…I have seen the Sai Sword used in an agent's hand only once.
It was the sight I witnessed in Agent Haegeum's hand when the thing inside the red mascot's mask attacked the Resort.
The energy of Pure Yang extending from the sword made the heavens roar, and the Demonic power that fell like a thunderbolt pierced and shattered the wicked thing that had invaded.
The destruction of the profane.
And now, that was…
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
…unfolding within my grasp.
'Ah.'
A blue thunderbolt.
The white power of Pure Yang, burning with the principles of the world, flared up a vivid blue, soaring as if to pierce the auditorium ceiling, reaching its zenith. And toward the fearsome, profane thing that had invaded the school…
It struck down.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
That divine power.
'Ah.'
It was so powerful that it burned the corrupt world, and shamefully, it burned the corrupt me as well. But I had no time to look at my own hands, now missing three fingers.
Because the wicked thing was collapsing before my eyes.
Thud.
Thud, thud, thud, thud….
They fell, one by one.
The bodies of the teachers, bizarrely twisted and tangled together into a monstrous form—those incomplete, partial bodies collapsed onto the auditorium floor.
Along with Team Leader Park Hong-rim's upper body.
Thud.
Even the last body part that fell in the center. They all piled up, their eyes gently closed as if peacefully losing consciousness.
And then.
"..."
"..."
Silence.
"…Hah."
Thump. I collapsed onto the auditorium floor.
White ash from my incinerated fingers and palm stained my hands, which were still gripping the Sai Sword. My mind and body, overworked by something I couldn't handle, were screaming, but I didn't dare let go of the sword, holding it tight.
"You did well."
Agent Haegeum approached.
"Agent Grapes."
A strange, sob-like sound almost bubbled up from my throat, but I held it back.
Then, tightening my grip, I offered the sword back to Agent Haegeum.
"No, keep it on you for now. It's not over."
"…!"
It felt like cold water had been thrown on my mind.
'Right.'
The auditorium had regained its quiet for a moment.
Because the 'Helpful Ho' glass bullet was projecting the auditorium's previous appearance, and because I had brought down and neutralized the 'teacher.'
But.
"It will probably possess them again."
"…Yes."
The Sai Sword had neutralized the monster in a life-or-death situation, but it hadn't erased the corrupt Contamination that was swallowing the school.
It was just like at the Resort, where the red zone remained even after the red mascot's main body was incinerated by the Sai Sword.
Sekwang Technical High School was still encroached upon by flesh, its atmosphere ominous and bizarre.
So we had to proceed quickly.
The one remaining procedure…!
'The Seal.'
The atmosphere became urgent again.
"For Agent Bronze to finish drawing all the strokes on the talisman… Agent Choi?"
"He'll need at least another half hour."
"Right. Get up. We're going to Agent Bronze."
I immediately pushed myself up. My body was off-balance, as if I'd been hit by a truck. Dammit.
"Do you require transport?"
"Yes."
I'll gladly accept.
As I was about to rush after Agent Haegeum, carried like a piece of luggage by Section Chief Lizard…
I looked back and stopped.
"Grapes-ie?"
"Just a moment."
I asked Section Chief Lizard to take me closer to the pile of the collapsed 'teacher's' bodies.
To be precise, to the upper body lying in the center.
…The torn half of the talisman was still stuck to Team Leader Park Hong-rim's torso.
"Why."
Agent Choi came over to me.
After a moment of thought, I took out the other half of the talisman that I had.
"Is it possible to rejoin this with that talisman?"
"…That's the thing that was buried in the backyard, right?"
"Yes."
"Give it here for a second."
Agent Choi performed a simple cleansing motion over the remaining piece of the talisman, then placed it on the team leader's upper body.
The torn pieces of the talisman didn't become one, but they were at least positioned to form a single shape.
Though the broken glass lantern was gone, the talisman, made using the back of a Hanbit Library book checkout card, had finally taken its complete form.
"…Do you think it will have any effect?"
"Who knows. Someone more spiritually gifted than me made it, so I can't say."
Agent Choi's eyes, examining the talisman made by Team Leader Park Hong-rim and the bodies on the floor, seemed about to darken in thought, but he soon smiled like his usual self and pushed my back with his hand.
"Still, it's better to try and regret it. Let's hurry."
"Yes."
And we began to rush out of the auditorium.
The school's encroachment was still ongoing.
No, it had actually progressed even further.
"Ugh, ugh-ugh."
I could see figures in school uniforms writhing, stuck to the walls. Those who had been eaten alive had only their limbs twitching from the floor and walls, like pain sprouting from the school itself.
A chill ran down my spine from the horror and misery.
'Dammit.'
It was a relief that I was being carried by Section Chief Lee Jaheon. It meant my human instincts wouldn't make my feet freeze in place.
The agents and I gritted our teeth and moved on.
But instead of heading to the classroom on the second floor, the agents made their way down to the first.
"Agent Bronze is…"
"We left him with the other agents. For now, to a place where we can avoid the Contamination as much as possible…"
Her words stopped.
"..."
The first-floor hallway was already covered in flesh.
And on the floor and walls were the traces of humans who seemed to have been swallowed while resisting.
Flesh swallowing a Glass Hand Cannon and a snapped rope.
And the people who had been swallowed.
The protruding limbs of agents.
"…Go Myeong-a."
There was no response.
The agents' limbs were just stuck in the wall, twitching.
…For the first time, Agent Haegeum stopped in her tracks.
"Agent. If we use a bullet on the wall, maybe…"
"No. That's not a life sign. …They're already dead."
"..."
"Save your bullets. Let's move."
And Agent Haegeum's gaze shifted.
Next to the hallway, where the traces of agents being swallowed and killed by the school en masse remained, was the only place on the first floor that hadn't been encroached upon and was still relatively intact.
Class 1-4.
A sacred rope had been strung up in front of it, delaying the Contamination.
Even that was half-eaten, but one could at least surmise the desperate struggle the agents had put up….
Screech.
Carefully stepping over the sacred rope in front of the classroom and opening the door, the scene inside came into view.
Under a desk in the center, which the flesh had not yet reached.
A faint light flickered.
Agent Bronze was kneeling on the floor, drawing strokes on the glass lantern.
With a utility knife.
"...!"
Sparks flew every time the utility knife added a stroke. Each time, shadows were cast on the artist's face.
His temples and the side of his face were wet with what could have been sweat or tears, but his expression was blank with extreme concentration.
He didn't even look back at us.
His hands were covered in fine, red-lined cuts, perhaps from the strokes slipping due to the unsuitable equipment or from using his own flesh to guide them, but he didn't stop.
And… standing next to him, a Sekwang High student turned to look at us.
"Kim Soleum."
It was Lee Gyeol.
Hearing the three syllables of my name from a ghost story gave me goosebumps for a moment, but that was followed by relief and reassurance.
To think he was still alive.
"Did you get your memory back?"
"Yeah."
—Check if the teacher has a piece of paper
The classmate held up his hand, showing the words he had written himself, and frowned.
"I was going to use this to check what the teacher had… but then my memory suddenly came back, and I ran into people."
"The agents?"
"Yeah. They recognized me, told me to wait a minute, and grabbed me…. We stayed in the classroom."
"..."
"They went out into the hallway by themselves, and I haven't heard their voices for a while now."
We all knew the reason, so no one mentioned it.
We just nodded with grim faces.
Lee Gyeol gestured toward Agent Bronze with his chin.
"Anyway, I was asked a favor. That when this person finishes something, there's a place I have to go with him."
The backyard.
'…So Agent Bronze recruited him.'
Because to people who aren't students at this school, the view outside the infirmary window, where the backyard is, appears as just a black void.
But… wait a minute.
"You said you recognized the agents?"
"..."
"How did you recognize them?"
On the surface, it would just look like glitches had suddenly turned into students from another school. But if he recognized their title as 'agents' through an Item or conversation…
It meant he already knew about the status of being an agent of the Disaster Management Bureau.
For instance.
About Team Leader Park Hong-rim, and the Blue Dragon Team agents who stayed behind to protect this school.
"What you remembered, just how far back does it go?"
The classmate with dyed hair and piercings answered with a weary expression that didn't suit him.
"The day the agents came to this school."
"…!"
"I remember up to the day this school was ruined. Hoo…"
"Wait a minute."
Agent Choi cut in.
He checked on Agent Bronze, who was still drawing strokes.
"You… right, student Lee Gyeol. Can we talk about that time right now? You said the school was ruined."
I realized it too.
The day the school was ruined.
That was…
'The Segwang Metropolitan City Day of Disaster.'
The day the Extinction-class supernatural disaster broke out.
A chill ran straight down my spine.
"When was that?"
"..."
Lee Gyeol's mouth slowly opened.
"It was May. The day right before Children's Day."
May 4th.
"First period was starting when we suddenly got a disaster alert. It said a terror attack happened at City Hall."
"…!"
[Segwang Metropolitan City] Alert Warning Issued. Explosion suspected to be a terror attack has occurred near City Hall. Presumed to be a biochemical weapon fatal to the human body.
Suspected serial explosions. All citizens, please prepare to evacuate according to instructions and do not go outside under any circumstances.
"'Segwang Metropolitan City'?"
"Yeah. You think this is Seoul?"
Agent Haegeum, who had reflexively questioned the place name that doesn't exist in the 'current' Republic of Korea, saw her expression pass from confusion to something unusually grim.
But my and Agent Choi's expressions must have been even grimmer.
"The TV channels and W-Tube were constantly running live emergency bulletins, so no one was paying attention to class, we were all watching that. It showed people running away and buildings collapsing."
"..."
"Then… suddenly, everything cut off."
Soon, the internet itself stopped working.
Students who had been calling their families found that their calls wouldn't go through at some point.
And yet.
"Only the disaster alerts suddenly started coming again."
[Segwang Metropolitan City]
Alert Warning Canceled Not a Terror Attack Not a Weapon Not an Explosion Please Be Relieved
ComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeoutComeout
He has come
A shiver went down my spine.
"That's when the first kid started crying in the classroom."
"..."
"The teachers quickly collected all our phones. They cut all the TV cables."
The students panicked, but they eventually followed the teachers' instructions, blocked the windows, and gathered near the auditorium.
It was because of the story that if it was a biochemical weapon, it would be heavier than air and sink, making the lower floors dangerous.
"And they told us to close our eyes, cover our ears, and just lie still."
"Did the teachers do that too?"
"No. They were talking amongst themselves."
But they had put on classical music in the fifth-floor hallway.
So loud that it was hard for them to talk to each other.
"And all the high schoolers just listened obediently?"
"They said it was a terror attack. We were getting weird texts, and we thought maybe they could remotely detonate our phones. Of course, there were some bastards who didn't listen."
"Does that include you, by any chance?"
"..."
Lee Gyeol, who had been avoiding my gaze, spoke as if confessing.
"I just… didn't cover my ears and tried to listen to what the teachers were talking about. It was suspicious."
"So what were they talking about?"
"I couldn't hear well, but one of the teachers was trying to leave."
"…!"
"He said he had something to check and had to go somewhere else. But he said there was a place to report things like this, and that he had sent a rescue request to the 'agents' to come to the school."
"..."
"I think it was probably the guidance counselor."
—Some high schools were periodically visited to counsel students.[1]
Ho Yuwon?
"That's all. And then…"
At that moment.
Tuk.
We reflexively turned our gazes.
Under the desk, Agent Bronze lifted the utility knife blade from the glass lantern.
"It's complete."
"…!"
All attention was sucked in his direction.
The agent carefully lifted the glass lantern. Then he took out the paper talisman made at Leejeong Bookstore and fit it 'properly' onto the bottom of the lantern.
Blue flames blazed up, following the strokes.
Whoosh.
The strokes on the paper connected with the strokes on the lantern, and the flames followed. The talisman expanded, connecting…
"...Hoo."
Complete.
Following the strokes, the blue light was swallowed into the lantern.
Receiving all of our gazes, Agent Bronze stood up from under the desk, holding the lantern with both hands.
His face was pale.
"Are you alri… Agent?"
"Bronze."
Agent Bronze's face, as if just noticing us, showed a flash of relief and surprise.
"The other agents…"
"Let's activate the talisman first, then talk."
"..."
Agent Bronze registered the state of the Class 1-4 classroom, half-covered in flesh, and the silence of the hallway from which no sound could be heard.
But he took a deep breath and focused his mind.
"…Yes. Where do I need to go?"
"Can we just take this to the backyard and bury it? That's where it was, right?"
I tried to answer as energetically as possible.
"Yes! Right through the infirmary window…"
But.
—Foundyougameover
—Thebackyardhasbeendiscoverednonono!
"..."
Wait.
"Grapes-ie?"
"I don't think we can take it back to the backyard. That location has already been discovered."
I added urgently.
"This… this seems to be a kind of hide-and-seek."
"Hide-and-seek?"
"Yes. I saw records that seemed to indicate the talisman was hidden so that the invading wicked thing wouldn't find it."
I remembered.
The backyard that was invisible to the glitch.
"The backyard isn't implemented in the game, so maybe that's why they hid it there."
My gaze went to Agent Bronze.
"Agent?"
"…Theoretically, it's possible."
"Okay. So we need to find a similar place in this school."
A similar place.
A place to hide it, so the intruder won't find it…
'If the most suitable place, the backyard, has already been used.'
I have to think about it differently.
If making it completely invisible is impossible, then conversely…
'What if it could be hidden by the presence of something absurdly powerful?'
And this school was already a part of it.
—One of the supernatural phenomena found at Hanbit Library is set in a school, so let's use that.
Hanbit Library.
"Let's go to the library."
To the passage that connects to Hanbit Library.
[1] another translation: “I visited some high schools regularly to counsel students”