Ch.149149 – A Woman’s Heart 3

# 149 – A Woman’s Heart # 3

1 PM. In front of the school.

Jeongseok spoke.

“How about we call it a day for now? Let’s go home to check on our families and meet again tomorrow.”

I fell into deep thought at Jeongseok’s suggestion.

Humans—not ghosts—were trying to kill us. Everyone seemed tense and tired from this unfamiliar experience.

I thought it would be better to stick together at times like this… but having everyone return home to warn their families of the danger also seemed like a good idea.

There was no guarantee that Wang Jahyeon’s group wouldn’t take our families hostage or harm them.

“Okay. Let’s disband for now. Keep checking the group chat. I might call everyone to the secret base even tonight, so stay alert if possible.”

On my way home.

I decided to confirm two things:

1. Wang Jahyeon’s group knew about our thefts.

2. Because of point 1, they were determined to kill us.

To be honest, I had expected them to figure out our crimes.

If they traced the various incidents that happened in Gaeryong City, our names would eventually come up.

The fact that I had been looking for Gu Hyena’s body was one thing, and it was also suspicious that I, who had been Yang Juhui’s errand boy, was suddenly hanging out with an unlikely group including Yang Juhui, Jeongseok, Yu Dahui, and Bong Jiyeon.

‘That guy’s up to something. Something suspicious.’

It wouldn’t be strange for people to think like that.

I had thought it was only a matter of time before we were discovered, but I was just surprised it happened sooner than expected.

It meant Wang Jahyeon’s group was not to be taken lightly.

What matters now is what we do next.

These people know our identities and want to kill us.

I had let my guard down because they were classmates, but they really tried to kill me.

If I hadn’t turned back time, I would have actually died.

In that sense, the “Shoddy Clock” I possessed was truly amazing.

It had only been upgraded once from the “Broken Clock,” yet it had such an effect.

I wondered what would happen if I upgraded the Shoddy Clock one more time.

“Would you like to spend 100 points to upgrade the unique trait ‘Shoddy Clock’?”

“Upgrade success rate: 10%”

“If successful, trait will change to ‘???'”

It would cost 100P each time to upgrade the “Shoddy Clock.”

And the success rate was only 10%.

I really wanted to see the next upgrade level, but the 100P required for each attempt felt too precious for someone like me who was struggling with point shortages.

Even the 100P I had spent turning back time to comfort Yang Juhui felt significant.

I should have saved those points for an upgrade attempt.

Anyway.

Because it was such an emergency, my thoughts were wandering in useless directions.

What I really needed to do now was come up with a plan against Wang Jahyeon’s party.

‘What should I do about them?’

It would be nice if we could resolve this through conversation, but the shock and pain of Gong Yerin stabbing me in the chest still seemed to linger. It felt like my soul had been wounded.

There was no guarantee that something like that wouldn’t happen again.

Next time, it might not be me but my friends or family who get hurt.

And the points to turn back time were limited…

The easy path and the difficult path.

I pondered deeply between these two options.

At this point, I needed to decide the direction for our group.

“Status Window.”

I examined the list of mercenaries.

The list of mercenaries I possessed was as follows:

The Curse of Becoming a Ghost After Answering Three Times

Death Game

Electric Fan Ghost Story

The Invisible Hand

Water Ghost

Lady Jang Huibin Ghost

Monkey’s Paw

Among these, which one could deliver a devastating blow to Wang Jahyeon’s group?

When I experienced them myself, I thought they were all terrifying ghosts.

But now that I needed to use them to take down Wang Jahyeon’s party, each seemed to have unreliable aspects. If I made a mistake, I would just waste points.

After much deliberation, I decided to dispatch “Death Game” and “Lady Jang Huibin Ghost” to Kim Geonho.

It cost me 200P, but it was clear that my pirate friends wouldn’t have to get blood on their hands.

# # #

“Is there really a way down?”

On the way up from the school basement to the ground floor.

Gong Yerin whined.

Gong Yerin didn’t like exploring the school’s basement.

It smelled strongly of strange mold and felt eerie.

“We need to find it first.”

Wang Jahyeon’s attitude was firm.

Since the recent theft incident, the smile had disappeared from Wang Jahyeon’s face.

Both Lim Huiyeon and Gong Yerin were afraid of this new Wang Jahyeon.

Of course, they couldn’t say that, which was why they continued exploring the school basement, going deeper underground.

The theft incident was largely responsible for this situation.

“Can’t we just kill them first?”

Gong Yerin asked.

Most of the suspects who stole the items had been identified. Ha Yeongwon, Jeongseok, and Yang Juhui’s group, who had been behaving strangely throughout the first semester, were the likely candidates.

The fact that they were close to Yu Dahui, the chairman’s granddaughter, was another reason.

According to Wang Jahyeon, the chairman was apparently a very bad person. Building this school itself was the chairman’s intention.

Therefore, she thought they could just eliminate the identified suspects.

It could be a good solution for Gong Yerin.

“I could pretend to be betrayed and infiltrate their group. Then—bam! What do you think? Isn’t that a good idea? It would be easy.”

Gong Yerin was anxious.

The fact that there were people targeting their lives.

The fact that there were beings who might ruin their daily lives made her unable to sleep.

When such things exist, one naturally wants to get rid of them quickly.

But Wang Jahyeon was more cautious than expected.

“They know about us too. Unless they’re idiots, they won’t believe you were suddenly betrayed.”

“What if I say Kim Geonho attacked me? I could say Kim Geonho went crazy and tried to rape and kill me, so I ran away? That kind of story should work well.”

Gong Yerin prided herself on understanding boys her age well.

If she gave off sexual vibes, she could easily cloud the eyes and ears of stupid pubescent boys.

Of course, such methods wouldn’t work on male students like Wang Jahyeon, who was too familiar with women and knew how to use his good looks as a weapon.

‘Ha Yeongwon and Jeongseok are obviously virgins.’

Men with experience with women and those without.

The “confidence” and “composure” between these two were clearly different. Gong Yerin could smell the awkwardness of inexperienced men from a mile away.

That’s why she was so confident her plan would work.

“What the hell? Fuck, do I look like that kind of person?”

But Kim Geonho got angry.

He seemed insulted by the suggestion that he would attack and beat women to death.

Lim Huiyeon also added her thoughts.

“If things don’t go well, you might end up being taken hostage. Gong Yerin, please think about it.”

Lim Huiyeon was Gong Yerin’s closest friend.

But since hanging out with Wang Jahyeon, she had also become her most annoying enemy.

‘She’s telling me to think? That fucking bitch. Ah, if only she wasn’t here…’

If only Lim Huiyeon wasn’t around, Gong Yerin could have Wang Jahyeon’s affection all to herself.

Just as she was thinking that, ring-ring—Kim Geonho’s phone rang.

“What’s this?”

Kim Geonho frowned as he looked at the message on his phone.

There was some strange text.

“Mafia Game”

“A new room has been created.”

“Invite various friends and chat.”

It was a bizarre chat room.

Kim Geonho was the only one in the chat room.

‘I didn’t create this.’

Kim Geonho felt somehow uneasy and eerie.

So he tried to leave the room, but he couldn’t.

“Did you guys get something like this too?”

“What is it?”

Wang Jahyeon, who had been irritable all day, snatched Kim Geonho’s phone.

Soon, Lim Huiyeon and Gong Yerin’s phones also buzzed with notifications.

“I got invited too!”

“Me too!”

Buzz—

Wang Jahyeon’s phone also rang loudly.

A chat room with all four of them invited before leaving school.

Just as Wang Jahyeon was thinking this couldn’t be a coincidence, messages appeared in the chat room.

“Jahyeon: Find the hidden mafia.”

“Geonho: Time limit is 1 hour.”

“Huiyeon: If you fail, all innocent citizens will die.”

“Yerin: Night has fallen.”

“W-what is this!”

Lim Huiyeon, the most fearful of them, trembled violently.

She wanted to throw her phone away.

“It’s a ghost! A ghost!”

While Lim Huiyeon was terrified, Wang Jahyeon raised his hand and slapped her cheek.

“Huiyeon, please shut up. Don’t make things more unsettling.”

“O-okay…”

Gong Yerin thought Lim Huiyeon deserved it as she watched her.

She had been subtly bragging about going to the movies with Wang Jahyeon recently.

“Find the mafia…”

Wang Jahyeon looked at the message on his phone and fell into thought.

He was concerned about the mention of citizens dying if they failed.

Citizens and mafia.

‘It probably means one of the people in this chat room is the mafia.’

Wang Jahyeon quickly came to a conclusion.

“It seems like one of us is the mafia.”

“N-not me!”

Lim Huiyeon, with her cheek turning red from the slap, quickly shouted in panic.

Soon, Kim Geonho also spoke up.

“What’s a mafia? Like in the mafia game?”

Flash—

At that moment, it was as if lightning struck Gong Yerin’s head.

“Could it be a traitor? There’s a traitor among us. Think about it logically. How could Ha Yeongwon’s kids break into our houses? How did they pick the locks? There must be a traitor.”

Traitor.

Those three syllables resonated deeply among the four of them.

But that wasn’t the only problem.

“Don’t you feel like we’ve been going around in circles for a while now?”

Ground floor 1.

They were trying to leave the old school building, but they seemed to be going around the same place.

Wang Jahyeon had already realized this as well.

‘Is this related to this strange mafia game?’

Peek—

Wang Jahyeon peered inside the faculty office through a broken window.

“……”

Wang Jahyeon’s spine tingled.

Women in white funeral clothes were standing in a row inside the faculty office.

They had something like burlap sacks over their faces and ropes around their necks, looking like people who had been hanged.

What made it even more tense was the laughter coming from somewhere.

Laughter that sounded not like a human but like a fox eating a corpse.

“Everyone be careful. It’s the laughing ghost.”

Ghosts don’t have what you’d call emotions.

The spirit naturally becomes dull after death.

Sometimes there were ghosts who cried or grieved over their own deaths, but that could be considered within the normal range.

But laughing ghosts were different.

Laughing ghosts could all be called terrible evil spirits without exception.

“Prepare your crosses.”

At Wang Jahyeon’s emotionless instruction, everyone took out crosses from their pockets.

These were crosses made from the tree that had spread its roots as the village guardian tree in Gaeryong for a long time.

As they walked down the corridor, Wang Jahyeon’s group encountered the laughing ghost.

It was a ghost with eyes so large they took up half its face, and blood dripping from its mouth.

It was dancing and laughing, and the sight was so creepy that everyone was stunned.

Wang Jahyeon, who quickly regained his composure, said:

“Hold out your crosses!”

Pow!

Everyone held out their crosses.

Since they were made from a tree whose roots reached deep into the underground water veins of Gaeryong, they could easily eliminate most ordinary ghosts.

The ghost that had been laughing and dancing opened its mouth wide and screamed as if very angry at the sight of the crosses.

Soon, ghosts in white funeral clothes with burlap sacks over their heads began approaching from the faculty office and classrooms everywhere, making bell sounds, and the fearful Lim Huiyeon collapsed at the sight.

“Kyaak!”

Lim Huiyeon was completely terrified.

Seeing this, Wang Jahyeon shouted in anger:

“You fucking bitch! Hold up your cross now!”