PDS Chapter 1.1

1. NEW GAME

 

‘Haa, something feels… off about the school today, senior. The doors won’t open, and my phone isn’t working…’

‘Walk together? Y-You mean, me with you, senior?’

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‘No, it’s not that, I’m just embarrassed… I’ll just… follow slowly behind you.’

‘Just… talk to me sometimes… when you notice me.’

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‘If you do, I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.’

 

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• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

 

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<START>

“Ha…”

I started the game over from the very beginning.

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Not for any particular reason, other than the fact that continuing from a save point would put me right back in front of that bastard, Yeon Suho.

I had already been brutally murdered by that bastard twice, and I had no desire to meet him again. Sure, I’d probably run into him at some point while progressing through the game, but hopefully, not anytime soon.

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‘And even if I do meet him again, I’ll avoid him as much as possible.’

I prayed he wasn’t one of those terrifying NPCs who remembered the player’s previous playthroughs.

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I sat up from the bench on the rooftop of the school’s main building, where I had been lying alone. This was the game’s starting point.

The setup was probably something like falling asleep while taking a nap on the roof and getting locked in the school. The plots of these kinds of horror games were all pretty much the same, except for a few twists that might be thrown in later.

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‘Funny. Back when I was in school, the rooftop was off-limits, so I never even got to come up here.’

Not that I was curious about it now. It wasn’t like being possessed inside a game made me excited to be here.

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“Ugh.”

Still, I had to beat the game, so I decided to review the initial conditions once more before I started moving.

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The hands on my wristwatch pointed to midnight. 

Twelve o’clock at night. Long after evening self-study had ended, and all the students and teachers would have gone home.

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‘The normal humans, that is.’

The other ones were still around. I would probably run into them here and there as I progressed.

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I shook off the images of them that had already flashed through my mind and reached into my pocket. I’d be seeing them more than enough soon anyway, whether I wanted to or not.

The initial inventory was as follows:

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-A phone with no signal and a half-drained battery.
-A soft milk candy, probably a reward for answering a question correctly in class.
-A key with a stick-shaped whistle attached.

‘Same as before.’

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I looped the key ring around my finger and spun it a few times. Then, it slipped off, and I scrambled to catch it before it hit the ground.

‘…Phew.’

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The key was fine. No dents or scratches. Thank goodness. Well, it was metal, so it was to be expected.

Still, back in my school days, I was a top student who got a lot of attention from teachers. This key was something I was familiar with, since I had served as the science club president in my third year.

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It was the key that opened the door to the science lab, which was filled with various experimental tools and chemicals.

The label on the whistle was written in cursive and smudged from moisture. It was difficult to read, so normally, I would have to try opening every locked door in the school one by one, to find the right one.

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‘But I already know exactly where this key goes.’

Based on my previous playthrough, I knew for a fact it was the science lab key. It was a strange coincidence that the game character I was possessing happened to have it, but it was definitely an advantage to have easy access to at least one locked location.

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The school consisted of a four-story main building and a three-story annex, excluding the rooftop. The two buildings had separate entrances but were connected by a sky bridge on the third floor, allowing access without going outside.

While leaving the school grounds was impossible, there was a way to pass through the side doors facing each other on the first floor. However, passing by them unprepared could lead to witnessing something truly unpleasant.

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In other words, if I wanted to reach the annex where the science lab is, I had no choice but to cross the sky bridge.

‘Might as well head there first.’

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In my previous playthrough, I had gone straight to my old classroom, Class 2-3, on the second floor of the main building after leaving the rooftop. That’s where I had first met Yeon Suho, who had been trapped inside the classroom.

I didn’t know why he was in my classroom, but meeting and talking to him allowed me to figure out the general gist of the game and more importantly, unlocked the save function.

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If I left him in the classroom, he would stay there, claiming he wanted to go separate ways. But throughout the game, I’d find him standing still like a potted plant somewhere in the school, whether in the hallway or a classroom, silently watching me.

If I spoke to him at those times, my progress up to that point would be saved.

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‘The problem is, I can save as many times as I want, but I can’t load.’

Loading a save file during gameplay was impossible. I had to reach an ending, any ending, to restart the game again or continue from a saved point.

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When I died or reached a point where I couldn’t progress any further, my vision would darken, and my consciousness would be transported to some unknown space. Then, the type and title of the ending would appear in my mind.

After that, I could choose to start a <NEW GAME> or <CONTINUE>. If I chose to continue, I could return to one of the saved points.

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‘The two bad endings I saw before restarting this time were truly the worst.’

The titles themselves were ridiculous.

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I could accept <A Foolish Confession>. If telling a game character that this was a game and I was a possessed player was foolish, then fine, whatever.

But what the hell was <The Price of Ignorance>?

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What price? People are allowed to not know things. But was stabbing someone to death with scissors a reasonable response to that?

‘It feels like I’m being mocked for being stupid, which makes it twice as infuriating.’

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As frustrating as it was, I couldn’t ignore it. In these types of games, where the endings branched out based on choices, even the titles could be clues.

‘Senior… Do you want to leave this place?’

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It was clear that the trigger for that umpteenth bad ending was the choice I made right before it. Answering “Yes” to Yeon Suho’s question if I wanted to leave had been a mistake.

It seemed Yeon Suho didn’t want me to leave this place. Whether it was this game or the school itself that he wanted me to stay in, I didn’t know yet.

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If I was an idiot for not understanding his feelings, and the price for that was being murdered by him twice, then fine, message received.

‘So that means he’s not a helper anymore.’

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He’s a villain. Perhaps the true ending of this game was the shocking revelation that Yeon Suho was the final boss. Like I said, these kinds of games love pulling last-minute betrayals to catch the player off guard.

‘Even if that’s the case, I need to deal with the remaining puzzles first.’

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Blindly accusing someone as the culprit without sufficient evidence wouldn’t solve anything. That wasn’t how games worked. Only by following the correct route, step by step, as intended by the game’s creator, could I finally reach the true ending.

My priority was to avoid or defeat the obstacles scattered throughout the school, unlock locked areas, and gather clues. With the experience from my previous playthroughs, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get to the midpoint, even without saving.

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‘I’ll skip Class 2-3 for now.’

Other than meeting Yeon Suho, I could also retrieve my bag from the classroom, but I decided that was something I could afford to skip.

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It wasn’t exactly necessary; it just served as an inventory for storing items, and there weren’t any other clues in the classroom.

“…Alright, let’s do this.”

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I’ll escape this time, for sure. Steeling my resolve, I pushed open the rooftop door.

“H-HUAAAGH!”

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And immediately let out an undignified scream.

“Sh-Sh-SHI—SHIT—WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE?!”

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Yeon Suho was standing right in front of the rooftop door. My heart pounded in my chest at the completely unexpected encounter.

Instinctively, I scanned his hands. Should I call it a relief? At least, for now, he wasn’t holding anything that could be used as a weapon.

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Yeon Suho tilted his head slightly, his large eyes fixed on me. Ugh, I think I have developed a trauma of him staring at me like this. I instantly broke out in a cold sweat, and my heart raced like crazy.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, as if trying to answer my panicked outburst.

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I couldn’t relax for even a second while he was choosing his words. My hands grew sweaty as I held my breath, waiting anxiously for his answer. Finally, after a brief pause, his slow reply came.

“You weren’t waking up… so I waited here the whole time.”

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“…What?”

His words threw me into deeper confusion.

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‘He waited… before the game even started?’

He was conscious the entire time I was… asleep? In other words, while I was navigating the main menu, the conceptual space where I looked through the save files, debating whether to continue or start a new game, pressed start, and waited for it to load?

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Chills ran down my spine. If that was the case, then he had endless opportunities to do anything he wanted to me during that time.

Besides, this was a new game! Sure, the previous save data still existed, but the game should have started from the initial conditions, the same as the very first playthrough.

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This never happened before.

Every single time, he had always stayed trapped in the classroom until I went to get him.

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So why now, in the very playthrough where I was trying to avoid him, had he followed me all the way to the starting point?

A wave of helplessness crashed over me, and my fear of Yeon Suho intensified.

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The game master… A rogue AI… 

Could I even escape from him?

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