DNLYHS Chapter 2 (Part 2)
by Brie“Besides, what if we both rush in without thinking and get caught in a trap? One of us has to stay outside and react if something happens. Just keep the door open so it doesn’t slam shut.”
The logic was sound, making it hard to argue. But Yeonseo knew. Even if the Code told him to, it had to be frightening for him too.
“…Fine.”
After taking the flashlight from Yeonseo, Yeongwon entered the room without hesitation. All Yeonseo could do was grab the doorknob tightly and carefully peer inside.
At first glance, it looked no different from a normal school cafeteria. Long rows of tables and chairs for students, and even a staircase leading to a second floor.
But once Yeongwon swept his flashlight across the interior, the scene changed sharply. On the tables were hardened stains of dried broth and crusted food scraps, and the floor was smeared with sticky, greasy patches that looked like spilled soup left uncleaned for ages.
On top of that, every fluorescent light in the room was broken, exposing shards of shattered bulbs. The structure was similar to the art prep room, but because there were far more lights here, the atmosphere felt overwhelmingly worse.
Beyond the dining area was the kitchen, where food was prepared. The reddish glow and smoke were coming from there. And in the center of that kitchen…
“U-ugh…!”
Yeonseo knew he shouldn’t make noise, but he couldn’t hold back his gagging. What he saw was something no sane person could look at calmly.
Hundreds of pitch-black human figures swarmed together. Calling them humans was questionable; their bodies were shadowy and translucent, but their silhouettes resembled human shapes.
They wore school uniforms like normal students, held metal lunch trays like normal students, and moved their spoons like normal students. They ate like humans. They scooped up food and shoved it into their mouths greedily. Which meant the thing these human-shaped monsters were eating was…
A person?
Unlike the black silhouettes of the “students,” this figure was an actual human. The problem was that he looked far closer to a corpse than a living person.
A middle-aged man was tied to a post, just like a prisoner about to be burned at the stake, while countless students tore into him. The pitch-black students swung butcher knives skillfully, slicing off the man’s flesh. Thighs, calves, forearms, every kind of flesh was cut away and placed onto their trays. Those who received food didn’t even bother going to the tables. They sat on the floor right where they were and devoured their portions noisily.
The man could barely resist. He only writhed and groaned in agony. Most of the flesh on his limbs was already gone, bones exposed, and at this rate, even his torso and head would be eaten soon. Judging by the amount of blood he’d lost, he should have died long ago from shock or blood loss. His eyes were rolled back, unable to focus on anything. The fact that he was still alive at all felt like a miracle.
‘…What do we do?’
Could the “food” they were supposed to receive be pieces of that man’s flesh?
No. Impossible. Something was definitely wrong. Just like the shadows that filled the hallway yesterday but disappeared the next morning, this couldn’t be the normal appearance of a cafeteria. This had to be some kind of anomaly….
At that moment, Yeongwon ground his teeth and whispered to him.
“Yeonseo. Do not come inside. If anything happens, forget the door, just run.”
“Yeongwon?”
“Leaving him like that will come back to haunt us, too. We have to save him somehow!”
With that shout, Yeongwon bolted straight toward the kitchen. There was no time for Yeonseo to stop him.
The moment Yeongwon placed a cafeteria table between himself and the pitch-black students, every gaze inside the room snapped toward him.
‘I-isn’t this really bad?’
What was he thinking, doing something so reckless…! Just watching made Yeonseo’s heart pound with anxiety. But Yeongwon faced the attention head-on with a steady posture. Or at least, that was how it looked from behind. Yeonseo couldn’t see his face, so maybe he was terrified and simply trying not to show it.
A tense silence fell over the cafeteria. The first to speak was one of the shadowy students.
“Who are you?”
“…Disciplinary Committee. What are you doing here? Isn’t it class time?”
His response was shockingly brazen and confident. Judging by the way the students exchanged uneasy glances, the words “Disciplinary Committee” seemed to carry authority with them. Or perhaps wandering around during class time was forbidden in their “rule.”
“You should be in your classroom during class time. Am I wrong?”
“That’s… well, yes.”
“But it’s class time now….”
“It is class time. The morning announcement rang quite a while ago. Sure, if it were just one or two sneaking in, maybe you wouldn’t get caught, but this? Isn’t this going a bit too far? How did all of you swarm in here like a bunch of bugs? You’re lucky I found you first. What would you have done if the teachers walked in?”
The moment Yeongwon mentioned “teachers,” the students flinched like insects sprayed with pesticide, breaking into uneasy murmurs. Whatever those teachers were, they must have been terrifying. The monsters who moments ago devoured their meal like starving beasts were suddenly shrinking back like actual students afraid of getting punished.
‘So that’s it… he knew a way to deal with them.’
Maybe the Code of Conduct actually included instructions about how to handle these shadowy students. Something like: “If you encounter students outside the classroom, use the morning announcement to send them back.” He hadn’t rushed in blindly; he had a plan he trusted.
If those students would just return to their classrooms, maybe the middle-aged man could be saved. He had lost a tremendous amount of blood, but perhaps he could still survive. In this school, broken things repaired themselves overnight, and even a shadow bleeding out could recover. As long as he was alive, maybe there was hope.
“Anyway, it’s not too late. Go back to your classrooms.”
“But we’re hungry….”
“Haven’t you eaten enough? The guy hanging there is about to lose all his limbs.”
“……”
Yeongwon must have thought so too, because while he continued persuading them, he slowly moved between the tables, closing the distance. When Yeonseo looked closely, he saw a cutter knife half-hidden in his pocket, likely taken from the art room. If even the slightest chance appeared, he planned to dash forward, cut the ropes, and pull the man to safety.
“If you keep eating, he might actually die. So why don’t you stop here…”
But the moment he said that…
The whispers of the confused students stopped cold before he even finished saying “might die.”
“…Die?”
Hearing that eerie murmur, Yeonseo felt something was horribly wrong.
“Why does he get to die? We can’t die.”
“What?”
“It’s not fair. No matter how hungry we get, we can’t die.”
“Yeah. No matter how much we eat, it feels like we’ll starve to death. Our stomach burns and ache like we’re dying of hunger. Normally, wouldn’t you die from that?”
“Why can’t we die? Why can’t we go home? Why do we have to keep going to class? Why do we have to keep wandering around here?”
One voice triggered another, and soon students all around began shouting accusations at Yeongwon. Even with just his back visible, it was obvious he hadn’t expected things to escalate like this.
“We don’t know. We don’t know any of that. We’re going to keep eating. If he’s like us, he won’t die no matter how much we eat.”
“W-wait! But class time…!”
“Is it even class time? We didn’t hear any announcement.”
“Are you lying? Maybe class hasn’t started yet. If it hasn’t, then we can eat as much as we want. Why should we stop?”
They didn’t hear the morning announcement? But it had echoed loudly through every hallway and classroom.
Were they lying, or was something else wrong?
As Yeonseo wondered, his gaze drifted to the metal door he was gripping tightly. More precisely, to the inside of the door facing the cafeteria.
He stared blankly at the writing. It was scribbled hastily like the other warnings, and most of the last word was unreadable. But from what he could decipher, he immediately understood:
The students weren’t lying.
They truly hadn’t heard the broadcast.
But knowing that didn’t give him any immediate solution. And since Yeongwon hadn’t seen the writing, he seemed to decide on a much more forceful approach.
“…Damn it!”
He abandoned persuasion and sprinted forward. Using the moment of confusion when the students hesitated, he pulled out the cutter knife and slashed through the ropes binding the middle-aged man. With most of his limbs mangled, the man collapsed limply into Yeongwon’s arms.
“Yeongwon!”
“I’m taking him out! The moment I get outside, close the door!”
Carrying the man on his back, he shouted to Yeonseo and sprinted toward the cafeteria entrance at full speed. The shadow students, realizing what was happening, immediately rose and began to chase him. But Yeongwon was so fast that it looked like he might actually outrun them.
Maybe they really could save the man. Yeonseo held on to that faint hope as he prepared to slam the door shut.
“…Huh?!”
A sharp thud rang out, like someone had crashed into a glass wall. Yeongwon collapsed onto the floor just inside the entrance. There had been nothing in front of him, just empty air, and yet he hit something.
He scrambled up, trying to hoist the man onto his back again, but then the man suddenly groaned, his voice hoarse and barely audible. The fact that he could still speak was surprising, but an even more troubling issue soon followed.
“Can’t… leave…”
“What? What did you just say?”
“My Code of… Conduct… says… a cook… can’t leave… this place…”
Go alone.
Forcing out those last words, the middle-aged man immediately lost consciousness.
Yeongwon, still unwilling to give up, kept trying to drag him out, but for some reason, he couldn’t move even a step past the cafeteria doorway while holding the man. If he let go, he could step outside. But giving up that easily was clearly difficult for him.
“…You’re… not like us, huh?”
Meanwhile, the students approached, muttering ominously. Their footsteps were slow and leisurely compared to Yeongwon’s, but at this rat,e they’d catch up soon.
Should Yeonseo push Yeongwon to run away, just as the man had said? In theory, that was the correct choice. But could they really abandon this “cook” to die here?
It wasn’t just a moral issue. A terrible thought struck Yeonseo, This man might hold a role that was necessary for everyone’s survival.
‘What do I do? There has to be… something, anything…!’
Desperately, he searched the cafeteria with his eyes. There had to be a solution somewhere, something that would let him save both the cook and Yeongwon.
What was that writing on the inside of the metal door for? Was it trying to justify the students’ suffering? No, impossible. The unreadable back half must have contained a clue, but what clue?
‘Huh?’
At that moment, he spotted something in the dim corner of the cafeteria. A large black box-shaped device. It looked nearly identical to the cafeteria ceiling speakers, just bigger. Most importantly, a pitch-black power cord hung loosely from the back of it…
The moment he saw it, Yeonseo understood perfectly what the cut-off sentence on the door had meant.
“…Backup speaker.”
There was an outlet right on the wall beside the dangling cord.
Realizing this, Yeonseo didn’t even think. Instinctively, he dashed into the cafeteria.
“What are you doing? I told you not to come in!”
Yeongwon yelled, his face drained of color.
He was scolding him casually even after being rescued. Under normal circumstances, Yeonseo would’ve snapped back with something, but there was no time for that now. Every ounce of his focus was locked on the backup speaker in front of him.
“Just wait a second! I’ll help you right now!”
First, Yeonseo plugged the hanging power cord into the wall outlet. A sharp buzzing whine burst out as the amp powered on, making all the students flinch and cover their ears. Whether the reaction came from the speaker’s power itself or simply because the noise was shrill, he couldn’t tell yet….
“What are you even doing! What do you plan to accomplish by turning that on?”
“They said they couldn’t hear the announcement! The speaker must’ve been broken, so if we turn this one on, they’ll hear it!”
“And does that even make sense? Just because you turn on a speaker doesn’t mean a broadcast will magically come out of it!”
At that, Yeonseo froze.
Come to think of it, wasn’t that true? A speaker only amplified broadcasts that were already being sent. If no broadcast came through, then turning it on would do absolutely nothing. There was no guarantee that anything was pre-recorded inside the speaker…
“Stop messing around and get out! At least one of us has to survive!”
“You’re stuck in there grunting just as much as he is…! Just wait and trust me!”
No, there had to be some way. Something. Anything.
Despite his fear twisting in his gut, Yeonseo desperately searched the speaker. He pressed every button he could find, fiddled with every dial, even though they probably only controlled the volume, and hoped something would change. But…
“What’s he doing?”
“Look at him. He’s not one of us either.”
“Yeah. That guy barely looks different, but that one’s way too obvious. Definitely not one of us.”
To make things worse, even the students were starting to whisper suspiciously about him.
At this rate, all three of them would be caught. If they wanted to run, now was the time, but he couldn’t. Not while Yeongwon hesitated to abandon the middle-aged man. He couldn’t run alone.
Please… let all three of us live through this…
Yeonseo prayed with every bit of hope he had left.
And fortunately, his prayer was answered just in time.
[…Huh? Why’s the speaker on in the cafeteria? It’s not even broadcast time.]
A burst of static rang out, followed by a very familiar voice from the speaker. It was the same voice they’d heard during the morning announcement.
[Is it a glitch? Or did something happen in the cafeteria? Oh, right. The Code of Conduct.]
“……!”
He definitely said the Code of Conduct.
Which meant… that person also had an assigned role, just like Yeonseo and Yeongwon?
Pages rustled beyond the speaker, and then the person began to read, as if following a script.
[Ah, ah. Attention to all students in the cafeteria. It is currently class time, and students must not be in the cafeteria at this hour. All students are to return to their classrooms immediately…. Is that good enough? Oh, right. Twice. Important announcements must be repeated twice.]
The frantic mumbling voice made it obvious the speaker wasn’t used to this work, but the broadcast had a clear and immediate effect. The students screamed the moment they heard it and clamped their hands over their ears. It was nothing like earlier, when they covered their ears only because the speaker screeched as the power came on.
This time, they were unmistakably afraid.
[Hm-hmm, once again, attention to all students in the cafeteria. It is currently class time, and students must not be in the cafeteria during this hour….]
“Stop, stop…!”
Aaaagh….
The students let out wretched screams as their bodies wavered like smoke and dispersed into the air. A few sprinted toward the speaker as if to destroy it, but doing so only hastened their disappearance. The closer they got, the quicker they dissolved, until finally they crumbled into dust as if they had never existed at all.
It happened in an instant.
Yeongwon and Yeonseo could only stare blankly at the speaker.
[There. Don’t know what that was about, but I did my job….]
With that deflated mutter, the broadcast cut off. The cafeteria fell silent, leaving only Yeongwon, Yeonseo, and the middle-aged man.
“Th-thank goodness…!”
Muttering that, Yeonseo collapsed on the spot. His legs had lost every bit of strength.
But Yeongwon set the man he’d been carrying down on the floor, glared sharply, and stomped toward him.
“Hey.”
“…Yes?”
“What did I say earlier? If anything happens, you throw the door aside and run!”
What the hell is he talking about?
Even as Yeonseo grimaced, Yeongwon frowned down at him with the air of someone delivering a grand lecture. Yes, he had said that earlier, but was this really what he chose to harp on right now?
“Do you not understand what just happened? If I hadn’t turned on that speaker, both you and that man would be dead!”
“Even so, it was dangerous! It’s pure luck the broadcast played! What if it hadn’t? What if the three of us got trapped and died because of this?”
“So I should live while you two die? And you’re one to talk. You couldn’t abandon that cook either!”
He was the one who threw himself into the cafeteria without warning; this whole mess started because of him…!
As Yeonseo shook with indignation, a sudden laugh sounded behind them. It didn’t take long to realize it belonged to the middle-aged man.
“Come on now… don’t fight like that while someone’s watching….”
“…Ah!”
Only then did Yeonseo snap out of it and turn around. Thinking back, it was ridiculous; they were arguing in front of someone who had nearly died.
But the moment he looked at the man, Yeonseo froze.
The man’s body was slowly becoming “good as new.”
New flesh grew over limbs that had nearly been stripped to the bone, and his shredded clothes restored themselves as if time were rewinding. Even in a bizarre school like this, it was an unbelievable sight.
“Your wounds… they’re healing in real time? H-how…?”
“…I don’t know the details. My Code of Conduct said: [When a safe situation arrives, the wounds will relocate elsewhere.] I don’t know what relocating means, and it said I’d pay the price for it later, so it’s not exactly comforting.”
His Code said that?
When Yeonseo looked at Yeongwon, the latter nodded as if it were obvious. He must have seen the healing happen and rushed straight to scold Yeonseo only because he already knew the man would recover.
Not that Yeonseo had known any of this.
For a moment, Yeonseo thought about his own Code notebook. Why did it contain nothing but incomprehensible tasks with no useful information whatsoever…? But he quickly tossed the thought aside; now wasn’t the time.
“Still… without you two, I really would’ve died. Thank you. I didn’t know there were any other people in this school….”
Even with his wounds healing, the man looked drained. And only now did Yeonseo finally have the chance to look at him properly. Earlier things had been too urgent, and the state he was in too gruesome to observe calmly.
Now that he saw him clearly again, the man was enormous, easily two meters tall. He looked to be in his fifties, his thick, muscular limbs and broad shoulders giving the impression he could easily overpower the shadow students under different circumstances. Without context, one might have mistaken him for a PE teacher.
‘But he said he’s a cook.’
He wore plain white cook’s attire and a hat, along with a bright pink apron that didn’t suit the grim atmosphere at all. The earlier injuries had left yellow and red stains across his clothes and apron, but without those, he might have seemed approachable. His expression, on close look, was gentle and mild. Despite his size, he looked like a kind person.
But Yeongwon glared at him with a cautious, guarded expression. Even after saving him, he seemed wary, much like when he had first rescued Yeonseo. Probably just a habit.
“I think it’s time you introduced yourself. Who are you?”
The man frowned awkwardly.
“I… don’t remember. Not my name, not how I got here.”
“That’s the same for us. You mentioned you’re a cook. Was that written in your Code?”
“Yeah. When I came to, I was in that kitchen over there. There was a notebook on the table. It said that. Something like… my escape success rate is eighty percent? And that my job is to gather ingredients and serve food to you.”
Eighty percent?
Yeonseo immediately remembered that his own notebook had listed his escape success rate as eleven percent. Compared to that, eighty percent was absurd. Though a probability was just that, a probability. Considering the cook had nearly died just now….
As the two pondered what that meant, the cook suddenly jolted upright.
“Wait here! I just remembered something!”
Dragging his not-yet-fully-healed body, he hurried back into the kitchen. Before Yeonseo or Yeongwon could react, he returned carrying two trays piled high with something.
“First, you two need to eat this.”
“Sorry? All of a sudden?”
“I know it’s hard to tell you to eat it, but my Code of Conduct clearly said I have to give this to you. Apparently, it’s part of my job.”
The trays were filled with something like a dark red porridge. Without an explanation, one might have assumed it was red bean porridge or something similar. It even had a slightly nutty smell mixed with sweetness. On smell alone, it didn’t seem completely inedible.
But Yeonseo and Yeongwon exchanged uneasy looks.
Because…
“What exactly are the ingredients in this?”
“…Don’t ask.”
The cook said that while avoiding their eyes. He didn’t look remotely confident.
When the two kept pressing him, because neither of them was about to eat something resembling cannibal soup, the cook finally exhaled and confessed.
“Not long after I woke up, these lumps of flesh covered in eyes rushed in. This is… made from crushing them.”
It was a relief that it wasn’t made of human flesh, but that didn’t make it any less disturbing. Was it really safe to eat? Even if they were starving, wouldn’t they get sick from something like that?
As Yeonseo stared at the tray with dread, Yeongwon seemed troubled by something different.
“You killed all those eye-flesh monsters yourself?”
“Yeah. According to the notebook, I had to kill them to use as ingredients, and I didn’t have anything else I could do, so I just hacked away. After I killed them all, I tossed everything into a pot and boiled it down.”
“You killed that many…? You must’ve had a pretty big mirror, then?”
“Mirror? Why are you suddenly talking about a mirror? I just stabbed them with a knife, and they died.”
Stabbed… the monsters… with a knife?
Yeonseo’s gaze dropped to the floor. A cleaver covered in blood and strange slime lay there among the mess. A chill ran up his spine. Was this cook… insanely strong?
“If you could kill those monsters with a knife, why couldn’t you kill the students?”
“Because I couldn’t.”
“Did you feel sorry for them or something? Even if they look like monsters, they talk and act like students.”
Yeongwon’s tone bordered on mocking, but oddly enough, Yeonseo wondered if he had felt sympathy for the students.
He couldn’t explain why that thought crossed his mind.
Meanwhile, the cook looked baffled.
“That’s not it at all. According to the Code of Conduct, I’m unable to attack students. Probably because my job is to prepare food for them. When the students rushed me earlier, my limbs wouldn’t move properly. I wasn’t even that tired.”
“…So you had that kind of restriction.”
“Speaking of which, are you two students here? I can tell you’re definitely not like those things from earlier… but my Code said I have to immediately attack anyone who isn’t a student when they enter the kitchen.”
The cook stared curiously at Yeongwon, probably because he didn’t look remotely like a typical student.
With a sigh, Yeongwon held up his temporary student ID and Code notebook.
“For now, we’re considered students. Because we have these.”
“‘Considered,’ meaning…?”