not even once. He's like a superhuman."

Is it possible for a person to detect all lies?

If that's possible, it's truly a superpower. Until last year, if I heard a story like this, I would have said, "Stop bullshitting." But in a world where ghosts actually exist, there's no reason such superpowers couldn't exist too.

A superhuman existing in reality… Maybe he could be a Hero or an Observer.

This encounter… should I avoid it? Or should I face it head-on?

I thought hard for a while and came to a conclusion.