Chapter 32 : Are you running in the hallway? (2)

Are you tired?

It didn’t seem like we had walked around much, but by the time it was almost lunchtime, my body felt so sluggish that I was yawning.

“Haam…”

“Janghoon, are you sleepy?”

“Well… I can’t deny that the museum is a bit of a boring place.”

“R-Really? I actually put a lot of thought into choosing this field trip location…”

Three people were closely following behind me.

Miss Hoshino, Carmilla, and now even Yoon Ha-eun.

The way they were sticking to my sides and behind me felt overwhelming, and honestly, I thought they were the main reason I was feeling so exhausted.

“More importantly, it’s almost lunchtime. Shouldn’t we head up to the top floor now?”

“Yeah. Based on the time, we probably should.”

“Let’s take the elevator on the way!”

“I agree with that.”

Anyway, kids usually recover as soon as they eat when they’re tired.

Thinking that would be the case, I followed the plan and stepped into the restaurant located on the top floor of the Hero Museum.

But as expected, it seemed like the three people around me were stamina monsters.

Lethargic…

“Huh? Why are you guys leaning on the desks and sleeping?”

“I’m just too exhausted…”

“No matter how much we walked around, it felt like we were just going in circles…”

“After running around for so long, I got super tired…”

The other classmates who had arrived on the top floor earlier were already half-asleep.

Well, even for kids, exploring a 30-floor museum must have been tough.

Watching them look more exhausted than I had expected, Yoon Ha-eun let out a groan.

“Jeez. If I had known this would happen, I should’ve guided you all from start to finish.”

Even though she was an S-rank hero, it was probably her first time playing the role of a teacher.

It seemed like she made a small mistake.

Well, wandering around until exhaustion was part of the fun of a field trip anyway.

“Teacher, when do we eat?”

“Hm? Oh… Normally, we’d have to wait about 30 minutes, but should I just ask them to prepare it now?”

“Yes!!”

Whoa.

They really were starving.

The moment Yoon Ha-eun checked her watch, the kids who had been dozing off immediately sprang up, insisting that they eat now.

Startled, Yoon Ha-eun sighed in resignation and eventually headed into the restaurant’s kitchen alone to arrange the meal.

“Alright, I’ll talk to the chefs, so everyone wait here, okay?”

“Janghoon, let’s sit down too.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“By the way, Janghoon’s seat next to me is mine, okay?”

“We’re sitting three people together, how does that even make sense?!”

The elegant restaurant had round tables with tablecloths, positioned near the windows.

While waiting for the food, the three of us naturally took seats at the remaining spots.

“If it’s a restaurant, we’ll probably get steak, right?”

“Of course! A restaurant means meat, doesn’t it?”

“I’d personally love it if they also served pasta or pizza.”

Anyway, being on the 31st floor, the view was incredibly high.

Since we were by the window, I cautiously looked outside and realized that it was at least twice as high as the 50-meter wall I had climbed before.

Having a meal in such a place was surreal.

This school really did deserve its reputation as an elite institution…

Just as I was lost in that thought—

“Ugh… I need to use the restroom.”

One of the kids at the table got up and walked out in search of the bathroom.

‘Yoon Ha-eun told us to stay put, though…’

I was briefly concerned, but this was a massive museum restricted to only Hero Association members.

Aside from being too spacious, there wasn’t anything particularly dangerous.

And it was just a quick bathroom trip, so I figured there was no real need to worry.

Creak.

Clunk.

“…?”

Creak.

Clunk.

“Huh?”

Just before I saw the kid who had gone outside return immediately.

‘What’s this…? Are they playing around?’

They had been in a hurry to go to the bathroom just a moment ago.

Yet now, they were standing at the exit, stepping in and out repeatedly.

As I watched curiously, I noticed their face was filled with fear—far from someone playing a prank.

Suddenly—

Thud!

“Huh?”

“Janghoon?”

“Something feels off…”

A bad feeling washed over me.

At the same time, though faint, a foul stench brushed past my nose.

No matter how I looked at it, this smell was unmistakably the stench of a monster.

“Miss Hoshino and Carmilla, I think there’s a monster here.”

“W-What?! A m-monster?!”

“A monster? All of a sudden? This building is managed by the Hero Association, Janghoon.”

“I know. But look over there. No matter how you see it, that scene is strange.”

As a fellow monster, I could sense it.

The two of them, however, hadn’t realized a monster had appeared until they saw it for themselves.

I pointed at our classmate, who was still walking back and forth in front of the door, and explained to Hoshino and Carmilla.

“That kid said they were going to the bathroom, but they’ve just been standing there like that for several minutes.”

“So… you’re saying that just from that, you think a monster has appeared?”

“Yes. Don’t you think that scene is way too unnatural, Miss Hoshino?”

“Sigh. Janghoon, you must not know much about monsters. If a monster had really appeared, it wouldn’t be this quiet.”

“For once, I agree with Miss Hoshino. That just looks like a kid playing around.”

Miss Hoshino just shrugged at my warning.

Step, step.

“Hey, why are you still holding onto the door like that?”

“Ah?! M-Miss Hoshino…”

“Move aside. I’ll open it for you.”

Like it was nothing, she walked over and pulled the door open wide so they could go to the bathroom.

“…Huh?”

At that moment, Yoon Ha-eun suddenly ran out of the restaurant kitchen in a panic.

“Kids, get up! Something’s wrong! No matter how much I searched inside, I couldn’t find a single chef!”

At her words, the faces of the children who had been waiting for lunch gradually darkened with fear.

And then—

“What is this…”

“Hm? What’s wrong, Hoshino…!”

“Miss Yoon Ha-eun…”

Following us, Yoon Ha-eun walked toward the now wide-open restaurant entrance—

And then, she froze in shock as she saw the sight beyond the doorway.

As if looking into a mirror, outside the restaurant was… another restaurant, reflecting our own.

“What… is this?”

“It looks like we’re trapped.”

…!

How much time had passed since then?

The moment we stepped inside the restaurant, the structure had changed into a looping space that made no logical sense.

So, in an attempt to find another escape route, Yoon Ha-eun, Hoshino, and Carmilla thoroughly searched every inch of the restaurant.

But they found absolutely nothing.

“The window side is now completely covered in ‘white fog.’ We can’t see anything outside.”

“It’s probably the power of some ‘monster’ that has separated this entire top floor of the museum into another dimension.”

“I tried breaking through the floor and ceiling, but we just ended up back here!”

Up, down, left, right.

Every possible exit was blocked.

Or rather, instead of being blocked, it was more like we kept returning to the same place.

Before we knew it, we were completely trapped inside this restaurant.

“S-Teacher… what do we do now?”

“Are we going to die here?”

“Sniffle… I wanna see my mom…!”

“I’m scared, teacher!”

“Whoa, whoa, everyone, calm down. There’s an S-rank hero right here, so nothing like that is going to happen!”

That was a lie.

Yoon Ha-eun was forcing a smile to calm the students, but if you looked closely, sweat was forming at the back of her neck.

‘She still sweats at the nape of her neck when she’s nervous, just like 10 years ago…’

It was one of her habits mentioned in the original story.

“But more importantly, what kind of monster trapped us here? What’s its alias?”

“A…lias?”

“You mean the enemy’s identity, Janghoon?”

“Yeah. The most important thing when hunting a monster is identifying what kind it is.”

Trapping a large group of people inside a single space—

I had encountered monsters with this kind of ability several times in the original story.

Since it was such a unique power, I still remembered a few of them clearly.

‘A prison? A loop? Or maybe eternity? Since it completely sealed off this space, in the worst case, it could be ‘domination’…’

For now, there were too many possible suspects based on this situation alone.

More than anything, that eerie white fog beyond the windows was also concerning.

‘The foul stench of a monster is coming from over there…’

So, following the official strategy from the ‘Monster Frontline Gallery’ that I had frequently used in the past—

I started searching the restaurant to identify the monster that had trapped us here.

Meanwhile—

“Janghoon seems… different.”

“Even though a monster appeared, isn’t he way too calm?”

He wasn’t from a hero family, nor was he already a hero.

In fact, he had only just entered elementary school.

Yet, instead of bursting into tears like a normal kid, he was calmly analyzing the situation, even more composed than most professional heroes.

Hoshino and Carmilla were baffled by his abnormal ability to assess the situation.

But as they silently followed him around, they soon came to a realization.

“N-No way?!”

The reason Janghoon knew so much about monsters—

It was because of them!

He had studied extensively, all just to help them with the hero work that only women could do!

Hehehehehe…

“Janghoon…!”

“Janghoon!!”

I’ll definitely make him my sidekick someday and give him a good position.