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Diary
Thump.
Footsteps.
Thump-thump. Thump.
Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Thump. Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump.
The footsteps never stopped.
The clomping footsteps drew nearer.
The guard appeared at the main lobby.
‘Please, just go away...’
I held my breath and curled up.
I watched the outside through a small hole in the door of the cleaning supplies cabinet.
Thump-thump-thump.
The guard roamed endlessly around the main lobby area. He seemed to be looking for someone.
‘Of course, it’s me.’
He’d never dream I was hiding in the cleaning supplies cabinet.
Now it was a battle of endurance.
I waited silently for the guard to leave.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
How much time had passed?
By now, he should’ve given up and gone back, but the guard showed no sign of leaving.
He circled the same spot, lingering in the main lobby.
‘When is he going to leave...’
Thanks to that, I saw no opening to leave the cabinet.
Staying in an uncomfortable crouched position, my back was starting to hurt.
I carefully adjusted my posture.
He wouldn’t notice this much, right?
As I quietly tilted to the side, a creaking sound echoed from near my hips.
Screech!
The old, ancient, heavily rusted metal box boasted the worst durability.
I had barely moved, yet it let out an ear-splitting screech.
I’m fucked!
Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
The guard rushed over at a frightening speed.
A hollow gasp escaped me.
‘Hup!’
I held my breath so he wouldn’t hear me breathing.
The guard’s footsteps were right in front of me.
Thump-thump.
I faced off against the guard through the scrap-metal door.
My tongue was bone-dry.
The narrow, enclosed cleaning supplies cabinet was full of years-old dust.
Even breathing was a struggle.
Showing no sign of leaving, the guard looked around the cabinet.
Every time he passed in front of the door, my heart pounded wildly.
‘Urk.’
Suddenly, my Adam’s apple stung.
I had inhaled too much dust from hiding so long.
It felt like the dust had seeped into my lungs.
My throat began to itch.
The dust crept all the way up my throat.
No matter how hard I tried to hold it in, I had reached my limit.
“Cough! Cough!”
Along with the feeling of contracting pneumonia in real-time, I hacked up the stale dust.
And I knew.
I was truly fucked.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
A chill ran down my spine.
Time seemed to slow down.
Slowly, I moved my eyes to the gap in the door.
There, I locked eyes with the guard standing in front of the cabinet.
“Fuck!!”
Startled, I tumbled over with a loud crash.
The impact sent creaking sounds echoing everywhere.
The guard watched my display.
Then, slowly, the corners of his mouth rose.
It was an expression I’d never seen before.
Facing that look, my heart dropped. I froze on the spot.
I didn’t even think to fight back.
‘I need to move...’
But my body wouldn’t listen.
Grinning, the guard thrust his face forward. And then,
-Creeeak
The cabinet door slowly opened.
The guard welcomed me with a pleased smile.
I couldn’t resist. Like a frog before a snake, I felt death.
The moment I barely tried to move my stiff, frozen legs-
-Crunch
I felt something in my head—the thing handling the most important task—snap.
My mind grew distant. My body went limp, devoid of even the strength to twitch a finger.
Slowly, my vision faded to black.
[You have died.]
[Restarting from checkpoint.]
**
...I opened my eyes to find myself slumped over my desk.
“...”
The classroom was dark.
The clock pointed to exactly midnight, and the notebook open on the desk was exactly as before.
It matched the previous situation perfectly.
Time had rewound, just like before.
As I sat blankly, the ticking of the clock brought me back to reality.
“Hoo...”
My heart was still pounding. The guard’s grinning face flickered before my eyes.
“That fucking bastard...”
My head felt like it was twisted in knots.
Only after patting myself down to check for injuries did I feel grateful to be alive.
It seemed that whenever I died, I returned to the stroke of midnight.
Was this a save point?
Suddenly, I picked up the notebook lying on the desk. Then, a message appeared.
[Obtained Diary.]
I opened the first page.
Numbers were written in red ink.
[00:00]
‘So this was it.’
It must mean the save point.
Returning to the classroom at midnight every time I died proved it.
I pulled up the detailed description of the Diary.
[Diary]
【Can record your journey up to this point. Requires Ink to use.】
[You have no ink.]
‘So I need an item called Ink to save.’
It seemed like something I’d naturally obtain while searching the school.
If I could only save through ink, I had to be careful about when I saved.
‘This is going to be a headache.’
I needed ink to escape the school smoothly.
Resolving to find ink first, I got up.
The classroom scenery came into view.
Desks packed tightly together.
A locker coated in red paint.
The class bulletin board plastered with notices.
It felt nice to see it after so long.
Seeing it again, it was nothing but familiar.
Since I already knew the puzzle’s solution, there was no reason to suffer through it twice.
‘It should be around here... Found it!’
I rummaged through the desk, following my memory.
I quickly found the recorder hidden deep inside the desk.
[10319 Jin Dayeon]
Like last time, I saw the name tag attached to the outside, but I didn’t care one bit.
Even if it belonged to a female student, my actions were justified.
I had no choice if I wanted to survive.
Slobbering on a classmate’s recorder in the middle of the night was my only way to survive.
If this Jin Dayeon girl heard my story, she’d nod in understanding.
‘If she has a complaint, she can come out to the classroom.’
I had a clear conscience.
I immediately put the recorder in my mouth.
The first time was hard, but the second was easy.
I covered the holes in order and slowly blew into it.
“Hoo~”
Pwheeek!
A loud noise echoed out.
And shortly after,
-Clack
The back door lock opened.
Checking whether the guard was there or not, I carefully slipped out of the classroom.
A sense of déjà vu washed over me, knowingly or not.
I calmed myself with shallow breaths.
Hoo, hoo.
I could clearly see what was about to happen. The scene from back then was still vivid.
‘Like hell I’d let him humiliate me again.’
Recalling the guard’s beaming, grinning face, I steeled my resolve.
I set off with the single-minded determination to not get caught this time.
**
Thump. Thump-thump-thump.
Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump.
‘Get lost, hurry up and get lost...’
The footsteps rang in my ears like tinnitus.
I crouched down and squeezed my eyes shut.
The guard swiftly passed in front of the cleaning supplies cabinet. Fortunately, he didn’t find me.
After that, the guard kept sniffing and circling the cabinet.
He seemed to be frantically searching for someone.
‘Get out while I’m asking nicely, you bald bastard.’
I cursed him to rot and disappear.
At that, the guard tilted his head.
It wasn’t because of the curse.
Unable to find me, he twisted his head around as if puzzled.
Eventually, the guard turned his back.
Taking one step, then two, he finally left the main lobby.
Thump-thump.
Perhaps thinking I had fled to the opposite hallway, he disappeared toward the west-side corridor.
‘Ooh, he’s leaving...!’
Good riddance.
I prayed he’d get the hell away from the main lobby even a second sooner.
Thump... Thump...
The footsteps grew distant.
Still, I didn’t let my guard down.
I waited silently until the guard had completely disappeared.
‘Is he gone?’
The footsteps stopped completely.
Silence finally settled over the main lobby.
Only then did I crawl out of the cabinet.
“Cough! Cough!”
The moment I got out, I broke into a fit of coughing.
I hacked up a heap of aged dust lodged deep in my lungs.
My throat was so raw from all the dust I’d inhaled.
After coughing incessantly and pouring out tears and snot, I came back to my senses.
‘I nearly died in there...’
The experience inside the cleaning supplies cabinet was the worst.
It felt like boarding the express train to pneumonia.
In games, you enter wardrobes or trash cans without a second thought.
Reality was different after all. Crouching the entire time I hid, my whole body ached.
“Hoo...”
I stretched lightly and took a breath.
Clean, fresh outside air filled my lungs.
Somehow, I had narrowly survived the crisis.
‘Am I going to have to hide like this from now on?’
If I had to squeeze into the cleaning supplies cabinet every time the guard appeared, it would be quite the ordeal.
I prayed I wouldn’t run into the guard again anytime soon.
Now, where to?
I loosened my stiff body and checked the entrance.
The door locked tight with chains didn’t budge an inch.
Unless I cut them with something like cutters, escape was impossible.
Did that mean there was a cutter somewhere in this school?
RPG Maker games have a final objective for the protagonist.
In Ao Oni, it would be the front door key.
In The Witch’s House, it would be the medicine that melts the roses.
This is how RPG Maker games progress—exploring the building toward that final objective.
Then, the final key to escaping this school was the cutter.
Would it be in a warehouse or something?
I pondered where the cutter might be.
In the midst of that, I discovered a map on the main lobby wall.
[Building Guide]
The detailed layout of the main building was marked, if only briefly.
I scanned the building guide map.
The warehouse where the cutter might be was located in the basement corner of the building.
‘The basement?’
I grasped the approximate location from the map and headed for the stairs near the main lobby.
But I couldn’t go down to the basement.
...It was blocked.
The basement stairs had a shutter pulled down.
A steel plate riddled with holes was blocking the entrance firmly.
As if that weren’t enough, a padlock was attached, too.
Like this, entering the basement was impossible.
I had a feeling this would happen.
Disappointed, I rattled the poor padlock for no reason. A sticker was attached to the padlock surface that read ‘Basement Stairs’.
To open the firmly lowered shutter, I needed the basement stairs key.
Why does everything have to be so complicated?
There wasn’t just one or two things to do.
I organized the situation I was currently in, step by step.
‘To escape the school, I have to cut the chains,’
‘To cut the chains, I need cutters,’
‘To get the cutters, I have to go to the warehouse,’
‘To get to the warehouse, I have to go down the basement stairs,’
‘And to go down the basement stairs, I need the basement stairs key.’
‘Fuck...’
I had a long way ahead.
My breath caught at the mountain of obstacles ahead.
I felt like throwing everything away—escape and all.
But if I wanted to live, I had no choice.
It was all something I had to endure.
Reluctantly, I checked the building guide map again.
The first-floor layout was visible at a glance.
Among them, I searched for a place where the basement stairs key might be.
‘The staff room?’
The staff room was a place where dozens of teachers came and went every day.
It wouldn’t be strange if there was a spare emergency key.
‘I can’t be sure, though.’
I suspected as much but remained skeptical.
Still, there were practically no other options.
As long as there was even a slim chance, I couldn’t just pass it by.
I had no choice but to pin my hopes on the staff room.
‘Well, I’ll know when I get there.’
I headed toward the staff room.
Praying earnestly that the guard wouldn’t pop out along the way.
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