Chapter 92

Breakdown VI

Baekhwa Girls’ High.

To be more precise, there were quite a few signs indicating that 'School Ghost Stories' was the nest of the Infinite Void.

First, the school's scenery was a decisive piece of evidence.

Once, in the 89th cycle, my consciousness briefly touched the Fairy King, allowing me to glimpse the Infernal Hell, and the sight was exactly like this.

[The school was an abandoned wooden building. The name Baekhwa (百話) wavered ominously.]

[The sky was blood-red. Broken windows, with white birch trees scratching their pale skin against the shards of glass, peered into the school’s corridors. The school was a wreck, pierced through by white spikes.]

No matter how you looked at it, it was just like School Ghost Stories.

Of course, there were differences as well.

For instance, the school name.

Originally, Baekhwa (白花) meant 'white flower.' Although the characters ‘白’ and ‘百’ looked somewhat similar, they were clearly different in Hanja.

However, as I had emphasized before, wordplay, 'playing with words in the world,' was the basis of magic.

My theory was as follows.

In Baekhwa, the 'white' (白) referred to the white birch trees. These white birches were evident throughout the school's corridors, seen through the broken windows of both the new and old buildings.

They embodied the concept of 'white.'

As they transformed into birch trees, the empty spot left by the white (白) was filled by the homonymic white (百).

A simple wordplay.

Then what about the flower (花) in Baekhwa?

This was also simple. Despite exterminating 99 anomalies, only two things in Baekhwa Girls’ High School had not returned to their original state.

The birch trees, standing like prison bars. And the red spider lilies blooming everywhere.

These red spider lilies had taken over the meaning of flower (花).

Reality had its words stolen by anomalies, transforming ‘white flower’ into ‘red flower,’ and the world was overtaken by the void.

Thus, no matter how many anomalies were exterminated, the name ‘Baekhwa’ itself... the last magic of the anomaly remained intact.

“That’s my interpretation.”

“Wow... I never thought of it like that. I always wondered why the birch trees and spider lilies stayed the same while everything else went back to normal...”

Step. Step.

We walked through the empty hospital. The ceiling, pillars, and floor were all bleached white, extending endlessly.

Where we were. When we were.

We kept our consciousness clear, which was becoming blurry from the lack of any fixed coordinates, by continuing our conversation.

“No matter how far we walk, it’s the same corridor repeating. Is there no exit...?”

“Just hang on a bit longer.”

This was why a duo was important. Even if Cheon Yo-hwa was far inferior to me in combat power, being in a pair in the void was much more advantageous than being alone.

The basic unit that made up a person's world wasn’t an atom but rather the duo of ‘someone else and myself.’

“Hmm. Oh, right! How do we get rid of the birch trees and spider lilies? Can’t we just cut them down?”

“Tried it, they just grow back.”

“Ew...”

“They may look like trees and flowers on the outside, but they’re actually anomalies. While most anomalies can be exorcised through brute force, some can’t be harmed physically. You have to exploit their weak points.”

“Weak points...”

In fact, that was why I used school desks as firewood for the funerals instead of birch trees.

Burning the bodies of anomalies for a funeral pyre would be too ominous. The toxic substances from the smoke were far less harmful.

“Hmm. But thinking about it that way... The weak point of the ‘Baekhwa’ anomaly is still unclear, right? It doesn’t move around like other ghosts, we don’t know its true nature. Oh, is the weak point hidden in the basement?”

“Close enough.”

Step. A lighter step echoed after mine.

Following the instructions when we first entered, Cheon Yo-hwa moved precisely in sync with my steps.

“Stop here.”

“Ah, okay.”

“We can take ten more free steps. Get comfortable now if you need to. Make sure you take all ten steps.”

“...What’s the point of this?”

“If we take ten more steps, that will be exactly the 4,444th step.”

“......”

I opened my trunk bag. Then I took out candles one by one and set them around.

Before long, a hundred candles stood in a formation like a birch forest. I sat in the middle, with Cheon Yo-hwa across from me.

Snap—

With a snap of my fingers, the hundred candles all lit up with a whoosh. It was an application of aura.

“Ahjussi, this is...”

“Yo-hwa, we’re about to perform a ritual.”

“......”

“Did you take all ten steps?”

“Yes.”

“You asked earlier what the weak point of the ‘Baekhwa’ anomaly was, right? The ritual we’re about to conduct will be that weak point. The ritual is simple. Have you ever shared ghost stories with friends during summer outings?”

“Yes, I have.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Good. It’s the same as that. We’re going to talk about all the ghosts we’ve exorcised so far, you and I, alternating. Every ghost, making up a total of 99. We’ll talk about them one by one.”

“......”

“Why don’t you start?”

“Ah, yes. Um, let’s see. A ghost I saw personally, while walking on the fourth floor of the school, I heard a faint knocking sound...”

Quietly.

Her voice flowed gently as she began the ghost story. Flicker, flicker. The hundred flames swayed, and the white hospital lights hummed.

Between the red flames from the ground and the white flames from the ceiling, Cheon Yo-hwa stared blankly at me.

“... That’s the end of my story.”

“Good.”

Snap.

When I snapped my fingers, one candle flickered out. A thin gray smoke rose to the ceiling.

“Ah...”

“Now it’s my turn. From my own experience, there’s a Hanako ghost in the third stall of the boys’ bathroom at Baekhwa. If you spin thirteen times in that stall...”

One. Two. Three. Four.

The candles went out one by one. Each time, a wisp of smoke rose as an offering to the sky, and the dried wicks emitted a black stench. Cheon Yo-hwa’s shoulders twitched.

Flicker—

Cheon Yo-hwa realized the anomaly around the fortieth flame.

“Ahjussi, look. The corridor lights...”

“I know. Don’t worry.”

The hospital corridor lights were going out.

From the far end. One by one. One meter at a time.

There was no exit or window in the infernal basement. The infinite hospital corridor, once the lights went out, was pitch dark.

“Let’s continue. It’s your turn.”

“...Okay.”

Flicker.

The darkness exhaled, closing in. From both sides. Each breath matched our own, as if our breaths drew it closer.

“My friend told me this story, about a ghost named Crash, who was just a head with dangling guts...”

Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker—

We picked up the pace in our storytelling. The darkness quickened in response. Each light going out made Cheon Yo-hwa flinch.

“My story... ends here.”

The surroundings had grown cold.

Before the ritual, the hospital corridor had seemed endless. Now, only a narrow strip remained.

“......”

“......”

Flicker—

Only one light remained.

One candle struggled against the encroaching darkness, its flame weakly sputtering.

“Good. Now it’s my turn...”

“Ahjussi.”

Cheon Yo-hwa suddenly spoke up.

“You’re not actually our school’s security guard, are you?”

“......”

“It felt odd. I’ve lived in the dorms, so I know most of the guards’ faces. But I’d never seen you before. I was too out of it when we first met, you were in uniform and had a flashlight, so I thought maybe you were new. But none of the others recognized you either. Still, you kept helping us...”

After a moment’s thought, I nodded.

“No, I’m not.”

“Knew it. So... why did you help us?”

“To eradicate the void here. The School Ghost Stories. The Infernal Hell.”

“Infernal Hell...”

“But I’ll explain my true identity tomorrow. For now, let’s focus on exorcising the anomaly that’s been killing you. Can you trust me?”

“......”

Cheon Yo-hwa’s orange ponytail bobbed like a candle flame.

“Yes. Of course.”

“Good. Now, it’s time for the last story. This is a Japanese ghost story. Have you heard of the Hundred Tales?”

“The Hundred Tales?”

The Hundred Tales.

In Japanese, it’s called Hyakumonogatari, a collection of yōkai stories.

“To summon this ghost, people gather and light a hundred candles, each telling a ghost story, extinguishing a candle with each tale.”

“......”

“Just like we’re doing now.”

The last candle flickered.

“According to the tale, when all hundred candles go out, the storyteller of the last tale dies.”

“Dies...”

“Or a ghost appears. We’re already in the underworld. A person in the underworld can’t die again, so a ghost has to appear.”

“......”

“Here’s the interesting part. In the original tale, the ghost is called Aoandon, appearing when a ‘blue lantern’ is lit.”

Flicker.

I pressed the flashlight button. A blue LED light swept through the darkness.

“But the ghost that will appear here isn’t Aoandon.”

“Then who...?”

“The name of this school is Baekhwa, meaning ‘white flower.’ But remember I said the name was stolen?”

I pulled out a brush pen and wrote on the white floor of the corridor.

“The void is an empty space. It takes over the original world, making it a void, and then it imprints itself. So the letters of Baekhwa were stolen, and the new letters are...”

百話.

One hundred stories (百) and tales (話).

“......”

“In Japanese, the concept of a story is expressed with two characters, ‘monogatari’ (物語).”

I continued writing.

“For example, the famous ‘Arabian Nights’ is called ‘Thousand and One Nights’ monogatari’ (千夜一夜物語) in Japanese. But in Korean, it’s simply translated as ‘thousand nights’ tale’ (千夜一夜話). So, the Japanese use two characters for a concept expressed with one character in Korean.”

“Then... the ghost story called ‘Hundred Tales’ in Korean would be...”

“Baekhwa (百話).”

Literally.

The anomaly that consumed Baekhwa Girls’ High.

The true name of the entity we’ve been calling ‘School Ghost Stories.’

The alternate identity of the entity I once referred to as the Void.

“The leader of the Hundred Ghosts (百鬼夜行) that controls the other ninety-nine ghosts. The one that took the original name of this school, turning part of the world into a void. Baekhwa (百話) is the final ghost of this infernal hell.”

Snap—

The candle died.

The lights went out.

The darkness laughed. The thick smoke smell was the breath of the endless maw of darkness.

Flicker.

Time moved in the darkness. The universe was originally darkness, so it was the original color of time and space’s hostile intent.

The hundred extinguished candles grew into a white forest in an instant. A forest of birch trees.

The white skin of the trees caught fire, and the flames bloomed into red spider lilies. The red flames turned into fairy faces, and a hundred fairies laughed. Their laughter went like this:

Flowers (話) bloom into bigger flowers (花), which burn into fire (火). Burn, burn. All things are infinitely equal. So, shall not a hundred stories become a hundred flowers and a hundred flames...?

Coordinates. Time. Space became abstract, and existence twisted.

“Ahjussi—”

“It’s alright.”

I grabbed Cheon Yo-hwa’s hand.

“I’m here.”

“......”

Cheon Yo-hwa gripped my hand tightly.

Thus, the coordinates were fixed.

In that moment, the colorful flames of the universe paused, and the fairies stopped laughing. The Milky Way flowed. Hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of eyes stared at us.

I called out its name.

“Infinite Void.”

The universe shuddered.

-Unexpected contact.

-A possibility not previously calculated.

-Infinite Void.

-Infernal Hell.

-A correct name.

-An incorrect name.

-Another random variable.

Colors breathed. Starlight danced in a round.

-What are you?

-A massive variable.

-How did you perceive our existence? How did you understand our identity? How did you locate us?

The entity that saw the world as a vast laboratory, creating fairies as terminals and sending them to the tutorial grounds, questioned.

I raised my head.

“Are you alright, Yo-hwa?”

“Yes. A bit dizzy, but surprisingly fine. Actually...”

Cheon Yo-hwa let go of my hand and bent down. The laces of her red and black basketball shoes tightened.

“I feel great. Right now, I could sprint at full speed for forty minutes. Anyway, that weird Milky Way is the culprit behind all this, right? I’ll kill it.”

“Wonderful. Let’s show the combat power of a former school guard.”

Boss battle.

Threat level: Void God.

Infinite Void.

Begin combat.

Footnotes:

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