Ghost Story Club

[Once again, this is the broadcasting room… Currently there is a power outage within the school and thus we can’t broadcast the ceremony through the monitors in-class.
For this reason the entrance ceremony will be held at the field at the front of the school, so all first years should gather at the field.]

The students headed out whilst complaining.
I didn’t budge, as I was still just spacing out.
When most of the students headed out and only a few of us were left, I finally remembered.

‘That teacher will come to the classroom again and lead us out now huh····.’

Its already been 3 years.
But it was a memory that I simply couldn’t forget even after all this time.

As I had predicted, I hear footsteps from the corridor.
A young female teacher finds us and peers into the classroom.

“Why aren’t you all going outside?”

“·····.”

I look around the classroom, and I see three other students.

One small girl who has a puppy-ish face, and looks like she still belongs in middle school.

A rather skinny glasses wearing boy who seemed to give off both vibes of a model student and rich kid equally.

And lastly, a girl who dyed her hair yellow, and was lying face down on her desk and sleeping in the back of the class.

“Come on~.
Let’s head out everyone.
Go wake up the girl sleeping back there as well.”

  The teacher was leaning on the door with her arms crossed, implying that she was going to stand there until she checked that all of us were heading out.

The glasses boy and the puppy-faced girl just hesitate in their seats, as if they didn’t want to be the one approaching the girl at the back.

  I could see the reason why.
The back row girl definitely looked like a delinquent.
Her yellow dyed hair and large bright red padded jacket both gave off that feel.

‘So they’re both scared to wake her up.’

I sighed.
What happened in my previous life again? I think she woke up on her own after we waited for her a bit.

I was still processing going back 3 years in time, but I decided maybe doing something right now would help me clear my mind.

“···I’ll wake her up.”

   I told them as I headed to the back row seats.
Regardless of everything that happened, I was still technically 3 years older than these students.
I was already done with my high school life, and all I had left was to actually graduate.

   The girl had an intimidating aura about her, but high school hierarchies and school groups like jocks were just laughable concepts to an adult like me.

“H, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, h, hh ······.“

But then why is my voice shaking.

I coughed lightly and continued.

“H, h ·····.”

Ahem.

“Hey··· Th··· The teacher said that we should head out ······.”

   She had no reaction, so I gathered my courage and lightly tapped on her jacket.
Finally, the girl slowly raised her head with a disheveled expression.

In the end, the four of us followed the teacher out to the corridor.

‘Damn it··· If I go through the ceremony again, the same things will happen······.”

I need to do something different.

I can’t deal with having to experience my head bloating up, or running away till I pass out exhausted.

First, I had to find a way to avoid the ceremony.
‘But how?’

   The teacher also seemed to be moving with us to the field, so I couldn’t just slip out on my own.
After racking my brain for a while, in the end I decided to play sick.

“Uh, miss?”

“Yeah?”

The teacher looks back at me as I call her.

“I actually had a bad case of anemia since I was little···.
I pass out if I stand in one place too long or get too much sunlight·····.”

“Oh, really?”

The teacher observes me while making a hmm sound.

“You don’t look that skinny though.”

“Actually, unlike what most people think, anemia isn’t really related to weight so·····.”

“Really?”

The teacher looks at me again while thinking to herself.

“Is it that bad? Enough that you can’t get through the ceremony?”

I saw my chance and pretended to be even more sick.

“Yeah, my head is really dizzy today too··· I might be in some serious danger if I stay outside·····.”

   I shook my head and put on a little frown.
For a moment I was wondering if she would fall for such a shitty act, but she seemed to be half buying it.

I quickly push in a few more sentences.

   “Well once I’m outside it’s difficult to take a break because of all the other students··· and if I collapse then my mom will go full karen and turn the school upside down·····.”

   To be honest, I assumed my attending the ceremony shouldn’t be much of an importance to this teacher.
She was simply a faculty member passing by the first year’s classes and was just lightly reminding us to attend.
No pressure, right?

The teacher nodded her head, as if she decided.

“Alright.
Then I’ll take you to the nurse’s office.
You won’t know where it is, so I’ll take you.
You can just take a rest while the ceremony goes on.”

“Thank you very much!”

I’d succeeded, probably.

“The rest of you have to go to the ceremony without any detours, okay?”

“Yes ma’am······.”

The other students reply lifelessly and move in the direction of the field.
The delinquent girl’s sour face was amusing to see.

The teacher left for the field after she took me to the nurse’s office.
After I took some time laying on the bed there, I went back up to the classroom when no one was looking.

‘I’m not just going to lay there again while my face gets turned into an inflatable again!’

How should I change the situation·····.
I need to find some kind of variable that can make a difference this time.

   I vaguely remember the newscasters talking about the differences between the survivors and those who died when discussing the incident soon after I woke up in the hospital last time.
In my first attempt, I died even after I jumped off the gates and escaped the school.
And the second time, I barely survived due to running far enough away.
But I heard that even some students who ran as far as I did still got caught up and died.

Just running away far and quickly isn’t the answer.

There has to be a reason I lived that one time.

   As I was thinking and opened the door to the classroom, I saw something unexpected.
The three kids who seemed to be heading out to the field.
The young-looking girl, glasses boy, and delinquent girl.
They were seated back in the classroom.

What’s with this situation.

“Uh, why are you guys here again?”

“Ah, umm·····.”

   When I asked, the small girl was caught off guard and hesitated, then pointed at the direction of the delinquent girl and answered, “We were about to··· but then she went back to the class so we did the same····.”

   In the time that the teacher took me to the nurse’s office, the delinquent girl seemed to have nonchalantly turned back up to the classroom.
And the other two seemed to have followed suit.

“You guys have some nerves huh.”

“I mean·····.”

The girl seemed to be nervous and fidgety.
Though she was the same age as me, she looked and acted like someone younger.

Was it because she was secretly disobeying the teacher’s orders? Still, you don’t have to be that nervous about it.

‘I’m in the same position as you guys anyway.’

I felt that I should look for more clues by talking to these two, so I did what I normally wouldn’t have done and I introduced myself first.

“My name is Lee Jun.
Pretty short name right?”

*TN: For this translation, I used the Korean order of putting the surname in front of the first name.
So in the case of Lee Jun, his surname is Lee while his first name is Jun.

After I did the girl told me her name in a low energy voice.

“My name is Yoon Sunah······.”

She added in a small nice to meet you at the end, and her face turned a little red.

I thought that maybe she might not be used to talking to people much.

Right after the glasses boy said his greetings in a rather stiff tone while staring at me.

“I’m Ahn Gyeongwon.
I heard you had anemia.
Is it alright for you to stay here in class?”

What the··· I called him glasses boy because he wore glasses, but I didn’t expect him to actually have glasses in his name.

*TN: Glasses translates to Ahn Gyeong in Korean lol.
Very creative name.

“Yeah, I’m good.
I was just making the anemia part up anyway.”

“What?”

Gyeongwon acted surprised, while Sunah giggled quietly.

“Looks like you’re the one who has nerves, not us.”

“Well··· it is what it is.”

   I was wondering why the boy was putting on such a stiff tone, but then remembered that everyone in high school put on a character at the start of the year anyway.

The backseat girl continued sleeping, as if she wasn’t interested in joining the conversation.

I asked Sunah and Gyeongwon to see if they had any clues I needed.

“So why did you two stay in class in the first place?”

“I·····.”

Sunah slowly started replying first.

“I’m just naturally slow at things·····.”

“···Oh okay.”

She didn’t really seem to have any proper reason.

Just then.
A new message popped up in front of me.

 

[Your level of understanding of Yoon Sunah rose by 5.]

[More details can be checked after you unlock the status window.]

 

‘Another weird game system···.’

Gyeongwon replied right after I closed the message.

“I didn’t go out because it reminded me of the school announcement urban legend.”

“What?”

“The school announcement urban legend.
Because there’s a power shortage.”

Gyeongwon checked my confused face, then continued to explain.

  “One day there was a power shortage at school, and suddenly there was an announcement by the broadcasting room ordering students to gather at the track field.
It’s a really famous one, haven’t you heard of it?”

“Urban legend······?”

Urban legend.

Seems familiar···.

I opened the message window in front of me.

 

『Welcome to Nakseong High School, a school filled with mysteries and secrets.
Uncover the dark secrets hidden within the school, and fight against urban legends and myths·····.』

 

Urban legends and myths.
Words that I’ve seen multiple times every time I died.
Maybe it’s related to the situation at hand?

“Sorry, but could you explain a bit more?”

“Huh?”

My serious request seemed to have thrown Gyeongwon off a little.

“Which part?”

“The urban legend.
I want to hear more details.”

  He seemed to be confused and looked around a bit, but soon nodded his head and started the story.
The tone was as if he was reading information off a book.

  “One day, a power outage occurred as everyone was staying at school during an evening study session.
The students were surprised at the sudden darkness, but soon an announcement came out from the classroom speakers.
It was an announcement that class will end early because of the power outage, and because of that everyone needed to gather around the track field.”

  Gyeongwon seemed to be the type of guy who loved showing off knowledge, and so continued the story naturally without any awkwardness.

 

[Your level of understanding of Ahn Gyeongwon rose by 10.]

[More details can be checked after you unlock the status window.]

 

At this point Sunah also joined us and was focusing on the story too.

The school announcement urban legend went something like this.

There was an announcement to come out to the school track field because of the power outage.

  The students were happy and took their bags to head out to the field, but the student with the highest grades in the school didn’t follow them out and was sitting in class instead.
The student with the second highest grades asked him why he wasn’t heading out.

He replied.

“How can there be a school announcement if there is a power outage?”

“·····.”

I was waiting for the next sentence, and then asked.

“···Is that all?”

“Yep, that’s all.
First time hearing it?”

“No, I think I remember hearing it a long time ago·····.”

I think it was in one of those little horror story books in those small stationary stores when I was young.

“Is there anything else to the story?”

“Yeah, this should be the ending.”

“···I see.”

Gyeongwon sees my serious face, gives out a little cough, and adds a little more.

“But there are a lot of versions to the story, so for example there’s a version where the two look out the window to see the whole school field being covered in blood et cetera ·····.”

The whole school field covered in blood.

I continue to ask him.

“So what happened to the two at the end? Did they survive?”

  “Well I’m not sure, but considering the flow of the story beats I bet they did.
But I don’t know even if you ask me.
It’s just a spooky story, not something that happened in real life anyway.”

Gyeongwon laughed a little, as if it was weird to see me dig so deep into a simple story like this.

“You shouldn’t take a meaningless story like this so seriously, you know·····.”

“But you didn’t head out because you took the story seriously though right?”

“Well, I was thinking of it a little, but that’s not the biggest reason I guess.”

Gyeongwon acted a bit shy, but seemed to enjoy this chance to show off that he was knowledgeable.
He continued to explain.

 

[Your level of understanding of Ahn Gyeongwon rose by 10.]

[More details can be checked after you unlock the status window.]

 

  “I just thought that if there was a power outage we wouldn’t be able to use any equipment like the podium mics anyway, so I thought the teachers would send us back after realizing they aren’t working.”

He didn’t want to go back and forth for no reason huh.

“So I was sitting down because I thought not heading out in the first place would be more convenient.”

“··· I see.”

In other words he was just lazy I suppose.
This guy didn’t really have a serious reason either.

“Then what do you think of the speakers working despite the power outage?”

  Gyeongwon at least seemed more knowledgeable than I did, so I asked him about the question that was floating in my head from the start.
Though the story might have been fake, the speakers still worked despite the outage.
What really happened?

“Hmm, that’s·····.”

Gyeongwon thought to himself for a while.
He replied while frowning his eyebrows a little.

“Maybe the power source is different or something?”

“···Really?”

“It’s just an assumption.
I’m not sure actually.”

Different power sources.
Is that even possible?

  Of course, I’m not an electrician or anything, but I thought that forcing scientific explanations into a freak incident like this wasn’t the answer.
How can you even begin to explain mass head explosions? Bioterrorism? Really?

I open the message window and look at it once more.

『Welcome to Nakseong High School, a school filled with mysteries and secrets.
Uncover the dark secrets hidden within the school, and fight against urban legends and myths·····.』

  Urban legend.
That term still bugged me.
I couldn’t help but think it explained the situation at hand.
If the reason the speakers still worked in spite of the power going out was because I became caught up in the ‘school announcement urban legend’.

  Then what I had to do was simple.
I just had to sit down in class, just like the two students did in the story.
Because that was how the students survived there.

“Umm······.”

Sunah stammers while not looking at me directly.

“I also think it’s an interesting story····.”

Wha···? Sunah gives me her opinion way after we finished talking.
She told me she was slow, but it’s this bad?

‘Oh shit, wait.’

  I didn’t realize because I was caught up thinking while putting on and reading the message window, but to her it looked like I was staring at her instead.
That’s why felt like she had to give me her short review.

“Sorry, sorry! I wasn’t staring at you expecting you to answer or anything.”

“Okay·····.”

 

Just then.

 

I hear the principal start to give his speech from the window.

 

“Ah ah, can you hear me? Okay good.
New students of Nakseong High School, I welcome you with open arms.”

The principal begins, oblivious as to what could happen to him.

Normally his head would explode before he even finishes speaking three sentences.

“Well, first thing’s first, I sincerely congratulate you on your entrance to this prestigious school.”

Please······.

“I am······.”

 

Thump.
thump.

 

“the···”

 

 

“principal···”

 

 

 

 

 

“···Shin Moonhyup.
Our Nakseong High School has given way to many prodigies since its opening in the year 1984.
Our 40 years of history and tradition makes us one of the best schools in the Gwanak ward.
You students will be global leaders of the 21st century who will be kind, ethical, and harness the Fourth industrial Revolution····· creativity yadda yadda ······ automation··· cryptocurrency etc ·····.”

 

I survived!

I made it through!!

 

[D rank urban legend – You have survived the school announcement urban legend.]

[You have received 5 Ghost Points.]

 

A new message pops up instantly.

“Wheeeeew··· Damn·····.”

I sigh deeply.

That was the answer?!

I went through all that bullshit when there only had to be one student in class!

‘So none of the freshmen stayed in school all this time·····?’

Soon I realized the reason.

The female teacher.

  The damn teacher was walking through the corridors and taking all the students out······.
I found the whole situation ridiculous, but also felt my body deflating after being on pressure for so long.
I didn’t realize it until now, but both my body and mind were extremely on edge from preparing for my third potential death.

  I was also wondering if everyone else would die and we would be the only survivors just like in the story.
But I maybe it was not as difficult as that because what happened was just a tutorial.
Or because there were many versions of the story, just like Gyeongwon said.

Anyway, everything seemed to be resolved for now.

‘Seriously, all I had to do was just sit down··· What the fuck···.’

I felt a bit dumb.

As I sat there relieved, other messages started popping up.

 

[The Tutorial]

『You are a normal, rather reserved student, who isn’t particularly good at anything nor has much charisma.
Thus you have had a pretty boring school life until now.
Today is the first day of your three years at high school.

For others today may be very exciting, but for you it’s business as usual.
But after experiencing the entrance ceremony, you have a creeping feeling that ‘this school is far from normal’.
This ominous feeling may foreshadow that the events that you’ll experience here are not those of simple criminal nature.

And instead are something more insane, and of the paranormal kind.

Anyway, today is just the first day of your long and treacherous 3 year journey.
You don’t pay much attention to hunch you have, and let it pass.』

 

[Quest – Tutorial]

Make three friends in order to create a club.
(Currently 0/3) Rewards: 10 Ghost Points, and the unlocking of the status window.

 

 

[You have cleared the quest.]

[You have received 10 Ghost Points.]

[The status window has been unlocked.]

 

Messages similar to a game system popped up, but I didn’t have the energy to check them out.

“You guys would not believe what I just went through.”

“·····?”

The two look at me confusedly.

Not caring, I shook my head and let out another deep sigh.

Then I decided to spend the rest of my time chatting with my two new friends.

Because there’s nothing better for one’s mental health than idle chats with buddies.