Ch.43043 – Hallway Conquest Strategy 3

# 043 – Corridor Strategy #3

“Ha Yeongwon. Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

Jeongseok asked for my opinion as he looked at the large hole in the floor of the broadcasting room.

“No. This is my first time seeing this too. I’ve never been to this broadcasting room before.”

The hole in the broadcasting room was a first discovery for me as well.

The gaping hole in the floor was so dark that we couldn’t gauge its depth with just the lighter’s flame.

But logically thinking, it must lead to the first basement floor.

The old school building’s first basement floor.

Wasn’t that the place I visited with Yu Dahui and Jeongseok where we got the magic wand?

Anyway, we now had a new choice to make.

1. Go down.

2. Don’t go down.

While I was deeply contemplating these two options, a sound rang in my ears.

Jingle-! Jingle-! Jing-jingle-!

It was the sharp sound of bells ringing.

“Aaaaaaahhhh!”

A scream filled with hatred followed.

The Shaman Ghost, who was furious after being stabbed by Yang Juhui, must have already reached here.

Click-clack-.

Rattle-!

The sound of doors opening was also loud.

Is she checking each room in the corridor one by one?

Jeongseok must have noticed this too, as he asked in an anxious voice:

“Hey. What should we do? If we hide here, we’ll eventually be cornered. Make a decision.”

After much consideration, I made my decision.

“Fine. Whatever. Let’s go! What’s the worst that could happen? We’ll just die? Let’s go! Let’s do this!”

In this terrifying place, simply surviving wasn’t enough.

If there’s a game called “Nightmare Corridor,” it would be more meaningful to progress and conquer it rather than just survive.

Jeongseok nodded at my conclusion.

“Good idea. But how do we get in?”

Jeongseok threw a box that was lying in the broadcasting room into the hole.

Thud-.

The sound came from the bottom immediately.

“If we drop an object weighing about 1kg and it takes about 1 second to hear the sound, calculating with gravitational acceleration… about 2 meters. It seems to be about 2 meters high?”

2 meters. Is there a ladder or foothold somewhere?

As I looked around, Yang Juhui spoke up.

“Hey! At 2 meters, you won’t get hurt if you jump! I know because I jumped from the second floor in middle school!”

Apparently, Yang Juhui had jumped from the second floor when she was in middle school.

I had a lot I wanted to say, but Yang Juhui, seemingly finding our conversation quite frustrating, loosened up her limbs and sat on the edge of the hole.

Then, like someone making a big decision, she jumped!

Thud-!

“Ah!”

Yang Juhui screamed as she landed on the floor.

I asked:

“Hey! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! Hey! It’s not as high as I thought!”

She seems to be okay.

Jeongseok and I were impressed by Yang Juhui’s fearlessly bold courage.

Now it was the next person’s turn.

I said:

“I’ll go.”

Hoo-.

After taking a deep breath, I jumped down with all my might!

2 meters.

It was a bit scary because of the awkward height, but the bell sound coming from behind was even scarier.

“Got it!”

Yang Juhui caught me.

Now it was Jeongseok’s turn, the last one remaining.

“Hey! I’m coming down! Catch me!”

Jeongseok sat on the edge of the hole and jumped towards us.

Yang Juhui and I caught him well, and all of us were able to come down to the basement without getting seriously hurt.

Flick-.

Yang Juhui used the lighter’s flame to look around.

Unlike what I expected the basement to be chilly, it was very hot.

It was sweltering, and a fishy, pungent smell was coming from all directions.

“Help me” “Help me” “Help me”

“Help me” “Help me” “Help me”

“Help me” “Help me” “Help me”

“A ghost lives here”

The walls were filled with what looked like hastily scribbled writing.

It was similar to the first floor where ghosts roamed, but even more chilling.

“Look at that.”

Yang Juhui pointed at something she discovered.

It looked like a black thread.

But as we got closer, we saw it wasn’t thread but human hair.

Fallen hair was scattered everywhere.

Judging by the length, it seemed like a woman’s, but I couldn’t be sure.

“So what do we do now?”

Yang Juhui asked as she looked around with the lighter.

We had come down to the first basement floor to escape the enraged Shaman Ghost, but we didn’t have a clear goal of what to do here.

I thought intensely for a very short time and made a decision.

“Let’s just look around and find anything that could be a hint or helpful.”

This was my first time in the first basement floor of the Nightmare Corridor.

We needed to acquire anything that could help, and then somehow escape this place alive.

Yes, we need to find an escape route.

# # #

How long have we been walking?

It feels like about 5 minutes.

“By the way… is this corridor always straight like this?”

Yang Juhui, who had been walking for a while with the lighter, asked us.

She must be questioning the straight corridor structure of the first basement floor.

Jeongseok said:

“The first basement corridor I went to with Yu Dahui wasn’t like this. Maybe it’s different because that was reality and this is a nightmare.”

Step. Step.

Only the sound of our footsteps echoed in the first basement floor.

Just when I was starting to wonder if we were going in circles, something strange appeared in front of us.

“It’s a bag. Wow, this is a Louis Vuitton school bag!”

Yang Juhui fearlessly picked up something that had fallen on the floor.

What could it be?

“This must cost over 3 million won! I’ve always wanted one!”

So it’s an extremely expensive luxury school bag.

Zip-.

Yang Juhui opened the bag’s zipper.

Then she took out school supplies and textbooks that were inside.

Flick-.

The textbooks illuminated by the lighter’s flame seemed to be from Yeongji High School’s first year.

There was a name written on them.

“Gu Hyena.”

Just as I was thinking I’d heard that name somewhere, Jeongseok said:

“Gu Hyena… isn’t she the girl who went missing at the beginning of the semester?”

That’s right!

Jeongseok was correct!

The name of the girl who went missing at the beginning of the semester and caused a stir was Gu Hyena!

Why are her belongings here?

“Sweet. Got a good item.”

Yang Juhui rummaged through the Louis Vuitton bag.

She doesn’t seem to mind that it belongs to a missing person.

Flutter-.

At that moment, a piece of paper fell from the Louis Vuitton bag.

It looked like a torn part of a notebook.

There was writing on it.

“Shaman – No eyes. Good hearing. Carries bells. Not that dangerous if not provoked. But once spotted, she’ll chase endlessly. Can’t leave the first floor.”

“It’s a paper with information about the ghost!”

Jeongseok exclaimed in surprise.

We decided to read the rest of what was written below.

“Escape Talisman – Burn this talisman to escape. One talisman per person. One is definitely attached to the front of the statue. There’s one statue on each floor.”

There was also a drawing that seemed to describe the talisman.

It looked like an object with “出” written on it.

“I can do it. I can. The longer I stay, the more I feel like I’m being swallowed by this place. I need to find it and get out quickly. But is it really possible? I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I’m a prisoner trapped in an eternal cave… My name is… what was it?”

It was someone’s journal.

The handwriting became harder to read towards the end, but it was valuable information!

Jeongseok shouted:

“It seems we can escape if we find this ‘Escape Talisman’!”

“At least one of us must escape no matter what. If we die here, we’ll lose our memories. This information must be remembered by at least one person who escapes. Absolutely!”

This was high-quality information we had just obtained.

We couldn’t afford to lose it all by everyone perishing.

Flutter-.

At that moment, Yang Juhui turned the notebook over.

There was writing on the back of the notebook as well.

“I buried the rotting flesh at the rock site on Gaeryong Mountain. Only the head is needed. I am both the jailer and the liberator. I will faithfully fulfill my assigned duty.”

Yang Juhui said:

“…Is this written by the missing Gu Hyena? No, it doesn’t look like a girl’s handwriting, right? And the content at the end… It’s creepy. Who would write such a thing?”

It is creepy. I thought so too.

Today I had planned to thoroughly explore this Nightmare Corridor, but the more I learned, the more I just wanted to get out of this place immediately.

Jeongseok said:

“…What does it mean by burying something at the rock site on Gaeryong Mountain? Am I the only one concerned about this?”

…I don’t know, damn it.

Honestly, I thought we had gathered enough information for today.

This should be enough to escape.

I looked around and tried to appear calm to shake off the chills as I said:

“So where can we find this ‘Escape Talisman’? It says there’s definitely one in front of a statue… but where is the statue? By statue, it probably means something like a monument, right?”

There was nothing around that could be called a statue.

“Since it says there’s one on each floor, there should be one in this basement too.”

We should probably keep moving forward.

We continued down the corridor and finally reached a dead end.

“The path is blocked.”

Jeongseok tapped the wall.

The wall looked thick and solid.

That’s when Yang Juhui discovered something in the corner.

“Hey! Here! There’s a crawl space!”

True to her experience as a delinquent who often crawled through small spaces, Yang Juhui was practically a pro at finding holes in the floor.

We crawled into that small space.

Fortunately, the crawl space wasn’t too long, and finally, a wide cave-like area appeared.

“What kind of cave is this?”

Splash-splash-.

It was a cave with water up to our ankles.

And in that cave, among burning candles, there was a strange figure.

It looked like a headless Buddha statue sitting in a half-lotus position, and a head was placed between its legs.

But that head didn’t seem to belong to the Buddha statue.

After all, it had black hair spreading in all directions.

Although the expression was calm with both eyes closed as if sleeping, I couldn’t forget that face.

“Damn, it’s the Head Ghost…”

Honestly, I had been wondering.

While the Shaman Ghost was running rampant, I wondered where the Head Ghost was.

I thought it was fortunate that it hadn’t appeared, but to think it was in a place like this.

“…Is that the Head Ghost?”

Yang Juhui trembled.

Soon, Jeongseok also frowned while breathing heavily.

“Ha Yeongwon. Is that the Head Ghost you talked about? Is that Bong Seyeon’s head?”

Jeongseok seemed to want to face the phenomenon before his eyes despite his fear.

But Jeongseok soon shook his head.

“No. That’s not Seyeon’s head. She had a big mole near her eye, so her nickname was ‘Mole Girl’! That head… doesn’t have a mole! No mole!”

“What?”

…Is this for real?

Soon, Yang Juhui also said:

“If it’s Seyeon, I know her too. That’s not Seyeon.”

Ah-.

I realized I had made a critical mistake in my deduction.

Yang Juhui knew Bong Seyeon, who was Bong Jiyeon’s older sister.

And Yang Juhui had also met the Head Ghost in the first cycle.

But Yang Juhui didn’t recognize the Head Ghost in the first cycle!

Why am I only realizing this now?

“Damn, then what the hell is that head?”

I was almost in panic.

While Yang Juhui was looking around as if she was also confused, Jeongseok exhaled roughly and said:

“I got it. That’s… Gu Hyena. The first-year student who went missing a few months ago! I know her because we went to the same academy in middle school! That’s Gu Hyena! The owner of the bag we found!”

It was the moment the identity of the Head Ghost was revealed.

Its identity was a Yeongji High School female student who went missing earlier this year.

“…Hey. Forget about Gu Hyena. Look at that! There’s a talisman attached to the Buddha statue! Isn’t that the Escape Talisman!?”

Yang Juhui, with her bold courage, pointed at the Buddha statue.

Indeed, as Yang Juhui said, there was a talisman attached to the palm of the Buddha statue.

“But… how do we approach it?”

The Head Ghost’s hair was spread out in all directions.

The Head Ghost was a ghost that spread its hair like a spider web and killed anyone who touched it in a horrific way.

It may look calm now, but if we touch it… something terrible would happen.

At times like this, we need to look for variables.

And fortunately, that variable was with Yang Juhui.

“Yang Juhui. You have the magic wand, right? It seems like it’s time to use it. They say that wand can create some kind of barrier when used. Try using the wand while I jump to get that talisman.”

“Magic wand? You mean this?”

“And Jeongseok. If we get the talisman, you, with the best memory, should escape. As soon as you wake up, write down everything you remember in a notebook! Got it? Alright, Yang Juhui! Recite the spell!”

“Spell? What spell! Magic wand spell? What kind of spell?”

“I don’t know either! A spell! Something you can think of! Isn’t there some Princess something spell?”