The school had opened in 1958, but it had closed about twenty years ago and had stood abandoned ever since.
The exact reason for its closure was not stated anywhere online. However, Tae-woo had seen accounts of several bloggers who had visited the place only to faint or lose their minds, and that was what had brought him here.
Indeed, the moment he arrived, he could feel an indescribably sinister, oppressive presence.
Weeds had grown waist-high across the playground. The horizontal bars and jungle gym off to one side had rusted into hideous eyesores, and the statue of King Sejong the Great beside the assembly platform was so thoroughly engulfed in vines that its original shape was barely recognizable.
As he passed through the gate and walked toward the playground, he let the cold wind brush against his body.
“Phew.”
He took a short, deep breath, trying to steady his nerves as much as possible.
That was when it happened.
“One, two, my friend—one, two, let's play—one, two, my friend—one, two, let's play—”
A faint sound resembling a little girl's singing began to drift through the air.
This was the first time he had heard singing here. There had been nothing like it when he visited a few days earlier.
Startled, Tae-woo slowly turned toward the source of the sound.
A dark silhouette was swaying back and forth on the horizontal bars.
GULP.
Tae-woo drew his sword and cautiously approached.
CREAK— CREAK— CREAK—
Each time the silhouette swayed, the rusty metal bars gave off a squeal.
The sound was exceedingly slow and rhythmic.
“One, two, my friend—one, two, let's play—one, two, my friend—”
The closer he came, the louder the singing grew.
Tae-woo swallowed hard and directed his flashlight toward it.
He saw a little girl in a skirt, hanging by the backs of her knees from a horizontal bar and swinging like a pendulum, with her back turned toward him.
Her clothes resembled the two-piece outfit a girl from a wealthy family might have worn in the 1970s.
Strangely, although she was hanging upside down, her clothes did not fall toward her head.
Her hair, on the other hand, was grotesquely long, dangling all the way to the ground.
“One, two, my friend—one, two, let's pl—”
The singing stopped abruptly.
The swaying silhouette went still.
The rhythmic squealing of the metal stopped as well.
At the same time, Tae-woo stopped walking.
And then it happened.
Everything took place in the blink of an eye.
THUMP—
The little girl dropped from the horizontal bar and came charging at Tae-woo on all fours like a crazed animal.
The face he glimpsed as she rushed toward him was not a normal human face.
No, she had no face at all.
He had been looking at her from behind, yet even when she charged at him head-on, all he could see was hair, just as though he were still looking at the back of her head.
No matter which direction she faced, there were no features to be seen.
PATTER-PATTER-PATTER-PATTER—
With a grotesque rush of footsteps, the ghost lunged straight at Tae-woo.
SWOOSH—
He immediately slashed his sword horizontally.
SHHHRIP—
The charging ghost was cut in two, both halves flying into the air.
At that same instant, Tae-woo's eyes met those of the bisected ghost.
A sudden instinct told him it had not been destroyed yet.
FLASH—
Without hesitation, he followed up with an upward slash, drawing his blade from below to above.
SHHHRAAK—
The ghost, already severed horizontally and still suspended in the air, was now split vertically as well.
Cut into four pieces, it turned into black smoke in midair, which coiled around Tae-woo.
HISSSSS—
This time, he could distinctly feel the sensation of cutting through something with his sword.
He looked around.
There was no sign of anything resembling the ghost's 'corpse.'
It truly felt as though he had sliced through a soul itself.
When he had cut down the ghosts at the school gate, he had acted without thinking and barely registered the sensation. This time, however, he had felt it clearly.
“Oh.”
Tae-woo looked down at the Ghost-Observing Blade in fascination.
Some of the fear he had been feeling seemed to wash away all at once.
“Excellent.”
He glanced over the interfaces displayed on his smart glasses and nodded.
Everything was functioning normally.
The interfaces themselves were supposed to appear in the recording, so when he played the footage at home, it would look like a first-person video game.
And the recording would show a ghost suddenly emerging from the seemingly empty horizontal bars and attacking him.
At least, that was what Tae-woo expected.
His assignment was to film this place.
He also knew that ghosts could be captured on camera the moment they became aware of the living.
And this school was full of ghosts.
Putting all of that together, being told to film the second floor of the abandoned school was practically the same as being told to record the ghosts there.
Only now did Tae-woo understand what his assignment really meant.
“All right. Let's do it. Just a little more.”
He started walking toward the assembly platform.
STEP— STEP— STEP—
RUSTLE— RUSTLE— RUSTLE—
The weeds brushed softly against his arms and clothes.
Perhaps because his nerves were on edge, even that faint rustling sounded unusually loud to him.
STEP— STEP— STEP— STEP—
—STEP —STEP —STEP —STEP
Then he heard another set of footsteps.
When Tae-woo stopped walking, the other footsteps stopped too.
When he started again, they resumed.
After repeating this several times, he suddenly spun around.
But there was nobody there.
“Did I imagine it?”
He tilted his head in puzzlement.
That was when it happened.
FLICKER—
The display on his smart glasses flashed for an instant.
“Are they malfunctioning?”
He was turning forward again, about to adjust the glasses, when a ghost suddenly appeared right in front of him and swung its hand at him.
Acting on instinct, Tae-woo threw himself backward to avoid the blow.
CLANG—
However, the ghost's hand struck the Ghost-Observing Blade he was holding, knocking it away to the side.
THUMP—
The blade disappeared into the weeds.
Fortunately, because he had synchronized it with his smart glasses, its location appeared as a red dot on the display.
“HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE—”
The problem was that he could not simply rush over and retrieve it.
The ghost standing before him had long, greasy hair hanging down its body. Its eyes, devoid of any whites, gleamed ominously, while thick black liquid streamed from its nose and mouth.
“HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE—”
Its revolting mouth stretched into a faint grin as it laughed, exposing a full set of gray teeth.
At the same time, clumps of the viscous liquid dripped from its mouth.
Tae-woo had no idea what sort of ghost this was.
“SKREEEEEE—”
The ghost hurled itself at him.
He dodged and drew the Blood-Counting Dagger.
“Listen, you must have been human once, right? Can't we talk this over? Please?”
Tae-woo spoke while holding the dagger out in front of him.
The ghost stared at him and began moving its lips rapidly.
“HISS—HACK—HUSH—HISS—HACK—HUSH—HISS—HACK—HUSH—”
A grotesque, whisper-like sound spilled from its mouth.
It was deeply unpleasant.
Simply hearing it left him feeling as filthy and uncomfortable as if someone had poured a bucket of dirty water over his entire body.
“SKREEEEEE—”
The creature suddenly threw itself at him again.
“Damn it!”
Tae-woo swiftly dodged to the side, his eyes widening.
In that instant, he found himself instinctively sensing the exact distance from which he could cut the ghost with the Blood-Counting Dagger.
'Range.'
Just as in real swordsmanship, distance from an opponent was extremely important when designing a video game.
Whether an attack would connect depended on the reach of each weapon and the part of the opposing character's body that could be hit.
That distance was especially important when wielding a short weapon like the Blood-Counting Dagger.
Characters armed with daggers therefore needed to focus all the more on movement skills and critical-hit rates.
And now those distances were being calculated in his head with astonishing ease.
SHHHRAAK—
The instant the calculation was complete, Tae-woo swept past the ghost, slicing across its side.
HISSS—
Black smoke began to curl from the wound in the ghost's flank.
Apparently, he had only managed to cut it shallowly.
The ghost scowled as though enraged and swung its long arms.
There was no opening for him to close the distance.
'I need more reach!'
To defeat this ghost easily, he needed a longer weapon than the Blood-Counting Dagger.
In other words, he had to retrieve the Ghost-Observing Blade he had just dropped.
Taking the risk, Tae-woo threw himself toward the red dot marking where the blade had fallen.
GRAB—
He seized the sword, immediately rolled once across the ground, and lowered his stance.
At that very moment, the ghost spread both arms and lunged for his head.
Still crouching low, Tae-woo raised the Ghost-Observing Blade vertically and slashed through the attacking ghost from top to bottom.
SHHHRAAAAK—
The ghost's body split into two halves, which dissolved into black smoke and disappeared.
WHOOOO—
At the same time, the sickening discomfort that had overwhelmed him vanished as though it had been washed away.
“I-I did it.”
He could feel his courage growing little by little.
Ghosts, once objects of terror, were now becoming enemies he could cut down and eliminate.
Tae-woo fastened the Blood-Counting Dagger at his waist again and adjusted his grip on the Ghost-Observing Blade.
Then he continued across the playground toward the school building.
* * *
The assembly platform in front of the school building gradually drew nearer.
Beside it stood what appeared to be a statue of King Sejong the Great. Covered in vines, it looked exceptionally grotesque.
With his high-powered flashlight switched on, Tae-woo kept moving forward, constantly scanning his surroundings.
STEP— STEP— STEP— SQUELCH—
Something soft and yielding gave way beneath his foot.
At the same time, he noticed the display on his smart glasses ripple once more.
Tae-woo immediately remembered the ghost he had encountered on his previous visit.
The one whose face had emerged from the ground!
The one that had sent insects crawling up his trouser legs!
The one that had grabbed his ankle and knocked him down!
He immediately looked down.
Sure enough, a ghost with extremely small pupils was glaring up at him from among the weeds.
“Hah!”
As though he had been waiting for this very moment, Tae-woo reversed his grip on the sword and stabbed it into the ground.
CRUNCH!
He had been aiming to drive the blade straight into the ghost's head.
But the ghost vanished in an instant, leaving him stabbing nothing but the dirt.
Tae-woo furrowed his brow and looked ahead.
There stood a ghost roughly two meters tall, its hair hanging all the way down to its knees.
Just like the one he had seen before, it had gray skin and pupils no larger than beans. Its black dress gave it an air reminiscent of a Grim Reaper.
“I can cut that one down too. I can cut that one down too.”
Tae-woo muttered to himself and tightened his grip on the sword.
Suddenly, the ghost opened its mouth wide and flung its hair outward in every direction.
Like Medusa's serpents, the strands of hair stretched out all around it, writhing in a grotesque, limp fashion.