The dark hallway of the fourth floor.
Students stood in a line like mannequins.
I calculated the range of the students’ reach beforehand and carefully took a step forward.
‘Huu.’
First, I unfolded the carefully tucked-away item from my pocket and wrapped it around my vital areas.
A piece of ‘armor’ purchased from the alien store.
Wrapper 12B357나
The loose packaging snugly settled under my high school uniform from back in the day.
‘The Nostalgia Series doesn’t heal wounds or remove contamination sustained while active.’
From now on, I needed to be extra cautious.
I moved carefully, ensuring I didn’t overlap into the active territory of any of the students.
Since I occupied a smaller area as an individual, navigating alone might actually be safer on the fourth floor.
I wondered if Agent Bronze and Jang Heo-un made it safely.
‘They’re probably prioritizing regrouping with others.’
The agent wasn’t foolish enough to head to the fifth floor with just the two of them. They’d likely search for others on the fourth floor.
Judging from the situation, it didn’t seem like Jang Heo-un would be taken prisoner or anything.
‘Even if he’d do that to you, I did everything I could, my fellow new hire…’
I walked all the way to the end of the hallway.
“Huu.”
I arrived at the staircase we had climbed earlier with the agent and Jang Heo-un.
And then…
I started heading back down the stairs.
[3F]
I retraced the way I had come, moving in reverse.
Why?
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t have much use for the scattered informational items throughout this school.
‘I already have all that information in my head.’
I had essentially already obtained and seen everything.
I knew everything about this ghost story, right up to the moment it ends.
Why this school ended up in this state, what the theme of this ghost story is, and what exactly these ‘students’ are.
There was only one thing I truly needed.
‘The key item that will unlock the highest grade for a clear.’
And now, I was going to get it.
‘By now… it should have been ‘created’.’
I stopped on the landing.
The third floor below was eerily silent.
Everything down there had turned into corpses.
Under the bright lights, blood-soaked bodies lay mutilated, their horrifying condition vividly displayed.
It seemed most of the school-uniformed figures on this floor were dead.
‘If any agents survived, they must have moved elsewhere.’
It also appeared that nearly all the students who had swarmed the faculty office were rendered immobile or killed, as indicated by the death announcements.
“Huu.”
Setting aside the grotesqueness of the scene, it felt as if I were standing in the middle of a catastrophic disaster site where dozens of people had died.
‘Stay calm.’
This is a dream… all of it is a dream…
I repeated this to myself as I continued descending the stairs, constantly checking both ends of the hallway and the opposite faculty office.
And then, I spotted my target.
Flicker.
In the brief moment I turned my gaze, a student’s posture shifted inside the faculty office.
Of course, it wasn’t chasing me.
The condition of the student entity was far too pitiful for that.
Both arms were broken, one leg was in a compound fracture, and its abdomen was drenched in blood.
Yet, it seemed to have enough ‘awareness’ to tilt its head slightly in my direction.
I surveyed the surroundings.
‘No sign of other students appearing… good.’
Satisfied, I approached the faculty office.
I walked right up to the student slumped near the front door.
With bleached hair and piercings, he had the stereotypical appearance of a delinquent, though his injuries erased any impression of defiance.
Wow, I’m seriously about to go insane.
I grabbed the ‘student’ with both hands and lifted him over my shoulder.
“Huuuu.”
Carrying the student like a heavy sack over my shoulder, I walked on, ensuring he stayed out of sight.
‘This is insane.’
Lugging a killing machine weighing several dozen kilograms like this wasn’t exactly easy on the nerves.
Physically, though, I could manage. Nostalgia Candy was still rolling around in my mouth, keeping me in peak condition.
‘And… this is the destination.’
I had mapped out a route in my head.
Given the chaos that had erupted, it was unlikely that many students remained on the third floor, but just in case, I moved quickly.
With the flashlight held in my mouth, I steadied myself against the wall and pressed forward.
The powerful flashlight brightly illuminated the entire hallway, defying the darkness—even if the bloodied scene still suffocated me.
Still.
[Infirmary]
The destination appeared.
Slide.
I silently dropped the name tag my colleague had slipped to me onto the floor, then quietly opened the door and stepped into the infirmary.
There were three beds lined up near the window, their curtains drawn.
Two of the beds already showed shadows of someone lying inside.
I took slow steps forward.
My eyes caught sight of a whiteboard with a note attached to the door of the infirmary:
Students injured during physical activity should lie on a bed and wait for the nurse to arrive!
Something about it was out of place.
‘So, that’s it.’
This was the clue that had led me to write a continuing exploration log for this ghost story.
It came from the twelfth exploration log left by the previous explorer.
Exploration Record #12
Assistant Manager Kang Jiwoo entered the infirmary and placed an injured colleague (Supervisor Park Cha-on) on an empty bed, following the instructions.
Nothing significant to report.
Afterwards, all were killed by the student entity that chased them into the infirmary. Clear.
From the moment I read it, I suspected there was an overlooked detail.
‘The previous writer seemed to have left this intentionally.’
Explorers in this ghost story are presented as ‘outsiders’—as students from another school.
In other words…
– What if they had placed a real Sekwang Technical High School student on the bed instead?
That question sparked the imagination that drove me to write the thirteenth exploration log.
