Ch.142142 – Gun 2

# 142 – Total # 2

“Hello. It’s been a while.”

Gu Hyena welcomed us to the basement like a friendly receptionist.

“While you were gone, so many people came through this corridor. Anyone could just walk in. It’s been work keeping people out. Hehehe.”

It seemed Hyena had been doing her job as the gatekeeper of this first floor quite well.

I was concerned that there were many people wandering the corridor besides us.

“What kind of people were they?”

“Don’t know. Just people.”

“No common traits or anything?”

“I don’t know. Just people, I said.”

Gu Hyena doesn’t seem to know much.

If I asked any more questions, the high school ghost might get angry.

Anyway, we all gathered in the basement.

“This is my first time going around with you guys.”

Teacher Hong Miri joined our party as a new member.

Teacher Hong was experienced with ghosts.

And she was the oldest among us.

She would be a great help to us.

For reference, Teacher Hong Miri’s status window looked like this:

「Name: Hong Miri Lv.5

Traits: 《Lightly》 《Twin》

Disposition: Diligent

Quirk: None

Possessions: Camera, Escape Talisman

A beautiful female teacher. She has many secrets. Understanding everything about her might be beyond your current capabilities.」

「《Lightly》: While holding your breath, you can completely eliminate your footsteps in any situation.」

「《Twin》: Two souls dwell in one body. You can change which personality surfaces depending on the situation.」

Impressive.

Teacher Hong Miri basically had two traits.

One was the ability to walk lightly, and the other was being able to change personalities… does that mean she could switch to Hong Yeri’s personality?

Anyway, we cheerfully left the basement and headed to the first floor.

The first floor should have been empty without ghosts, but there was a problem.

“Is someone there?”

“Help me!”

Unfamiliar voices were coming from far away.

Other people on the first floor besides us?

Is this a “random matching”?

Are random matches mixed in when we officially tackle the corridor?

This was a first. There’s still so much I don’t know about this corridor.

Gu Hyena, who had followed us to the first floor, said:

“See? I told you people just come in. Ugh, so annoying. You guys go up to the second floor. I’ll take care of these people.”

Gu Hyena had been dealing with people who entered this nightmare.

I was curious but also scared about how she was “taking care” of them.

For people caught in random matching, this must truly be a disaster or nightmare.

But there was nothing we could do.

The number of talismans was fixed.

Swoosh-

Gu Hyena disappeared through the wall.

Yang Juhui stuck out her tongue after seeing that.

“She can even go through walls now.”

I know.

I was surprised too. Do ghosts level up as well?

Just as we went to look for the first floor talisman…

“Kyaak!”

A sharp scream rang out.

Yang Juhui was the first to recognize it.

“That sounds like Gu Hyena’s scream.”

I wondered what was happening.

What could make Gu Hyena, a ghost on this first floor, scream?

I felt like we needed to check it out.

The fewer variables, the better.

But before we could go check, the source of the problem approached us.

It was a man holding a baseball bat.

Even in this darkness, I could clearly see his face.

How could I ever forget that face?

It was Kim Geonho.

“Well, well. Look who it is.”

Kim Geonho with a baseball bat resting on his shoulder.

He spotted us and his eyes widened.

“What are you all doing huddled together?”

I felt more tense than when unexpectedly meeting a ghost.

My companions seemed shocked by the unexpected encounter and kept their mouths shut.

“No way…”

Kim Geonho’s expression gradually crumpled.

Then, as if finally realizing something, he shouted:

“Damn it! I knew it! Ha Yeongwon and Yang Juhui, these bitches together! Hong Miri, you’re with them too? No wonder you suddenly called me. You guys robbed my house too!”

Kim Geonho might be a bully, but his mind worked exceptionally well when it came to bad things.

He saw our group and immediately figured out our relationship and what we had done.

This was the worst-case scenario for us.

“We need to kill him!”

Whoosh-!

Yang Juhui ran quickly.

Kim Geonho seemed startled by Yang Juhui’s speed.

“What the hell! Get lost!”

Kim Geonho swung his bat with a whoosh.

Thwack-! Yang Juhui took a brutal hit to the head and staggered badly.

“Ugh! You bastard!”

But Yang Juhui somehow endured and grabbed Kim Geonho’s body, taking him down.

Taking advantage of the moment, Yu Dahui picked up the baseball bat that had fallen to the floor.

Then she began mercilessly beating Kim Geonho’s head, cracking it open with blood splattering.

“Die!”

“Dahui! Stop! That’s enough now!”

I suddenly felt dizzy.

What I had feared most had happened.

I had made my friends kill someone.

Of course, he wasn’t really dead.

He was still alive in reality.

Still, I was afraid of us “getting used to” this kind of thing.

“Look at this. This bastard has a talisman in his pocket?”

Swish-

Yang Juhui had already rifled through Kim Geonho’s pockets.

Kim Geonho had an escape talisman.

What’s this?

Is it from the first floor?

But the talisman was still firmly attached to the shrine on the first floor.

The talisman from Kim Geonho’s pocket seemed to be his personal possession.

# # #

“Looking at the result, it’s fortunate we killed Kim Geonho quickly. Imagine if he had torn the talisman and escaped. All our faces would have been exposed.”

The atmosphere turned gloomy.

Teacher Hong Miri made a cold judgment.

She was right.

I never thought Kim Geonho would have a talisman.

Did he get it from Wang Jahyeon?

If Kim Geonho had escaped…

It would have been disastrous for us.

We might have ended up fighting with knives in reality.

Maybe even worse.

“Yeongwon, are you hurt anywhere?”

Yu Dahui checked my complexion.

Blood was still dripping from the bat in her hand.

There was no way I could be hurt.

It ended before that could happen.

The one who was badly hurt was Yang Juhui.

Yang Juhui had been hit with the bat by Kim Geonho and was bleeding from her ear and nose, but she didn’t die.

More precisely, she survived by using a [Straw Doll].

Without the straw doll, she would have died the moment Kim Geonho hit her.

This corridor was definitely not a place to take lightly.

“Guys, let’s go up to the second floor.”

I pulled myself together.

Although we had an unexpected problem, what we needed to do hadn’t changed.

So we went up to the second floor.

From here, we needed to be on high alert.

Dahui blew on a paper crane, and it flew following the location of the shrine.

The paper crane gradually flew to the music room.

“Tick-tock, tick-tock-“

When we entered the music room, someone was hanging from the piano.

It was the Rhythm Ghost.

It was reciting the rhythm with tick-tock sounds from its mouth, but its elongated neck made it extremely creepy.

Swish-

I prepared my camera.

If the Rhythm Ghost lunges at me, I’ll snap a picture.

Thud-

Finally, the Rhythm Ghost, swinging left and right, fell to the floor.

It saw us and grinned.

“Yeongwon, you came again today?”

Click-!

Bang-!

The photo exploded.

“Gyaaaak!”

The Rhythm Ghost screamed.

Seeing the ghost in pain, a thrilling exhilaration boiled in my blood.

“You monster! Serves you right!”

Now I needed to quickly remove the talisman from the shrine.

But the Rhythm Ghost’s resistance was fierce.

“Aak! Aaaak!”

Even though the Rhythm Ghost was blinded by the flash, it thrashed around the music room, waving its hands wildly.

Just as I was thinking it would be difficult to approach the shrine, Dahui said:

“Leave it to me!”

Whoosh!

Dahui ran to the piano in the music room.

Dahui placed her fingers on the piano like a cat with raised fur and began playing the keys, ding-ding-ding. It was unfamiliar music.

But I could tell it was the performance of the “Suicide Symphony” score we had acquired recently.

“Nwaaaak!”

The Rhythm Ghost covered its ears and crouched on the floor.

I had heard that the ghosts on the second floor couldn’t be exorcised.

But it seemed possible to neutralize them like this.

Click!

While Dahui was playing the piano, we removed the talisman from the second floor.

Now all that remained was going to the third floor.

“Dahui! Let’s go!”

“Okay!”

Dahui, who had been playing the piano, got up and left the music room.

Rattle, bang-!

I closed the music room door and ran toward the third floor stairs.

I knew the location of the third floor stairs well.

The problem was the Dancing Ghost.

The Marionette Ghost was waiting for us at the entrance to the third floor.

Controlling and shaking the corpse of a stranger.

“Ugh-ugh-ugh-ugh-ugh-ugh-“

The controlled woman made incomprehensible sounds.

I hurriedly checked my camera, but it needed some time before I could take another picture.

What should I do?

As I was feeling perplexed, Yang Juhui shouted:

“Using an item!”

Yang Juhui waved the magic wand.

Soon, a strange barrier formed around us, and the Marionette Ghost, as if unable to bear touching the barrier, crawled upside down on the ceiling and disappeared.

I’ve always felt that on this second floor, she was the most terrifying but also the easiest to deal with.

“Give me your brain! Brain!”

At that moment, a howl came from the music room.

Had the Rhythm Ghost already regained consciousness?

In this situation, we needed to run with all our might.

“Let’s go!”

Pababababat-!

The key to conquering the second floor is not to spare any items you have.

To minimize damage and quickly get to the third floor.

We followed those principles well and succeeded in climbing the stairs to the third floor.

“…The door is open!”

This was our second time entering the third floor.

One thing I had worried about was whether we would need to use a talisman to open the entrance every time we entered the third floor.

Fortunately, the third floor door was wide open, refreshingly so.

We passed through the majestic torii gate.

Swish-

As soon as we passed through the torii, I felt an itchy sensation as if ants were crawling inside my body.

I had developed a quirk from crossing the torii.

“Everyone, snap out of it! Yeongwon! Snap out of it!”

Dahui, who wasn’t affected by quirks, tried to wake me up.

Slap slap slap-!

She mercilessly slapped my cheeks, and her hand was so hot that tears almost came to my eyes.

“I’ll cure your quirk!”

I came to my senses and removed everyone’s quirks.

My remaining points became 360P.

“Is everyone okay?”

I checked my friends’ complexions.

They all seemed fine except for being out of breath from running frantically.

Teacher Hong Miri seemed particularly impressed.

“So this is the third floor…”

It was Teacher Hong Miri’s first time on the third floor too.

“It’s exactly the same as what was in the school basement.”

“It’s scarier here. Real monsters come out here… We could at least run away from the creatures on the second floor, but it’s impossible to escape from the ones here.”

I trembled.

I was afraid of when the bells installed around us would ring.

“First, since the Spider Woman seems to react to gazes, don’t look around carelessly. Just look at the ground as we go. Just the ground. Let’s go to the shop. The shop seemed to be the safest place.”

I knew the way there.

Though I wondered if it was possible to go there just looking at the ground.

Ding-ding-ding-ding-!

At that moment, the bells hanging everywhere began to ring.

Riiiiing-!

A noise so loud it made my ears go numb.

This was a warning.

A warning that something terrifying was appearing.

I shouted to my companions:

“Everyone close your eyes! If anything happens, escape immediately with the talisman!”

Squeeze-

I closed my eyes.