Ch.84084 – Random Matching 2

# 084 – Random Matching #2

“Random matching?”

Jeongseok was a coward, but his mind worked incredibly fast.

He understood my crappy explanation perfectly.

“So you’re saying you didn’t put us in this corridor today?”

“That’s right.”

Why were we here?

Who else was here besides us?

These were still unknowns for us.

Of course, what we needed to do remained unchanged.

“Even though the situation has changed, we still need to get the talisman and escape. Let’s take this basement talisman and head to the first floor.”

Swish-

I carefully tucked away the talisman attached to the shrine.

Watching me, Jeongseok kept flinching nervously.

“……”

The reason Jeongseok was so scared was probably because of Gu Hyena.

Gu Hyena kept making sounds like “kiriik” or “kihik!” while twitching her joints and shoulders like she was doing a popping dance.

It was terrifying, and must have been too stimulating for a coward like Jeongseok.

“Hey. You don’t have to pretend to be a ghost like that when you’re with us.”

Since I was scared of Gu Hyena’s appearance too, I asked if she could tone it down a bit.

But Gu Hyena rolled her terrifying eyes and asked back:

“What did I do?”

“No, nothing.”

Does she not realize her own state?

Maybe ghosts develop tics without even knowing it.

Anyway.

“You guys, handle yourselves well. I’m going to the first floor now.”

Swish swish-

Gu Hyena strangely moved her long hair and disappeared through a hole in the ceiling.

Only after every last strand of Gu Hyena’s hair had vanished did Jeongseok exhale in relief.

“Wow. That’s seriously scary.”

“I know, right? But fortunately, she won’t attack us because we helped find her body. Look at Kwon Suho here. He’s dead. He must have accumulated two quirks. Is he really dead…?”

Kwon Suho was the first person to accumulate two quirks.

Until now, I had been carefully managing people’s quirks to prevent anyone from accumulating more than one, even if they were jerks who tormented me like Kim Geonho or Park Inbae.

But Kwon Suho was sucked into this random matching beyond my control and ran toward Gu Hyena uncontrollably, dying horribly.

What would happen to Kwon Suho after waking from this dream?

As I was slightly tense and considering various possibilities, Jeongseok spoke:

“Hey. This guy deserves to die. Gu Hyena died because of him. If it weren’t for him, the Head Ghost wouldn’t have existed in the first place.”

“Still, a person died.”

“Yeongwon, you don’t know, but people around Gaeryong know how much trouble Kwon Suho and his gang have caused. There are countless people who’ve had their lives ruined and felt suicidal because of them.”

I didn’t know about this, but Jeongseok seemed to feel a certain satisfaction about Kwon Suho’s death.

Originally, Jeongseok’s dream was to become a prosecutor who would take down all criminals. From Jeongseok’s judgment, Kwon Suho was an evil person who deserved to die.

“You know how people sometimes wonder why ghosts don’t take certain bastards? Kwon Suho was exactly that kind of person. He really was taken by a ghost. And we always expected that someday someone would accumulate two quirks, right?”

Jeongseok’s words made some sense.

Honestly, I had been secretly afraid.

The fear that someone might accumulate two quirks due to some variable—

“Since this happened, let’s use Kwon Suho to find out what happens in reality to someone with two quirks. We should use any situation to our advantage.”

Looking at it coldly, everything Jeongseok said was right.

Jeongseok is cold.

A cold boy.

“Ha Yeongwon. You’re too soft. As I’ve said many times, if I had your status window, I would have dealt with all the death row inmates who haven’t been executed yet.”

Am I too soft?

I’d never thought about it that way.

But Jeongseok seemed to be trying to comfort me in his own way.

Kwon Suho’s death is not your fault—so let’s move forward.

“……”

I looked at Kwon Suho’s corpse again and then at the photo obtained from Kwon Suho’s wallet that Gu Hyena had collected.

In the photo, Kwon Suho was holding a cute Shiba Inu, looking far from a villain or scumbag.

“People all have different sides to them.”

I headed to the first floor.

I gave the talisman to Jeongseok.

“You keep it and escape if there’s an emergency.”

“Are you sure you want to give it to me again? What about you?”

Jeongseok asked me with concern, though he seemed secretly relieved to have the talisman.

I replied with feigned nonchalance:

“Hey, a leader leads by example. Besides, Dahui might be somewhere around here. We need to find her. She has paper cranes, you know? They’re really amazing.”

The paper cranes had the effect of finding shrines.

Dahui said she always carried two of them when she fell into this corridor.

That’s right.

Yu Dahui is someone who falls into this corridor regardless of her own will.

“We probably need to go to the newly opened second floor to escape, right? If we want to find shrines there, having Yu Dahui would definitely help.”

I was certain Yu Dahui must be somewhere around here, so I decided to call out for her loudly.

“Yu Dahui! Dahui!”

Actually, I thought it might be awkward to meet Yu Dahui.

To think that the girl trapped in that storage room was Yu Dahui.

But given the situation, there was no time to worry about such things.

“Yu Dahui!”

“Yu Dahui!”

Both Jeongseok and I were shouting for Yu Dahui.

Thump, thump-

Just then, I sensed someone approaching from far down the first floor corridor.

It was a girl holding a lighter. I thought it might be Yu Dahui, but she was a bit taller and her face was full of annoyance.

“Wow. This is really something. Ha Yeongwon. You don’t look for me but you’re so eagerly searching for Yu Dahui?”

It was Yang Juhui!

Had Yang Juhui also fallen into this random matching?

“Hey! Yang Juhui! I’m so relieved you’re here! I’m really glad to see you! Really!”

The second floor was a place full of terrifying ghosts.

To navigate such a place, we desperately needed the help of tough Yang Juhui.

However, Yang Juhui snorted at me.

“What are you saying? You were just calling for Yu Dahui. You put me in the corridor without saying anything, didn’t call for me at all. I’m really hurt. Our Yeongwon has grown up so much, even ignoring this noona.”

“No, that’s not it. Jeongseok, can you explain?”

# # #

Jeongseok was better at explaining than me.

He quickly explained our situation, but Yang Juhui crossed her arms, seemingly not understanding.

“What happened to what?”

Actually, Yang Juhui had been slow to understand the status window and the Nightmare Corridor system too.

Maybe it’s because she was a popular girl and a bully, so she never played games.

“Hey, you’re good at studying, so why can’t you understand this kind of stuff?”

She might be good at studying, but she lacked the sense to understand these things.

I guess memorization skills for studying are different from the ability to understand and grasp concepts.

When I spoke with a slightly accusatory tone, Yang Juhui got defensive.

“What are you talking about? I’ve never survived here before! That’s why I don’t know!”

That was true.

As I was acknowledging this, Yang Juhui looked around.

“Let’s get out of here first. I saw Gu Hyena on the first floor earlier, and she was really scary, covered in blood. That was Kwon Suho’s blood? So that bastard Kwon Suho really died.”

Yang Juhui also seemed to feel some satisfaction about Kwon Suho’s death.

What was Kwon Suho to the residents of Gaeryong City?

Anyway.

We needed to find Yu Dahui and enter the second floor.

But suddenly I realized there might be a problem even if we found Yu Dahui.

“Me, Jeongseok, Yu Dahui, Yang Juhui. So at least four of us. Basement talisman, first floor talisman, second floor talisman…”

There are four of us, but the expected number of talismans we can get is three.

“We’re screwed. Dahui said before that we could also escape through the first floor exit, right? I think this is it, but it’s firmly locked.”

Three talismans and a closed exit. That meant one thing.

One person wouldn’t be able to get out.

Smart Jeongseok seemed to realize this too, as he gripped the talisman in his hand even tighter.

Is he afraid I’ll ask for it back?

Not wanting Jeongseok to panic, I spoke with feigned confidence:

“Hey, I’m not asking for your talisman. You have the best memory and you explain things well, so it’s better for us if you get out and organize everything.”

“Right.”

Anyway, we wandered around the first floor corridor looking for Yu Dahui.

Since there were no ghosts on the first floor except for Gu Hyena, we could move around freely.

“Hey, it feels like we’re just out for fun. Is it always like this?”

Yang Juhui rummaged through various parts of the first floor as if it were her own world.

Come to think of it, Yang Juhui had never escaped this corridor alive.

That meant she couldn’t remember the fact that she had died, or any of the conversations we had in the corridor.

The same could happen with today’s events.

I clenched my fist and said:

“Today, everyone is getting out of here alive. For sure.”

As we were wandering around the first floor, we found a shrine in a space labeled “Multipurpose Room.”

The talisman was attached to it.

“That’s the second talisman. I thought Dahui would have taken it, but it seems like she’s not here.”

A variable in the random matching.

Yu Dahui might not be here—

I made a mental note of this.

“Oh, doesn’t this look useful as a weapon?”

Yang Juhui found a baseball bat in the multipurpose room.

She looked quite convincing as she swung it around.

After much consideration, I spoke as if reaching a conclusion:

“Then let’s go to the second floor. The second floor is a place I don’t know well either, so everyone needs to be mentally prepared.”

Just as we were about to go up to the second floor, we found Gu Hyena standing at the entrance.

The high school ghost girl, Gu Hyena.

Grip-

I could feel Yang Juhui tightening her grip on the bat.

Gu Hyena spoke to us:

“Going to the second floor?”

“…Yes. Why? Do you want to come with us? Will you help us?”

Gu Hyena was a ghost.

A ghost ally.

Scary but reliable, right?

“Since you’re a ghost, couldn’t you talk to the ghosts on the second floor and negotiate with them? Can you help us? If you help us, your chances of coming back to life increase too.”

I tried to persuade Gu Hyena.

But Gu Hyena shook her head.

“I don’t want to go up there. That place is a completely different world from this first floor. You living people wouldn’t understand. And the ghosts up there are… different from me? Something like that.”

Ghosts are different?

What does that mean?

It didn’t seem like she was simply talking about different types.

Can ghosts be different?

Gu Hyena glanced nervously at the second floor, like someone feeling fear.

Eventually, she disappeared into the darkness with a swish sound.

“A ghost scary enough to frighten another ghost.”

Yang Juhui casually summarized the situation.

But her words made Jeongseok and me even more scared.

Should we just escape from here?

Both Jeongseok and I have talismans.

That would leave Yang Juhui here alone… but if she dies and gets a quirk, I could treat it from outside with the status window.

It was a somewhat rational thought.

But thinking like that made me feel much less motivated.

I didn’t feel inspired to explore the second floor.

I thought for a moment, then made a decision.

Snap!

I handed my talisman to Yang Juhui.

“Here. You keep this. If something dangerous happens, tear it or burn it to escape.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I’ll escape with the second floor talisman. And I really want you to survive this time. Even if we can treat quirks, we don’t know what side effects might come from repeatedly dying here.”

“Tsk, what’s this? Earlier you were only looking for Yu Dahui, and now you’re pretending to care about me. Are you really not going to regret this?”

At Yang Juhui’s question, I considered one last time.

“Regret… no way!”

By giving Yang Juhui the talisman, I created a reason for myself to explore the second floor.

In other words, I was burning my bridges.

“Let’s go then!”

The conquest party’s first exploration of the second floor.

Let’s go!