Chapter 68
Kwon Suho and Ms. Hong Mi-ri seemed to know each other. In a way, it made sense.
Kwon Suho was the third-generation heir of the Osung Group, currently attending Yeongji High. A well-known troublemaker in Gaeryong City.
On the other hand, Ms. Hong Mi-ri was a popular English teacher at the school. It wouldn't be strange if there was some connection between them.
"Teacher. I hear you have some kind of talisman that can get us out of here? Hand it over."
"I don't want to. And are you in any position to make demands? If you don't want trouble with the chairman, stay put. Before your father comes to kneel before me again like last time."
"...What did you say, you bitch?"
Sparks seemed to fly between Kwon Suho and Ms. Hong Mi-ri.
If they started fighting, I could take advantage of the situation. I shouted towards Kwon Suho,
"Hyung! Ms. Hong Mi-ri said she'd kill people without talismans! She said if you die, you can escape! She'll probably kill you too! Run away!"
If Kwon Suho really had supernatural abilities, he'd know my words were true. Kwon Suho's eyes flashed for a moment.
"Hong Mi-ri, you're completely insane."
Lunge-!
Kwon Suho lunged at Hong Mi-ri. He came running with his arms spread in a low stance, looking just like an MMA fighter.
Thud-!
Kwon Suho grabbed Hong Mi-ri and threw her to the floor of the women's restroom. Even Ms. Hong Mi-ri couldn't withstand the grappling technique of a 190cm muscular giant, and she screamed while struggling.
"Aaaaargh! You son of a bitch!"
"Stay still! Where did you hide the talisman!"
From afar, it might look like a thug assaulting a woman. Actually, it looked that way up close too.
Would the fight end here with Kwon Suho stealing the talisman? No, if that happened, my chances of getting the talisman would clearly decrease.
When Ms. Hong Mi-ri, a woman, had the talisman, I might have had a chance to snatch it somehow. But if I had to fight Kwon Suho, a sturdy male student, I'd lose nine times out of ten.
"You fucking bitch! You dare to look down on me? Die, you whore! Do you still think we're those lowlifes who make money by selling things?"
Thwack-! Thwack thwack-!
Kwon Suho's rock-like fists struck Hong Mi-ri's face and pummeled her abdomen. It was clearly an intent to kill.
But Ms. Hong Mi-ri's resistance was not to be underestimated. Even while being beaten one-sidedly, she clawed at him with her hands and feet as if trying to fight back somehow.
Crunch-!
Kwon Suho's huge hand, which looked like it could grip a basketball with ease, choked Hong Mi-ri's neck. Ms. Hong Mi-ri struggled desperately to resist, but it seemed futile.
"You bastard...! You think... you'll get away with this? I'll tell... the chairman everything...!"
"Hehehe, if you die here, you'll forget everything, right?"
"...!"
"What's wrong? I've had that much education too. Half-breeds like you are different from me from birth. I'm the protagonist of this world. So crawl flat beneath me...!"
Ugh, urk-
Ms. Hong Mi-ri flailed her arms and legs in extreme pain. If this continued, it wouldn't even be a fight, just a one-sided defeat for Hong Mi-ri.
And if Hong Mi-ri lost one-sidedly, my life would clearly be in danger too.
From what I heard, it seemed Ms. Hong Mi-ri actually had more authority in her relationship with Kwon Suho. It seemed Ms. Hong Mi-ri was a confidant of Chairman Cheon Dae-gon.
In other words, this meant that Chairman Cheon Dae-gon's power behind Hong Mi-ri was even more formidable than the Osung Group behind Kwon Suho.
This meant that this scene was essentially a kind of rebellion. It seemed Kwon Suho was trying to eliminate Hong Mi-ri, the witness and involved party, to make it as if nothing had happened.
Kwon Suho seemed to know that if someone dies in this corridor, they lose their memory. And that meant there was a high probability that Kwon Suho would kill me too, as a witness to this incident.
In other words, Hong Mi-ri's defeat also meant my death.
"You acted all high and mighty when I was a freshman, look at you now, you bitch! In the end, you're nothing under me! Because of you, my dad hit me with a golf club!"
Is it just me? Somehow, the mechanism seems to have changed from 'kill' to 'assault'. And this seemed like a golden opportunity for me!
"Stop it! Don't bully Ms. Mi-ri! Hyung! This doesn't seem right! Let's try to resolve this through dialogue! Hyung! Do you really want to see me go crazy...!? Hyung! Hyuuung!"
I quickly made my calculations but pretended to know nothing as I pulled at Kwon Suho's hair and ears. I also grabbed and pulled his arm. Kwon Suho was shocked.
"What are you doing, you idiot! Get lost! Damn it!"
That hurts to hear. But did he think I'd back off because of that?
"There must be a way for all of us to escape! Hyung! You know I'm not lying, right? Don't fight!"
"Hey! You bastard! Let go! Aaargh!"
When I jabbed my finger into Kwon Suho's eye, he couldn't bear it anymore and finally screamed.
"Aaargh! You fucking bastard! I'll kill you too!"
As Kwon Suho fell back, clutching his eye, Ms. Hong Mi-ri struggled to her feet and lunged at him in return.
Then something shocking happened.
Crunch, chomp-!
Ms. Hong Mi-ri bit Kwon Suho's nape hard. Blood started spurting like a fountain, and everything was covered in bright red bloodstains and the smell of blood.
"Aaargh! Aaaaaargh!"
Kwon Suho screamed wildly. But it didn't last long.
Thud-
Kwon Suho stopped moving. He was dead.
"Where do you think you're going, making trouble for people? Dogs always think they're the same as humans when you treat them a little nicely."
Ptooey-
Hong Mi-ri spat something out. I didn't really want to know what it was.
Anyway, the fight ended with Hong Mi-ri's victory. But can we really call this a victory?
Hong Mi-ri's left arm was broken at the forearm, bent at a 'ㄱ' angle. She must have suffered severe internal and rib damage from the earlier beating. But Ms. Hong Mi-ri didn't show any sign of pain.
"Teacher, your arm..."
"What? It's broken."
Ms. Hong Mi-ri pulled her left arm with her right hand as if assembling bones.
Crack. Crackle-
The sound that spread around was painful just to hear, but Ms. Hong Mi-ri's expression didn't change at all.
Come to think of it, Ms. Hong Mi-ri didn't scream even once when Kwon Suho was beating her earlier.
Could it be that she can't feel pain? Something like analgesia? It made sense.
But even if she couldn't feel pain, it didn't mean the damage to her body disappeared. Ms. Hong Mi-ri sat down, breathing heavily and looking very exhausted.
"Ha Young-won. You... bastard.... If you're going to join in, do it now."
Ms. Hong Mi-ri covered in blood now was scarier than when she was the Red Mask ghost. You could say she was seething with murderous intent.
"This sucks."
Swish-
Ms. Hong Mi-ri pulled out a talisman from between her breasts with her uninjured right hand. Before I could do anything, she tore it and it disappeared like dust.
She had escaped.
"You can tear it instead of burning it?"
I thought you had to burn the talisman. That's what Dahee had told me. But if tearing it works too... that's actually better.
"Young-won!"
Just then, someone called me from the bathroom entrance.
"Dahee? Yoo Dahee?"
"Shh! Come quickly! I think the shaman is coming this way soon! It was too noisy!"
***
I joined Yoo Dahee in this blood-soaked nightmare. Entering "1-4", relief washed over me as if all the blood drained from my body.
I'm alive.
That's what I thought.
Kwon Suho. Hong Mi-ri. What just happened felt like a dream.
In a sense, it was a dream.
Anyway, I gained a lot of important information today. It was worth pushing this suicide squad into the Nightmare Corridor.
The problem was that for me to remember this, I had to escape alive.
"Dahee. Do you have the talisman by any chance?"
I knew the talisman on the first floor was gone. Dahee soon said,
"Yes. I have a paper crane. If I fly it, I can find the location of the nearest altar with a talisman."
Swish-
Yoo Dahee showed me a paper crane. It was literally a crane made by folding paper.
It was very small.
"Grandfather said it's a memento from my mom. I lost it in reality, but for some reason, it's always in my pocket here."
So Yoo Dahee always starts with this crane as an item. That's why she could easily find altars.
That’s good information.
Ding. Ding.
We heard the bell sound.
"......"
"......"
Both Dahee and I fell silent. I suddenly became curious.
"Dahee. This might be a bit out of the blue, but what kind of person was your mother?"
"...I don't know well. Grandfather and others are reluctant to talk about her. The new housekeeper said my mom was a very bad person. She didn't listen to grandfather and only did bad things."
She doesn't seem to know that the shaman ghost wandering out there is her mother. It seemed that way.
As I was thinking this, Yoo Dahee handed me something.
"Young-won. Get out of here. You shouldn't be in a place like this."
It was a talisman. An escape talisman.
"You want me to leave?"
Honestly, I was overjoyed. I wanted to shout with joy and break into a dance.
But if I leave like this... what about Yoo Dahee? Yoo Dahee died last time, caught by Hong Mi-ri.
According to the corridor's rules, she must have developed a 《Quirk》. And people who accumulate two quirks die.
In other words, if Yoo Dahee fails to escape this time, death is her only option, and the result would mean real death in reality.
Yoo Dahee said,
"Young-won, you helped me. I'm repaying that debt."
"...For finding Baekseol? No. Even so... Dahee. I'll tell you now. Last time, you helped me escape and then died, eaten by the Red Mask."
"...Really?"
"If you die again this time, you'll really die. Dahee. I know. If you send me away like this, you'll die. You'll really die in reality too. Are you okay with that...?"
I just told Yoo Dahee almost everything truthfully. I thought I could trust her since she readily offered me the talisman.
Yoo Dahee was silent for a moment. After pondering for a while, she said,
"It's okay. Sometimes there's an exit door on this first floor. It doesn't open often, but. If it's open today, I might be able to get out through there."
A door! An exit! Was there such a thing?
Come to think of it, Yoo Dahee knew the location of the exit when playing the game "Abyss Corridor", right?
It wouldn't be strange if there was an exit in this Nightmare Corridor, which is very similar to that game.
"Where do we go for that exit? Let's go together."
Let's go to the exit together and then think about what to do next. That was my plan.
Yoo Dahee and I left "1-4". The corridor was quieter than I expected.
With the map, finding the exit wasn't difficult.
"Here. The big drawing is the exit. It's really convenient with the 'Map'."
"Is that so?"
We headed towards the exit together. And we found the school entrance firmly blocked by iron chains.
"It's blocked?"
"This means... we can't get out."
The moment of choice had finally come. In the end, one of us had to stay behind.
I thought hard for a while and decided to be honest with Dahee.
"Dahee. I think I'll escape with the talisman after all."
"......"
Dahee held out the talisman to me. I gave it back to Yoo Dahee.
"Not that one. Give me that paper crane thing. I'll go out with the talisman from the second floor."
If Yoo Dahee died because of me here, she might appear to me as a high school girl ghost. I decided to help Yoo Dahee escape first. And I'll go out through the second floor!
I'm opening the second floor now! No matter what's there, with Yoo Dahee's paper crane, I should be able to find the altar!