I Became a Professional Horror Story Cleaner

“Seriously, this page just happened to have already been torn out?”

“What do you think? That I ate it?”

Team Leader Yong, Myeong Haebin, and I were gathered in the third-year Class 2 classroom.

In a way, we were waiting for the end-of-day homeroom meeting, but they also seemed unable to believe that a page was missing from the notebook and kept flipping through it.

“A page like this should be the most important one.”

“At least we figured out one thing. They performed some kind of ritual to summon spirits or something like that.”

Since the notebook contained things like Bunshinsaba and Charlie Charlie, there was probably another similar game on the torn-out page.

The problem was that we didn’t know which one.

“Then how about we look for this student directly?”

“Who?”

Myeong Haebin snapped the notebook shut and held it up.

A name was written so faintly on the black cover that it was barely visible.

“Look. Lee Seryeong. She should be in third-year Class 5.”

Even if we found her, what were we going to find out…?

Ah.

Right.

Myeong Haebin could communicate with the paranormal creatures.

Then there was no point in taking the long way around.

It would be better to go directly and ask her.

At that moment, the ‘Professor’ appeared without making a sound and struck the desk several times to get our attention.

Bang, bang.

“……”

My eyes met the ‘Professor’s’.

I was worried because I had skipped practically every class that day.

A normal teacher wouldn’t have been able to overlook something like that.

“There will be no end-of-day homeroom meeting today. Go directly to the study hall. You know you’re not allowed to leave during nighttime self-study, right?”

The paranormal students, sitting neatly in their seats, nodded silently.

“Everyone, move.”

Nothing happened?

Just as I tried to discreetly rise from my seat, the ‘Professor’s’ hand pointed directly toward where we were sitting.

“You three.”

“…Yes.”

Anxiety began to take hold of me.

Were we going to be punished?

Since we had decided to skip class, would it have been better to skip the end-of-day homeroom meeting too?

All kinds of thoughts crossed my mind.

The ‘Professor’ tilted his expressionless face.

“Go directly to the study hall. And don’t do anything unnecessary.”

Phew.

I was safe.

Since each subject in high school had a different teacher, maybe our homeroom teacher simply hadn’t found out that we had skipped class.

Or perhaps there was another reason.

Whatever it was, I could finally breathe easy.

“It’s strange that he let us go just like that.”

“Yeah. Although it looks like we won’t be able to go to Class 5.”

I remembered that the students disappeared when classes ended, but this time they were all moving in a line toward the study hall.

They practically looked like machines.

The same thing was happening in the hallway.

Students coming out of each classroom formed long lines leading toward the study hall.

Avoiding drawing the attention of the ‘Professors’ monitoring the hallway, we naturally joined one of them.

“How about we look for her in the study hall? Everyone’s going there, so Lee Seryeong should be there too.”

“That’ll depend on what the study hall is like.”

The cafeteria and the classrooms had been equally deadly places.

I wondered what was waiting for us now.

The U-shaped study hall was enormous.

It looked like every third-year student had been assigned an individual study desk.

There were around a hundred and fifty desks with partitions lined up beside one another, filling practically the entire space.

And a ‘Professor’ stood in front of the iron door that served as the exit, as if keeping watch over us.

“Here are our names.”

My name was attached to one of the empty desks.

Our seats were at the far end of the Class 3 section and were right next to one another in this order.

Me, Myeong Haebin, and Team Leader Yong.

Ding~

Dong~

Dang~

Dong.

With the bell announcing the beginning of nighttime self-study, even the few remaining footsteps that could still be heard inside the room vanished as if by magic.

In their place came the sounds of pages turning and pens writing, as though someone had started playing a recording.

‘This doesn’t seem like an environment where we can talk.’

There are places where even the faintest whisper seems to carry with terrifying clarity.

Like a library.

This place was exactly like that.

The desk partitions were so tall and deep that I couldn’t even see Myeong Haebin despite her sitting right beside me.

While I was thinking about how we could find Lee Seryeong, a white sheet of paper suddenly appeared through the opening beneath the partition.

[Class 5 is three blocks ahead, to the northeast if you use the front of the room as your reference point.]

Right.

We could communicate like this too.

The message was written in pen, in long, hurried handwriting, on what appeared to be a sheet torn from Lee Seryeong’s notebook.

It was probably Team Leader Yong’s handwriting.

Below it was another message, written in crooked handwriting that most likely belonged to Myeong Haebin.

[ㄴ There’s space underneath the desks. I think I could discreetly crawl over there. <<>Which one of us can talk to the paranormal creatures?<<]

That was precisely why.

If we all went together, the chances of being discovered would increase.

And the only one capable of getting information from the paranormal creatures was Myeong Haebin.

Bang.

A small thud came from two cubicles away.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem to attract anyone’s attention.

I heard a faint rustling and sensed movement beside me, as if the person sitting there was lowering herself beneath the desk.

In the end, she really did go.

With Myeong Haebin, who had been acting as the intermediary, gone, I could no longer exchange notes with Team Leader Yong.

‘Better do what I can right now.’

First, check the app.

The fourth point, which had remained hidden until now, still hadn’t been unlocked.

Then where was the Professor patrolling right now?

Our seats were approximately at the exact center of the U-shaped structure. Toward the front left, the main entrance was barely visible, while toward the front right, in the direction Myeong Haebin had gone, there was nothing but a white concrete wall.

The Professor was toward the front left.

As I discreetly watched him to follow his patrol route, I noticed something strange.

‘The Professor isn’t looking this way at all.’

More specifically, toward where we were sitting.

Under normal circumstances, this should have been the route a patrolling teacher passed through most often, but even when he came practically right in front of us, all we ever saw was the back of his head.

At that moment, something tugged at the bottom hem of my pants.

“!!”

My heart nearly jumped out of my chest.

Beneath the desk, Myeong Haebin was crouching down, forming an X with her fingers.

[Lee Seryeong isn’t here!]

And the note that arrived immediately afterward began giving me a headache.

She wasn’t here?

This was where all the paranormal students had gathered.

[So I asked the student next to me, and they said she’s in Class 5.]

To begin with, everyone had formed a line and moved together specifically to this study hall.

Then how could Lee Seryeong be in Class 5?

[Are you sure?]

[We have no choice but to believe them. Ah, and there’s a back door. It’s at the opposite end.]

Well.

Even if we didn’t believe them, that wouldn’t change anything.

[We’ll have to go look for her in Class 5. The Professor isn’t watching this area at all.]

The note went over to Team Leader Yong and came back with only two characters written on it.

[Got it.]

Probably none of the three of us could shake the feeling that something about this was strange.

But staying still wouldn’t solve anything either, so we carefully slipped beneath the desks.

‘It’s even tighter than I imagined.’

Naturally, there wasn’t enough room to straighten our backs, so we had to move on all fours, with our knees and hands on the floor.

It was dark and cold beneath the desks.

The direction of the light coming from the incandescent lamps on the ceiling was practically our only point of reference.

From beneath one desk to a narrow aisle, then beneath another desk again.

It had been years since I’d crawled like this. Every time I stretched out my left leg, my abdomen hurt, and cold sweat poured down me like rain.

Some paranormal students saw us, but they said nothing and went back to what they were doing.

‘Is that the back door?’

If the main entrance was located at one end of the U-shaped structure, the back door was at the exact opposite point.

It was a completely isolated iron door, without even a teacher’s desk nearby.

There wasn’t even a Professor guarding it.

“Do you see the Professor’s feet?”

“Looks like he went to the other side.”

“I’ll open it.”

Team Leader Yong whispered in a barely audible voice and turned the handle.

If it had been locked, we would have had no choice but to go back.

However, it opened with almost unsettling ease, and cool air from outside flowed in through the gap.

‘No matter how much I think about it, this is strange.’

I felt as though we were willingly crawling straight into a trap.

Didn’t it seem like everything was kindly showing us the way out of the study hall?

…Thud.

When the study hall door silently closed behind us, the only source of light in the nighttime school, silent as a grave, was the moonlight.

The very structure of Hwaae High School was far from normal.

It was square-shaped, almost like a Chinese character, making the hallway on the opposite side clearly visible.

A building with a structure like this would be.

Yes.

A prison.

“Do you see that?”

“Yeah. Only the door to Class 5 is slightly open.”

The waist-high concrete wall allowed us to clearly see all the way to the hallway on the opposite side.

And among all the doors, the one to Class 5 was open just a crack.

“Let’s go.”

I took a step to quickly move away from the study hall.

Bzzz—

Why did the simple vibration of a phone sound so loud?

I was about to quickly take mine out when a huge hand abruptly pushed my head down.

“What…? Mmph!”

At the same time, Myeong Haebin’s pale hand covered my mouth.

Being suddenly restrained caught me off guard, but then a beam of light passed over our heads and swept across the wall.

‘There was a Professor patrolling outside too.’

It seemed he hadn’t noticed us because he was in the hallway on the opposite side.

That was close.

Team Leader Yong, with only his eyes peeking over the wall, turned toward me with a puzzled expression.

“What are you suddenly doing?”

Had neither of them heard the vibration?

I silently put the phone I hadn’t even managed to check back into my pocket.

“It’s nothing. Sorry.”

“Stay alert.”

“Yes.”

A school’s structure basically consists of straight hallways, so all it would take was for a Professor to turn a corner to discover us.

The app must have had some reason for sending me a notification, but I didn’t want to draw any more attention to it from the other two.

I felt it was better that way.

With our bodies practically bent in half, we moved as quickly as possible toward Class 5.

“There’s no one inside.”

Despite Myeong Haebin’s statement, I couldn’t take the next step.

It had the same layout as Class 3.

An old blackboard and the teacher’s desk, desks arranged mechanically, and closed windows covered in dust.

Was Lee Seryeong not here either?

No.

When I lowered my gaze, I noticed something interrupting the diagonal beam of moonlight cutting through the classroom.

“Wait.”

I brought a finger to my lips to signal the other two to remain silent and stepped into the deathly stillness of Class 5.

‘What is it?’

Team Leader Yong, who had entered last, lightly tapped me on the shoulder and asked the question using only his lips.

Instead of answering, I pointed toward the deepest shadow at the back of the classroom.

At the end of the wall lined with lockers, a long curtain hung all the way to the floor.

Beside it was an empty umbrella stand.

And in that shadow-covered corner, the heel of an indoor slipper faintly protruded.

The closer we got to the space between the lockers and the wall, the more clearly we could see the crown of someone’s black hair as they curled themselves up inside a gap so narrow that it seemed impossible to even breathe in there.

“You’re Lee Seryeong, right?”

As if my words had been a signal, Team Leader Yong abruptly pulled the curtain aside.

— Sniff… Sniff. I’m sorry…

For a moment, I forgot how to exhale the breath I had just taken.

It was a terrified voice.

A voice as clear and pure as only someone her age could have.

That face had perfectly defined eyebrows, tears beneath trembling eyelashes, and lips that moved faintly.

She was a person with a completely normal face.