Chapter 248

Episode 248

Jeong In-ho was born with poor empathy skills, but as he grew into an adult, he learned to understand and respect the emotions of others. Despite this, Jeong In-ho was unable to empathize emotionally with anyone. Even though he intellectually understood why he was crying and laughing and had a vague sense of it, he still couldn’t shake off the calculating thoughts.

However, after experiencing the hidden world, Jung In-ho’s range of emotions increased. Should I say that I feel like my emotional threshold, which only ranged from 1 to 5, has increased to at least 10? Even when Jung In-ho returned to reality, he tried not to forget that feeling. This was because I knew that such emotions were necessary to form a deeper and more solid relationship than just business.

Even Jeong In-ho could not help but be swayed by irrational emotions when he saw Lee Jae-heon.

“How long until class ends now? If that friend was hit by a monster, we would have to rescue him quickly. Are there any disadvantages to joining class in the middle of class?”

“There are probably about 30 minutes left. Then there is a 10-minute break. Park Da-hoon has organized the rules, so go in and check them before moving on, mister.”

“okay. “The kids are waiting here... Actually, I think I can go alone.”

In-ho Jeong called Jae-heon Lee.

“Boss?”

“what.”

“Are you serious?”

“If you were serious, please cancel, Mr. Lee Jae-heon.”

“Why doesn’t the detective say the right thing? Please take care of yourself.”

“I don’t know why everyone tells me to be careful when they see me.”

“Hahaha....”

Lee Jae-heon had a knack for making people’s emotions intense.

‘It’s okay in real life, but now you’re talking nonsense again.’

That person was a typical type of person who ‘understands other people’s feelings but cannot sympathize with them.’ Being duller than Jung In-ho, who was naturally less empathetic and suffered abuse from his parents, meant that he was an incredibly crazy person. Maybe this time too, I’m talking about rationality and efficiency in my head.

“Honestly, wouldn’t that be much more efficient? After listening to the kids, it seems like there is a monster wandering around in the hallway on the 4th floor, so it would be more maneuverable and reasonable to be alone...” “You

son of a bitch.”

“What man?”

“I’m sorry. Stop saying what I’ve been keeping inside.”

“Are you saying this wasn’t a mistake for so long?”

“The manager needs to say something.”

Jeong In-ho looked at Lee Jae-heon with sad eyes.

‘How can you have such no learning ability?’

How can you choose such wrong things to say? It would have been less offensive if he had been a little less confident in what he said, but I was very annoyed because he seemed to have no doubts that what I was saying was obviously right and that it was wrong. At best, it has the effect of making any desire to be cooperative disappear.

Suddenly, Jeong In-ho thought, ‘How can making people angry like this be any different from when I used to act like a brat?’, but he immediately changed his mind. Anyway, the story of a competent old man and an incompetent old man was a bit different. In the first place, I wondered if it was okay to put the word ‘competent’ in front of the word ‘kkondae’...

“....”

“Jung In-ho? “Are you angry?”

“I’m not angry.”

This is the problem with the underworld. Even if a little time passes, my thoughts keep wandering elsewhere.

“Kids, where is the safe classroom?”

“hey. I’m in the 3rd grade and 2nd class, and probably after this class and recess are over, we’ll have school rules again. Was it originally number 4...? I said it was written down. Right.”

“that’s right. “Friends get along well... let’s bet on that.”

The students who accepted Jeong In-ho’s words in response moved to the 3rd grade 2nd class, led by adults. The two students he saw for the first time today looked at the siblings strangely, asking, ‘What on earth are they so calm?’, but Jeong In-ho was just grateful.

‘They are quick-witted children, so they will be able to prevent the manager from trying to overdo it.’

When he first entered the secret world, In-ho Jeong was very confused and hated the innocent students, but when he returned to reality, he realized how stupid it was. However, that did not mean that Jeong In-ho and the siblings had developed a great friendship or trust with each other.

They had more of a business relationship. The emotions that come and go are dry, and neither of us has any complaints about it. They were satisfied and cooperated because they had a common goal of preventing Lee Jae-heon’s crazy actions.

“....”

Why do I have to do this?

‘Even taking advantage of students?’

For a moment, Jeong In-ho looked around with a sense of self-destruction and skepticism, and realized that Lee Jae-heon was quite far behind. As I kept looking towards the back, it seemed like they were on guard for a monster coming down the stairs or something coming out of the classroom. I was very thankful for that, but it was also frustrating.

“...Boss?”

“What’s wrong?”

It was even clearer when I saw him ask a question with his eyes wide as if he was slightly surprised. It is true that the group let down their guard for a moment, but it was a bit complicated to just thank Lee Jae-heon for something he usually did.

“No, I thought you were behind, so I called you.”

“Do you get anxious when I’m out of sight? Are you really treating me like a dog now...?”

“It can’t be. “I know because I have friends who have dogs, and dogs obey people better than the manager.”

“It’s amazing that you have a friend.”

I really don’t give up on a single word.

“...I guess you’re doing this because you’re worried.”

I didn’t want to worry about a man in his 40s named Inho Jeong. This was all Lee Jae-heon’s fault, who had been talking nonsense all day and night even though he was injured. The fact that it was a truly meaningful sacrifice made Jeong In-ho even angrier.

“I don’t have anyone to worry about....”

“I’m worried because I have something to worry about. “I will check the back, so please come to the front.”

“How long do you say the hallway is?”

“Come on.”

In the end, when Jeong In-ho grabbed his arm and pulled him forward, Lee Jae-heon looked at him with a bewildered expression, as if he was dumbfounded, but he wasn’t particularly angry. I just sighed and stood in the middle of the group.

Jeong In-ho looked at Lee Jae-heon closely.

“....”

No matter how much I thought about it, my gait was a little awkward.

‘I encountered a small monster on the way, but I wasn’t hurt.’

Lee Jae-heon had a good walking posture and straight back, so his steps were wide and straight. It’s not much different now, but the more I looked at it, the more I could see that my abdomen was shrinking and the width of my steps was irregular.

Sure enough, Kim Yeon-woo, who was walking in the same line as me, quietly asked.

“Maybe I am. “Has Jaeheon Lee ever suffered an injury to his abdomen or legs?”

“...Well, you didn’t say anything special.”

“...It’s just a little bit, but his walking form is strange... I think it would be good to be careful just in case. “I’m embarrassed to say this because it’s so personal, but there’s no harm in being careful.”

Jeong In-ho, who was quietly listening to the story, asked.

“Then how do I get up to the fourth floor? “Aren’t we already trapped in this classroom?”

“It’s not the case in other classrooms, but it seems like you don’t get locked up in a classroom without school rules.”

“But this is the third floor... Unless that friend is in the hallway...”

“Oh, that’s okay! “You can just take the elevator!”

Jeong In-ho widened his eyes and blinked at Park Da-young’s words.

“Can I ride that? “It wasn’t working...”

“I helped the teacher’s mannequin and was allowed to ride it once.”

“...You said you helped me?”

When Jeong In-ho frowned at the remark that young matches were not possible, Park Da-young stabbed her younger brother in the side.

“Hey, that. “How many times is that?”

“Listen carefully to what teacher number 5 says.... The teacher’s mannequin is a student in the class. I ordered them to hand out paper to the monsters. “I did that and they gave me something like this.”

Park Da-hoon took out a small piece of paper from his pocket.

“...one-time elevator ticket...?”

“No more than three people using more than two floors. “I tried to use this to go out to the first floor, but it didn’t work.”

“No, you can communicate with the mannequin before that?”

“It’s not like a real language, it’s more like a mime... but I was able to roughly understand the nuances.”

Lee Jae-heon gently swiped his hand over his mouth and checked the entire notepad.

“...I really found a lot of rules up to number 9. Good job.”

What they found were rules 1, 2, 4, 5, and 9.

Number 1: Dress neatly. Number 2, sit down when the class bell rings. Number 5: Listen carefully to the teacher. Number 9 is no clinking. And number 4 was [Getting along well with friends]. The notepad said, “If you attack the student mannequins except when the class bell rings, you will be harassed by them,” and “It’s still a guess.”

He probably wrote it after seeing the student who had been arrested with his jacket torn, but surprisingly, this was true.

“Did you write this based on the friend who was captured?”

“ah? Ah yes. The mannequins wearing school uniforms really didn’t attack us... I thought it was strange that they tore their jackets like that at that time. And there was a rule to get along well... I guess that’s true, isn’t it?”

“Why does that sound right? “You must have been very surprised when your friend was captured, but you managed to write it.”

At those words, Park Da-hoon and Park Da-young blinked twice, as if they had missed something, and immediately made sullen expressions. It was an eerily similar reaction that made me wonder if they were siblings.

“...Yes... I’m really sorry, but I don’t want something like that to happen again...”

“I wasn’t scolding you. I’m sorry if my tone of voice was offensive. “I said that because I was worried.”

“...I’m sorry....”

“Why do you have anything to be sorry for?”

After the siblings were roughly satisfied, Lee Jae-heon asked.

“Class bell for rule number 2... What is this? From the looks of it, it looks like it was written mainly about things you all have experienced. Is there anything like this?”

“When we first came to the underworld, all the kids who weren’t sitting in their seats were attacked by the teacher monster. “Just in case, even when I was out in the hallway, I sat down when the class bell rang.”

It was the right thing to do. Even if you were actually out in the hallway, you had to remain seated when the class bell rang unless you were confident that you could hide somewhere. Or go into a classroom without school rules or a completely separate space. Like the auditorium in the annex building or the library in the main swimming pool building...

“But wherever I went, there were no empty seats in the classroom... so I pushed the student mannequin aside and sat there.”

“...Aha....”

By now, the 4th floor hallway must be full of student monsters. The monsters that were pushed around by all these students would be wandering around the hallways.

‘If you listen to the story so far, it looks like the plaster monster hasn’t been created yet.’

The situations in which a plaster monster arises are, firstly, when one is trapped in one space for a long time or, secondly, when one is chosen by a teacher monster. I was a little worried about Kim Hee-chan, who was dragged to the 4th floor, but I had never read a story about a captured student turning into a monster, so I felt like I had to escape before something unexpected happened.

“On the third floor, I was lucky enough to be in a classroom without school rules several times, so I stayed hidden until now. “I don’t go to class.”

“Then this... ‘Except when the class bell rings’, which I wrote down next to Rule 4 with my friend, is probably related to Rule 2. “There is no disadvantage to attacking a student monster when the bell rings for class and you have to take a seat, right?”

“I thought so.”

Well, at this level, I understand it really well.

‘All the essential rules have been summarized.’

In addition to these, there are rules 3, 6, 7, and 8, but in Lee Jae-heon’s mind, these were not rules as eccentric as ‘if you don’t know, you’re already dead.’ I don’t remember the phrase or the exact content, but it was roughly something like being careful about your phone ringing or not attacking the monster first.

“....”

Lee Jae-heon thought for a moment and glanced at the window.

“...Was there any student among the students who escaped through the window? “I think there were students who panicked and tried it.”

“Wow, how did you know? When I had just arrived in the other side of the world, someone in my class opened the window and threw themselves, and they suddenly disappeared. “I don’t know where it was moved, but it was so ominous that I couldn’t try it.”

Lee Jae-heon thought about Park Da-young’s words.

‘It wasn’t moved, it was deleted.’

I remember school rule number 8 [Dismissal from school after dismissal time]. It is a school rule that if a survivor attempts to leave the school building before the dismissal time set by the school, the survivor will be ‘deleted’. It may seem cleaner at first glance in that it disappears without leaving behind a body or a monster, but that does not make it a less heinous rule.

And there was another scary thing about this rule.

“I can only use the elevator once, so I’ll have to call some people from the standby group to save the student and go down. That way, we will be able to wait for you on the second and first floors.”

“...I guess so.”

The dismissal time set by the school is only 1 minute.

‘I think it was a one-minute time attack right after the 8th period.’

I don’t know what period it is now, but if you want to leave school, you have to wait on the stairs on the second floor, even if you can’t go to the first floor. Even in this case, the student monster and the teacher monster grabbed the ankles of the survivors trying to leave school, so they needed to have quick wits to avoid the monsters.

The good news is that at that time, it doesn’t matter whether you hit the monster’s head or strangle it.

“....”

No, no matter how much I thought about it, it wasn’t fortunate.

“Class time is slowly coming to an end, Director. Shall we prepare?”

“...I really think I can go alone.”

“Please don’t say such nonsense.”

“No, really...”

I promise... I won’t be able to finish this within two rounds.

Fuck making a living.