Ch.125125 – The Shrine Where Red Flowers Bloom 1

# 125 – The Shrine with Red Flowers # 1

We reached the third floor without using a single talisman.

Everyone was thrilled that we’d made it without anyone getting hurt.

“That’s right! Take that! You ghost bastards! Come on! Just try to come up here!”

I shouted down toward the second floor, leaning over the stair railing.

I was actually a bit nervous about what I’d do if they really came up, but it seemed the evil spirits from the second floor could go down to the first floor but couldn’t climb up to the third.

That’s when Jeongseok spoke with his usual coolness.

“It’s too early to celebrate. We need to regroup.”

Jeongseok was a cold boy.

But he had a point.

We should take advantage of this moment to check what items we’ve used.

Yang Juhui had four items – Magic Wand, 1st floor map, first aid kit, and a Zippo lighter.

I had two – Camera and Escape Talisman.

Jeongseok had two – Glow Pen and walkie-talkie.

Yu Dahui had one – Paper crane.

Yang Juhui had lost her cutter knife and Straw Doll.

Yu Dahui had used her bell to drive away the Dancing Ghost.

“What was inside the science lab?”

I asked Yang Juhui, who had used the Straw Doll and cutter knife to escape from the science lab.

Using the cutter knife meant she had stabbed someone, and the Straw Doll being consumed meant she had died once in there. The Straw Doll gave you one extra life, after all.

“There were tons of mirrors. I couldn’t tell what was what.”

A room full of mirrors.

Even someone like Yang Juhui had to use a Straw Doll.

It must be a room where you die no matter what.

Without the “Straw Doll” that Jeong Sojin had brought, it would be impossible to clear that room.

“So this is the third floor door…”

Yu Dahui had volunteered as bait in the last match, so this was her first time seeing the door to the third floor.

She even trembled slightly, as if momentarily overwhelmed by the imposing presence of the massive stone door.

“There really is one talisman attached and three more square spaces. So we need to attach three more talismans here for the door to open, right?”

“Actually, that’s just speculation. No one can be certain. Now, hand over the talismans.”

Jeongseok held out his hand.

We handed him the talismans we’d collected from the basement, first floor, and second floor, and Jeongseok attached them to the square spaces with perfect precision.

What would happen now?

Everyone was tense.

No one spoke.

Whoosh-

Suddenly, all the talismans attached to the door burst into flames.

They burned away on their own, disappearing without leaving any soot.

“So they disappear after all…”

Jeongseok sighed.

We had lost all four talismans.

It meant there was no going back.

Of course, if necessary, we still had 1,120 points left to draw more talismans.

That thought was somewhat reassuring.

Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble-

Soon the whole place began to shake violently.

An earthquake.

A massive earthquake.

I fell to the floor with a thud, and Yang Juhui and Yu Dahui fell on top of me.

Thump-

I don’t know who it was, but someone’s butt crushed my chest, and it hurt so much that tears welled up in my eyes.

“Argh!!!”

“Gasp! Juhui, get up quickly! You’re hurting Yeongwon!”

“How can I get up! Everything’s shaking! You get up first!”

The shaking was so intense it felt like the world was collapsing.

When we came to our senses a while later, we discovered that the door to the third floor was wide open.

Rumble-

The third floor had a strange, powerful aura.

Above all, the space itself was bizarre.

“This is the third floor?”

Jeongseok rubbed his eyes.

He seemed unable to believe what he was seeing.

The third floor looked less like a school building and more like a temple or shrine.

Stone pillars towered upward, and torches placed at regular intervals flickered ominously. There was also what appeared to be a wooden shrine. Jeongseok soon commented:

“…It looks just like a Japanese shrine. That thing standing in front of the door is a torii. It’s the gate pillar of a Japanese shrine. I know because I visited one when I went to Japan before.”

Torii? I didn’t know what that was, but there was indeed something like a gate made of blood-red pillars standing tall.

About 4 meters high.

After looking up, I realized that the ceiling of this place was so high it wasn’t visible.

Was there even a ceiling to begin with?

It could be described as pitch-black darkness and silence taking the place of a ceiling.

“What is this place…”

I was overwhelmed by this space.

A shrine built inside a school.

It felt extremely ominous and alien.

I couldn’t help but think that this place was on a completely different level from the first and second floors.

Suddenly, I remembered what the high school ghost Gu Hyena had said.

She said the ghosts living on the second floor were incomparably scarier than her, which was why she couldn’t go up to the second floor.

It was also strange that Gu Hyena, who was already dead and a ghost herself, could feel fear.

Then why didn’t the evil spirits from the second floor come up to the third floor? What if the reason was that they feared something that existed on the third floor?

Everyone seemed to have reached the same conclusion, as no one spoke.

“Let’s go in.”

Yang Juhui was the first to gather courage and enter the third floor.

Yang Juhui approached the “torii,” and the structure was such that we had to pass under that pillar gate to enter this bizarre third floor.

As she was about to cross it, Jeongseok shouted at her:

“Wait!”

“Why?”

“From what I know, that gate serves as a kind of boundary. It’s like a device that indicates the world beyond is different from this one. We don’t know what might happen.”

“But we can’t just stand here doing nothing.”

Yang Juhui looked anxious, like someone being chased.

Was she afraid despite not showing it? Or…

“Let’s all go in together.”

I stopped thinking and reached out to everyone.

I thought we could all hold hands and pass through the gate pillar at the same time.

Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea and took my hand.

We are now four as one.

With everyone together, our fear is cut in half.

“Guys, I’ll give the signal, and when I say one, two, three—we walk. So, one, twoo…”

Three.

Suppressing my tension in many ways, I stretched my foot toward the pillar gate.

And so we all crossed the gate together.

The first thing we felt after crossing was “cold.”

It was much colder than expected.

The chill was so eerie it felt like it was licking the nape of my neck.

The place was so cool that our breath came out as white mist when we exhaled.

“It’s like a refrigerator…”

Yu Dahui shivered.

Just as I was starting to lose motivation at the thought of having to explore such a place, Yang Juhui suddenly shook off Yu Dahui’s hand.

Then she began pulling at her own hair.

“Aaaargh! So noisy! Be quiet!”

Yang Juhui was having a fit.

Why is she suddenly like that? What’s going on? What is it?

As I panicked, Jeongseok shouted:

“I get it! This is hell! We’ve walked into hell of our own accord! There’s no way out! Ha Yeongwon! You led us to hell! Let me out! I said let me out! I need to get out!”

Jeongseok tried to leave this third floor.

But there was a problem.

“The door… is gone.”

The large pillar gate we had just crossed.

It was nowhere to be seen.

The 4-meter structure that had towered high had disappeared as if it had never existed.

That wasn’t all.

I could see a shabby warehouse.

“…Why is… that warehouse…”

Suddenly-

A white, pale hand stretched out from the warehouse.

As I panicked, Yu Dahui shouted:

“Yeongwon! Why are you acting like this too! What do you see?”

“Dahui! There’s a warehouse right there!”

“There’s no warehouse! You need to snap out of it!”

Slap-! Slap slap-!

Yu Dahui slapped my cheeks repeatedly.

Her slaps were sharper than I expected, and I was startled enough to come to my senses.

“There’s no warehouse?”

What the hell is going on!

In this situation, there’s only one thing to do.

“Status Window!”

# # #

『Name: Ha Yeongwon Lv.5

Traits: 《The Broken Clock》 《Holding Breath》 《Strong Heart》 《Trait Enhancement》

Quirk: 《Swamp of Regret》

Funds: 1120 Points

Description: Time that had been stopped for a long time has started moving again. Inevitably experiencing various things and growing, you fear and simultaneously look forward to what will happen next.』

「《Swamp of Regret》: The past is holding your ankles. The past will eventually swallow everything like a deep swamp and suffocate you.」

A quirk!

I’ve developed a quirk!

I quickly treated my quirk at the clinic.

Then I checked the player list and looked at Yang Juhui and Jeongseok’s character sheets.

「《Dark Whispers》: Everyone has inner truths they want to hide. But now you can no longer turn a deaf ear to your inner truths.」

「《Prophecy of Doom》: Having stared too deeply into the abyss, you can only speak of ominous futures. Hope. Dignity. They are merely relics of a very distant past.」

Quirks!

Yang Juhui and Jeongseok were suffering from quirks.

So that’s why they suddenly started acting crazy!

Yu Dahui was also suffering from a quirk.

「《Gluttony》: You cannot resist putting anything in your mouth. What goes in your mouth is meant to be chewed and swallowed.」

However, Dahui seemed unaffected by the quirk thanks to her trait 《Elegance》.

I spent points to treat Dahui, Juhui, and Jeongseok’s quirks.

Fortunately, I had plenty of points left.

“Getting quirks without even dying. That’s too much. What if we each had a quirk that couldn’t be treated…”

What if there was no clinic in the status window?

What if we didn’t have enough points to cure the quirks?

We had used all our Escape Talismans to open this third floor.

That meant we could only leave this place by dying.

What if we died carrying an inexplicable quirk like just now?

My legs went weak.

Because I remembered what happened to Kwon Suho.

Kwon Suho, who had his body taken over by a ghost.

There was no guarantee the same wouldn’t happen to us.

“Damn, the third floor is an even worse hellhole.”

I spat out a fierce curse, partly to shake off my fear.

I was exactly like a frightened dog barking fiercely.

Still, my cursing seemed to wake everyone up, as Jeongseok, who had been sitting down, touched his chin and muttered:

“Did we get quirks from crossing the torii? That might be the trigger. Everyone who enters the third floor must bear a quirk. Nothing else makes sense.”

We got quirks because we crossed that pillar gate—

It was a reasonable guess.

“Does that mean we have to treat quirks every time we come to the third floor?”

Treating quirks for four people cost about 400P.

Having to spend 400P every time we explored the third floor. What is this, an entrance fee?

I was really scared, angry, and felt the points were wasted.

As I looked around, I saw Yang Juhui.

She didn’t look happy, as if she was in a bad mood.

“Juhui, are you okay?”

“No.”

“I see.”

Maybe we should rest a bit.

As I was thinking that, I heard bell sounds—ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling.

“What’s that? What’s going on?”

I looked around in confusion.

Then I noticed that the straw ropes hanging throughout the shrine and the bells tied to them were shaking violently even though there was no wind.

Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling—

I wasn’t stupid.

From our experiences so far, I knew this was a sign of bad luck.

The important thing was what to do.

“Let’s hide! Hide! Let’s go into that shrine over there!”

There was a small shrine nearby.

It was about the size of a security booth.

Slide-

When we opened the sliding door and entered, we saw what looked like an altar or offering table with bloodstained clothes hanging on it.

“Oh, that…!”

Yang Juhui’s eyes grew twice their normal size.

As I was getting scared by the size of her eyes, she shouted:

“That’s my sister’s clothes! My sister’s school uniform!”