Chapter 52

[8. Hide, hide well. I can see the hem of your clothes.]

It was a ghost story that gave you no time to catch your breath.

Just when the situation had become too shocking to even feel angry about, an unfamiliar man appeared.

"........"

Su-myeon slowly raised his eyes.

A man stood before him with his arms folded.

He looked to be in his forties and had been watching Su-myeon's rather impressive landing with a surprised expression.

His shaggy hair and shabby clothes were nothing remarkable, but his solid build gave him a weighty presence.

If anything, there was even a strange charisma about him, like that of a survivor who had lived through the apocalypse.

"Are you all r—"

From above came Hwi-yeon's startled voice, only for it to falter halfway through.

A place that allowed only children.

A school that reduced even adults to the forms they had possessed in childhood.

And here, the first true adult they had encountered stretched out a hand and beckoned to their companion still above.

"Come on, you come down too. I'll catch you."

Astonishingly, he had only one hand to wave.

Only his right hand remained intact.

His left had been severed at the wrist.

"Didn't you smash your knees?"

The man addressed Su-myeon, who was still sitting there staring blankly at him, unable to get up.

Cheshire, who had remained as silent as a doll for quite some time, let out a giggle.

The situation was absurd, and yes, his knees hurt, but Su-myeon slowly forced himself to his feet.

"That man should be able to help you. I can't leave the school, so there's nothing I can do."

With that, Wendy tried to push Hwi-yeon out as well, but Hwi-yeon waved her away.

"I'll get down on my own."

She stepped onto the window frame.

Having undergone all manner of training, Hwi-yeon showed no hesitation. Using the protrusions along the building as handholds and footholds, she made her way down to the first floor.

Once Hwi-yeon had climbed out as well, Wendy quietly disappeared from the window.

"For heaven's sake....."

If you're going to help, at least say you're going to help.

Apparently, Wendy had chosen the violent approach simply to avoid wasting time on an explanation.

He should have trusted the Nemean Lion Hide and landed on his back.

Su-myeon straightened his aching knees and stood, and the man beckoned to them.

"Follow me."

From inside the school, the playing field had looked completely black.

Yet beneath a sky as bright and clear as midday, an unbroken blue without a single cloud, the field alone remained pitch-dark, untouched by light.

The contrast gave the entire place a hazy, dreamlike quality.

"I came out because I was wondering why the sky suddenly changed. Looks like this was your doing."

The man skirted the edge of the field, heading somewhere.

It wasn't simply that no light reached the field.

Something black was swarming across it in dense masses.

The crocodile-headed creatures appeared to consider the field their territory.

They merely watched the group walking along the outer edge of the school, glaring at them through vertically slit pupils.

"Where are we going?"

"The auditorium."

The man's gait looked almost like a shuffle, but his strides were long.

As Hwi-yeon followed him, she too seemed to notice that he was missing a hand.

Her gaze kept drifting toward it.

The man glanced back to check whether they were following, snorted, and openly held out the severed wrist for her to see.

"What? That obvious?"

A man who, within the logic of the fairy tale, presumably occupied the role of Captain Hook.

And yet he looked nothing like the character.

Still, even in the original tale, Captain Hook was an adult who intruded upon and shattered the children's world.

For Su-myeon, who intended to escape this world, that alone made him an invaluable potential ally.

"By the way. You. Belle's helping you?"

He asked the question as he opened the auditorium door and stepped inside.

The auditorium was even darker than the world outside.

It was a space filled with nothing but darkness, as though light had never once been allowed to exist there.

At the very least, Su-myeon thought, Peter Pan would have a hard time finding them if they hid here.

The man picked up an old oil lantern resting beside the entrance and led them deeper inside.

"Yes, for now... that's right."

He had only told Wendy.

How did this man know?

Su-myeon decided to file that away with all the other things he couldn't understand and simply answered.

Without even turning around, the man continued walking and replied curtly.

"Don't trust that woman too much."

Su-myeon didn't trust Belle completely either.

Maintaining one's sanity inside a story that had transformed into a ghost story wasn't something that could be accomplished through willpower alone.

Whether Belle intended it or not, Su-myeon always kept in mind the possibility that she might someday put him in danger.

What bothered him now was that Cheshire was listening.

"Well, doubting everything from the start is a pretty good attitude~"

When Su-myeon looked over, Cheshire responded as though it were no concern of his.

Put that way, there was no reason for Su-myeon to say anything more.

The oil lantern itself gave off plenty of light.

The darkness surrounding them was simply unnaturally dense.

No matter how closely they stayed beside the man carrying the lantern, they could barely make out their own feet.

As they moved through the bottomless dark, Hwi-yeon and Su-myeon gradually drew closer together.

Just as Hwi-yeon's elbow was about to brush against him, Su-myeon caught her by the arm.

Keeping a suitable distance between them, he addressed the man.

"And you are....."

"Just call me Teacher."

"Teacher, then. Who are you, and why are you helping us?"

"Who knows."

There was something peculiar about the Teacher walking ahead of them.

He didn't seem particularly dangerous.

But neither was he someone Su-myeon could easily read.

"I'm helping you because I want to use you. What other reason would I need?"

Scratching at his disheveled hair, the Teacher gave an answer that was, at least, easy enough to understand.

Goodwill backed by an ulterior motive was easier to trust than goodwill offered for no reason at all.

"What did Belle tell you?"

Was an ordinary school auditorium really this large?

They had been walking long enough for Su-myeon to start wondering.

He doubted he could easily find his own way back out.

But with Hwi-yeon here, that wasn't a problem.

She had never told him herself, but Su-myeon knew about Hwi-yeon's peculiar talent.

After once getting lost in a forest and losing track of her younger sibling, she had become almost obsessive about memorizing routes.

As long as she remembered the direction and number of steps, she could reliably retrace her path out of any place she had entered before.

"I heard that this ghost story is the residue of old tales that gained power, and that it swallows beings from reality and steals reality's causality in order to make itself real."

Causality.

The very power that allowed one thing to occur and produce another as its result.

That was why ghost stories kept dragging living people inside and attempting to devour their emotions and souls.

The Teacher nodded at Su-myeon's summary, then abruptly changed direction.

"If you know that much, that's enough."

The moment they turned, a basketball hoop that hadn't been visible a second ago appeared before them.

The hoop had effectively been turned into one enormous torch.

Several lanterns hung from the rim, casting just enough light over the area beneath it.

And beneath it—

"Uh...?"

"Did someone come?"

"Looks like some new kids showed up."

Five students were huddled together.

"Those kids somehow managed to make it out of the school."

The man who called himself Teacher spoke matter-of-factly as he walked toward them.

Su-myeon's feelings, meanwhile, grew increasingly complicated.

"Unfortunately, there's no way out from this side. If you want to escape, you'll have to go back into that school. And I can't go with you."

As the Teacher continued, the children gathered beneath the basketball hoop seemed to understand what was happening and began getting to their feet.

Su-myeon immediately grasped his intention.

He wanted Su-myeon to take those children with him.

Part of Su-myeon was relieved to discover that there were still survivors here who were relatively unharmed.

At the same time, he could already feel the weight settling onto his shoulders.

If it worked, it worked.

If it didn't, it didn't.

Rationally, he knew that simply making the attempt should be enough to fulfill whatever obligation he had.

"Can you take them with you?"

Damn it.

In an entirely different sense, Su-myeon suddenly found himself agreeing with the warning not to trust Belle.

This Teacher—whether he was Captain Hook or played some other role—wasn't here to make things easier for him.

Wasn't he just making everything more difficult?

The burden kept piling higher until Su-myeon felt as though his shoulders might buckle beneath it.

"You can't save everyone. I know that, and those kids know it too."

The man spoke as though stating the obvious and gestured toward the five students.

Su-myeon's gaze settled on a girl wearing the same uniform as Ha-min.

She had large glasses and kept blinking, her eyes filled with fear.

The other four simply stood there as well, terrified and painfully ordinary.

"What I'm saying is, they know how difficult this is."

To obtain causality, this ghost story had gone to enormous lengths to lure living people inside and drag them into its world.

Trying to lead this many people out at once would inevitably provoke that much fiercer resistance.

Peter Pan would never allow them to leave quietly.

"........"

So that was why the Teacher had asked how much he knew.

He had wanted to make sure Su-myeon understood exactly how difficult it would be to rescue several people and escape with them.

Caught between his natural aversion to stepping forward and his conscience, Su-myeon finally stopped agonizing over a question whose answer had already been decided.

"Here."

The Teacher handed the still-hesitating Su-myeon a pouch with something heavy inside.

When Su-myeon opened it, he found it packed with Rose Coins.

"It isn't payment. Better to give them to someone who can actually use them than let them rot here."

"......For now, I can't guarantee anything or make any promises, but let's try it together."

For a moment, Su-myeon regretted not answering before accepting the pouch.

Now it looked as though he had agreed because he'd been given something.

Once they had decided to leave together, however, the next step was obvious.

"The shadows are like Peter's other selves."

Gathered beneath the relatively bright basketball hoop, the Teacher began sharing what he knew with Su-myeon.

He spoke with surprising vehemence when he explained that the shadows Su-myeon had encountered inside the school were not teachers at all.

"Those things are nothing but underlings that control the school."

They taught nothing.

They protected no one.

"Security is just a swarm of bugs. There's no need to be any more wary of them than necessary."

8. How to Deal with Tinker Bell8-1) Avoid encountering her if possible.

   8-2) For physical attacks, closing in and destroying the wings is recommended.

   8-3) Vulnerable to fire, so use of the alcohol lamps in the second-floor home economics room or the science room is recommended.

   Su-myeon recalled the safety rules he had written down.

   Tinker Bell, who served as Security, merely captured students and delivered them to the shadows.

   Since she didn't directly harm them herself, someone who kept their nerve had a reasonable chance of slipping away.

   "Well, don't people in your world already call giant bugs Tinker Bell?"

   "...."

   Was that... supposed to be a joke?

   At the Teacher's remark, Su-myeon could only manage an awkward smile.

   In any case, Su-myeon already knew most of the rules.

   Using the resources the Teacher had available, he began putting together a rough plan.