Ch.104104 – Nightmare Brawl 2

# 104 – Nightmare Brawl # 2

Jeongseok. Yang Juhui. Yu Dahui.

These three were waiting for me in the basement.

I felt both delighted and relieved to see them, but at the same time, I felt dizzy.

“We’re screwed.”

The number of people who could escape from this nightmare corridor was fixed.

One escape talisman in the basement, one on the first floor, and with tremendous effort, one more talisman that could be obtained from the second floor—a total of three.

It meant only three people could leave this place.

But there were already five of us.

“Hey, where’s Gu Hyena? The talisman is here, but…”

I pointed out that Gu Hyena, the complete high school ghost, was nowhere to be seen. Jeongseok responded.

“We were waiting for you, thinking you might know.”

Gu Hyena from the basement had disappeared.

How could that be? Could she just leave her post like that?

I wondered if it might be related to the girls I saw on the first floor.

“Did you guys see Lim Huiyeon and Gong Yerin upstairs?”

I mentioned Lim Huiyeon and Gong Yerin who were beating people to death with bats.

“Killing people?”

Jeongseok asked as if hearing this for the first time.

Apparently, they hadn’t seen the crazy high school girls killing people on the first floor because they’d been in the basement.

I quickly and concisely explained to my friends what I had just witnessed upstairs.

“They were beating people to death! And looting their pockets!”

“…Is that even possible? They might not be first-timers here. We know what people are like when they first enter this old school building.”

Jeongseok’s reasoning sounded quite plausible.

He was suggesting that Gong Yerin and Lim Huiyeon weren’t here for the first time, and today wasn’t their first experience killing people in this place.

The question was why they were doing such things.

“…Maybe they’re Heroes or Watchers? No one knows what will happen when we meet them. They might be crazy enough to attack us.”

Lim Huiyeon and Gong Yerin being Heroes or Watchers—that was Jeongseok’s conclusion.

It was a hypothesis based on circumstantial rather than direct evidence, but it sounded very plausible.

Yang Juhui chimed in.

“So what are we supposed to do? We all need to get out of here alive, that hasn’t changed. If they attack us, we fight back. I’ll beat the crap out of those bitches.”

Yang Juhui seemed full of fighting spirit.

Compared to the unidentified ghosts on the second floor, high school girls with baseball bats did seem a bit less intimidating.

They were two.

We were at least five.

Numerically, we had a significant advantage, and honestly, Yang Juhui alone might be enough.

Yu Dahui spoke up.

“What do you think they did to Gu Hyena…?”

“Um…”

At that moment, Kwon Sua, who had been listening to our conversation, timidly raised her hand.

She looked like a shy student about to make a presentation.

“…I have no idea what you’re all talking about.”

I understood Kwon Sua’s position.

She had been dragged into this place without warning today for the first time.

She seemed completely clueless about what was happening.

Swish-

Everyone started exchanging glances.

It was like passing a bomb to each other.

At times like this, I, as the captain of the pirates, needed to step up.

The question was how much to tell her.

Kwon Sua was an outsider right now.

But saying “You don’t need to know” might cause her to suddenly go crazy—there were too many variables.

If she learned the whole story in this place, she would know many of our critical secrets, so we’d need to keep her under our surveillance.

“…Coldly speaking, how about we get rid of her now?”

Jeongseok’s eyes flashed brightly in the torchlight.

I was greatly taken aback.

“Hey, are you serious?”

“The number of people who can escape with the talismans is fixed anyway. Even among our pirate crew members, some will have to be prepared to die. Taking on the risk of keeping Kwon Sua might not be worth it.”

Jeongseok came to a cold, computer-like conclusion.

“If she dies, she’ll forget everything that happened here anyway.”

Cold-hearted guy.

Jeongseok was cold.

A cold boy.

“Of course, I’m just giving my opinion, so you make the decision. Who dies. Who survives. Ha Yeongwon, you’re the leader of this group. You have to decide.”

All eyes turned to me.

Life or death.

The thought that I held the guillotine button made me feel eerie in many ways.

“That’s heavy…!”

“That’s the role of a captain. You have to be the center. A group that loses its center will rot from the inside and collapse before any enemy can take it down.”

Jeongseok was right.

I looked at everyone and thought hard.

After much deliberation, I came to a conclusion.

“Let’s get all the talismans first. We can decide who gets to live after that. Our current numbers are our strength. There’s no need to reduce them now.”

With no ghosts roaming the first floor anymore, the presence of Lim Huiyeon and Gong Yerin was a sudden variable.

And besides those two, I was considering the possibility of other companions.

Lim Huiyeon and Gong Yerin used to hang out with Wang Jahyeon.

And for some reason, Wang Jahyeon smelled of “Subtle Perfume,” an item that could be purchased from the Status Window.

The old school building. The Status Window. Items.

Whatever it was, that guy was connected.

“I think it’s best if Sua stays with us for now. I’ll take responsibility.”

# # #

“…It’s like a game.”

Kwon Sua quickly understood after hearing my explanation.

She really did seem to be a homebody who played a lot of games.

“Forming parties to tackle nightmares. It’s just like ‘The Darkest Dungeon.’ Party members enter the dungeon, die, farm items… lose SAN points and go crazy…”

“You know that game? It’s on Steam.”

Jeongseok was surprised.

He seemed amazed that idol Kwon Sua was actually a gaming enthusiast.

Just a moment ago, he had coldly suggested killing her because she was a risk.

It felt like his image of Kwon Sua had completely changed.

“…I can be helpful too. Please let me help you escape from here. I want to survive too!”

Kwon Sua, not wanting to die, confidently appealed to us.

As she spoke, her shoulders were trembling greatly, and she seemed quite frightened.

“Then… let’s go to the first floor now. But be prepared—we might clash with Gong Yerin’s party. Pick up anything that could be used as a weapon.”

I looked around.

I was wondering if there was anything useful.

“They have baseball bats and box cutters. If we fight bare-handed… we might get hurt or killed.”

Psychopathic high school girls.

I honestly wasn’t confident about beating them.

Of course, Yang Juhui was confident.

“Hey, I’ll go and beat the crap out of them. Let’s take their bats too. We’ll take everything they have.”

Yang Juhui swung her magic wand around.

She said that when she woke up today, the “Princess Magic Wand” had fallen nearby.

I wondered if random matching also meant randomly equipping items.

“Anyone else have items?”

“Me. I had this.”

Jingle-

Yu Dahui held a bell in her hand and shook it.

It was a familiar bell sound.

That’s the bell the shaman on the first floor was carrying around. It was the item she dropped when she passed on.

Its effect was… something like this?

“Bell of Exorcism: When shaken, a clear and beautiful sound spreads widely. When rung by someone with aptitude, it can drive away evil beings once.”

A bell that drives away evil beings.

A very excellent item.

A magic wand that creates barriers and a shaman’s bell that drives away evil spirits.

With these two… maybe we could handle the second floor too? No, let’s focus on the first floor for now.

After steeling my resolve in various ways, I removed the talisman from the basement shrine.

“Then let’s go to the first floor. Dahui, you still have the paper crane, right?”

“Yes. I always have the paper crane.”

Swish-

Yu Dahui took out a paper crane from her skirt pocket.

When she blew on the paper crane resting on her palm, it began to emit a soft light and fly through the air. Seeing this, Yang Juhui clicked her tongue.

“It automatically finds talismans for you. That’s cheating.”

This must be Yang Juhui’s first time seeing the paper crane.

I thought it was a good item every time I saw it too.

We headed toward the first floor.

“The first floor entrance is closed.”

As we were advancing toward the talisman, we saw that the first floor entrance was firmly locked.

I had never seen it open.

As we were moving through the corridor in a group—

A faint light appeared from the far end of the corridor.

“Guys, it’s them. Be careful. Don’t attack first, let’s test the waters.”

I spoke to my friends in a solemn voice.

That lighter flame was definitely Lim Huiyeon and Gong Yerin.

They seemed to recognize us too, as we finally met in the corridor.

The sight of high school girls holding blood-soaked baseball bats was quite surreal.

Their uniforms were also stained with blood, which made me uncomfortable just looking at them.

“Yang Juhui? Ha Yeongwon and the vice class president are here too? And behind them… what are you all doing here?”

Gong Yerin assessed our expressions.

Unlike earlier when she killed the PC room employee without hesitation, she seemed to be gauging the situation.

That made sense since there were five of us and only two of them, so they couldn’t recklessly charge at us.

I also pretended to know nothing and asked.

“What about you? We found ourselves here when we regained consciousness, so we’re sticking together. We’re scared. Do you know what’s going on? And what’s with all that blood…?”

I wondered if my acting was convincing.

Soon, Gong Yerin tied her blood-stained hair back and said.

“We don’t know either. We’re looking for a way out. Can we join you? We’re too scared. This blood is from fighting off a pervert who attacked us because we’re girls. Right, Huiyeon?”

“Yeah. There are so many weird people here.”

These crazy psychopathic high school girls lied without batting an eye.

I was thinking about how to probe them further when Lim Huiyeon, who had been constantly looking into a hand mirror, spoke.

“Yerin, the compass needle… it’s fixed on Ha Yeongwon? The talisman…”

“……”

There’s a saying about the atmosphere suddenly turning awkward.

This was exactly that moment.

After about a second of silence, Gong Yerin’s fingertips flashed.

“Agh!”

My chest felt like it had been touched by fire.

When I came to my senses, an industrial box cutter had pierced through my school uniform shirt and was embedded in my chest.

“Eeek!”

It hurt so much and was so shocking that tears welled up.

Me, stabbed with a knife!

“Aagh! I’ve been stabbed! Aaaagh! Knife!”

As I sat on the floor, dizzy from the shock and pain of being stabbed, I heard Lim Huiyeon shouting frantically.

“Hey! Gong Yerin! These kids are just like us! They’re after the talismans! We can’t let them escape! Kill them all! Kill all these bitches!”

Soon I heard Lim Huiyeon swinging the baseball bat and Jeongseok collapsing after being hit. Jeongseok and I were practically useless in a fight.

“Eek!”

Kwon Sua was the same.

She was trembling violently.

Something shot out at high speed beside her.

It was Yang Juhui.

With a single running start, Yang Juhui leaped into the air and kicked Gong Yerin hard in the chest.

Thwack-! Crash-!

Gong Yerin flew back with a loud noise.

Seeing this, Lim Huiyeon swung her baseball bat in panic.

“You bitch!!!”

The trajectory of the full-swing bat cruelly aimed for Yang Juhui’s head.

Whoosh-!

It was a swing without the slightest hesitation about killing someone. Almost her entire body weight was behind it.

However, Yang Juhui had already ducked her head to avoid the attack.

“Whoa!”

With her attack turning into a wild swing, Lim Huiyeon’s posture collapsed significantly. And Yang Juhui, still in her ducking position, charged at Lim Huiyeon and headbutted her in the stomach.

“Ugh!”

Yang Juhui, now on top of Lim Huiyeon, began mercilessly punching her.

Thud thud thud-!

After a while, Lim Huiyeon trembled and then stopped moving.

She was dead.

Seeing this, Gong Yerin, still sitting on the ground, was horrified.

“Eeeeek! Murderer! Murder! You killed her! You killed Huiyeon! You crazy bitch! You killed someone! This is terrible! Huiyeon is dead! Huiyeon! This is terrible!”

“Sh-shut up!”

Thwack-!

Yu Dahui struck Gong Yerin’s head with the baseball bat.

Gong Yerin collapsed too.

And then it became very quiet.