Exploration Record #13, which I had added.
– If you acquire and wear a school uniform in the proper manner, you will be treated as a student.
This is, in truth, a rather groundbreaking concept.
Handled incorrectly, it could distort the original essence of the ghost story.
The school ghost story.
Monsters that only move when unobserved.
‘Within the Shadow of Darkness’, which was built by remixing these two classic tropes, originally adhered to the theme of classic ‘fear of the pursued’.
A nightmare in which familiar places and people turn into incomprehensible horrors that chase you down until you’re dead.
However, as exploration records accumulated beyond ten entries, a subtle build-up began to emerge.
Exploration Record #05
Text found on the blackboard :
Avoid the teacher. The teacher is (the rest of the text was crudely erased).
In this way, bits of foreshadowing steadily piled up.
For twelve entries, it had only been accumulating, and the story had gained enough popularity to make it seem like it would keep ‘accumulating’ indefinitely.
‘That sort of thing gets frustrating after a while.’
It becomes difficult to sustain the original theme of fear born from gaps in information.
But then, a thought occurred.
‘If I could explore as an insider, as a student, wouldn’t it add the thrill of retrieving all these clues?’
The thirteenth exploration record I wrote aligned with what the creators of the ghost story had been craving.
Thus, the ghost story of ‘Within the Shadow of Darkness’ reached a new turning point.
From mid-to-late explorations onward, all the eerie foreshadowing scattered throughout the logs would be retrieved, revealing shocking twists.
The latter half was filled with deeper, more story-driven exploration records.
It was a remarkable experience to witness indirectly.
Seeing the seeds I had sown grow into a larger, new story through the contributions of many others.
‘But to actually experience it myself…’
I planned to encounter the very climax of that story a little earlier than expected.
Dressed as a student, I walked down the dark hallway on the third floor of Sekwang Technical High School.
In the distance, I saw ‘monsters’ full of fear slowly disappearing around the corners of the hallway.
The urge to chase them surged and then subsided.
Strangely, existing in this school as a student felt comfortable.
It felt like I was standing where I belonged.
This only intensified the rejection and destructive impulse I felt when witnessing those alien ‘monsters’ roaming the school.
[A death has occurred in Class 2-2.]
When I first heard that announcement, my heart sank.
A bittersweet sadness and a chilling emptiness.
And a sense of duty to uncover the cause of the accident!
[Please observe a moment of silence for five seconds.]
I wanted nothing more than to sprint through the now-brightly lit school, eagerly eliminating the source of this error and ‘observing silence’.
‘I’m not really a student.’
Kim Soleum has many tasks to accomplish.
First, I had to go up to the fourth floor.
I stepped onto the stairs.
The classroom of Class 1-5, which I belong to, is on the second floor.
It seems there’s no reason to go up to the third floor.
A thought that popped up like a notification.
This is why students were described as ‘rarely leaving their assigned floors’.
Of course, I wasn’t bound by that restriction.
I was only borrowing the uniform, not a true student of this school.
Before the blinding ‘light of silence’ that filled the hallway disappeared completely, I reached the fourth floor.
The place was dark, with flickering lights and shattered bulbs.
The floor that had once been filled with dozens of mannequin-like students staring lifelessly was now…
The students now exchanged lively glances, gestured at one another, and silently chatted among themselves.
I bit my tongue to ensure I made no sound.
Students of Sekwang Technical High School had no voices.
If I spoke to them in my normal voice while wearing this borrowed uniform, I would ■■■ ■■■■.
Afterward, I would wake up and regain consciousness.
To think that I would end up bound by the very sentences I had written.
I walked through the crowd of students who occasionally glanced at me indifferently or smiled awkwardly when our eyes met.
Don’t appear awkward…
I passed a corner in the hallway and stopped right before the stairs near the faculty office for the third years.
A small iron door stood there.
It was an ordinary storage area typically used to keep cleaning supplies in schools.
And right in front of it, five or six students were gathered in a tight circle.
If I weren’t wearing Sekwang Technical High School’s uniform, I would have never been able to approach such a densely packed group.
The students looked at me with puzzled expressions.
Why has a first-year come all the way up here?
Their expressions seemed to ask that very question.
I pulled out an A4 sheet of paper I had brought from the infirmary and wrote slowly.
Seniors asked me to fetch a ladder from the storage room.
May I take it with me?
One of the students chuckled, took my pen, and wrote a reply.
When I looked up, another student was already holding a set of keys and shaking them in front of me.
I took the key bundle.
Using the key labeled ‘4F Storage’, I unlocked the storage room and stepped inside.
A place only students could enter.