DNLYHS Chapter 2 (Part 1)
by Brie- Day Two
A few hours later, the young man woke up to the bright, cheerful melody of a bell ringing somewhere far away.
[Ah, hello. I’ll begin the morning announcement! Day 2 has begun. Please complete your tasks and make sure to evacuate safely to your hideout today as well.]
[I… I don’t really know how any of this works, but I hope everyone made it out alive….]
He had only dozed off with his head resting on the table, so the fatigue still clung to him, but his mind was surprisingly clear. The young man recalled what he had to do. He took a slow breath to calm his trembling nerves, then immediately put thought into action.
He slipped a rope around the “face” in front of him and pulled it tight around the neck.
As soon as he yanked off the cloth covering the bust, he became certain he had met the requirement. A condition that allowed him to satisfy the Code of Conduct without strangling an actual person.
Just as he let out a relieved sigh, the man sleeping across from him stirred awake. The man took one look at the scene and recoiled in horror, his expression twisting.
“Wh–what the hell!”
“What? Why are you suddenly screaming?”
“Wouldn’t anyone scream after seeing this? What are you doing to a perfectly fine sculpture…!”
His reaction was understandable. The plaster bust on the table had been painted a sickly lead-gray, making it look ghostly, and thick rope was wrapped tightly around its neck. On top of that, he had drawn dark red bruise marks to show strangulation, giving it an even more gruesome appearance. If someone half-awake saw it, they could easily mistake it for an actual corpse.
Not knowing the situation, the man tried to stumble back and nearly toppled onto the floor. Watching that, the young man felt a small thrill of satisfaction. He had finally gotten back at that mischievous guy.
“You might not get it, but this is me paying back yesterday’s debt. You should be thanking me this time.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. And you’re pulling pranks at a time like this? Do you think this is some haunted house?”
“You never once thought that maybe this prank was necessary? Do you know how hard I worked last night to make it look convincing?”
“Hearing that just makes me want to stay even farther away from you. If I stick with you, does that mean I’ll have to see this kind of nonsense every day? My lifespan’s going to drop ten years every morning.”
Honestly, if you can’t even explain yourself…. And he couldn’t even scold the guy properly, because bragging about what he did for the Code of Conduct was something he wasn’t supposed to reveal anyway. Feeling sulky for no good reason, the young man glared at him as the man stood up with an unimpressed look.
“Anyway, let’s figure out how we’re supposed to get out of here first. We should check the door.”
The door lock was a serious problem, so the young man got up without complaint. If they couldn’t leave this room, all the effort he just put in would go to waste….
But their worry turned out to be pointless. The exit was perfectly intact. The door lock that the man had thoroughly smashed yesterday had been restored as if it had never been broken. When the man pressed the button to open it, the lock clicked and released.
“So everything resets the next morning…. This is unexpectedly the right answer? Though I guess we half stumbled into it.”
“Doesn’t matter how we got it. As long as we get the right answer, it counts… and it seems you picked the right one too.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Forget it. Let’s just go. I’m not hungry yet, but we should secure a place with food.”
Avoiding the topic, the man glanced briefly at the plaster bust, then opened the door.
Even the hallway windows, shattered to pieces the night before, had returned to their original state, painted pitch black. It seemed likely that anything destroyed in the school would return to normal the next day.
“I didn’t expect sunlight to shine in here, but still… It’s way too dark….”
Having to wander through this twisted, gloomy school again made his skin crawl. Even thinking about it sent a shiver down his spine. He still hadn’t adjusted to being here without knowing how he ended up in this place, who he even was, or why he had to follow an incomprehensible Code of Conduct through a bizarre, endless maze.
There might be another monster lurking somewhere. They might not escape as safely as last time. In the worst case, he could die here without learning anything at all. The more he thought about those possibilities, the harder it became to take a single step….
With his head hanging low as he hesitated, something caught the young man’s eye.
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you coming?”
“…Come to think of it, my shadow is back to normal, too.”
“I told you yesterday, didn’t I? Everything goes back to normal the next day.”
“I heard you, but seeing it with my own eyes feels different…. Anyway, I’m fine now. Let’s go.”
The shadow the man had rescued was now at the young man’s feet. When it sensed his gaze, it moved on its own and waved. The gesture looked like a greeting, and the young man couldn’t help but smile. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the man beside him briefly wave back at the shadow. The moment he realized the young man had caught him, he quickly pretended he hadn’t done anything.
Seeing that, the young man felt a surge of unexplainable courage. Yeah… they couldn’t hide in this room forever. And now, he at least had someone he could trust beside him. Gathering his resolve, he stepped out into the hallway.
As soon as he stepped outside, the metal door slammed shut behind them with a loud bang, even though no one had pushed it. When he tried to open it again instinctively, the lock didn’t budge, completely unlike yesterday. So they couldn’t reenter until they completed today’s “task,” it seemed.
“Let’s look for a better hideout today. At the very least, we need a place with an actual bed.”
“This is a school, though. Would there even be beds? Does your Code of Conduct mention any good spots?”
“There are a few candidates. The first-floor sports storage room looks like the best option. If there are gym mats, we could sleep comfortably enough.”
“Thinking about what happened on the first floor yesterday… I don’t really want to go back. But maybe it’ll be fine today, since we have the mirror.”
The young man stepped into the dark hallway, where it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night. He relied on the faint beam of the flashlight… and the presence of the man beside him.
“Now that I think about it, there was a school map right next to the staircase. I didn’t even notice it because we were running for our lives.”
“Want to check it before we go? You should at least learn the layout of the school.”
The young man paused in front of the map posted beside the stairs. Before exploring further, he wanted to commit the important parts of the map to memory. The man seemed willing to wait.
First, there were red X marks over the west staircase on the first floor and the east staircase on the second floor, along with the words “No Entry.” Maybe it was under construction, or maybe something much worse was waiting there.
Come to think of it, when they ran up to the third floor yesterday, had they used the west staircase on the second floor? He remembered glancing down toward the staircase that led to the first floor and seeing that one spot was dark while every other place was lit….
“Let’s not even look that way. It feels dangerous.”
And on the third floor, there was a narrow hallway labeled “Annex Passage.” Even if this building had no exit, maybe the annex did, so the young man briefly wondered about it.
“Um, have you ever been to the annex building? Maybe there’s…”
“That passage is locked. It won’t open without a key.”
The man cut him off immediately, as if he had been waiting for that question. Of course. Things were never that simple. Nodding, the young man continued studying the map until he found what he was looking for.
“Oh, the cafeteria is marked here. It’s right next to the east staircase on the first floor.”
“What are you talking about? There’s a cafeteria there?”
“Look, check the map. It says ‘Cafeteria Corridor’ right here.”
That made no sense. The man muttered in disbelief, but when he actually looked at the map, his eyes widened.
“Wait a second. That wasn’t there yesterday.”
“But it’s written here now. Maybe you just missed it?”
“Impossible. You passed by the east staircase yesterday, too. Did you see a cafeteria door anywhere near the spot marked on this map?”
Hearing that, the young man felt confused. He was right, it didn’t make sense. The marked location was exactly where he and the man had met yesterday. If there had been a door leading to a cafeteria, there was no way he wouldn’t have noticed it. In his memory, that spot had been nothing but a wall.
“Could it be marked wrong? It didn’t seem like this school even had a cafeteria….”
“That can’t be right. Yesterday, near the teachers’ office door, someone had written a message. It said to bring your student ID if you want to go to the cafeteria.”
If that message was true, then a cafeteria had to exist somewhere, and if they brought a student ID, they might be able to get food there. And honestly, if they were going to eat, it was far better for a cafeteria to exist than not.
Maybe, for some unknown reason, the structure of the school changed. If that were the case, then it made sense that a cafeteria that didn’t exist yesterday could appear today.
“…We’ll just have to check it ourselves. Let’s go. We’ll stop by the teachers’ office for the student IDs and then confirm the location marked on the map.”
The two hurried their pace. Whether the cafeteria had really appeared, and whether that was a good thing or a terrible thing, they still couldn’t tell.
“It’s definitely written here. Pick up your student ID before going to the cafeteria….”
The man looked over the writing next to the teacher’s office door and nodded. The young man sighed in relief. He had worried it might have been his imagination, or that the writing would be gone today.
The man walked inside the office and headed to the desk at the very back, and the young man followed him. Yesterday, he had been too distracted looking for a writing tool, but this time he wanted to learn how to issue useful things like student IDs. After all, his Code of Conduct didn’t bother to include helpful information like that.
“Look here. These A4 sheets labeled [Application Form] are stacked up, right? All you have to do is write down the name of the document you want to issue. Simple.”
“Then would it be helpful to issue a bunch of documents ahead of time?”
“No, you can’t do that. You’re not allowed to take the application forms recklessly.”
After explaining politely, the man picked up two forms and handed one to the young man.
It really was a simple format. Just your name and the name of the document you wanted, nothing more.
But what should he write for his name? Should he put “Librarian”…? As he hesitated and wrestled with the thought, he felt someone staring at him. The man was openly watching him.
“…Come to think of it.”
“Yes?”
“There’s something I have to do today according to my Code of Conduct.”
“What is it?”
“We need to come up with proper titles for each other. Since we’ve both forgotten our names, we need nicknames or titles to call each other by. Librarian and Disciplinary Committee Member are just roles, not real names.”
The man spoke calmly, looking down at him. He claimed it was because of the Code of Conduct, but honestly, he didn’t seem to mind the idea himself. The young man, however, had every reason to be confused and annoyed….
“Excuse me, but if I remember correctly, didn’t I make this exact suggestion last night?”
“Then you must remember my exact answer, too. I told you we’d talk about it tomorrow, after some sleep. So here we are.”
“Does the name rot if you make it a little earlier?!”
“And why would I trust you enough yesterday to give you a name early?”
No matter how much the young man yelled, the man only shrugged with a completely relaxed expression. It had been irritating at first, but soon, the young man realized something strange.
“Wait… so that means he trusts me now?”
Not sharing a bed, well, not exactly, but sleeping at the same table overnight must have built a sliver of trust. He didn’t know why a man that picky and cautious had suddenly changed his attitude, but it felt like a good sign.
“We’re supposed to create titles for each other. According to the Code of Conduct, they don’t have to sound like real names. They can just be nicknames.”
“Fine. But since we’ll be using them from now on, let’s choose carefully. Don’t just spit out the first thing that pops into your head.”
“What kind of person do you think I am? No matter what you say, why would I give you a name I thought up in one second, when I’ll have to call you that for up to fourteen days?”
The man bristled with irritation, but his expression looked suspiciously like he’d been caught. If the young man hadn’t said anything, would he really have gone with something bland and lazy? Something like “Mr. Librarian.”
As the young man quietly studied his face, the man suddenly opened his mouth.
“So what about you? Have you thought of any decent titles? Not a bad idea to learn from your sense of naming.”
“M-me? I haven’t really thought of anything. We don’t know anything about each other, so it’s hard to come up with a title.”
“That’s true. The only things we can use are our jobs or appearance…. What kind of name would suit a kid with that soft, squishy baby face?”
“Is it bread or rice cake? Why both? And what makes you think you know how old I am?”
“Well, you’re definitely younger than me, aren’t you? I don’t remember my exact age, but… there’s something called looking the part.”
He wasn’t wrong, so the young man didn’t know how to argue. Judging by appearances alone, the man looked at least five years older. And he talked much more maturely.
Of course, in their assigned roles, he was the teacher and the other was the student, but who knew whether this strange Code of Conduct took age into account when deciding jobs.
And the young man’s features were naturally round and soft, so even if he really was older, it’d be hard for him to project any authority. Meanwhile, if the man kept his mouth shut, he had a sharp, intimidating presence that made him look older and harder to approach.
What kind of person had this man been in the real world? He must have built his own life and social position somewhere, without having lost his memories. His personality might have been completely different back then… or maybe a person’s core didn’t change much. Even outside this school, maybe he’d still be the same annoying and stubborn type….
With those thoughts in mind, the young man studied him quietly. Even if he couldn’t remember his own past, what kind of name could capture that person’s essence…?
Right in the middle of that thought, a single word flashed across his mind like a spark.
“…Yeongwon?”
“…What?”
“A title for you. I was thinking we could use that one, for now.”
It was a bit childish, admittedly… The young man gave an awkward smile. Even he knew it wasn’t the most refined name.
But the man only tilted his head slightly, as if waiting for an explanation.
“Well, I wanted to put ‘won’ at the end. It’s the last syllable of ‘Disciplinary Committee Member’ in Korean, and it’s also commonly used in names.”
“I get that part. Then what’s the ‘yeong’?”
“What’s going on in your head right now is all zero, empty. You don’t remember who you were or how you ended up here, right?”
“Are you picking a fight? You don’t remember anything, either….”
“Then I should add a ‘yeong’ to my name too. Might make us look like siblings, though.”
“I don’t recall ever having a little brother like you.”
“Why would I be the younger one? Maybe I’m the older.”
“You’d be a pretty unreliable older brother. If that’s true, my real life must’ve been miserable.”
Did he really have to respond like that, after all the effort spent naming him…! But even he couldn’t deny the name wasn’t exactly elegant, so he lowered his head, unable to protest further.
He could’ve explained it better. It wasn’t just because the man was a memory-less ‘committee member.’ There was another reason he thought of the word ‘yeongwon,’ but it was too hard to put into words….
While he debated silently, the man, who had looked contemplative for a moment, suddenly spoke in a surprisingly light tone.
“…I don’t really like the word ‘Yeongwon,’ but at least it lowers the pressure. Now I can give you a name I don’t like either.”
“If you don’t like it, then just say so. I can think of another one, even if it takes a bit.”
“Yeonseo. How’s that? It’s just about the only decent-sounding name I can make using the ‘seo’ from Librarian.”
The man grinned as he said it. Yeonseo? Never mind that it didn’t sound very masculine, what bothered him was the meaning….
“…A love letter?”
“I never said that.”
“Then what other meaning does the word Yeonseo have?”
“Look it up in a dictionary. I’m sure it has plenty. Just pick one you like. And for the record, real names don’t need some grand, poetic meaning. You’re a bit too… old-fashioned about this.”
The expression on the man’s face as he teased him was unbelievably irritating. Seriously? If he didn’t like the name, he could just say so; did he really have to call it tacky on top of that?
And besides, he was one to talk. Wasn’t giving someone a name that literally meant ‘love letter’ even more old-fashioned? Did he think it suited him for some reason? What exactly did he take him for?
‘Forget it. It’s just a name we’ll use for two weeks at most. No need to get worked up over it.’
The young man pouted and shrugged. Even if it felt a little like he was being teased, the name didn’t sound bad. He also couldn’t help wondering why that man had chosen the name Yeonseo… and what about him made the man think of such an odd name….
“Fine, there’s no reason to attach some big meaning to a name we’ll only use for a short time anyway. I’ll go with this one.”
The young man, no, Yeonseo, wrote his new name on the application form.
Writing “Temporary Student ID” should be enough for the document name. Technically, he was supposed to be a teacher, so should he really be getting a student ID? The thought bothered him a little, but all they could do was try. Unless there was a separate staff cafeteria, they’d have to use the student cafeteria anyway.
“…Then I’ll write mine too.”
The man replied in a strangely uninterested tone and filled out his form.
Now his name was Yeongwon, and the young man’s name was Yeonseo. Both names were needlessly dramatic, but in a bizarre school completely detached from reality, maybe dramatic names fit better.
“Place the application form on the desk, close your eyes, and count to nine. Then the student ID will appear.”
He followed the instructions. When he opened his eyes, the spot where the form had been now held a crudely torn temporary student ID. It was a bit shabby, but it had a proper stamp on it, so it seemed official enough.
“Let’s go. We should check if the cafeteria is really there on the first floor… Yeonseo.”
The man, no, Yeongwon, said it with a slightly embarrassed expression. Smiling, Yeonseo stepped out of the teachers’ office, already imagining how awkward it would feel every time they called each other by name.
“There really is a cafeteria. Yesterday it was just a wall….”
“That’s not all. The first-floor hallway windows are painted black now. Good for us, though.”
The two exchanged confused looks after descending to the first floor. Yesterday, moonlight had poured through the windows here, but now, just like on the second floor, the place was pitch dark. They had assumed they’d need to push through the dangers of the first floor to confirm the cafeteria’s location, but apparently not.
Where the emergency exit sign had glowed the previous day, a dirty, blotched sign now hung. It was filthy but still readable. It simply said [Cafeteria Corridor].
“It’s blatantly suspicious. It’s filthier than the other doors, and I think something smells weird from the inside.”
Yeongwon muttered as he examined the door. He was right. The other doors, though sometimes stained with small smudges of blood, were generally clean. But this metal door looked rusted for decades, and dried patches of strange, crusted liquid were smeared all over it. Honestly, it would be less unsettling if it were just blood.
Most of all, the door was open. Every door they’d seen in the hallways until now had been firmly shut, but this one alone gaped open halfway, almost as if it were inviting them inside.
“Is it a trap?”
“I don’t know. There’s nothing about this in my Code of Conduct.”
They scanned through their Codes again, but found nothing related to such a door. Maybe it really was just a cafeteria door. Or maybe it was a trap the Code didn’t warn them about.
Why was this door so filthy…? While Yeonseo examined it uneasily, something caught his eye.
“Huh? Look at this.”
There was writing in one corner of the door. From afar, it had looked like just another stain, but up close, it formed a proper sentence, just like the writing near the teachers’ office.
If the door is open, thank the custodian. If the door is closed, start over from the beginning.
The handwriting was crooked, scribbled as if someone had written it in a hurry before something terrible happened. If you didn’t look closely, it was barely readable.
Hearing Yeonseo murmur, Yeongwon also spotted the sentence.
“The custodian? So this school has one of those? I didn’t see a single person besides you all day yesterday.”
“We might’ve just missed each other. Maybe the custodian passed through the hallway while you were exploring the classrooms…. At this point, I guess it’s one of two things. Either it’s an enemy like that eyeball monster, or it’s someone like us who was assigned a ‘role’.”
Yeonseo thought the second possibility was more likely. After all, the existence called the “custodian” was supposedly the one who made the cafeteria door open. Maybe the reason a door that hadn’t existed until yesterday had appeared today was because of the custodian.
Of course, there were unsettling parts. How such a thing was even possible… whether someone capable of creating something from nothing could really be a normal human… and what on earth “start over from the beginning” was supposed to mean. But none of these were things he could reason out. Even if he asked Yeongwon, the chances of getting a serious answer were low.
“That does make sense. Then… hmm. Should we go in?”
Without waiting for a reply, Yeongwon boldly threw the door fully open. Despite how sensitive and cautious he looked, he made decisions surprisingly fast when he needed to act.
Depending on how you saw it, he was either bold and decisive… or afraid to overthink. But whatever the case, following his lead seemed safest for now. Yeonseo immediately stepped into the corridor behind him.
The hallway leading to the cafeteria wasn’t much different from the others they had walked down, aside from having windows on both sides. As soon as they entered, an odd smell drifted past them, something like delicious food… or something rotten. Maybe both at once.
“Seeing this cafeteria passageway here gives me an idea of the school’s layout. The cafeteria building is on the east side, and that annex or whatever it is must be on the west side.”
Unbothered by the foul smell, Yeongwon calmly scanned the surroundings. So the structures were arranged in a roughly U-shape… Yeonseo nodded. It wasn’t exactly crucial information, but thinking about anything normal helped keep darker thoughts away.
At the other end of the corridor was another metal door, this one wide open. The room beyond was pitch-black like the rest of the school, but every now and then, a reddish glow flared up before vanishing. Something inside seemed to hiss and burn, drifting smoke outward… and then….
“Um, Yeongwon.”
“What?”
“If there’s food in the cafeteria… someone must be cooking it, right?”
“I suppose.”
“And someone must be eating it too?”
“…I was trying not to think that far.”
Both of them held their breath and listened to the sounds coming from beyond the door. It was unmistakably the sound of people eating. Trays and spoons clattering, loud chewing, and mixed in with it, a suppressed but clear groan of pain.
Danger.
It wasn’t just because the groaning sounded eerie. They both sensed instinctively that there were too many beings inside. The noises coming from the room were made by at least dozens, no, hundreds. Like a normal school cafeteria packed at lunchtime.
Could those be ordinary students? Impossible. Could there really be hundreds of people trapped here like them, each assigned roles? That didn’t seem right either.
“They aren’t human, are they?”
“That goes without saying. But… there might be one person.”
“What?”
“Someone in pain. That’s bothering me.”
Yeonseo understood immediately. There were hundreds of eating sounds, but only one groaning voice. If that one was a monster too, then it was dangerous, but if it was a person….
Yeongwon, openly grimacing with dread, nevertheless quickened his pace. Yeonseo hurried to follow, but the man raised his arm to block him.
“You follow slowly. I’ll go in first.”
“Huh? Why? Shouldn’t we go together…”
“I told you when we first met, didn’t I? My assigned role is to protect people. This is my job. Don’t get in the way.”
“…!”