Chapter 47
The ‘Homeroom Teacher’s’ words had barely ended when the student in the very back stood up and began collecting the test papers and OMR cards.
[Ahahahahahaha!!!!!]
Splat! Splat! Splat!
The students who had submitted their answer sheets rushed toward the third-floor windows and jumped out.
Accompanied by bright laughter that sounded like they were about to head to a PC bang or karaoke room after their exams were over.
I suddenly thought that the scenery surrounding the school building probably wouldn’t be very pleasant.
Three people remained in the classroom: me, Imina, and the ‘Homeroom Teacher.’
[Hmm.]
It rummaged through the pile of OMR cards, pulled out two, and tore up the rest.
Naturally, they were Imina’s and my answer sheets.
After all, we were the only two people who wanted to leave the school.
The ‘Homeroom Teacher’ stared intently at the first OMR card, then shed bloody tears and spoke in a voice thick with regret.
[Imina, 95 points.]
“Phew~.”
[You got question 17 wrong. Would you like an explanation?]
“No~. I’m fine.”
Imina smiled as she let out a sigh of relief.
“See? I said I got everything right except for one question, didn’t I?”
“That’s right.”
It would have been better if the question I got wrong hadn’t been the one where I marked number 4.
Imina wore an innocent expression and held out her palm, asking for a high five.
When our palms met with a smack, I saw that her eyes were not smiling at all.
Now we had one more thing to resolve with the seniors within the next six months at the latest.
[Next, Park Seong-bin.]
“Yes.”
The ‘Homeroom Teacher,’ which had torn up Imina’s answer sheet, looked at me.
I had thought that I could comfortably clear the 85-point cutoff.
There were only two questions I found confusing.
The number of my family members and Scientist Madnificent’s level of interest in me.
I couldn’t have gotten any of the other questions wrong.
[It’s 85 points.]
What? Why had I gotten one more wrong?
[You got questions 1, 17, and 18 wrong. Would you like an explanation?]
“I’d appreciate a detailed explanation.”
[The answer to question 1 is choice 2: one person. The number of your remaining family members is not zero.]
“Who is that? I’m an orphan, so I don’t know.”
[The answer to question 1 is choice 2: one person. The number of your remaining family members is not zero.]
What kind of explanation was that? Fine, the answer was what it was, but shouldn’t it explain the reasoning?
I asked several times for the explanation to question 1 because I was dumbfounded, but all I got in return was the same answer.
Damn bastards. Just because this wasn’t the CSAT, they thought they could half-ass the explanation.
Whether that was the truth or not was something the people who had written the question should have explained.
That was what I thought, but what could I do? At school, I was merely the subordinate party.
“Why didn’t you just shut down the school when you first came here?”
“If destroying the entity had been a good method, I would have.”
“Wouldn’t destroying it be good?”
“If an entity is destroyed, a new entity of the same rank is born somewhere in the world. The Management Bureau calls it the Law of Conservation of the Total Number of Entities.”
“Is there perhaps a Law of Humanity’s Preservation, too?”
“Of course not.”
At those words, Imina smiled with a hint of bitterness.
As expected, why was the world so harsh only on the side I belonged to?
At this rate, why not say that gods and devils were entities, too?
There was even an urban-legend club at some school that hunted devils.
Hoping that nothing like that would happen, I gave up on hearing the basis for the answer to question 1.
In the first place, I couldn’t believe everything an entity said, and whether my family was alive or dead, I intended to find them all anyway.
Even after making that resolve, the word family, faintly carved into some wall deep in my chest, seemed to grow a little clearer.
“I understand question 1. What about the rest?”
[The answer to question 17 is choice 4: a test subject. Scientist Madnificent is watching you with great interest.]
Oh, wow. That was exactly the news I wanted to hear.
So you’re saying that the entities related to the village where time stopped, the Forest of the Faceless Ones, and the Toy Box all see me as a test subject?
“Was that also why I entered the Toy Box?”
The ‘Homeroom Teacher’ nodded.
[From the moment your contact with the Faceless Man exceeded three seconds, Scientist Madnificent’s interest turned toward you.]
How the hell did a mere Level 3 school know so much about other people’s private lives, and how did it know every detail of my actions?
And if it knew all that, couldn’t it have explained the interpretation of question 1, too?
They were a bunch of bastards who did whatever they wanted like no one else.
With tears in my eyes, I added Scientist Madnificent to the list of entities obsessed with me.
I pictured the director of Eternal Life General Hospital (face unknown), who had been sitting there all alone and forlorn, brightening up.
“I understand. What about question 18?”
[You have received entity counseling from ‘Put Your Mind at Ease’ once.]
“I have never received entity counseling.”
Besides, the name of the entity coiled up in the psychological counseling room was ‘Rest Easy.’
The ‘Homeroom Teacher’ paid no attention and repeated the exact same thing.
[Your colleague knows this as well. You have received entity counseling from ‘Put Your Mind at Ease’ once.]
I looked at Imina, who was watching me from behind.
“Did it say that I received entity counseling?”
“It said you did?”
She said that and chuckled softly.
It was a familiar expression. A smile that narrowed her eyes into thin slits, as if they were closed.
It was the expression she wore whenever she played pranks at the office.
“If you were confused, you should have asked me first, Mr. Seong-bin.”
“I don’t remember ever undergoing an entity examination.”
“I don’t remember coming to school either, but you’re at school, Mr. Seong-bin.”
“Tss….”
I had nothing to say. I hadn’t asked the team leader about problems I could solve on my own.
“But strictly speaking, it isn’t even a wrong answer, Teacher.”
[Hmm?]
“The Gwanak Branch of the Management Bureau has an entity called ‘Rest Easy,’ but there’s no entity called ‘Put Your Mind at Ease.’”
Crack!
A crack appeared in the ‘Homeroom Teacher’s’ forehead.
“Since the entity’s name mentioned in the question was wrong, whatever I chose would have been marked wrong, right?”
[… I suppose I’ll have to kill the teacher who wrote the test.]
When a question is wrong on a school exam, most schools have one standard solution.
Mark the answer correct no matter what the student chose. If it were a norm-referenced exam, voiding the question could also be considered, but this was a criterion-referenced exam.
Crunch.
[Park Seong-bin, 90 points.]
It meant that no matter how hard the ‘Homeroom Teacher’ clenched its teeth until its lips split and dark-red blood streamed down, this was beyond its power to change.
However, at this point, I had a slight question.
“Come to think of it, since 85 points was enough anyway, did we really need to have my score corrected?”
If I had simply ignored the answer explanations, couldn’t I have left the school?
Hearing my question, which I had asked after belatedly realizing how inefficient my actions had been, Imina shook her head.
“If you hadn’t said you wanted to hear the explanations, I would have told you to listen to them.”
“Why?”
“Entities rooted in Korea have a sort of species-specific trait.”
[Cutoff 85…86…87…88….]
Black smoke poured from the ‘Homeroom Teacher’s’ body and rose upward, beginning to increase numbers that should never have gone up.
I was startled and stood up from my desk, preparing to take a defensive stance, but Imina grabbed my arm and shook her head.
“It’s all right. You got 90 points.”
[89…9…9…9….]
Pshuuuuuuu….
Despite its final struggle, it couldn’t get the number 90 out of its mouth.
Tap tap.
Its flesh began peeling off and dropping to the floor.
The ‘Homeroom Teacher’ had transformed into a state where the muscles and blood vessels I had seen at human-anatomy exhibitions were visible.
[You passed the 85-point cutoff… so you’re approved….]
It collapsed on top of the things that had once been its own skin.
The smell of burning rubber began to fill the classroom.
“Was it trying to change the rules arbitrarily again?”
“Yes~. That’s why your action of raising the score by 5 points was extremely effective.”
“You mean the school that already revised its rules once because of you did it again?”
“Not usually. But as I said earlier.”
Tap tap tap tap.
Imina walked up to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and drew the Taegeukgi on the board.
“Korean entities in particular don’t hesitate to lower their rank to achieve their goals.”
“I didn’t know entities could join the Do You Know Club, too.”
“You can’t deny that they’re similar to people, can you?”
“Of course not.”
Imina said she could provide further explanations if necessary, but I declined.
What mattered more right now was leaving this wretched school and escaping from the Toy Box.
“Then let’s get going. From here on, it’s no different from an ordinary school.”
Imina smiled brightly, poked my cheek, and left the classroom first.
I was about to follow her when I thought of something I wanted to try and stopped in front of the blackboard.
Tap tap tap tap tap tap.
I erased the Taegeukgi Imina had drawn and wrote a poem.
It was a poem that people growing into middle-aged men would have seen at least once, and might even have identified with back then.
For the crime of being a student
Imprisoned in the prison called school
Locked in a cell called the classroom
Listed on the prisoner roster called the attendance book
Wearing a prison uniform called a school uniform
Waiting for release called graduation