Chapter 5

Chapter 5. Can't Stop the Camera?

「Fuck, what is this?! What is it, fuck!」

「Aaaaaaaagh!」

「Get out! Damn it, through the back door!」

「Wh-What……?」

「Get the fuck up and fucking run!」

Frantic shouts and screams. The sound of feet sprinting across the marble floor. The sharp crack of shattering glass. Groans of pain from someone slipping in a pool of blood. The sound of someone sobbing after seeing only half of a classmate’s face. The sound of someone being shoved around, collapsing, and retching up the contents of their stomach.

「Huuung, the door won’t, sob, open! What do we do…….」

「Everyone, move! We can break it!」

Students and teachers had gathered in front of the school’s central entrance like a chaotic marketplace.

THUNK! BANG!

「No, why is this…….」

Even when they threw a fire extinguisher with all their strength, it bounced back as if it had struck an iron door instead of a glass one.

「Aaaagh, fuck, run! That bastard’s coming down!」

RATTLE, BANG!

The entire student body and the teachers, all thrown into panic, began rushing into any place they could find.

「Hey, open the door! Let me in!」

And in the middle of all that, there were always people who fell behind.

「I said open the door, fuck! You’re not opening it? You fucking, parentless bastards. I saw all your faces. Yeah, fine, try surviving real fucking well! I’ll drag every last one of you to that masked bastard.」

This male student, whose roots were badly in need of dyeing, hid on the central staircase that led from the first floor down to the basement.

The unidentified mask came down to the first floor and looked around, but instead of going farther down to the basement where the male student was, it walked into the first-floor corridor.

The male student used that chance to quickly go up to the second floor.

CLUNK.

He tried opening the door to the faculty office, which was the first thing he saw, but it was locked.

「Fuck……!」

The male student forced his voice lower. It seemed he thought he should not cause any more commotion.

Just as he turned, apparently to look for somewhere else.

「Wh-Who are you……?」

A timid girl’s voice came from inside the faculty office.

「Who the fuck do you think? Open the door……! Please.」

The male student softened his tone belatedly.

A muffled sound came from inside, and before long, the faculty office door opened with a click.

「You’re…… human, right?」

「What the fuck? Are your eyes decorations?」

「N-No……. I’m sorry…….」

A bob-haired girl looked up at the male student and watched his reaction.

「At first, I thought you were a mask, so I couldn’t open it right away……. I’m sorry…….」

「Ugh, fuck, forget it.」

The male student looked around the faculty office.

This girl was not the only one there.

There was a teacher who seemed unable to walk, a male student who might have been dead or unconscious, and a long-haired girl curled up in a corner, crying.

With the male student’s arrival, there were five of them in total.

The scene of them introducing themselves quickly passed by.

The male student in need of improving his language habits was a third-year.

The bob-haired girl who had first opened the door was a first-year.

The teacher, whose sprained ankle had been set with a makeshift splint, was in charge of Korean language.

The bespectacled male student who had lost consciousness and then woken up was a second-year.

The haggard-looking girl with long, straight hair was a third-year.

「There are three of those masked bastards?」

「Yes. The one I saw had only one eyehole on the left side, and the one that second-year senior over there saw only had an eyehole on the right side.」

The mask the third-year male student had seen had only the shape of a mouth corner, as if it were faintly smiling.

「Does each mask have a grade it’s in charge of?」

「I think so.」

For a long while, they talked, repeatedly growing agitated and calming back down.

Then what about the faculty? Why was this happening? Had this place really undergone Labyrinthization? Invasive Labyrinths were places even Raiders rarely entered, so how could they get out? How long did they have to stay here? Why the fuck did this place have to become a Labyrinth?!

「But quite a bit of time has passed now, and nothing seems to be happening, right? Maybe they’re gone?」

「How about we check?」

「Check, my ass. What are you going to do if we run into one the moment we open the door?」

The third-year male student refuted the second-year male student’s words.

The second-year male student flinched for a moment, but he did not back down.

「But we’ll have to go out someday. We don’t know how long we’ll be trapped, so we need to go to the cafeteria and get drinks and food.」

「……You’re smart, bastard. But the problem is this. Who’s going to open the door and go out first? You brought this up because you’re ready to go out, right?」

The bespectacled male student looked at the delinquent-looking third-year’s face, then sighed briefly.

「Yes, I was planning to go out my—」

「No, everyone. I’ll do it.」

The Korean language teacher, who had taken painkillers from a fellow teacher’s drawer, limped forward.

「In any case, you said those masks seem to attack you students before they attack teachers. Maybe that’s why they don’t enter the faculty office. Even though they would break through classroom doors when necessary.」

「That’s true, but…….」

「Then I should be the one to go out.」

And so, after making clumsy preparations, the Korean language teacher opened the front door of the faculty office.

RATTLE.

「Gasp.」

「Fuck.」

A white mask with a black, hollow left eye stood in front of the door.

The bob-haired girl squeezed her eyes shut.

「Hey. Open your eyes.」

The third-year male student tapped the first-year girl’s shoulder.

Fortunately, the Korean language teacher had not been torn apart.

He was merely facing the mask with his fingertips trembling.

「Looks like they really don’t touch teachers. It’s not forcing its way in either.」

「Ha, haha…….」

The Korean language teacher made a sound that was neither a relieved sigh nor a laugh, his eyes reddening.

「Th-then, I’ll be back, all right? Stay quiet. Don’t fight.」

Rattle, tap.

The Korean language teacher carefully limped out of the faculty office, making sure not to touch the mask.

「Three hours. At this point, we should assume he’s dead.」

And he never came back.

「No matter how injured his leg was, it doesn’t make sense that going to the cafeteria and back would take three hours.」

「Then Teacher is d-dead…….」

「We have to move while assuming that.」

I also had a gut feeling that the Korean language teacher would not appear again until the end of this movie.

At least, not while alive.

A Labyrinth was not an easy place.

If there was a hostile entity assigned to students, it was right to assume there was also a hostile entity assigned to faculty and staff.

A Labyrinth was fair. Even if it was unjust.

If a certain rule did not apply to someone, then another rule would apply to that person instead.

But it was not their fault that they failed to realize that.

A Labyrinth, especially an Invasive Labyrinth, was an unknown space-time.

And in a situation where people close to them were dying horribly, there was no way they could make proper judgments.

「Then let’s go to the broadcasting room like we decided earlier, Senior.」

「O-Okay.」

「Don’t be too scared. If something happens, you can just use me as bait and run. What matters is that you get to the broadcasting room, Senior.」

The bespectacled second-year male student and the long-haired third-year girl moved to the broadcasting room on the same floor.

Fortunately, nothing happened.

While the second-year male student kept watch beside the door, the third-year girl operated the broadcasting equipment.

Maybe she had been in the broadcasting club, because she handled the equipment skillfully even with trembling hands.

BEEEEEP―.

Sound began coming from the speakers.

「The broadcast you are hearing now is a recording I made and played in front of the broadcasting room microphone. As soon as this broadcast begins, I will immediately return to the second-floor faculty office…….」

Just as stated, the two students heard the first sentence broadcast safely, then immediately ran out and returned to the faculty office.

「……The third-years have the mouth-shaped mask. We have confirmed that there are masks in charge of each of the three grades. These masks do not attack teachers first, and they do not seem to enter the faculty office…….」

In the middle, there was an explanation of how the Korean language teacher had disappeared and a request for information on his whereabouts.

「……We intend to work together and bring food from the cafeteria. If you are alive, please gather in the faculty office…….」

I knew how this movie ended.

Those children, everyone in that school, would die.

Watching the final record of them while they had still been vividly alive, knowing that fact, felt…….

“Urgh…….”

Surely I wouldn’t die just for dirtying the seat, right?

Then they should’ve let me go to the restroom in the middle in the first place.

I looked away from the seat beside me, which had become somewhat damp and heavy.

「Everyone, after a day passed, the school store really restocked itself! We don’t have to worry about food anymore!」

「Teacher, if you find a kid wearing a skirt, you need to run away or hide right away. You remember, right? None of us are wearing skirts anymore.」

「Those masks basically have fixed routes, and it looks like their patterns sometimes change depending on nearby reactions or changes in the environment.」

The tightly united members of Seonghwa High learned the Labyrinth’s rules with their bodies day by day.

「No! Let go of me!」

「You have to g-go, unni. If you don’t go now, you’ll also…….」

In that process, people decreased one by one.

As time passed, the light faded from the survivors’ eyes.

「Fuck, if you had the kind of personality to slam the door shut and abandon people, you could’ve at least survived properly. Fucking idiots right to the end.」

The rooftop of Seonghwa High School became a crematorium and a communal cemetery.

「K-Kids. Our Seonghyeon, you know Kim Seonghyeon, right? Kim Seonghyeon from second-year class three. I’m his mom. Seonghyeon, where is Seonghyeon?」

「Yerim! What about our Yerim? Lee Yerim from third-year class one! It’s Dad! Where is my daughter?!」

Ah.

Come to think of it, was it about a month after Seonghwa High School underwent Labyrinthization?

It was around the time public interest was slowly fading in the tragedy that had occurred at a small general high school in the provinces with fewer than two hundred students.

I remembered there had been an uproar when several parents secretly entered after taking advantage of a gap when the control around the Labyrinth had grown lax.

「How did you all get in here? What are they saying outside? Did you come in only with the other adults? What about everyone else? The Raiders? A rescue team or anything?」

「Can’t you tell by looking at them? None of that shit is coming. They gave up. Then again, since when have they ever sent people into an Invasive-type?」

Unlike Contact-type Labyrinths, Invasive Labyrinths were places the government strictly blocked people from entering.

Even veteran Raiders who had resolved multiple Contact-type Labyrinths were stopped first, no exceptions.

If they carelessly allowed citizens to enter a space where 99 percent of those who went in died, in a situation where they had no idea how to respond, how massive would the aftermath be?

To formally enter an Invasive Labyrinth, one first had to undergo multiple psychological evaluations and counseling sessions, then fill out and submit all kinds of complicated documents in preparation for one’s own injury or death, and then undergo another review.

Usually, while people were going through that arduous procedure, the Invasive Labyrinth would already have been resolved. Through total annihilation.

In other words, even highly trained agents, not to mention Raiders who made their living resolving Contact-type Labyrinths, avoided these places, so civilians obviously must not enter.

「Huhuh, S-Seonghyeon……. Oh, my poor baby…….」

But parents were helpless in their own way.

That feeling that drove them to do something insane no matter what.

「Seonghyeon’s mother, where are you……. What is that?! Ma’am! Come this way right now!」

「Oh, my puppy……. Where were you……. Mom’s here. Let’s go now. I’ll make your favorite japchae and braised short ribs, okay? Hurry, let’s go…….」

「Aaaagh, ma’am! That isn’t Kim Seonghyeon! You have to come to your senses! Ha, this is insane. That thing doesn’t even have a head!」

「Kim Seonghyeon is dead, ma’am! That’s the Labyrinth pulling some bullshit to kill you!」

A new hostile entity of the Labyrinth, mainly responsible for parents and guardians, had appeared, and several more people decreased because of it.

「I hear rain.」

However, humans were creatures of adaptation.

「Yeah. Let’s hang umbrellas in each class later. But what day is it today?」

Their monotonous days continued. They woke up at a set time, followed a set route to obtain food, searched for clues that might resolve the Labyrinth, returned, and slept again at a set time.

「Wednesday.」

「Then we can’t run on the stairs during lunchtime.」

At some point, people stopped dying because the masks unexpectedly attacked them.

「Bye.」

Even so, name tags increased on the rooftop.

「What more are we supposed to do here to get out? What the hell else do we have to do? Maybe we really all have to die…….」

「If you’re going to spout that kind of dogshit nonsense, go shut your mouth and eat some bread. Your head’s fucked because you’re low on carbs right now.」

「How do I eat bread if my mouth is shut…….」

Time passed like that.

The screen focused on the desk calendar in the faculty office.

December 31 was circled.

「You said we might be able to get out on the day of the school-break ceremony! You said we’d all be able to get out together! Aaaaaagh!」

That day, most of the few remaining children broke down.

「Please, please don’t do this. Let’s hang on just a little longer, okay? There’s still the end-of-school-year ceremony, right? Please…….」

「What if we can’t get out then either? Huh? Then what are we supposed to do? That scares me even more. Just how much longer do we have to rot in this sewer?」

The final destination of the children, who wanted to leave the school but could not, was the rooftop.

Time passed again.

One day, the third-year male student with black hair, who no longer needed root dyeing, opened his locker and froze from head to toe.

[Congratulations on your graduation, Yun Haejun!]

Inside the locker were a graduation congratulation postcard, a parent notice explaining the graduation ceremony schedule, a pitch-black graduation gown and square mortarboard, and a splendid bouquet.

That day was February 5.

The day of Seonghwa High School’s 26th graduation ceremony.