Fwoosh.
The pen tip launched silently from the sole of his shoe and flew straight toward Kim Soleum’s head…
…but it didn’t hit.
Kim Soleum casually tilted his head, dodging the pen tip.
“……?!”
Kim Soleum glanced at Baek Saheon.
‘How many times do you think I read about your equipment usage on the wiki?’
He already knew how it was loaded.
‘You click the left heel twice.’
Having prepared for this ever since they became roommates, Kim Soleum’s reflexes, in hindsight, were only natural.
Not that he had expected much, so he wasn’t even angry…
‘But I can’t let this slide.’
At that moment, Kim Soleum grinned at Baek Saheon.
‘I know you fired it.’
And that meant one thing:
You’re fuckin’ screwed.
“……”
Baek Saheon felt a chill run down his spine.
The learned fear surged to near panic levels.
But his objective of creating confusion had succeeded nonetheless.
“Ahhh—”
“……!”
The pen tip struck the locker behind Kim Soleum and exploded, filling the room with light, noise, and smoke.
“…Who did that?!”
At this level of chaos, it didn’t matter how softly anyone spoke.
This kind of commotion was enough to lure the ‘students’, even if it meant they’d tolerate some damage to the school’s property.
They’d be coming soon.
“……!!”
“Flashlights.”
Everyone crouched and pressed themselves against the walls. The smoke obscuring their vision created the worst possible conditions in this nightmare school.
‘Who did this?’
For now, survival instincts overrode the need to find the culprit.
‘In that case…!’ freewebnσvel.cm
Baek Saheon seized the opportunity to lunge at the table.
Fountain Pen of Second-Year Student ■■■
He snatched the item and stuffed it into his pocket.
Blending seamlessly back into the crowd of employees, Baek Saheon joined the rush to flee the faculty office.
Inside, the Bureau agents, who had maintained a near-perfect formation to monitor all angles, only realized what had happened once the smoke began to clear.
The fountain pen and the Daydream employees were gone.
“Those Daydream bastards…!”
Kim Soleum had suddenly become guilty by association.
‘Wonderful.’
Kim Soleum, who had been keeping an eye on Baek Saheon the entire time, caught the exchange.
But the situation was too urgent to dwell on it.
[There has been a death in the 3rd-floor hallway.]
[The deceased is second-year student Kim Sora.]
The Daydream Inc. employees fleeing down the hallway had killed one of the students.
“…Hah.”
The power went out.
* * *
Five seconds of darkness.
Flashes of light from flashlights.
Screams.
Corpses.
‘This is insane.’
With both people and monstrous entities running rampant, this resembled a scene from a B-grade slasher film.
A suffocating type of terror different from the earlier stillness.
Aaaagh!
There, in the window!
Blood! Blood!
Requesting ba— thud!
Amid the gruesome carnage unfolding in every direction, I somehow managed to spot the students trying to enter the faculty office through the mist and freeze them in place.
It felt like playing a nightmarish tower defense game. Or maybe a horror game where I was trapped and utterly cornered.
“Move!”
The only silver lining was that the agents were taking the brunt of the aggression, leaving me mostly out of the spotlight.
But even that had its limits.
Flicker.
The instant a drop of blood splashed into my eye, I had no choice but to blink.
A student’s hand, hooked like a claw, stopped just above my head.
“……!!”
I quickly stepped back.
…My skull had almost been crushed.
My hair stood on end.
‘Hah…’
My heart felt like it would give out.
‘This is bad.’
This was a death trap.
‘The range a single flashlight can cover is no longer enough.’
From what I knew, the number of students per floor varied by each exploration round, but there were at least twenty students on any given floor.
And if someone killed a student and triggered the announcement?
[There has been a death in the second-year faculty office.]
More would come.
Accompanied by another five-second blackout for a moment of silence.
‘It never ends.’
The likelihood of everyone dying here and the exploration ending was overwhelmingly high.
So…
‘I need to escape while I still can.’
I gritted my teeth.
I needed to find the others on another floor and join forces with them.
The mist was beginning to clear, and the blackout had just ended…
Flicker.
‘…Now!’
I slid across the faculty office, cutting through the carnage of blood, gore, and violence, and made it out through the door that had been open from the start.
In that instant—
“Mr. Grapes!”
“……!”
As the mist dissipated, I spotted Agent Bronze.
He was grappling with an employee wearing an animal mask— and the owner of that mask was…
“Hiiek—”
“Quiet.”
Jang Heo-un, from the Y-squad Round-Off Team.
‘So you didn’t manage to escape with the others, huh?’
“Use this to restrain him…!”
The agent tossed me what looked like a pair of handcuffs.
Clearly, he thought I had come to assist him.
But I had already decided to cut ties with everyone here…
“R-Run, Roe Deer!”
“……!”
Damn it.
Jang Heo-un, startled by his own outburst, slapped a hand over his mouth.
He had called me by the name of my mask.
“…Roe Deer?”
“No, that’s…”
The look on the agent’s face said it all.
‘He knows.’
Damn it. If that’s the case…!
I swiftly caught the handcuff-like item the agent had handed me.
And then I clamped it on him instead.
“……?!”
The cuffs expanded, binding the agent’s arms and mouth, with a silver chain extending from them to my hand.
“Let’s go, Bison.”
“Y-Yes…?!”
Dragging Jang Heo-un and the restrained agent, I bolted out of the faculty office.
Aaaagh!
[The moment of silence is over. May the deceased rest in peace.]
Leaving behind the chaos of the faculty office, we sprinted madly up the stairs.
A couple of students followed us out but were drawn back by the ongoing commotion inside the office.
“Keep an eye on what’s above us.”
“Got it!”
Jang Heo-un responded quickly, diligently watching the upper stairwell.
‘Huu.’
I stopped midway up the stairs, watching as the students who had been following us disappeared, and turned my head, wanting nothing more than to wipe the sweat off my face.
And that’s when I made eye contact with the restrained person at the end of the chain I was holding.
Agent Bronze from the Disaster Management Bureau was glaring at me like he wanted to kill me.
“……”
At this point, I had no choice.
‘Time to bluff…!’
With a speed I’d never achieved before in my life, I began crafting an elaborate, emotional appeal.
(T/N: I changed Jang Heo-un’s mask to ‘bison’ instead of ‘cow’! The terms are similar in Korean and it wasn’t specified at first, but since author-nim’s using the clear term for bison now, let’s go with that. I’ve already edited the past chapters to reflect this change.)