Chapter 212: Private Qingteng High School The Ingenious Use of the Key (Patreon)

Shido Makoto, Yukino and Lin burst out through the gymnasium doors.

"Hurry! Back to the classroom building!" Lin shouted.

None of them dared to slow down. They sprinted for the nearest entrance.

The moment they stepped into the corridor, an alarm blared across the entire campus.

"Wooooo—"

Then the broadcast came on: "The recess patrol period has officially begun. No Student may remain in any corridor.

"I repeat: no Student may remain in any corridor!"

As the announcement droned on, the doors of every classroom lining both sides of the corridor began to change, visibly, right before their eyes.

Fleshy growths swelled across the door panels and sealed each door to its frame.

"Damn it! We can't get into any of them!"

Lin ran up to one door and shoved it. The membrane of flesh dented inward like jelly, but it wouldn't give at all.

Yukino tried pulling another door. The result was exactly the same.

Behind them, the athlete monsters were already pouring in through the corridor entrance.

They were fast. Terrifyingly fast.

"Roooar!"

The monsters were less than twenty meters away.

Yukino clenched her fists. She had already made up her mind to prepare for the worst.

"Don't do anything rash!" Shido Makoto said calmly.

"Then what do we do?" Lin asked.

Shido Makoto's eyes swept rapidly across the corridor.

His special glasses cut through the surface of the walls and showed him the structure within.

Behind the wall at the far end of the corridor, he spotted an anomalous space, tucked into the wall's inner layer as if it had been folded away.

"Follow me!" Shido Makoto barked, and he charged toward the end of the corridor.

Yukino and Lin didn't understand what he was planning, but they trusted him and followed without hesitation.

The monsters kept closing in. Less than ten meters now.

The one dragging a shot put let out a roar and hurled it with all its strength!

The shot put whistled past Lin's shoulder and smashed into the wall ahead of them.

At that moment, the three of them reached the end of the corridor.

But it was a solid wall, with no doors or windows. A true dead end.

"Makoto-kun?" Yukino was so rattled she'd forgotten to use his codename.

Shido Makoto pulled a key from his pocket.

Ghost item: [Master Key].

While Yukino and Lin stared in shock, Shido Makoto pressed the key against the wall and pushed it straight in!

The front half of the key slid into the wall as if it were water, with no resistance at all.

He gripped the key and turned it!

Ripples spread outward from the key across the wall's surface, like waves on a pond.

A door appeared out of nowhere.

"Get in, quick!"

There was no time to explain. Shido Makoto kicked the door open.

Darkness lay beyond it.

He grabbed the still-dazed Yukino and yanked her inside, then shouted at Lin, "Move!"

Lin snapped out of it and dove through the door in a single stride.

The instant he cleared the threshold, the lead monster's huge mouth, packed with fangs, was right behind him.

"Bang!"

Shido Makoto swung back and slammed the door shut.

It sealed a heartbeat before the monster could pounce, and its snarls were cut off completely on the other side.

The three of them slumped against the door. The relief of surviving left their legs weak.

"What… was that just now?" Lin's voice still wasn't steady.

"My ghost item," Shido Makoto answered tersely.

He felt along the wall and quickly found the light switch.

Click.

The lights came on, and the three of them saw what was inside the room.

It looked like an office. The furnishings were simple: a desk, a few filing cabinets, and some certificates hanging on the walls.

Yukino's gaze fell on a nameplate hanging on the inside of the door.

"…Student Council Room?" she read softly.

Shido Makoto and Lin turned to look too.

But when their eyes left the nameplate and moved to the center of the room, all three of them stopped breathing.

Someone was sitting quietly in the middle of the room.

No, that wasn't a Human.

It was a skeleton in a teacher's uniform.

And above the neck, there was nothing at all.

A headless skeleton.

"That's… the teacher's uniform," Yukino said, recognizing the style.

Lin's throat bobbed. He forced himself to stay calm, steeled his nerve, and stepped forward to examine the bones.

"Don't move." Shido Makoto's voice cut in and stopped him.

"What is it, Brother Fang?" Lin froze and looked back at him, confused.

Shido Makoto said slowly, "Look at the floor around it."

Lin and Yukino looked carefully at the floor around the skeleton.

In the dim light they noticed nothing unusual at first.

But when they focused and studied it under the lamp, both of them sucked in a breath.

Around the leather chair, the floor was covered in a dense mass of nearly transparent threads.

Now and then the threads caught the light and gave off a faint gleam. Woven like a spider's web, they formed a trap.

If Lin had walked over carelessly a moment ago, he'd be a pile of chopped meat by now.

"Are these… the rules, made physical?" Yukino's face had gone pale.

"Maybe." Shido Makoto's gaze moved from the floor to the skeleton's chest.

A paper cutter was buried deep in its ribcage, with only the handle sticking out.

Clearly, this teacher hadn't died a natural death.

"Let's split up and look for clues. Be careful not to touch the threads," Shido Makoto decided.

This room was a hidden area of the dungeon. Since it existed, it had to mean something.

Yukino nodded. She showed remarkable skill at searching, and exceptional care.

She stepped around the threads on the floor and walked straight to the wall.

A framed photograph hung there: a black-and-white group portrait of spirited students in school uniforms. The caption beneath read "Seventeenth Student Council Members."

Yukino's eyes swept over the photo and settled on the wall behind it. She rapped her knuckles lightly against the plaster.

"Knock, knock, knock."

One patch of the wall sounded different from the rest.

Her eyes lit up. She carefully lifted the frame off its hook.

Sure enough, there was a barely noticeable hidden compartment in the wall behind it.

Yukino gave it a light push, and the panel popped open to reveal what was hidden inside.

It was a ledger that looked very thick, but most of its pages had been torn out. Only a few dozen thin sheets remained.

The cover had no writing on it.

Yukino took the ledger out and began flipping through it quickly.

With each page she turned, her expression grew uglier, as though she were reading something truly terrifying.

"Tabby? What did you find?" Lin couldn't help asking.

Yukino took a deep breath and handed the ledger to Shido Makoto and Lin. "See for yourselves."

Shido Makoto took it, and Lin leaned in beside him.

[September 12. Sunny.

Shimizu, a student from Class 3, Second Year, came to me for help. He said the Student Council officers had taken his scholarship money.

I went to the Student Council president, a boy named Mitsui. He just smiled and said Shimizu was a delinquent who didn't deserve the school's money. When I demanded to know by what right, he showed me a scoring sheet.]

[September 15. Cloudy.

I saw the scoring sheet. It lists the names of every teacher, each followed by a number. Mine is 78.

Mitsui said this is the Honor Students' evaluation of us "gardeners." Any teacher who drops below 60 will be optimized away.]

[September 20. Rain.

I can't believe it!

I went to the principal, but he told me not to meddle. He said the future of Qingteng High School belongs to the Honor Students, and that we teachers are only tools to serve them.]

[October 3. Sunny.

I can't take it anymore.

Today I saw those thirteen children cornered in the bathroom again, their faces and bodies covered in bruises.

I rushed in and drove off the Student Council members.

But when I helped the children up, there was no gratitude in their eyes. Only numbness.]

[October 5. Cloudy.

My score has dropped to 61. Just one point more.

Mitsui, the Student Council president, came to see me. He warned me that if I meddle again, my score will be reset to zero.]

[October 9. I don't want to write the date.

I've decided to write all of this down.

I found the list of the thirteen failing students. I want to help them.

I can't just stand by and watch them be destroyed.

This school has gone mad, from top to bottom.

They aren't raising elites. They're raising demons!]

[…I hid my last hope in…]

The record broke off there.

Every page after it had been torn out.

Lin was dumbfounded. "This… this goddamn… Students grade the teachers? And a teacher who fails gets taken out?"

Shido Makoto closed the ledger and turned his gaze back to the headless skeleton.

Every clue was falling into place.

The core setting of this dungeon was even more twisted than they had imagined.

The teachers weren't invincible NPCs. They were bound by a set of teacher rules, too.

And the so-called Honor Students held the power to judge the teachers, even to decide whether they lived or died!

"Scores are the teachers' lifeline," Shido Makoto said slowly.

"Back then, this teacher tried to help the thirteen failing students. So the Student Council, meaning the bullies, used the rules to wipe his score to zero and forcibly erase him."

Yukino looked at the skeleton, her expression complicated.

She seemed to feel the teacher's lingering bitterness.

A thought struck Shido Makoto.

If a teacher could be killed by a rule-kill, then why couldn't the players use the rules to kill a teacher?

He had found a fulcrum that could flip the whole board.

Just then, the alarm outside abruptly stopped.

Immediately afterward, the familiar sound of the class bell rang out.

"Ding-a-ling-a-ling—"

The patrol period was over.

"We have to get back," Lin said nervously.

Shido Makoto nodded, stepped forward, and pushed open the door, ready to return to class.

But the moment he opened it, he froze where he stood.

The corridor outside had returned to normal.

The membranes of flesh that had sealed the classroom doors were gone.

But on the ceiling above their heads, a figure in a teacher's uniform clung upside down like a gecko.

The figure had no head. Its neck ended in a smooth, flat cut.

In its hand was a bloodstained set square.

…