DNLYHS Chapter 3 (Part 2)

In the end, the two decided to take the key bundle and open the broadcasting room door. Even if it was dangerous, they couldn’t ignore someone who had saved their lives the previous day, and according to that written message, keeping the supervising teacher alive would help them.

But even so, Yeongwon was still tilting his head in doubt.

“What do you think about those strange sentences written on the walls and doors, Yeonseo? Who could have written something like that?”

“I have no idea. But they seem worth keeping in mind.”

They walked down the hallway, lost in thought. It wasn’t clear whether trusting anonymous scribbles was reasonable, but if they thought about it carefully, the Code of Conduct was also suspicious information with an unknown author. Since both sources lacked clear origins, neither could be considered more reliable than the other.

‘But it feels different from the Code. More like… a message written by someone wandering this school themselves. Someone like us.’

Maybe it was the janitor, maybe someone else. What confused Yeonseo further was this: if there was already a librarian whose role was to “record,” then who had written those messages in the first place?

A hard-to-explain uneasiness grew in him, but Yeongwon, unaware of it, reached a neatly packaged conclusion.

“Well, there’s nothing to lose. I’ll go inside alone again, and you hold the doorknob from outside. Hang the key bundle on the handle just like the note said.”

“This time I’ll go in. You hold the door, Yeongwon. Stop trying to do all the dangerous things on your own.”

“I told you, this is my job. It’s not like I’m doing this out of saintly kindness.”

For someone who said that, he’d hesitated quite a lot earlier when approaching the broadcasting room…
Yeonseo glared at him in disbelief, but Yeongwon only scoffed.

As soon as they reached the door, Yeongwon unlocked the padlocks without hesitation. Now that they looked closely, the padlocks and the keys had matching numbers; once aligned, they opened easily.

“Alright. I’m opening it.”

With the key bundle hung on the doorknob, Yeongwon stepped back and Yeonseo pushed the broadcasting room door wide open, ready to shove the single packed meal inside.

“…Huh?”

But the moment the door opened, they doubted their own eyes. Not just because of the stinging stench of blood and rot, but because the broadcasting room was completely empty.

The room was so small that it would feel cramped with two or three people inside. They didn’t even need to look around; the entire room was visible at a glance. There was nowhere a person could hide. A large digital clock on the wall blinked with an ominous red glow.

They couldn’t even find a trace of anyone living here. The desk covering one wall was buried in dust, and the old broadcasting equipment looked just as abandoned.

The microphone on the desk seemed to have been wired, but its cable had been cut cleanly. The power cords to the broadcasting devices were cut as well.

How had someone been broadcasting from here?

And where was this awful smell coming from? There were no bloodstains, no rotting objects. Shocked by the odor, even worse than the kitchen from earlier, the two exchanged uneasy looks.

[H-hello….]

At that moment, a small lamp on the broadcasting panel blinked blue. A crackling of static followed, and the same voice they had heard earlier filled the room.

[Did something happen? I heard the padlocks opening. Why aren’t you coming inside?]

“……!”

[It says in the Code of Conduct. Once you open the broadcasting room door, you have to come in to meet me. Um… why are you hesitating?]

What was going on?

Where was the supervising teacher?

While Yeonseo struggled to comprehend it, Yeongwon raised both hands near his ears and shouted at the equipment.

“You. What are you?”

At the same time, he kicked the lunchbox toward the broadcasting room floor, sending it skidding inside. But the reaction wasn’t relief. If anything, the voice sounded startled and confused.

[W-what? What are you talking about? Don’t scare me like that, just come in already!]

“Are you even human? You’re not some machine that thinks it’s a person, are you?”

That idea seemed far-fetched. Realistically, the supervising teacher was likely trapped somewhere else, communicating through the equipment.

But then Yeonseo realized that didn’t make sense.

The broadcasting equipment had all its wires severed; it wasn’t receiving power.

And no one had touched it, so how had it turned on by itself?
It was ancient hardware, the kind used in the 70s or 80s; it wasn’t something that could be remote-controlled.

The look in Yeongwon’s eyes said it all. He wasn’t accepting simple explanations.

“Y-Yeongwon, this isn’t right. We opened the door, we gave them the food… let’s step back now…!”

Pulling urgently at his clothes, Yeonseo tried to drag him away. His instincts screamed at him: they had to run, and fast, before continuing this conversation put them in greater danger.

— The door… is open.

But instinct rarely beat danger to the finish line.

— Then you should come inside.

The moment a voice, not the supervising teacher’s, brushed their ears, the two found themselves already inside the broadcasting room.

Yet they hadn’t taken a single step.

“Keep the door from closing, Yeonseo!”

Yeongwon’s desperate shout came too late.

By the time Yeonseo spun around, the door slammed shut.

There was no one outside, yet the rattle and click of padlocks locking echoed from the hallway.

“Wh-what is this?! The door’s locked!”

“Whose voice was that earlier? I didn’t hear well with my ears covered, but it wasn’t the supervising teacher!”

He was right. Worse, the voice had sounded like it came from outside, not from the broadcasting device.

Frantically, Yeongwon gripped the doorknob and shook it, but it was no use.

All five padlocks had been locked again; the handle moved, but the door wouldn’t open.

“It was a trap. That message, it was a trap!”

Only then did it click for Yeonseo.

That written sentence had triggered all of this.

If they hadn’t hung the key bundle on the doorknob, no one outside would have been able to lock the padlocks.

Now they were completely trapped inside the broadcasting room.

Unless someone opened it from the outside, they couldn’t escape.

“Open the door right now! What are you planning to do to us?!”

“What… what are you talking about? And that strange, voice-modulated sound just now, who was that? Didn’t you say there were only two of you?”

Even now, the supervising teacher’s voice was shaking with fear. Yeonseo couldn’t tell whether he was still trying to deceive them or whether he truly knew nothing. If that was the case, then the voice that trapped them must be a different being entirely.

“And didn’t one of you break your Code of Conduct?”

“Is that really important right now? Let us out! Why did you lock us in here?!”

“I didn’t lock you in! You didn’t even come inside yet, what are you talking about? No, hold on. That doesn’t make sense. Why is the [Repeat] button lit? It only activates if someone isn’t covering their ears. But I’m alone in this room….”

They heard paper rustling through the speaker. The moment the words left his mouth, Yeonseo instinctively raised both hands and pressed them tightly against his ears, but Yeongwon was still struggling desperately with the door, unable to think of anything else.

‘…Too late.’

A chilling intuition surged up from nowhere. Yeonseo whirled around in panic. There was no one behind him, only Yeongwon, pale and frantic.

“Attention to everyone inside the broadcasting room. The [Repeat] sequence will now begin. I’m sorry… this is all I can say.”

The broadcasting room shook violently as if an earthquake had struck. All the indicator lights on the equipment flickered irregularly, and the digits on the wall-mounted clock scrambled wildly. But the sound was the worst. Screams, blows, wailing pleas, and desperate sobbing slammed against the walls of the room.

“Cover your ears, Yeongwon!”

Yeonseo shouted far too late. Yeongwon didn’t seem to hear him at all. He wasn’t even fighting the door anymore; he simply turned as if hypnotized and lifted his head, staring blankly at nothing. Just like the first time they met the cook.

Even with both hands over his ears, Yeonseo still heard it, flesh being crushed, wet sloshing, furious sobbing, ragged breathing choked with blood. The grotesque noises swallowed his senses whole.

Hallucinations bled into his vision. When he blinked, the walls were drenched in blood. It almost made sense; from the moment they entered, the room had reeked of it. The dust and emptiness had been the real lie. This… this was the broadcasting room’s true form, a place where countless deaths had happened.

— No. No, you… how could you?

Somehow, the next thing he knew, Yeongwon, who had been standing at the door moments ago, was now sprawled on the floor. Blood poured from his head, soaking his shirt. Yeonseo bent down to check his wounds, but a shriek ripped through the room, forcing him to stumble back.

— You traitorous bastard. You don’t deserve… you don’t deserve to get out of here alive…!

The voice came from somewhere, maybe the speaker, maybe the hallway, maybe from inside his own throat. Whatever the source, the moment Yeonseo recognized it, something twisted inside him.

Because the voice was his own.

—Die, you bastard. Do you have any idea how much, huh? How much hell I’ve been through because of you…!

A shadow shaped like himself was screaming and driving something down into Yeongwon’s throat. It was a white plastic pen with a clumsy design, but if stabbed hard enough, even something so trivial could pierce a person’s neck.

Why are you doing that? Why him…?

Just as Yeonseo lunged forward in confusion to stop the shadow, the world flipped over as though it were turning inside out, and another illusion layered over his vision.

—Die, teacher. You weren’t planning to believe me no matter how much I explained, were you?

This time, it was Yeongwon crushing something that looked like Yeonseo beneath him. The shadow struggled desperately and tried to say something, but Yeongwon didn’t seem to hear a word.

Why are you killing me now? A moment ago, blood was pouring from your head and neck, why are you completely fine now? And what’s with this ‘teacher’ thing? You’re the one who made up that ridiculous nickname ‘Yeonseo,’ and now you won’t even call me that anymore?

Before Yeonseo could make sense of it, the scene changed again. Now it was an image of himself lifting a large rock from who-knows-where and striking Yeongwon’s forehead with all his strength. Then Yeongwon snatched a name pen from Yeonseo’s hand and drove it toward his eyes…

“You bastard, it’s your fault! You have to die! Everything is…!”

“You die, teacher. I’m getting out of here only if you’re gone!”

The killer and the victim switched back and forth endlessly. In that terrifying cycle, Yeonseo found a single pattern. He was always blaming Yeongwon, and Yeongwon was always sneering at him, as if they had accumulated years’ worth of resentment from events Yeonseo had never even experienced.

It didn’t look cruel so much as it looked sad. Not hatred, but something closer to a final, desperate thrashing.

‘So… that’s the kind of illusion this is, right…?’

At the very least, one thing was certain: this wasn’t real. Because he was covering his ears, however poorly, the scenes unfolding before him looked less like reality and more like a detailed hologram. Each time the two figures thrashed and fought, the broadcasting room trembled beneath them, but even that seemed like the cheap effects of a 4DX theater, not reality.

‘Calm down. Breathe. Look around and figure out what’s actually happening.’

Yeonseo forced his breathing to steady and scanned the room. Even though blood splattered every surface, the layout hadn’t changed. The broadcasting room was still cramped; the old equipment still sat with only a blue lamp lit; and the large digital clock on the wall…

‘…Huh?’

Yeonseo stared wide-eyed at the clock.

In this decrepit room, the pristine, spotless digital clock stood out the most. Not a drop of blood marked it. Its date and time continued to shift.

At first he thought it was random.

But it wasn’t.

The date in the upper-right corner began at August 29 and increased one day at a time.

The time always began at 8:30 PM and ran until 6:00 AM the next day.

At 6:00 AM, the red digits turned gray and continued ticking normally, until 8:30 PM came again, then the numbers turned red once more.

Sometimes the screen flickered to black for a moment, like a sudden blackout. When it came back on, everything reset to August 29, 8:30 PM, starting the same sequence from the beginning.

The rewound time rarely lasted more than ten days. A week at best.

Usually, something seemed to go wrong around the third day, the display cut out abruptly.

Watching that pattern, Yeonseo felt like he was on the verge of some crucial realization.

But survival instinct crushed it.

‘It’s an illusion. A trick. Something meant to deceive us.’

There was no proof that anything he was seeing was real. The grotesque illusions could be some kind of elaborate deepfake, and the clock’s changing time might be nothing more than psychological manipulation.

Hadn’t the Code of Conduct warned them?

One person in this school is a “liar.”

If the liar was the supervising teacher, if everything he said was a trap, then trusting anything here would only harm them.

That was the mindset he had to take to survive.

He had to block the sounds, blur the details, turn away from realizations that felt too sharp. He had to doubt everything. The ones who couldn’t…

“…You.”

…were the ones who lost themselves. Just like the person who wasn’t covering his ears right now.

Yeonseo turned reflexively, and met the eyes of the real Yeongwon. Bloodless. Uninjured. Not fighting him. The same man he had spent the last two days with.

“…Yeongwon?”

“It’s your fault. All of it.”

What…?

At the man’s heavy mutter, Yeonseo stumbled backward. Yeongwon was speaking, looking at him, but something was clearly wrong. His expression was hollow, his voice sounded strangled, as though he weren’t fully aware of the situation at all.

“I’m done being fooled. Pretending to be harmless and clueless while all along you’ve been planning to kill me.”

“You… me? Get a hold of yourself! There’s no way any of that is real. It’s obviously an illusion!”

Was there a voice only he could hear? Something whispering nonsense into his ears, twisting his perception? That possibility alone was terrifying, because right now Yeongwon’s eyes were filled with a strange, unhinged madness.

“You strangled me to death. You crushed my head with a rock. You hung me from the ceiling with a rope you dragged out from God knows where. You stabbed my eyes with that damned fountain pen until blood spurted like a fountain and smashed my skull into the table.”

“How many times do I have to say it for you to understand?! Look at yourself, you’re not hurt anywhere! Your neck is fine, your head is fine, your eyes are fine!”

No matter how desperately Yeonseo shouted, Yeongwon didn’t seem to hear him. The more Yeonseo spoke, the deeper Yeongwon sank into his delusion, his expression twisting in pain as though he really had been stabbed, crushed, and mutilated.

“I never wanted someone like you as a partner. Someone stupid and selfish like you!”

“What are you even talking about?! Calm down, Yeongwon! How are you even interpreting what’s happening right now?”

“What do you mean, how? You betrayed me. You said we’d work together to escape. You said you’d repay the help I gave you!”

Was he misunderstanding everything, even though he heard the words clearly?

At this point, Yeonseo almost wondered if he was the one who was wrong. Maybe he was the one refusing to see reality while plugging his ears, and maybe Yeongwon was the one seeing things clearly.

But no… Yeonseo had never strangled him. He had never smashed his head with a rock. He had never betrayed him. All he had done was stand still with his hands over his ears. If that counted as a sin, if failing to protect someone who was losing his mind counted as betrayal, there was nothing he could do.

“Yeongwon, I…”

“Then this time, you die.”

Yeongwon lunged at him.

With his hands still covering his ears, unable to defend himself properly, Yeonseo was shoved onto the floor as Yeongwon wrapped his hands around his throat. Those slender, gentle fingers now held brutal strength that didn’t fit them at all.

‘No, no…!’

Yeonseo struggled desperately, but he couldn’t break free. Pain crushed his neck, breath refused to come, and his mind grew foggy. Was this how it ended? Just like the countless illusions he had been shown?

No, there had to be something he could do. Even if Yeongwon was lost, he had to think of the answer.

Then, a sudden flash of realization struck him.

“Don’t… listen….”

“What?”

“Ghk… hff… please… just don’t listen to it.”

He pulled his hands away from his own ears and pressed both palms over Yeongwon’s.

So that Yeongwon wouldn’t make a choice he would regret.

“Don’t… listen. Please. Listen to me instead.”

He whispered the words like they were squeezed out of his collapsing lungs. In truth, he didn’t believe his voice would reach him at all, his airway was crushed tight, and all he managed were faint gasps. And now that his hands were blocking Yeongwon’s ears, nothing he said should have been able to reach him.

But he still had to try.

Even if sound couldn’t reach him, maybe warmth could.

Even if anger refused to fade, maybe Yeongwon could remember just one thing, the feeling from the previous night, lying back-to-back on a cramped mat, sharing the warmth of another living person.

The one moment when they were both safe.

How many times had he wished for it in his heart?

Just before Yeonseo’s vision faded completely to black, the strength of the hands choking his throat weakened.

“…Huh?”

Gasping, Yeonseo barely managed to draw in a sharp breath.

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them several times to clear his blurry vision, and when his sight sharpened, he saw Yeongwon staring at him with a startled, confused expression. His gaze kept flicking between Yeonseo and the fake slaughter unfolding beside them.

Yeonseo didn’t like that one bit, so he pressed his hands more firmly over Yeongwon’s ears. Now Yeongwon’s head was completely fixed in place, unable to look anywhere else even if he wanted to. With his throat still rough and burning, Yeonseo forced his voice out as much as he could.

“Who am I?”

“The librarian teacher…?”

“Not that kind of role. The name you gave me.”

“…Yeonseo.”

When Yeonseo nodded, Yeongwon briefly showed a thoughtful expression before removing the hands that had been choking him. Instead, he lifted his hands toward Yeonseo’s head.

Was he trying to touch his face? Yeonseo got caught in that baseless thought for a moment, but in reality, Yeongwon covered Yeonseo’s ears with both hands. Only then did Yeonseo realize how exposed he had been to all the surrounding sounds.

“…Right. You’re not that person. You never betrayed me, and you never stabbed me with a pen.”

“Of course I didn’t. Isn’t it obvious if you think for just a second? You make fun of me all the time for being clueless and useless, but suddenly now you’re overestimating me?”

“……”

“Honestly, do you really think I could kill you? Do you think my strength even compares to yours? If I tried something stupid, you’d have pinned me down instantly and flicked my forehead or something.”

“I’m sorry, Yeonseo. I almost hurt you because of ridiculous assumptions….”

Even with the man’s large hands covering his ears, his trembling voice reached Yeonseo as clearly as if he were whispering directly into them.

Yeonseo wanted to scold him more, throw sharp remarks at that reckless man, but he couldn’t. Not when he could tell how terrified Yeongwon truly was.

And Yeonseo was scared too. He hadn’t felt it at first, but after everything came pouring out of him, he noticed how shallow his breathing was and how badly his hands were shaking. Of course, he was shaken, he had almost been strangled to death by someone he trusted. Staying calm under that would have been the strange thing.

But why was it, then, that Yeongwon’s hands, now gently covering his ears, brought him such strange comfort? Just a few minutes ago, those very hands had been crushing his throat, trying to kill him. Yet simply changing their position was enough for their warmth to feel reassuring. It was baffling.

Maybe Yeongwon felt the same. At first, he was pale and breathless, but as time passed, he gradually steadied. His expression calmed, and even the trembling in his hands eased. The two simply stared at each other in silence, each covering the other’s ears in that strange, mirrored posture.

The one who broke that silence was the humming voice of someone outside the broadcasting room.

— Hm, hmhm. Hmhmhm….

Huh? The two of them flinched at the same time and exchanged a look.

It was definitely getting closer. Someone who sounded like a young woman was walking down the hallway, casually humming something like a lullaby. Her footsteps drew nearer, and with each step, something metallic jangled, like a bundle of keys swinging at her side.

“Yeongwon.”

“Yes?”

“Switch hands.”

At that, Yeongwon blinked blankly for a moment before nodding. The two of them carefully stood up, each now covering their own ears.

Yeonseo turned his head slightly to glance at the digital clock. The numbers displayed were tinted gray, as if indicating the nighttime hours after the evening broadcast. He didn’t know why that thought suddenly came to mind.

The humming that had steadily approached stopped right in front of the broadcasting room door. So did the footsteps. As though she were observing something or waiting, the presence at the door remained still for a long moment without saying a word…

Clatter.

There was the sound of someone lifting the key bundle hanging on the doorknob, followed by the click of an outer padlock opening. One by one, the five padlocks that had been securing the door dropped to the floor with heavy metallic thuds.

Yeonseo and Yeongwon exchanged a confused look. The humming woman’s voice and the loud clatter of falling metal were eerie to the extreme, but under the circumstances, no sound could have been more hopeful.

“Is she… opening the door for us?”

Yeongwon muttered in a trembling voice. How? Was the first question to come to mind, but thinking about it, it wasn’t impossible. The key bundle capable of opening the door was hanging outside now. She hadn’t been able to touch it when it was kept in the faculty office’s key cabinet, since that was outside her authority, but now that it was on the door… it was within reach.

Bang. Soon, the final padlock hit the ground. With an unpleasant squeal from the old hinges, the broadcasting room door swung open. Had the janitor opened it from the outside? Both of them thought so, but the hallway beyond the open door was…

“There’s no one. No one’s there?”

It was completely empty. The woman’s humming, which had continued without pause until now, stopped instantly the moment the door opened.

In that moment, Yeongwon’s eyes widened, and he immediately bolted forward.

“Let’s get out of here, Yeonseo! We have to go find the janitor!”

Without hesitation, he sprinted out, but Yeonseo lingered for a moment. That was because something in the broadcasting room clearly changed the instant the door opened.

All the screams and horrific noises stopped at once. The illusions of the two figures fighting and killing each other, those had vanished long ago. The blood-soaked broadcasting room had returned to how it was at the very beginning, dust quietly settling over everything.

Even the digital clock had returned to normal. The time displayed was 4:24 a.m., quite a while had passed since they first saw it, but now the numbers were no longer shifting on their own. The digits were bright red, not gray.

But not everything was the same as when they arrived.

Yeonseo’s eyes widened as he glanced at the desk. There was an open notebook lying there, something that definitely hadn’t existed earlier.

[Your job is Broadcasting Club Supervising Teacher.]

[The time remaining until escape is 14 days (2 weeks).]

[Trust the Code of Conduct. It contains rules you must absolutely follow.]

[Your current probability of escaping is 21%. Broadcast at the designated time. If anything important happens, notify everyone.]

[The rules you are reading now apply to Day 1. The next day’s rules will be revealed at the end of the day, immediately after the evening broadcast.]

[Rules common to all weeks: Reveal your job to others. Ask others for what you need. Keep to the schedule. Do not go insane.]

[Day 1 Code of Conduct]

[1. You are always in the broadcasting room. You cannot leave it. You are bound here.]

[You may communicate with others only through broadcasts. You must not communicate through any other means. You probably won’t be able to anyway. Do not go insane.]

[2. Conduct the morning broadcast every day at 8:30 p.m. and the evening broadcast at 6:00 a.m. without fail. If you miss even one broadcast, immediately close your eyes and count to ten.]

[Refer to the digital clock on the wall for the current time. During work hours, the numbers will appear red, and after hours, the numbers will appear gray. Day and night are reversed compared to a normal school, so this is useful to remember. It is especially helpful when distinguishing whether the person beyond the door is someone who moves during work hours or someone who moves after hours.]

[2-1. If the digital clock breaks, immediately press the broadcast system’s Emergency button and request that outsiders bring you a clock.]

[Inform them that spare wristwatches are located in the classroom closest to the broadcasting room. However, before entering that classroom, they must look through the window to see if there are any school uniforms left on the chairs or desks. If there is not even one uniform visible, they must close their eyes, count to five, and check the classroom again. This is for their safety.]

[2-2. During a Repeat, the digital clock may malfunction, but this is not a breakdown. Remain calm and wait.]

It was the supervising teacher’s Code of Conduct. Yeonseo felt a sting of guilt, wondering if he should really be reading something like this so freely, but in a situation like this, it seemed he had done the right thing. It helped him understand what had just happened, and it would likely help with today’s record as well.

“Yeonseo?!”

Just as he was about to read further, a startled Yeongwon burst into the broadcasting room. Seeing that the person who should have come out with him was still lingering inside must have worried him quite a bit.

“What are you doing in here? Did something happen?!”

“N-no, nothing’s wrong! I just had something to check…! What about the janitor?”

“She vanished like a ghost. There’s no way she could have run far in that short moment. It’s like she never existed at all.”

Yeongwon immediately pushed Yeonseo out of the broadcasting room and stepped out himself.

The moment the two stepped into the hallway, the door slammed shut behind them. As soon as they turned around, the broadcasting room door had already reverted to its original state, secured with all five padlocks fully locked.

And from inside the broadcasting room…

[Huh? This lunchbox… you brought this for me, right? But how…? No one came inside though?]

A voice mixed with fear and joy leaked through the door. Along with it came the frantic sound of someone pacing and rummaging through a plastic bag, as if there really were a person inside the broadcasting room.

If they hadn’t gone inside earlier, if they had only heard the voice coming from the machine, both of them would have believed it was simply the supervising teacher.

But after experiencing what lay within that room… suspicion was the only natural response.

“…What the hell are you?”

Yeongwon growled, his voice almost biting. His expression made it clear that, if he could, he would tear the door open again and grab the speaker by the collar.

Hearing the angry voice outside, the person inside seemed to shrink back.

[Why are you suddenly acting like this? And are you okay? You know, that Repeat thing… The Code said it’s a really dangerous phenomenon with a low survival rate. I’m glad it seems to have ended safely, but…]

“That Repeat made me nearly kill my partner! And answer my question! What the hell are you? What if you’re the ghost, not the janitor? Did you even need a lunchbox in the first place? Maybe you can’t eat or sleep at all, and you just asked for food to lure us into a trap!”

[I-I don’t know what you’re talking about! What are you even saying? If anything, what are YOU two? Leaving a lunchbox without showing yourselves… aren’t YOU the ghosts?!]

Both sides were clearly agitated. It felt less like either actually believed the words they were spouting and more like fear had driven them into blurting out anything that came to mind. Just like inside the broadcasting room.

If this continued, both sides would end up drowning in suspicion and tearing apart what little trust they could have built.

That couldn’t be allowed.

The moment he decided that, Yeonseo grabbed Yeongwon’s arm and shouted.

“Both of you, calm down! Yeongwon, I know you’re terrified and not thinking straight right now! Let’s take a breath and talk!”

“Yeonseo? What are you saying? You went through all that in there too…!”

“That’s why I’m saying this! Because we figured out this school is deliberately forcing us into terrifying situations! On purpose, just to scare us!”

When Yeonseo shouted that, Yeongwon finally hesitated and caught his breath.

The most important thing Yeonseo realized during the broadcasting room incident was exactly that.

The Code of Conduct, the events, the circumstances, this school is purposely hiding information and making everyone distrust each other to provoke fear.

And if they got caught up in it, they would strangle each other, just like in that illusion…

The voice inside the broadcasting room also fell silent for a moment, as if thinking.