DNLYHS Chapter 5 (Part 3)

Even though it was rough concrete, the letters came out fairly clean. When Yeonseo pointed to the writing, the janitor’s eyes widened as he stared fixedly at the words.

“Good, he seems to understand!”

After reading the writing for a long moment, the janitor looked at the marker in Yeonseo’s hand, then began writing something on the floor with his fingertip. Even when Yeonseo offered him the marker, he shook his head and insisted on using his finger.

Why did you save me?

Because you were in danger? For the past five days, you haven’t eaten or drunk anything.

Yeonseo began writing that but froze abruptly. That line was forbidden, he remembered a Code of Conduct rule stating not to write anything related to food if they failed to rescue the janitor. He couldn’t recall which day it was from, but it was too risky.

Instead, he wrote something else.

…You have been feeding your ego into that machine every day.

Me?

Yes. And using more than half could have been dangerous.

Yeonseo wanted to show him the writing on the ceiling, but most of it had collapsed due to the machine’s rampage, making it impossible to find. The janitor didn’t know that, though. Instead, he stared at the Librarian with wide-eyed awe, as if believing he possessed tremendous knowledge.

Why would I do that? I don’t remember anything.

That’s not something you should ask me… No, if you don’t remember, then of course you wouldn’t know. I think it was probably to make a wish come true.

A wish? What wish?

I really have no idea. It isn’t my wish, it’s yours. But I read that if you feed seven days’ worth of ego into that machine, it grants one wish.

Yeonseo silently grew troubled. He couldn’t explain any further.

Honestly, he was the one who wanted answers to these questions. Why had this person turned into something ghostlike and stuffed one version of himself into the machine each day? What wish was so important that he risked himself and sacrificed his ego? Why did he decide to enter this school in the first place?

But there was no time to ask. And since the janitor himself didn’t remember, there was no point pressing him for an answer.

Fortunately, the janitor didn’t ask further and simply nodded. After looking around briefly, he began scribbling with his fingertip.

Two ways, like you said

Ways to escape? Tell us both.

Escape endure

Escaping, sure… but endure?

“I know what he means. This school repairs some of the damage from the previous day when a new day starts, doesn’t it? I think he’s suggesting we stay somewhere safe and endure until tomorrow.”

Yeongwon, who had been quietly watching the exchange, added that. Would that really work? If it did, it wouldn’t be the worst option. In fact, maybe…

“Then escaping is basically not an option.”

“Why do you say that, Yeonseo?”

“Think about it, what if the machine’s rampage spreads damage all the way to the first-floor nurse’s office and the gym storage? We might literally end up with nowhere left to go.”

“We still have the art prep room on the third floor… ah. Right, we told the school nurse about it. If he saw the nurse’s office collapse, he would definitely run there and barricade himself inside.”

And following Yeongwon’s example, the school nurse would break the door lock as soon as he entered. If that happened, Yeongwon and Yeonseo might not be able to get inside later. They might end up forced to run through the halls without a hideout. In that case, staying in a secure place underground would be the better option.

Enduring seems safer. Can you tell us exactly where we can endure?

There

The janitor wrote that and pointed toward something. It was inside the machine room, in fact, toward the wall on the exact opposite side from the rampaging machine. Surely he didn’t mean they should endure the collapse in that corner?

Will that be okay? What if that part collapses too?

It’s okay, that’s safe, it’s a hideout

A hideout? That’s… a hideout? Could you give us a solid reason to trust that?

I stayed there for five days

The janitor wrote that with his finger, looking quite proud as he pointed again. Wait, what? Yes, he had been in this machine room for the past five days, but the machine room itself didn’t meet the conditions for a hideout, and the janitor ghosts had always been lined up against the walls near the machine…

But while Yeonseo hesitated, Yeongwon suddenly stood up as if something clicked in his head.

“I see, there was a hidden passage inside the machine room, wasn’t there?”

“Yeongwon? What do you mean?”

“The sleeping quarters! He’s pointing in the direction of the sleeping quarters!”

Yeongwon picked up a pipe-like metal rod rolling on the ground and sprinted toward the wall without hesitation. What was he planning to do now?!

“Wait, Yeongwon!”

“Earlier, we saved the janitor your way, so this time we’ll create a hideout my way! Ask him something for me, if I break the door a little, can you lock it again afterward?”

Yes

Even though Yeonseo didn’t write anything on the floor, the janitor responded with surprisingly clear eyes. Maybe his consciousness had recovered enough to understand speech now.

“He says he can! We’re coming too!”

While Yeonseo helped the janitor up and walked slowly, Yeongwon was already at the far end of the wall.

He examined the wall, pulled at it, then suddenly began striking one section with the metal pipe. Instead of the sharp ring of concrete, a dull cracking sound echoed through the machine room, like smashing rotten wood.

So there really was a hidden door there.

From a distance, it looked identical to the rest of the wall, but when Yeongwon yanked at what was almost a broken door handle, a concealed door slowly opened. As it did, the darkness was pierced by the warm, dim yellow glow of an old lightbulb flooding out through the gap.

And the moment the shabby sleeping quarters beyond the door came into view….

“…Pull out the wires.”

“What?”

Startled by the sudden woman’s voice, Yeonseo turned to the side. But the janitor wasn’t there. And throughout the machine room, the other ghost janitors who had been blankly staring at the walls also began disappearing one by one.

“Over here, Yeonseo! This must be the janitor’s real body!”

Yeongwon was tearing out black wires from the real janitor lying on the floor of the sleeping quarters. Each time he removed an unknown electrode or unwound a coiled wire attached to the janitor’s body, one ghost janitor vanished. Snapping back to his senses, Yeonseo rushed in and helped strip away the wires.

Once all the wires were removed, the janitor immediately opened his eyes. He looked far more haggard and messy than he had in ghost form, but his mind seemed clearer.

“…Lock the door and turn off the light. Then tomorrow will come.”

Without adding anything else, the janitor simply said that. After the two men exchanged a quick glance and nodded, he stood up, closed the door, and pulled out a mysterious silver key from his pocket. Even though Yeongwon had broken the door handle earlier, the moment the janitor touched it, the door locked as if by magic.

“Sleep well. We’ll talk after we wake up.”

Click. The moment the light switch flipped off, darkness swallowed everything. Yeongwon and Yeonseo’s consciousness sank all at once into the deep dark.

* * *

[Announcement to everyone in the school. Due to the collapse of the basement ceiling, access to the first-floor west hallway is now restricted. The routes to the library, nurse’s office, first-floor teachers’ office, gym storage, and Class 1–1 through 1–3 have been blocked for today, so please be advised….]

Today’s end-of-day broadcast wasn’t exactly cheerful. The broadcasting adviser’s voice trembled with anxiety, likely because the entire school had shaken several hours earlier, and the hallway had collapsed.

Fortunately, the collapse hadn’t reached the first-floor east hallway. Even though the nurse’s office and gym storage had fallen apart, the cafeteria remained intact. The cook took solace in that fact as he swung his cooking knife and shredded the monsters to pieces.

“Wh-why are there so damn many monsters?! How are we supposed to kill all of these things and survive a night in this insane place…!”

“If you have complaints, leave, Nurse. Sorry to say, I won’t be seeing you out. I’m stuck in here anyway.”

The nurse, who had been whining like a dog that needed to be walked, immediately fell silent at the cook’s words.

The cook couldn’t fathom why that man refused to go to the third-floor art prep room and instead kept causing a commotion down here. The nurse claimed he couldn’t help it because being alone scared him, but if he was that terrified, why insist on staying in the cafeteria, a place where monsters kept breaking in?

“By the way, um… Cook. Are those brats going to be okay? Don’t tell me they messed up and didn’t make it out….”

“Well, I’m worried too, but I can’t say. They might be trapped in the basement.”

“Stupid idiots. I told them it was a trap! I told them! There was probably no janitor or whatever down there…!”

“You don’t know that. If there really is a staircase leading to the basement from the first-floor west hallway, like you said, then it’s perfectly possible the janitor came up that way every night. His humming always came from the west hallway and headed up the east staircase afterward.”

The problem now was whether those young men could endure safely underground. The cook thought this as he slammed his cleaver into a monster’s eye cluster. As the eyeball split open and spewed red liquid and countless razor-thin blades, he dodged them with ease. He was used to this by now. The nurse, however, shrieked like he was watching a circus act.

‘At least there’s no moonlight underground. That alone raises their survival chances a lot….’

Even if the ceiling collapsed, surviving wasn’t impossible. If the path to the surface was broken, monsters would also struggle to come down.

‘They said no one can pass through there today, hopefully that “no one” includes monsters.’

If luck was on their side, those young men could hold out. As long as they hadn’t been seriously injured in the initial collapse, they should be able to manage.

The cook turned to tell this to the trembling nurse when…

“Uh, h-hey. Didn’t you hear something?”

The school nurse whispered in a strained, pinched voice.

The cook flicked monster blood off his chef’s knife and nodded. He had definitely heard something. A humming voice, carrying a familiar melody. The same song the janitor had been singing for days.

But both men quickly realized it wasn’t the janitor singing. For one, the voice was male, not female, and instead of drifting from the west hallway like usual, it was coming from above, heading downward…

It didn’t take long for them to identify the source. Within a few minutes, light, casual footsteps echoed as someone walked into the cafeteria.

“Ah, aaah. Ahem. Hello! Is lunch service over already~?”

The intruder looked eerily similar to the janitor. His hat, his clothes, even his sneakers matched the janitor’s perfectly. At a glance, one could mistake it for some kind of uniform.

But the cook caught on immediately. That was nothing more than…

“There’s no food here for someone sloppily pretending to be a janitor. State your identity.”

A kitchen knife sliced through the air and grazed the man’s hat by mere millimeters. The nurse gasped in shock, but the man didn’t so much as flinch. He simply pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and waved it. It was a temporary student ID.

“Sloppy? That’s harsh. I put a lot of effort into this, you know.”

“If that’s not pretending, what do you call it? You only matched the colors; you’re literally wearing the same design as the school uniform.”

“Budget cuts, budget cuts. Why so picky?”

“Are you talking about the school budget, or your own?”

“Well… my own, technically. But stripping the janitor and wearing his clothes wasn’t an option. His body type and, uh, other things just didn’t match mine.”

He was grinning, but his real expression was invisible. The shadow cast by his deeply pulled-down hat completely hid his face. The cook scowled and aimed his chef’s knife at him, but the man showed no fear whatsoever.

“And what are you going to do? Chop me up? Even if you do, all that’ll happen is the pain gets transferred to the cowardly teacher behind you.”

“…What?”

“I’m in the same situation as you two. Ah, there’s the lunch bag. Mind if I take it?”

Spotting the last plastic bag on the table, the man brightened and walked toward it. The countless eyeball monsters swarmed him, attempting to cling on, but the man simply walked through them as if he were the ghost instead.

In some ways, he resembled the janitor, but in others, he didn’t. The janitor floated like a true ghost, but this man walked; his movements looked undeniably human…

The cook glared at him, then glanced at the nurse trembling behind him and the monsters filling the room. Seeing this, the man chuckled softly.

“Good thing the nurse was here. Otherwise, I might’ve had my lunch stolen. I know it’s tough, protecting that guy while also keeping yourself alive.”

“…As the cook, I’m obligated to distribute meals to those who need them. I never had the right to stop you in the first place.”

“Hm.”

“But let me ask you something. Who are you? Where were you all this time, and why are you only crawling out now? If you also have a Code of Conduct, you should be obligated to reveal your job.”

“That’s your rule, not mine. There’s no way everyone’s Code of Conduct is identical, is there?”

General rules applicable to all situations. You are not required to reveal your role to others. You do not need to trust others or share information.

The man murmured this as if humming a tune, and the cook let out a quiet sigh.

“But since it doesn’t forbid revealing it, I suppose I can tell you. I’m the janitor.”

“…The janitor?”

“Has it never crossed your mind? If someone among you breaks the Code of Conduct, who do you think is responsible for the aftermath?”

“…You’re saying it’s you?”

“To be precise, I’m only released once the cleanup begins. That’s why I’ve been starving until now. If the janitor had opened the door, or if any one of you had broken the Code of Conduct earlier, I could’ve come out much sooner.”

For someone who claimed to be starving, he showed no signs of hunger, and his voice was energetic. The cook wanted to accuse him of lying, but there was no time for that. Something else mattered more right now.

“…Which one is it? I’m guessing the janitor is currently trapped underground.”

“You guessed correctly. It’s the latter.”

“Who broke the Code of Conduct?”

“I’m not obligated to tell you… But this time, it was the Librarian. Despite being warned not to let anyone see him recording, he went and showed it to two people…”

The cook and the nurse both went pale.

The man didn’t care. Swinging the plastic lunch bag lightly, he left the cafeteria. His humming voice grew distant in the direction of the first-floor west hallway, the very area the announcement had said was sealed off.