I looked at the student.
A teenage boy with bleached hair and piercings.
Inside the high school Ghost Story you could enter through dreams on the dark moon, he was one of those beings that killed people when no one was looking, and froze in place when someone was watching.
And yet, if you knew how, he could communicate in a way that clearly possessed intelligence and emotion….
‘A person.’
High school students—ordinary citizens—trapped in Segwang Special City.
My mind reeled.
Then that meant every single one of those entities who, every dark moon, were being wretchedly killed by Baekilmong employees and Disaster Management Agency agents….
‘……’
I placed a hand on my uniform.
My state, contaminated by Segwang Industrial High School, stayed trapped within a certain frame instead of tipping over into raw, chilling terror.
Unless anger arose as a trigger, my basic state was one of emptiness.
That was a relief.
It made this dizziness more bearable.
And it let me keep asking questions.
How are you moving around right now?
All the others are lying on the floor
But.
It’s because of you
Because of me?
Yeah
The ill-tempered student shot me a glance, frowned, and wrote on the paper.
You moved me to the infirmary
After that, even when it isn’t graduation time
I still wake up
‘…!’
I had carried this classmate to an empty bed in the infirmary and made it possible for him to be treated.
And I had borrowed a uniform from him….
‘That affected him.’
Was it because it was an element that hadn’t existed in the “In the Black Shadow” game? Or because the invading error had been formally incorporated as a student, creating some kind of gap?